The Yanomamo People
Environment and Human Adaption
The Yanomamo people are
a group of approximately 20,000 people who live in 200-250 villages in the
Amazon rainforest on the boarder of Venezuela and Brazil. The Yanomamo people
live in huts called Shabonos but they have to rebuild them every few years due
to heavy rainfall and winds that happen each year in the Amazon forest. Their
huts are made for leaves, vines, plums and tree trunks, they always using
everything from the forest. The Yanomamo people and slash-and-burn people and
they grow bananas, gathers fruit and hunt for animals and fish. These people
depend on the rainforest and without it they would die. Their culture is made
up of many small family units. The Yanomamo people are known as hunter gathers
and their diet is very low in salt. They have the lowest blood pressure of any
demographic group. If the people have a good harvest then they will celebrate
with different rituals. They also gather large amounts of food to give to their
neighboring villages to keep thinks peaceful. Women gather many different types
of scrubs such as termites, frogs, land crabs and caterpillars to cook for
their family. The Yanomamo people have become instinctive conservationists. Its is a way of life for them, if they were to take to much food in one year the forest would not be able to produce enough new food for them to be able to survive in the nest year. The Yanomamo live in a warm climate that does have a lot of rain because they live in a warm climate they don't wear much clothing. Most children die before age two and many adults in this culture only live to age 40 because of their daily stress survive.
The Yanomamo people had
to learn to adapt to their way of life because of how isolates their villages
are from the rest of the world. They have had to learn to live off of the rest
of the forest and adapt to being hunter gathers so they can have food and
water. The Yanomamo people spend most of their time gather food and water. They
have also had to adapt to losing many family members due to major violence in
their culture. They are one of the most successful groups in the Amazon rainforest
to gain superior balance and harmony. The Yanomamo inhabit two main areas of
Brazil and they are the dense rain forest and the savannas.
Week 2 Language and Gender Roles
The Yanomamo Language has four different languages:
Yanam, Sanuma, Yanomamo, and Yanomamo. Yanomamo has the most speakers with about
17,600 speakers (Humberto Marquez). The Yanomamo have no written language but
they do have a large vocabulary and oral literature. Storytelling is a major
part of their culture. Because they don’t have written language they store all
of their vocabulary in their heads. The Yanomamo are diglottic people, which
mean they use a special for of bilingualism: the Yanomamo posses a formals and
informal dialect. The formal dialect, wayamo, is spoken at rituals and social
events and the informal dialect is spoken the rest of the time. Their
numeration system consists of three digits: one, two and more than two. There
is no measurement for hour; their annual life cycle is dominated by the wet and
dry seasons.
The Yanomamo people have to specific genders.
The men go out and hunt all of the food and clear away all of the gardens by
using the slash and burn method. The women take care of the homes and gathers berries
and scrubs. The women also are in charge of weaving baskets. The gender roles
are very strict and the women are mostly used for bearing children and to serve
their men and family. It would be inacceptable for one gender to perform the
other person gender. Even the formal language women are not allowed to speak it
only the men are. Although boys spend most of their time with their mothers
they learn from a very young age that there status is difference than that of
the girls. From a young age the boys are indulged in every way by their
fathers. Boys are expected to be fierce and are rarely punished for beating
young girls in the village because the grown males beat their wives.
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Males primarily dominate the Yanomamo culture
but the women do play a very important role. The women are expected to raise
and bear many children and rely on help from their daughters to do the family
chores from a very young age.
In the Yanomamo society, marriage ceremonies are almost non-existent and are not celebrated in any way. Marriage is a social dynamic within villages, and they are usually driven by political opportunity by men who are seeking alliances with other men from different villages. Men are expected to be peacekeepers and violent warriors, both of which require force, which women are not considered to have in the Yanomamo culture. In this society, women gain respect as they age, after they marry and have children but they are still never treated the same as men. Elderly women are highly respected and usually can become immune to violence and warfare between villages. The older the women can travel to and from villages and be protected because they are so higly respected.
The Blessed Curse
In the Yanomamo society, marriage ceremonies are almost non-existent and are not celebrated in any way. Marriage is a social dynamic within villages, and they are usually driven by political opportunity by men who are seeking alliances with other men from different villages. Men are expected to be peacekeepers and violent warriors, both of which require force, which women are not considered to have in the Yanomamo culture. In this society, women gain respect as they age, after they marry and have children but they are still never treated the same as men. Elderly women are highly respected and usually can become immune to violence and warfare between villages. The older the women can travel to and from villages and be protected because they are so higly respected.
The Blessed Curse
Many Indian cultures
believe in spirits like the Yanomamo people do and they believe that al sprits
are created equal whether it be a rock, waterfall, moon, animal plant of human
being but I don’t think the Yanomamo would be very accepting of this person
because gender roles are so important in their culture (R. K Williams). Men and
women are treated so different that I don’t think they would know how to react
to this situation. They might even go as far as exiling the person out of their
village. On the other token the Yanomamo people are accepting of homosexuality in
men so they might me accepting of this person if it had more male features.
Subsistence and Economy
Hunting only accounts
for 10% of the Yanomamo food but amongst men it is considered to be the most
prestigious of skills and meat is highly valued amongst everyone (Claudia Andujar).
No hunter ever eats the meat that he has killed; instead he shares it with
family and friends. The women are in charge of tending the gardens and they
grow around 60 crops which make up about 80% of the Yanomamo diet. The women
also gather nuts, shellfish, insect larvae and wild honey. In this culture both the men and women fish.
They use vines and create bundles to trap the fish and then they scope them up
with their baskets. The Yanomamo also know a lot about botanicals and they use about
500 hundred plants for food, medicine, house building and many other things as
well.
Men go out and hunt and
fish every day and the women and young children are always tending the gardens
and taking care of the daily chores. The children are expected to help from a
very young age. Women the women in the Yanomamo culture get their period they
then become women and take on all of the roles of a grown woman. There is a
very distinct separation of labor between the men and the women. Their diet is
very low in fat and sugar, high in protein and fiber and complexes
carbohydrates and adequate protein. Obesity is non-existent among the Yanomamo
people who follow their hunter gather diet (Kat McCallum). Because they have a
healthy diet and an active lifestyle it prevents them from getting heart
disease. The first leading cause of death is infectious disease and the second
is physical violence between villages. The Yanomamo people are very dependent
on the Amazon forest and have to move their gardens every few years because they
Amazon soil isn’t very good. Some of the villages produce a small surplus from
their gardens to sell of exchange with other villages for things they can’t
produce themselves.
The Yanomamo people
don’t deal with any kind of currency because they are not a highly advanced
civilization. They do trade goods with other villages but they don’t deal with
any form of money. Trade is a very important aspect of their life and it helps
reduce the chances of warfare between villages. Often one village with have manufactured
goods that are badly needed by other villages.
Marriage and Kinship
Marriages are arranged by older kin, usually
men such as brothers, uncles or the women’s father. There is a shortage of
women in the villages and some men do have multiple wives. The Yanomamo also
practice polygamy which helps to stimulate the population and they do have a
lot of cousin marriages which makes more people doubly related to each other.
Kinship is critical in the arrangement of marriages and very strong bonds are formed
between groups who exchange women. The men are in charge of arrangement the
marriages and some of the arrangements are for political power. Marriage in the
Yanomamo tribe is considered to be important but they don’t participate in an
actual wedding ceremony. Marriage is simply for reproduction and political
gain. The marriages are arranged usually by older kin such as fathers, brothers
or uncles. The arrangement of marriage is mostly made before the girl hits
puberty by the men who are attempting to create alliances with other people in
the village. Women are becoming short on demand because of the acceptance of polygamy
in the tribe. The women of the tribe have no voice in who they will marry and
they are promised to men many years before their puberty. Once the women hit
puberty have their first menstrual cycle they are kept in a place away from all
men and made to sit over a whole to get rid of the blood. Their mothers and
older women throw away the young girls old clothes and give her new garments that
represent that they are now a women and ready for marriage.
Some men are unmarried and they try and
seduce married women and this causes many fights and brawls between tribes.
Sexual jealousy is one of the biggest social problems between kin and outside
tribes. The men take much pride in having as many brides as possible and having
many children with them as well. They prefer to have mostly boys because girls
cannot participate in the affairs of corporate kinship and political matters.The Yanomamo people believe that there are
many bad taboos associated with blood. When it comes to cooking meat they make
sure they cook all of the blood out so none of it is visible. They also make
women stay in tents and get feed with sticks because they believe that the
menstrual blood is bad. They also believe that much illness may be cause by the
breach of a ritual regulation or taboo (Jeremy).
Sexual intercourse is prohibited with a
female if she is pregnant of nursing which created a problem for the men
because it leaves very little sexual active females. Teenage males frequently
have homosexual affairs because the females of their own ages are usually
married. By the time the males is 20 years old though he is anxious to display
his masculinity and becomes an active competitor for the favors of the sexually
active women. All of this leads to
friction between the men in the village. Incest for the Yanomamo people is
defined by any sexual relations between close kin such as parents, children or
siblings. If any woman is caught acting this incest out them will be shunned
and not cremated at death.
The men have the most authority in the
kinship of the culture. Social life is organized around those same principles
utilized by all tribesmen: kinship relationships, descent from ancestors,
marriage exchanges between kinship/descent groups, and the transient charisma
of distinguished headmen who attempt to keep order in the village and whose
responsibility it is to determine the village's relationships with those in
other villages. Their positions are largely the result of kinship and marriage
patterns--they come from the largest kinship groups within the village. Stated
by www.everyculture.com “Neither status nor property is inherited among the
people. At death, Kin incinerate the personal property of the deceased.”
The Inuit Eskimos have some similarities but
many differences from the Yanomamo people. The Men do hunt and fish like the
Yanomamo and the women raise the children, cook and clean but women can also
hunt if they want to too. The relationships between the Inuit are strictly
monogamous, open marriages, polygamy, divorce and remarriage is simply unheard
of in their culture. Marriages were often arraigned sometimes when the women
were still babies. The Yanomamo do don’t follow the Eskimo system. Many of them
marry their cousins or men have multiple wives so almost everyone in the
village is somehow related to one another. In the Yanomamo culture the ego does
know its parents but they don’t specifically know who their aunts, uncles and
cousins are because everyone sleeps around to men have multiple women that he
is with. The Yanomamo don’t really follow a specific pattern. The Hawaiian
system is where the kinship between relatives of the same sex and generation
are referred to by the same term.
Social and Political Organization
The Yanomamo people are a stratified culture.
The women are not equal to the men and even young boys who grow up with their
mothers know after a certain age that they have more power than women and they
can do whatever they want without being punished.
Every Yanomamo tribe is a separate political
entity and can therefore decide upon their relations with each one of the other
Yanomamo village. The Yanomamo are egalitarian people but age, sex and personal
accomplishments withhold great importance in for people’s status. High status
is granted with harsh combat, accomplished hunting, and expertise of sjamanim.
Status cannot be inherited it must be earned and status and property are lost
when a person dies. High status men are in charge and they monopolize the
positions of political power and authority. Those that are highly regarded in
the Yanomamo society are those having been victorious in combat, acquired
expertise in shamanism and good hunting skills. Therefore, unlike many other
cultures, this status is not inherited but instead earned. This is where the
social hierarchy ties in with the Yanomamo political system. The village leader is always the man with the most elaborate local
patrilineage. The result being that the majority of authoritarian positions
within the community are dominated by older men. To fulfill his role as head of
the tribe, this man or men must display his ability to settle disputes, defend
the territory, manage the relations with neighboring villages and maintain the
kingship agreements of the clan. However, the Yanomamo believe in a very
egalitarian society in which every man is free and if he or she so wishes, they
may detach themselves from the rest of the tribe. In order for a man to change
his status he must be very violent and have many wives in order to be highly
respected.
The villages headman is
the dominate political leader and come from the largest part linage. If the
village is really large and filled with two local descent groups then there
might be a few head man. Political power is decided on whoever is the most violent
and has the most wives and children this is also connected with reproductive
success. Political power cannot be transferred to another person it must be
earned. A woman can never be a headman; the headman is supposed to be
peacemakers and violent warriors. Women are disrespected at a young age but
they gain respect from other men in the culture as they age. Yanomamo society
and politics is dominated by family relations.
Violence normally
happens in the culture because of infidelity. If a woman cheats on her man then
the husband and the man that she had the affair with will fight. Many of their
killings are vengeance killings because of the marital issues. There are also raids
when two villages fight and try to kill as many people as possible. The main
goal is to kill the grown men that might have been responsible for the killing
of the avenger’s family. All of these revenge kills are highly rewarded and the
men gain social status once the killings are done.
Belief Systems and the Arts
The Yanomamo believe
that the cosmos consist of four parallel planes. One of the layers or parallels
is occupied by ancient beings and the second layer of spirits of dead men and
women. The third layer is the earth and below that is the underworld. The
underworld is filled with the spirits that bring harm to living people. The
Yanomamo believe hat they have multiple souls. They also think they each have
demons that they can use at their own deposal to cure or cause illness to other
people. Catholic and Protestants have been trying for years to make a
breakthrough with the Yanomamo people but haven’t had much success.
They also have people
that use plants and other herbs to cast spells. The people that cast these
spells are called Shaman and only men can become them. The Yanomamo have many
different rituals but one of their most dramatic ceremonies is the reahu or the
mortuary ceremony. This is where they cremate the deceased person and then
consume there bone ash with a plant puree, this is a sign of respect. The
ceremony has considerable political implications if the deceased was a strong
warrior. Ceremonies are a major part of the Yanomamo life. The religious ceremonies
they take part in are very important to them.
The Yanomamo people have
very simple art. They are usually black or red and have common objects such as
baskets, arrow paints and body paints. They also have a lot of verbal art and
myth telling. Performers and myth tellers gain status based on their talents.
They paint each other’s bodies for celebrations and ceremonies. Humberto
Marquez interviewed a villager and he stated “We painted ourselves when there
is a celebration, to show that we are happy, and also so that we can hear the
Shaman’s song clearly when he calls us.” The women make handcrafter baskets
that are very beautifully woven. The baskets are used for everyday use such as
gathering food and firewood.
The Yanomamo people pass
their information orally and they don’t write things down. Some of the paintings
that have been found have been made by Indians who had never seen a paper or pencil
before in their whole lives. They also get poising from frogs and they boil it
down to make it stronger this goes into a drug they make for ceremonies. Then
the men and women decorate themselves with red berry die they then take the
apena snuff drug which makes them hallucinate but the women are allowed to take
the drug. Smoking or snuffing this drug is a major part of the Yanomamo
religion because it allows them to communicate with the spirit world while
dancing singing and chanting. They believe that the drug allows them to see
what the spirit world sees and this means that through many different ways of
life they can see art (Brea Wenger). They do create their own music with songs
and chanting.
The Yanomamo do not have or use musical instruments but they do chant and gather for there rituals. They also use the sounds of the forest as background noise for all of there gatherings.
The Yanomamo do not have or use musical instruments but they do chant and gather for there rituals. They also use the sounds of the forest as background noise for all of there gatherings.
Conclusion
The Yanomamo haven’t advanced
much in a few thousand years they still live like they are in the Stone Age but
they are in danger of losing some of their land because people and developers are
moving further and further into the Amazon. The Brazilians call them the most primitive
people in the world because they have lived in total isolation from the outside
world for years and that’s why they have kept their traditions. The Yanomamo
people still use simple tools and they take food from the forest by hunting,
fishing and collecting fruit, insect, frogs and other insects. Because the
miners contaminated the water ways it created the perfect environment for
malaria. Now days 70% of the Yanomamo people got infected with malaria and in
some areas it has risen to 90%. The gold digger also hunt the Yanomamo food,
rape their women, and waste their fields and crops, they also killed men who oppose
them.
The Yanomamo haven’t advanced
much in a few thousand years they still live like they are in the Stone Age but
they are in danger of losing some of their land because people and developers are
moving further and further into the Amazon. The Brazilians call them the most primitive
people in the world because they have lived in total isolation from the outside
world for years and that’s why they have kept their traditions. The Yanomamo
people still use simple tools and they take food from the forest by hunting,
fishing and collecting fruit, insect, frogs and other insects. Because the
miners contaminated the water ways it created the perfect environment for
malaria. Now days 70% of the Yanomamo people got infected with malaria and in
some areas it has risen to 90%. The gold digger also hunt the Yanomamo food,
rape their women, and waste their fields and crops, they also killed men who oppose
them.
The Yanomamo don’t have
a strong influence on the outside world but the outside world does have an effect
on them. They are losing more and more land by the year because of state
developers and disease.
References
Culture-Venezuela New Compendium on Yanomamo
Language, Humberto
Marquez,Copyright © 2012, www.ipsnews.net
Marquez,Copyright © 2012, www.ipsnews.net
Yanomami Put the Body Painting Down on Paper,
Humberto Marquez,
copyright © 2012 IPS-Inter Press service
copyright © 2012 IPS-Inter Press service
Conflict and Human Rights in the Amazon, the
Yanomamo, Stephanie Bier
August 19, 2010 www.america.edu
August 19, 2010 www.america.edu
Cultural
Anthropology the human challenge, The Blessed Curse, R. K. Williams
Class text book
Class text book
