Politics & Violence

Rules against killings in the Yanomamo Culture:

The Yanomamo people don’t have any written language, laws, law enforcement or judges which make it very difficult to try and run a society. They do have some regular rules that people know when they are doing right from wrong but people rarely follow them. One of the main differences between the Yanomamo people and western cultures would have to be the revenge killings. In our culture it is wrong to take another person’s life even they killed someone in your family and he will also be punished for it. In the Yanomamo culture they don’t get punished for their actions and sometimes they will raise their social status in society for because they killed someone. We as a western culture are so reliant on our law makers and judges that we are unable to kill for revenge because it is so frowned upon.

The Process of Revenge

Normally in the Yanomamo culture the revenge fights start over women, sex or jealousy. The fights normally included a lot of yelling and weapon of some sort and they always seem to emasculate fast. If a death occurs during the fight then the village divides up and the families will start the mini war for revenge and it is total chaos. The two parties that are fighting will try and kill any family member to get revenge for the death of their loved one and normally they go after the first available member they can kill. 70% of the men and women in the village over the age of 40 have had someone in their family die one way or another from the revenge killings.

Unokais vs. Non-Unokais:

There are many different benefits to being a Unokais and one of them are you are high up in society and you are respected. The only way you can be a Unokais is if you have killed someone during the revenge killings Also if you are a Unokais you can have marital and reproductive benefits. They have a better opportunity in finding mates because of the high social statues. A Yanomamo man can still participate in the revenge killings but normally they don’t because they only normally kill one person. If their participate in to many of the revenge killings they might end up killing family members because all of the village are tide pretty close and almost everyone is related one way or another.

Non-Unokais

It seems that there are not many benefits of being a non-Unokais because you don’t get first pick of the women and you don’t get to have a high social standing because you haven’t killed in the vengeance killings before. It wouldn’t do any good to be a non-Unokais because you don’t get any respect or benefits. The only good thing that can come from being a non-Unokais is that fact that you wouldn’t be a murder and many people in society are related so it would also mean that you have killed any of your family members.

Political Structure: The revenge killings bring a lot of people closer together because a large part f the Yanomamo village will band together to fight other villages nearby that they share a kinship with. The fact that killing others is so praised in the Yanomamo society it also brings people closer because everyone want to be accepted and have a high social standing. The culture is also a lot about loyalty and during the killings some loyalties may get broken because o kinship or it could make some of the loyalties stronger. If the loyalties don’t remain strong it could weaken the community as a whole because they rely on that so much.

Social Status & Organization: Social Status is extremely important to the Yanomamo people so when a revenge killing occurs it is important for the village that is going to fight the other village to band together and from a unity to the revenge they deserve for the loss of their loved one. When one group looses a member of their family they are sometimes impacted negatively because their family is going down in size and it does happen often. The people who participate in the killings ultimately gain social status and that is the most sought after success in their culture.

Kinship: Almost all of the surrounding villages have family member in them. The revenge killings negativity impact the pope lint he village because they sometimes end up killing their own family, Relationship between people can be impacted negatively if they don’t want to participate in the revenge killings if they know that their family members will be in the attacked village and sometimes this can make a person’s social status go down if they don’t want to participate in the killings. They don’t want to participate in killing their own family.

Marriage& Reproduction: If a man is a Unokais then they will get many benefits which helps them in many ways. Because they have killed someone they have a high social standing which makes them pretty popular with the women and they get many women to choose from. They can also have children with many different women because they are so highly respected in the society.

Laws against killing:

In many cultures there needs to be laws in place to try and prevent people from acting out and creating total chaos. In western society it is wrong to kill another person unless it is in times of war or self defense. Even in times of self defense people feel horrible after they commit the killings because they know in their heart that it is wrong to kill someone. We have to have these laws because people are going to break the law no matter what because they have problems. There is no such thing as a perfect society and that’s why we have these laws in place and people employed to protect us. In our culture killing someone for any reason is completely looked down upon and sometimes talked about in the media to bash the person who committed the crimes name. There is always going to be revenge in any culture but it’s not allowed in our culture and for good reason because it is a never ending process. Revenge will never give people what they really seek because all they really want is their loved one back.