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Yanomami

© Andy Thomason

The Yanomami are the largest Neolithic (stone age) group known. They are also one of the last peoples discovered by the civilized world. Although the existence of at least some Yanomami has been known since the 18th century, their contact with the modern world didn't begin until the 1930s. Some still have never seen or meet a "white" westerner although all have used steel tools and utensils. Except for a smattering of anthropologists, missionaries, and government agents, they had little contact with westerners until the mid 1980s. Until that time their territory and population had continued to expand. Once mining began on their land their numbers plummeted so radically that in 1991 scientists and social workers warned that they would be extinct within a decade if something drastic wasn't done immediately.

In this article I'll give a brief overview of their culture and the threats to their existence exposure to the modern world has presented. A second article will examine the erosion of their traditional culture, look at what the Yanomami are saying and doing in response, and explore the ethical questions anthropologists, missionaries, government, and activists have to struggle with when dealing with cultures such as theirs.

Also spelled YANOMAMÖ, or YANOAMÖ, the word Yanomami means "human being". The Yanomami are a loosely knit, semi-agricultural people inhabiting northwestern Brazil and part of Venezuela in about 125 villages, ranging in size from 10 to 125 individuals, with the norm being between 40 -70. Many live in the mountains, others close to rivers and navigate by canoe, diet varies according to geography and the season. Taboos, use of tobacco, certain mores and customs differ in different villages or regions. .The language has at least four, maybe five distinct dialects. Those close to the rivers have greater contact with both outsiders and with other villages.

Tribal infighting, feuds and rivalry between individuals and between villages frequently leads to violence and warfare. (Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon once estimated that as many as one third of all adult males die from inter tribal warfare) The prevalence of violence in Yanomami culture has intrigued anthropologists and sociologist for the thirty years they have been studying them. They've offered such varying explanations as a lack of protein, a means to gain women, extract revenge, or maintain a network of sources for steel tools that dates back to the turn of the century.

The Yanomami, like all traditional cultures, live close to the earth, and have an animistic view that refuses to separate the spiritual world from the physical. They devout much of their time and psychic energy on spirits, which they believe can hurt you, and be manipulated by enemies to cause sickness and death, or to extract revenge. Despite the decline of Shamanism and their dependence on modern medicine, the Yanomami still attribute all death to sorcery and spirits. They are guided by taboo, either avoiding taboos or finding cures for ones that have been broken. So pronounced is this belief in the power of spirits and taboo that Yanomami have been know to quit eating because they were convinced they were to die soon because of some curse or taboo violation and couldn't see the point of fighting or prolonging the inevitable.

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