The Yanomami Tribes
Environment & Climate Adaptations
The Yanomami are tribes of about 38,000 people that live in the mountains and rainforests of southern Venezuela and northern Brazil. They are the largest relatively isolated tribe in South America. The weather in the rainforest can fluctuate between extreme bouts of rain to extremely hot and humid. The extra melanin they have making their skin brown helps protect them from the sun rays, they are also shorter in stature which helps them climb and hide when they are hunting in the jungles but also helps them be more agile on mountainous terrain. Being smaller in stature also allows them to be able to consume fewer calories which is helpful in places where food can be scarce such as a mountain or poor soil qualities within the Amazon Rainforest.
Language & Gender Roles
Yanomami do not have a written language, only an oral one, this is a Xiriana language, there are different types spoken by other South American tribes the particular one they speak is Yanomaman. Some of their words and meanings are, Urihi a pree which means “ Great Forest Land” and can also be described as the world, thepe urihipe which means the “forest of human beings”, napepe which mean “ strangers, enemies or white, yanomami thepe which means '' human being”, yaro means “ game animals”, yai means “ invisible beings”, xapiripe which means “ spirits”. Although men and women are often designated to different roles, no role is seen as more important. Men are responsible for hunting and gathering plants used for poisons whilst women typically tend the gardens and other daily tasks. During summer seasons men, women, and children all fish together as well as other Yanomami tribes. When the men hunt they will not eat the meat they catch, that meat is for the village, instead they will share in someone else's catch.
Sustenance and Economic Systems
The Yanomami typically use slash and burn agriculture for their sustenance. They also hunt and fish. They hunt animals such as deer, monkeys, and armadillo, in order to catch large quantities of fish at a time they will put poison on to a bundle of vines and smack the water stunning the fish, causing them to rise to the surface allowing it to be easily scooped into baskets. Over 500 types of plants are used for medicine, food, clothing, and housing materials. Some plants are foraged while others such as bananas and tubers are grown in the gardens that surround their homes called yanos. The Yanomami also gather important items from trade, raw honey and cotton are some of the most important items for for trade, the honey is used for many things including medicine and the cotton is used to make hammocks, slings, and rope.
Marriage and Kinship
Bilateral cross cousin marriage and polygamy are practiced within the Yanomami tribe, marriage between patrilineal relatives is forbidden. The term for father and his brother is haya, but for the mother's brother it is soaya. Aunts from the mothers side are called naya, Aunts from the fathers are called yesiya. Parallel cousins and siblings are eiwa for male and amiwa for female. Cross cousins are soriwa for male and suaboya for female. The distinctions in the names are to tell which side of the family they are apart of since parallel cousins and siblings are not allowed to marry each other but they are allowed to marry cross cousins. The Yanomami have many cross cousin terms in their marriage system . A man's term for his female cross-cousin, suaboya is also the term for wife. The term for male cross-cousin, soriwa is also for his brother-in-law, because ego's wife's brother will usually be married to ego's sister. Women use the same type of classification but different terms, male cross cousins and husbands are called heroya, and female cross cousins and sisters-in-law within natohiya.
Social and Political Organization
Each Yanomami is an independent political entity, free to make independent choices, however unions between villages are important but tend to be weak and short lasted. The Yanomami are an egalitarian society but age, sex, and personal achievements are important in differentiating status. In order to achieve high status you have to be courageous in combat and battle, give good speeches, or be a shaman, high status cannot be inherited only earned. Older men tend to be in positions of political and religious power. Elders in the village are also held at a high status, they often regulate marriages and settle disagreements within the villages. The headman/men are the highest authority in the villages, they come from the largest local patrilineages. There is multiple headmen when a village is very large or when there is another equally sized patrilineage. The headman is expected to be able to settle disputes and disagreements, represent his lineage with honor, and keeping allies and enemies in order.
Conflicts are typically caused from accusations of being unfaithful, an engaged woman not showing up for the wedding, verbal assault, greediness, or thefts of valued garden crops such as tobacco and peach-palm fruits. For men, if a conflict moves escalates past a shouting match a set of variously graded duels will take place. If a fight becomes to serious, respected men of the village may step in to keep more people from jumping in, the duel often ends in a tie. Women don't often duel instead a more immediate attack will take place, they will fight with hands, feet, and makeshift weapons. The Yanomami also face warfare caused by large family feuds often due to sexual or marital issue. Normally only the family members take place in the fight, but nonfamily members may fight to show support against the enemies. Quick raids are the most common form of warfare, the main goal is to quickly kill as many of the enemy as possible as well as taking women if possible, and return home. Sometimes villagers who are not involved in the attack are killed when they are unable to safely reach the village elders. Each village needs at least one allied village to help during times of conflict, increase in distance and size of a village can be signs of conflict. Peace between villages usually happens, if there has been no conflict for a long period, and when there is a common enemy. Often a series of ceremonially festive visits are held, these visits may lead to joint raids and cross marriage between villages that make the alliance stronger.
Religion and Art
The Yanomami tribe practice animism, which means they believe everything in the forest has an animal spirit. These spirits are called xapiripe, they are also called hekura and hekurape. In order to see the spirits the Yanomami use a hallucinogen called yopo or ebene which comes from the bark of the virola tree. These rituals are normally done after the work of the day is finished, strong tobacco and the yopo are mixed together and then the smoke is blown into the nose from one person to another, this is seen as a transfer of energy. Shamans use the yopo to control the xapiripe, allowing them to use their powers to heal friends and harm enemies. They express their beliefs with intricate desgins on their body paints and on their food baskets called shotos. In the designs they uses lines, curves, dots, circles, waves, and spider webs, to make the red color they use crushed onoto and for the black they use masticated charcoal. Painting the body is celebration of expressing feelings, when a Yanomami stops painting himself they are said to be lost.
Conclusion
The Yanomami tribe have been greatly affect by outside groups of people over the years, in 1975 the Brazilian government found the presence of gold ore in the Roraima region in Brazil. This caused miners searching for gold to invade the Yanomami territories, by 1987 a full gold rush was in progress, Over 30,000 prospectors and over started over 100 mining operations. Over 2,000 Yanomami were killed due to massacres and disease such as malaria brought by the miners, not to mention mining causes adverse affects to the land and wildlife. Chemical runoff from the operations cause mercury build up in the wildlife eaten by the Yanomami causing birth defects and abnormal child development. Harmful introductions of alcohol and other negative western goods has also had a negative impact on the Yanomami tribes. Due to the increasing crisis of the miners in 1992 the Brazilian Government made federal indigenous reserve, the miners retaliated in what is now known as the Haximu Massacre where a group of miners tried to kill a whole village, at least 16 Yanomami were killed in the attack. The miners were sentenced to 19 years in prison, the government still faces push back from the mining community to reduce Yanomami territory. It is also speculated that anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon and his geneticist James Neel were also accused of committing atrocious acts such as causing a measles epidemic in order to study natural selection on a "primitive" society. Chagnon was also said to have made fraudulent accounts of the Yanomami being violent people when he in fact staged and instigated the fights by introducing weapons and goods. Although the Yanomami people have face a lot of turmoil many efforts are being put in place to preserve the Yanomami people and the Amazon Rainforest. Davi Kopenawa is an Yanomami leader as well as an activist that has helped make and maintain the lands of the Yanomami people. The Yanomami are important in todays society because we use their culture and others like it to help us try and understand how early humans may have lived before modern times, as well as being and important part of the Amazon Rainforest.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yanomami
http://www.amazon-indians.org/yanomami.html
https://pib.socioambiental.org/en/Povo:Yanomami
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/yanomami/
