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Yanomami - The Fierce People?
It was not until the eighteenth century that the first westerner
European explorer, Alexander Humboldt, encounter the
Yanomami. He described them as a dangerous war mongering
people and their reputation has changed little since this
time.
The Yanomami are just one of the Amerindian tribes
that inhabit the thick rainforests of the most southernmost
state in Venezuela, Amazonas. And like their fellow
Amazonian-Indian tribes, the lives of the Yanomami have been
touched very little by the turbulent events that have characterized
their country's history - to the extent that they have come
to be regarded by many as living anthropological artifacts.
Moreover, the Venezuelan government are not blind to the cultural
importance of tribes like the Yanomami, and Yanomami lands
have been declared off limits apart from to those who have
written permission. Although it's highly possible that the
Yanomami need not live in too much fear of a being over-run
by camera clicking tourists, considering their reputation
for intense ferocity and machete wielding.
However, in recent years some people have suggested that
the Yanomami are perhaps not as deserving of the title 'the
fierce people', given to them by the American anthropologist
Napoleon Chagnon, as they were once thought to be.
In reality the Yanomami live quite peacefully on the whole
and are more likely to approach outsiders with curiosity than
with a huge, bloodstained machete.
Yanomami Dress
You only have to look into the way the Yanomami people adorn
themselves to discover deeper aspects of the tribe's culture.
Yanomami clothing is largely symbolic and decorative. The
furthest that Yanomami men go to cover their modesty is to
wear little more than string around their waist, to which
they tie the stretched out foreskins of their penises. Within
Yanomami society it is a clear indication that a boy has come
of age when he begins to practice the custom of tying his
penis to his waist string. Like their men, the Yanomami women
also use cotton yarn to make what you might loosely term as
clothing. They make pretty waistbands that look delightful
but cover next to nothing, and halter-neck style adornments
that cross between the breasts and the middle of the back.
Social Roles
Yanomami men and women perform very different and specific
roles within their society. Men are the dominant force within
and enjoy a much higher status than women, and yet for all
this machismo it's the women that get all the tough jobs and
do the hard, physical labor. The women, not the men, leave
around 3pm or 4pm everyday to travel miles to collect firewood
and fetch water for the village, often returning in the late
evening bearing enormous loads of wood in their pack baskets.
Then after enduring hours of this backbreaking slog they are
still expected to pander to the every need of their husbands.
If they do not they risk being scolded, beaten, or something
worse. On the positive side, the men do muck in from time
to time. At feasts and ceremonial occasions it is the Yanomami
men you will see slaving over a hot fire to produce a meal
for the guests, while the women take a well-deserved rest.
Agriculture and Food
For food, the Yanomami eat most of what the jungle can offer,
which is quite a wide variety of foods. They feast on all
kinds off edible fare ranging from snakes, wild pigs, monkeys,
deer, and jaguars to varieties of insects, larvae, fish, crabs,
wild honey, plantain, sweet potato, and palm fruits. By world
health standards, the Yanomami enjoy a high standard of living.
Nevertheless the voracity of the Yanomami's hunting practices
has in the past been highly exaggerated, taking into account
that upwards of eighty to ninety percent of the food eaten
by the Yanomami tribes is from their gardens. Of course the
Yanomami have to hunt to survive but they are equally - if
not more - committed to the cultivation of their gardens.
It has been debated that the Yanomami actually lack protein
in their diet because they eat so much more fruit and vegetables
than meat produce.
Recreational Drugs
Another Yanomami pastime that has been extensively documented
is the tribe's widely known use of recreational drugs. Their
most favored drug of choice is natural hallucinogens that
are generally referred to by the generic name of ebene.
It is extracted in its raw form from various types of trees
and plants, ground into powder form and mixed together with
saliva. The men of the village usually make a batch of ebene
everyday following a hard day's gardening or hunting. The
ritual goes that men paint themselves elaborately with red
pigment, adorn themselves with feathers, and then gather around
the front of the house of a chosen host. They then proceed
to take turns in blowing powder into each other's nostrils
through a long hollow tube called a mokohiro. Most
of the men take great pleasure from indulging in this activity
despite the not so pleasant side effects of vomiting and the
intense pain that follows once the powder has been snuffed.
However, despite the wide use of hallucinogens, by far the
most popular natural drug amongst the Yanomami, to which men,
women and children are all addicted, is tobacco. They
chew or suck tobacco rather than smoke it.
The Yanomami and the Modern World
This unique way of life that the Yanomami have preserved
for so many centuries is not something that they are in a
hurry to lose, and by no means do they want to be absorbed
into the alien land beyond the borders of the Amazon. But
this is not to say that the Yanomami tribes are completely
against learning about some of the technologies of the outside
world, on their own terms, to make their lives easier. The
Yanomami know better than anyone that something as simple
as being able to fashion steel hooks for fishing would make
an unfathomable difference to their daily existence.
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