They live in the rainforests and mountains of northern Brazil and southern Venezuela, with 9.6 million hectares their territory is twice the size of Switzerland. They live in a fairly rural setting of untouched forests, living in tiny movable villages. They are isolated for the most part except for the miners that are infringing on their territory. Their temperatures vary depending on the height but they vary from 40 degrees F to 70 degrees F with humidity being around 50-60% They tend to have two seasons, one between May and November being their rain season and December through April being their summer. Their area is filled with many animals that can be considered dangerous such as jaguars, anacondas and poison arrow frogs, however the Yanomamo often raise cattle, chickens and dogs. The plants that they find can be fruits often found in high trees, they grow tobacco as well as cotton.
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| Rain Forest Environment |
Adaptations:
Physical
Their height is one physical adaptation, their often short muscular build helps then due to their general low intake of certain nutrients. It helps them last longer on less food since their food is often dependant upon hunting and gathering.
A second physical adaptation would be their hair and skin tone. They have less hair than most humans due to the high amounts of humidity they have to endure as well as slightly pigmented skin to help with the heat and sun during their summer season.
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| Skin Color/Less Hair |
Cultural
A cultural adaptation is their tools, their hooks for their fishing and their bows and arrows for hunting game for meat since they do not eat their cows and chickens to help their food source.
Another adaptation is their housing their shabonos which can be temporary living quarters if they need to move they can be easily rebuilt in a new location since their food is based upon where the soil is fertile since they depend upon gardening for most of their food.
Gardening provides much of the food for living when there is little meat coming home.
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| Tools used, arrows |
Language:
The Yanomami use the Xirianá a language that is distinctly their own. It is separated into at least 4 different sub groups Yanoma (Yanomam), Sanuma, Ninam, Yanam. The language has 8 vowels and 13 consants. There was no written language until recently but it is not used by at least 60 percent of the population since they like to keep their tradition of their oral language
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| Festivals |
Gender Roles:
There are two clearly specific gender roles, female and male. The females are the childbearers and wives, the males are the hunters and providers. There is a definite division of the roles based upon biology, males do their roles and the females do theirs with no crossing over since there are often less females their main role is childbearing. Their culture provides next to no opportunity for the women to do the man’s role and vice versa. They learn their roles from their parents, the daughters are taught by the mother and the sons learn from their mom and eventually their father once they are old enough to be strong enough to deal with the tasks they are given. I don’t believe an intersexed individual would be accepted into the society since they already have a lower view on females and they do “abort” some children after they are born if they are female or deformed for different reasons.
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| Males hunt |
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| Females tend to the needs at home |
Subsistence:
They are hunter gatherers primarily but they also plant food for their own use. They hunt and fish for meat and they scavenge what they can to make up for any missing foods found in their garden. They hunt for game such as peccary, tapir, deer and monkey, and often use curare (a plant extract) to poison their prey and also extract poison from frogs. Their food planted in the garden such as bananas and yams. Males do all the hunting and the females and children tend the gardens and do the scavenging for wild foods such as honey and larvae. Their gardens grow food year round. They can lack nutrition is some areas depending on their intake of meat but in general their health is modified since their bodies only require certain amounts of nutrients due to their smaller size.
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| Females cooking |
Economic systems:
The Yanomamo people do not produce a surplus of food since they only grow what needs to be eaten. If they do they may use it as gifts to nearby friendly villages to help keep their ties since there are a lot of wars among the Yanomamo people. It did not appear that they specialize in any kind of labor since they only use their time to keep the population up and feed their people and protect their people. They share their wealth of food and goods among their village, no hunter eats his own meat, and the gardens are communal. There is no real currency since they just trade in items if they do any trading with other villages which is rare.
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| Very rarely trading |
Marriage:
Marriage is often monogamous due to the often low number of females in the village, which is why they do practice cousin marriage polygamous relationships do occur while often more rare. However there is an incest taboo against relations between siblings and direct family members. Females are often promised to a man at a very early age and are then given to the male once they have had their first menstrual cycle. Economic exchange is often not practiced, if they are already kin it is usually not required there are some instances where it does occur with gifts but is very rare. Males are valued over females, males play the dominating role and the females have very little choice in the matter. Homosexuality is not frowned upon and can happen among the male population, not the female population. The population live in a shabono which is a communal round like structure where each family is responsible for building their portion of the roof.
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| Inside a shabono |
Kinship:
Descent patterns often follow a patrilineal descent but the matrilineal lines are not ignored, kinships is very important to the Yanomami as kin are very important for their wars. However the maternal lines can be avoided but the paternal lines that come with the maternal lines are very important. There is no inheritance since they don’t take anything from a dead person. And males possess the authority in the family, and can abuse their wives to keep them in order but if a female is abused too far the female’s brother can step in and remove her from the relationship. In the culture the naming is very similar to the Iroquois. Fathers share names with their brothers, mothers with their sisters, siblings with their cousins.
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| Kin standing together preparing for battle |
Social Organization:
Their culture is more of a stratified culture, where males have a natural higher status than females. The amount of children, wives, and how well of a warrior a male is that determines their social status. There is really no way for a female to change their status they are naturally lower than males, but males can change their status through their actions. Status in not necessarily inherited unless they are from kin of very highly respected family. However they do have beliefs of equality in sharing of food and housing with the whole village.
Political Structure
Political power is held by the males, there is often headman and if a village is larger they may have more than one. Power is determined by how the male handles situation and their social status as in how well they perform in war and their prestige as warriors and hunters. Headmen can either solve problems through oral tactics or through bullying tactics it varies between different villages. There are very few laws but punishments are often dealt between the two in conflict through duals or revenge killings and raids of other villages with kin against another lineage family.
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| Men gain power through their worth |
The Role of Violence
Two kinds of violence that arises are quarrels inside a village and wars between villages. When quarrels arise inside a village often end in duals that tend to end in draws to keep both sides dignity. Wars between villages are often over women and can lead to revenge killing or raids where kin is important and they band together to go and get revenge killing males and often taking females to marry to their family and used to reproduce.
Religion: | |
| Ax fight |
They are considered zooists or spirtualists where their beliefs are put into the spirit, they don’t believe in sins they simply believe that when one dies their spirit goes to the village of the ancestors where life is much easier, without disease or hunger. I found contradicting information of whether they believe in a deity or not as well as many varying different origin stories most likely due to the fact that their culture is separated into at least 250 villages and that they don’t really have a written language to keep their stories. But they do believe in four planes the upper-most layer is empty but used to contain ancestors, the second layer contains spirits of the dead, third layer earth and the fourth layer contains spirits in the underworld that cause harm to the living. Their religion as involves their connection to the environment and the animals. However they do have Shamans that are very important to the society. Shamans control illness and can cause it or cure it using medicines that they have control over, they also have control over demons, so in a way Shamans can influence the Yanomami’s actions. The religion is very important to them.
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| Shaman at work |
Art:
They do use body art to express different situations they are going through like if they are mourning a woman must have black face paint on, and men wear black paint when they are going to war. They use singing and dance at festivals such as at births and deaths, their music is more tonal and chats than it is singing like we know it. They also weave baskets and clothing with simple patterns. Myth telling is very important to them, it is all orally told.
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| Face paint and thin bamboo shoots as for body art |
Culture Change:
It has in some way been affected by western civilization in the fact that now have a written language, and some of the younger now literate members disagree with their elders on religion.
I think some of the culture is still healthy and thriving in that some of the culture still has not been seen or contacted by western civilization, that part may keep its culture but the parts touched by western culture have lost some of their aggressiveness and traditions.
I think culturally they have a weak role, their culture is not affecting anyone elses and they are continually losing their roots. |
| Miners infringing upon Yanomamo land |
Sources:
Amazon Rain Forest 2006, 1 July <http://www.unique-southamerica-travel-experience.com/amazon-rainforest-animals.html>
Appendix 1 -Yanomami languages in Brazil 2007 26 July <http://www.proyanomami.org.br/homoxi/ap_1.htm>
Oclusivon and Attrition of the Primitive Yanomami Indians of Brazil 1975 Dental Clinics of North America 29 July <http://www.cleber.com.br/evan.html>
Survival for Tribal People 11 July <http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/yanomami>
Tales of the Yanomami 1985 Jacques Lizot 29 July <http://texts.00.gs/Tales_of_the_Yanomami.htm>
Venezuela 2003 <http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/geography/Slovenia-to-Zimbabwe-Cumulative-Index/Venezuela.html>
Yanomamo 24 July <http://www.everyculture.com/South-America/Yanomam.html>
The Yanomami Giovanni Saffirio June 29th <http://yanomamicatrimani.org/index.php/yanomami>
Yanomami, Orinoco 1 July <http://www.orinoco.org/apg/lopeopleindiv.asp?lang=en&people=yanomami>
Yanomami Indians: The Fierce People? 2008, Charito Ushiñahua 15 July <http://www.amazon-indians.org/yanomami.html>
