Talk:Yanomami
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[edit] K. Good
Kenneth Good (Kenny) actually married a Yanomami and brought her back to the US to live. Upon seeing NYC policemen and policewomen, she wondered if their children dressed the same way (she thought the cops were another tribe).
You should read his book. It's really fascinating: both about the Yanomami themselves, as well as the character and attitudes of Western anthropologists.
[edit] fierce
Good disputes Chagnon's characterization of the Yanomami as fierce. After living among them for a year or more, Good makes them sound extremely peaceful. I'd like to see more about their supposed "fierceness". --Uncle Ed 21:24, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- I stumbled across another article, though terribly brief, by photographer Victor Engleber who lived in a Yano for a few weeks with the tribe. He didn't report any fierce behavior, but made them seem idyllic and supremely peaceful:
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- "Although the Yanomami have a reputation for fierceness, in my journeys among them, I could scarcely have found a friendlier people." [1]
- -- Uncle Ed 21:25, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
- After having read Chagnon's "Yanomamo", which documents the time he spent with them from 1966-1976, I was surprised to not find any mention of violence. The book talks about several other topics that have been excluded here, but the most striking is the section called "Yanomamo Warfare". In a section called "Levels of Violence" he talks about chest-pounding fights, club fights, then goes on to detail several actual raids he bore witness to. For me, these were some of the most interesting parts of the book. He talks about how in these "club fights", which are only used if traded chest-thumping isn't enough, grown men will take turns hitting each other over the head with heavy 8-10 foot long clubs. "Needless to say, the tops of most men's heads are covered with deep, ugly scars of which their bearers are immensely proud." johnpseudo 05:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I've heard that there are two surprisingly different cultures within the yanomami; those of the lowlands being very peaceful and cooperative, while those of the nearby highlands are highly aggressive and warlike. I don't know enough about the situation there to write about it though.
[edit] site, big, war, peace, cannibal
First-hand account of a raid. Not for the faint of heart. Still, Yanomamiland is big, and diverse, and there seems no proof that the people as a whole are in a constant state of warfare. I think certain tribes were able to live peacefully for extended periods of time. --RL
The inclusion of a link to the film "Cannibal Holocaust" is questionable.
- The film link seems ok to me in that tribe is (inaccurately) depicted in the film. It is worth mentioning or linking to because of the films notoriety and the false impression it brings to the tribe. However, on a related note the article on Cannibal Holocaust (now a FA) claims that the tribe practices post-mordum cannibalism. I came to this article because of that reference to see if the two articles agree. There is no mention of it here (other than the last section about their traditions about nothing of the body being allowed to remain, which could mean a lot of things). The other article gives the source for this claim as:
Chagnon, Napoleon A. [1968] (1996-11-15). in George and Louise Spindler: Yanomamö, 5th edition, Fort Worth, Texas: Wadsworth Publishing. ISBN 0-15-505327-2.
- Perhaps we should double check the source then include a section which describes the tradition in an encyclopedic way, as well as discussing the misrepresentations of the film. Dalf | Talk 21:07, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Dirk Wittenborn, Fierce People
Is this book actually source material on the Yanomami? I haven't read it, but the reviews I've seen suggest that it's a novel about life in the USA, and that the name is an ironic reference to Chagnon's work. --Dependent Variable.
