Talk:Ya̧nomamö

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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.

Ed Poor

[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:
"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)
vsdsjsj 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.


I'm doing a report on them currently, read the book "Yanomamo, the Fierce People." He makes it a point to illustrate that they participate in warfare and intervillage raids regularly, as well as "chest-pounding" duels. They seem fierce. Perhaps we need to define fierce. Regarding foreigners, the Yanomamo apparently regard us as sub-human; hardly a target needing proof of their ferocity. Or perhaps we are talking about their "northern neighbors, the Carib-speaking Makiritare Indians."

--72.34.133.250 (talk) 01:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[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)

The source is correct. It's called funerary cannibalism, which in the case of the Yanomamo involves burning the body, grinding up any remaining bones and ingesting the ash and ground bone, usually mixed in some sort of drink. If I get some spare time I'll try to write something up. --Woland37 20:58, 30 April 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.

[edit] Fierce People

There's a movie called Fierce People, to be released in July. But trying to find it on Wiki gets a redirect to this. Most movies do have wiki-articles, and I suspect this one does too - but if so, it's lost. PiCo 05:08, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yanomami?

Why is this article entitled Yanomami? The tribe's name is Yanomamo. -- Interrupt_feed (talk) 02:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. The closest pronunciation to the how the word is said by the people themselves is a thoroughly nasalized Yąnomamö or by some accounts, Yanoamo. I don't really know how to change article titles in wikipedia but I'm going to look it up and change it. From the rest of the article, I suspect the article was originally titled Yanomamo but was changed by someone else. Abhishekbh (talk) 04:57, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I thought Yanomamo was singular and Yanomami was plural? Asarelah (talk) 05:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm quite sure that's not true Asarelah. Yanomami just crept in with various publishers picking that title after removing ᵻ from yanomamᵻ. I can't find the exact character, but that is basically an i with a dash through it. Just like Argentine people are called Argentine singular or plural, the Yanomamo are called Yanomamo singular or plural. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhishekbh (talk • contribs) 09:06, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Major edits required to the article

Other than being written in an inconsistent tone, the article also contains many useless and non-scientific bits, such as "The yanomami peoples are polite peoples". I'm going to try and rewrite the parts of the article that I believe are either not-fair or factually incorrect. Anyone here who wants to join me, let's take the next few days to do justice to this very important bit of science and a very interesting and rare people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhishekbh (talk • contribs) 00:39, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I removed some of the unencyclopedic bits--more could probably go. The dispute over whether the tribe is actually fierce or not should definitely be included in the article; it's quite controversial. Nareek (talk) 12:57, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

That is all mostly a media controversy. The tribe is fierce in the same way all tribal human beings are/were. But yeah, a paragraph should be included to explain that perhaps. I have just upped some stuff, I'm going to keep putting in stuff through the next few days. Abhishekbh (talk) 19:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] User:Abhishekbh's edits

Abhishekbh, I reverted[2] some productive and well-intentioned edits you made. While I felt these edits enhanced the factual content of the article, they seriously degraded the format and readability. If you're interested, I've dumped your version of the page into your userspace. You can find and work on it here: User:Abhishekbh/Yanomamo

I'd recommend the following adjustments:

  • Please include more frequent citations, including specific page number(s) from Chagnon's book. If you can tell me what pages of the book you're using for each sentence or group of sentences, other wikipedians can help with the citation format
  • Your additions need extensive copy editing and proofreading; there are major issues with capitalization, grammar and tone. I can help somewhat with this too, if you like
  • You introduced very long sections with almost no wikilinks. Unfamiliar words and important technical terms should be linked. Compared to the other problems, this is easy to fix.
  • I feel your paragraphs were long, rambling and hard to digest.

Others may disagree with my reversion, and that's fine. Just remember that preserving wiki-formatting and readability is as important as the substance of the article itself.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 19:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow....in all honesty, I'm a little surprised. I re-read what I wrote and I do not think it was so bad in grammar or tone that it was unreadable. Considering the article is supposed to be a factual-technical description and not a narration, I think it did fine on those fronts. Yeah, I capitalized the word 'shabono' unevenly, but stuff like that can be easily corrected by anyone.
In virtually all non-fiction literature, stylized grammar is not given the same treatment that it is in some other circles; I am of the belief that minor issues like that should not be made criteria for deletion. If it were, nearly 90% of all published books would have to be removed as well. Again, this is keeping in mind that I think the article is readable and not as bad as it is being made out to be.
Frankly I don't really have the time right now to re-write the article, and I would be in favour or restating it, with corrections wherever required of course. Perhaps we could get input from some other readers here. I had a lot more to add to the article, but I'm going to put that on hold for now.
It's fair to say that the article needed more specific citations, and I'd be happy to add those in if restated. Abhishekbh (talk) 08:46, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Writing style is matter of personal taste, I suppose, but I found those paragraphs extraordinarily hard to read; the language simply did not flow smoothly. However, there are a lot of great copy editors here, and we could certainly use your additions as basis for improvement. If you can find provide the page number references for the individual statements, I can help with copyediting and style. Also I don't think you should place any forthcoming improvements you had "on hold." I'm not trying to discourage anyone; I merely felt your version was not ready for "prime time." That's why I didn't "delete" your version--I merely moved it to your user space. Are you opposed to working on the article there--even if you have help?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 15:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Well to get an idea of exactly what you mean by "hard to read", perhaps you can edit some of what I wrote and put it back into the article so that I may see what needs to be addressed and then correct it. Abhishekbh (talk) 02:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)