Yanoama: The Story of Helena Valero, a Girl Kidnapped by Amazonian Indians (aka Yanomamo) is a biography of Helena Valero, which gives us a detailed account of life with the Yanomamo, a tribe of Amazonian Indians in the rainforest near Venezuela.
The author gives us a unique and very intimate look on how life feels within these tribes. The life in the forest, the foods, the relationships between tribes, families, and individuals. The culture, the wars, and much more.
She married twice and gave birth to four children, three sons and a girl, until she came back to "the white man" only to return later back to live near the Indians.
The book is composed of three parts: Part 1: From the time she was kidnapped until she came to live with the Namoeteri and got married first to Fusiwe. Part 2: Her life with Fusiwe, headsman of the Namoeteri. Part 3: Her life after Fusiwe's death, second marriage, moving between villages, and finally escaping back to "the white man".
Helena, a Christian white girl aged 12 or 13, was in a river near to the Amazon forest with her father. A group of Yanoama warriors attacked them. Both father and daughter ran away, and the Indians found the girl and took her to live with them.
At the beginning - age 12-13 - she was with a tribe called Shamateri. By mistake she gave some poisonous toad eggs to a child who subsequently died. The father of the child wanted to kill her, so she ran away to the forest. She lived in the forest totally alone, with no idea where to go for seven months. Sometimes she thought she would prefer to die than to remain in that hard situation.
Eventually, she reached a tribe called Namoeteri. Initially they did not welcome her and wanted to kill her as well, because she said something that was perceived - by mistake - as an insult. She escaped to the forest once again, where she was caught but not killed.
The man who caught her in the forest was actually Fusiwe headsman of the tribe Namoeteri (the tribal leader is called in the language of the Yanoama tushaua). It appears that she really loved him. Reading the book, one feels that only this part of her life was blossoming. One can also feel her pain when reporting his death. She was Fusiwe's fourth wife, and the youngest at the time. She writes how he told her stories and much about the mythology of the Yanoama tradition, etc. She had two male children from Fusiwe.
From this marriage she gives a very intimate and lively account on the life of the Yanoama as regards the wars, intrigues, betrayals etc. Ultimately, Fusiwe died while fighting an opposing tribe.
After Fusiwe's death, her life came under threat once again. The opposing tribe was about to kill her sons, fearing that they would grow up and take avenge for their father's death. Helena ran away, to a tribe far away.
After some time she married again with Akawe, and had another two children, one boy and one girl. There her life was quite erratic, as Akawe was not very normal, and she was moving with him between villages. He also mistreated her.
Ultimately, her life came again under threat, as the tribe that was about to kill her children moved to live near her. That together with the craziness of her husband Akawe, influenced her decision to move back to "the white men".
After she came back to "civilization" she told her husband to go back to the Indians, stating "I will take care for myself".
Her last chapter is entitled "The wicked world of the white man". She describes with bitter details how nobody took care of her among the whites. She often went hungry.
Later, she decided to go back to live near the Indians.
At 1996, forty years after the time she leaves the Indians, she is reported to still be there. "old and blind", in an Indian house (like a turf), always accompanied by friends and children around. While being clear, one can still sense here and there the bitterness of the treatment she got from "the white man".
The biography was tape recorded by Ettore Biocca, an Italian anthropologist, from 1962-3. From the tapes she took from Helena, she compiled the biography. Ettore also published other volumes with lots of data about the lives, food, war tools etc. of the Yanoama
Ettore tried to check Helena's reliability, by asking the same questions and listening to the same stories several times, and comparing them. She found that not even once was there a contradiction in the stories. Thus, Ettore found Helena's stories very reliable.
The book is a unique anthropological document, from the inside.