Yanomami
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Yanomani children
The Yanomami tribe have lived in the rain forests of South America for centuries. They live in small groups, and shelter in grass huts. Each of the sections has its own language. The Yanomami tribe is also known as the Yanomamo. There are an average of 20,000 Yanomami. About 12,000 of them are Yanomamo. They eat plantains it is the most important food. The Yanomami love to hunt. Most of the child raising is done by the females of the family.
Fighting To Save The Forest: Interview With A Yanomami Shaman
YANOMAMIS
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Yanomami
Indian communities are living in the rainforest and occupy a territory
that spreads from both border sides between Venezuela and Brazil. More than a half members of the Yanomami are from the Venezuelan side, from the states of Amazonas and Bolivar. Society
today, designated under the name "Yanomami", is divided from a
linguistic point of view, into four subgroups: the Yanomami, who live
mainly in Venezuela (Amazonas state), the Yanomami, settled in Brazil,
the Sanema and the Yanam, which lie north of its territory (Bolivar
State) and are distributed on both border sides between Venezuela and
Brazil. Together they constitute the Yanomami language family (or
yanoama), although
they were initially known as Waika (or Guaica) Guaharibos, shamatari,
shiriana, etc., And Before it was used their self-designation. The term "Yanomami" means "human being", "people ".
The property is collective. Several families or households gather to form a communal house or "shapono". This is a series of open houses covered with palm trees. These covered areas are arranged in a circle, in volume to a central open square.
Families
can be monogamous or polygamous, but in the latter case, each spouse
takes his own hearth with their children. When the family grows, a new
fire is added to the house for the son or daughter.
It
could be said that about half of the marriages that occur between
members of a communal house are among them and the other half among the
neighbouring houses or allied houses located further away. The size of
the home group can vary from less than 20 people to more than 200
people. Communities are generally split into two or more communities
when a major conflict developed in their breast.
Families who are separated gather in another community under the same model, but a little further. These families may also join other allied community or be settled in the vicinity. Depending on its size, communities are guided by one or more leaders.
Families who are separated gather in another community under the same model, but a little further. These families may also join other allied community or be settled in the vicinity. Depending on its size, communities are guided by one or more leaders.
As I have already said the Yanomami (also called Yanomamo), are a Native American ethnicity divided into four groups: Sanuma, Yanomamo, Tanomano and Yanam.
They speak different languages but they understand each other. They are also called Yanomami nation.
The Yanomami
The correct name of this indigenous group is the Yanomami. The reason why in many languages they are called Yanomami (Yanomami or) is because of the Salesian missionaries who had an Italian origin and who were in charge of the Catholic missions in the Yanomamo region and in Italian Yanomamo is the plural of Yanomami (Yanomamo). This name was corroborated by the priest Cocco, an Italian missionary who spent many years living among the Yanomamo, pointing out this name and not the plural in Italian.
Ethnography
The Yanomami ethnography has a particular significance because of being an indigenous people that has managed to live in harmony with their environment, to respect nature, not to produce any waste, not to pollute and to be self-sufficient.
Part of the last holdouts still are living according to the dictates of the pre-literate people. Currently they are seriously threatened by globalization and transculturation. This is because the classic colonial invasion phenomena, religious conversion, assimilation of lower roles with respect to a superior culture and depopulation by diseases the settlers brought with them. Unable to deal effectively with any of these factors, their traditional lifestyle may be irreparably affected in less than a decade if not taken necessary measures.
About 20,000 individual members of the Yanomami live scattered in the rainforest, in villages separated by many miles of uninhabited land. About 70 percent of the population occupies the south of Venezuela, while the rest is distributed among Brazilian adjacent areas, particularly in an area comprising the state of Roraima and Amazonas.
Housing
In small villages they live between 40 and 50 people while the large ones can reach three hundred. Their villages are built-Shabono-circle and are completely open.
Their houses are conical in shape and live in family groups. The situation of the cabins vary and in many cases, instead of forming a circle, forming a row. Families share with other families in the community the products obtained by hunting, fishing or harvesting (within each family shabono live as a community).
When they sit around the campfire is at the center of shabono, eat, talk, make their tools, explain their history, myths, legends and teach children their traditions.
Subsistence
The Yanomami are continuously moving, ie, they are nomads. These shifts are motivated by short-term productivity of their crops. Grown in their gardens most foods: bananas, yams, sweet potato and taro. A culture takes two or three years. When the soil is exhausted, the town creates a new planting elsewhere. They also collect wild products and eat frogs.
They hunt all year, individually or in groups, and use the bow and arrow. Fishing is practised less often and use the arrow fish and timbo, a plant species that buffeted in the water to stun fish.
By basing its economy on principles of self (developing their own belongings - baskets, clubs, bows and arrows), break the economic concepts of almost all the West. Currently still using "decorative" ancestral reasons in their bodies, which are stamped with certain natural pigments. They use a drug called curare, which spread smeared on the tip of the arrows to hunt for food and besides this is also used in healing rituals by shamans to communicate with spirits. It is used sparingly and the powder is introduced the shaman through the nostrils with a stick wtih a blow hole.
Clothing
Due to weather conditions, dress is very simple. They dress for ornamental purposes rather than protection, a well-dressed man carries nothing more than a few cotton strings on wrists, ankles and waist, and the foreskin subjects to the rope of the latter. They also use branches wrapped on the body that have the name of loincloth.
The dress of women is equally stark. Generally, the body is painted with many colours, mostly red and black also put necklaces, feathers on the head and tied to the arms and earrings.
Social Life
Social life is organized around traditional tribal principles: kinship, descent from the ancestors, marriage exchanges between family or kinship groups with a common and transient authority distinguished leaders who try to maintain order in the village and are responsible to establish community relationships with other villages. Leadership is often linked to kinship and marriage ties, the great men or leaders come from larger families in the villages. According to his wit, wisdom and charisma can become autocrats, but most bosses are limited to acting as superior to their peers. They are not exempt from cleaning gardens, collecting, harvesting, planting and hunting.
They are simultaneously peacemakers and valiant warriors. The peace often happens because of the threat or use of force, which is why most bosses have a reputation for fierce waiterio.
Customs
One of the most curious and primitive customs of this ethnic group is the practice of sacred ritual cannibalism and inbreeding: a collective funeral ceremony eat the ashes of the bones of their dead relative mixing the dough "pijiguao" (palm fruit chonta). Believe that the bones lies the vital energy of the deceased and by eating the ashes they return to the family.
Production Mode
Each community operates a large territory in order to get resources they need to play while respecting the territories of its neighbours. The Yanomami make their homes near their swidden and every four or five years they move closer to new plantings: poor soil forces them to open new land to cultivation each year. Essentially they grow bananas, taro, sweet cassava, sugar cane, corn and sweet potatoes. They plant, too, banana, avocado, papaya, pijiguao, snuff and cotton, the latter allows them to manufacture hammocks and clothing. To accompany the cultivations, regularly they hunt animals, fish and collect forest products too. Honey is also a valuable natural resource for the Yanomami. According to the seasonal cycle is not uncommon to leave their homes and their conucos to go to consume, on-site, products that abound in the area. Installed, then in jungle camps for several weeks. Whether in these temporary camps or shapono, it favours collective life, they have a very intense social life and very lively.
Today, the permanent contact with the Creole population Yanomami in the Amazon region and the invasion of prospectors have caused considerable changes in the environment and, consequently, in their health and customs.
The Yanomami are continuously moving, ie, they are nomads. These shifts are motivated by short-term productivity of their crops. They grow in their gardens most foods: bananas, yams, sweet potato and taro. A culture takes two or three years. When the soil is exhausted, the town creates a new planting elsewhere. They also collect wild products and eat frogs.
They hunt all year, individually or in groups, and use the bow and arrow. Fishing is practised less often and use the arrow fish and timbo, a plant species that buffeted in the water to stun fish.
By basing its economy on principles of self (developing their own belongings the-baskets, clubs, bows and arrows), break the economic concepts of almost all the West. Currently still using reason "decorative" ancestral in their bodies, which are stamped with certain natural pigments. Use a deadly poison called curare, which spread smeared on the tip of the arrows.
Conflicts
When there is conflict there is always a referee. That is what many times is not necessary in these cultures. If there is a conflict, it is assumed that the conflict is between two, and assuming you do not need a referee. This recurrence to a higher court, arbitration, it is often necessary in these societies. The same word delegation is a real word, of course, but in an infinitely less degree in those other cultures. There is no one representative from anyone.
Belief Systems
The Yanomami cosmos is made up of four layers lie horizontally and relatively close to each other. The layers are compared to a "plate": slightly curved, rounded, thin, stiff, with a bottom surface. In these regions, mysterious events occur and are inhabited by spirits. The top layer is called Duku KÄ MISI "there have been many things that have" fallen "to the bottom layer. There is a very important role in the life of the Yanomami. The next layer, called "KÄ Heduan MISI" is similar to Earth. Its top layer is invisible, has trees, crops, villages, animals and plants and is home to the souls of the dead. Everything that exists on Earth exists in this level. The underside of this layer is the sky is the Yanomami. The Yanomami live in the layer called "HEI KÄ MISI", a level that was created when a piece of "Heduan KÄ misi" broke and fell. Finally there is the bottom layer called "HEI TA drinking", almost barren area in which a variant of Yanomami live, ruthless cannibals capturing the souls of children and eat.
The origins
The are explained through the myth of "Blood of the Moon." Once a people thought it was the blood of the moon. The moon was a bad man who ate his daughter. Good people shot the arrow to the sky and it stuck in its chest. Drops of blood from the Moon are the fierce Yanomami.
Women
originated from a fruit called "wabu." A man pulled a fruit and
immediately became a woman, this woman gave birth abundant daughters who
in turn had descendants, so there are large number of Yanomami.
The jaguar man
The jaguar is a dreaded beast that kills and eats men. It is a skilled hunter warrior compared to Yanomami. The jaguar becomes a man who devours the Yanomami (cannibalism).
Taboos
For the Yanomami names are a secret, so much so that after death his name is not given by the community.
Rites
Expel evil spirits
The shaman is responsible for expelling the evil spirits that cause disease in members of the village. There are four causes of the disease:
• by haunting of another shaman.
• by the sorcery of another man.
• caused by evil spirits.
• transmission of pain to the animal which is twice the person.
Adult individuals, including young people, take drugs to be drawn directly their own "hekura." This is a way to avoid being possessed by evil spirits, demonic worship is above all and the only mental escape of a people who know any alcoholic beverage.
Cures
Distillation process with the deadly poison that cover the tips of arrows is used in hunting and war, this process does not involve women, "is destemplaría" poison.
Reah
The Yanomami have their own rituals of death to be completed to fulfill the dead man's rite of passage into the next world. In Yanomami society women of the family and the tribe must mourn for the deceased member. If burning rituals are not properly or completely finished, the body is caused by the dead, in life, did something wrong.
The morning after death, the women of the tribe appear blackened cheeks as a sign of grief and begin the mourning for the dead. When they finish they burn the belongings of the deceased along with the corpse. Later the tribe returned to their normal activities.
One month after the death of a member of the tribe, the Yanomami funeral organized a meal eaten in the ashes of the dead. Family members drink a banana soup mixed with the ashes of the deceased. In this celebration they entertain visitors with all kinds of food and establish partnerships.
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