Yanomamo

Yanomami Cultural Motifs

Culture is grouped with collective behaviors of members of community. These collective behaviors are not just limited to the ways in which members associate with each other but also notes the way they long to live their lives. This paper aims to discuss in brief the culture of Yanomami. This paper shall include environment, adaptation, religion, language, gender roles, kinship, social organization, economy, political organization of the Yanomami culture in brief.

Environment and Adaptation:

The Yanomamis are basically spread at the Amazon rainforest at the coast lines of Brazil and Venezuela. These groups of tribes are divided into more than 400 villages. The weather of the Amazon rainforest can be different by extremes of rain and scorching heat of the sun. This expects a lot of adaptability of the people of the tribe. The foods in the summer season can ripe fruits which enable the tribe to gain good diet. The plants as observed for food and herbs use are gathered by Yanomamis from the rainforests (Schwartz). Almost 3000 types of fruits have been noticed to consume by the Yanomamis. It is the main reason of behind well-being of the Yanomamis. When the rain season is noted to be on its peak, the plants start to grow with a slow pace which deprives the villagers to consume more food.

The genetic or physical adaptation as noted in the Yanomamis is their combat qualities. The tribes’ men are better in combating with their enemies. Yanomamis show strength of the able men and real humans who are very strong and can adapt environmental change to the fullest. The cultural adaption of the Yanomamis is their ability to fish and hunt during the rainy weather. They also hunt the wildlife during summer. This is important because they can use the wild life for created decayed basis of their huts and keep themselves warm with the animal skins (Milliken, Albert and Gomez).

 

Language and Gender Roles:

The language of the Yanomami culture is housed into one family which is referred to Yanomaman. These languages have had their region in the Brazilian region to Southern Venezuela. The Yanomaman language groups include a number of languages but the most widely spoken language by the Yanomamis is Xirianian. There are several dialects which had made difficult for the tribes to follow one language. It is for this reason that there are different languages being spoken. But these tribes can easily understand the each other with the Xirianian language even if they cannot speak identically (Schwartz).

 The gender roles as per the definition of Yanomami culture include boys and girls. The culture has strict delineation regarding specific gender roles. Women are expected to do the cleaning, washing and giving birth to babies which further ordains her to take care of babies. On the other hand, boys are responsible for hunting. Women have more regard in the Yanomami culture because they offer services to husbands and give birth to sons for which the husbands remains in  debt to the family of the wife. This debt is paid till the time parents of the bride are alive. This has remained same from generations and any overlapping and change is dealt with hatred and punishment. The protagonist from the story The Blessed Curse cannot fit in the Yanomamis culture because Yanomami culture beheads those who are rebellious to their cultural identities (Tahan).

Subsistence and Economy:

The intake as per the viability of food and economic material for Yanomami culture has been crops and bananas. Both these are heavily dependent food items on their diet daily. These two items are also cultivated by the chosen team of the tribe. It has been noted that the food items that have been gathered by men had special importance in terms of diet and it is for this reason, they preferred hunting. It was because of the environmental effect that the tribes’ men had to stay away from the tribe to take care of the people. For this duration they had to be dependent upon the wild food obtained from hunting and fishing (Webster).

Trade played a vital role in the Yanomami culture and is considered to be more planned and developed. The exchange of plantains and crops has been the biggest basis of trade among Yanomamis instead of currency. The trade could have included potteries; axes etc. but these materials have been given to the tribe as gift. More recently, the culture has now developed trade sections that include selling arrows and other products for cultivation. Labor is another significant aspect of the culture where women are responsible for harvesting and spinning cotton while men were responsible for weapon designing and hunting (Peters). 

Marriage and Kinship:

Marriage patterns in the Yanomami family are mostly polygamous. It is because the military attacks have reduced the population of the tribe. This means that there is an avid need of population growth for the tribe. The men in the Yanomami tribe are involved with more than one woman. In other words, it could be said that men in this tribe are open to women. The marriage ceremonies are not given much importance but the rituals are conducted by the older kin of the family. Marriages in the Yanomami tribes are fixed even before the puberty of the girl. This marriage is further done by the commentary of the older kin in front of all village members. The women and men are not given specific value in the marriage bond. The main focus of married bond is to give birth to children as it’s the most important deed for them. The traces of the cultural studies of Yanomami show that homosexuality has been encouraged. Some marriages were conducted where the man married his best friend’s sister so that he can have open sexual relationship with his best friend as giving birth to children is mandatory (Borofsky and Albert).

The pattern of kinship in Yanomami culture is patrilineal which means that the descent will be from the male. This means that the child is in kinship of his father. This deprives women to take the kinship of the child. There is no point of discretion that has to be undertaken for kinship in the Yanomami culture. This ultimately gives value to the father more in the family than mother. The naming patterns of the Yanomami family involves selecting a name of the child with respect to the animal that is killed on the birth of the child e.g. whisker of a howler monkey etc. The boys of the tribe do not liked to be called with their name but rather as the brother of howler monkey etc (Milliken, Albert and Gomez).

Social and Political Structure:

Political structure of the Yanomami culture includes a leader of all the soldiers who are responsible for the conducting warfare. The main purpose of the soldiers is to keep arms of the enemy away from the village. These leaders are selected by the village people as per the bravery of the man. The leader is expected to have no fear and give away his daughter for marriage. All this is needed to gain the respect of the people of the tribe (Tahan).

Yanomami villages are basically egalitarian in terms of social structure. This means that the people of the tribe are differentiated in terms of age, sex and other respected traits of giving which are also known as personal traits. In order to gain social mobility, people fight and undergo oratory which makes them more valued than other. The status in the Yanomami culture is not a gift from the family but it is rather achieved by working hard for it. Men who are adult and wiser are mostly given the position of priests or politicians (Peters).

Violence in Yanomami is expected because it is the way to solve the issues such as women abduction. This is done by open challenge between two men who would use club to blow. Another form of violence is side slapping until the all men get the blow. These violent acts are not considered as negative but are rather considered as a way to settle issues (Schwartz).

Religion and Art:

The religious beliefs of the people of Yanomamis are based upon the skies and the layers. It has been noted that they believed that the universe is basically divided into four layers. These parallel layers were governed by the ancient species which were on the top most layers of the cosmos. The Yanomamis believe that the second layer of the universe is basically God’s place where all the dead men and women will go once they are rotten. They will have all the beauties of life in terms of hunting and better taste of the food hunted. The third layer is considered to be earth which the last layer of the world is underworld which bestows all the bad spirits from which they need to be safe. It has been noted that they believe that they have more than one soul (Tahan).

 The expression of the Yanomami religion is also a very aspect of the tribe because it always described their emotions and beliefs. The art which has been found so far include geometrical designs. The common colors which have been noticed in the art of Yanomamis are black and red. The oratory is another form of art which has been observed in the culture of Yanomamis. It will not be incorrect to state that the tribes are much developed and mature in terms of oratory (Peters).

Works Cited

Borofsky, Robert and Bruce. Albert. Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn from It. California: University of California Press, 2005.

Milliken, William, Bruce Albert and Gale. Gomez. Yanomami: a forest people. London: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew., 1999.

Peters, John. Life Among the Yanomami: The Story of Change Among the Xilixana on the Mucajai River in Brazil. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998.

Schwartz, David. Yanomami: People of the Amazon. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1995.

Tahan, Raya. The Yanomami of South America. New York: Lerner Publications, 2001.

Webster, Christine. Yanomani. San Francisco: Weigl Publishers Inc., 2004.