Sitting Bull, the tribal chief of Hunkpapa Lakota noted that “I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle’, before he was shot dead for defending his tribe’s sovereignty and dignity Just like this tribe, there are other tribes all over the world fighting for their heritage. However, some tribes have decided to remain isolated and have no contact with the outside world or even other indigenous peoples. Their decision not to maintain contact with other tribes and outsiders is almost certainly a result of previous disastrous encounters, ongoing invasion and destruction of their forest home. In conjunction to this, I’m going to talk about a tribe that probably not many of you have heard of. A tribe that is struggling through criminal invasions, attacks and disease. A tribe that is facing extinction. And finally a tribe that I fancy. Yes, they are called the “Yanomamo.”
Who is keen in anthropology? Who enjoys studies of tribal and culture? Who sees art from a different perspective? My speech will surely be of special interest to them. Firstly, The Yanomamo are well known for being one of the few tribes in the world whose existence was unknown until some recent decades. The Yanomamo fall into the category of Tropical Forest Indians called ‘foot people.’ There are just about 20,000 people living in some 200–250 villages in the Amazon rain forests on the border between Venezuela and Brazil. The entire village lives under a common roof called the shabono. They are of the Shamanism religion and speak Yanomaman languages. Besides, The Yanomami heavily depend on rain forest resources thus, they are known as fishers and hunters. Their common game animals are wild pigs, monkeys, tapirs, armadillos, birds and rodents. Not forgetting, they’re also horticulturists. The women cultivate plantains in gardens as their main crops while men do the heavy work of clearing areas of forest for the gardens. However, it is devastating to discover that their lives are currently threatened. Gold minors have invaded their lands, destroyed many villages and spread deadly diseases by which many Yanomamos died.
Nevertheless, I’m quite fascinated about their way of life. I always thought that tribal people were mostly peaceful. Little did I know that war was a nearly constant state of affairs for the Yanomamo that shaped every aspect of their lives and culture. Well, I believed that even when tribes did fight, the battles were rooted in conflicts over material resources, only after having some researches done, I was informed that the Yanomamo’s wars were almost entirely over women. Not only that, and while I had believed that all tribal people were highly egalitarian, I found that Yanomamo men were in fact very concerned about status and that there were several ways for a man to elevate himself above his village peers. Quite interesting, isn’t it ? Well, let us take a moment to study their way of life.
For your information, one of the most salient features of their social environment is the threat of attack from neighbors. According to a statistic, 45% of these tribesmen had slain at least one other man leading to a lost a member of their immediate family due to violence. However, populations of tribesmen believed to be still growing by reproduction of offspring regardless of the many people dying and fighting with each other that leads to the high number of death. If you were surprised to find that the Yanomamo were not the peace-loving noble savages you had expected, you should be equally surprise to learn the cause of their constant conflict.
As we all know, tribesman go to war over material resources. So just like other primitive people, Yanomamo did indeed fight over a scarce resource ; Land, food, oil, water, wealth? No. Women. Yes, they fight over women. Their conflicts were almost entirely rooted in reproductive competition. This phenomena is completely out of the norm for civilized people, whereas it is a mean of survival in the tribal world. Nevertheless, I have to agree on this note, ‘women have always been the most valuable single resource that men fight for and defend.
Yet the Yanomamo’s desire to obtain a woman isn't primarily for reproductive competition which takes us to the third surprise ; the tribesmen’s desire for status and honor. It is found that Yanomamo men were more prominent and given more deference than others. First, the men with the most kin and the largest patrilineage enjoyed higher status, mostly the political leaders. Besides, this higher status comes with an advantage. For instance, the more male relatives a young man had, the easier it is for him to successfully find a wife. Other than that, the Yanomamo practices polygyny. Every Yanomamo man hoped to have multiple wives which consequently creates scarcity in women, thus become the one resource worth fighting over. At a worse scenario, men may attack and raid other villages and bring back some of their woman causing the men from the raided villages to plan a counterattack that sets a constant war and fear of attack.
In a nutshell, these are some interesting background information on some of the possible origins of masculine culture and honor. As far as I’m concerned, this way of life provides a fascinating look at how and why the basic code of masculine honor, as defined by stoic courage, originally developed. And as I mentioned at the start, what stuck out to me is that the lives of Yanomamo men, while incredibly far removed from that of us moderns, still have faint echoes today. Learning about the Yanomamo gave me a dozen random insights that I feel relate to the state of modern men which includes Yanomamo’ desire for women, desire for honor and status, and their constant war that shapes their lives. Nevertheless, I think this is an interesting tribe that you may be keen to know more. Feel free to research on this and believe me you’ll be amazed.
