Yanomamö Territory

The Yanomamö, also known as the Yanomamö Indians, are a population of native people in South America. They are located in the Amazon rainforest, they reside among the mountain lines along the border between Brazil and Venezuela. Due to the remoteness of their territory, the Yanomamö Tribe has remained not contacted by the modern world until the beginning of the twentieth century, therefore this allowed many of their religion believes or common practices not be influenced by the modern world.

Above is the territory of the Yanomamö, as you can see, they are located in different terrain. Therefore, different Yanomamö must eat different goods, for example a tribe living near a stream would eat fish. However, if a village is located deep in the forest it would eat bananas and vegetable. The stars on the map repersent the village locations.

Yanomamö religion

The Yanomamö believe that the earth consists of four parallel planes or layers. The upper-most layer is empty but was once occupied by ancient beings that descended to lower layers. The second layer is the home of spirits of dead men and women, and it resembles the earth. Except the hunting is better, the food tastier, and the spirits of people are young and beautiful. The third layer is the earth, and below the earth is the fourth layer, or underworld. In the underworld lives the Amahi-teri, ancient spirits that bring harm to living humans. The Yanomamö have multiple souls that exist in a complex relation to one another.

All shamans, the priest of the village, can use demons over which they have personal control to cure or cause illnesses. Catholic missionaries have been in steady contact with the Yanomamö since the late 1950s but have had very little success.

The Yanomamö smoke a hallucinogenic drug called Yopo. Yopo is made by grinding several natural roots and vines that are gathered in the rainforest. Smoking the drug is very painful, causing blinding pains in the head and nausea. After they have achieved a trance state, they communicate with the spirit world and relate what they are seeing with chanting and dancing. The Yopo is taken by being forcibly blown into the nasal cavities by another person by means of a long pipe like object.

Above is a picture of a Shaman of a village, they are recognised by the make-up put on their face.

Yanomamö language

The Yanomamö language has many four different dialects, and has no writing system. In rare occasions, people from different Yanomamö tribes cannot understand each other. The four dialects of the Yanomamö language are Parima, Padamo-Orinoco Kobali and Waika. The Kobali dialect is the most commonly used dialect in the Yanomamö tribe, it is also used in forest hunters and other tribes that reside in that area. However, the origin of the language remains unknown. It should be noted that "Yanomamö" is not what the Yanomamö call themselves, but is rather a word in their language meaning "man".

Yanomamö "Cannibalism"

The Yanomamö are historically a tribe of "endocannibals", which means that they eat their own people. This rare form of cannibalism usually only occurs after death. This is a custom which the Yanomamö believed in. The body of the deceased is set afire in a remote region away from the village, and then the remaining bones and ash are turned into a fine powder which is mixed into a beverage. The beverage is then consumed by the deceased person's relatives. This "drinking of the dead" is thought to be the way for the deceased's soul to enter the body of their living descendants, thus providing spiritual and physical strength to combat the evils of the jungle.

Although the Yanomamö are known as endocannibals, they are aggressive and a violent clan. Anyone considered as being "other" than the tribe, is considered to be subhuman. Inorder to not take the risk of being invaded by other tribes, Yanomamö will do anything including kidnapping, rapping, killing and abusing.

The Yanomamö live in small bands or tribes and live in round communal huts called shabonos, which are actually made up of individual living quarters. Clothes are minimal, and much of their daily life revolves around gardening, hunting, making crafts and visiting with one another. These small tribes hold their men in high ranks. Chiefs are always men who are held responsible for the general knowledge and safety of the group’s women.

Yanomamö choice of weapons

The weapons of choice for the Yanomamö are the machete, axe, and bows and arrows with curare-poisoned "husu namo" points. The point has one-inch intervals where they are rather purposely weakened, giving the arrows the ability to break off into the body of the victim, enabling the poison to be absorbed and making it extremely difficult to remove.

The Yanomamö as well as other Indian tribes in the Amazon Basin hunt with bows and arrows or blow guns. The blowguns of the Amazon tribes are all made in a similar way. A piece of cane is used to fashion the shaft as it must be long and straight. Often a thinner pieces of cane is fitted inside a larger piece. A mouthpiece is cut or carved from wood. The darts are made from sharpened fibers and balanced on the end with either cotton, which they grow in the villages, or the fiber of the kapok tree. They often use poison from the poison dart frog to dip the ends of the darts in. They stroke the sides of the frog causing it to excrete the poison, sand then boil it down to intensify it. Blowguns are amazingly accurate.

Although the darts seem fragile, they can easily piece a tree, and when used with the poison can bring down the largest game. The darts are carried in a quiver. These are often made from a section of bamboo. The top of the quiver can be made from animal hide or may be woven into a basket shape. The quiver can be entirely woven like a basket or even made from leaves. Some tribes such as the Guahibo decorate the shafts of the blowguns with woven fibers. The bows and arrows of the Amazon tribes are all made in a similar way. A flexible piece of wood fashions the bow and is strung with a hand spun fiber found in the rain forest. The arrows are made with a piece of cane for the shaft and are fletched with feathers. Yanomamö arrowheads are carved with wood sharpened twigs or the bones of animals, birds, or fish, while other tribes, such as the Guahibo, often use scrap metal to fashion their points. Young boys begin at an early age to practice archery skills, often with a lizard tied to a string.

Above are weapons used by the Yanomamö for both hunting and war. However, in war they would put poison at the tips of the arrows and spears to make it almost fatal to the enemy.

The Problems they face today

During the 1980s, the Yanomamö suffered immensely when 40,000 Brazilian gold-miners invaded their land. The miners shot them, destroyed many villages, and exposed them to diseases to which they had no immunity. Twenty percent of the Yanomamö died in just seven years.

In 1993, a group of five miners entered the village of Haximú and murdered 16 Yanomamö including a baby. After a national and international outcry a Brazilian court found five miners guilty of genocide. Two are serving jail sentences whilst the others escaped. This is one of the rare cases in the world where a court has convicted people of genocide.To make things even worse, the Brazilian army has built barracks in the Yanomamö lands, which has increased tensions. Soldiers have raped many Yanomamö women and girls, some of whom have been infected with sexually transmitted diseases.

Many of the Yanomamö in the modern days die from diseases such as a simple cold, because the tribe is not modern enough to manke vaccines for the disease. Many women and girls have also died from AIDS by the Brazilian Soldiers.

Above is a Yanomamö worrior ready for war with the gold-miners, however, as you can see from their clothing and weapons, they are much behind the modern weapons