Yanomamo

            The central theme of Napoleon Chagnon's ethnography "Yanomamo: The Fierce People" is embedded in the title of the book. The basic point that the author was trying to get across is violence or fierceness of this South American tribe. He claims that this is the way Yanomamo people see themselves and this is how they want to be percepted by others. Chagnon has a lot of evidence backed up with statistics to support his topic. However, I believe he had not kept in mind the consequences of this claims and descriptions. .
             The life of Yanomamo people is indeed filled with violence. Some thirty percent of men die violently and nearly half of the men who have reached the age of twenty-five have participated in a killing. They regularly beat their wives. It often happens; even they don't have any particular reason, simply to show her that they care for her. Newborn children are often cruelly murdered in gruesome ways such as choking a child with a stick, strangling it with a piece of vine or throwing it against a tree. The Yanomamo people habitually use hallucinogenic drugs and are all addicted to tobacco. All of this builds a picture of an evil, immoral, and hateful tribe.
             When describing a population in such manner there are certain consequences to consider. Politically, this gives a justification for foreigners to come in and distort the ways of life of the Yanomamo people for their pleasure or profit. Yanomamo people are simply "not worth consideration". Napoleon Chagnon spent a lot of time and paper criticizing the missionaries who come in and try to change the tribe's religious beliefs and often interfere with them militarily in ways such as selling them shotguns and powder. According to the missionaries the Yanomamo are supposed to use it for hunting, but in reality a great deal of time they are used in warfare, club fights, etc. The author also mentions tourists who disturb the Yanomamo people and pollute their environment.