Yanomamo Chief Selling Baskets / Yanomamo female loin cloth
In my last blog I talked about this article, "Doing Fieldwork Among the Yanomamo." I talked about how the Yano would beg Chagnon for food when he was eating, and if he wouldn't give them none they would start to tell him disturbing things and harrassing him basically. The reason I feel they did this was because in their tribe they share with eachother. When someone is eating they are expected to give to everyone, and if they don't it's disrespectful in their culture. Also, when he wouldn't give them what they wanted they would steal from him. Eventually, Chagnon became interested in the Yano's genealogies. When he started asking about people's ancestors it took the Yanos by surprise, and they found it rude for him to ask about the dead. So, they would trick him and tell him fake names, and then laugh because he would believe them. The thing about the Yanos is that they never give one name to mutiple people. Everyone has their own name and nobody else can have it. After so long some began giving him a couple names, but not too many were he could figure out the rest on his own. One day there was a club fight over possession of a woman who was suppose to be getting married to a man named Rerebawa. He had been married into the Yano's and was now engaged with the younger sister of his wife. So, this says that this tribe can have many wifes and it's normal to them. When Chagnon heard Rerebawa call the man he was in a fight with by his dead father's name he took action. Since Rerebawa was angry with the whole group he began giving Chagnon names, and even looked over the names he was given in the past and told him they were fake and that the people in the village laughed at Chagnon about the fake names. When he started saying the names to other people they would get mad and he knew then that they were real names. Some people even started giving real names in exchange for goods or products such as a man named Kaobawa. Kaobawa had 5 to 6 wifes and was having affairs with many other women. His eldest wife, Bahimi, was pregnant when Chagnon started is fieldwork, but she killed the child because she didn't want her nursing son to have to compete against the new baby. Also, Kaobawa would beat his wife once in awhile, and nevery hard but to the Yanos this was typical standards. People from other villages and tribes would raid one another and kill women.
My Opinion:
After reading this article I see now that the Yanomamos have a very different way of living than Americans, but there is also similiarties between us. The Yano people value sharing and exchanging. Also, I feel that the Yanos would get upset when Chagnon would ask about ancestors, because they wouldn't want to remember. One thing in particular I found interesting about the Yanos was that they wouldn't give anybody the same name, that part is very different from Americans. People in our society give their children names from the decieced people in their families or they give them part of their own names. We find this being a good thing because it shows that we're not forgetting our dead, and also we value certain names and pass them down from generation to generation. I was giving the middle name Maxine, and that comes from my grandmother. So, it's very special to me. The Yanos most likely find it disrespectful to name someone after someone else. Also, the Yanos are allowed more than one wife and it's ok to them to do that. For me and in our culture that is wrong and illegal to have multiple wifes. It's even wrong to have affairs with other women/men. Another thing is that it was ok for the Yano to beat their women, and here people would go to jail. When other people would enter their village and do bad things they call it raids, but in our society thats basically like gangs. Furthermore, the Yanos have certain values that they have and follow that are very different from ours, but at the end of the day we have two different cultures and if they were to observe us they would find us weird as we see them.
Using Hallucinogenic Yopo
