The Secret Life of Walter Mitty – the Yanomamo
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The Yanomamo is a huge population of people that dwell in South America. They reside in the Amazon rainforest, among the hills that line the border between Brazil and Venezuela. The Yanomamo live in almost complete seclusion in the Amazon rain forests of South America.
The Yanomamo lives in small tribes that build their own shelters called shabonos.. These shelters are built in a circular form around open ground and are makeup individual lining quarters. Shabonos built from raw materials from the surrounding jungles, such as leaves, vines and tree trunks. The Yanomamo language consists of a variety of dialect, but no real written language. Yanomamo means human being in their language.
The Yanomamo put their beliefs in a shaman or shamanism. A shaman is a “healer who gains his or her abilities through a relationship with the spiritual or supernatural world(Nowak, 2010)”. This tribe believed the shamans could channel between the human world and the spiritual world. The belief also allowed shamans to treat illnesses by treating the soul.
The Yanomamo wears the least amount of clothes, and much of their day to day life consists of tending to their gardens, hunting for game, gathering edible food and materials for making the essentials, making crafts, and visiting with one another. This small tribe of people holds their men in high regard. The tribe is led by chiefs. The chiefs are men that are responsible for the general knowledge, safety and well-being of the women. They also practice a loose form of polygamy. They can marry as many women as they can support. Marrying many women helps to increase the population of the tribe.
It is estimated that almost a third of the male population and a tenth of the female population cause of death is from ambushes and raids. A man in the Yanomamo tribe must be aggressive in their culture. The more combative and fearless he is, the more valued he is in the community. These attributes will also intimidate his enemies. When a Yanomamo man is in a duel, he is able to get rid of some pent up aggression while at the same time, resolve a conflict. Most of the conflicts are caused by a wifes infidelity, kidnapping, the failure to honor a girl promised for marriage, and rarely rape (Nowak, 2010).
While most of the characteristics of the Yanomamo sounds archaic, there quite a few similarities in todays society. For instance, every culture has its own language. These languages may not be formal but it is understood and sometimes called slang. Another similarity with this tribe and todays society is their religious belief s. The religion of voodoo is similar shamanism because it is also rooted in the belief of spiritual ancestor worship and healing. In my opinion, our beliefs and living practices are directly paralell to those of the Yanomamo just on different spectrums.