Materialist Cultural and Biological Theories on Why Yanomami Make War (original) (raw)
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History Explanation and War among the Yanomami a Response to Chagnons Noble Savages
Why do people make war? Is it in human nature? Publication of Napoleon Chagnon's Noble Savages resurrects old arguments, largely displaced in recent times by study of larger scale political violence, and sidelined by more contemporary theoretical currents. This shift ceded the human nature issue to a variety of biologistic approaches, for which Chagnon's image of the Orinoco-Mavaca Yanomamo is foundational. Chagnon proposes that war is driven by reproductive competition, with men fighting over women, revenge, and status, among a 'Stone Age' people living as they had for countless generations, in a tribal world untouched by larger history or the world system. This paper challenges each of those claims, and offers alternatives that provide a very different view of Yanomami warfare, and why men fight wars.
The Proximate Causes of Waorani Warfare
Human Nature, 2019
In response to recent work on the nature of human aggression, and to shed light on the proximate, as opposed to ultimate, causes of tribal warfare, we present a record of events leading to a fatal Waorani raid on a family from another tribe, followed by a detailed first-person observation of the behavior of the raiders as they prepared themselves for war, and upon their return. We contrast this attack with other Waorani aggressions and speculate on evidence regarding their hormonal underpinnings. Onthe-ground ethnographic observations are examined in light of the neuroendocrinological literature. The evidence suggests a chain of causality in launching lethal violence, beginning with a perceived injury, culminating in a massacre, and terminating in rejoicing. Although no blood or saliva samples were taken at the time of this raid, the behaviors were consistent with a deliberate initiation of the hormonal cascade characterizing the "fight-or-flight" response, along with other hormonal changes. We conclude with observations on the stratified interrelationships of the cognitive, social, emotional, and neuroendocrinological causes of aggression leading to coalitional male homicide.
In 1968, Napoleon Chagnon published his best-selling ethnography The Fierce People , which established the Yanomami as a violent people in the public eye for decades to come. Indeed, in 1976, Time described the Yanomami as a " rather horrifying " culture which can only be described in terms of animal behaviour akin to baboons [Time 1976: 37], and over the coming decades, horror films like Canibal Holocausto would continue to fuel public imagination, declaring the Yanomami people as lovers of sadistic orgies [Ramos 1987: 296]. These examples mark but fragments in a convoluted puzzle, and at its centre lies one of anthropology's most divisive debates, the Fierce People controversy. The controversy began with Chagnon's book, and later with his infamous Science article, where he presented the argument that the Yanomami who kill the most do so out of evolutionary reasons to gain reproductive advantage. The arguments of this debate extend beyond the Yanomami, to general treatment of Amerindian groups and the public's interpretation of their " violent " behaviour.
Anthropology, archaeology, and the origin of warfare
World Archaeology, 2003
The main theories of the origin of warfare -from evolutionary psychology, materialism, and historical contingency -are examined. Their implications and their use of anthropological evidence, especially for the Yanomamö of the Amazon, are explored, then their relationship to the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeological record. The early prehistoric evidence for conflict and warfare, mainly from Europe, is considered, from individual injuries, mostly from club wounds to the skull and death by arrowshot, to mass killings which could have destroyed a group. The enormous regional variation in this evidence is set against universal theories which imply uniformity and are thus found wanting.
Early contacts with Yanomami: an ignored and little appreciated history of ethnographic reports
Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia, 2023
In 1968, Napoleon Chagnon published his influential book Yanomamö: The Fierce People. Later, this book and Chagnon's other publications were widely criticized. However, even his critics frequently describe Chagnon's research as the first serious anthropological study of these Amazon rainforest people. This categorization, even if it is almost universally repeated up until this day, is far from reality. A vast and highly significant amount of information was already gathered and published on Yanomami before Chagnon even thought about starting his field research. Yet, these publications remain largely unknown, ignored, dismissed or underappreciated, perhaps partly because most were not in English. Here we review articles, scientific papers and books published before 1968, a literature essential for understanding the torturous path of anthropological studies portraying the Yanomami and reassessing Chagnon's place in the history of Anthropology.