Ya̦nomamö: The Fierce People

A textbook written by an anthropologist who lived among the Yanomamo peoples off and on for decades. It has become controversial because of his views, and because he advocated protecting the people from the missionaries, government and gold miners. It was engaging in some parts when telling to the people, how they survived and their customs. Other parts were skimmable for a person like myself who has only a general and mild interest.

As a true classic in the literature of cultural anthropology "Yanomamo" was as influential as Margaret Mead's "Coming of Age in Samoa" in the way that it brought a rather foreign culture to a wide Western audience. As with Mead though there are lingering questions about the author and his relationship to his subjects. Aside from these this book is one of the few that gives a glimpse of a group of Amazonian natives who, at the time of it's writing, had very little contact with outsiders. The ceremonies and lifestyle presented are perhaps as foreign as ever to those in the "civilized" world as our technologically saturated society continues to remove us from meaningful interactions with the natural world. While the people profiled in this show more book are considered "primitive" and still close to the stone age by the author may actually be survivors from a greater civilization, which collapsed, that once flourished in the Amazon basin and whose archaeological remains are just now being found. This new information was unavailable to Chagnon and led to his belief that they were analogous to stone age people and had survived unchanged while the rest of the world advanced around them. If you have an interest in tribal societies or Amazonia this short book may pique your interest to pursue this fascinating group of people though works by other scholars. This tribe's name is alternately spelled Yanomami. show less

Note that this is apparently a reprint of a book from the 1960s. The author has since been discredited. I studied this for an anthropology class.

Anthropology

anthropology, fieldwork
"The Fierce People"