Power Seen in Yanomama Tribe

Humans have evolved to such great extents, and we have made many advances however as our primitive ape ancestors took the first steps to humanness, modern day Homo sapiens still hold on to some of their primitive traits; violence. With violence, comes murder and this is seen in all different races and cultures. Our Western culture primarily perceives violence as punishable by date (note that not all states have accepted the death penalty, only 34 states have), and our perspective can be seen in different cultures from the French, circa French Revolution, to the modern day Yanomamo. Violence is perceived the same way in all culture; bad, however the thing that differs is the punishment for the violence and the mechanisms behind it. When we look at the Yanomamo we see that they, along with our Western culture, believe that violence and murder is worthy of punishment, but what differs is how that punishment is dealt. Our Western culture primarily believes in the death penalty, and those that don’t, believe in life servitude in correctional facilities. The Yanomamo people treat individuals who have committed acts of violence with hostile intent, just as some American states wish to carry out the death penalty. However the main difference is that, where all of Western culture believes that whoever committed the crime should be the only one guilty and dealt the punishment, the Yanomamo culture believes that kin to the individual who committed the act of violence can be held accounted for and have their lives taken. Where we find the death penalty, or jail rightful, they find that murder for vengeance to be viable.

The murders for vengeance, or revenge killings, all starts out with an individual’s kin passing away, either by direct murder or by indirect methods such as sorcery of shaman. The individual, possessing primitive traits of aggression, contemplates on who is guilty of this death. Once that individual has someone in mind or knows exactly who did it, he seeks out for revenge and kills of that individual or group. However, these revenge killings are almost circular in nature, in that they will always come back to haunt the murder. The individual or group that the grieving Yanomamo killed off will have kin that will then seek vengeance and this process will continue until one or the other starts to back off, and accept the status of cowardice.

Those who commit these revenge killings go through a ritual known as a unokaimou and are then known as unokais, which is translated by Chagnon to “those who have killed.” You could imagine that in an environment where vengeance is a common act, building some sort of reputation could help you ward off future murders. Thus by gaining the title of unokais, you start to develop the reputation of someone who should not be taken so lightly. In addition to building a reputation to protect yourself, the title of unikais can help attract more women, by the means that unikais can offer protection, and thus increase the unikais reproductive success. However, to first develop this status of unikais one has to kill, and in the Yanomamo culture those who kill are destined to die by the grieving Yanomamo’s hand and the only question to ponder is when? Non-unikais have just as much advantage as unikais in that they are not faced with the great possibility of being vengefully killed, and thus can in turn have great reproductive success as well.

In actuality, there are some benefits of revenge killing seen by Chagnon in the Yanomamo tribe. Revenge killing has increased the closeness and size of kin. Kinship has been benefited from revenge killing by having more kin to be there for the grieving individual and support him in his turn to seek vengeance. The more kin they have in support for them, the more likely the revenge killing will take place. However, with so much of the Yanomamo marriages occurring within the family, the harder it is for the Yanomamo to decide whether the revenge killings to be carried out if there family was in another community and murdered. Thus their social and political structure is now affected as well. The Yanomamo have no systematic social or political structure, the closet they come to having some distinction in power is when an individual acquires the title unikais or the leader of a community, a patas. Marriage and reproduction is greatly affected by revenge killings, and by Chagnon’s observations, is governed by it. Those who acquire the unikais status, given to only those who have successfully carried out killing another for vengeance, are high prized by the women in the Yanomamo tribe, and are more sought out for than non unikais.

With steps towards humanness, we still held on to our primitive traits of violence. In our modern society killing another human being is one of the worst and frightening things a human is capable of. True, no one is born with the intention to kill, however sometimes people are put into situations where previous genetic and environmental effects have wired their brain to respond to this situation by murder, or in the case of the Yanomamo revenge killings. This is why we have laws for such acts. These laws do not only act as a deterrent to stop people from committing a murder but they also punish those who have somehow managed to bring themselves to commit such a crime.