The Yanomami: A History of De-Indigenization Social Research Paper

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The Yanomami: A History of De-Indigenization
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The Yanomami: A History of De-Indigenization
1. Introduction
For decades, indigenous peoples and lands have raised several controversies about human and land rights. The Americas and Australia, in New World, Africa and Asia, in Old World, are a case in point. The colonizer, typically a European – Portuguese, Spanish, British, French, German and Dutch – settled in a “new land” already inhabited by indigenous populations. The colonization and settlement process was not, in fact, peaceful and often involved wiping out entire local populations for different political, economic and cultural factors. Politically, Europe’s emergence as world’s preeminent continent around late 1400s gave rise to several maritime, commercial and military expeditions. Economically, discovering new and unlimited sources of income regions European powers embarked on a centuries-long economic competition over human and natural resources in newfound New World. Culturally, European powers clashed – often violently – with indigenous populations only to result in extinction or near extinction of whole communities under one common banner of modernization. The intrusion by European powers into indigenous lands and capturing many in slavery is an all too common story. Today, eliminating indigenous ways of lives continues albeit in subtler and systematic ways. Specifically, land use commercialization and unsustainable development of remote, indigenous areas has made de-indigenization of local habits, ways of life and lands a new form of colonization albeit under new economic development banners. The Yanomami, an indigenous group currently inhabiting a region between Brazil and Venezuela, has been experiencing for long decades a similar pattern. To better understand how colonization, in old and new forms, has had an impact on The Yanomami, a closely examination is required.
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Specifically, colonization, particularly settlement and economic activities, are explored to examine a possible enduring negative influence of centuries-old colonization of The Yanomami’s lands and, more importantly, ways of life. Informed by a four directional model addressing spiritual, emotional, physical and intellectual aspects, current report aims to discuss colonization’s contribution to de-indigenize The Yanomami’s ways of local life and lands and offer, hopefully, ways to reverse centuries-old practices.
2. The Yanomami: The State of Past and Present Intrusions
The Yanomami lives in an area of over 9.6 million hectares in Brazil and 8.2 million hectare Alto Orinoco in Venezuela (“The Yanomami,” n.d.). The Yanomami, just as all indigenous communities, used to sustain a unique way of life completely isolate from modern civilization only to experience dramatic change upon first modern contact. In 1940s, a combination of Brazilian government’s intrusions (due to border issues with Venezuela), involvement of Indian Projection Service and activities of missionary groups has started a chain-reaction-series of events leading up to a historic loss of The Yanomami’s spiritual, emotional, physical and intellectual ways of life. Three decades later, i.e. in 1970s, economic development plans, initiated by an undemocratic government in a form of an inroad penetrating The Yanomami’s, started in earnest and resulted in wiping out Opiktheri community in addition to enduring impact of disease and alcohol spread. In more recent years, cattle ranching is a new “economic development” project claiming more Yanomami land and, in process, rapidly changing demographics brought about by increasing contact and loss of self-autonomy (Dycus, 2017). Then again, The Yanomami’s declining fortune has been accentuated by a gold rush not so dissimilar to California's Gold Rush. In late 1970s and early 1980s, an influx of garimpeiros,
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small independent gold miners, poured into The Yanomami’s lands. In seven years, almost 20% of The Yanomamis died due to genocide, violence and diseases and, after long international campaigning led by Davi Kopenawa Yanomami (a local leader), Survival International (a pro-Yanomami NGO) and CCPY (Pro-Yanomami Commission) a complete elimination of The Yanomamis would have been possible. In response, The Yanomami communities have set up in recent years a number of organizations to push back against growing intrusions – and, by extension, de-indigenization of – Yanomami’s ways of life and lands including, most notably, Hutukara in Brazil and Horonami in Venezuela (“The Yanomami”).
3. The Medicine Wheel: A Four Dimensional Model of Native Indians
The indigenous way of life is unique everywhere. The Yanomami are not different. Leading certain ways of life for millennia, The Yanomami have established habits, living conditions and styles, rituals and rites of passage unique only to The Yanomami members. The Medical Wheel Model – made up of four main components – is a generic metaphor of a majority of Native Indians in The Americas. Including four components, varying according to color and content, The Medical Wheel Model offers a holistic worldview defining indigenous communities in The Americas. The spiritual, emotional, physical and intellectual components are, for current purposes, of primary interest.
Spiritually, The Yanomami has a fundamental belief in every creature’s animated nature. The shamans, spiritual practitioners, can, for instance, detect xapiripë, or spirits, believed to reside in each creature’s body (“The Yanomami”). In so doing, The Yanomami have developed a unique spiritual worldview accessible only to community members, particularly shamans.
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Emotionally, The Yanomami, hunters-gatherers, have developed a social life unique to survival and day-to-day activities practiced by community members. Spending only around four hours a day on essential work activities, The Yanomami have much more space for leisure and social life including inter-community visits, peach palm fruit harvesting events, and reahu (funeral feast) (“The Yanomami”).
Physically, The Yanomami are engaged in a wide range of physically activities for work and leisure purposes. Tapping into a vast botanical knowledge, for instance, The Yanomami use timbó, or poison fish, in communal fishing trips. The Yanomami, as hunters-gatherers, hunt for game (e.g. peccary, tapir, deer and monkey) and engage in setting up malocas, circular, communal homes housing up to 400 people (“The Yanomami”). Traditionally, The Yanomami use bows and arrows to hunt for games, particularly monkeys. This indigenous practice is now increasingly disrupted by growing use of firearms , a disruption resulting in unsustainable hunting, not to mention intrusions and disruptions of indigenous ways of hunting – and living communally (Boubli et al., 2020).
Intellectually, The Yanomami believe in equality for all. Unlike many Native Indian communities, The Yanomami do not have a chief. Instead, The Yanomami make decisions by consensus and after long debates (“The Yanomami”). This makes The Yanomami’s intellectual – and, by extension, way of – life egalitarian, or democratic, in nature and, as such, hierarchies play little, if any, role in The Yanomami’s way of life.
The growing shift to redesign school curricula for indigenous students according to a circular framework s, accordingly, unsurprising. Given indigenous worldview, as exhibited in ...