Doing Fieldwork Among the Yanomam

                                                          This is a picture of the Yanomamo tribe
Info on Yanomamo tribe

This article talks about the Yanomamo people, and their culture. A anthropologist talks about his life with these people and how they interact. We have been looking at diffrent cultures this week, and this article shows a very intresting perspective from one persons point of view. It's amazing how things change from diferent perspectives. We look at something as strange and sick only to realize that it is very similar to our own culture. When we were talking about the Nacerina and Rac tribes, I thought that many of their practices were absurd and strange. When we looked back at it in a cultural relitivistic point of view, I realized that their traditions are very similar to ours. When I found our that the Rac kills thousands of people a year and costs a lot of money to maintain, I thought the Asu people were absurd, but those traits are almost identical to our car, and yet almost every American has a car. When the women of the Nacermia put their heads in a oven for an hour, I believed they were crazy, but then we talked about how it is similar to tanning beds.
         Unlike our perspective in class, the anthropologist in this article looked at the tribe from a Ethnocentric perspective. In class we talked about how this perspective looks at other cultures from our point of view and judges them based on our norms. The anthropoligist states "I saw a dozen naked, filthy, hideous men staring at us." this quote shows that he believes these people are filthy and hideous according to him, but they might be clean and handsome to this tribe. These people have many of the same values as Americans. They value Activity, Work, Freedom, and efficency like the American people. I related their scattered villages to our Citys. They used tobacco juice as soap. They expected to be paid back later for food. Like when some people don't have money for something we might loan them some expecting to be paid back later, banks expect intrest for lending money and the Yanomamo expect intrest for their food. Their people are similar to bullies. They keep intimidating you and take your things until you confront them. The anthropologist states "They could bully me into giving goods away."
   Their are also several diffrences between our cultures. The tribe thinks it is acceptable to have mucus coming out of their noses, while we think that is "gross." It is acceptable for them to take hallucinogenic drugs while that is a crime in the U.S. They expect food when they go to someone else's tent, while in America we do not expect food from everyone we meet. Women are objects to the Yanomamo people where in the U.S. they are equals to men. They are allowed to be beaten and a man may have many wives. Here, none of these traits are acceptable. This tribe does not talk about the dead, where in America we hire people to talk to us about our loved ones who have passed. One of the tribal men says "If you ever say that name again, I will kill you." When reffering to a loved one. This shows that talking about the deceased is not acceptable. In this tribe, the men are the dominant sex just like in the U.S. I wonder if any culture has the female as the dominant sex?
          This article is also similar to an optical illusion. When you look at something one way, it seems different than another way. There are many angles at which to look at something, and each one shows a alternate result. A picture may look like a cave one second, and then a person the next. The Yanomamo may look like crazy people, but looking at things from a larger point of view shows us that they are very similar to other cultures. Recently, several scientists have talked about reclassifying Pluto as a planet after it was determined that it was not a few years ago. When I thought about it at first, I thought of course it is not a planet. It is much smaller than the other planets, and does not have rocklike particles like the others. When I looked at it again, I realized it was very similar to earth and other planets because it rotates on an axis, orbits the sun, has a thin atmosphere, and is solid. The similarities far outnumber the diffrences.