The Yanomamo-Power

an all male section of Yanomamo society that have achieved status through training

Role:

-healing and health specialists

-participants in spiritual warfare

they also have prestige as being a shaman will carry social weight

-once they have reached adolescence

-made a personal commitment to the path and started fasting

- they have a shaman mentor

first ritual: first dose of ebene (highly hallucinogenic substance)

-abstain from sexual activity at all times

-must fast completely, eating only the bare minimum to survive

-how to survive ebene

-how to make and collect ebene

-how to prepare and take ebene

-made from tree frog poison and pulp of tree bark they are boiled off together in water which leaves a powder residue which can be snorted

-can cause instant v* or nasal discharge, you can also die from an overdose of ebene

-the nature of the spirit world

-how to spot hekura spirits

-how to attract hekura spirits

small shining spirits that are not manifested in other animals. most are wild, some are dangerous, they all can be tamed.

(to see hekura you must be on a lot of ebene)

in order to find hekura, you must know the songs and mannerisms that they like, a hekura tat chooses you will sleep in your chest

hekura will set up residence within a shaman’s chest and they can:

-climb into a sick persons body and heal them of illness

-climb into a well persons body and make them ill

-fight other hekura

all of Yanomamo society is divided between 2 moieties, each moiety has a roughly even split in each country area and shabono

---moieties considered to be your wider kin group in which you cannot marry into

each village has a big man or big men of one or both moieties called a chief

--chief’s have achieved status through force of will, violence and leadership

the Yanomamo practice ‘patronymic naming‘→ in which everyone is named after the chief of their family

-cannot get married from within the same moiety

-decent through the male/fathers line

big men of opposing moieties are most likely your perfect allies and often build an alliance. They can offer:

→safety (as they aren’t a threat) and military support

→ hekura assistance

→ promises of marriage of their daughters to the ally or the ally’s son

patrilineal exogamy means that all men from the same moiety can theoretically steal your wives:

→ close kin rarely do this it is mostly intra moiety big men from other shabono’s that are your biggest threat **they may even be willing to kill you for your wives

-due to the existence of moieties and patrilineal exogamy, there is a pressure to marry outside of your close kin

-however, the benefit of having a tightly knit shabono means there is pressure to marry someone who has become your kin

**the ideal marriage is cross cousin marriage

Marriage is not punctuated by a formal ceremony

—>A girl may marry as soon as she has started menstruating but has usually been betrothed beforehand

—> A man may be betrothed from any age but it is unheard of them to be betrothed pre-puberty

To be officially married a woman just needs to perform daily tasks for a man and to live in his section of their shabono. She must….

-anticipate the needs of her husband

-collect firewood and water everyday

-gather and prepare an evening meal everyday

-be involved in the childrearing of her own or her sister-wives children

Men must:

→ protect their wives from abduction, though this is likely out of self interest

→ Men must hunt for their wives and their wives’ parents

Patronymy indicates both marriage and possesion

-’Kaobawa’s Wife’ is both a status of marriage and possession

-a chest pounding duel

—> these fights can sometimes escalate to side slapping or worst case scenario, a club fight

-the 2 maen square up to each other and wait for observers to arrive

-they will vocally shout their issue and threaten each other

-One man will take the defensive stance and encourage the other to hit him

-the attacker takes up to 4 blows to the chest, yje recipient then returns the same number

1. Participant is knocked to the ground

2. One of the participants might retire or back out - this determines their win or defeat/prestige or shame

after chest pounding and side slapping, fights can esculate to a club fight, in which the offender hits their opponent upon their head with a stick of bamboo

-Malinowski: all societies need order. Some societies don’t have written laws but they must have order to prevent anomie

-Parsons(Strain Theory):People break laws when they are under strain. Strain→ Crime. In Yanomamo society most people go along with the chief unless they are under strain

-Cohen(Status Frustration Theory): Status Frustration leads to crime/deviance

Sylvia Walby and the 6 pillars of patriachy:

-One pillar is vilence, which is the way men maintain control

-Karl Marx,-all forms of law are a repressive state apparatus designed to oppress the poor