Yanomami Tribe

The Yanomami tribe lived in harmony with  their environment in the Rainforest of the Amazon. The discovery of Gold, however, has dramatically affected their environment, therefore changing their lives forever.


Yanomami using a knife


The land occupied by the Yanomami has been ruined by gold miners, looking for gold. Miners have used high powered jets and mercury which has degraded the soil and poisoned the river. Eroded soil has destroyed Yanomami crops and poisoned water has defleted their main food supplies. Thus, the Yanomami's land has been ruined by the miners.

Yanomami boy in Hospital

Miners have introduced new diseases for which the Yanomami have no immunity. Nearly 1/2 of the Yanomami population has died out from disease since miners came into the area. Hospitals have now been built to treat sick tribe members which was not needed before. Therefore the Yanomami have suffered since mining has occurred.

Miner panning for Gold

Exposure to city people has given the Yanomami access to modern tools and technology. The Yanomami have began to use tools such as knives, and some Yanomami have also started to wear more clothing. Their tools mean that their stone- age lifestyle has been changed forever. Thus, exposure to new technology has cahanged their lifestyle forever.

Overall, the Yanomami Tribe has been affected dramatically by the interaction with the outside world. Ever since gold was found in the area of the Yanomami, there land has been ruined by all of the pollution, diseases and mercury bought in by the miners. Their land will never get rid of all of the diseases, mercury and other poisonous materials that has now infested their area.

Gold Bullion and Coins

Yanomamo/i Changes Prior and After influenced by the outside World

Has the Yanomami environment been dramatically affected by the influence of the outside World?

Prior to contact:

• Dense Jungle;
• Tropical Rainforest - the Amazon Rainforest;
• Stone age life - simple lifestyle;
• Forest is there enormous supermarket. Main food source;
• Work for 4 hours a day;
• Use stone tools;
• Live in large houses called Shabonos or Molacha ;
• They were 10m high and had 20-25 families living in it;
• Were hand made and had no walls;
• Every family has their area to light fires and do other things;
• Gardens were grown for food, especially bananas;
• Gardening was done by hands;
• Most of the day is spent by socializing and story telling;
• They cultivate the land with crops;
• All tools are made of stone;
• Have no machines and even the most basic one, the wheel;
•  Decorate their faces every morning with natural paint from plants and rocks;
•  Their land is full of precious metal;
• Children learn life skills by their parents and relatives eg. hunting  and fishing.

After contact with the outside World:

• Villagers were gunned down by men hunting for Gold;
• Miners brought metal knives and tools with them;
• Safety was diminished for the Yanomami people;
• People began finding Gold within the area of the Tribe;
• Miners have wounded the forest floor with water jets at high pressure which caused erosion and pollution;
• Miners used mercury, which polluted the rivers that killed the sea creatures, diminishing the food source for the Yanomami;
• They began becoming ill due to diseases, and mercury bought by the miners;
• Nearly half of the population of the Yanomamo has been wiped out;
• Miners have killed animals and polluted the water;
• Privacy was invaded and people feel threatened;
• All food source is slowly wiping out;
• Medicine from the UK and Brazil has arrived to help the Yanomami. Doctors have been bought into the Yanomami land to help them;
• The Government has made the Yanomami land a National Park, which has caused miners to leave the site;
• Increased Government Interest;



Shabono

• They are still endangered due to resources. Life with never- change- diseases, mercury- poison and pollution.

Mercury

The Yanomami tribe has been dramatically affected by the influence of the outside world due to the fact the when gold was found within their environment a gold rush began and had affected the tribe in many ways. Gold miners used mercury to find gold which has completely polluted the land with poisonous metals and fumes. Rivers were being polluted which  made the Yanomami people severely ill and nearly half of the population to died out. Mercury has polluted the rivers which has killed off all of the fish supply and also killed animals. People feel threatened and safety of the Yanomami has diminished dramatically. Children and adults are dying due to the diseases brought by the miners. They are eroding the land with a jet powered hose, used for finding buried and alluvial gold. Overall, life will never change for the Yanomami people as diseases, mercury and pollution has  intoxicated the land of the Yanomami. 

Leaders or Groups that have caused Change

A leader that caused change in the lifestyle of The Yanomami Community is Collor de Mello, the president of Brazil. He opened a National Park founded by Survival National to help the Yanomamo People to grow and develop into a strong community.  A group called the garempeiros began mining for Gold in the area of were the Yanomao Community lived, This caused MASSIVE distraction and also resulted in conflict and even death over land. 

 A Garempeiro man searching for Gold

Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ya%CC%A7nomam%C3%B6 16,17,18,19,20/ May/2011 Yanomamo Community
http://indian-cultures.com/Cultures/yanomamo.html 18/May/2011 Native American Culture
http://206.204.3.133/dir_nii/nii_dat_yanoma.html 17/May/2011 Yanomamo People
http://www.flickr.com/ 16,17,18,19,20/ May/2011 Yanomamo Community Pictures and Images, Tropical Grassland and Savannah Images.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/ 21, 22, 23/May/2011 Yanomammo People
Bliss, S and Paine, J (1998) Geo active 1 (second edition) John Wiely & Sons Australia, Ltd

Affects of Change in Community

The Yanomamo People did view any change in many ways. Violence  caused change in the population of the Yanomamo Community. Also increased tourism and other recreational activities to Velezuela, Brazil and The Amazon Rainforest has caused the community to move away from distraction and tourists. A goldmining boom brought thousands of miners to the Brazilian rainforest in the late 1980s. Large areas of rainforest, and the animals and birds that lived there, were destroyed. Rivers and streams were polluted by mercury,which was used to extract gold from the ore. Stagnant water collected in the holes left in the ground after mining, providing ideal breeding conditions for mosquitos and an increase in malaria. The miners also brought diseases. Many Yanomamo died. Armed clashes between miners and Indians occurred when it became clear that the very survival of the Yanomamo was threatened. Instead of expelling the miners, the Brazilian Government expelled the missionaries and health workers who were helping the Yanomami.


 During the boom in goldmining in the 1980s, the Yanomamo Indians could do very little but watch as their rainforest was turned into a hole in the ground. In 1992, the Brazilian Government  set aside land for the Yanomami but this has not stopped miners coming into Yanomami territory. Some politicians and business people are trying to reduce the Yanomami’s territory because they want access to its mineral deposits. This would lead to further devastation of the indigenous people and the rainforest. The Yanomami Indians in Venezuela lost parts of their forest when the government decided to create forest reserves, national parks and protected areas. Slash and burn farming, hunting and building houses were now prohibited in these areas. Today, Indian reserves have been set aside for the Indians. But mining, dam projects, cattle ranches and small farms are still taking their forests and their land.

Changes in the Community

Historically, more than a third of the Yanomamo males, on average, died from warfare. In the mid-1970s, garimpeiros (small independent gold-diggers) started to enter the Yanomamo country. When garimpeiros settled, they killed members of the Yanomamö tribe in conflict over land. In addition, mining techniques by the garempeiros led to environmental degradation. In 1990, more than 40,000 garimpeiros had entered the Yanomamö land. In 1992, the president of Brazil, Collor de Mello accepted the opening of a Yanomamo Park founded by Brazilian anthropologists and Survival International, a project that started in the early 1970s. Non-Yanomamo people continue to enter the land. The Brazilian and Venezuelan governments do not have adequate enforcement programs to prevent the entry of outsiders into this land.

Haximu Massacre

The Haximu Massacre (or Yanomami Massacre) was an armed conflict in 1993, just outside Haximu, Brazil, close to the border with Venezuela. Approximately 16 Yanomamö were killed by the garimpeiros.

 Collor de Mello

Yanomamo Children

Domestic Life and Life Style

The Yanomammo live in villages uasually constisting of their children and extented families. Villages sizes vary, but usually contain between 50 and 400 people. In a largely communial system, the entire vilage lives under a common roof called a shabono. They have a characterisic of an oval shape,  with open grounds in the center measuring an average of 100 yards.  They are built from jungles of leaves, vines and truncks, but they are susceptible to heavy damage from rains, winds and insect infestation. Vilagers build new shabonos every 1 - 2 years. The Yanomamo depend on the rainforest; they use slash and burn horticulture, grow bannanas, gather fruit and hunt animals and fish. The Yanomammo are known as hunters, fishers and hoticulturists. The women cultivate plants and cassava (a root vegetable) as their main crops. Men do the heavy work of cleaning the areas of forest for gadens.  Another food sorce for the Yanomammo tribe are grubs. Traditionally, they do not farm. Amazingly, they do not eat or add salt in their diet as it leads to blood pressure.


The Yanomamo celebrate a good harvest with a big feast to which nearby villages are invited. They gather huge amounts of food, which helps them to maintain a good reationship with other villages.


Language
There are many dialects of the language, such that people from different villages cannot always understand each other. Linguists ( a person who study language as a whole) believe that the Yanomammo language is unrelated to any other South American indigenous languages. The origins of the language are unknown.

Cassava



A Yanomammo Shabono





Yanomamo/i Community

One community that lives within the topical grasslands of Venezuela is the Yanomamo or Yanomami Community. They reside in the Amazon Rainforest in the hills that border between Brazil and Venezuela.

Yanomami Indian

Facts- Climate, Landforms and Figures

Andes Mountains

Angel Falls

The Average Temperature in Venezuela is 28 degrees Celsius or 82.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Venezuela consists of the Angel Falls, the world's highest waterfall, northern fringes of the Amazon Basin and the northeastern extension of the Andes Mountains. The annual rainfall in this environment is 430 mL while in the north-west, can reach up to 1000 mL. There is a 2, 800 km coastline to the north. The Caribbean Sea borders it to the east and the northern Atlantic Ocean borders it to the north. Pico Bolivar is the nation's highest peak : 4979 m tall.Venezuela is the world's 33rd largest country and has a total area of 916, 445 square kilometres and 882, 505 square kilometres of land only. The Capital city is Caracas. The official and spoken language is Spanish and the population is about 29, 105, 632.

Pico Bolivar

Environment: Tropical Grasslands or Savannas- Savanahs

The Location of this tropical Savannah is in Venezuela, which is located north of South America and the center of America as a continent. Venezuela borders Columbia to the west, Guyana to the east and Brazil to the South.A Grassland is an area of land which has been covered by very little shrubs or trees.