Unokais

The Yanomamo believe that it is acceptable to murder another person out of revenge, if you have lost something and in killing another you will gain something. Much like an eye for an eye. In the Western culture the only reasons permitted to kill another is by self defense. The only accepted revenge killings in the Western culture, which is only accepted in some parts, is the death penalty.

If a member of your kin or village is murdered that person's body is burned and the ashes are consumed by the women. They do this to pump up the men to get them ready to avenge the death. However, sometimes the men of the village are so stricken by the death that they become cowards seeking refuge in neighboring villages where they take them in to take advantage of their women. If they do go on these revenge killings there is a small group of men that go, maybe 10 to 20. But they dwindle down as the men start to get nervous as they get closer to where they believe the target of their revenge killing is. They will travel a good 4 day walk to find their enemy, and once there they might not even kill the person they are looking for but the first man they see. They will only return home once the revenge killing is complete or if the enemy was not where they believed them to be.

There are benefits to becoming an unokais even though the risk of death is high. As an unokais you are more likely to have more women marry them and have more children than non-unokais. With this can develop a large kin making the villege grow. With survival of the fittest and the unokais reproducing more offspring to their likeness, that village should have more unokais. The village could grow and gain a substantial amount of power having numbers and fighters taking the control of the Yanomamo people. The revenge killings start with a death of a kin member, with such love and pride of their kin the unokais can protect their loved ones. being the strongest, largest village could prevent future revenge killings to be inflected on them. For the non-unokias they are less likely to see violence, however there is also a high amount of non-unokias that are murdered by violence. They have a less likely chance to find a mate because they do not go out on revenge killings and can't force or show off for the opposite sex. The benefits for the unokais greatly out weigh the non-unokais for this culture. Unokais are strong, brave, aggressive worriers that are idolized in their culture where the non-unokais would be equivalent to the skinny, nerdy guy living in his parents basement that never leaves due to agoraphobia.

The Yanomamo do not have a political structure like the Western culture, they are primitive without a written language. They do not have laws, or people to enforce these laws. They do have a structure which is basic, but necessary for people especially with numbers like theirs. They have 15,000 individuals living within 200 politically independent communities. The person in charge is called the "big one" they are the head of the largest descent group within the village. If there is another descent group the same size both heads will be cross married and be the leader. Most of the leaders are polygamist, but other members of the village can be polygamists. This insures many offspring and the continuation of the Yamomamo.

After reading about they glory given to the the unokais I can see how murder is outlawed. This revenge killing is such a horrible, perpetual cycle that never ends. But with all the murder and hate comes fame and glory to those that have the courage to go out and avenge the death. They get the women and opportunity to reproduce. Though people may by distinct nature not want to kill there are outside influences that change a person's mind, like a murder of a loved one and a culture that deems is acceptable to take revenge on that person.

Family

                Paulynn Annette is my mother’s name, the person I chose to interview. My mother was born and raised here in southern California. Later in life she moved up to northern California, but ended back here. My mother was raised by both parents, who are deaf. This makes my mother’s cultural background very interesting. She grew up in a more old fashion way. Her parents didn’t really belong to the deaf community and they were raised at the time where handicap was an embarrassment and hidden from the world. Therefore my grandparents never developed past what they were taught when they were younger. This pasted down to my mother, who raised her first children with old fashion beliefs. When she had her other son 15 years later she evolved to the southern California culture.

                My mother was very happy that I was coming over to hang out and work on homework. It took a while to get down to work because she wanted to chat, this set for a good mood, but when we got down to it and I explained the homework assignment she sighed. I knew that this was not going to be a fun topic to discuss since we do not talk about family, or to family for that matter. I briefly told her the rules, that I needed a family member that I talk to, that gives me maybe 5 family members. Then they have to be older, down to 2. They shouldn’t be siblings, that leaves my mother. She sighed deeply again. Knowing the awkward emotional issues that might come up, I shut off my emotions and turned into a robot like I always do when things get emotional. I think that this helped me to think more like an anthologist. I was able to keep an unbiased opinion, keep my personal thoughts, memories, out of the interview.  However, I was mostly uncomfortable throughout this interview. This is a highly taboo topic, not only because my mother doesn’t get along with most of her family, but also my mother and I really don’t get along either. I know I could have asked to have an alternate assignment but I really wanted to take this opportunity to learn about my family, at least on my mother’s side, and that is what I got. Plus it opened the door to many more conversations and my mother working on our family tree together. Even though I know my mother felt awkward and I was uncomfortable, over the years I have been able to hide it and I think we were able to get the best out of the interview. I do think that interviewing someone not in my family, without history, and without emotional connections, it would be a lot easier to interview as an anthropologist. I believe that it is the emotional connection is what makes it nearly impossible to have an unbiased opinion.

                My family is not close at all. I do not talk to any of my grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and even siblings. My family has taught me that you look out for yourself. Once you leave the home, it is your life and yours alone until you start your own family. There some exceptions, my mother is really close to her only sister. Other than that, there is little to no connection to our family. Reading on the family structures that exist was amazing and a little sad at the same time. I admire the different family structures, but I like my small individualistic family structure. There really is not an attitude difference between older and younger members of my family, the different is between genders. The females are expected to cook, clean, and take care of the men, while the men do whatever they want. It started with my great grandmother because that is how she was taught and it was passed down throughout the years, surprisingly through the females in the family. I have to admit being a part of the female sex in my family, I hate the sexism that goes on in my family and I am surprised that the females are the ones carrying on this behavior.

                I do not communicate or know my family members on either side, but my I am more familiar with my mother’s side as I do not talk to my father. I talk to my mother’s side of the family more because they are there and I talk to my mother more than my father. On my mother’s side her and her brother are the ones that call the shots. Her brother Ron is the oldest out of the 6 children my grandparents had. My mother is the 3^rd oldest but the oldest female. Whatever they decide goes, at least that is what I have seen through the one year I have attended the family reunion. Not only are they the oldest, but they have made the most for themselves. They are the two most independent, helping people. The other brothers and sisters are always in need of their assistance. All spouses brought into the family seem to be treated as outsiders. The original family is nice to them to their face and rag on them behind their back. No matter how long the marriage lasts they will always be an outsider never fully accepted. Honestly, I was hoping to learn a lot more than what I did learn. Most of this I have known for quite some time. The only fun part that I learned was that most of my great great grandparents are from Ireland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Spain.

               

Subsistence and Economy

Part 1

The benefits to being a Hunter Gatherers is that they have more time in a day because they are not preparing the ground to plant or tending their plants. They don't have to harvest them either, their food is already there ready to be harvested. If they want meat, they are not taming, protecting or feeding their soon to be dinner, they just go out and hunt the animals around their camp. There is prep time still to prepare their food but it is not as much as the farmers. Their food supply is vast since all they need to do is pick up and leave when the resources seem to be dwindling. There are also benefits for farmers too, they also can have a good food supply but they will have to work harder to start the process. Once they have their farm set up it will take a lot of hard work to do up keep on the farm to keep the plants and animals safe and happy. They had to learn to work with the land and environment they were living, as well as the plants and animals that they kept. They also learned to make tool and other things to help them with their duties. As they started to profit from their hard work they realized that they were provided with more than enough supplies that they could now use this fro trade. This started civilization, socialization, and trading.

There were also down sides to both the hunter gatherers and the farmers. The hunter gatherers didn't have a permanent home. They never were able to improve their living conditions better their homes do to constant moving. Moving around so much made it hard to store extra food they might come across or to carry it with them as they moved. They would have to move as soon as they saw the food supply running out. Constantly having to learn about new places, plants and animals. The farmers serious down side didn't happen until after their results started to show. All the food provided and all the people living closer to each other caused more sickness and new sickness into a group of people. There were people getting sick now that they were taking care of animals and living in such close proximity of them. Having so many people so close together started social issues. There is also a higher risk of famine if  all the people are expecting to live off one crop, that crop is of high importance and if wiped out my bad weather or something, many people can die.

I think that in the beginning of farming they were the least healthy out of the two life styles but as culture began to grow and people began to be exposed to all types of food that is when it became more healthy than hunter gatherers. Hunter gatherers were able to find plants and animals without issue and with a more relaxed life style. Of course there were issues when finding new food and the body not being able to digest the food properly, but over all their farm land was the world and they were out to find their next meal. However, as agriculture started to become the new way of life and population grew and so did trade, I think that so did the healthier diet. People can get foods that are healthier and not limited to what they grow or have in their local areas. 

I think that as the environment changed it forces people to change as well. As the weather started to get warmer it melted the ice causing the water level to raise. This also caused the land to be divided by water, leaving the people less land and stationary on their island. With all this change to the world the people had to find a new way to live. Being stationary and providing for more people help to grow a population making it harder to up and move. 

Part 2

The statement "there is a direct relationship between the availability of surplus and the ability to trade" which means you have to have the first in order to have the second. One farmers started to grow their crops and see that they had more than enough food for all they figured out that they had a surplus. If they let the surplus of food sit then the food would rot and go to waste. If they traded their surplus then they would be able to get other things that they needed. 

Two social benefits to trading is to see other cultures. With trade you are exposed to another way of life, another language, other beliefs. There is also the benefit to having other products that you were unable to have because of where you live and what you could do. This can mean more illness, but in the long run through the mix breeding and survival of the fittest the new generations will be evolved to stronger humans.

Two negative effects of social results from developing trade are new illnesses passed around to other people and traveling faster than it would otherwise. Trade helped population growth therefore causing more social issues between people. Also, causing leaders to emerge, concur and destroy other peoples. 

The development of agriculture and the development go hand in hand. Once the farmers were able to see this surplus of food they realized that they could prevent it going to waste and getting something out of it in return.