The origin of the Yanomami
The Yanomami are an indigenous people of South America of approximately 27,000 people.
They live on the Brazil-Venezuela border, near the Sierra Parima, where rivers originate that then flow into the Río Negro, in the Amazon basin and in the Venezuelan Orinoco.
The Yanomami who live in Brazilian territory are about 7,000. They were assigned a huge region of about 94,000 square kilometers. This last fact is strange: how is it possible that 7,000 people, who are even sedentary, need a territory as large as the entirety of Portugal?
The Yanomami live in oval-shaped villages called shabono, whose roof is communal. They practice subsistence agriculture, based mainly on cassava and banana crops, as well as hunting, fishing and harvesting jungle fruit.
The Yanomami's diet is particularly low in salt and their blood pressure is very low. For this reason, they were subjected to medical studies to try to understand if there is a relationship between hypertension and excessive salt consumption.
Some of them practice endocannibalism, or the habit of eating the cremated remains of their loved ones. The cremation ceremony of the deceased person is very complex, but the ultimate goal is to free the soul from the body so that it can live a peaceful spiritual life eternally. After having burned the body, the bones are crushed and then endocannibalism is carried out, or the ingestion of the ashes of the bones of deceased relatives. All of the dead person's personal belongings are also burned, because it is believed that they may harbor some evil spirits.
According to some linguists, the language of the Yanomami is part of the Macro-jê group, but according to other scholars, it is a completely different language, of which four dialects are part (Ianomans, Sanumá, Ianan and Ianomamo).
The fact that the Yanomami language has long been considered an isolated language led some anthropologists to define the Yanomami as a pure race, direct descendants of the Asians who arrived to the American continent through the Bering Strait about 14 millennia ago.
In my opinion, this thesis is wrong, both because the Yanomami historically invaded the lands of the Macu (also called Borowa) and mixed with women belonging to different tribes, and because some of them have green eyes and light skin, typical Caucasian features and therefore, the result of crossings with Europeans, most likely Spaniards who were looking for the mythical city of Manoa (or El Dorado), starting in 1540, or with other Caucasians who occasionally arrived in America.
If you look closely at the faces of the Yanomami, you can see, therefore, that their origin is mixed: mainly Asian, but also Negroid and Caucasian, as proven by the shape of the nose and the green eyes of some people.
In recent years there have been several disputes and controversies regarding the Yanomami indigenous people. In particular, in 2000, scientists Napoleon Chagnon and James Néel took blood samples from some indigenous people and sent them abroad without informing them that they would be kept indefinitely in those laboratories. This practice, contrary to Yanomami beliefs, which consider the conservation of blood or parts of the body of a deceased taboo, was denounced and the return of the blood obtained was requested, but to date nothing has been done to try to solve what happened.
The two scientists were also accused of having introduced viruses and bacteria (unconsciously) into Yanomami lands and of having indirectly facilitated the entry of garimpeiros (gold diggers) into the area.
The entry of approximately 40,000 garimpeiros since 1990 into the Yanomami indigenous territory is a serious problem. Indeed, the gold seekers are violent and determined in their objective, without caring about the environment and without respecting the lives of the indigenous people.
Others believe, however, that the demarcations of immense indigenous areas (much larger than what a small indigenous population could need) are very strange.
Not only the Yanomami indigenous area, but also other Amazonian indigenous areas, disproportionate to the small population of natives, closed to any journalist or external researcher, would, in this way, areas controlled not by the federal government but rather by external organizations. that they could carry out research of all kinds (mining, biodiversity, water exploitation), without external interference, always with the docile approval of naive and easily corruptible indigenous people.
YURI LEVERATTO
