Darkness in El Dorado [Illustrated] 9780393322750

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Graphs
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I Guns, Germs, and Anthropologists, 1964-1972
Chapter 1 Savage Encounters
Chapter 2 At Play
Chapter 3 The Napoleonic Wars
Chapter 4 Atomic Indians in the Field
Chapter 5 Outbreak
Chapter 6 Filming the Feast
Chapter 7 A Mythical Village
Part II In Their Own Image, 1972-1994
Chapter 8 Erotic Indians
Chapter 9 That Charlie
Chapter 10 To Murder and to Multiply
Chapter 11 A Kingdom of Their Own
Chapter 12 The Massacre at Haximu
Chapter 13 Warriors of the Amazon
Part III Ravages of El Dorado, 1996-1999
Chapter 14 Into the Vortex
Chapter 15 In Helenas Footsteps
Chapter 16 Gardens of Hunger, Dogs of War
Chapter 17 Machines That Make Black Magic
Chapter 18 Human Products and the Isotope Men
Appendix: Mortality at Yanomami Villages
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

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ISBN 0-393-04922-1

$27.95

USA

$39-99 Can.

One

of the most harrowing books about

anthropology to appear El

Dorado

in decades, darkness in

a brilliant work of investigation

is

that chronicles the history of

estern

EXPLOITATION OF THE YaNOMAMI NDIANS

AND THEIR Amazon homeland.

THEY WERE CONSIDERED and warlike of any

savage

TO BE THE MOST tribe alive. Secreted

in the impenetrable jungles

and highlands of

Venezuela and Brazil, they were thought to be the

last

"virgin" people, perhaps the final grail in a history of

exploration and discovery that had begun hundreds of years earlier with Columbus and Cortez.

When

the

Yanomami were

Napoleon Chagnon, Jacques

first

Lizot,

encountered by

and other preeminent

anthropologists in the 1960s, the "discovery" of their ferocious warfare and sexual competition revolutionized

modern anthropology

as

profoundly

as

cd

Franz Boaz and

Margaret Mead's findings had done nearly a half- century before. Their brutal wars and mating habits spawned

countless films and books, the most prominent being

Chagnon' s

which sold more than

The Fierce People,

a

million

copies and influenced the nascent field of sociobiology.

To Chagnon and the

Yanomami

his colleagues, the

frontier, their habitat the final place

last

could observe the behavior of

man

represented

where one

in a pristine setting

untouched by outside influence.

Now,

in a

work

that

complements Jared Diamond's

Guns, Germs, and Steel, Patrick Tierney refutes the

macho

theories and revolutionary claims of an entire era

of anthropology in an explosive account based on more than a decade of research.

He

demonstrates

researchers, as well as journalists

the travails of the Spanish five centuries

Dorado,

a

ago

as they

and

sought the illusory

city

of El

promised land already destroyed by their own

hypocrisy, distortions,

mitted in the

Tierney explores the

and humanitarian crimes com-

name of research, and

Yanomami's internecine warfare by the repeated "

these

echoed

and English explorers of

brutality. In painstaking detail,

"fierce

how

scientists,

visits

of outsiders

people whose existence

reveals

how

the

was, in fact, triggered

who went looking

lay

primarily in the

(continued on back flap)

for a

t/>

m^m

arKness in El

D

o rad

ALSO BY PATRICK TIERNEY The Highest Altar

^^^^~ Darkness in El

Dorado

How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon

Patrick Tierney

^ W. W. Norton & Company

'

New York

London

^1

—

RO BR

F2520.1 .Y3

T54 2000

Copyright

© 2000 by Patrick Tierney

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Edition

First

For information about permission to reproduce selections from write to Permissions,

& Company, Inc.,

W. W. Norton NewYork,

The

text

of this book

composed

is

in

500

this

Fifth

book,

Avenue,

NY 10110

Adobe Garamond

v/ith the display set in

Mrs. Eaves

& Sons Company

Composition by Allentown Digital Services Division of RR Donnelley Manufacturing by the Haddon Craftsmen,

Book

design by Chris

Inc.

Welch

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tierney, Patrick.

Darkness in El Dorado

:

how scientists and journalists p.

devastated the

Amazon.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-393-04922-1 1.

Yanomamo

Indians

—Crimes

against. 2.

Yanomamo

—^Amazon River Region.

Indians, Treatment of 5.

—Amazon

Gold mines and mining

Amazon

4.

A.,

1938

Social conditions. 3.

River Region. 6. Anthropological ethics

River Region. 7. Chagnon, Napoleon A., 1938

Napoleon

— —^Amazon River Region.

Indians

Genocide

— PubHc

opinion.

— I.

Influence. 8.

Chagnon,

Tide.

F2520.1.Y3T54 2000

981'.1—dc21 00-038682

W. W. Norton

& Company Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, NewYork, N.Y

10110

www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton

& Company Ltd., 123

4

10 Coptic Street,

567890

London

WCIA IPU

For

my parents,

Patricia

and John

It is

important to recognize that Darwinism has always had

an unfortunate power to attract the most unwelcome enthusiasts

—demagogues and psychopaths and misanthropes

and other abusers of Darwin's dangerous

—Daniel

C. Dennett,

idea.

Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Contents

»

i

I

List

of Graphs

xv

Acknowledgments Introduction

Part

I

xvii

xxi

Guns, Germs, and Anthropologists,

1964-1972 Chapter

1

Savage Encounters

3

Chapter 2

At Play

Chapter 3

The Napoleonic Wars

Chapter 4

Atomic Indians

in the Field

36

7 18

XIV

^^

CONTENTS

Chapter 5

Outbreak

Chapter 6

Filming the Feast

Chapter 7

A Mythical Village

Part

In Their

II

53

83

107

Own Image,

Chapter 8

Erotic Indians

Chapter 9

That Charlie

1972-1994

125

149

Chapter 10

To Murder and

Chapter 11

A Kingdom of Their Own

Chapter 12

The Massacre

Chapter 13

Warriors of the

to Multiply

at

181

Haximu

195

Amazon

Ravages of El Dorado,

Part III

158

215

1

996-1 999

Chapter 14

Into the Vortex

Chapter 15

In Helenas Footsteps

Chapter 16

Gardens of Hunger, Dogs of War

Chapter 17

Machines That Make Black Magic

Chapter

Human

1

8

227

Products and the Isotope

Appendix: Mortality at Yanomami Notes

Villages

317

327

Bibliography

Index

243

385

397

Photographs appear between pages

164 and 165

257

280

Men

296

1

List of

Namowei War Deaths Bisaasi-teri Mortality

Measles Antibody Febrile

34 5

55

Response to Edmonston B

Filming Deaths

Graphs

G7

121

Mortality and Mission Contact, 1987-1991

Corrected Mortality, 1987-1991

Victims in Worst

Yanomami Wars

Stature of Amazonian Indians

Deaths

at

Kedebabowei-teri:

207 228

and Westerners

Yanomami Population Growth

206

264

Projected at Historical Rate

269

The Impact of FUNDAFACI

324

Acknowledgments

First, I

would

like to offer heartfelt

were indispensable to both

my

thanks to the guides and translators

research

These included Severino

rain forest.

fredo Aherowe, and Jodie

and

Brazil,

my

survival in the

who

Yanomami

Pablo Mejia, Marco Jimenez, Al-

Dawson. Marinho De Souza, a microscopist and

malaria diagnostician, was not only a great guide but also a healer for hundreds of desperately I

would

ill

also like to

Yanomami thank the

Indians.

many

anthropologists, doctors,

and other

who read this manuscript. I am especially indebted to Leda Marwho is finishing her Ph.D. at Cornell University, for her support

scientists tins,

throughout

this

Vista, Brazil.

source for I

long project and for her and her family's hospitality in Boa

Ledas dossier on Napoleon Chagnon was an important

re-

my research.

have obviously relied on Brian Ferguson's analysis of Yanomami warfare

as a

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

—^

XVIII

framework for several chapters of this book.

am also grateful to Terrence

I

Collins of Carnegie Mellon University, Leslie Sponsel of the University of Haw^aii, Terence Turner of Cornell University,

Peters of Wilfrid Laurier University, Jesiis

John

College,

VENA,

Kenneth Good of Jersey State

Giovanni

SafFirio

Cardozo of FUN-

of the Consolata Missionaries, and John Frechione

of the University of Pittsburgh for their comments and encouragement.

Mark White of the sisted

my search

Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives as-

through

his w^arehouse retreat, v^here

taining the tapes from the

Mark

Ritchie sent

me

we found

Atomic Energy Commission's 1968

the videotaped interviews with

a

box con-

expedition.

Yanomami men

that

are transcribed in chapter 8.

The

final

chapter of this book,

would not have been Plutonium

Files

Products and the Isotope Men,"

possible without Eileen

opened up an

Commission. She helped Ireland,

"Human

entirely

Welsome, whose book The

new perspective on

the

me contact several key individuals,

of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle,

Atomic Energy

Cory

including

who shared his

research into

human radiation experiments at Rochester's Strong Memorial Hospital. The photographer Valdir Cruz has been outstandingly kind in allowing

the

me

to use his superb black-and-white photographs without charge. Valdir

worked

for over eight

lowship.

months

in

Yanomami

territory

on

a

Guggenheim

Fel-

enjoyed his company for a week around the main missions of the

I

Orinoco, and he walked with Marinho and going through quarantine with Kristine Dahl,

my

to the village

of Irokai

afiier

us.

literary agent,

storms and finally to safe harbor at Kristine's skill

me

and determination

guided the manuscript through

many

W W. Norton & Company. Without book would never have been pub-

this

lished.

Norton,

as

everybody knows,

is

a brave house.

He

a courageous leap with this manuscript.

know

I

am

also speaking for

valuable legal advice,

Sonntag

Bob

for his extraordinarily detailed

brother,

John Tierney, has seen

stages of evolution cias

and has helped

pull

Robert Weil took

legal review

critic

and

of this book.

Rene Schwartz

for her in-

for her heroic patience,

and Otto

and helpful copyediting. Otto did

wonders with the labyrinth of endnotes and

My

and

in thanking

Nancy Palmquist

so,

has been a discerning

a wise editor throughout the long preparation I

Even

this

me

sources.

manuscript in

many

different

through each one of them. Gra-

hermano.

The

University of Pittsburgh's Center for Latin American Studies gave

me

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS an appointment

as a visiting scholar,

versity's excellent

which

XIX

facilitated

Latin American collection.

I

wrote

my research at the uni-

much of this

manuscript

while living in the quiet Pittsburgh neighborhood and in the same

where

I

grew up. There

is

no way

that

John, for their loyalty and generosity.

they deserve better.

I

I

can repay

my parents,

have dedicated

this

home

Patricia

and

book to them, but

—

Introduction

Chagnon's observations and science are basically of modern sociobiology. Because of

line

Edward O.

him.

The

this,

correct.

He

is

in the front

perhaps, controversy follows

Wilson^

renowned anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon appeared, unher-

alded, in Roraima, Brazil's northernmost state, often described as

most years.

lawless, in

September 1995.

It

was

his first visit there in

its

many

Although he had helped make the Yanomami Indians the best-known

tribe in the world,

Chagnon

faced nearly insurmountable hurdles in con-

tacting them. In 1988, a past president of the Brazihan Anthropological Association

had condemned him

for portraying the

Yanomami

When he attempted to visit a Brazilian Yanomami village in film crew,

position

before

Chagnon was

1989 with

a

BBC

forced to cancel the trip due to both academic op-

and a planned protest march by human

Chagnon began

as innate killers.^

rights groups.^

And that was

the adventures that ended in his expulsion from the

Venezuelan Yanomami Reserve by a judge on September 30, This time, however, he was able to

skirt

1993.^^

normal peer review with the help

—^

XXII

of

Veja, the conservative

INTRODUCTION

newsweekly. Veja pressured the Indian Agency to

or documentary characgrant special permission for a "visit of a journalistic actually issued to a photographer, and the anthropolo-

The permit was

ter."

member of his "work team."^ Chagnon had come to Yanomami and to communicate a rely on the media both for access to the defenders of the Inshocking message— that the very people who posed as

gist

was included

as a

dians were actually destroying them. In the

New

York Times, the Times Lit-

London, and other forums, he had already attacked "missionaries with se"left-wing anthropologists," "survival groups,"^ and Many right-wing groups in Brazil, particularly miners and the mili-

erary Supplement of

crets."^ tary,

welcomed

report these attacks. Indeed, a high-level intelligence

named

missionaries as threats to the same "environmentalists, anthropologists and

national security."^

accompanying jourturned out, however, that Chagnon was not simply head of the Indian Agency in Ronalists searching for a feature story. The It

raima,

Suami

Percillio

Dos

Santos, was surprised

when Chagnons bush pilot

anthropologist planned to use intercepted a shipment of vacutainers that the Santos was not accustomed to for collecting Yanomami blood samples.^ Dos from a scientific overpeople collecting Yanomami blood without permission

of committee—or informed consent from Yanomami leaders, many the blood who were now literate. The issue was particularly sensitive because sight

would have been harvested

for a Brazilian geneticist

participated in vast blood-collecting projects

who,

like

Chagnon, had

among Amazonian

tribes dur-

the late 1960s.^^ Things ing the worst days of Brazil's military dictatorship, Antonio Mari, knew had changed, however, and even Vejds photo journalist, where potentially priceless genetic material was that this kind of

research—

of bounds. obtained in exchange for cheap machetes—was out fessor

Chagnon

received the test tubes

blood samples from the Indians confronted Professor

I felt

and

"When

Pro-

disclosed his intentions to collect

betrayed and angry," Mari recalled. "I

Chagnon and he

told

me

that he

was doing

it

to help

collect blood samples to do rethe Indians. His intention, he said, was to the area."^^ The Indian search on different strains of malaria plaguing explanation. Both Chagnon and Agency's research director did not accept this

the Brazilian geneticist received letters of rebuke;

with expulsion. ^2 "The

FUNAI

test

Chagnon was

threatened

tube incident caused enormous anger

among

Saiide [National Health [Indian Agency] and Funda^ao Nacional de of to Mari. "Facing imminent cancellation

Foundation]

officials,"

according

our permits, Chagnon gave up the blood sample

idea."^^

I

INTRODUCTION

^^

XXIII

Native leaders were also upset. Several of them contacted Leda Martins,

government

a Brazilian

Yanomami

reserve,

who

official at that

with three years of experience inside the

time was a Fulbright scholar in anthropology

of Pittsburgh. They asked her for a complete background

at the University

check on Chagnon. She wrote a short, annotated bibliography of the

had pursued him over the years,

controversies that lecting for the

with Venezuela's leading gold miner. She called Dossier.

"^"^

it

col-

his relationship

"Napoleon Chagnon:

The Indigenous Council of Roraima, an

tically elected

blood

starting with his

Atomic Energy Commission and ending with

many

O

association of democra-

Indian leaders, officially submitted the dossier to the govern-

ment and asked

for the revocation of

Chagnon was permitted

Chagnon's permits. ^^ In the end,

to travel to a single village, without blood sampling

equipment, followed by a full-time guard

—

man whose job

a mountainous

normally was to bounce gold miners from the

Yanomami

reserve.

Neverthe-

the brief window of opportunity enabled Veja to publish an interview

less,

with Chagnon, consistent with the magazine's editorial policy, that renewed

Chagnon's critique against "many NGO's, anthropologists and missionaries

who the

are

title

most recently competing among themselves

it

who

can obtain

of sole representative of the Indians to the outside world."^^

For those of us rush,

to see

who had seen

the cataclysmic impact of the

Amazon

gold

was both disheartening and extraordinary that Chagnon was savaging

the very people

who

stood in the

way of the Amazonian

tribes' extinction.

These were precisely the survival groups, missionaries, and "Marxist anthro-

who had opted to help the Indians, One of this new breed of anthropologists

pologists"^^

instead of simply studying

them.

was, in

whom I had met in Boa Vista several times between time,

I

was researching the gold rush and

ples. It

Bolivia,

its

fact,

Leda Martins,

1989 and 1992. At that

chaotic impact

on

native peo-

was a continental phenomenon, stretching from French Guyana but

I

had picked Yanomamiland because of Chagnon.

When

to

I first

read his ethnography Yanomamo: The Fierce People, he seemed preternaturally resourceful to

males in the

and

tribal

me, a

late

veritable hero

—

as

1960s and 1970s. In his

mayhem, Chagnon exposed

noble savages.

I

he was to

admired

ample, documenting

his philosophy,

ritual

murder

a book. The Highest Altar: The Story

was

many other undergraduate

relentless investigation

of murder

the falsity of cherished myths about

and

in the

I

followed his swashbuckling ex-

Andes from 1983

ofHuman

Sacrifice,

to 1988.

which

cited

1

wrote

Chagnon

favorably. ^^

It

distinction.

The Fierce People was a narrative that launched a thousand books.

a distinctly

Chagnonian book,

but, in a way, this

was no

So when itated

decided to write about the Amazon, in 1989,

toward the Yanomami and Chagnon

thought

my

I

INTRODUCTION

^^

XXIV

was a project that would

it

bearings,

time— it

is

last

a year or so.

today— Chagnon's

hard to believe

One

When I first went in,

To

find contacts,

and

many enemies. At

contacted Chagnon, instead of his

I

Catholic priests trained in anthropology.

Giovanni

territory.

naturally grav-

1

closest fiiends

were

get

that

Roman

of them, the anthropologist

was a former Ph.D. student of Chagnon's and became

Saffirio,

I

my

closest friend. Iti

Roraima,

was robbed twice

I

once by bandits in the lice jailed

me

city

of Boa Vista.

for a night after

I

1990—once by

the

had watched them Reserve.

try but I

know

the frontier society

which miners were paying which

much

better than

police officials

fail

I

wanted

and where the

tired

to

at

to. I

had

knew

police allowed

some point—

comas may have had something despise the gold rush. I wanted it to end. I also grew

and carrying Yanomami children do with it— I came

dynamite a

in the process,

But the miners to operate their clandestine landing strips.

to

to

had accompanied min-

through litde-explored swamps and mountains and,

gotten to

Yanomami and

On another occasion, the federal po-

Yanomami

clandestine airstrip inside the ers

in

of aggressive young men

in malaria

in civilian clothing

with military crew cuts

who

me around day and night, just to make life miserable for any foragainst the Indians. eigners who were trying to witness the daily atrocities

followed

In this climate, advocate.

I

gradually changed from being an observer to being an

was a completely inverted world, where

It

traditional, objective

journalism was no longer an option for me.

My field expeditions became, in-

What

the police were supposed to be

creasingly,

antimining expeditions.

doing, but were not,

I

did.

I

counted the miners and

der areas and then submitted

Geral da Republica, an

ombudsman

branches of government. States for

my findings

I

Davi Kopenawa,

eloquent, spontaneous man,

their

machines in bor-

to Brazil's powerful Procuradoria

institution that refereed

all

other

helped arrange a speaking tour of the United the Yanomami's most visible leader. He was an

whom Chagnon called a "parrot" of Survival In-

ternational.^^

In 1992,

I

shifted

my

interests to the

Macuxi Indian

territory, a six-

between Guyana thousand-square-mile wedge of superb tabletop mountains

and Venezuela.

I

migrated with the miners

after they

were expelled from the

we set So did Leda Martins. After she came to Pittsburgh, Survival International up a Macuxi campaign office and collaborated with

Yanomami

area.

1

INTRODUCTION and the Rain Forest Action Network around the world.^^ By the

struggle

become

threatening to stances,

we

mented, he had fought

personally.

But

their land rights.

I

And,

to arrange protest

Actually,

decided,

on October

did not

know him

headed to

New York

I

I

1995, in San Francisco, that

2,

of California

at the University

Amazon.

—

the principal opponents of indigenous rights

gold rush. Leda Martins and

main Venezuelan time

New

Yanomami

I

Amazon

—

that

there

when Chagnon approached for support,

I

seemed

it

so great that

to

me

that

this

rights organizations

under judicial

Chagnon could

man

investigation.'^'^

an

But

and the outside

illegal

gold miner

politicians as a phil-

charged with stealing

Chagnon had an

taking well-known

Department

my duty to inform

reality

recast

the

themselves did

the State

was

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as an

—of

cleansing

also felt

and one of Venezuela's most corrupt

anthropist, t^^ as well as present a lief funds to

1995 written an

Yanomami

was a chasm between Amazonian

The gap was

as a "naturalist,"*

in April

human

of the

territory if the elected leaders

knew

world.

It

had

Chagnon should not be allowed back in

that several of Chagnon's allies were

also

the rogues' gallery,

one of Venezuela's leading gold miners.^^ By

and U.S. embassy in Caracas

them

who

York Times that was sharply critical of Chagnon's

associate,

not want him back. And,

exactly

and the principal cheerleaders I

shared the view of most indigenous and

I

involved with the

Santa Barbara.

at

knew

I

Chagnon's main supporters in Brazil and Venezuela were

op-ed piece for the

had

I

By now, Chagnon was one of the

biggest players in the politics of the northern

Amazon

docu-

marches supporting the Macuxi and

was becoming impossible to ignore.

of the

in them.^^

as Leda's dossier

many of them.-^^

and meet Chagnon

better go

the circum-

anyone who had become embroiled

at those competitions.

Chagnon departed from Boa Vista,

as

and San Francisco

Under

of Chagnon's controversies, which

had nothing personal against Chagnon.

I

He

to

about the Macuxi

of 1995, the Macuxi campaign was

fall

a full-time occupation for us.

had not brought happiness

He

XXV

in placing articles

tried assiduously to steer clear

was famously good

^^

Yanomami

Amazonian

infinite capacity for

re-

leader, t^^

ethnographic

Amazonian crooks and making them ap-

pear unsullied for the American press.

*Charles Brewer Carias (see chapter

9).

tCecilia Matos, a fugitive from justice charged with

and

12). :j:Jaime

Turon, under indictment for embezzlement.

numerous counts of corruption

(see chapters

1

But

I felt

INTRODUCTION

—^

XXVI

whether there was some an obligation to interview him and see

explanation for what he was doing.

So

I

of California's Santa Barbara campus for bike quarter and made my way in and out of

at the University

showed up

day of the 1995 fall lecture hall. Nine hundred students lanes to the largest undergraduate podium. His thinning white hair crowded inside as Chagnon walked to the young mancontrasted with the incredibly glamorous

the

first

and beer belly

to appear on the and wearing a loincloth—who continued there was somepicture-book format best-selling text. But

painted, feathered,

back jacket of his

thing impressive about him.

on campus, and he

Chagnon wore

the only suit and

started class in a military style,

tie I

had seen

ordering a dozen teach-

themselves. "Tell them what you plan ing assistants to stand up and identify The Fierce People grow up," he said. When he introduced to

do when you

he

said, "It's

by

my favorite author,

me." Chagnon was fiinny and truly

self-

confident.

Merward, when you

to

"

I

approached him, Chagnon

swept halfWay across the

He

second thought, Mr. Tierney, fice at

I

hall,

do want

said, "I don't

want

to talk

turned around, and added,

to talk to you.

I'll

see

you

in

...

ten a.m."^^

"On

my ofr^JJl

summoned by a bullying vice principal. Oddly moment when O. J. Simpson was enough, my summons was for the exact I

felt like

an errant pupil

a.m., to receive his verdict: 10:00 for television sets

when

"You say you're dential?" nalist

I

told

I

first,

students were scurrying

is

your press

cre-

you say you're a jourdidn't carry a press credential. "If

him I

credential, you're a liar,"

Chagnon told me.

carry a press credential."

Chagnon would not let me

think you're a witch-hunter," he

Things gradually got a little de for the record. He continued leading gold miner.

He

also

because take notes. "I don't trust you,

said.

But Chagnon would say very iitdefend his association with Venezuelas

more

Yanomami

Most

Chagnon began. "Where

a journalist,"

must

3.

entered Chagnon's office.

and you don't carry a press

"All journalists

At

I

October

to

civil.

defended

his decision to contact

remote

without any quarantine precautions. villages on giant helicopters, of contacting exotic Chagnon felt he was entitled to the glory

Apparently,

natives; the

with the diseases. Venezuelans were in charge of dealing

continued to blame everyone

else

who had worked

Yanomami-and the Yanomami s

for the

missionaries, induding Survival International, Christian

He

INTRODUCTION best-known

—and

tribal leaders

of being a scapegoat," he said I

as

to

believe he

Chagnon.

fact, that

went

when

free,"

I

XXVII

demand sympathy for himself.

"I'm tired

I left.^^

went out into the California

mused, in

^^

sunlight, blinking

and bemused. So be-

a blond student

on

thought, for a

moment, he was

a bicycle blurted out, "I can't

talking about

»

I

Pari I

Guns, Germs, and Anthropologists, rr.*"

19 6 4-19 72

^v>^«-

how they've gone and how many villages have possibly been

in-

fected."^^

In the film, this statement from the missionary Shaylor was edited out,

and a voice-over simply

asserted that the scientists were vaccinating a ring

around the epidemic, saving

all

the groups they

the voice-over ended, Neel was heard fering to help with

managed

to inoculate.

and seen speaking over the

more vaccinations. "I'm

sorry to hear

this.

When

radio, of-

Now, when we

FILMING THE FEAST come out to get the blood to

And

the .plane,

we will

—^

after that

Danny is still badly I would him."^^ But Danny Shaylor did not

if possible.

Tama to see Nor did Neels

97

work on

to

Tama

see Neel again that

year.^^

try to get

if

down

doctors join the missionaries and government doctors in con-

epidemic on the Padamo River or anywhere

trolling the

Padamo

the

According to the sound day, February 24.

They

else.

tapes, the scientists left Patanowa-teri

traveled

two days by boat

to the

on

Esmeralda

Satur-

airfield,

where they met a plane on Monday, February 26.^^ They were rushing to get their

blood out of the tropical heat. In

amount of blood,

gering

and

urine,

the scientists purchased a stag-

all,

saliva at nearly forty

Yanomami

villages

during their three weeks on the Upper Orinoco in 1968.^^ Thousands of

Yanomami were placed on what Asch

called "a production line:

assigned to them: specimens of their blood, saliva pressions of their teeth are

and

numbers

stools are collected;

are

im-

made; and they are weighed and measured by the

physical anthropologists."^^

Even

as

Neel and Chagnon

at least feared their vaccine reactions

turn into an uncontrolled epidemic, they tried to attract hundreds

Yanomami

to their blood-collecting station at Patanowa-teri. ^°^

promised the

them eral

Bisaasi-teri at

up, bring

them

Mavaca

that he

might

more

Chagnon

would return downriver, pick

to the feast at Patanowa-teri

—and have them go

sev-

days off into the jungle to extend an invitation to the distant village of

Ashidowa-teri.

Chagnon

Hasupuwe-teri,^^^

also

hoped

who had two

draw blood from another group, the

to

shabonos with, a total of over three hundred

people above the Guaharibo Rapids. ^°^

On

February 18, Neel had told the

Venezuelans that he was going to vaccinate the groups on the upper reaches

of the Orinoco, but he never vaccinated any of them. Under the circumstances,

it

was

just as well that

he did not do

so.

But

his

misinformation

torted the rescue plans of the Venezuelan emergency medics,

Hasupuwe-teri to their

own

devices.

who

left

dis-

the

About one hundred Hasupuwe-teri

died of measles. ^^^

Although

I

believe Neel

would join them mense

scientific enterprise

that "the blood

was sincere when he told the missionaries he

in battling measles

on

followed a

the

Padamo

River, the logic

and other samples must be quickly taken out

to prevent spoiling

due

of his im-

momentum all its own. Asch explained

to heat. Patanowa-teri

was the

to laboratories

last village

they were

able to inoculate. "^^^

The

split

one of the

between the on-camera and the off-camera James Neel was only

film's

anomalies.

Why were

the

AEC

doctors vaccinating at

all?

They were

at

DARKNESS

^^

98

an extremely isolated

nation with

Edmonston B

inoculation.

^^^

DORADO

EL

IN

with no medical backup. Vacci-

village,

required at least fifteen days of continual care after

Panic and dispersal had followed their only other vaccinations, around the

Ocamo and Mavaca

The same day

missions.

about seventy Yanomami

the expedition

Mavaca,

who had just been vaccinated ran off into

where the missionaries retrieved them ten days

gle,

left

Chagnon had admitted

that the vaccine

the jun-

later all "very sick."^^^

was almost

as

bad

as measles.

Neel s data showed that the vaccine reactions were indistinguishable from vere measles.

^^^

^°^

se-

But, once they had told the Venezuelan authorities that their

vaccine produced no rash, they stuck to their story so tenaciously that they

apparently believed

it.

camera in the eye and

The expedition physician Will said,

Centerwall looked the

"This kind of measles, especially the vaccine,

is

very unlikely to cause any trouble. Okay?"^°^

This was a confusing testimonial.

What

about? Especially the vaccine? Asch cut

this,

wall decided not to vaccinate pregnant

"Aaah. Let's put

"Then

globulin,

this

way.

I

along with the fact that Center-

women.

think this

is

the lesser of the evils."

give her the vaccination?"

think

"I

it

"kind of measles" was he talking

so.

I'll

just give her two, three,

which means that

Some doctors

felt it

if

to

gamma

sions were increasingly driven

medical practice.

give her three cc's of gamma

measles does hit her

was better

epidemic and to provide

I'll

it'll

be moderate."^ ^°

suspend vaccinating in the middle of an

globulin coverage only. But Neel's deci-

by the

logic of the film rather than

a defense against the unraveling

geneticist's version

Neel at

safe

He was trapped by promises to vaccinate "a ring around the The

epidemic" and by the pretense that the vaccine was harmless.

came

by

of Neel's story, a

film be-

way of canonizing the

of reality. By filming the Patanowa-teri being inoculated,

justified his earlier vaccinations as well as his decision to leave the sick

Mavaca behind. "This

village

was fortunate," Neel narrated.

"It

was vac-

cinated in time."^^^ It

was not. Neel did not have nearly enough

gamma globulin

the whole village of Patanowa-teri. In the outtakes,

Chagnon

mitting that they had been unable to finish the job. Worse,

posed to measles from Mavaca trekked through the expedition.

Only one of them made

—they dropped

sick ies

that he

off in the forest.

was trying

it

radio,

is

heard ad-

Yanomami

ex-

forest trying to rejoin the

to Patanowa-teri.

By

to vaccinate

The others were

Chagnon

to quarantine the Patanowa-teri

too

told the missionar-

from the

sick

man who

I

FILMING THE FEAST had arrived from Mavaca. "We'll have

and

to try

Meanwhile, we've gone ahead and vaccinated

we had

that

teri

vaccine

In fact, they had

all

^^ isolate

of the

99

them rest

we

as best

can.

of the Patanowa-

for."^^^

enough

vaccine, but not

enough gamma

globulin.

They

never admitted this in repeated radio conferences, however, perhaps to keep

and missionaries from

the Venezuelans

was

realizing that the expedition

giv-

ing out an antiquated vaccine. Even a poor country like Venezuela had by

then switched to the Schwarz virus, which did not require

gamma globulin

with vaccination.

The

expedition simultaneously exposed the Patanowa-teri to malaria,

bronchopneumonia and, depending upon which group they were the

Edmonston

by,

more and more people

live virus

or the germs of a carrier from Mavaca. started coughing.

in, either

As time went

None of this was shown,

per

Neel's instructions.

Yanomami were

Instead, the

"This

is

presented as pictures of exuberant health.

"He

the chief here," Centerwall gushed.

certainly

is

a fine specimen

of a man."^^^ (Actually, he weighed 108 pounds, but he was big by Yanomami standards.) Centerwall

know

was equally enthusiastic about Yanomami

these urine specimens, ah,

and ambers.

."^^^ .

.

Tim,

Neel found the

urine.

"You

are a beautiful assortment of yellows

samples "remarkable." Charles

fecal

"They

Brewer, a dentist, praised the natives' teeth.

are perfect.

No

decay or

accumulation of debris." Brewer attributed their good health to a high-fiber, sugar- free diet. Yet Neel

warned

that the

Yanomami's

year extends further the tentacles of civilization.

man

.

.

.

idyll

was ending. "Each

The

health of primitive

usually quickly deteriorates in the course of acculturation."^'^

At Patanowa-teri, acculturation and

The

deterioration were well underway.

expedition had trouble simply feeding the Indians from one day to

the next.

By moving toward

ducing gardens

They could not

far

the Orinoco, the Patanowa-teri

pro-

behind. Their nearest one was a three-hour walk away.'^^

feed themselves,

much

Although Chagnon had promised was not an easy

left their

task,

less

supply a

to provide

all

feast for

125 guests.

the meat for the feast,

even with the AEC's two shotguns. "Look

it

at this,"

Charles Brewer complained on returning from one hunt. "I have been out I don't know what time I got up. many work about the feast and about the blood. And this

since six o'clock this morning, or five-thirty,

And I

have to do so

guy took ting

up

me for a five-minute

at

ride to

do some hunting, and

one o'clock now. Well, you know

them because they were

really

hungry."

I

went

to

there

I

am

get-

do some hunting

for

"And

I

got several candies," Brewer added in disgust, referring to the ex-

peditions sweets, which were

them up

to pick

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

lOO

after

now littered all over the place. "They asked me

point them, and here they

I

Thousands of candies were being paid out

to

are."^^^

Yanomami women and chil-

One of the women's, tasks was to collect beetles for the expedition's biologist, who soon found himself inundated with the same species and unable dren.

to

pay them the lollipops they were demanding.

"You told them

Chagnon

is

them

But

I

I

want, then point

at this

women.

I

I

we change

would

settle for

beetles.

was hard to

stop. Everything

hungry. "But there

we have killed a

is it:

we have

it.

.

.

.

Come to my

something different and big-

My bottles are all full."

bonafide beetle hunt, there's no

this into a

stopping the flow once you've asked for It

biologist insisted. "If the

cannot pay them for

any more of these

can't take

"Unless

for the

must be some adjustment," the

there

not the kind

rescue. Tell ger.

up

said, sticking

them

"Tell

beetle

they brought in beetles you'd give them candy,"

if

was

it,"

Chagnon

falling apart.

replied.

The

way of

^^^

scientists

were

to eat also in spite of all the scientific

also

work

to do," Brewer said.^^^ Their shotguns quickly drove off game; they

few birds and

finally a

pregnant monkey, which Brewer would never

have shot had game not been in short supply. Not surprisingly, the Patanowateri's feast

suffered

from

—

meat

a lack of

Reyabobowei-teri. In the film,

Chagnon blamed

hunters have done so poorly that he must should. "^^°

But the

^just like

chief's hunters

make

the improvised feast at

the village headman. "His

the meat go further than

it

were Chagnon and Brewer.

am not to blame, you know," Brewer began. "You're not?" Neel asked, who sounded amused. He had a soft spot for Brewer, but he was tougher on Chagnon. He complained that Chagnon "Before apologizing for

this, I

hadn't hit anything with his shotgun the whole expedition. "You're a sad crew,

In tasks.

said.^^^

both Chagnon and Brewer were overburdened with other

all fairness,

Chagnon

you guys," Asch

supervised the

was the main beverage

making of the ceremonial plantain soup

at the feast.

that

This meant hauling a ton of plantains

from a distant garden, a thankless task that would never have been necessary at a

normal

feast,

held at the harvest season near a producing garden.

According to the

film, the Patanowa-teri

headman was Kumaiewa.

the big man."^^^

However, the Patanowa-teri elders told

headman was an

older shaman,

desires

Shamawe, who was

than the younger Kumaiewa.

me

the real village

less pliable to

The competition

"He's

Chagnon's

over Chagnon's favor

FILMING THE FEAST was evidently a source of internal

—^

lOI

conflict at Patanowa-teri, as

it

had been

at

Bisaasi-teri.

This could be seen from a brief conversation between Chagnon and a

Yanomami woman. As you

my older

translated in

me you

brother? Tell

surprisingly forward thing for

nabah

The

are

woman

Feast, the

my friend.

"^^^

a Yanomami woman

asks, "Shaki, are

Now,

this

would be

a

to do, publicly asking a

and "older brother." Quite a few eyebrows would

to be her "friend"

have shot up around the campfire.

The Yanomami

text

wa wohimai ya What she wanted husband, Hotihewe, when

quite different, however. Shaki

is

irawe really means, "Shaki, do you love your brother?" ^^"^ to

know was whether Chagnon would

favor her

the anthropologist distributed trade goods

marking the Yanomami their various tasks

and bodily

"The

he did on a regular

assessment of Yanomami poli-

trade goods help bind the alliance

by creating obligations which

must discharge

at a return feast.

"^^^

goods, the true basis of the alliance.

This was certainly true of the

Chagnon

skillfully plied

Patanowa-teri with presents and the promises of presents to keep ing.

While hauling plantains some people seem

to question

"beautiful trade goods. "^^^

of the project.

When

But

here, too, supplies

his trade

the

them work-

making the

and Chagnon apparently tempts them with the vision of madohe

size

basis,

had been paid for

film's

the visitors

AEC s

as

fluids.

Trade goods played a key role in the tics.

—

with different colors once they

film,

totohiwey

proved inadequate to the

goods ran out, Chagnon radioed for an-

other planeload. ^^^

Asch was surprised when, en route

Yanomami

burst into a frenzied dance, "screaming at the top of their lungs,

waving branches of leaves garden

to get food at another garden, the

ritual."

When

in the air."

Chagnon asked them, "What was

They were

Asch filmed them, believing

the exhausted, sweating

mystified. "Isn't that

that

all

Yanomami

field,

what you

Yanomami. He had spent

and no one has become proficient

At one

just asked us to do?"^^^

in

really able to

a total of fifteen

Yanomami

is

commu-

months

in the

in such a short time.

point, he said to Asch, "Shoot that scene over with

Yanomamo

"a

about?"

There was a question of how much Chagnon was nicate with the

was

it

finally stopped,

me

in

it.

My

a Uttle rusty."

"That was kind of nasty and not rupted. "If your Yanomamo

of yourself "^-^^

is

really called for,

rusty now,

you ought

you know," Neel

to be should be

inter-

ashamed

DARKNESS

^^

I02

EL

IN

DORADO

The Yanomami understood that Chagnon wanted scenes of violence. Asch also got that message.

Asch wrote, "Bias memorial "bitter" if

issue

Chagnon's preference was the subject of an

Asch trained

hi^

camera on anything but aggressive behavior.

Chagnon thought nonviolent to film

episodes were a waste of valuable film.

women's

any women's

are

Chagnon, who narrated The Feasts explained, spicuous at political events such as

was not true

begin the

for

festivities

amoamouP^ This

these. "^^^

Yanomami

When

Chagnon "whipped around"

activities,

and asked, "What makes you think there

it

1995

of the American Film Quarterly. Asch said Chagnon became

Asch urged Chagnon

but

article

in Ethnographic Reporting," excerpted in the April

activities?"

"Women

This was true

^^^

are rather incon-

at the

AEC's

feasting in general. Normally,

feast,

women

with marathon, call-and-response chanting called

oft:en

becomes a long, friendly competition between the

women hosts and visitors. ^^^ Later, the women from the visitors often danced with the men from the hosts, in a spectacular performance, hakimou, that sometimes ended in sexual dalliances. ^^^ But the women of Patanowa-teri were terrified that enemies might attack them at any moment (a fear that had caused them to

move away from

this site). In fact, Dr.

Centerwall noted that

the lovely colors of the women's urine were caused by dehydration

were afraid to venture down to the nearby creek to drink. It

ries

was violence and the expectation of violence that appealed

and students and

The Feast

that gave

its

edge.

to film ju-

"The Patanowa-teri have

been raided twenty-five times in the previous sixteen months, with a ten deaths,"

Chagnon

narrated.

^^*^

Actually, the Patanowa-teri

raided twenty-five times during Chagnon's fieldwork, from until

January 1965, with a

since

Chagnon

left

Nevertheless, teri still

the

had been

November 1 964

right

when he

said,

know

that

any

feast

"Many of the Patanowa-

They

are fearful, as are their

can end in violence.

can turn violent. Very few actually do. In

."^^'^ .

.

this case, the

atmos-

phere was strained because neither group wanted to be there in the place.

With

first

the AEC's sponsorship and Chagnon's shotguns, however, there

was no danger of violence occurring during the illusion

of

often deaths. But there had been no deaths

regard the Mahekoto-teri as enemies.

feast

total

field.

Chagnon was

guests, because they

Any

total

—they

^^^

feast.

The

film achieved the

of immediate conflict by mistranslation. In the film, a lead dancer for

the Mahekoto-teri entered the Patanowa-teri plaza dancing ecstatically

shouting, "Fight! Fight! Fight! "^^^

and

FILMING THE FEAST That was the films "Look! Look!"^^^

The

He was

Neel explained why: "Feasts are also the oc-

on enemy villages.

pened

.

.

Sometimes

.

after the filming

of The

villages will unite at

common friend or relative killed in war,

a group to raid a mutual enemy." This

leave in

—

Mita mitahe

not threatening anyone.

a feast, drink the cremated bones of a

and

IO3

translation. Actually, his chant was,

real clanger lay elsewhere.

casion of a joint raid

^^

The

Feast.

what hap-

precisely

is

Patanowa-teri and Mahekoto-teri

united to attack the village of Yabitawa-tefi, where they killed an old

an unusual event in Yanomami warfare. But since spired, paid for, provisioned,

might seem

and

the

their

insci-

like a great idea to

peace," said the missionary

among

was

and arranged by the diplomacy of the AEC

way of avoiding war

contact with their enemies.

is

to

move

When

light.

make

don't

lived for over forty years

wage war

that frequently,

apart, so they don't

you bring them together

have any more to film

going to make these two groups remember

previous hostilities, and just about the only

launch an attack against a third group. after filming.

feast

bring two groups together and

Mike Dawson, who has

Yanomami. "But the Yanomami

liance, you're naturally

once

this

put the resulting raid and death in a dubious

entists, this "It

whole

woman,

way they can channel

And

this has

an

al-

their

all

that

is

happened more than

"^"^^

A handftil of warriors, Asiawe told me, went on a joint raid. My sense that the

young men who helped broker the

for the outsiders

to

feast

were the only participants.

It

and

is

act as as intermediaries

was a sign of the

social dis-

ruption that outsiders always brought, promoting youths before they had

ma-

—attended by 340 would have been —60 80

tured in tribal traditions. Given the size of the feast individuals

—

a normal raiding party

men.^^^ And, since this was a

new

far larger

alliance, the older

male leaders would

have been virtually obligated to participate along with everyone the

headmen did not

Nor did a raid,

But

the newly allied villages perform any of the ritual preparations for

keep these precious ashes;

fianeral ashes in a sacred meal.

significantly,

It is

mortuary meal that shamans take hallucinogens and divine the

whom

The

only they are allowed to im-

bibe the ashes, in a plantain soup, before the warriors depart.

emies

else.^"^^

join the attack.

which center on the sharing of

women

or

the warriors should attack. Although the raid

also at this

spiritual en-

which followed

The Feast does appear to to have had purely material motives, based on trade advantages,

it

was a

feast alliance unlike

any other described

in the extensive

Yanomami

literature. ^^^

mental center, and

The

raid was, like the feast, an event without a sacra-

happened

it

filmmakers

just after the

Chagnon appeared disappointed with I've

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

I04

the films

left.

weak

"Come

finale.

on,

pleaded with you to put the fticking recorder on," Asch snapped. "There

was a lovely

little

kid just standing there lounging."

"Look, Tim, I'm in a bad mood," Chagnon answered darkly.

"Then

bad

you're in a

mood on

the most important day of the filming."

"There's nothing here that's that important.

After shooting this

last scene,

headed downriver, the

"^"^^

Chagnon and Asch

left

As they

the village.

raiders jogged oft^into the jungle, led

by Asiawe, son

of the Mahekoto-teri headman.

"We went with the Patanowa-teri to raid Yabitawa-teri, where we killed an old woman with arrows," Asiawe told me when I interviewed him at the vil"The next day we returned

lage of Mahekoto-teri.

ning to

feel sick

Then we

left

very

sick.

ernment nurse] helped ferring to the baskets, or

I

by then, and so were some of the others from

and returned

the Patanowa-teri

many of us were

to Patanowa.

me

my village.

by that time

Four of my people died, and Gonzalez

hang them up

to

Yanomami's custom of leaving

in the jungle."

their

on top of platforms, high above the

ple die at once during an epidemic

the cremation ceremonies.

to Platanal, but

was begin-

"Then

I

Asiawe was

re-

dead inside hammocks, or

forest floor,

when many peo-

and no one has the strength

moved

[the gov-

across the river,"

to

perform

Asiawe contin-

ued. "And when I was across the river, more of my people died. We hung them

out in the jungles there. Then

moved downriver a little bit, and more of my

I

people died again, and they kept dying. started getting better.

During

Then we moved back upriver, and we Gonzalez helped us hang our people

this time,

out in the jungle and gave us medicine. There weren't very many Shashanawateri

[another group the

had only four

leaders

there

took blood from but did not vaccinate] They .

—and they

in the jungle, they were

hammocks

AEC

all

died

off.

While

I

was tying

doing the same thing: they just tied

inside the shabono.

.

.

.

After

drank

I

and drank their bones. Shashanawa-teri

Mahekoto; then, when they did

their bones,

What he never admitted is

their

dead up in

my bones then, we went up

first

came

we helped

According to Chagnon, 25 percent of the "Platanal the measles. ^^^

my dead out

to

our cremations

at

them."^"^^

Yanomamo"

that the Platanal

died of

Yanomami

are

no

other than the Mahekoto-teri, and that they died immediately after The Feast W2is filmed.

Timothy Asch was

the only

eventually acknowledged the sad truth.

^"^^

member of the expedition who

— —^

FILMING THE FEAST

IO5

The death of 20-30 percent of Indian tribes at first contact was normal over the centuries. The first English colonists at Roanoke, Virginia, noticed ,

that every time they entered an Indian

our departure

nomenon was

.

.

initially

blamed on

knighthoods or

why Asch's

and

steel.

At one

to blame. Finally,

it

was

Even when

went on

to

historians or Indians

win

com-

was gone: the dead could not speak.

unedited footage was invaluable. Indians about to die

complaining on tape about the

are

nobody was

the dead behind as the explorers

estates or Ph.D.'s.

plained, the real evidence

That's

left

later at-

that the Indians were destined to die off.

less universally,

Big expeditions always

was

"the Eclipse of the Sun," but

Nobody took responsibility for these acts of

^"^^

nature or of God. Thousands died, but

more or

a few days after

the people began to die very fast." This mysterious phe-

.

tributed to divine providence.

decided,

community "within

point,

visitors

on February 27,

who have come with germs,

just prior to the feast,

guns,

shamans can

be heard conjuring away sickness and people are heard coughing.

A woman weeps and shouts, Hariri—disease. Another woman apparently does not want to join the feast with the Mahekoto-teri, because they are fierce:

Mahekoto-teri waiteri. ^^'^ Meanwhile, people are yelling at the camera-

man Timothy Asch and I

have not seen the

setting off yelps

film's

[Women Asch: It

"I

are

"It's

ounakes

—by throwing

a rock back

and

hitting a dog,

from the dog and a chorus of cries from the Yanomami.^^^

Asch: "Actually,

Chagnon:

hurling rocks at him. Asch apparently responded

it isn't

think

good."

that's

enough, Tim."

coughing loudly and

mean.

spitting]

."^^^ .

.

was mean, but they had to keep choreographing everything. Asch

wanted a shaman

to repeat something: "I

wonder

if

he would do that again

without that kid in there."

A Yanomami man began to intone Asch's name. Ashe, Ashe. Asch,

who

took no notice,

said,

"Those

are wild

sounds to go with the cot-

may be too not quite what ..." At one point a man muttered a sentence including the word horemu, meaning "lying" or "faking. "^^^ Though the tapes still await competent trans-

ton scene, but they

.

.

.

lation, this

was the same word the Patanowa-teri

over again,

when

felt

elders repeated, over

they saw a screening of The Feast in September

1

996.

and

They

the film was undoubtedly a horemu, a fake.

It

would be an equal deception, however,

have done things

differently.

I

know I would

to think that

any of us would

not have done things very

dif-

—

ferently.

with

film

age of twenty-nine

equipment and orders

would have done ger, better finale

a

to put

But

if

ground.

on

would have organized a much

the raiders

I

big-

went off with an enormous

their axes, they

would have

the edited film was a horemu, the unedited Feast truly broke

brought

It

Yanomami,

Danny

I

Maybe

a finer performance.

The cook from

it

all

Yanomami men wanted

cheering section. If the

had

that

both Chagnon and Asch were

to record a miUtary aliance.

few things otherwise.

and made sure

as

DORADO

EL

IN

—

Not at the

new

DARKNESS

^^

I06

new

the unconscious horrors of contact into the open.

all

Caracas passed his cigarette and shared his food with the

possibly sharing respiratory illness.

The missionary

translator

Shaylor contracted malaria on the Orinoco's main course and brought

with him to Patanowa-teri.

then abandoned the Indians.

The

An

doctors applied a dangerous vaccine and infected

man from Mavaca

searching for

stumbled out of the jungle with measles. James Neel became

steel presents

infuriated at filming wasteful acts of altruism. Meanwhile, industrial quantities

of blood,

and food ran

beetles, urine,

out.

lamented, and so

The

little

and plants were

scientists

"so

many work

to do,"^^^ as

rolled,

Brewer

time.

All prior studies of first contact saic

had

of film

collected, miles

had been,

to use

Neels apt phrase,

"a

mo-

of unrelated findings."^^^ In bequeathing the National Archives his take-

outs,

Asch

left

the definitive documentary

were introduced to a vulnerable

tribe.

from the past came out and danced

for

on how disease and acculturation

At Patanowa-teri,

the skeletons

all

The Feast.

Shortly after The Feast, the surviving Patanowa-teri joined another village, Iwahikoroba-teri, in it

full

making an

effigy

of Chagnon. They

set

it

up and shot

of their long arrows. Both groups blamed Chagnon for having worked

black magic against them; both relocated far away from Mavaca, to escape

Chagnon noted merely

the anthropologist s deadly powers.

noyed"

^^^

that his former friends

had participated

time a non-Yanomami has been targeted in

in such a ritual

this way.

as

Ocamo

mission.

leaves.

—

the only

him

to turn back.

they went upriver, 'We can't go on, doctor.

They're going to put an arrow through you,'

palm

was "an-

But when Chagnon

tried to revisit Patanowa-teri, in 1969, his guides forced

"His informant warned him

that he

"They had made

a doll [of

When Chagnon came

"

said Sister Felicita of the

Chagnon] out of banana and

back to the mission, he was almost in

—

Chapter J

A Mythical Village

I

was

their village.

While

Their village was me.

the

Napoleon Chagnon^

Yanomami who had been

fleeing in panic

and abandoning

neral platforms in the jungle, all

over Yanomamiland, Napoleon

filmed in The Feast were

their

and

as

Chagnon began

dead to improvised

fu-

measles spread to villages the

most challenging ad-

venture of his career. During the second v^eek of March 1968, he traveled up the

Mavaca River

than

"had never seen a foreigner other

me in their entire history."^ These villages belonged to a Yanomami subthe Shamatari. "My subsequent work among the Shamatari would me to describe them as the 'Fiercer' people."^

group lead

to explore villages that

—

Fiercer, farther,

Chagnon was

always pushing himself to

where no other anthropologist had gone before. For the

—

rado

it

always disappoints. In a sense, El

real

addict of El

Do-

—

the quest never ends,

Dorado was

history from the be-

conquistador or explorer, scientist or journalist

though

new limits, going

ginning

DARKNESS

^^

I08

EL

IN

DORADO

—

a history of civilizations that had ceased to

exist.

The

Spaniards

kept looking for the same pristine places they had already erased. El Dorado,

by a runaway

a high, cool city ruled

Inca,

sounded a

lot like

Cuzco, where

the Spaniards had an unforgettable and unrepeatable looting party.

American anthropology was born of a dians"

had been wiped out or reduced That

desire to recover them. entific

hoopla when a

His name was

is

similar nostalgia. Just as "wild In-

to reservations, scientists conceived a

why there was a stampede of publicity and sci-

solitary survivor

of the Yahi Indians emerged in 1911.

and he had been hiding for

Ishi

of northern California. Cartoonists drew

forty years in the Sierra

Ishi as a

capturing white

women and dragging them off by the hair.

been celibate

his

all

ilantes, ranchers,

(In fact, Ishi

had

he had no culturally acceptable partners because vig-

life;

and government agents had hunted four hundred members

of his tribe to extinction.) California at Berkeley's

Thousands lined up filmed so

Madres

man with a club,

Stone Age

ofiien that

gest the right props

became a

Ishi

museum and,

to see

him

in a real sense,

its

foundation

of

sacrifice.

every Sunday. Ishi was photographed and

he became an expert in posing and lighting, able to sug-

and angles

to prospective picture takers.

he contracted pneumonia. The

amid extraordinary

living display at the University

fanfare.

scientists

were aware of the

Admiral Perry had brought

Within weeks, risks; in 1

Eskimos

six

to

897,

New

York, where four of them died of tuberculosis. In the end, Ishi also died a lin-

gering death from tuberculosis, hastened by deathbed interrogations from

Americas leading

linguist.^

If a single Yahi Indian after the turn

museum and

of the century could launch a major

catapult his discoverers to national prominence, the scientific

was

potential of totally uncontacted villages in the late 1960s

For an enterprising

man

like

admitted that his motive was

Chagnon,

it

was

also irresistible.

"scientific curiosity."^

incalculable.

He

honestly

Like his predecessors at

the University of California, he saw this as a final opportunity for science.

"The Yanomamo,

like all tribesmen, are

doomed, and soon they

swept aside and decimated by introduced diseases penetrates deeper it

as

Western

will

be

civilization

and deeper into the remaining corners of the world where

has not extended itself"^

Chagnon had been first

months

his people

trying to contact the Shamatari

in the field.

had waged

Yanomami

since his

whom Kaobawa and ."^ When the century.

"These were the people against ceaseless

war

for half a

.

.

Shamatari heard that Chagnon had arrived with his bounty of steel goods, they sent messengers asking

him

to

come and visit them.

In

fact,

they began

MYTHICAL VILLAGE ^^

A

IO9

migrating from the Siapa River to the Mavaca headwaters shortly after

Chagnon

down

set

up camp

Chagnon

anthropologist.^

Bisaasi-teri

and war.

eagerly accepted.

opposed Chagnon's plan with arguments,

and screamed

Chagnon's

him not

at

abandoned him two days

Bisaasi-teri guides

angry anthropologist to return.^

Bisaasi-teri allies

tacks at the largest Shamatari village, killing

war between the two all

villages in five years,

Chagnon

odds,

and mysteriously

to take his steel presents to the

who were going to kill him

worthless, treacherous Shamatari,

against

delays, threats,

When Chagnon first attempted to travel up the Mavaca, the Bisaasi-

lined the banks

teri

Although they were receiving handed-

and machetes, they wanted an unmediated relationship with the

axes

The

at Bisaasi-teri.

tried to contact

launched preemptive

one man, the

first

but keeping them

them on

anyway. All of

upriver, forcing the

foot,

death in the

at bay.

When,

he became violently

sick after eating food his Bisaasi-teri friends gave him.^°

This clash of wills naturally soured Chagnon's relations with his host lage

and with

headman, Kaobawa. Chagnon resented the

its

Yanomami saw him only

as a dispenser

of metal goods, not

Chagnon had done

so

much

to accelerate,

made them

less

vil-

fact that the

as a friend.

the Bisaasi-teri could not understand that their growing acculturation,

as

at-

But

which

valuable to

him

informants and film subjects. ^^

By 1968, Chagnon had found

who had been

raised at

a

way to move

one of the

villages

on.

He hired a boy,

Chagnon wanted

though Karina was now living with one of Bisaasi-teri's as "an outcast" in the village.

"The boys of his age

and the adults ordered him around

as if

allies,

also teased

Karina,

to visit. Al-

he was treated

him

mercilessly,

he were a recently captured enemy

child."^^

Chagnon

Or

so

it

repeatedly risked his

seemed.

No

life

in this journey to the edge of the world.

one had traveled the Mavaca

headwaters were off the map. As a profusion of wild peccaries

it

in seventy-five years. Its

progressed upriver, Chagnon's party found

and turkeys

—an almost Edenic

scene of abun-

dance. Against this idyllic backdrop, however, lurked the ever-present threat

of death from the rina

had

ited

unexplored

his

terrible

Shamatari and from other, mysterious

Ka-

to be reassured against Raharas, mythological serpents that inhabrivers.

Chagnon combated

own: he told Karina he had

special

forces.

weapon

for

killed

the

many

Yanomami myth with one of

Raharas in his youth and had a

them. Chagnon demonstrated

"Right here! In the neck!" At

of Mishimishimabowei-teri."

last,

how he would shoot them.

he reached the "almost legendary village

When his guide stole his trade goods and boat,

Chagnon hollowed out missionaries

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

no

left

and radioed

a canoe

Yanomami villages

afflicted

to missionaries for help.

The

by measles on the Padamo River

in order to rescue the anthropologist.^^

Chagnon shrewdly understood ican audiences.

And he skillftilly turned what is normally a long days run up

a deep river with

no

rapids into a harrowing, three-day trip.

one of Chagnon's handwritten maps, published I

saw that

it

Amer-

the appeal of the virgin frontier to

(When I checked YanomamOy

in Studying the

took him exactly eight hours to reach a point a few miles below

Mishimishimabowei-teri, but he had also stopped for two hours to talk with

an informant.) ^^ The Mavaca

is

such an easy waterway that

They had

route for rubber traders in the nineteenth century.

Upper Mavaca, and hauled rubber overland transcontinental journey to Manaus, Brazil.

the

first

to travel the

it

was a major

on the

a post

on

to the Siapa River,

its

Though Chagnon claimed to be

Mavaca River in a century, the

explorer Carlos Puig had

reached the Mavaca headwaters in 1941,^^ as had the government malaria

ser-

vice in 1962.^^

most suspenseful drama,

Chagnon's

making

"first

contact

with

Mishimishimabowei-teri," was also questionable. Helena Valero, the white girl previously mentioned, lived with the group for most of 1933. She ran to

one of their

allies,

Actually, while

but continued to see them

Chagnon and Asch filmed The Feast,

ment nurse Juan Gonzalez took two where he claimed

to have vaccinated

more benign Schwarz

vaccine.

Chagnon contacted was

^^

about a decade. ^^

the Venezuelan govern-

Bisaasi-teri guides

up the Mavaca River,

some Shamatari with the government s

That might explain why the

village that

Chagnon

apparently not hit by measles. Whereas

constantly emphasized his

own

anxiety and the risk of death at the hands of

the Shamatari, Gonzalez said he tarian mission

at feasts for

away

felt

no

fear,

though

as a

nurse his humani-

was very different from Chagnon's. Later the Shamatari took

Gonzalez on foot

all

the

way to

There was a limited sense

Upper Mavaca. Until

in

the Siapa River.

which Chagnon made

his trip,

"first

contact" on the

no one had used the name Mishimishi-

mabowei-teri; Juan Gonzalez said he visited the Mowaraoba-teri in 1968.

That was the name

this

found any references visit.

group had used for about three decades.

to Mishimishimabowei-teri prior to

I

have not

Chagnon's 1968

In 1967, they had been living in two separate communities in the Siapa

River valley.

By 1968, only

mishimabowei-teri. chetes, six axes,

On

eighty of

hearing that

and twelve

pots,^^

them were

at a place called

Chagnon had come with

and promised

Mishi-

fifteen

ma-

to return with gifts for

\

MYTHICAL VILLAGE

A

—^

III

everyone, other villages from the Siapa River valley immediately pulled up

as a

their cousins. Salesian mission records initially describe

and joined

stakes

hodgepodge of five

different villages.^^

As

tribes

who

live together.

ever reported for the

And

it

remained

rate villages as

"^^

—

intact, like the triple alliance

around Boca Mavaca described

Chagnon had

The

mabowei-teri." their

visits

—

the largest

of the three previously sepa-

in the last chapter, only as long

this

with a remarkable ges-

christened the new, five-tribe village "Mishimishi-

villagers returned

Chagnon

called

Chagnon's compliment by bestowing

him Mishimishimabowei-teri.

wrote. "Their village was me.

an honor a Yanomamo can achieve.

The

"a great tribe or five

lasted (1968-72).^^

new name on him. They

their village,"

was

apparently coalesced around Chagnon.

The Mishimishimabowei-teri acknowledged ture.

this

The unusual village of four hundred

Yanomami

Chagnon's extended

1972, the priest at the

late as

Mavaca mission, Jose Berno, was unsure whether

it

"ceaseless warfare"

That

is

about

"I

as

was high

"^^

between Kaobawas

village

and the Mishimishi-

mabowei-teri was another exaggeration. Helena Valero,

who remained

in

the region until 1956, witnessed a decade of peace between the groups in the

1930s and early 1940s. That tranquil period ended when the leader of Mishimishimabowei-teri s parent village was accused of causing the epidemic that followed the U.S.

Some

Orinoco. teri,

massacred

two

villages

Army Corps

and some members of its

Bisaasi-teri

six

of Engineers' foray into the Upper

of the Mishimishimabowei-teri. But

close

ally,

Wanitama-

many members of the

vehemently denounced the massacres. ^^ Then another seven or

eight years passed without violence until, within

months of the permanent

establishment of a Protestant mission, a complex alliance of villages killed

somewhere between eleven and all

of the actual

mabowei-teri's ineffectual

killings in

allies,

According to Chagnon,

while the Mishimishimabowei-teri themselves played an

role.-^^

Whatever the reason military

fifteen Bisaasi-teri.

1950 were accomplished by one of Mishimishi-

dominance

thropologists

for their old wars, the Bisaasi-teri

had achieved

since joining missionaries, malaria workers,

on the banks of the Orinoco. They

killed three

clear

and an-

Mishimishi-

made no response.^^ when another Mishimishimabowei-teri man was killed by Bisaasi-

mabowei-teri in 1960, and the Mishimishimabowei-teri In 1965,

teri allies,

they also failed to

retaliate.-^^

Instead, they retreated into the Siapa

Highlands, where they had spent most of the preceding decades. This region,

according to Chagnon, has poorer food resources^^ and

less access to

metal

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

112

goods than lowland

Siapa villages were militarily

villages.^^ Typically, the

weak and lost women

to resource-

and metal-rich villages near the Orinoco.^^

Mishimishimabowei-teri was no exception.

from

suffered

It

"a severe short-

age of females"^^ and had a pathetic dearth of metal tools, both characteris-

of the vulnerable highlalid

tic

Their

known

villages.^^

warfare from the mid- 1930s until 1968 suggested that the

Mishimishimabowei-teri were one of the

Yanomamiland. Against the Namowei

and Monou-teri

Bisaasi-teri,

And

it

was about

their record stood at ten

risk taking in spades. ...

was

I

Chagnon

social

Once

I6mm

Kaobawa prepared fire

to

worried

he

felt

ferried

where he witnessed "the again, Chagnon's

He had some initial misgivings:

also

disaster." Nevertheless,

war." In June 1970,

pared to

weapons were not

Bisaasi-

"This was

might be a contributor to an

I

he could help end "twenty years of

Kaobawa

to Mishimishimabowei-teri,

camera and shotgun played key

As

roles.

meet the Mishimishimabowei-teri, Chagnon was pre-

in his defense. "I recall,"

really

he wrote, "how difficult

friendly.

it is

to be ready

and nonchalant, pretending

ready to shoot

I was with him and we were

who had

to zero.^^

and heroic ingredients of Neolithic Peace."

to shoot, but yet try to look friendly

imal

war deaths

new alliance between

to help foster a

and Mishimishimabowei-teri.

enormous

the group including Wanitama-teri,

to get worse.

Chagnon decided

In 1970, teri

—

—

groups of warriors in

least efficient

THEM.

.

.

.

that your

Kaobawa shouted

He was extraordinarily alert,

like

that

an an-

detected either prey or a predator, his eyes dodging rapidly

back and forth scanning the dim, gray jungle ahead.

."^^ .

.

Although peace would have appeared out of the question, and death

most

certain,

what

actually

ing captured in The Feast.

happened was very

Not only did

problem with welcoming the

1970.^^ istic

Bisaasi-teri;

they had no problem with being

The

on the

friends"

ritual

into another late

elaborate two-day

spring of

shaman-

souls of children in Mahekoto-teri." Their purpose

by killing enemy babies "and

stealing

and eating

was

"to

their souls.

"^^

involved taking hallucinogens, chanting, and enacting a pan-

tomime of devouring

who

Chagnon made

Magical Death?'' This took place in the

The Mishimishimabowei-teri "began an

attack

make

film.

no

the Mishimishimabowei-teri have

filmed together in a remarkable ritual that

award-winning

al-

similar to the alliance build-

lost a quarter

the children of Mahekoto-teri (the guests at The Feast

of their people to measles). ^^

Timothy Asch did not

participate in this film. Indeed, he hated

begged Chagnon to remove

it

it.

from circulation because he had found that

He his

MYTHICAL VILLAGE

A

USC

Students at

Eating

enemy

and

on

won

it

were horrified by the Yanomami's symboHc cannibalism.

Asch's part;

afi:er all,

Chagnon

Chagnon had made

a blue ribbon at the American Film

tional, has recently

all

by himself, of the films

the film

Amnesty

Interna-

echoed Asch's complaints about Magical Death. "They

watch green mucus pouring from the

[students]

attributed this to

Festival.^^ In spite

the anthropologist Linda Rabben, of

initial accolades,

riors

II3

children, even in the spirit, appeared psychotic to southern

California undergraduates, according to Asch. jealousy

^^

of Yanomami war-

nostrils

dancing and chanting under the influence of a hallucinogenic powder.

All the scholarly explanations (and the sight of Chagnon himself, befeathered

and painted, prancing about

in a drug-induced trance) cannot eclipse that

image.

That image, however, was

less

immediately relevant than the

new power

arrangements that Chagnon helped consecrate. In 1968, Chagnon and Asch brokered a

new

alliance

between the Mahekoto-teri and the Patanowa-teri,

—one

creating a formidable military force

and

village

killed

an old woman."^^

peace that also meant a strong, against the

regional

Now Chagnon was participating in a new

—one

new war

Magical Death

that immediately attacked a nearby

that

allies,

would

some 500

pit

The Feast

350

allies,

strong, in an innovative

war fought with shotguns and outboard motors.

Chagnon merely wrote, "A peace had been forged and

a

new era of visit-

ing and potential alliances had opened up.

The Mishimishimabowei-teri

were invited to

and dance, and they agreed

come.

his

[Kaobawas]

village to feast

to

"49 ^^

But they received a

little

help from their friends.

On June 28,

1970, Fa-

Berno wrote in the Mavaca mission chronicle that he "was invited by Dr.

ther

Chagnon

to

accompany him" four hours up the Mavaca

mabowei-teri,

who were

then ferried to the Orinoco for

ferent villages, with dancing,

drug taking, and

mabowei-teri died after he was beaten with an "a

new

era of visiting

and potential

visits to

ritual fighting.^^

turned ugly. According to Chagnon, one of the

So

to the Mishimishi-

men from

villages since

against Patanowa-teri,

1960.

which the new

And

alliances

it

alliance

The

Mishimishi-

had opened first

up'"^^

—

the largest

led to another war, this time

promptly attacked.

Chagnon had ever witnessed or filmed

1997 edition of Chagnon's

textbook."^^ It

with

violent death

A picture

of the Bisaasi-teri/Mishimishimabowei-teri raiders preparing for their tack

rituals

ax.^^

Mishimishimabowei-teri, but the opening brought the

between the two

three dif-

—

first at-

^was featured in the

was part of "a new chapter that

dis-

how

cusses

DARKNESS

^^

114

DORADO

EL

IN

a dramatic alliance between the Mishimishimabowei-teri

emerged, ending a war between them that lasted over 20 years. "'^'^ In the

new war, however, teri s

Bisaasi-teri raiders

headman, Kumaiewa, and

kill

would blow ofFthe head of Patanowa-

one other member of his

with a

village

shotgun/^

Chagnon blamed lent

these shotgun attacks

on

missionaries

unwittingly

guns to the Yanomami, ostensibly for hunting purposes. But the

problem was that

villages

guns. In

first

fact,

the

on the Orinoco could

shotgun

barter goods to

buy

real

shot-

by a Yanomami was committed by

killing

The Feast m

Heawe, son of the Mahekoto-teri headman,

after

shotgun was worth somewhere between

and ten new

gun,

who

six

A new

1968.'*^

pots;^°

an old shot-

much less. The tremendous windfall in steel wealth the AEC expedition its filming event, including a large number of new pots, could

dispensed for easily

have allowed the Mahekoto-teri s headman to buy his family a gun. By

this time, the

Yanomami were

able to

buy guns from many sources.^^ What-

ever the immediate source of their shotguns,

it is

a fact that the two

recorded shotgun killings were carried out by villages where brokered large film productions.

of the

leaders relative

rival

film teams.

who

of Rerebawa,

It is also

interesting that the killings targeted

The Mahekoto-teri blew off the head of a close

starred in

Magical Death. The

away the Patanowa-teri headman, who In 1971,

starred in

Timothy Asch joined Chagnon

at

year 1971

became the annus

Bisaasi-teri

blew

The Feast. Mishimishimabowei-teri.

{Magical Death had not yet been released, and they were

The

first-

Chagnon

still

on good

terms.)

mirabilis in ethnographic filmmaking.

Asch and Chagnon took twenty-two miles of footage and made twenty-six films. It

ishing

was astonishing how productive they were.

how accommodating the

It

was even more aston-

ferocious Mishimishimabowei-teri were.

Within twenty-four hours of Aschs

arrival at

Mishimishimabowei-teri, on

February 26, 1971, a fight broke out. Chagnon had advance warning of

who was

going to

dered Asch.

"It's

fight,

and where. "Bring your camera over

going to

lowed, involving about

start."^^

fifty

A flurry of blows,

shouts,

here," he or-

and duels

people in a madcap sequence. This gave

fol-

rise to

the most popular and enduring ethnographic film ever made. The Ax Fight. It

was

their third film to

win

first

prize at the

American Film

One of the novel features of The Ax Fight y^zs tween the filmmakers

as the events unfolded.

its

Festival.

inclusion of dialogue be-

First, a

viewer saw a frantic

scramble, people threatening each other with poles, machetes, axes.

Yanomami of all

ages

and both

stxcs flailed about, screaming

and shouting.

MYTHICAL VILLAGE ^^

A

II5

But the camera picked up only a piece of the action, and a very inconclusive

What happened?

piece at that.

When

mouth and

35mm

a

plained, "Well,

by her it,

'son.' It

and

that's

"No lots

Chagnon

the shabono plaza finally cleared,

two

camera around

his neck,

appeared, a pipe in his

looking very pleased.

He

ex-

women were in the garden, and one of them was seduced

was an incestuous relationship and the others found out about

what

started the fight."

kidding!" Asch said, equally pleased. "So this

is

just the

beginning of

more."^^

But, as Asch edited the film, he deconstructed this simple, sexual explanation. Incest

had been

really started

some

had nothing

to

do with

it,

after

because a young

difficulties

ter for Visual

first

informant

realized the fight

had never before been so honest

of fieldwork," according to Peter Biella of USC's Cen-

Anthropology.^^

But the film was not standing. In reality,

totally honest,

really

even about this

no one told Chagnon the

mistranslated the

The word

Chagnon's

Chagnon

man hit his aunt, who had reftised to give him

plantains. "Ethnographic filmmakers

about the

Chagnon

all.

incorrect, and, as the film developed,

initial

misunder-

fight started over incest.

Yanomami vfoiA yawaremou

meant "improper behavior toward

as "sexual incest."^^

a blood relative."

By

glossing over Chagnon's difficulties at understanding the subtleties of

Yanomami

language. The Ax Fight, like The Feast, fostered a comforting

lusion that the anthropologist in the wild

knew what he was

il-

talking about.

Arguments over food were not uncommon among the Yanomami, though they rarely became ftiU-blown village nightmares like the one witnessed in

The Ax

Fight.

Chagnon could not

food, followed by a

blow

accept the idea that a disagreement over

to a female relative, could convulse the

shabono. After viewing the footage over

and over

a wholly different theory about the fight:

two

patrilineal descent

A group of guests,

it

again,

the Ironasi-teri,

Chagnon developed

was actually a

groups for dominance of the

had refused

whole

conflict

between

village.

to leave the village at the

accustomed time. This often happened to Chagnon. His policy of distributing trade goods at the end of each visit gave a strong incentive for everyone

Chagnon was

to stick around.

eventually driven from the Mishimishi-

mabowei-teri after the headman,

head

—

unless

Chagnon

cated. "Distribute

Yet

Chagnon

all

Moawa, threatened

to

distributed his machetes to the

put an ax in his

men Moawa

indi-

of your goods and leave," he told Chagnon.^^

treated these trade disputes as secondary. Sex

and domi-

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

Il6

nance were always in the forefront of his thinking. "You

Ax Fight is

Chagnon was

that because

know the joy of The

so stuck in simple theories that, right

away, the film became a real joke," Asch said in an interview. "It its

simplistic, straightjacketed, one-sided explanation ...

know, halfway into making the beginning to I

my eyes as I was putting

apart before

fall

film, this great suspicion

had a powerful piece of material and

ish.

...

I felt it

was a

strange things that stick out

and you

fight.

you

feeling,

field

The Ax Fight together.

was suddenly looking kind of fool-

say,

.

.

one of those

.

what's this?"^^

me other interpretations of the film Gustavo Konoko, one of the adolescents who joined the

The Mishimishimabowei-teri and the

it

was

I

funny with

of the whole

bit like a gargoyle at Chartres

little

is

ruckus, claimed he

offered

and the other huyas (young men) were encouraged

"una pelea horemu," a fake

fight.

We're going to film, and then

I'll

"He [Chagnon]

pay you.

I'll

give

said,

to start

Tight with

poles!

you whatever you want.'

When he said that, many young men bloodied each other, playing. 'Hit each other! Be fierce! Argue! When the young men play, let the women begin to scream

men

at them.' That's

what he

said."

Konoko claimed he and

each received a machete, a knife, and red cloth.

Personally,

I

Chagnon was rectly.

But

mind and

I

think the dispute that triggered the ax fight was not, in spite

also accept

young men

at

and that

real

as a real reflection

of his

their desire to earn trade goods, the family squabble over plantains

crew.

this private fracas

By now, they were

all

di-

state

of

Mishimishimabowei-teri. Without

probably not have boiled over into a public

formants realized that

young

of Konoko's account, coaching matters so

Konoko's statement

that of other

other

^^

free-for-all. I

would

think Chagnon's in-

was a valuable offering

for the film

veterans of Magical Death. So they expertly

rescheduled the fight and relocated inside the shabono, several hundred yards away.

"It's

very strange that

Chagnon knew when and where

going to take place," said the anthropologist Leda Martins, years directing

Yanomami

"The Yanomami

the fight was

who

spent three

health programs for the Brazilian government.

are spontaneous, and,

when

they fight, they don't send a

messenger to the nearest white person to have him come and film

Almost were

certainly, different

really angry; others

it."^^

people in the film had different motives.

were acting out, hoping for trade goods. At

Some

first,

the

combatants, an uncle, Uuwa, and his young nephew, Mohesiwa, deliberately

missed each other half a dozen times. Then, minor, glancing blow, his

afi:er

the older

man

landed a

nephew got angry and chased him. Things began

MYTHICAL VILLAGE ^^

A

to take

on a

called.

"The

different color. fight almost

Most of the people did not take

it

"Some people

became

started to get

mad," Konoko

re-

real."^°

maintained a distance that suggested they

in the fight

seriously.

II7

Moawa,

the

headman

most violent man he had ever met, took no

whom Chagnon

interest in the fight,

called the

even though

own blood relatives from Ironasi-teri were beaten. The only thing that concerned Moawa was the camera. The great headman turned his back on his

embattled

his

back to

his

relatives,

posed for Asch, and then turned around and went

hammock.

A little later, the plaza cleared, and all the others returned unhurt to their hammocks. But

men surrounded

a group of seven

the

cameraman Timothy

Asch and the soundman Craig Johnson. These Yanomami men were laughing.

One of them, wearing a bright red loincloth,

brandished

it

at the film crew,

and pretended

he pulled back. The Yanomami

was

terrified.

ground

Another

in front

man

all

all

new machete,

took a

At the last minute

to rush them.

laughed even harder, though Johnson

took a pole and deliberately drew a

line in the

of the filmmakers, seemingly excluding them from the

shabono.

"Notice

how completely out of their social relationships

can kid us about

Johnson was

still

[we

are] that

they

Asch observed.

it,"

in shock.

"Some guy came up with

a machete

and ..."

"Yeah, but he was joking!" "I

know, but

I

didn't

"But they were

all

know

that."

—they were

all

joking! We're really, we're really out of

it!"^^

One to

of the best jokes about The Ax Fight ^2&

its

solemn

Chagnon, Mishimishimabowei-teri did not have any

only two old axes

when he first met them.

In the film,

title.

real

According

machetes and

new machetes and axes

were everywhere.

Although the images of The

Ax

Fight were confiising and ambiguous,

Chagnon's narrative was spellbinding. together by two

USC film professors,

A

1997

CD version of the film,

put

included a wealth of unedited mater-

that showed how Chagnon kept rhetorically ratcheting up The Ax Fight. He gave one account at Mishimishimabowei-teri, another at a Harvard sound ial

lab,

ond

and yet another thesis

was that

in

an

article.^^

Chagnon's

closely related

first thesis

men were

was

incest.

His sec-

vying for control of Mishi-

mishimabowei-teri. This latter interpretation matched that of his Ph.D.

—

dissertation,

which sketched Yanomami war

same pool of available women,^^ and,

of

in terms

Chagnon had observed

over reproductive resources. for the

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

Il8

as the

fratricidal conflict

that brothers

competed

men got older,

they drew

closer to their in-laws.^^

But

in

1975 E. O. Wilson published

tional authority,

Wilson explained how

new conception of biological

evolution. In this

thodox for brothers and cousins to

between two groups whose

The members of Team those of Team B.

atoms

—

A

renowned

competition,

still

The members of these teams

one another than to

one another

gravitated to

photographs only he

the

Chagnon

way Chagnon

identified as

feats

Of the seventeen

in-

one "team," only eight actually behaved

aligned them.^^

Asch was

evi-

possessed.*"^

the genetic loops.

A

number of

right

But the wealth of new material

about Chagnon's mental

new

in

closely related males, in-

cluding three uncles of Mohesiwa, acted directly opposite to tailed descriptions.

Chagnon of genetic

was based on conclusive

that his revised version

all

less or-

fiinction of kin distance.

A were more closely related to

The \9^7 Ax Fight QY^ untied dividuals

was

by the very weight of their biological proximity.

and claimed

dence from

it

the entire ax fight into a battle

was an exact

hostility

brought a mathematician on board, performed Olympian looping,

interna-

was the key to

fight each other over reproductive re-

Chagnon then reworked

sources. In 1977,

like

Sociobiology.

biological relatedness

Chagnon s

de-

straitjacket. it

was

not possible to determine from the freeze-frames and accompanying

still

shots whether climactic

questions. For instance,

anybody was ever struck with an

moment of the

film, the youngster

scious" or "almost killed," as

Chagnon

never seen, never filmed, that has as

raised

asserted.

made

ax,

much less whether,

in the

Torawa was "knocked unconThis was the traumatic blow,

students cringe

all

over the world

they heard the horrific thud of the Atomic Energy Commission ax de-

scending on Torawa. But Asch admitted in 1992 that he had created the sickening sound of impact by striking a watermelon.^^ It

was a case of the

incredible, shrinking

Ax Fight. Asch had

much, and he designed The Ax Fight to undermine any easy by including evidence

that, as

he put

it,

made

suspected as

interpretation,

the film "unintentionally post-

modernist."^^ Unfortunately, his dialogue with Johnson flashed by so quickly that only a few viewers ever shared his ized the

Yanomami were

"all

moment of epiphany

—when he

joking" and the filmmakers were

real-

"really, really

outofit."69

Student surveys found that a large majority saw The Ax Fight

as a tradi-

— MYTHICAL VILLAGE

A

tional chronicle

only thing

I

A

of savagery.

know about

the

sophomore

Yanomami

TTiey are very primitive people.

they

They

act.

It

is

—^

USC

at

that they

II9

reacted typically:

aa on

their

"The

raw passions.

seems that they don't even think before go raiding other

are very violent people that just

villages.

take drugs and they freak out on drugs, and on drugs they've been

They

known

to attack people.

Chagnon,

in

"^*^

textbook

his

Mishimishimabowei-teri primarily groups began with threats to question of

ened the

how Chagnon's

lives

my

its

as threats.

Ufe

"My

the

study of the Shamatari

and ended that way.""^ There was no

of the Mishimishimabowei-teri and the other Shamatari. Fight, the village

of Bisaasi-teri was experi-

worst epidemic since the measles outbreak of 1968. Again, there

was a double outbreak of malaria and respiratory claimed

upon

looked

also

expeditions and their germs might have threat-

During the filming of The Ax encing

narrative,

six lives

out of about three hundred

disease.

at the

Falciparum malaria

Mavaca mission; four

per-

sons died while trekking to another village, so the missionaries could not im-

was

mediately medicate them.

It

Orinoco experienced similar

outbreaks.^-^

and other

terrible,

But

it

villages

along the

was a only fraction of the

loss

the Mishimishimabowei-teri experienced.

In the middle of the double epidemic,

up the Mavaca

With solute

River.

travel to the inland villages except for express

research in 1971.

huge

Bisaasi-teri guides

sickness raging at the mission stations, there should have been an ab-

ban on

But the widespread sickness was

dozen

Chagnon took

^^

villages

village

this year,

on the Ocamo River

fdm

at

alone,^'^

made

first

He

three complete expeditions,

more than

a

and shot

kept traveling through bases, picking

and never stopping for quarantine

to travel at full thronle at night.

was the year Neel sent more

at

contact with another

and cold epidemics sweeping the mission

Sometimes he had

relief.

pace of scientific

also collected blood), "^

Mishimishimabowei-teri.

guides, paying everyone in steel,

emergency

Chagnon gathered blood

on the Upper Mavaca (where he

sixteen miles of

the malaria

During

also related to the frenetic

He

up

controls.

couldn't stop. This

geneticists into the field than ever before

one

after the other.

And

this

was the year Asch

received a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to film the

Yanomami

as

never before. Asch needed half the village of Mishimishi-

mabowei-teri to carry

all

their gear.""^

In this way, the worst epidemics to hit the the

AEC's two most productive

years,

Upper Orinoco coincided with

1968 and 1971 ." Sickness soon spread

to Mishimishimabowei-teri. teri,

other deaths

"A month

followed.

Mishimishimabowei-teri in 1971,

I

after

who

has lived

Yanomami and Their Food System. "Two Yanomami, downriver in a boat made of bark, I

asked.

'We're at the sick.'

left

the

River," re-

on the Mavaca River

where he collected plants and myths and wrote a book. The

since 1971,

going?'

Chagnon

was fishing on the Mavaca

Juan Finkers, a Salesian brother

called

man from Ironasi right after The Ax Fight. 78

According to Chagnon, one

Mohesiwas group, died of respiratory disease

Many

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

I20

'We re

all

dying, and

Moshata River

That's the

time

first

like a shell, that

we

[a tributary

met

I

mission had never gone that

don't

a

man and

a boy,

came

they use. 'Where are you

want

to die,' they answered.

of the Mavaca], and we're

all

very

the Mishimishimabowei-teri because the

went back

far. I

who were nurses, and then we went up

to the mission to get the

the Mavaca, where

of twenty-eight Mishimishimabowei-teri.

nuns

we found a group

We cooked and took care of them

while the government malaria team, which landed by plane in Mavaca, came upriver by boat.

had

ers

They found

hepatitis.

that twenty-four

had falciparum malaria. Oth-

Many others had either died or fled into the mountains be-

cause they go to the mountains in small groups to get the spirits off their so that they can't

Students

make them

sick

trail,

any more."^^

who see The Ax Fight, Magical Death,

or any of the twenty other

films about the Mishimishimabowei-teri have not been

burdened by the

knowledge that the community was decimated shortly after the filmmaking.

Chagnon employed death of so

the

same distancing device he had used

many Yanomami

filmed in The Feast.

to soften the

He changed

the

name of

the village, again.

The Yanomami who

died after the filming of The Feast became "Platanal

Yanomami," instead of Mahekoto-teri.^^The dead Mishimishimabowei-teri became "Village demic

16." In an obscure journal,

—

that devastated Village 16

Upper Mavaca

that he

had

Chagnon wrote about an

a shabono of nearly

400

individuals

first contacted in 1968.^^ Disease

percent of its members, 106 people. Because of its location,

epi-

on the

wiped out 27.4 its size,

and the

time frame, the village could only have been Mishimishimabowei-teri. To clinch the matter,

Chagnon

identified Mishimishimabowei-teri as "Village

16" in an appendix to his book Studying the Yanomamo.^^

Chagnon 16.

has maintained that respiratory epidemics decimated Village

He has admitted he has only a vague notion of when this might have hap-

pened

—sometime

He cites

Salesian

in

nuns

—

1973 or 1974

as his sources.

because he was gone for two years.^^

The

missionaries have not surprisingly

MYTHICAL VILLAGE

A

121

Filming Deaths: 163

D

Mahekoto

Mishimishimabowei

Patanowa

26

'€ ^

31

pointed the finger back

at

i

106

Chagnon, saying

his expedition

was probably

responsible.^^

The mission not

records support Finkers's account to a significant degree, but

perfectly. After

River, v^here

The Ax Fight W2is filmed, Finkers did go up the Mavaca

he found,

as

he claimed, twenty-four of twenty-eight Mishi-

mishimabowei-teri extremely

However,

this

happened three months

And it appears

month. sible for

from falciparum malaria and

ill

after

Chagnon

that a later epidemic, in the

about 40 percent of the

total deaths at

fall

tact"

and

in

between

alliance

the fact

Yanomami

field,

not one

of 1973, was respon-

in

1973 or 1971

—

or

that Chagnon's procedures of "first cona

new

Villages.")

era of epidemics. (See the ap-

Chagnon

attributed the deaths

16 to intervisitation with the Mavaca mission.^^ Elsewhere, he

took credit for brokering that

When

is

making opened up

pendix: "Mortality at at Village

—

the

^^

Mishimishimabowei-teri.^^

But whether the Mishimishimabowei-teri died sometime

left

hepatitis.

intervisitation.^^

he decided to arrange an alliance between

mishimabowei-teri, rectly feared that

Today, anyone

Chagnon knew

"this

was

Bisaasi-teri

risk taking in spades."

he "might be a contributor to an enormous

who

and Mishi-

He cor-

disaster.

"^^

brings a remote group into permanent contact with

the outside world and outside disease

is

held accountable, at least to the an-

thropological community, for providing ongoing medical care. "All newly

contacted native groups should be provided with immediate, long-term access to

modern medical

care," according to a

by the anthropologists

search article

Kim

diseases are introduced, intervisitation

demics. If untreated, a third or

few

years.

.

.

.

Hill

1989 National Geographic Re-

and Hillard Kaplan. "Once new

among groups

leads to massive epi-

more of the population can

die within a very

[0]ften, the groups are neglected after the initial excitement

associated with contact wanes. "^^

The

protagonists of Chagnon and Asch's

most famous

films

all

met with

122

disaster.

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

DORADO

Some 27 percent of the Mishimishimabowei-teri,^^ 25

percent of the

Mahekoto-teri,^^ and at least 12 percent of the Patanowa-teri died.^^

Chagnon did not

forget them, however.

He blamed

Salesian missionaries, for these deaths, even as he

no one could

link the villages to his

printouts, blood samples,

ports for an

American saga

transigent Indians

Feast

ID

own

others, principally the

changed the names so that

expeditions.

Chagnon s computer

photos, maps, and films were

in

all scientific

which the anthropologist triumphed over

and the Indians

politely died off-camera.

intended snuff films.

disease, gives these

in-

Watching The

and The Ax Fight, knowing that many of the dancers and

soon be dead from imported

sup-

fighters will

documentaries the

feel

of un-

and shaman near the Catrimani River, 1975 Giovanni Saffirio, courtesy of the Carnegie Museum ofArt)

Mario, headman,

(photo by

—

Chapter 8

Erotic Indians

I

was

a

go-between in most of the love

a witness.

The

stories I set

down, and sometimes

Yanomami

at

Adulimawa-teri in the Parima Mountains saw a It

looked Hke one of the

balloons the missionaries' children played with, but airplane, like a

seedpod released from the high

white sphere floated nearer, they

kind of man.

was

Jacques Lizoi

strange portent in the sky in June of 1969.

from an

I

When

made out a creature

he emerged, he had a

rope,

and the parachutist needed

ogist

Claude Bourquelot,

three to

all

who had

fire

it

was launched

forest canopy.

tied

up under

weapon, a big

it,

knife,

As the a

new

and

a

subdue the French anthropol-

tried to kill his colleague Jacques Lizot

with a machete.^ Bourquelot s sudden madness was a mystery. not

He was a newcomer who did

know anything about the jungle or about Jacques Lizot. By one account,

Lizot took Bourquelot into the bush devices.^

Bourquelot panicked, got

and then

lost for a

left

the tenderfoot to his

week, and,

own

when he managed

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

126

to find the village again, conceived a single desire: to split Lizot s

head open.

What sounded like insanity to the authorities in Caracas, who received Lizot s rescue call, was to Bourquelot an obvious solution. The problem, the poison, was inside

Lizot's head. "Lizot

Chagnon observed

know why he

does very cruel things sometimes," Napoleon

in regard to Lizot's treatment of Bourquelot. "I don't

does such cruel things."^

Jacques Lizot was the ultimate outsider

He was

homosexual, and Parisian. ica

an

among

orientalist

the

Yanomami

who came

to

—Gypsy,

South Amer-

with a mastery of linguistics and French culinary arts and soon established

and

a reputation for both ferocity

erotic energy that surpassed

any Yano-

mami's. Although he was repeatedly denounced for child molesting, he served only a short stint in

and was quickly

jail,

released at the insistence of

a Venezuelan congressman.^ Lizot's connections to the University of Paris,

where he studied with no

less

than Claude Levi-Strauss, guaranteed a kind

of immunity in Venezuela, which remains a Francophilic country. French anthropologists are held in particular esteem because, outside the United States, Levi-Strauss's structuralism rules supreme.

Structuralism bivalence.

As a

is

a glass

bead game of elegant symbols and aching am-

college freshman,

Levi-Strauss's Tristes Tropiques,

was introduced

I

to structuralism through

an immensely erudite,

ofi:en

witty history of

the anthropologist's long odyssey from a Paris high school to the Brazilian

jungle and back again. Levi-Strauss's ambition was to study a whole continent.

To

this end,

he enlisted three other researchers

who

explored the Brazil-

ian interior, spending several weeks per tribe, to gather as as

many artifacts and

much linguistic information from as many groups as possible. With ample

fiinds

from the French government, they traveled the wilds of Brazil

pioneers of America's West, in a fifteen muleteers,

and

wagon

train,

like the

accompanied by fifi:een mules,

thirty oxen.^

Near the Brazil-Paraguay border, Levi-Strauss discovered an

entire tribe,

the Caduveo, that had "a strong dislike for procreation. Abortion and infanticide were almost the

normal

practice, so

much

so that perpetuation of

the group was ensured by adoption rather than by breeding,

and one of the

chief aims of the warriors' expeditions was the obtaining of children."^

small percentage of children

who were

not murdered

painted black and given away to some other family.

at birth

unlike a colony of displaced Parisian veo's artistic genius to the

artists.

were promptly

The Caduveo

parental responsibilities to devote themselves to sculpture Levi-Strauss

The

rejected

and painting, not

compared the Cadu-

Spanish Baroque masters.^

He saw them

as

EROTIC INDIANS

^-^

I27

murderer-aesthetes in "some romance of chivalry, absorbed in their cruel

game of prestige and domination which

in a society

which

quite unlike almost everything that has

is

Columbian America.

.

.

to us

from pre-

."^ .

.

—no

Levi-Strauss did not offer a single footnote

phenomenal

created a graphic art

.

come down

—

data

to buttress his

A tribe that murdered almost all of its children and gave

find.

the rest away appeared to contradict the basics of both natural selection and natural affection. Levi-Strauss's

determinism,

as

inhuman

as

Caduveo seemed,

in their fanatical cultural

Chagnons Yanomami

in their biological deter-

minism. Levi-Strauss feared that the creatures

on

Amazonian

to extinction. "^^

doomed

their behalf because

it

he studied were "miserable

tribes

Nevertheless, he firmly eschewed activism

would have

shattered his scientific mirror of con-

templation and objectivity. "Never can he [the anthropologist] act in their

name

.

.

.

such a position could not but prejudice his judgement." ^^ This de-

tached ambition did not endear Levi-Strauss to contemporary anthropologists struggling for

Amazonian

native rights, like Linda

International.

She recently asked of Levi-Strauss,

Indians, after

all, if

they are

But L^vi-Strauss was not tory.

He

doomed

Ph.D.

"Why bother to learn about

to extinction

entirely passive in the

and we

—and

reorienting

him toward

—

the

to passivity?"

Yanomami s

took what turned out to be the momentous

Jacques Lizot away from Eastern studies

Rabben of Amnesty ^^

political his-

initiative

of steering

which Lizot had obtained a

in

Yanomami.

Levi-Strauss encour-

aged Lizot to join a large French expedition to Yanomamiland in 1968.^^ Lizot arrived

on

a flying boxcar with

accompanied by

several

Timothy Asch and Napoleon Chagnon,

French doctors, mounds of fresh vegetables and

trade goods that included plastic dolls. ^^

Lizot initially established himself at Bisaasi-teri, the AECs base

the site of two missions. Lizot traveled in the

camp and

company of boys, who began

accumulating trade surpluses. This was not altogether surprising, however, since other anthropologists also preferred hiring

young boys and

Lizot appeared to be an enthusiastic heterosexual,

cused on Lizot s pursuit of young the all

women

of the

came running

"When

I let

them

village dealt

to

my

inside

girls.

with

initial

concern was fo-

The nurse Marie Dawson recalled how

Lizot's sexual advances.

"One day

they

house, with Lizot running after them," she said.

my gate,

Lizot looked at

A Yanomami shaman has described the same perspective:

as guides. In fact,

me and walked

away."^^

incident from the Indians'

[A] 11 the

DARKNESS

^^

128

women

of the

village ran yelling

and screaming into the nabas

They jumped

house, almost breaking the door.

over tables and chairs in a

Some were even

race to hide behind Keleewa's [Dawson's] wife.

get their heads

under her

DORADO

EL

IN

trying to

Because Keleewa's wife couldn't under-

skirt.

stand our talk yet, she thought

it

was a

raid.

Then

the naba,

A.H.

[Ass

Handler, Lizot], appeared and stuck his head in the door. He saw the women hiding under things and behind the white girl. The women hoped that

A.H. wouldn't bother them when there was another naba around

who

wouldn't be afraid of him. ^^

Mark

Ritchie, a businessman turned author, recorded this testimony for

book Spirit ofthe Rainforest.

his

Ritchie

—

sympathetic to homosexuality the

Yanomami speak for themselves

—

tant

not

is

—including

flattering.

a

it

is

not

to let

the

Yanomami

say about out-

few missionaries, both Catholic and Protes-

But what they say about Jacques Lizot sounds

Caduveo

—

a play of ambition

as

and

cotdd be true only in a medieval legend.

Ritchie has designated Lizot as is

who

book attempts

and, though most of his sources are also

unlikely as Levi-Strauss's description of the

domination so cruel

a Christian evangelical

new ground. What

evangelicals, does break siders in general

is

or to anthropology. His

a polite rendering of Lizot's

A.H.

—

^Ass

Handler. In

fact, "Ass

Yanomami name, Bosinawarewa

Handler"

—

literally,

"Anus/Vagina Devourer." Ritchie's translator was the missionary Gary

Daw-

who also served as National Geographies and possibly speaks Yanomami better than any other white person. At the Padamo mission, Dawson showed me the transcripts of the interviews about Lizot. "I have no problem identifying 'Ass Handler' " Dawson said. " Ass Handler' is Jacques translator, ^^

son,

Lizot."i«

Gary Dawson

clearly does

not

like Lizot,

whom

he knew

at Bisaasi-teri.

Lizot was expelled from Bisaasi-teri because he beat a thirteen-year-old boy,

whom Ritchie calls Youngbird (the same "outcast" who had been Chagnon's ^^

guide to Mishimishimabowei-teri). Lizot reportedly punished Youngbird because he was angry that food, a

common

someone

—he

source of conflict

Youngbird, an orphan with no male

when

Lizot snuck

relatives,

had no one

up by night and savagely beat him

Dawson, who was seventeen his father, the missionary Joe

gun.^"

—

know who had stolen his between Yanomami and their visitors. didn't

years old at the time,

Dawson) from going

in his

had

to protect

him

hammock. Gary

to be restrained (by

after Lizot

with a shot-

— EROTIC INDIANS

^^

129

After the beating, the government medic at Bisaasi-teri, Juan Gonzalez, treated Youngbird,

whose

eyes were swollen shut.

Then Gonzalez, accompa-

nied by the elder Dawson, went to Lizot's hut, where the anthropologist had

locked himself in. Gonzalez banged on the door and ordered Lizot out of the

threatened to throw Gonzalez into the

village. Lizot

But Gonzalez

river.

weighed about 250 pounds; Lizot, though wiry and tough, was a small man. Gonzalez repeatedly jabbed

his finger into Lizot's chest. 'You are

going to

throw me?"^^ Lizot sion, fall

He traveled farther up the Orinoco to the Catholic Platanal mis-

left.

where the Yanomami boys of Mahekoto-teri began to acquire a wind-

of madohe, foreign

stuffs

A

Salesian missionary. Father Jose Gonzalez,

confronted Lizot in the shabonos central plaza.

"What are these boys doing for you that is worth all you are paying them?" Gonzalez asked. "That's a

"From

lie!

this

hear you're paying the boys to use them for sex."

"I

Where could you have

boy

ever heard a thing like that?"

right here."^^

Gonzalez asked Lizot to leave Platanal; Lizot at the priest.

Lizot then

wandering anthropologist.^^

moved downriver to

the small

main course of the Orinoco between up

and threw a punch

A fistfight ensued, in which Lizot was knocked out. He left, ex-

pelled again, the

site

refiised,

a short distance

community of Tayari-teri, on

Platanal

and

from the Orinoco, on a

Bisaasi-teri.

creek,

and began an international campaign against the

where he

built a

were tolerant of Yanomami customs cinogens. (Cocco's views of the

Asch and Chagnon

like

house

Salesians.

There were legitimate grievances against Padre Gonzalez and Padre Cocco. Both of them were beloved figures

the

He selected a

among

the

his

mentor.

Yanomami and

polygamy and the use of

hallu-

Yanomami were portrayed sympathetically by

in the film

Gonzalez viewed the Yanomami

Ocamo as

Is

My

Town.) Essentially, Cocco and

undernourished, impoverished people

not unlike the ghetto children in Milan

whom

the Salesians' founder, John

Bosco, had set out to help with vocational education.^^ Unfortunately, both priests

supported the Venezuelan government's plans to introduce peasants

from the Orinoco region among the Yanomami.^^ Lizot threatened to burn

took the threat Lizot

down

the Salesian missions.

seriously, petitioned the

government

The

Salesians,

who

for Lizot's expulsion.

had become the champion of Yanomami culture

to

many

But

people, in-

cluding the French embassy. Whatever Lizot's motives, he successfiilly turned

back a colonization plan that amounted to ethnocide.

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

I30

Napoleon Chagnon

also

supported Lizot in

this battle. "I

wrote a

letter to

the Venezuelan government supporting his right to do research after he had

threatened to burn

two were

down

the Salesian missions," he said.^^

At

this time, the

close friends, united in their opposition to Gonzalez's plans.^''

When Chagnon reentered the field in ternational reputation

1976, he arrived with a growing in-

and a $260,000 grant from the National Science

Foundation, primarily to study "Mortality and Divorce in Yanomamo."^^

This was about $1 million in todays currency, and

Chagnons

enabling

status,

him

to hire

significantly raised

two senior consultants, one being

Museum

Robert Carneiro of the American

it

of Natural History, and three

graduate students.

One of the

graduate students was Kenneth Good. Until then.

been a good friend and protege of Chagnons. They got to at

Penn

used to go

down

type of guy

come in

to bars I

did

know each

other

where Good was Chagnons drinking buddy. "We

State University,

barrassment, but

Good had

and drink

it

Good

together,"

recalled. "It

because he was going to be

who had German

my

chair.

was an em-

He was

the

shepherd attack dogs, and he'd have people

over to his house in the afternoon and he'd have the students dress up

padded

suits

and have the dogs attack them. Oh,

yes.

They'd have to put

out an arm or a leg and the dog would attack. Students could get injured.

And

he used to

—

Parma

like taking the attack

dogs

—

^whose names were

Gus and

into bars so he could corner big, 200-pound-plus weightlifter

^^

types.

To prepare his olence,

students to deal with the Yanomami's supposed extreme vi-

Chagnon obtained extra-strength chemical mace from

Department (which Good

Police

re-labeled "Center

Chagnon

in order to pass customs). ^^

the Pittsburgh

County Dog Repellent"

armed Good with

also

a double-

barreled Winchester shotgun.

Once

in Caracas, Venezuela,

the city for supplies. rice.

.

.

.

"We had

members of the expedition fanned out across to get barrels

of trade goods and big sacks of

We bought axes, machetes by the box, loincloth material by the roll,

fishhooks by the thousands. All this was added to the tons of equipment

had shipped down

on the

plane.

It

in advance, in addition to

was an incredible operation.

ergy and persistence.

The man was

Although Good had a severe

DC-3, which dropped them

I

what we had brought with us had

to

admire Chagnons en-

driving, driving, driving,

all

the time."^^

cold, they rushed into the rain forest

at the

our things off the plane, a sight that

Ocamo left

the

we

mission. little

"We

started

on a

dumping

crowd of missionaries and

— EROTIC INDIANS

^^

I3I

Indians that had gathered wide-eyed with astonishment. There were fifteen

army trunks bursting at of a coding scheme. door,

.

the seams, .

.

Then

all

of them painted different colors

came out of the cargo

four outboard motors

of them packed in wood-framed, protected

all

as part

crates.

.

.

.

The knot of

onlookers couldn't conceive that such a stupendous accumulation could possibly

belong to such a small number of people. "^^

priest

and

where

it

It

his tractor to haul all their stuff to the

took four hours for a

banks of the Orinoco,

was loaded onto a covered riverboat that Good dubbed the African

Queen.

They shoved night,

when

the early

off immediately

and headed

the riverboat ran aground

morning and reached

Chagnon had used missions with Lizot. As

on a sandbar. But they pulled

camp

Lizot's

that

Good

with the missionaries, and he didn't want us

—

got a

—

community

room

in Lizot's house.

During his screaming

to have anything to

first,

men

The

free in

day. In previous years,

now he wanted to show

"Lizot was currently at war

it,

pological

same

for supply depots,^^ but

explained

his solidarity

mid-

upriver, traveling until

colleagues

do with them

from the anthro-

either. "^^

Chagnon

terrified

when two

students slept in huts.

nervous night in the jungle.

burst inside, pushed

quito netting. In the ensuing tussle,

him

all

Good was

into a table,

and ripped

mos-

his

men wound up sprawling on the Good recognized his

three

ground, bruised and covered with mud, but not before assailants as

Chagnon and another anthropologist, both drunk. Good,

husky man, was so angry he threw Chagnon,

who

is

much

a

tall,

smaller, over

an

embankment. "Tranquiloy Ken," Lizot said, as he helped bring peace.^^

Fortunately,

when he woke

Chagnon could not remember what had happened up, rather bruised

got the experience, however. in

Yanomamiland. "In In the end,

said.

They were

is

and muddy, the next day Good never

the biggest

I

awe of

chemical mace against bats. "In

misnomer

in the history

foreigners, the nabah.

much

would

also report

among

the Yanomami.^^ But

lower

his fieldwork experience

levels

"^'^

fear

my opinion,

of anthropology,"

when

they met me.

Chagnon's other students

of violence than their mentor found

Good was

the only one to write a

book about

—^which has been well received by

Into the Heart

anthropologists and translated into eight languages,

widely read account of the

for-

witnessed only one raid."^^

"The Yanomami were quaking with in

him

was the only time anyone ever attacked him

my twelve years,

Good turned his

the Fierce People

Good

It

to

Yanomami

after

The Fierce

becoming the most People.

With Good's

arrival

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

132

on the

scene,

Orinoco had been

though a granite boulder by the banks of the

as

it is

teeming underworld.

lifted up, revealing a

Chagnon

Strangest of all was Lizot's village ofTayari-teri.

depot

at Tayari-teri that

things to strike that the

him was

women

Good

from time

visited

that the

One

of the

Lizot's

bungalow, where the

community of boys. The women had

path around Lizot's compound.

first

men greatly outnumbered the women, and

were not allowed to approach

anthropologist lived with a

to time.

built a storage

And the boys had odd chores,

a separate

including the

tending of a marijuana patch. boys behaved differently in other ways, too.

Lizot's

guys were smoking and wearing deodorant and

"All the

Good.

was

"It

disgusting. Apparently

it

stuff," recalled

was a bunch of queens or some-

Oh God. Yeah, the kids of Tayari-teri. They used to have fifteen things of beads around their necks. Oh God. I don't know what all the reasons thing.

They were

were.

and

spaghetti, pots.

Lizot's

guys

—they were

eating spaghetti. Yeah, kilos of

cook it up and the kids would go down and wash

they'd

They were like his house

boys.

all

the

And he felt he was paying them well. Not

only spaghetti and deodorant and cigarettes but machetes and

all this stuff.

One

it

time

I

opened a

big, thirty-gallon,

of packs of cigarettes rettes. It

place.

was

—

there

waterproof drum, and

was

all full

must have been thousands of packs of never seen so

really impressive. I've

many

ciga-

cigarettes in

one

"^^

Lizot's

war with the

Salesians continued

and then abruptly ended. Lizot

won. Father Gonzalez's church superiors ordered him

to leave Platanal mis-

sion.

Profoundly depressed, Gonzalez traveled downriver to the

sion

and went

to a

New

Year's

Eve party with a Salesian brother, Emilio

Fuentes, which lasted long into the night.

Gonzalez riding on a

tractor,

Ocamo mis-

very

fast

As

a grand finale, Fuentes took

while they were

still

drunk, and some-

how Gonzilez fell out and broke his neck. "I was with Lizot when we got the word that Father Gonzalez was killed," Good remembered.'^^ Brother Fuentes left

the Salesians after this misadventure, and Lizot arranged a scholarship for

him

to study anthropology in France.^

Good's relationship with Lizot was

and write

letters to

ple of days that

thinking

dope and

I I

I

Chagnon when

I

was bothering him

also turbulent.

"He used

to get pissed

used to stay there for more than a cou-

—

that

I

was interrupting.

And

he kept

was going around asking about him whether he was smoking wasn't.

The guys would

just

come and

talk to

me, and

I

would

EROTIC INDIANS put two and two together. They

smoking

said,

^^

'The policta, the police are coming and

poHce they don't Uke

this grass stuff; the

I33

that.'

whether he was ass-fucking these guys or anything.

me

wanted

[-Eibesfeldt]

.

.

I

never asked them

This

.

what Eibel

is

to do."^^

Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt

is

Konrad

Lorenz's successor as the head of human

Max Planck Institute and Germany's best-known evolutionHe began studying the Yanomami in 1971 and hired Good as

ethology at the ary biologist.

a researcher after Good's relationship with Eibesfeldt

was reportedly horrified by the

wanted Good

to

document

and Lizot had become

in

But

stories

Good was

about

Lizot's

an

1977.'^^ Eibel-

pedophilia and

reluctant to get involved.

of sorts. They jointly wrote a

allies

He

letter to Science,

Chagnon of presenting a Maquiritare Indian village

accusing

one

it.

Chagnon soured in

as a

Yanomami

about protein consumption.'^ (This led to a sharp break be-

article

tween Lizot and Chagnon.) Shortly afterward, Eibel-Eibesfeldt began working with Lizot himself In the end, everybody teri,

but

where

that's

I

worked with

went

for

R and

Lizot had turned Tayari-teri into turbation, anal sex,

goods

—and

all

Lizot. "I didn't like

R,"

Good

among a people, who,

homosexuality until Lizot.

said. "I didn't

know

for these favors with trade

as far as

I

know, never practiced

"'^^

Meanwhile, Lizot began writing the ethnography of Yanomami

Sodomy was normal simulate

it

that

Sodom and Gomorrah with mutual mas-

and a system of paying

of this

going to Tayari-

for children.

"One can

sexuality.

frequently see boys of

all

ages

publicly in their games; often brother-in-laws are involved, for

these are usually devoted to each other through

mutual and

Homosexual

this kinship category, are

practices,

though more frequent in

exceptional between brothers or

vagina of a

sister

.

.

.

there

is

first

no shame

cousins. If

it is

lasting affection.

not

scandalous to eat the

in eating the anus'

of one's brother.""^

According to Lizot, there was no shame and no blame for any kind of sexuality,

even animal intercourse. Children practiced

training for adult mating. In Lizot's world, the

masturbators.

and dead

among them gist

bestiality as

Yanomami were also

They used everything from holes

in the

ground

ingenious

to tree

stumps

animals.^'^

There are Amazonian

ther Luis

sodomy and

it is

Cocco

tribes

where homosexuality

is

common, but even

usually discreet.^^ According to both Helena Valero

—two

and Fa-

sources considered authoritative by the anthropolo-

Brian Ferguson in his survey of Yanomami

literature'^^

—homosexuality

—

among able.^°

DARKNESS

^^

134

Yanomami

the Venezuelan

DORADO

EL

IN

and

rare, brief,

is

culturally unaccept-

One Yanomami legend mentions homosexuality,

but

treats it as dirty

and nonhuman.^^ Alcida Ramos, a

Yanomami

specialist at the University

holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, was the

Yanomami were

argue that Lizot's erotic

a projection of his

first

own

to politely personality.

"Discretion and naturality ... are overriden by Lizot's voyeurism.

them has

ing the ever-present narrator hovering over

Yanomamo an unreal Ramos also ventured

quality, as if they

were characters in a

Yanomami

—

Yanomami

have yet to speak to a

—

among

seventy-one months in the

where kids were doing ation.

Where

what he

the

all this

who

Yanomami,"

play.

would

."^^ .

.

illicit

"a

ever observed the kind

Good, who spent

said

at Tayari-teri

—

ass-grabbing and talking dirty

^was Lizot's cre-

Lizot describes this type of sexual behavior, he's describing

created. We're learning about Lizot, not the

rible place, Tayari-teri.

I

don't know,

corrupted or something.

where they

Hav-

except at Lizot's village.^^ "I

"The lewd atmosphere

field.

.

communal shabono}^

specialist

of openly displayed sexuality Lizot described never saw homosexuality

.

particularly the passages about

achieving orgasm in broad daylight inside the I

.

the effect of lending the

that Lizot's unfettered love stories

chuckle of disbelief" from the

who

of Brasilia

was always

I

was

it

like the

Yanomami.

Yanomami

relieved to get

It

there

was a

ter-

had been

back to Hasupuwe-teri,

any of this. "^^

didn't have

But Hasupuwe-teri, located above the formidable Guaharibo Rapids, did not remain a haven for long. After

Good left the remote village,

to take a

ftir-

lough in Caracas, he returned to find that Lizot had been visiting in his absence and pursuing Hasupuwe-teri's teenage boys with

"Most of it was

just told to

dens

when he came, how

offer

them

me by the

he'd grab

and then

a loincloth,

guys

them and

he'd get his

and they got away. And they were scared

New words were lages,

—how

gifts

and

they'd run off in the gar-

he'd threaten them. First he'd

shotgun and he'd threaten them

to death of him.

"^^

apparently invented for this phenomenon. In

sodomy became

Lizot-mou, "to do

threats.

like Lizot. "^^

some

vil-

At most shabonos

throughout the region, however, an excruciating new compound verb appeared: Bosinaware. If the

Yanomami

conceive of death as spiritual canni-

balism, their verb for intercourse, naware, literally

Broken down, (nawarewa).

Good,

The

Lizot's suffix

"Ass Fucker"

is

nickname

wa turned

the

translates

as

means ass

"eating the vagina." (bosi)

vagina eater

the verb into a male name. According to

most accurate

translation.^^

EROTIC INDIANS Good

^^

I35

recorded one of the Hasupuwe-teri boys' accounts of Lizot s

tempted molestation. said. "So, to try

"When

Good me to a really posh he explained to me that he didn't really

Lizot heard about

and smooth things

restaurant in Caracas, and, as

at-

we ate,

over,

it,

he got defensive,"

he invited

have anal intercourse with the Yanomami. They just practiced mutual masturbation.

guess he thought that was okay."^^

I

This conversation took place at Porto Vino,

"He

rant.

wine.

—

wad on me

really spent his

And

was

an excellent

all this

my mouth,

while I'm putting pasta in

ing mutual masturbation. 'Oh.'

there

still

he

Gary Dawson and Mark Ritchie videotaped

expensive food and

tells

What am I supposed three

me

tact

all

when

adolescents

Yanomami men who

and Timoteo. Today they

who

Spanish,

an

live at

I

know

all

three

—

Jaime, Pablo Mejia,

are Christian evangelicals, fluent

the village of Koshirowa-teri

but

all

of them visited Tayari-teri

them

literate in

River, near

Mejia knew

Lizot at

as teenagers. (Lizot also visited

and Timoteo currently play leadership

Koshirowa-teri.) Pablo Koshirowa-teri, which

and

on the Padamo

unaffiliated Protestant mission. Originally, Pablo

Bisaasi-teri,

The men, who

had firsthand con-

Lizot entered the field in 1968,

with Tayari-teri and with Lizot.

only hav-

he's

to say?"^°

gave hearsay accounts of mutual masturbation at Tayari-teri.

were

Italian restau-

numbers about four hundred

individuals,

roles at

most of

evangelical Christians.

Remember one of my

Pablo Mejia: teri] ?

.

relatives that lived there [at Tayari-

He knows all the people at Tayari-teri because he lived there And that guy told me, "When I was asking Lizot for Lizot said, 'Yeah, I've got good work for you. Come over to my .

.

as a son-in-law.

work,

when we got there,

house.' So there were a lot of people at Lizot's house

all leave and he made me stay all by myself Then 'Now I'm going to give you your job.' He thought he was going

and he made them he

said,

to

show him a job

in the house.

But Lizot just got

he called the boy and he stood beside him.

what the guy ries.

And

[Lizot]

Lizot got

was going

all

really afraid

He

And

he

hadn't heard any of the sto-

hammock and said, up and down my penis.' And although he

naked and got back in

'Here take your hand and go

was

to do.

hammock and really didn't know

in his

he thought, 'Well,

I

sure

his

want a

lot

of his

So he

stuff.'

went ahead and grabbed hold of him anyway and began moving

it

up

and down." Jaime:

Yes,

I

heard the story from the same guy.

And

I

went

to

him and

136

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

him

personally,

asked

somebody

how I

got

"Did you do

dirty

And

and

Pablo:

I

got a radio, too." So

I

ugly,

but

give.

Yes,

it's

.

.

from

.

that

to earn stuff

that with

asked him, "Didn't your hands get "Yes,

all

my hands sure did get all slimy

anyway because

it

Everybody did

we have

And by doing

I

wanted the

stuff he

because of the stuff they wanted."

it

something you would normally never hear about. But over

them

there, to hear tell it, I

kept doing

I

way

from him.

also got a suitcase

I

and slimy?" And the guy said,

would

that

And the guy said, "No. You see my gun here? That's And that's how all the young guys [huyas] who have guns

in Tayari-teri got their guns. That's the

his penis,

you just hear

that or did

else?" it.

[madohe].

DORADO

just so

tell it, it's

common.

After

I

heard that boy

man from Tayari-teri if that was true. And how all the young peotheir trade goods. We older men never did

asked another, older

the old guy from Tayari-teri said, "Well, that's ple at our village got that.

We wouldn't

body the

got."

do

all

that.

But we shared the trade goods that every-

And whenever he

[Lizot]

young guys and he would

there was always

wants

it

was in the urge, he would

say, "If

somebody who wanted

And

this time?"

call all

you guys want work. ..." And it.

So he would

say,

"Who

they would come.

"How many times would you And that guy, who had a 12-gauge shotgun, told me he did Lizot six times. And if he wanted a shirt or something else, it was just once or twice. He went to Caracas and then to France. He told me that when he asked Lizot for a shotgun, Lizot told him, "You'll have to do me six times." And he gave him a 12-gauge. And he

Timoteo:

I

him

asked

have to do

it

[another individual],

to get a gun?"

had three 12-gauge shotguns, and

These accounts appear

to

son told Lizot,

bought one of them from him. 61

Good that he practiced the Yanomami. The missionary Gary Daw-

confirm

some kind of masturbation with

I

Lizot's

claim to

me that one of the men interviewed had performed sexual favors for

but would not admit

to surmise

which man

it

on camera.^^ However,

that was, since he shifted

it

was not very difficult

from describing other boys'

encounters with the naked Lizot to a conversation he himself had with a

naked

Lizot.

And when

guns, both he and Just as scientists

know about Lizot,

he tried to explain

Dawson

how

he got one of Lizot's shot-

started laughing.

—and —

and missionaries were the

Yanomami

fear

him and

are

reluctant to

tell all

they

his very real political power,

based on his long influence with the government bureaucracy and the French

EROTIC INDIANS may also be Yanomami had

—^

I37

embassy. His former partners

constrained by shame. Whatever

homosexual practices the

prior to Lizot's arrival, shotgun-

driven prostitution

other

nothing to brag about in their culture. The attitude of

is

Yanomami toward contempt

castic

Lizot's alleged sexual partners has

When

to outright opposition.

one boy

ranged from

at the village

the other children: "One-Who-Strokes-A.H.

Penis.

s

of

new

Koshirowa-teri obtained a beautiful watch from Lizot, he also got a

name from

sar-

"^^

Elsewhere, an armed alliance against Lizot's village of Tayari-teri was

emerging. According to Ritchie's informants, the

on the Yanomami's abhorrence

reaction was based

initial

One of

for the anthropologist's sex practices.

the Bisaasi-teri's two headmen, Paruriwa, found that his son was involved

with Lizot and drove him from the shabono with

village leaders allied

Bisaasi-teri

at

arrow point.^

A coalition of

then met to plan Lizot's murder.

One

of the strongest advocates for killing Lizot was Rerebawa, Chagnon's old guide and one of the three

Paruriwa

said, "I say

we

men

whom

to

kill him!"*^^

The Fierce People was dedicated.

Paruriwa was unable to muster enough

support for an assault against Lizot, because the other ful

of killing a nabah and because

Karohi-teri

and other

weren't so poor,"

Lizot's trade

Tayari-teri neighbors.

Yanomami were

fear-

goods were indispensable to

"He could never do

this if

we

Rerebawa lamented. "We're trapped. We're backed into a

spot with no escape. "^^

The

child-molesting controversy became part of the growing conflict be-

tween Tayari-teri and Bisaasi-teri

Shakita, in It

supremacy of the Upper Orinoco.

had not forgotten Chagnon

other headman,

teri's

Bisaasi-teri for

moved with

(Shaki). In fact,

his faction to a

visit his

new shabono named

namesake. By 1976, Venzuelan

entists at the leading research institute,

in continuing sponsoring

in return. "^^

Still,

facilities

Chagnon might have

"When we

arrogant,

James Neel

prevailed at IVIC, through

who

arranged for

to give a presentation there in 1975. Unfortunately, at the

Chagnon

a question:

help the people he had been studying for so called,

felt

and resources without giving too

the intervention of Marcel Roche, an influential doctor

the talk, a student asked

coming

sci-

IVIC, were "not very enthusiastic

Chagnon's research," because they

"had taken advantage of IVIC's

Chagnon

Bisaasi-

honor of Chagnon.^^

took Chagnon ten years to

much

Kaobawa,

What was long?*^^

end of

he going to do to

Kenneth Good

re-

gave our presentation to IVIC, he was very uppity, very in

with a quarter-million dollar grant.

asked him, 'What are the

Yanomami going

to get out of

When someone it?,'

he answered,

— DARKNESS

^^

138

*Well, they're going to get a hell

of a

IVIC, but

he couldn't

of them gave a talk

"All

end a student asked, 'You've been working with them

at the

for ten years.

"^°

of machetes and trade goods.'

lot

According to the anthropologist Leslie Sponsel, at

DORADO

EL

IN

What

interfere.

you going

are

He was

do

to

for the

Yanomami?' He

said

a scientist. After the meeting, spontaneously

a group of students and faculty met in the IVIC library

upstairs,

broke loose. "^^

ammunition when

The Venezuelans

Chagnon then

offered an

received additional

Andean

a $1,000 consulting fee for the

all hell

archaeologist at IVIC, Alberta Zucchi,

Yanomamo

no Amazonian experience and no

and

project, even

though she had

interest in cultural anthropology. Since

Zucchi's husband was the bureaucrat in ultimate control of all research per-

—perhaps mistakenly

mits at the Ministry of Justice, this was interpreted as a

clumsy

For ten years, from 1976 to 1985, Chagnon got no

bribe.'''^

permits.'^^

His long absence hurt Kaobawa. Whereas

young women from neighboring

villages

Bisaasi-teri

had acquired many

during Chagnon's

tenure,^"^ the

terms of exchange reversed as Kaobawa ran out of steel. Far more the village than married into

"Chagnon no longer

lived

it.^^

Kaobawa was

women left

increasingly marginalized.

with them, taking away a major source of upper

Bisaasi-teri's wealth, military security,

and

status.

"^^

During a roughly corresponding period, the population exploded Tayari-teri,

because of immigration

—almost

from forty-one

to eighty-eight in 1979.

1974

in

first

to point out a

new

residents?

of it male.

suspicious thing

Another suspicious item males, 21 females]

all

number of demographic

One

by a wide margin, so the increase

Yanomamo

—

villages.

is

is

is

Tayari-teri's

population went

Napoleon Chagnon was the

anomalies:

that the adults

"Whence came

the

outnumber children

unlikely to have been due to

new births.

the adult male/female sex- ratio of 143 to 100 [31

proportionately far

more

adult males than

is

normal

for

"^^

At every other center of outside power, where side wives, the sex ratio shifted in favor of the

a

at

not because of medical attention or lowered infant mortality but

trade goods purchased out-

Yanomami who

resided with

nabah?^ This was particularly evident whenever the Yanomami acquired

shotguns, because the shotguns gave such a decisive advantage in hunting that a spite

man

could

now

support more than one

wife.''^

But

at Tayari-teri, in

of unprecedented trade goods and shotguns, there was a curious dearth

of women.

And

instead of an influx of women from other villages, a host of

young boys were

arriving.

^°

— EROTIC INDIANS They came from

Mejia's cousin emigrated.

young immigrant males came from teri's

I39

including Bisaasi-teri's Shamatari

all over,^^

from where Pablo

bowei-teri,^^

^^

was

closest ally.^^ Karohi-teri

Karohi-teri,

ally,

Momari-

But most of the

which had been

Bisaasi-

second residence. By 1969, just a

Lizot's

year after Lizot had been active at Karohi-teri, the village had considerably

more wealth village.

manufactured goods than even the richest

in

Bisaasi-teri

^^

But Karohi-teri,

for

trade goods, was just the outer courtyard to

all its

sanctum of

Tayari-teri's fabulous inner

cigarettes,

shotguns. Lizot's narrative shows that boys were

and then on

moving

first

to Tayari-teri; according to Lizot, these boys

to Karohi-teri

were searching for

own account pointed to something else. For ina fourteen-year-old named Fama came down from the Parima HighHowever,

brides. ^^

stance,

machetes, clothes, and

Lizot's

lands to visit Karohi-teri.^^

It

was a long

trip,

only one night, just long enough to drop

on

Fama

foot,

off.

and

his family stayed

Fama decided

even though in the Parima villages there was a surplus of

skewed

as the

Karohi-teri.^^

male-female ratio was

at Tayari-teri,

it

to stay

women. ^^

But,

was even worse

Whatever Fama was doing, he was not primarily searching

at

for

a wife.

And,

played a role as "a go-between' in the

if Lizot

Yanomami

he wrote about, he was also a keen observer-companion of grimaging from Karohi-teri to Tayari-tari. His book narrates the adventures of

Tales

new boys

of the

Hebewe, who was growing up

love affairs

at Karohi-teri.

Hebewe had moved beyond masturbation and sodomy, though he joyed tormenting the newly arrived boy

ground and untying

more and shout

There

shabono

.

do

battle

as a timeless

.

all

the

to Tayari-teri. Lizot portrayed the

icon of Yanomami culture:

.

with long clubs cut out of soft

the skin but can raise welts. grit their teeth

The blows

wood

that doesn't cut

are haphazard; those

who

are struck

not to show their pain and try to trade blow for blow with

opponent.

two

"They laugh

many young people at Tayari, producing a merry and friendly Hebewe watches the children who are playing in the central

plaza ...

in

the

are

activity.

their

en-

"^^

Hebewe moved on

After this nastiness, Tayari-teri's great

still

—by throwing him on

Fama

his penis, the ultimate humiliation.

their pleasure.

pil-

Yanomami

When they are finished,

the children plant their

weapons

parallel rows.

Nearby a group of youths

is

inhaling a hallucinogenic drug. As a joke.

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

I40

a

tall

devil

of a fellow hails a young boy of about ten and orders him to par-

ticipate, asserting that

it

would be cowardly

back away; they blow into

to refuse.

The

child dares not

his nostrils several doses too strong for

stunned by the drug, he collapses,

his

Shortly after his arrival at Tayari-teri,

who was

DORADO

him

and,

head striking the ground.^^

Hebewe fell in love with a young girl

already married (to another immigrant from Karohi-teri). Rashly,

Hebewe and two

friends tried to

arrows. Their attempted

murder

ambush

the older youth and shoot

him with

Hebewe was beaten and driven from

failed;

the village for a short time. But the family of Hebewe's intended victim

could not fathom the boys motives for

wanted

him

to kill

for ftin! For ftin!

this unbelievable treachery.

There was no other reason.

"They

"^^

A third Karohi-teri emigre, Tohowe, became Hebewe's confederate in romantic

He was

intrigue.

an orphan

abandoned before being adopted

who had no

relatives at Tayari-teri, so

in the village that

he used to go around

naked. "Adolescence refined his features and gave his body firmer, more har-

monious beauty.

.

lines, .

.

while the texture of his skin retained

Tohowe was about

howe was showing

when he

twelve

signs of a nervous

all its

smoothness and

arrived at Tayari." Sadly, To-

breakdown. "His

uncommonly violent; he breaks and tears anything that comes first his

own

fears

silence.

."^^

anyone. Afterward he retreats into absolute and persistent

.

Tayari-teri

was

Lizot's village

full

of troubled teenage boys

me. Although

I

who had just

was certainly a demographic and

shabonos "merry and friendly

teri, I

into his hands,

belongings and then other people's, for in his blind passion he

no longer .

however, are

rages,

activity," as Lizot

cultural anomaly.

depicted

have visited over thirty Yanomami

arrived.

villages,

it, is

And the

unfamiliar to

including Karohi-

have never seen any of the persistent, ritualized forms of cruelty Lizot

described. In Lizot's extraordinary opening scene, the Tayari-teri shabono

was a theater of pain: while a child that

"devil"

of a youth forced a drug overdose on a

knocked the ten-year-old unconscious, other children beat each

other with careftilly chosen sticks to see

who would scream

first.

The

including Lizot, did nothing. Elsewhere, Lizot's hero, Hebewe,

adults,

incited a

group of adolescents to a molestation of another boy, and then, without any remorse or serious consequence, tried to murder a newly married man.

The ing

is

anthropologist Alcida

that Lizot's

inflicting pain

Ramos

Yanomamo seem to

on each other

for

observed,

"What

is

especially disturb-

be so very whimsical in their nastiness,

no other reason than

that

it

strikes their

EROTIC INDIANS fanq^."^^

Hebewes attempted ambush was unique

of Yanomami violence

newcomer

having sex under the

as

normal circumstances, year-old

^^

would be

it

to try

and

kill

lage leaders at Tayari-teri. Stranger

was Hebewes decision to

fiill

—

I4I

as bizarre in the annals

sun in the shabono. Under

self-destructively stupid for a fourteen-

an older youth still,

who was

related to the vil-

ambush turned

after the

hang around. He received only

just

into a fiasco,

a mild beating

and, after a brief timeout, was restored to the good graces of the community. Lizot did not explain that

doctor nicknamed him in the

middle of a

Hebewe was

El Principe because

big,

his favorite.

A

nearby mission

Hebewe would come downriver

motorized dugout canoe wearing an immaculate

white towel around his body, drenched in cologne. "The only thing he didn't

Principe.

among

the

more

clothes

and shotguns than any other

in-

dress

and

he would sometimes act

like

Yanomami. Yet he publicly opposed Western

firearms for the Indians,

an angry Savonarola. teri

El

called

"^"^

Lizot probably distributed dividual

him

Yanomami fanning him. So everybody

have were two

and even

at Karohi-teri

On one occasion, he made all the Yanomami at Karohi-

turn in their clothes, which he burned in a great bonfire of the vanities.

He could be very demanding of his boys. Women were not allowed at the bungalow at Tayari-teri. And for a long time he did not permit the boys to hang around with the mission Yanomami,

"He

impure. ^^

also felt

Kenneth Good. "He Tayari-teri

was a

whom

as culturally

he was in competition with the missionaries," said

didn't allow his guys to

fission

he regarded

go near them, even though

group of Mahekoto-teri of Platanal.

I

remember he

threatened them."^^

For

all

these reasons, tension built between Tayari-teri

when Kaobawa,

mission groups. This was dramatically illustrated in 1978, at the

head of an unsuccessftil hunting

party,

and the poorer

approached the

village

of Tayari-

mud balls, while children heaped abuse on him.^^ They laughed at Kaobawa, whom they called a poor, teri to

ask for

friendless

some

food.

nobody who had

Publicly humiliated, calated into a Bisaasi-teri.

lost his

Kaobawa

pelted with

nabah.

retreated to Shakita.

war of arrows. Two Tayari-teri were

A

Salesian nun,

area for three years

happened

He was

killed

The war of words first,

es-

followed by one

Maria Eguillor Garcia, who had

lived in the

and was completing her Ph.D. fieldwork, recorded what

next: "[I]n their pride that they could not be defeated, they

[Tayari-teri

and

its

allies]

Klawaoitheri of the Upper

carried out an

Ocamo, burn

amazing

feat:

their shabono,

They

attack

and capture

five

women. The news is

too much.

DARKNESS

^^

142

spread like

Upper Orinoco. This time

over the

fire all

DORADO

EL

IN

.

.

This time Kaobawa and Paruriwa were able to assemble the largest tion in the annals of Yanomami warfare

150 warriors

it

."^^

—

—comprising

Coming

to attack Tayari-teri.

coali-

fourteen villages and

stealthily,

by boat, they

sur-

prised the Tayari-teri, burned the village to the ground, killed seven people,

most of them with shotguns, and

seized "a

bounty of cultural and manufac-

tured goods," along with one woman.^^ After Garcia, "Tayari-teri disappeared from the

this,

according to Eguillor

Yanomami geographic

map."^°°

When Napoleon Chagnon finally reentered Yanomami territory in he documented

New

Mexico,

this

war and presented

an American research conference on the anthropology of

at

"He gave a paper but no one was allowed to quote from

war.

1985,

his findings a year later, in Santa Fe,

it

directly with-

out the authors permission, something Chagnon often does," said Brian Ferguson, a professor at Rutgers University. cussed, however.

The Yanomami had

'Chagnon's

and

ple'

village'

'Lizot s village.'

had exterminated'

had been

in his

house

can talk about what

Chagnon's informants said that Lizot

when

the fighting started and they had

land.

it

villages

Although Chagnon's

also raised questions

To Ferguson,

named

it

shot

ofif-the-record paper

about Chagnon's

own

undermined

influence in

Yanomami-

seemed amazing that two anthropologists would have

after themselves

war against each other

and

that these unusual groups

for regional supremacy.

firmed what the author the Bisaasi-teri

man was

he walked out of Lizot's house and Lizot was forced to

after

flee to Karohi-teri."

Lizot,

dis-

that 'Shaki's peo-

considered killing him. According to Chagnon's people, one

with an arrow

we

described this as a war between

The whole point was

'Lizot's people.'

[at Tayari-teri]

"I

Chagnon's account

Mark Ritchie's Yanomami

— "Chagnon's people"—had

would wage also con-

informants reported: that

plotted to assassinate Lizot, but

did not carry the plan to completion. They did, however, succeed in driving Lizot from the

main course of the Orinoco. ^^^

After Tayari-teri was burned down, at the end of 1979, Lizot

galow and relocated to

Manaviche

River. "It

his older,

broke with Venezuela. "I

to

was an amazing

Yanomamiland

bun-

secondary center of Karohi-teri, on the place," recalled Jesus Cardozo,^^^ a

Venezuelan anthropologist and former student of Chagnon's

mentor return

left his

after his

long

exile.

But, like

who

helped his

Good, he soon

Chagnon. Cardozo became Timothy Asch's partner

in

^^^

remember Timothy Asch

insisted that

we

meet, although

Chagnon

I

EROTIC INDIANS had forbidden house,

me

to

meet

was very far away and

it

on and on and on.

was with Tim—

Finally

Cardozo

Lizot/'

it

^we see these

I

thought

—^

said.

"When

I first

gotten lost because

I'd

was getting dark, and

Yanomami. So

I43

I

I

went

to his

we just went

was getting worried

—

asked where Lizot was, and they

jumped

into our

dugout and took us a couple of miles up river and

believe.

Did you

ever see Apocalypse

coming

full blast

I

couldn't

Now} There was Richard Wagner music

out of the jungle.

And

Yanomami with

there were these

headsets on, listening to classical music. Then, later that night, Lizot ex-

plained to

me that they had a passion for Mozart and for rock,

that combination apparently hit them.

He had

It

for acid rock,

was very fimny, that whole

thing.

dozens of boys working for him. Everybody seemed happy. Every-

body was

getting

sorts

all

of gifts. And, oh, he had

of things to give away.

lots

own outboard motors and their dugout canoes, and some of them had shotguns. I mean they were rich people all the Yanomami in the area that lived for him. We used to call it

And, sure enough, some Yanomami had

their

—

Boys Town. They they'd listen to.

had perfume and whole necklaces and

all

was wild.

It

It

stereo

equipment

was obvious what was going on.

something that you had to do a

of research about.

lot

It

was

It

was not

out in the

just

open.

"So

I

remember

when

talking at times

would

I

just

be sitting by myself

talking to Bortoli [head of the Salesian mission at Mavaca]

what's your opinion? Don't

going on

here?

I

would even

ple

of stuff. ... they do.

I

mean tell

mean

I

Cardozo

felt

a type of prostitution that's I

—

^what exactly they

actually act

out.

it

sexual activities.

kind of disgusted."

later

is

'Well, Bortoli

mean had

open.' Peo-

it's

to do, that kind

they've actually described every single physical

—

things but

this

sexual favors are being bought.

you how much

They would

that kind of thing

you think

.

went on,

"I

.

To be

.

.

movement

Kind of jerking people off and

quite honest,

I

would

listen to the

^^"^

remember one night when

I

went

to Karohi,

men came out and sat down next to me. the matter. He said, 'Why must we keep doing this?' I asked what he meant 'Doing what?' He made the motions of masturbating with his hand. 'Why must we keep doing this for this man?' he asked. He was so disgusted with it. But it was also as though and Lizot was not

there,

He seemed very sad.

he considered

it

I

one of the

asked

him what was

—

absurd, that this was the only

way they could

get trade

goods, by masturbating an old white man."'^^ I

asked Cardozo

why he

"Now, the problem

is

didn't

do anything about

that Lizot has

had enemies,

this he's

obvious abuse. got enemies, and

—

they in fact have tried

when

[to expel

returned to Venezuela

I

I

The

him].

met with

ORSTROM].

for

That

night,

had

I

plane,

and they said, 'You should not meet

That's

what Chagnon

you is

says.'

He said,

the devil incarnate.

He

I

time

remember

I

in

1986

French couple Jean Chiappino

who

Lizot.'

The

much

And I said,

thing

is

gotten off the 'Wait a second.

that if you

'What's

said,

Yanomami and

study the

just pretty

this?'

'How

evil itself I said,

is

bad?' So that evening they told

Lizot

'No.

day you were born.'

will regret the

first

this

[and Catherine Ales, both anthropologists

work

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

144

meet Lizot

He said,

'Lizot

can a person be

this

me the most incredible stories about Lizot

would chase them through the jungle and shoot

them, you know?

at

Apparently they worked together, and they had their run-ins, so they parted ways.

And

chase

them and shoot them through

in the midst of

all

these problems,

Chiappino, returns to Caracas and

on one occasion Lizot would

the jungle. So one of them, this guy

files at

the Direccion de Asuntos Indige-

nas a formal complaint against Lizot. That's what Chiappino told me. filed

He

an accusation of Lizot practicing sodomy with the Yanomami. Lizot

comes back and hears about

it

and

in turn accuses

Chiappino of being a ho-

mosexual and having sex with the Yanomami. Apparently then what hap-

pened was that Lizot was supported by the French embassy, the school where he works, the School of High Studies in Social Science, where in France

things

and a very important person

in Venezuela

.

.

.

and

he's affiliated

that quieted

."106

down.

.

.

The Venezuelan Indian Agency's approach

to this conflict

was

to investi-

gate neither Lizot nor Chiappino. So Lizot continued his research.

occasion.

Good saw

Lizot with a cast

Yanomami man." Another time,

"The Belgian was beating the

burning

log.

Then

In Caracas,

I

crowded

it

shit

out

at the

a club-fight with a

Ocamo

Mission,"

and research

tains.

came I

I

thought,

partner,

apartment overlooking the

We sat on her balcony as evening lights came on, who has woman of

see the 10,000-foot-high Avila Mountains. Ales,

been doing research among the Yanomami for two decades, striking elegance

Good

out of him until Lizot picked up a

at their spacious high-rise

still

"afi:er

to visit Jean Chiappino's wife

valley of Caracas.

and we could

arm

the Belgian walked away."^^^

went

Catherine Ales,

his

Lizot got into a boxing match. "I saw Lizot

and a Belgian photographer fighting said.

on

On one

and

long, red hair,

when

across her face.

I

is

a

and she spoke looking toward the moun-

mentioned the name

Lizot, that a

She obviously did not want to

talk

shadow of fear

about him.

When

asked whether her husband had denounced Lizot for child molesting, she

EROTIC INDIANS but even

said, "Yes,

if the

Yanomami

believe them. People will say the

Cardozo became

membered

that

comed by him forest,

whole

when

when he

efiRisively

Yanomami

Lizot's friend

—

are

"sorts

So you see

liars.

of friends," he

—

there

said.^^^

is

no

He re-

next called on Lizot at Karohi-teri, he was wel-

and then finding himself abandoned, alone

Lizot disappeared without a

village

I45

themselves denounce him, no one will

proof."io« Jesiis

^^

word

in the

the next morning, taking the

with him. "He was surrounded by boys.

I

would

say,

they ap-

peared to be around twelve years old." Cardozo asked another researcher, an archaeologist finishing a Ph.D. at

among

the

American University who has

Yanomami, how old the boys were. She

also

worked

group included

said the

boys from around the ages often to twelve. "Yeah, ten to twelve years old,"

"They were walking with an effeminate swaying of the hips

Jesus agreed. as

you know,

is

and point

gle see.

Lizot

not at

normal

Yanomami

for

boys.

to each others asses. 'That's the place.'

made no attempt

come downriver with all

all

to hide

from the

it

And It

that,

they would gig-

was very strange to

Salesians. In fact,

he would

a whole boatload of these boys, wearing their jewelry,

painted up. And, you know, [Father] Bortoli and [Brother] Juan Finkers

would be smiling and welcoming them was

really quite

sians in

open about

which Lizot

said,

Yanomami should be ing,

'I

it. I

as

it

were no big

deal. Lizot

attended a meeting with Lizot and the Sale-

think everyone

tested for

though

who comes

into contact with the

AIDS.' There was some embarrassed cough-

but Lizot just continued, 1 always get tested for AIDS whenever

to the area.'

The

stories

of Lizot's homosexual

rumored abroad.

I

life

among

heard about them in Boa

the

return

Yanomami were widely

Vista, Brazil,iii

quently alluded to in interviews with scholars from

Yanomami

I

"110

controversies. ^^^

all

and

it

was

These reports were so well known inside

Venezuela that in 1986 a military commission was sent to investigate.

Cardozo was

fre-

camps of the

at the Platanal airstrip

when

Jesiis

the military plane bearing the

commission, headed by an army major, landed.

He remembered having the

following conversation with the major:

"Who

are you?"

"I'm an anthropologist." "Sergeant! Take note: We've just

Orinoco. We're going to take ried?"

met the anthropologist of the Upper

this to

Caracas for a report. Are you mar-

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

146

"No, I'm not." "Are there other anthropologists in the area? Are they married?" "Well, I'm not really privy to their personals."

"Ah, do they engage in any type of irregular sexual activity?" here

we

things

are next to the plane,

and

down. So he comes out

got here or not?

I

understand

he's

finally there's

having

and

You know

this sergeant write all these

"Look man,

says,

is

there a fag-

another guy who's French and

he's a

faggot.""'

But Cardozo did not want to be the sex policeman of the Upper Orinoco.

So he that

it

just gave the location

of Lizot's

was a two-day hike from

village to the major,

Platanal,

walked around the

minutes and flew away to Caracas and did nothing. admitted. "Everybody

knows about

body ever did anything. And what that he

felt

that

the whole thing. But for Bortoli told

airstrip for ten

so bizarre,"

"It's

some reason no-

me on several

Yanomami, be

it

with a woman and pay her a machete or some

or anybody paying a felt

little

boy

to

do something

that Lizot's impact

he actually used cases

like

upon

rice or spaghetti or

It's

Giovanni

Yanomami

what-

as Lizot

how he

felt.

Yanomami had been minimal. is

and who

in fact married

decided not to press the point.

I

say,

I

just

a complicated issue."^^^

Saffirio,

for

the

same

like that. That's

Hepewe, who

seems a well-adjusted Yanomami. ... don't know.

him was

would go and,

ever in exchange for sexual favors, he thought that was just the

And

occasions was

heterosexual or homosexual, for

equally censurable in his point of view. So if somebody

Morover, he

Cardozo

any type of exploitative attitude carried out by a nabah, a for-

eigner, against a

flirt

who, on learning

who

a Catholic priest

lived with the

Brazilian

twenty years and received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the

University of Pittsburgh, confirmed Cardozo's encounter with Bortoli. "I

went with

Dom Aldo

[Mongiano, the bishop of Roraima,

to Venezuela in February 1987.

We

traveled

Lizot's

homosexuality with the Yanomami,

sion, Bortoli,

about

it.

He

boys, but that they didn't just

told

seem

me

—

that there

was

to suffer

grew out of it and got married

his explanation

it

I

had heard so much

I

asked the head of the mis-

true, that Lizot did

have sex with

any permanent damage from

like the

a trip

up the Rio Negro and then

crossed over to the Orinoco by the Casiquiare. Since

about

on

Brazil]

other

Yanomami

was no long-term damage.

strange because, for me, that kind of child molesting

is

I

boys.

thought

it.

They

That was

it

was very

a terrible thing."^^^

EROTIC INDIANS

^^

I47

When I spoke with Father Jose BortoU at the Platanal mission, he was not as direct. Bortoli

is

a

tall,

thin

man worn

by repeated

to near transparency

bouts of malaria (from which he was actually suffering when

I

spoke to him).

When it came to the subject of Lizot, he parried my questions with questions. much

"Is there so

Yanomami

interest in Lizot's sexual life because

or because

was supposedly homosexual?"

it

that the real problem, for

me, was pederasty, Bortoli

was with the

it

When

said, "It is

establish the ages of children at villages outside the missions.

one

who had

sex with the

Bortoli's voice trailed off,

Yanomami

Salesians Lizot.

had

No

very hard to

And

going to be prosecuted

remove Lizot and

one had gained health or

.

.

Here

permits, not Bortoli.

The

Many people had tried to stop good fortune from it. Two (Claude him; three (Juan Gonzalez,

kill

No

one had

best

anyone

Padre Gonzalez, and Jean Chiappino) came to blows with him.

succeeded in halting his peculiar enculturation program. partial

every-

failed.

Bourquelot and Gary Dawson) had tried to

had achieved was

if

."^^^

for the Institute of Higher Studies in Paris, not

The Indian Agency issued his

tried to

answered

and he shrugged.

At any rate, Lizot worked the Salesian mission.

is

I

The

—from Parima, Mavaca,

banishment

Platanal,

and

Hasupuwe-teri, successively. Lajfaire Lizot forced everyone to confront the

publicly doing petites

more good than anyone

on Yanomami

—

polarity

a perfect

else

same dilemma: Lizot was

while privately satisfying his ap-

children. In structuralist terms, there

asymmetry

—between

Lizot s public

was an absolute

and private personas.

His Apollonian, above-ground activities as defender of the Indians stood in natural opposition to his Dionysian, chthonic rituals.

He became everyone's

favorite monster.

After living for twenty-five years

among

the

Yanomami,

Lizot finally re-

turned to France in 1994. Today, he sees things through a long-distance erary lens. His preferred vehicle of expression exclusively

is

the first-person story, told

by Yanomami narrators. There's no analysis

stream-of-consciousness histories. Lizot has achieved a tithesis

in these lyrical,

tasteftil,

French an-

of Napoleon Chagnon's cowboy Western. If Chagnon was the

centered, heroic, gunslinger in the

Amazon,

lit-

self-

Lizot was neither seen nor heard.

Critics have praised Lizot's anthropological absence, his willingness to let

the

Yanomami speak

"I

for themselves.

could of course have evoked

dians," Lizot noted in Tales

^^^

my own

experience of life

among

the In-

of the Yanomami, published by Cambridge Uni-

148

^^

versity Press, "but sons: for

I

I

DARKNESS

wanted

EL

IN

DORADO

to speak of other things, for strictly personal rea-

am not yet ready to speak of the terrible shock that this experience was

me, nor of the price

I

had

to

ilization so radically different

from

speak of these experiences, for things that touch

pay to become closely acquainted with a

I

my own;

perhaps

would have

my inner being." ^^^

to

I

will never

evoke so

civ-

be able to

many harrowing

Brewer Carias Incarnates Venezuela's

closest

approximation to Indiana Jones.

ExcesO^

The

parachutist

arm

the

mad

who sailed into AduHmawa-teri

equally mad, Charles Brewer Carias. Brewer

"One month

discovered sky-diving. ing."^

The is

came

1

969

to dis-

The

had become addicted

when he was supposed

to be

into his stay there," recalled James Neel, "he

discovery was not good for his scientific train-

Although Brewer never completed

was uniquely equipped a rescue Brewer

June

French anthropologist was the amazing, and almost

to parachuting at the University of Michigan,

studying genetics.

in

to rescue Lizot

his graduate

work

in genetics,

he

from the wrath of Claude Bourquelot,

to regret.

introduction to one of Brewer s illustrated travel books says that he

"not only a botanist, a zoologist, an entomologist, a geologist, an as-

tronomer and a

naturalist.

He is trained in

all

these fields of knowledge,

and

he has united them with a rare capacity for leadership and organization that

him

has permitted

DARKNESS

^^

I50

to be recognized

IN

DORADO

EL

over the world today as one of the

all

greatest explorers of all time."^

"That Charlie," said a of his

tree.

He

is

British

member of a Brewer expedition,

seriously bonkers.

He

well out

"is

ought to be put away."^

For thirty years Brewer Garias, a Venezuelan national, has symbolized La

Conquista del

Sur, the

Conquest of the South, Venezuela's

An

alent of manifest destiny.

ex-dentist,

rain forest equiv-

he has devoted himself to promot-

ing tourism, colonization, and scientific exploration of Venezuela's southern frontiers, usually

with the support of the ministries of tourism and defense.

This has made him, and his undeniable survival

whole generation of

to a

from

First

World

soils to natives to insects in

one of the

came

the Venezuelan

study everything

Amazon. Brewer became

New York Botanical Garden's most productive research associates

and most popular guest books to

but indispensable

skills, all

scientists trying to

speakers.^

A superb photographer, with seven picture

many television specials that he beHe marketed Omega watches^ and a six-inch

Brewer starred in so

his credit.

a trademark of sorts.

blade with Rambo-like features called the Brewer Explorer Survival

steel

Knife,

which converts into a harpoon.^

there wants to

kill

He needed protection.

"Everyone out

me," he told the Times Literary Supplement editor Red-

mond O'Hanlon, explaining why he carried a huge Browning automatic handgun to a gym workout. "From the government of Guyana to the lowliest nut.

°

"Have you read Redmond O'Hanlon's description of Charlie?" asked John Walden, a doctor from Marshall University in West Virginia who accompanied the explorer on one of his helicopter

you

didn't

must be

know

But

house in Caracas, and glass jars. Charlie

some

it's

wild. In

Siapa

think, 'No. This

that's Charlie.

West

keeps gold dust in glass

level; he's like

stories

you would

Charlie,

exaggerated.'

trips to the

is

valley.

"Now,

if

too much. This

He's really wild. I've been to his Virginia, jars.

we keep moonshine

You have

an old pirate with a patch over

to love Charlie

his eye.

I

could

tell

in

on

you

about Charlie."^

He wouldn't, though are fairly protective

—

scientists

who

of him. But Rafael

have been Charlie's fellow travelers

Salazar, a

Venezuelan composer

who

was recently a Fulbright scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, was a bit

more

explicit

about

how

wild things really were

his wife, Teresa, a sociologist at the University

at Brewer's house.

He and

of Caracas, had been invited

over by Charlie to discuss a youth concert, during the time Brewer was minister

of youth (1979-82). "He had a

lot

of power then," Salazar

recalled.

THAT CHARLIE

-^

I5I

"When Teresa and I entered, he t6ld us, 'Come over here. I want to show you

He had

a patio with

something, in a cage.

He grabbed

something.'

to his birds to eat.

would take them

some

a chicken with a leather glove

Then he waited

to kill

lotted time, he put his

it.

When

hand

there with a

the birds didn't

around and shouted

at the birds to kill the

Teresa, too. "I

thought to myself, 'So

this

As minister of youth, Brewer

He

stantial achievements.

Venezuela's

is

left

waved

that he

as a

said.

and sub-

boat without

life

preservers.

city.

Brewer

former Olympic swimmer, he probably would not

downtown

streets into

many

people in

Sunday pedestrian

malls,

His ultimate solution for urban sprawl, however, was

colonizing the rain forest, and

got

it

him

into trouble again

Brewer released a film promoting La Conquista del

Sur,

and

again.

which featured a

near the border of Brazil meant to showcase the government's col-

onization efforts in the rain forest. In the government did not build

from the Brazilian border,

what Brewer had done

at

it.

fact,

the settlement was not

Orinoco Delta. ^^

It

was a

larger version

campaign

to

improve youth

lobbied to ban cigarettes on buses and planes.

am nothing but an ascetic" ^^ It

fitness, setting

—and

He

profile.

overshadowed

his real

the

He successfiilly

did not touch alcohol or

rose before

dawn

every day to

seemed there was nothing Brewer was incapable of

keeping a low

of

Patanowa-teri for The Feast.

also led a national

"I

new and

And it was really located five hundred miles

in the

example himself with public jogging sessions around Caracas.

meditate.

hand

his

In spite of the tragedy, one of modern Venezuela's

like the rest."^^

humanizing the

—

al-

made

sponsored a concert near the Orinoco by one of

Caracas, where he turned

coffee

it

"^°

a colorftil legacy of debacles

worst boating accidents. Brewer remained a quirky hero to

Brewer

long

chicken more quickly," she

our minister of youth.'

after the event in a

was not on board, but,

new town

how

it

most promising groups of musicians, Madera, whose eighteen

members drowned have sunk

to see

the chicken in the

kill

remember

on

I

watch

and gave

inside the cage to hurry them." This scene

quite an impression

"And

hawks or

birds of prey, big ones,

—except

His mercurial meddling in Venezuela's foreign

affairs

domestic accomplishments, which might have been

the prelude to a major ministerial post. Brewer precipitated a

Colombia by marching

off

on

his

own

to Bogota,

crisis

with

where he unveiled a

slo-

gan that sounded Hke an ultimatum: Not one more centimeter for Colombia! ^"^ Later,

he compared Venezuela's border relations with Brazil to the Battle

of Stalingrad. ^^

He

kept dreaming of battles with neighbors

fired a shot in history.

who had

never

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

152

DORADO

Brewer appeared to be a dynamo whose energy could hardly be contained.

The

blow came when he began organizing young

final

private paramilitary force.

"They were

sort

toughs into a

street

of the Venezuelan Brown

said the anthropologist Terence Turner of the University of Chicago.

^^

Shirts,"

Brewer

then led his gang on an invasion of the former British Guyana. Guyana mobilized

armed

its

Brewer withdrew and got

forces;

fired.

But he boasted

that the Pentagon appreciated his videotaped evidence about

Marxists.

Brewer

Afiier his dismissal,

able in

home in

Caracas,

what was then

that he

Guyanese

^^

left:

and made

of twenty years and

his wife

his

way to

virgin rain forest. There, in 1982, not far

had explored

for the first time,

and

he began a second incarnation

—

capital,

problems. ExcesO magazine said

legal

comfort-

camp

from mountains

founder of a mining company, Minas Guariche, with extensive ings, infrastructure,

his

El Dorado, a small mining

it

as the

hold-

was

as if

Alexander von Humboldt "had decided to open a Manchester sweatshop the

dawn of the nineteenth century on

Here

Doyle's Lost World, a land tain mesetas

marked by the sudden

miles. Sir Walter s fabled El is

The

now considered

tepuis

the

level;

first

—

have a lunar look

one

is

hundred million

The

like

Conan

of tepuis, sheer moun-

the longest ones stretch for thirty

Dorado, which he located near a "mountain of

European description of a

to the Indians tepuis were always the

that each

rise

much

of black granite and ocher sandstone. The highest one reaches

over nine thousand feet above sea

crystal,"

the banks of the Casiquiare Canal.

in this former rain forest existed another world,

at "^^

homes of the mountain

the oldest mountains

on

tepui,

though

gods.^^

earth, so isolated

an eccentric island of evolution, a planetary archive three years old with

hundreds of plant and insect species to

area has been called a biological El

Dorado because

so

many

itself

species

adapted to the outlandish tepui terrain in novel ways, producing outrageous varieties

of ferns,

austere, beaten

drowned

all

fiingi,

and

insects.

But these mountaintop

riches appeared

down by winds, and drenched by continual downpours

that

but the most resistant species in what amounted to a flooded

desert of rocks

The Pemon and here there

and leached Indians is

soil.

named

this region

Roraima, "the Mother of Waters,"

a profiision of waterfalls.

Angel

Falls,

the worlds highest,

losing itself in gravityless mist of 3,000-foot freefall into the rain forest below, is

one, and perhaps not the most impressive, of the three hundred waterfalls

on the

single meseta of Auyan- tepui.

Brewer Carias was the

first

known man

to explore several tepuis,

and he

THAT CHARLIE described their fragile treasures is

irl

his

^^

I53

book Roraima: montana de cristal. That

why it was all the more surprising that he had opened a huge garimpo right

—two

at their feet

sets

of gold-mining concessions covering 25,000 devas-

He called themTriunfo II andTriunfo

tated acres.

Manuel Nunez Mon-

III.

tano, head of the Conservation Society of Guyana, described Brewer s strip

mines

as "a desolate

damage.

—

panorama

Environment, the Law of Forestry, in addition to the terms

with. Brewer began

he was ten years

When

common

the

denominator

irreversible

is

He said Brewers mines flagrantly violated Venezuela's Law of the

"-^^

he did

Soils,

and Water, and the Law of Mines,

of his concessions, which were questionable to

mining

late in

six years before his

permits went into

start

and

effect,

presenting an environmental-impact statement.

finally present the plan,

it

was simply based on the principle

of "natural regeneration."^^ It

the

did not help that Brewers strip mines were diverting the headwaters of

Cuyuni

River,

which were

The

ecologically protected.

journalist Tania

Vegas wrote, "Nothing stops Brewer Carias, not even the majesty of the imposing mesetas of the mountains of Supamo, on whose flanks you see the destructive effects of his machines.

ancient natural heritage, but of

.

all

.

.

Hundreds of water

who do

this,

jets

destroy our

only Brewer Carias

calls

himself a conservationist."^^ Until Brewer

came

along, there were

two kinds of mining

gold rush.

The most common was done by mobile teams of four

with

pumps

the

diesel

that

work of poor men,

powered hydrojets

—

big, open-pit excavating

but small-scale.

^very nasty,

the street people of the

Amazon to six men

in the

It

was

Amazon. The second type was

by North American companies, usually wildcat

Canadian firms that traded on the Wild West Vancouver exchange and could ignore indigenous rights and environmental laws. But Brewer was carrying

out industrial mining with water-jet technology, reducing large est to

mud soup,

a designer

which carry malaria.

It

dream come

That

was the worst of all possible mining worlds.

and other petroleum products each month gives

of for-

true for the anopheles mosquitoes,

Brewer personally has permission to move 133,600 fuel,

tracts

to his

of gasoline,

diesel

mines in Bolivar

State.

liters

an idea of both the scope of his strip-mining

activities

and

his per-

sonal involvement as director of operations. ^^ Brewer's

on, near a

Minas Guariche owns another 4,649

town

called Kilometer 88,

acres

of concessions farther

where the Pemon Indians'

traditional

farming and hunting lands have been completely overrun by gold miners. ^"^

Brewer has been repeatedly denounced by Pemon

leaders,

and these

partic-

154

Vemeru

ular holdings,

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

I-VI, appear in Survival Internationals

Venezuela: Violations ofIndigenous Rights,

vasion of Eastern Bolivar State.

on

a

map

called

document

"The Mining

In-

"^^

As Brewer became one of Venezuela's biggest garimpo entrepreneurs, he also

became the gold

political

movement

rush's^

that

The Venezuelan

rights.

cial scientist at

most outspoken advocate

aimed

—and

the leader of a

to block recognition for indigenous land

anthropologist Nelly Arvelo Jimenez, the senior so-

Venezuela's Institute of Scientific Research

(I

VIC), compared

Brewer's role in orchestrating the Venezuelan gold rush to that of the notorious

Ze Altino Machado, head of Brazil's Garimpeiro Union.^^

Brewer was the right to land.

of any recognition of Yanomami's

bitterest antagonist

Both IVIC and a Catholic think tank, Fundacion La

(FLASA), had put forth proposals setting aside about miles for the

phere"

made

Yanomami, an

—only

his case

thirty

Salle

thousand square

area that both institutions designated as a "bios-

to be dismissed

by Brewer

as agents

of foreign powers.

He

during a shouting match with Congressman Rafael Martinez,

an encounter witnessed by several journalists and congressmen. Brewer charged that "the

Yanomami

reserves

and the biosphere" were a

spiracy to create "an indigenous nation

.

.

.

leftist

con-

which arose out of a meeting be-

tween the sociologist Esteban Monsoyi and Libyan colonel Gadhafi, on the occasion of publishing the Green

Muhammad

Book of the Libyan Rev-

olution in Venezuela. "^^ Brewer claimed that Shining Path terrorists from

Peru were also involved in

this plot.

These sensational charges created an up-

roar that sank the biosphere proposal in 1984.

This was also the year the spectacularly rich of the Upper Orinoco

first

came

cessions initially granted in

cassiterite (tin ore) deposits

into play, with over 100,000 acres of con-

Yanomami

territory, before a

popular reaction

forced the government to cancel them. Brewer and the Salesian missionaries

began their antagonism over a

May

10, 1987, article for

this plan,

which Brewer openly supported. In

Bl Nacional newspaper, he denounced the "sup-

who proclaim and suggest the creation of autonomous territories within Venezuela, attacking our sovereignty." He attacked

posed Indian experts Indian

legislation prohibiting

mining, which he called a "blessing" and an "obliga-

tion," particularly "in the case

cated

on the

ancestral

of the deposits of almost pure

tin that are lo-

slopes of the Sierra Parima," the very core of the

homeland. "In

at great distances

this region there are

from each

only four

other, with fewer than

These indigenous people, seminomadic warriors who

Yanomami's

Yanomami

200 are

shabonos,

individuals each.

accustomed to con-

THAT CHARLIE tinually

moving but

territories,

that will

is,

if

our

far

from the mining

scientists

activity that

I55

without traumas to nearby

their villages, could be relocated

occur there.

would

take place in the area;

decide they shouldn't be included in the change that

"^^

In fact, the Sierra Parima

Yanomami

^^

Reserve.

thoritative ring to

Still,

It

it.

is

the most densely populated part of the

Brewers invocation of "our

also

showed a genius

scientists,"

had an au-

for kaleidoscopic scapegoating,

combining Cold War stereotypes of Communists, Colonel Gadhafi, and Shining Path

terrorists to characterize his

props and paraphernalia of science

mote

his vision

opponents, while using

—from botany

to archaeology

—

all

the

to pro-

of the Conquest of the South.

He

Science was Brewer's ally in his mining ventures.

from the Smithsonian, the American

Museum

shuttled scientists

of Natural History, and the

Royal Geographical Society to Cerro Neblina, the highest mountain in the

Amazon outside

the Andes, where hundreds of new species of plants

imals were discovered.

And

he kept expanding

his

gold-mining

and an-

activities,

using the scientific expeditions as cover. Venezuela's National in July

1984

—

Guard

in

Amazonas caught Brewer gold mining

along the Lx)wer Ventuari River, near the Maquiritare village

of Kanaripo, in a rain forest area where ited.

commercial mining was prohib-

all

El Diario de Caracas reported that "the ex-minister

gether with other people by the National

Guard troops

he didn't have the necessary permits to travel in that tion to gold

and other

—he was

also

.

at

.

.

was arrested

to-

Kanaripo, because

area,

where

—

in addi-

commercializing and exporting Venezuelan fauna

species without authorization."^^

At that time, the

naturalist

was using unsalaried Maquiritare Indians

as

men who work and anthropologist who diof cultural identity among In-

workers. "Brewer Carias destroys not only nature but also the for him," said Sergio Milano, a police official

rected the investigation, referring to the loss

who become garimpeiros?^ Milano sent me the police report. It showed how Brewer did his gold mining while supposedly conducting

dians

research for the Venezuelan Foundation for the

and Mathematical rides to

Sciences.

drop American

to his gold mine.

The

cluded in the police

were faked

But Brewer used the foundation-paid helicopter

scientists off at

real flight records file,

Development of Physical

Cerro Neblina and then backtracked

—which

along with the

at Brewer's request.

The

fraud

pilot's

—

the pilot nullified

^were in-

testimony that the receipts

amounted

to six hours of flights.

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

156

worth some twenty thousand

dollars.

Receipt 1089 was voided and replaced

by 1090.^^ In his defense, Brewer charged that the

He blamed Milano

ousy.

army had framed him out of jeal-

for having a personal grudge against him,

and

ac-

cused him of both gold inining and torturing witnesses. While Brewer admitted to buying gold and diamonds, he claimed that he had merely flown over the area of Kanaripo en route to his real destination

—Cerro

Neblina.

This explanation was not accepted in the Venezuelan congress, however, since Kanaripo

and Cerro Neblina were

from Brewer s

in opposite directions

takeoff point.

Three congressional leaders went to Kanaripo, where they confirmed that the police had found "machines for the extraction of gold

was Brewer ply a

Carias."^^

smoke

They dismissed the

.

.

.

whose owner

accusations against Milano as "sim-

screen to distract the focus of attention

and

to disqualify the in-

Law 2039 by "the exploration, exploitation, and marketing of gold in the Amazon Territory," and that "by secretly entering Indian lands he has violated Law 250." They asserted that he had contracted Indians to work clandestine mines for him: "He leaves them alone in the places of exploitation and then returns to dictment." Their report concluded that Brewer had violated

pick up the minerals collected and pays them for their work."^^

The list of scientists and journalists who took rides on Brewers helicopters included prominent figures from the Smithsonian, the American

Natural History, and the Royal Geographical Society.

of insects and birds named entists.

after Charlie

Hundreds of journalists hitched

burnishing Brewers iconic image

were

all

rides, too.

The

tributes

twenty-five species

from

They paid

as the explorer-hero.

Museum of gratefiil sci-

their tribute

by

Redmond O'Hanlon

of the Times Literary Supplement called Charlie "the great explorer and photographer of Venezuela," and described his connection to the American

seum of Natural

History, but kept Brewers

jungle adventures. Actually, after

Brewer invited

me

he discovered El Dorado.

to the

Amazon?

Cerro Neblina.

I

into the jungle, too. "I

letters

But

this

Mu-

out of their

happened only

have an idea for you," Brewer legends about the Incas

said.

moving

"You

their cap-

Well, the Brazilians have finally found Inca ruins

can give you an exclusive on

Brewer did not want Venezuela to wrote

politics

^^

know how there have always been ital

mining and

on

this."^^

He two government ministers who

lose the race to the fabled Inca city.

about the fantastic discovery to

favored opening Indian lands to mining.

"The

fact

is

that the ceramic

sam-

THAT CHARLIE

I57

Stone mortars, axes and quartz fragments which

pies,

to

^^

where the

Brazilians have

I

have excavated close

found Inca remains, permit

me

to suggest that

we mount a multidisciplinary Venezuelan expedition which rect.

"^^

He was

area,

scientists"

proposed contacting Yanomami groups, doing botanical panoply. Incas

He

di-

who had including Napoleon Chagnon.^'^ He

counting on the participation of various

accompanied him before into the

would

I

studies, the

raised the tantalizing possibility of finding the city

had hidden most of their gold from Francisco

Brewers ceramics shards were not, in

fact,

Incan.

whole

where the

Pizarro.

And the chances of find-

ing Inca ruins at Cerro Neblina were outrageously remote. But that was not the point.

The language of science had

a magical quality, mystifying every-

thing about the real historical nature of Brewer's mission. Instead of a cross,

he and

his scientist-missionaries carried cameras,

sampling equipment into the wilderness of destruction

who

as a polite

always followed on their heels.

Like Sir Walter Raleigh's fables

—

in

which

natives without necks

exotic embellishments of imperial expansion cities

entertained, distracted,

quista del Sur.

I

—

became

Brewer's hype about Inca

and simultaneously justified the ongoing Con-

would not be

surprised if

of an Amazonian Cuzco by the time scientific expedition acting as a est.

computers, and blood-

prologue to the engineers

this

I

found myself reading accounts

book comes

to press

—

^with a

new

Trojan horse for gold mining in the rain for-

Brewer's political strategy was already old by the early seventeenth cen-

tury,

when one of Simon

Bolivar's ancestors in Caracas wrote,

God El Dorado had never been

discovered.

"^^

"Would

to

Chapter

1

To Murder and

to Multiply

I

Lethal raiding cess.

among

Yanomamo,

it

seems, gives the raiders genetic suc-

Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson^

February 1988,

Inlocked

the

as the

gold rush was reaching

in a national debate

Chagnon published

zenith and Brazil was

about the Yanomami's

fate,

Napoleon

a major study in Science, "Life Histories, Blood Re-

venge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population."^ all

its

Yanomami males from

his study

He

group were

reported that 30 percent of killed in warfare, while

44

percent had murdered someone. But the real sociobiological bombshell was

men who had killed had more than twice as many wives and three times many offspring as nonkillers. It echoed and re-echoed in the press, and

this:

as

quickly became an issue in the Yanomami's survival.

Chagnon's findings seemed to confirm the most radical sociobiological belief

about the

most

"selfish

gene"

—

antisocial things, to pass

Sociobiologists praised

that males will

do almost anything, even the

on the

number of genes.^

Chagnons

greatest

Science story as a pathbreaking work.

MURDER AND

TO

TO MULTIPLY

^^

I59

Harvard's E. O. Wilson endorsed the piece, saying

Chagnon had found

"powerful, potentially selective" link between violence

and reproductive com-

petition."^

a

Favorable accounts of Chagnon's article soon appeared in Scientific

American and other journals.

making it one of the most

has since been reproduced hundreds of times,

It

traveled social science studies of all time

and a

cor-

nerstone in the edifice of sociobiology.^

But tacked

specialists it

in a

on the Yanomami

dozen

prise

statistical analysis,

They

at-

anthropology journals, challeng-

articles that set fire to

ing Chagnon's ethics, bias.^

generally rejected the study.

fieldwork methods, and interpretive

While Chagnon repeatedly claimed he was taken completely by

sur-

with the "stunning" reproductive success of killers,^ he glossed over the

fact that his

mentor James Neel had predicted such an outcome

made documenting

1962. Neel

the sexual success of violent

men

as early as

"the

num-

ber one priority," and a potential link to genetic dominance.^ Although Neel

never discovered his "leadership gene," Chagnon's ple

had

finally

come up with

its

Cain acquired multiple wives and gressive

prolific progeny.

Yanomami Eden,

Abel and other

less ag-

men were banished from the gene pool, just as Neel had prophesied.^

The Science study provoked two

—one

debates

Chagnon's study and the other over

more public and more have

critics felt that his disci-

cultural equivalent. In the

—with

over the political impact of

scientific accuracy.

The first was both

personal. Jacques Lizot wrote, "Chagnon's theories

the author's collaboration

publicity in the U.S. press.

Yanomami

its

A

—become

the object of sensational

grotesque and malevolent image of the

has been put forth in indisputably racist terms, the Indians being

presented as bloodthirsty people obsessed by the desire for murder. "^°

The

press's

embrace of Chagnon's study was based on a central miscon-

He wrote,

"I demonstrated that Yanomamo who had participated in the killing of other men had approximately three times as many children and more than two times as many wives as men their own ages who had not."^^ This was false. Among mature men of the same age group, reproductive success of killers was not

ception that

men

in

my

Chagnon

cultivated.

25 year study

nearly as impressive

— ranging between 40 and Gl

208 percent advantage

that

Chagnon

broadcast to the press. ^^

cluded a large sample of unmarried young flated the relative reproductive advantages

were over the age of

thirty.

Had

percent, a fraction of the

men

in his study,

Chagnon

in-

which hugely in-

of the unokai, almost

all

of whom

Chagnon's study included prepubescent

boys and babies, the apparent advantages of unokai males would have been even more spectacular.

"When

I tell

people that

Chagnon

is

lying about his

^^

l6o

DARKNESS

the anthropologist Brian Ferguson complained,

data,"

"they say, 'So

"^^

what?'

Chagnon

told the Los Angeles Times that

honey or hunting, they were

collecting

World Report ran a piece

"They

noon

DORADO

EL

IN

titled

are probably not the

tea,"

women.

like hell over

The Washington

that the

on

disastrous. Six

Yanomami

&

began, after-

"fighting

Times, called the

^^

story.

O

Globo ran a

Indians," along with a

O Estado de Sao Paulo fea-

Mark of the Yanomami. "^^ The

months

political

the Brazilian government formally

later,

area into nineteen islands. Military Chief of Staff

General Bayna Denys justified that the

among

kill."^^

LA

the

earth.

newspapers quickly picked up the

tured a similar story, "Violence,

split the

Yanomami were

Post, like

societies

captioned picture: "An Indian educated to

was

It

kind of people you would invite over for

piece, "Anthropologist Underscores Violence

fallout

Human Conflict."

"A Laboratory for

Yanomami one of the most violent Brazil's biggest

Yanomami were not

the

each other. ^"^ U.S. News

killing

and included Chagnon's claim "^^

when

Yanomami were

this drastically

reduced space by explaining

too violent and had to be separated in order to be

civilized.

The

Brazilian Anthropological Association

past president

(ABA)

protested.

The ABA's

Maria Manuela Carneiro da Cunha accused Chagnon of doing

violence to the Yanomami's chances of survival through his theories of violence.

She said

it

was not the

first

time. In the late 1970s, Brazil's military

junta had picked up on a Time magazine review of Chagnon's ticle titled

"Beastly or Manly?"

Yanomami

—and had

seized

upon

—an

work

ar-

the apelike images of

warfare to postpone the demarcation of Indian lands. '^

Brazilian anthropologists, with the help of Survival International

It

took

and the

su-

perb photographer Claudia Andujar, over a decade to create a hauntingly ro-

mantic image of the Yanomami,

effective in garnering public

both South America and Europe. But the U.S. closed; very

little

assistance

office

was sent from the United

support in

of Survival International States to the

Yanomami.

"People in the United States who'd read The Fierce People would ask why any-

one would want neth Taylor,

been

told, over

doesn't

seem

to help such a horrible group," said the anthropologist

who headed and over

to get

it.

Survival International's U.S. office.

again, about the

He

Ken-

"Chagnon has

harm his work has done, but he just

keeps coming out with things that are more and

more outrageous. Science finally ran a sequel to Chagnon's unokai thesis. Called "Warfare

over Yanomamo Indians," the

new article

revealed a

rift

between

scientists in

— MURDER AND

TO

the United States

and those

in

Advanced Studies to the

At that

I first

forces

changing

societies, anthropologists are

"^^

was

that time, that

nothing short of not pub-

said, "There's

Princeton dismissed the complaints by noting,

at

enormous

rather small potatoes.

also

my impression.

It

was during

spoke over the phone with Chagnon

from pure research

relief and

he gave

human

me

the

rights.

this controversy

He seemed genHe told me he wanted

in 1988.^'^

uinely anguished over the furor his study had set to shift his priorities

l6l

of thing from happening." The head of the Institute

lishing to keep this sort

"Compared

—^

South America. The president of the Ameri-

can Anthropological Association

for

TO MULTIPLY

off.

more humane involvement

to a

in

And he helped me in a simple but significant way

phone number of Giovanni

and former

Saffirio, a priest

who became my closest friend in the Brazilian Amazon.

Ph.D. student of his,

My first stop in in Yanomami territory was Saffirio s small mission on the Catrimani River, where the gold rush was in ftision,

fiill

swing. In the general con-

an old headman, Chico, had died, and

his people, the Opik-teri,

were very frightened contacted shabono. Chico's death, his

at his departure.

And

their

spirit, in

They blamed his death on

new headman

a distant, un-

said that if they didn't avenge

the form of a huge jaguar,

would keep roaring

at

night and making everyone sick. Moreover, they had to avenge four other brutal murders

committed

by the same enemies. They had im-

in recent years

man on a pole; a second was chopped to death with a woman was drowned by having her head held in a bucket; an old man was killed, too. Later, the mission nurse told me all four had died of natpaled one Catrimani

machete; a

ural causes.

When I asked the local headman, intended to fingers.

kill

on

his

planned

Pedro, about the

he

raid,

said,

number of enemies he

"One," while holding up two

^^

In the end, the raiders never found their archenemies. This was fairly

normal. Only about one Yanomami raid in four even reaches

and no opprobrium

is

their

party,

weapons and shouting

with

all

the

—

^"^

men marching around

their lethal intentions

long, apparently pointless ten-day trek irate

destination,

attached to returning without having fired an arrow.

But the excitement of the raiding waving

its

—followed by

a

served a key ritual purpose. Chico's

ghost stopped roaring. People no longer heard

him

in their sleep.

Calm

returned to the shabonos of the Catrimani River. I

tried to find

out whether Chico,

dren, had killed anyone or not.

At

who had

sired

that time,

I

more than

thirty chil-

was quite enamored of

Chagnon s

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

l62

thesis that

murderers had more offspring, and

ence study favorably in

was accustomed

I

had

my own book on ritual murder in the Andes."^^

to investigating killings

where

could go to a

I

5a-

cited his

site. I

But

I

would

normally inspect a body whose cause of death could be determined, usually

surrounded by

ritual

paraphernalia and the

like.

Trying to reconstruct Chicos

personal participation in warfare proved impossible for me, even with the

who

help of two missionaries and an anthropologist

Yanomami

local political rivalries.

The

University of Paris anthropologist Bruce Albert

expressed one point of view

coward.

"^^

how

when he

"Everyone considered Chico a

said,

through

villages

his

many sons. To

—

unusually successful at getting other people

and neighboring Indians and moving on workers, tourists, and,

tection,

In

finally,

ers in the

starting with rubber tappers

—

to give

him

wealth, pro-

With the

many

sary to live along the early 1970s they

on negative

of Brazilian highway work-

it

would be easy from then

highway and

owned

shotguns,^^

Chicos progeny, they were

miner about

fifty

living

to

drinking his beer, and helping to

many variables

which

father.

to

buy

early

1980s they possessed a

wives.^^

Yanomami

many people killer,

about

and

The

last

time

Reserve

—

Then

it

and

saw

eating his food,

—headman, shaman,

trader, trai-

male panhandlers. In the

effort to

Chicos case helps focus on

that have to be related or excluded in considering

killings

I

a gold

definitely the entrepreneur grand-

prolific killers,

A

cide as a reproductive strategy.

knowledge of all

was only neces-

on the banks of the Rio Branco with

father of a large, peripatetic group of thesis

It

him smuggle bananas out of Yanomamiland.^^

regional politician, possible

Chagnons

on.

beg tenaciously for goods. "^^ By the

and by the

miles outside the

Chico was many things

and became excited with the new

Brazilian goods

diverse hoard of steel goods with

and each

arrival

and Raymond

Saffirio

that focused

1970s, Chicos people became professional beggars. "They suc-

ceeded in receiving

evaluate

—Giovanni Yanomami

a study of the Catrimani

way of life. They thought

the

begin with, Chico was

to missionaries, Indian agents, high-

gold miners

two of Chagnons students

—did

acculturation at Chicos shabonos.

tor,

He

and medicine.

fact,

Hames

said,

"^^

did Chico manage to achieve such reproductive success?

founded two small

way

when he

Father Guillerme Damioli expressed another

"Chico was a great warrior.

So

spoke the local

People s opinions about Chico were imbedded in intense

dialect.

all

survey like

homi-

Chagnons should include

offspring, along with the ages of each killer

would be

essential to ferret

out spurious correlations.

MURDER AND

TO

many

because

and descent group.

status,

Finally, the risks

must be weighed

fertility

^^

factors reportedly' affect marriage alliances

shamanic prowess, headman

ous

TO MULTIPLY

—

hunting

skill,

—

163

including age,

homicide, trade goods,

of these alternative paths to conspicu-

whether

in this case,

killers are

themselves

killed.

The first question

is.

How do you count the dead in a culture that counts

only to two? In societies where status accrued with killing, you usually had to bring

proof in the form of coups or trophy heads. There was a good reason for such requirements, according to Christopher

Boehm, an anthropologist with

use's Jane Goodall Center who did

Ph.D. on the

his

group in Europe, the Montenegrins of Serbia

*Why

"

did you take heads?'

he

recalled.

last

and Albania.

head-hunting

"I

asked them,

"The answer they gave me was,

Xisten, Painful One, anyone can say he killed somebody, but if you have a

head

that's

You have In a

way

the proof Montenegrins are the biggest braggarts in the world.

to

make

sure

the custom

is

you bring back the head, or no one driven by the very lack of veracity.

will believe you.'

"^^

And that raised another question: How did Chagnon count the dead? By counting the number of men who had undergone a ritual purification for murder, called unokaimou.

It

was a painful

and immobility.^^ After completing okai. It

is

Chagnon who

them

calls

ordeal, involving fasting, celibacy,

this ritual, "killers."

Yanomami

say,

they are un-

But many Yanomami unokai

caused death by animal surrogates or magical substances or procedures like stealing a person's footprint.

Others accompanied a raiding party and shot

when most

rows in the dim light of dawn or twilight ran off without

knowing what had

penance afterward. There were no

many times

the

also noted, "I did

is

on

In

fact, far

sories.

of

lived there. "^^

I

on Yanomami

There was no forensic evidence

violence.

real victims. ^'^

to have "killed"

on

Some men were what we would

—

8.3

on the average

—who performed

gether after twenty-seven different raids.^^ lation

Chagnon pointed out.^^ He

Most of the unokai events (209 of 385) were claimed by

men

group

who had truly killed, and

not accompany raiding parties and did not witness the

more Yanomami men claimed

number of

in the

and

themselves were not sure. "Recruitment

a self-selective basis," as

occurred while

to buttress his statistics

the

happened and joined

referees to decide

Yanomami warriors

to the unokai status

killings that

really

attacks took place

ar-

between the Yanomami

ritual

At

raids

than

call acces-

large groups

the ritual purification to-

best, there

was an uncertain

re-

category unokai and physical homicide.

DORADO

^^ DARKNESS IN EL

164

and Chagnon did not

enough data

offer

to figure out

what

that relationship

really was.

Nor was raiding,

most tenuous connection between

there anything but the

killing,

and the capture of women. The number of women captured

warfare of the Yanomami

low, despite their reputation.

is

Chagnon has never

published any data on war abductions for the villages in question.

prodded by Albert, he stated that

much

total "abductions"

small number. to

turned out

It

make

clear,"

this figure

women.

"^^

was a

Chagnon wrote,

consequence of raiding (making

to 17 percent, a

bit misleading,

"that

'war' on) a distant village

if

the

woman

walk home again. Other anthropologists

feasts

still

however:

most abductions

Most of these were women taken during

such "abductions" worked only

came

When

Yanomami population but

higher rate than that for any other

would like

in the

a "I

are not the

and capturing with

allies,

in question did not

and

want

to

called these elopements. In a sur-

vey of four hundred marriages in the neighboring highlands, Lizot found that less

than one percent of the

women had been

captured on

raids.^^

Yet the popular image of the Yanomami waging war for women persisted.

Chagnon captured

deftly created

it

by repeatedly claiming that men went on

women, and raped them

at will afterward:

"A captured

raids,

woman

is

men in the raiding party." The case was exactly opposite. On when women were captured in war, only nonkillers in the

raped by all the

the rare occasions

raiding party were permitted to have sex with female captives.^^ If a killer sex without undergoing the long

unokaimou

the woman's, was endangered.'^ ^ So

purification, his

Yanomami

life,

had

as well as

warfare appeared to have

other elements of negative selection apart from the real risks of being mur-

dered in a raid

—

or having

someone

else

make

love with a warrior's wife

while he was on the long paths of war. In the academic wars over his unokai study, as a "traditional scientific anthropologist"

a

new

correct' data.""^^

Although there

is,

in fact, a

whitewashing of native cultures these days,

Chagnon presented himself

defending objectivity against the

generation of "applied anthropologists"

it

who promoted

good

" 'politically

deal of politically correct

was Chagnon's lack of hard data

that aroused suspicions of similar distortions. Professional demographers

tended to dismiss the study on the basis of paternity alone.^^ His charts on fertile killers

fute them.

looked good on paper, but there was no way to confirm or

Not only were

the "killers"

munities, and

villages

re-

anonymous, so were the twelve villages

they came from. In the American Ethnologisty Jacques Lizot accused

of having created

1

Chagnon

whose demographics were unlike any known com-

whose exact location was "impossible

to determine.

"'^'^

I

Doshamosha-teri, Siapa Highlands,

1

996

-^i

Cesar Dimanawa, Chagnon's nemesis, Mavakita, 1996

•

Alberto Karakawe, Chagnon's

Ocamo

Girl at Mokarita-teri,

Siapa Highlands, 1997

Mission, 1996

ally,

Mother and

baby,

Homoxi-teri, Parima

Highlands, 1996

Ashidowa-teri, Siapa Highlands, 1997

Homoxi-teri, Parima Highlands, 1996

Girl at Cerrito,

Blind boy with onchocirciassis, Cerrito,

1996

Upper Orinoco, 1996

Woman with oxygen teri,

Renata, Xiriania

Yanomami

girl,

Casa Hekura Clinic, 1996

1996

mask, Homoxi-

Jacques Lizot, Platanal Mission, 1997

Monkey

study,

Irokai, Siapa foothills,

1996

Helena Valero, kidnapped by the Yanomami in 1932, Upper Orinoco, 1996

I

Girl at

Demini,

Brazil,

1995

Kaobawa, Chagnon's mentor, 1996

Cesar Dimanawa, with arrow,

Mavaca

River,

bow and

1996

^

[T-^—

i

'M^M MM^MIl

Irx^^mm. 1

i

1

*

:

\

'il>^,

.

ii#'1|i

^^^^^^^H^f^

. 't'

''iiii|iii

.

-TTT

?

f

!—

-^„

—

'ii'i'\ (1990): 322-30. 149. Robarchek and Robarchek, Waorani, pp. 131-37. 150. Elsa Redmond, Tribal and Chiefly Warfare in South America (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan, Museum of Anthropology, 1994). 151. Kenneth Good, phone interview, April 17, 1997. 152. Frans De Waal, Good Matured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1996), pp. 154-62. 153. Chagnon, "Reply to Albert." 154. Chagnon, "Response to Ferguson," p. 567. 144. Ferguson, 145.

155. Ibid., p. 569.

Yanomami

156. Ferguson,

Warfare, p. 407, n. 12.

157. Clark McCauley, "Conference Overview," in The Anthropology ofWar, ed.

Cambridge Univ.

Press, 1990), pp.

Chapter 11: A Kingdom of Their 1

J.

Haas (Cambridge:

2-6.

Maria Yolanda Garcia, "Cecilia Matos no iba

Own

a proteger indigenas sino a sacar oro del

Amazonas,"

ElNacional,]^vi. 15, 1993.

Andrew L. Cousins, "False Promises: Venezuela Appears to Have ProYanomami, But Appearances Can Be Deceiving," Cultural Survival Quarterly, Winter 1992, 10-14. This article includes a map of the Chagnon- Brewer Siapa biosphere as apparently presented

2.

Nelly Arvelo Jimenez and

tected the

pp.

in Caracas in

1991

mentions the area Indian Ways,"

,

as

meeting called "A Future for the Orinoquia-Amazonas." James Brooke, however, about "8000 square miles" ("In an Almost Untouched Jungle, Gold Miners Threaten

at a

NYT, Sept.

19, 1990), while

ABC Prime Time Live showed a map of the Chagnon-Brewer

reserve calculated at 18,000 square miles. In every case, however, a large majority of the

would have been 3.

left

Edgar Lopez,

Yanomami

without protection under the Chagnon-Brewer plan.

in

El Diario de Caracas, Sept.

2,

1993.

Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo: 4th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1992), p. xv. 5. James Neel, phone interview, March 18, 1997. 6. "The logo emblazoned on the side of the helicopter bodes ill for Yanomamo culture: Conquest of the South." Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo: The Fierce People. 3d ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and 4.

Winston, 1983), 7. Chagnon's

p.

202,

7.1.

fig.

was "Genealogy, Solidarity and and Patterns of Fissioning in an Expanding Population," Yearbook ofPhysical Anthropology 19 (1975): 95-1 10; Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo, 5th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1997), pp. 264-66. last feature article in a

Group

Relatedness: Limits to Local

refereed anthropological journal

Size

Napoleon Chagnon, personal correspondence, Jan. 24, 1990. Chagnon, Yanomamo, 4th ed., pp. 218-19. 10. "It seems to me that the work of the Salesians is very important for the Yanomami because the Salesians are very practical. The Salesian men and women missionaries have a mixture of theology and 8.

9.

.

.

.

—

.

^^ NOTES TO PAGES 183-88

362

love for the Indians, a

way of thinking that

New

Rochelle, N.Y., letter to the editor,

Yanomami

envisions the future of the

mire that." N. Chagnon, quoted and translated by Father E.

ATT; Jan.

in a practical way.

I

ad-

Cappelletti, director, Salesian missions,

J.

18, 1994.

Napoleon Chagnon, letter to Padre Jose Bortoli, July 19, 1988. 12. 1 had five phone interviews with Jesiis Cardozo between Dec. 1994 and Sept. 1995. The remarks in this first paragraph were made on Dec. 20, 1994. Jesus made some minor changes, particularly in the spellings and names of the Yanomami groups, on Aug. 8, 1995. 13. Jesiis Cardozo, phone interview, June 21, 1995. 14. Jesiis Cardozo, phone interview, Aug. 8, 1995. 11.

15. Ibid., 16.

Dec. 20, 1994.

Napoleon Chagnon, Studying the Yanomamo (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974),

p.

30.

Timo thy Asch

17.

Sound

18.

Juan Finkers, phone interview, Jan. 24, 1995.

Roll 9, Patanowa-teri, Feb. 23, 1968,

Collection,

NAA.

19. Ibid.

20. Cesar

Dimanawa, "Carta

abierta a

Napoleon Chagnon," Lalglesia en Amazonas, March 1990,

p.

20.

2 1 Shereka siwaka,

literally, "fire

arrow." Cesar

Dimanawa,

interview, Mavakita, Sept. 2,

1

996. These

were members of the Washewa-teri, formerly Iwahikoroba-teri. Chagnon had a particularly difficult people not only shot an effigy of him

rela-

him hammock, and desisted only at the last moment when he turned on his flashlight. Similar stories were told by Yanomami at several other villages, but always from shabonos some distance from the missions and the main course of the Orinoco. Etilio, who came from Momaribowei-teri, the first Shamatari village Chagnon visited in the interior, had this recollection: "El decia, 'Yo tengo bomba.' Lltionship with this village.

Its

full

of arrows; they also tried to

kill

while he rested in his

evaba aqui chiquitico,

asi.

[Showed

like a small container

on

his belt.]

'Con

ese, si

Ud.

se porta

mal con-

en frente del shabono y voy a quemar todo. Yo acabo con todo un shabono.' Por eso nadie hacia mal con el. El decia, 'Yo soy hombre guerrillero. Yo se matar gente. Yo soy peligroso. Ustmigo, yo voy a

tirar este

no me comen nada porque con ese yo puedo matar BOOOOM. Se mueren rapido.' Yo lo Con su pistola siempre disparaba contra palo: BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM. Yhasta con su escopeta: BOOOM BOOOM. La gente no puede creer eso. Pero nuestra comunidad Yanomami trabajo mucho con Shaki. Conocemos mucho a Shaki. Los que cargaban, si hacian mal, el disparaba por un lado, por el otro, edes salvages

VI..

para asustar.

No

paso nada pero asustaba."

22.

Ramon Bokoramo,

23.

Napoleon Chagnon, Napoleon Chagnon,

24.

Etilio,

Guarapana, Boca Mavaca, June

Kedebabowe-teri, Mrakapiwei, June

8,

letter to

Padre Jose Bortoli, July 19, 1988.

letter to

Padre Jose Bortoli, April 16, 1990.

25. Charles Brewer Carias, Curriculum en antropologia, Sept. 3, 1993, p. 3. tions

department confirmed the appointment when

for a year,

I

called in

1991-92, so that Brewer's continued claim to be a

26. Brooke, "In an Almost

9,

1996.

1996.

June 1995, but

I

The UCSB

was told

it

public rela-

had been only

UCSB research associate appears doubtful.

Untouched Jungle."

phone interview, Feb. 3, 1995. John Quinones, "A Window on the Past," Prime Time Live, July 26, 1991; James Brooke, "Venezuela Befriends Tribe, But What's Venezuela?" NYT, Sept. 11,1991. 29. Napoleon Chagnon, Jose Bortoli, and Maria Eguillor Garcia, "Una aplicacion antropologica practica entre los yanomami: Colaboracion entre misioneros y antropologos," La Iglesia en Amazonas, 27. Brian Ferguson, 28.

1988, pp. 75-83. 30. "La alianza entre los teologos de la liberacion y los marxistas a la creacion de

un

peligroso vacio del poder

que

esta

sentando

las

al

Sur del Orinoco esta conduciendo

bases para la disolucion territorial de

Venezuela." Issam Madi, Conspiracion al sur del Orinoco (Caracas: self-published, 1998), jacket. 31.

two

When

Brewer Carias attacked "the Yanomami Reserve" and "the biosphere," he was referring to

different but related proposals.

One was put forward in 1983

Los yanomami venezolanos: Propuesta para dacion La

Salle,

1983). This proposal

la

creacion de

would have

la

set aside

by the Catholic La

Reserva Indigena

Salle

Yanomami

Foundation (Caracas, Fun-

15,000 square miles for the Yanomami. The

following year, a plan was introduced that defined a core area and outlying buffer zones around a

—Nelly Arvelo Jimenez, "La Reserva de

new con-

Yanomami: Una autentica estrategia para el ecodesarrollo nacional" (Caracas: I VIC, 1984). Brewer's attacks on the concept of indigenous land rights came at a crucial time. In June 1984, Piaroa Indians were violently treated by cattle ranchers who were illegally encroaching on their lands. Brewer not only attributed the Yanomami Re-

cept called "a biosphere"

serve to a

Communist

plot but also took the opportunity to defend the catde ranchers in question.

Brewer's motives have been questioned, area. In

Biosfera

and not only because of his proven gold-mining

activities in the

1982, the Venezuelan government granted 173 square miles of tin concessions along the Upper

NOTES TO PAGES 188-97 Orinoco

in

Yanomami

territory.

—^

Whether or not Brewer was involved with

363

these tin concessions, as Sale-

was pan of "a resurgence of anti-

sian missionaries charged, his jingoistic denunciation of Indian lands

1984" that "buried both proposals." Marcus Colchester, Sustainability and

Indian rhetoric in

Decision-making in the Venezuelan Amazon: The Yanomami in the Upper Orinoco-Casiquiare Biosphere Reserve (Oxford:

World Rainforest Movement, 1995),

pp. 16-17.

Napoleon Chagnon, letter to Timothy Asch, Feb. 10, 1994, Timothy Asch Collection, NAA. 33. Napoleon Chagnon, letter to Timothy Asch, March 22, 1991, Timothy Asch Collection, NAA. 34. Timothy Asch, letter to Napoleon Chagnon, June 18, 1 99 1 Timothy Asch Collection, NAA. 35. Chagnon, Yanomamo, 4th ed., p. 243. 36. Timothy Asch, letter to Jesiis Cardozo and Hortensia Caballero, June 20, 1991, Timothy Asch 32.

,

Collection,

NAA.

37. "I did that this

is

want

I was most impressed with your abilities to mediate. I really think you should develop. ... I think you are really very good because you is needed in a calm way and work sensibly with it." Ibid.

to say, Jesiis, that

a professional talent that

are able to get the information that

38. Jesiis Cardozo,

phone

interview, Dec. 20, 1994.

39. Ibid. 40.

Kim

Hill,

phone

interview, Jan. 17, 1995.

41. Charles Brewer Carias,

Napoleon Chagnon, and Brian Boom, "Forest and Man" (MS; Caracas:

Fundacion Explora, 1993), pp. 10-20. 42. Kim Hill and Hillard Kaplan. "Population and Dry-Season Subsistence

Strategies of the Re-

cently Contacted Yora of Peru." National Geographic Research 5 (1989): 332.

Demini River, Brazil, Dec. Camargo, phone interview, Dec. 19, 1994. 45. Raymond Hames, phone interview, Dec. 29, 1994. 46. Kim Hill, phone interview, Jan. 17, 1995. 43. Bruce Albert, interview, Toototobi,

5,

1990.

44. Josefa

47. "Braorewa-teri y Doshamosha-teri: 8 de enero

Napoleon A. Chagnon, Darius Chagnon y and Boom, "Forest and Man," p. 1 1. Carias,

el

al

12 de enero.

.

.

.

Participantes: Charles Brewer-

medico Maxilimiano Ravard." Brewer, Chagnon,

48. Ibid., pp. 12-13.

Matos no iba a proteger indigenas sino a sacar oro del Amazonas." Chagnon, and Boom, "Forest and Man," p. 12. Carlos Botto, interview, CAISET, Puerto Ayacucho, Oct. 6, 1996. Garcia, "Cecilia Matos no iba a proteger indigenas sino a sacar oro del Amazonas." Leslie Illiman, "Intrigues Hinder Yanomami Massacre Probe," Daily Journal {Q^tzc^js,)

49. Garcia, "Cecilia 50. Brewer, 51. 52. 53.

,

Sept. 20,

1993. 54. Jota Rodriguez Flores, "Yo acuso a Charles

Brewer Carias y a Cecilia Matos," ElMundo, Sept. 14,

1993. 55.

Edgar Lopez,

in

El Diario de Caracas, Sept.

2,

1993.

56. Misioneros del Atto Orinoco, Consideraciones a

un documento de Charles Brewer Carias (Mavaca:

Salesian Mission, 1991), p. 12. 57. Patrick

J.

O'Donoghue,

"Cecilia Matos'

Lawyer Accuses Venezuelan Foreign Minister of Harassing

His Client," Vheadline.com, March 25, 1998. 58. See Introduction, n. 21. Patrick J. O'Donoghue, "Disgraced Ex-President Carlos Andres Perez Angered over CSJ Ruling Ratifying His House Arrest," Vheadline.com, Aug. 12, 1998.

Chapter 12: The Massacre at Haximu 1.

2.

Napoleon Chagnon, "Covering Up the Yanomamo Massacre," op-ed, NYT, Oct. 23, 1993. Bruce Albert, "The Massacre of the Yanomami at Hashimu" (MS, based on an article in Folha de

Sao Paulo, Oct. 10, 1993), pp. 5-6. 3. "Amazon Murder Mystery," Los Angeles Times, Aug. 30, 1993. 4. James Brooke, "Attack on Brazilian Indians Is Worst since 1910," 5.

ATJ^ Aug.

James Brooke, "Raids on Miners Follow Killings in Amazon," NYT, Sept.

fundo da

selva," Veja,

Aug. 25, 1993,

p.

9,

29, 1993.

1993;

"Un

grito

do

24.

6.

Leda Martins, interview, Univ. of Pittsburgh, March

7.

Decreto No. 1635, Gaceta Oficial de

la

7,

1995.

Republica de Venezuela, Aug.

1,

1991.

Napoleon Chagnon, Last Days ofEden (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1992), p. 252. 9. Decreto No. 3127, Gazeta Oficial de la Republica de Venezuela, No. 35.292, Sept. 8, 1993. 10. "Indigenas del Amazonas rechazan presencia de Brewer Carias y Chagnon," El Nacional (Cara8.

cas), Sept. 14,

1993.

NOTES TO PAGES I97-98

^-^

364

11. Ibid, 12. Ibid. 13.

Juan Ignacio Cortinas, "Las nuevas tribus

si

han hecho dano

al

yanomami," El Diario de Cara-

Oct. 23, 1993.

cas,

14.

"Ademas no recibiremos indicaciones de gente que, como Chagnon, ha sido vetada por el Coieei Conicit." Jose Visconti, "Los salesianos vetan a Brewer Carias y Chagnon," El

gio de Antropoiogos y

Diario de Caracas, Sept. 18, 1993. 15.

"Most members of that sub-committee were protested by

different sectors of Venezuelan society,

main De-

the Catholic Church, the indian organizations, the Colegio de Antropoiogos de Venezuela, the

partment of Anthropology,

UCV Department of Anthropology, ect., ect., there were many voices voiced

against that

Sub-Committee and most

knew about

the latter two connection with the hated Carlos Andres Perez (under

cilia

a

Matos. For the

move

first

time in

especially against Charles

and

trial)

his lover

Department, IVIC s Anthropology Department

history, this

its

Brewer and Nap. Chagnon. People

Brewer Carias and Chagnon's appointment. ..." Nelly Arvelo Jimenez,

to protest

also

Ce-

made

letter to

Dr.

Gale Goodwin-Gomez, Sept. 29, 1994. 16. " 'La

comision presidencial designada por

Carias, constituye

un

destacaron varios especialistas en calificaron a

en

ticulates

el Presidente Velasquez y presidida por Charles Brewer gremio de profesionales de antropoiogos y sociologos.' Asi lo materia de la Escuela de Sociologia y antropologia de la UCV, quienes

irrespeto para el la

Brewer Carias como un odontologo-aventurero la

egolatra, egocentrico

y con

intereses

muy par-

region Orinoco-Amazonica." Anabel Flores, "Sociologos y antropoiogos objetan presencia

de Brewer Carias en comision presidencial," Ultimas Noticias, Oct.

5,

1993,

p.

41.

Napoleon Chagnon, "Killed by Kindness?: The Dubious Influence of the Salesian Missions in Amazonas," TLS, Dec. 24, 1993, p. 11. 18. "El diputado causaerredista Carlos Azpurua, uno de los comisionados de la Camara de Diputados, coadyuvo a la elaboracion de un pormenorizado informe relacionado con el problema fronterizo, que se refiere, en su parte esencial, a algunas personalidades politicas venezolanas, que estan vinculadas a la explotacion del oro y otras riquezas, en el territorio amazonico de Venezuela. ... El informe explica expresamente como el doctor Charles Brewer Carias le impone un velo de legalidad a sus actividades que constituyen una explotacion inmisericorde a los indigenas, contrariando principios esenciales de respeto a los derechos humanos." David Ayala, "Informe de Comision de Diputados ratifica denuncias contra 17.

Charles Brewer Carias," Ultimas Noticias, Oct. 19. "El ultimo

un informe sobre

present©

le

tra

5,

la

masacre de

los

1993,

p.

22.

el gobernador del Amazonas, quien ayer 73 yanomamis y las protestas de las fuerzas del estado con-

toque contra Brewer Carias

lo

proporciono

Brewer Carias." Exequiades Chirinos Q., "El presidente Velasquez revoco designacion de Charles

Brewer Carias," El Universal, Sept. 14, 1993. 20. "Se

de

ayer,

pudo conocer que

el

gobernador Edgar Sayago, de amazonas, en su intervencion en

—con

rechazo categoricamente

Carias, senalando

que

'en

Amazonas no

Brewer Carias: Reestructuran

el

golpe de

mano

en

lo aceptamos.' "

la

mesa

Adela

— por

Leal,

reunion

"Deja Comision Yanomami Charles

decreto presidencial," El Nacional, Sept. 14, 1993.

21. Cardenal Jose A. Lebriin, monsenores Ovidio Perez Morales, Baltasar Porras y

"Document©

la

indeseable' al explorador Brewer

Oficial de la Conferencia Episcopal Venezolana" (Universidad Catolica

Mario Moronta,

Andres

Bello, Sept.

11, 1993).

22.

"No

comision que investigara caso de yanomamis: Monsenor Ovidio Perez Morales,"

es confiable

Ultimas Noticias, Oct.

5,

1993,

41.

p.

23. Orlando Utrera, "Brewer denuncia 24. el

"Napoleon Chagnon

dijo

ha realizado labor en beneficio de

publicamente contra

el,

a quienes

vacuna." Victor Manuel Reinoso,

el

'Plan Gadhafi,'

que toda persona que los

"

El Diario de Caracas, Aug. 15, 1984.

realiza cualquier actividad se beneficia

indigenas y cito

el

caso de dos

yanomami que

se

de

ella,

pero

han manifestado

vacuno cuando eran ninos y dijo que posiblemente vivian gracias a esa 'Me rechazan por envidia asegura Charles Brewer Carias," El Nacional,

"

Sept. 16, 1993.

Oswaldo Alvarez Paz (COPEI) solicito nombramiento de la comision especial.

25. "El candidato presidencial

Ramon

J.

Velasquez, revisar

el

Venezolana, "Supuesto asesinato de ciudadanos venezolanos de

la

al .

etnia

.

Presidente de ."

la Repiiblica,

Comision Investigadora

yanomami por ciudadanos

brasilenos" (Caracas, 1993), p. 12.

26. "During a period of some 6 or 7 weeks, approximately 600 newspaper articles appeared in the major Venezuelan newspapers discussing the massacre and the Presidential Commission appointed to init. Many of the articles were critical of Chagnon and Brewer, attempting to implicate them in gold mining activities in Amazonas and to corruption in the former Venezuelan government. ..."

vestigate

Napoleon Chagnon, "Notes on the Chronology of the Recent Attacks on Members of the Venezuelan Presidential Commission" (MS, May 18, 1994), p. 4.

NOTES TO PAGES I98-203 Napoleon Chagnon. "The View from the

27.

Society Newsletter!, no. 3 (Oct. 1993):

28. Reinoso, "

'Me rechazan por

President's

^^

365

Window," Human Behavior and Evolution

1.

envidia' asegura Charles

Brewer Carias."

29. Ibid. 30.

Minas Guariche C.A., "Modificacion de

Judicial del Distrito Federal y Estado

Miranda,

estatutos," Registrador Mercantil de la Circunscripci6n

May

32.

Nov.

Kenneth Gooding, "Race 1993,

8,

to

12, 1993.

WGBH,

31. "Public Lands, Private Profits." Frontline,

Boston, 1994.

Move Mountain of Waste in

the Rockies," Financial Times (London),

p. 8.

Golden Star company after "Golden Star's stock was beat when I came on the scene because of Placer Dome's withdrawal from Omai," Friedland told the Northern Miner in a March 29, 1993, interview. "It was a bird with a broken wing, and I helped it mend." It was Friedland who also arranged for a partnership with the Cambior to develop the Omai deposits. Vivian Danielson, "Friedland Strong Supporter of Guiana Shield Gold Rush," Northern Miner, March 29, 1993. See also "Cyanide Spill Poisons River," Latin American Press, July 13, 1995; "Gold Mine 33. Friedland initially decided to acquire the controlling interest of the

learning that

Loses

its

gold deposits at

Omai were

suitable for cyanide concentration.

Luster," ibid., Aug. 31, 1995. Diana Jean Scheme, "Legally Now, Venezuelans

Its

34.

35. Elizabeth Kline, servacionista

36.

Ana

Mining Abuses

Audubon de Venezuela,

to

Mine

Fragile Lands,"

NYT, Dec.

8,

1995.

Tarnish Venezuela's Environmental Image (Caracas: Sociedad

1994),

Con-

p. 4.

Ponte, "Charles Brewer Carias: Informe para

el

Comite

del

Medio Ambiente" (MS,

Jan.

1997), p. 4.

Napoleon Chagnon, letter to Ramades Munoz Leon, ministro de defensa, Oct. 2, 1993. 27 de septiembre de 1993, el Comando Aereo de esta ftierza traslado en horas de la tarde en una de sus aeronaves hasta el sector de Parima B del estado Amazonas a un grupo de personas entre las que destacaba el Dr. CHARLES BREWER CARIAS, quien en forma displicente adujo ser el 'Presidente de la Comision Presidencial Yanomami, y que requeria de los medios aereos necesarios para cumplir su labor.' El Coronel le explico lo limitado que estaba a este respecto, ya que se estaba ejecutando una operacion para evacuar el personal que habia aparecido ese dia en la manana, que tambien estaba apoyando una Comision del Ministerio Publico que estaba en Ocamo y tenia escasez de combustible. No obstante y pese a las limitaciones, a tempranas horas del 28 de septiembre de 1993 se traslado el Dr. BREWER CARIAS y su Comitiva hasta Haximu, indicandosele que serian buscados al di'a siguiente." Pedro Jose 37.

38. "El

Romero

Farias,

General de Division Comandante de

rante ministro de

la

la

Guardia Nacional, nota informativa

al

vicealmi-

Defensa, Oct. 7, 1993, pp. 1-2.

39. Ibid., p. 2.

40.

Napoleon Chagnon, letter to Ramades Muiioz Leon, Oct. phone interview, Dec. 19, 1994.

2,

1993.

41. Josefa Camargo, 42. Ibid.

Chagnon, "Covering Up the Yanomamo Massacre." War in the Amazon," Newsweek (international ed.), Oct. 1 1, 1993, p. 3. 45. "While en route back from Venezuela via Miami, Chagnon [referring to himself in the third person] was asked by Newsweek to give them an account of the investigation of the Hashimo-teri massacre. A brief article appeared shortly after in Newsweeks International edition. The allusion to the Salesian control over Amazonas as a 'theocracy' appeared here for the first time." Chagnon, "Notes on the Chronology of the Recent Attacks," p. 5. 46. Spencer Reiss, "The Last Days of Eden," Newsweek, Dec. 3, 1990, pp. 40-42. 43.

44. "Holy

47.

Chagnon, "Killed by Kindness?" pp. 11-12.

48. Ibid., p. 11. 49.

Napoleon Chagnon, letter to Robin Hanbury-Tennison, Oct. 29, 1993. "The Yanomami: Truth and Consequences," Anthropology Newsletter,

50. Terence Turner,

May

1994,

p. 48.

51. Gaceta Oficial de la Republica de Venezuela, 52. E.

J.

Cappelletti, "Venezuela

Mine Scheme

No. 36.123,

Jan. 10, 1997.

Targets Salesians," letter to

ATX Jan.

18, 1994.

53. Bruce Albert, personal correspondence, Paris, Dec. 15, 1994. 54. easily

"To denounce the mission

in a slanderous

way could make

their

work very difficult, and

this

could

have a disastrous effect on the Yanomami." Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt and Gabriele Herzog-Schroder,

"In Defense of the Mission" (MS), pp. 4—5. 55. Jacques Lizot. "N. A.

Chagnon, o

sea:

Un

presidente falsificador"

(letter,

P-4. 56.

Kim

Hill,

"Response to Cardozo and Lizot" (MS, March 1994),

p. 4.

Caracas, Dec. 13, 1993),

^^ NOTES TO PAGES 2O3-5

366

57. Eric R. Wolf,

1994,

"Demonization of Anthropologists

in the

Amazon," Anthropology Newsletter, March

p. 2.

58.

Chagnon, "View from the

59. "

As observances

Window," p. 3. Chagnon sao basicamente

President's

e a ciencia de

renomado biol6go da Universidade de Harvard.

'Ele esta

correctas,' afirma Edward Wilson, na linha de frente da moderna sociobiologia. Por

isso, talvez,

a polemica o persiga.' " Cited in Euripedes Alcantara, "Indio

1995,

"American anthropologists, both individually and through their organization, should

p. 7.

tambem

the support of Chagnon culture as well as his thropology Newsletter,

e gente," Veja, Dec. 6,

and the absolute value of his courageous and brilliant field practical efforts to save it." Robin Fox, "Evil Wrought in the

March 1994,

rally to

studies of Yanomamo

Name

of Good," An-

p. 2.

Matt Ridley, fax to Napoleon Chagnon, Aug. 16, 1994. Napoleon Chagnon, "Notes on the Chronology of the Recent Attacks on Members of the Venezuelan Presidential Commission" (MS), p. 11. 62. Lizot. "N. A. Chagnon, o sea," p. 4. 63. Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression, 11th ed. (New York: Bantam Books, 1971), pp. 123, 152, 156. 64. "When we read Chagnon's letter of the President in the Newsletter of the Human Behaviour and Evolution Society, we found it very strange and annoying. A newsletter serving scientific communication is not the place to vent highly personal frustrations. We are happy that Lizot replied to Chagnon. Ever since I, Eibl-Eibesfeldt, started my documentary work amongst the Yanomami in 1969, I learned with 60.

61.

utmost respect about the pioneer impact of modern the

Yanomami

which

is less

in Brazil

had

effort

and

civilization

of the Salesian Mission to prepare the Yanomami for the inevitable

to brace

them

sympathetic to the fate of the

Yanomami.

the interests of the

to survive as

an ethnic group. Catholic missions amongst

under government administration for

to suffer quite a lot

Yanomami and which

Fortunately, the situation

is

this

very reason,

resented missionaries for siding with

The

different in Venezuela

mission nowa-

who protect the highly vulnerable traditional societies against exploitation and domination by ruthless wordly powers. The work of the Salesian Mission on the Upper Orinoco days are the only present force

.

has in particular gained

Herzog-Schroder,

my

letter to

.

.

highest appreciation and support." Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt

and Gabriele

Bishop Ignacio Velasco, Feb. 28, 1994.

and Herzog-Schroder, "In Defense of the Mission," p. 3. no longer attract converts by offering shotguns, that was their pol1991. Over the past five years there has been a rash of shotgun killings." Chagnon, "Covering

65. Eibl-Eibesfeldt

66. "While the Salesians claim they icy until

Up

the

Yanomamo

Massacre."

good example have,

67. "Their kindness and

in a

number of cases with which I am

bloodshed among the Indians." Napoleon Chagnon, Marriage Alliances" (Ph.D.

about loaning the

diss.,

Yanomamo

"Yanomamo

familiar,

prevented

Warfare, Social Organization and

"The missionaries are very cautious knowing that these would be used in the wars." Napoleon 2d ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977), p. 122n.

Univ. of Michigan, 1966), p. 198.

firearms,

Chagnon, Yanomamo: The Fierce People, "Warfare has recently diminished in most regions due to the increasing influence of missionaries and government agents and is almost nonexistent in some villages." Napoleon Chagnon, "Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population," Science 1'59 (1988): 986. 68. Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo: 4th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1992), p. 220. 69. Napoleon Chagnon, Studying the Yanomamo (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974), p. xiv,

70.

Cocco, of the

"The evening before

year.

that a large

men

returned from the

one of the Salesian missionaries. Padre Luis a dangerous undertaking at that time Padre Cocco had just received word by shortwave radio from the mission at Mahekodo-teri party of men had left for Bisaasi-teri intent on capturing women. They had learned of the

visited

the

trip,

me, having traveled up the Orinoco River by dark

—

women from the six visitors and were determined to take advantage of the situation." Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo: The Fierce People, 3d ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, poorly guarded

1983), 71.

p.

154.

Kim

Hill,

phone

interview, Feb. 3, 1995.

72. This was Father Jose Bortoli s purpose in going to the Atlanta convention of the

AAA

in Dec.

1994. Jose Bortoli, interview, Mavaca mission, June 11, 1996. 73. Frank Salamone, The Yanomami and Their Interpreters: Fierce People or Fierce Interpreters (Lanham, Md.: Univ. Press of America, 1997), pp. 1-8. 74. Frank Salamone, phone interview, Dec. 22, 1994. 75. "It was Chagnon's charge that the Salesians were making guns available to the Yanomami that heated up their dispute. It is not illegal for any Venezuelan citizen to have a gun. The Yanomami, as citizens, can use guns for hunting. However, behind the charge was the implication that the Salesians aided

NOTES TO PAGES 205-II

—^

367

Yanomami who

lived near their mission stations in their wars against other Yanomami. The Salesians argument around. They claim that it is Chagnon who brought weapons to the Yanomami." Salamone, The Yanomami and Their Interpreters, p. 84.

the

have turned

this

76. Ibid., endnote 8. 77.

Chagnon, "Covering

Up

the

Yanomamo

78. Michael D'Antonio, "Napoleon zine, Jan. 30,

Massacre."

Chagnons War of Discovery," Los Angeles Times Sunday Maga-

2000.

The anthropologist Ferguson refers to "the sphere of mission beneficence and protection" Brian Ferguson, Yanomami Warfare: A Political History (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1995) p. 146. Lizot wrote, "h is near the missions where the population conserves a certain dynamism and increases." Jacques Lizot, "N.A. Chagnon o sea: Un presidente falsificador" (letter, Caracas, Dec. 13, 1993), p. 4. 79.

Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo, 5th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1987), p. 246. "The Dorita-teri had suffered a 25% mortality since my last census of them four years earlier, from an epidemic that killed mostly children and old people. This is the highest mortality rate I documented for the 17 villages I censused in 1987 and again in 1991." Chagnon, Yanomamo, 4th ed., p. 239. 82. FUNDAFACI's helicopter descent upon Dorita-teri was the subject of chapter 1. See also, Chagnon, Yanomamo, 5th ed., pp. 235-39. 83. "In January 1992, when I returned for a brief visit to this area, the alarming news reached me that a major epidemic had struck the Dedabobowei-teri; 21 people or so had died within a week or so just be." Chagnon, Yanomamo, 4th ed., fore I arrived. p. 224. According to Juan Finkers, who actually went to the assistance of the Kedebabowei-teri, these deaths occurred in Dec. 1991. Juan Finkers, phone in80. 81.

.

.

terview, Jan. 24, 1995.

84. Raymond Hames, Kim Hill, and Ana Magdalena Hurtado, "Defamation Campaign against Napoleon A. Chagnon," [email protected], May 1994. 85. "Ray Hames just informed me of your possible interest in doing a story about some of the Byzan." Napoleon Chagnon, e-mail to tine events that are going on regarding my 30-odd-years of research. LizMcMillen, Chronicle ofHigher Education, An^. 18, 1994, .

.

86. Ibid., Aug. 23, 1994. 87. Ibid., Aug. 18,1994. 88. Peter

Monaghan,

"Bitter Warfare in Anthropology," Chronicle

of Higher Education, Oct. 26,

1994, A19. 89. "Parties in Bitter Dispute over Amazonian Indians Reach a Fragile Truce," Chronicle ofHigher Education, Dec. 14, 1994,

Al 8.

Chagnon, "Covering Up the Yanomamo Massacre." 91. Chagnon, "Killed by Kindness?" p. 1 1. 90.

92. "36 died of malaria 87-89.

Chagnon, "Covering

94.

"On

the second

Up

.

.

."

Bruce Albert, personal correspondence, Dec. 14, 1994.

Yanomamo Massacre." day of our visit seven Yanomamo from

93.

the

four of them." Chagnon, "View from the President's

a nearby village arrived,

Window,"

—

p. 1.

and

I

questioned

—

walked toward us seven men and four women 95. "At the same moment a group of Yanomamo from beyond our camp." Chagnon, "Killed by Kindness?" p. 1 1. 96. Issam Madi, Conspiracion alsur del Orinoco (Caracas: self-published, 1998), p. 63. 97. 1 have this recollection from Leda Martins, who organized Bezerra's press conference. Martins, interview, Pittsburgh,

March

7,

1995.

fumee du metal: Histoire et representations du contact chez les Yanomami (Bresil)," LHomme 28, nos. 2-3 (1988): 87-119. 99. Janer Cristaldo, "Uma teocracia na Amazonia," A Folha de Sao Paulo, Feb. 12, 1995. 100. "Antes de atribui-las a garimpeiros a Polfcia Federal e a Funai fariam melhor ter lido Yanomamo ." Janer Cristaldo, "Os bastidores do ianoblefe," A do antropologo americano Napoleon Chagnon. 98. Bruce Albert, "La

.

.

Folha de Sao Paulo, April 24, 1994. 101. Bruce Albert, personal correspondence, Dec. 15, 1994, p. 3.

102.

Chagnon, Yanomamo, 4th

ed., p.

220.

Yanomama, by John Early and John Peters, has been most comprehensive demographic study done for any Yanomami group." See Ferguson, Yanomami Warfare, p. 352. It has also been called "the most complete and detailed ethno-demographic account of a lowland South American Indian group." See Warren M. Hern, in Population Studies 45 (1991): 359-71. Nancy Howell, of the Univ. of Toronto, widely respected as the leading demographer in anthropology, has described the Early and Peters book as "a jem." See Howell, in Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 18 (1991): 151-52. 103. The Population Dynamics of the Mucajai

praised as "the

.

^^ NOTES TO PAGES 211-27

368

104. John D. Early

and John E

The Population Dynamics of the Mucajai Yanomama (San

Peters,

Diego: Academic Press, 1990), pp. 64-68. 105. Aurora Anderson, Interview, Mucajai mission.

May

1990.

phone interview, Jan. 3, 1995. Bob Cable, phone interview, Jan. 3, 1995. Gay Cable, phone interview, Jan. 3, 1995. Kenneth Taylor, phone interview, Jan. 27, 1995. Milton Camargo, phone interview, Feb. 14, 1996.

106. John Peters, 107.

108. 109. 110.

Chapter 13: Warriors of the Amazon Warriors of the Amazon, Nova,

1.

WGBH,

Boston, 1996.

on the Yanomami, in my opinion by far the most balwhich Lizot made in collaboration with the television science series Nova. "LesUe E. Sponsel, "Yanomami: An Arena of Conflict and Aggression in the Amazon," Aggressive Behavior 2A (1998): 99. However, Sponsel had many reservations about the film. 3. Warriors of the Amazon, narration. 4. Brian Ferguson, phone interview, April 19, 1996. 5. Wilma Dawson, interview, Puerto Ayacucho, June 3, 1996. 6. Michael Dawson, interview, Padamo Mission, June 4, 1996. 7. "I would like my book to help revise the exaggerated representation that has been given of Yanomami violence. The Yanomami are warriors; they can be brutal and cruel, but they can also be delicate, sensitive, and loving. Violence is only sporadic; it never dominates social life for any length of time, and long peacefiil moments can separate two explosions." Jacques Lizot, Tales ofthe Yanomami: Daily Life in the Venezuelan Forest, trans. Ernest Simon (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985), p. xiv. 8. Lizot s accounts of events at one small Yanomamo village (approximately 70 people) between 1968 and 1976 indicates that mortality due to violence was very low to almost nonexistent that time period." Napoleon Chagnon, "Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population," Science 239

"Among

2.

the several dozen films and videos

anced and humanistic

is

Warriors of the Amazon,

(1988): 991, n. 24.

Maria Eguillor Garcia,

9.

Hekuray Shamanes

Yopo,

(Caracas: Editorial/Librerfa Salesiana, 1984), p.

25. 10. Jacques Lizot, nologist

"On

Warfare:

An Answer

to

N. A. Chagnon,"

13.

Warriors of the Amazon, translation by the Dawsons. Michael Dawson, interview, Padamo mission, June 4, 1996. Paul Griffiths, interview, Puerto Ayacucho, June 3, 1996.

14.

Michael Dawson, interview, Padamo mission, June

1 1

12.

trans.

Sarah Dart, American Eth-

1\ (1994): 853.

15. Pablo Mejia, interview,

Padamo

4,

1996.

mission, June 4, 1996.

Manaviche River, June 7, 1996. Kenneth Good, phone interview, Jan. 31, 1997. 18. Jose Bortoh, interview, Mavaca mission, June 6, 1996. 19. Survivors of the Amazon, BBC 4, 1996. 20. Andy Jillings, phone interview, Feb. 18, 1997. 16. Renaldo, interview, 17.

21. Ibid. 22.

Andy Jillings,

letter to Patrick Tierney, Feb.

23. Brian Ferguson,

phone

24. Timoteo, interview, 25.

Marinho de Souza,

interview.

Padamo

May 26,

20, 1997.

1996.

mission, June 4, 1996.

interview, Karohiteri, Sept.

1,

1996.

26. Renaldo, interview, Manaviche River, June 7, 1996. 27. Brian Ferguson,

phone

interview, April 19, 1996.

Chapter 14: Into the Vortex Juan Finkers, "Aclaraciones al Sr. Chagnon," La Iglesia en Amazonas, Dec. 1994, pp. 7-10. Brooke cites Charles Brewer as saying that twenty-one "wild Yanomami" had been killed by "mission Yanomami" over the preceding twelve months. James Brooke, "Venezuela Befriends Tribe, But What's Venezuela?" NYT, Sept. 1 1 However, Chagnon s account makes it clear that the wars actually 1.

2.

.

began

(MS,

in early July 1990.

Sept. 1992), p. 5.

Napoleon Chagnon, "The Guns of Mucajai: The Immorality of Self-deception"

.

NOTES TO PAGES 228-3O

^^

369

Charles Brewer Carias with Napoleon Chagnon, "The Massacre at Lechoza, September 1992:

3.

Brewer's Account, 12/92."

"The number of (living) unokais

4.

be 25 or older, and represent cates that this has generally

44%

in the current population

of the

men

age 25 or older.

been the case in those

villages

the past 5 years." In other words, there were so few

is

137, 132 of whom are estimated to

A retrospective

perusal of the data indi-

whose unokais have not

young men involved

killed

someone during

in fighting in the twelve villages

had been very few killings for five years (1982-87). Napoleon Chagnon, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population," Science 239 (1988): 987. Elsewhere, Chagnon noted that the Mishimishimabowei-teri, by far the largest and most violent of the groups he studied, experienced peace with all their former enemies from 1977 onward. Napoleon in his study area because there

"Life Histories,

Chagnon, Yanomamo, 5th

ed. (Fort

a dramatic decline in violence Lizot, "Sobre la guerra:

Una

Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1997), p. 226. According to Lizot, there was the groups he and Chagnon studied from 1984 to 1989. Jacques

among

respuesta a

N. A. Chagnon

(Science, 1988),"

La

Iglesia

en Amazonas, April

1989, pp. 23-34. There were only three war deaths from 1968 to 1983 among all the seven groups near the Mavaca mission. Two of these three were killed by Tayari-teri archers in early 1981; the other, by Tayari-teri archers in 1979.

Maria Eguillor Garcia,

Yopo,

Shamanismo y Hekura (Caracas:

Editorial/Libr-

24-26, 53. Moreover, Chagnon's unpublished reconstruction of violence origmissions, indicates no instances of killings from 1979 until 1990. Chagnon, "The Guns of

eria Salesiana, 1984), pp.

inating at

Mucajai," pp. 3-4.

James Brooke, "In an Almost Untouched Jungle, Gold Miners Threaten Indian Ways," NYT, Sept.

5.

19, 1990. 6.

Brian Ferguson, phone interview, July 13, 1995.

7.

Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo: The Last Days ofEden (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,

1992), p.

XV.

8. " 'People' at Platanal

—

did not like

me

because

I

brought trade goods

—

machetes, axes, fishhooks,

them without going through the Yanomamo (and priests) at the mission and gave these things away freely to them." Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo, 4th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace,

etc.

directly into

1992), p. 238. 9. "I

this has

was unthreatened and was prepared

to

defend

my

claims in a court of law.

I

pointed out that

gotten so large that perhaps the court should be something like the United Nations." Napoleon

Chagnon, "Conversation with Jesiis Cardozo;" (part of his press kit, March 24, 1994), p. 6. 10. "Before I went to Santa Barbara I spoke to Bortoli. I asked him if he'd be willing to have Chagnon on everything file a formal complaint to the General Attorney's Office Fiscal General de la Repiiblica he's accused you of Would you be willing to have a neutral party designated by the Fiscalia to investigate this. And in case it comes out en contra if it comes out that, yes, you have been giving out shotguns and shells and, yes, you have been urging the Yanomami to kill Chagnon and, yes, you have been helping some Yanomami raid others or at least turning your backs on things you don't want to deal with if that is in fact determined, would you accept the judge's determinations and findings even if it means being expelled from the Upper Orinoco? So he said, 'Yes, we are willing to do that.' So I said I would invite him to come down, which is exactly what I did. So in the midst of my conversation with Chagnon, I told him, 'Chagnon, this controversy has been going on for a long time. It's very high profile and it's doing nobody any good. Why don't we put an end to it. I am authorized by the Salesians. The Salesians are willing; in fact they are inviting you to go to Venezuela to file a formal complaint against them. To have this matter all cleared up, they are willing to accept a neutral committee set up by whoever, whether it be local

—

—

—

—

.

institutions.

And in fact Bortoli later said at the AAA they were willing And they are willing to accept the consequences of what you

also like for

to accept the consequences.

dict finds that they are not

'Well.'

He got

phone

really upset,

all.

interview,

.

.

.

on the

he asked

me

But you do have

Aug.

8,

like

you

to

basis if

I

an international

fact-

the verdict might be. But they to accept the fact that if the ver-

engaging in the kinds of things you accuse them

to legal charges, criminal charges,

once and for

They would

.

to accept

finding team.

would

.

of,

then you

may be subject And he said,

of defamatory slander and that kind of thing.'

was threatening him.

assume responsibility

for

I

said,

'Why

what you

don't we just clear this up are saying.' " Jesiis Cardozo,

1995.

"The important thing is not what I say or what Chagnon says but that the American Anthropological Association sends a commission to investigate the facts on site. I've asked the AAA to send a commission to investigate, but they say it would be impossible to find an impartial group." Jose Bortoli, phone interview, Dec. 6, 1994. 12. Jodie Dawson, interview, Padamo mission, June 6, 1996. 13. Juan Finkers, Los Yanomami y su sistema alimenticio: Yanomami ni ipe (Puerto Ayacucho: Vicari1 1

.

ate Apostolico, 1986).

.

.

370

NOTES TO PAGES 23I-42

~—^

14.

Brewer Carias with Chagnon, "The Massacre

15.

"Timanawe no

es

un

at

santo, todo lo contrario: es

Lechoza."

un

bestia violenta.

.

.

."

Jacques Lizot, personal

correspondence, Jan. 20, 1995. 16. "As

von Goetz, cas:

customary among the Waika, Uriji Jamil: Life

it is the shaman who has the real authority." Inga Steinvorth and Belief of the Forest Waika in the Upper Orinoco, trans. Peter Furst (Cara-

Asociacion Cultural Humboldt, 1969),

p.

145.

Dimanawa, interview, Mavakita, June 8, 1996. Bokoramo, interview, Mrakapiwei, Upper Mavaca, June Chagnon, Last Days ofEden, p. 274. Cesar Dimanawa, interview, Mavakita, June 8, 1996.

17. Cesar 18. 19.

20.

8,

1996.

21.1bid., Sept. 2, 1996.

Mavaca Mission, June 12, 1996. Bokoramo, interview, Mrakapiwei, June 8, 1996. Chagnon, "Life Histories," p. 987. Bokoramo, interview, Mrakapiwei, June 8, 1996. Jesiis Cardozo, phone interview, Dec. 20, 1994. Chagnon, "The Guns of Mucajai," p. 5. Bokoramo, interview, Mrakapiwei, June 8, 1996. Chagnon, "The Guns of Mucajai," p. 5. Chagnon, Yanomamo, 4th ed., p. 225. Frank Salamone, phone interview, Dec. 22, 1994. Cesar Dimanawa, interview, Mavakita, Sept. 2, 1996. Raymond Hames, phone interview, Dec. 29, 1994. Jesiis Cardozo, phone interview, Dec. 20, 1994. See chapter Cesar Dimanawa, interview, Mavakita, June 8, 1996.

22. Juan Finkers, interview, 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

12.

36. Brooke, "Venezuela Befriends Tribe." 37.

38.

Kenneth Good, phone interview, Feb. 22, 1995. Chagnon, Last Days ofEden, p. 262.

39. Ibid.

40. Decreto No. 3127, Gazeta Oficialde la Republica de Venezuela,

No. 35,292, Sept. 8, 1993. Marta Miranda, Venevision, Caracas, Fundacion Cultural Venevision, July 24, 1991. 42. Napoleon Chagnon, "Killed by Kindness?: The Dubious Influence of the Salesian Missions Amazonas," 715, Dec. 24, 1993, p. 12. 43. Brewer Carias with Chagnon, "The Massacre at Lechoza." 44. Ibid, p. 11 andn. 19. 45. Alberto Karakawe, interview, Ocamo mission, Aug. 31, 1996. Nelson, Mavaca, June 41.

in

6,

1996. 46.

Chagnon, "Killed by Kindness?"

p. 12.

47. Ibid.

48. Cesar Timanaxie, "Carta enviada por

un yanomami

a

N. A. Chagnon," La

Iglesia

en Amazonas,

Feb. 1994, p. 19.

49. This

is

reportedly a quotation that appeared in a Caracas daily. El Nacional,

Brewer Carias with Chagnon, "The Massacre

at

Lochoza,"

on Nov.

18, 1991.

p. 18.

50. Ibid., p. 15.

phone interview, Jan. 24, 1995. Bokoramo, interview, Mrakapiwei, June 8, 1996. Chagnon, Last Days ofEden, p. 274. Juan Finkers, interview, Mavaca mission, June 12, 1996.

51. Juan Finkers, 52. 53. 54.

55. Ibid.

Bokoramo, interview, Mrakapiwei, June 8, 1996. Bokoramo, interview, Mavakita, Sept. 2, 1996. 58. "Chagnon, kamijeri motoro ya puhi. Ohote ipe heroye ibe motor wama e hipeape, wama re ohotemotyonowei the no wa he ya puhi shatio shoaa. Kamiye suwe ya re kui ya puhi shatio shoaa." Translation into Spanish by the anthropologist Javier Cabrera: "Chagnon, quiero mi motor. Por el trabajo de mi esposo usted nos dar un motor, porque con usted trabajamos mucho. Yo estoy pendiente todavia. Quiero mi motor, por eso estoy pendiente con mi motor todavia. Yo queria que mi marido consiguiera el motor. Sin embargo me quede triste y sin nada." Isabela, interview, Mavakita, Sept. 2, 1996. 56. 57.

59. Pablo Mejia, interview, Mavakita, June 8, 1996.

60. Brian Ferguson,

L-

phone

interview, July 13, 1995.

.

NOTES TO PAGES 243-5I

^^

37I

Chapter 15: In Helena's Footsteps "Nosotros nos quedamos pensando en

1

late

todo

tigres

el

tiempo." Helena Valero, Yo soy Napeyoma: Re-

de una mujer raptadapor las indigenas Yanomami (Caracas: Fundacion La Salle de Ciencias Naturales,

1984)

p.

300.

Cocco,

2. Luis

lyewei-teri:

Quince afios entrelos Yanomamos (Caracas: Editorial Salesians, 1973),

p.

105.

Helena Valero, interview. Upper Orinoco, Aug. 31, 1996.

3.

4. Ibid.

"At

5.

first

the apparently total recall of this

illiterate

woman

for these

could be checked against Chagnon's taperecorded material, stretched

my

20

years, accurate

wherever

imagination. Slowly

I

it

realized

that the events she recounts had been discussed so many times in the constricted world of the villages in which she lived that they had become much more ingrained in her memory than the events of the varied, somewhat helter-skelter lives we live are for us." James V. Neel, Physician to the Gene Pool: Genetic

and Other Stories (New York: John Wiley, 1994), p. 407, n.l. Yanoamo (New York: Kodansha International, 1996), Helena Valero, interview, Upper Orinoco, Aug. 31, 1996.

Lessons

6. Ettore Biocca, 7.

p. xii.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10.

Napoleon Chagnon, "Filming the Ax

Fight,"

Yanomamo

Interactive

3d

(New York:

CD

(New

York: Harcourt

Brace, 1997). 11.

Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo: The

Fierce People,

ed.

Holt, Rinehart and

Win-

ston, 1983), pp. 18-19.

Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo, 5th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1997), p. 90. Helena spent "about a month" by the tributary where she was captured with the Kohoroshiwethen she traveled for eleven days and was captured anew by the Karawe-tari. Biocca, Yanoama, pp.

12. 13. tari;

23-37. 14. Valero, Yo soy 15. Biocca, 16.

Napeyoma, pp. 31-69.

Yanoama, pp. 52-66.

Chagnon, Yanomamo, 5th

17. "I never asked her

ed., pp.

2-3.

any questions about her

many Yanomamo with whom Chagnon, "Filming the Ax Fight." I

knew of

the

'life'

among the Yanomamo, and simply told her what who asked me to give her messages."

she had lived and

18.

Napoleon Chagnon, Studying the Yanomamo (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974),

19.

Napoleon Chagnon, "Yanomamo Warfare,

p.

95.

diss.,

Univ. of Michigan, 1966),

p.

Social Organization

and Marriage Alliances" (Ph.D.

22.

20. Valero, Yo soy Napeyoma, pp. 21-30.

Chagnon, "Yanomamo Warfare," p. 152. Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo, 4th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1992), p. 3. 23. For a detailed comparison of Chagnon's and Valero's accounts, see Brian Ferguson, Yanomami Warfare: A Political History (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1995), pp. 393-95. 24. Chagnon, "Yanomamo Warfare," pp. 24-25. 25. Napoleon Chagnon, "Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population," Science 239 (1988): 991, n. 15. 26. Chagnon, Yanomamo, 4th ed., p. 3. 27. Valero, Yo soy Napeyoma, pp. 234—36. 21. 22.

28. Biocca, Yanoama, p. 197.

29. Valero, Yo soy Napeyoma, pp. 352-55. 30.

Chagnon, "Yanomamo Warfare,"

p.

155.

31. Valero, Yo soy Napeyoma, p. 354. 32. Jacques Lizot, "El rio de los periquitos," Antropologica 33.

Napoleon Chagnon, "Yanomamo,"

Society, 1974), pp.

Chagnon,

34.

in Primitive Worlds

(Washington, D.C.: National Geographic

141-83.

"Yanomamo:

The True

People,"

National

210-21. 35. Pablo Mejia, interview, Patahama-teri, Sept. 5, 1996. 36. Yarima, interview, Irokai-teri, Sept. 7, 1996.

37. Ibid. 38.

37 (1974) 3-23.

Kenneth Good, phone

interview, Jan. 30, 1997.

Geographic,

Aug.

1976,

pp.

^^ NOTES TO PAGES 252-58

372.

39. Ibid., Jan. 10, 1995.

Good,

40. Kenneth

(New York: Simon

Into the Heart:

& Schuster,

One Man's

and Knowledge among

Pursuit of Love

Yanomama

the

1991), pp. 102-5.

41. Ibid., p. 202. 42. Yarima, quoted ibid., pp. 308-9. 43. Kenneth

Good, phone

May

44. Ibid.,

know

interview, Feb. 4, 1997.

14, 1997.

you and Jesus and the Yanomami could make a video which they would be proud like the modern western world to see. Now are there any hidden agendas on my part in doing this project? Yes. There is the fact that 37 Yanomami films exist and that people use 10 of them a lot and that these 10 tend to reinforce every basic prejudice we're trying to enlighten in introductory anthropology courses. The best one could do would be to take all the films off the market and hide them for a hundred years perhaps, but realistically that's not going to happen either. So why not make a film that's exactly the film the Yanomami would want shown which could then put all the other films in context?" Timothy Asch, letter to Jose Bortoli, Jan. 17, 1991, Timothy Asch Collection, 45. "I

that

of and which they would

.

.

.

.

.

.

NAA. letter to Timothy Asch, April 9, 1992, (Timothy Asch Collection), NAA. phone interview. May 10, 1996. and Hillard Kaplan, "Population and Dry-Season Subsistence Strategies of the Re-

Cardozo,

46.

Jesiis

47.

Amy Wray,

48.

Kim

Hill

cently Contacted Yora of Peru." National Geographic Research 5 (1989): 332.

Yanomami Homecoming, National Geographic

49.

48 min. (Washington, D.C.: National

Explorer,

Geographic Society, 1994). 50. Yarima, interview, Irokai-teri, Sept. 7, 1996, 51.

"The Orinoco," National

Geographic, April 1998.

52. Ulisses Capozoh, "Yarima, cinderela rebelde,"

O Estado de Sao Paulo,

March

3,

1997.

"An American anthropologist intends to go to the Amazonian jungle to search for his Stone Age tribeswoman wife and persuade her to rejoin him in the West. Their unprecedented union was hailed 53.

.

as

one of the

gle Trip to

Times

s,

greatest love stories

Win Back Wife,"

.

.

of all time." Gabriela Gamini and Quentin

Times (London), Jan. 31, 1997.

Letts,

An accompanying

"American Plans Junpiece, reported

by the

New York stringer on the basis of interviews in Yarima's New Jersey neighborhood, stated, "Mod-

ern devices such as washing-machines, television and the telephone were as foreign to her as they

have been to a Neanderthal

Yarima's former English teacher was quoted as saying that Yarima was four feet tion of time ("She did not

know

if it

made

was that she could not co-ordinate

colors." Maritza Nelson, in

progress in learning English,

A third article in the

"One

1,

1997. Finally, a short,

pedition had never been planned and that

Quentin

Letts, "Tribal

Wife

Is

Home

and had no concep-

Quentin

for

see her hus-

thing you noticed about her

Letts,

"Spurning the

Good

Life

Times included responses from leading anthropologists

attacking the imaginary expedition. Gabriela Gamini, "Search for Jungle Experts," ibid., Feb.

tall

was morning or afternoon, or when she would next

band"). And, although Yarima had

for Call of the Wild," ibid.

would

man and her arrival in well-to-do New Jersey caused a worldwide sensation."

less

Good had been

Good,"

Wife Condemned by Amazon

prominently featured piece acknowledged that the exin

New Jersey,

ibid., Feb. 17,

not the Amazon,

all

along.

1997.

Chapter 16: Gardens ofHunger, Dogs of War 1

Helena Valero, Yo

Fundacion La 2.

Salle

soy

Napeyoma: Relato de una mujer raptadapor los indigenas Yanomami (Caracas:

de Ciencias Naturales, 1984),

In the Siapa region, the

Yanomami spend

p.

395.

over 40 percent of their time on foraging treks; but they

Colchester,

among the 'traditional' Yanoama, collect." Marcus when agriculture fails them. "Rethinking Stone Age Economics: Some Speculations regarding the Pre-Columbian Yanoama

Economy,"

Human Ecology

often undertake treks

when garden production

ing and trekking form alternative

falters.

"Thus,

means of acquiring

calories

12 (1984): 301. During his 1973

among the Yanomami of The Indians were skinny, but

crop failure trekking.

escaparon de tivados,

dejando

la

catastrofe fijeron

aunque no hubo las

plantaciones,

visit,

.

Lizot reported just such a generalized

the Siapa valley, followed by a long, "semi-hungry" period of healthy, according to a medical examiner. "Las planiaclones

muy escasas. A estos

sigui6

una penuria de productos alimenticios

la

mayor

parte de los grupes indios

los indios

abandonaron

la

vivienda semi-permanente la solva.

Trabajando

segufan en un estiado semi-hinnbriento, pero susistian." Jacques Lizot,

"El rio de los periquitos," Antropoldgica 3.

que cul-

escasez completa, la selva ofrecia rofiosamente recursos casi suficientes. Entonces,

para dedicarse a una economfa de nomadismo, explotando sucezivamente zonas de

mas que de costumbre,

.

These estimates by Marinho

37 (1974):

De Souza were

7.

in line

with the conclusions of CAICET. "La desnutri-

NOTES TO PAGES 259-63

^^

373

las comunidedes indigenas. Aunque posiblemente tiene una gran immayor susceptibilidad que presenta la poblacion indfgona a diferentes enfermedades end^micas, no ha sido adecuadamente documentada y existe un subregistro importante." Carlos Botto, "Impactos ambientales en Salud: La experiencia de CAJCET" (Belem, Brazil, June 6, 1996), p. 10. Malnutrition was listed as the fifth-leading cause of death among indigenous communities of Amazonas state. G. Rodrfguez Ochoa, "Situacion de salud en el Territorio Federal Amazonas, Venezuela," Enfoque Integral de la Salud Humana en la Amazonia, vol. 10 (Montevideo, Uruguay: Editorial Trilce, 1992), pp. 407-26. 4. Valero, Yo soy Napeyoma, pp. 282-83. a descent into this valley would have been 5. Although FUNDAFACI never came to Mokarita-teri risky that did not stop Mokarita-teri from going to FUNDAFACI at two other villages, Shanishani-teri and Ashtitowa-teri. "Shaki paid us for our spirits [pictures] and to draw our blood. He gave us machetes, knives and fish line. We were not as sick at that time." Interview, Mokarita-teri, transl. Marco Jimenez,

ci6n es altamente prevalente en

portancia en

.

.

.

la

—

—

Sept. 9, 1996. 6.

Anna 7.

Darna

L.

Dufour, "Diet and Nutritional Status of Amazonian People," in Amazonian Indians, ed.

Roosevelt (Tucson: Univ. of Arizona Press, 1994),

"Of the

total caloric yield

from

vided by the cowata plantains, while

just the as

p.

157.

musaceous plants

much

as

in this

garden region

98 percent may come from

Smole, The Yanoama Indians: A Cultural Geography (Austin: Univ. of Texas 8.

Edward O. Wilson,

preface to

is

pro-

William

J.

Press, 1976), p. 151.

Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo: The Last Days ofEden (San Diego:

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), p. x. 9. L. Keeley War before Civilization (Oxford: Oxford Univ.

Napoleon Chagnon, "Chronic Problems

10.

at least half

plantains."

all

in

Press, 1995).

Understanding Tribal Violence and Warfare,"

in

Ge-

of Criminal and Antisocial Behavior (Chichester, N.Y.: John Wiley, 1996), p. 213. 11. Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo, 5th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1997), p. 93. 12. James V. Neel, "Lessons from a Primitive People," Science 170 (1970): 815-22.

netics

"The

13.

males, in general, present a picture of exuberant vitality, an impression confirmed by their

dancing and chanting frequently extending through most of the night.

.

.

.

When

write of a picture of

I

must be remembered we are seeing only a snapshot in time. Funhermore, some of those who were ill might not present themselves for physical examinations. The true picture of health and disease can only be derived from a longitudinal study." James V. Neel, Physician to the Gene Pool: Genetic exuberant

vitality, it

and Other Stories (New York: John Wiley, 1994), p. 150. Amazonian Indians as healthy and well-nourished, but the health of Indian groups is commonly inferred from visual assessments of adult men's health, which is usu-

Lessons

14. "Anthropologists often describe status ally

comparatively favorable because of their preferential access to resources and greater tolerance for nu-

young children and pregnant or lactating women." Anna C. Amazonian Indians, p. 14. 15. Sound Roll 6, Patanowa-teri, Feb. 21, 1968, Timothy Asch Collection, NAA. 16. "There is no body weight data available for the Yanomami." Dufour, "Diet and Nutritional Status of Amazonian People," p. 168. 17. "Los Guicas que yo he medido tenfan una talla mediana de 4 pies y 7 pulgadas a 4 pios y 8 pulgadas." Alexander von Humboldt, cited in Luis Cocco, lyewei-teri: Quince anos entre los Yanomamos tritional inadequacies

than

Roosevelt, "Strategy for a

is

the case with

New Synthesis,"

in

(Caracas: Editorial SaJesiana, 1973), pp. 47-48. 18. R.

Holmes, "Nutritional Status and Cultural Change

in the Amazon Basin, ed.

John

Hemming

in Venezuela's

Amazon Territory,"

(Manchester: Univ. of Manchester, 1985),

19. "Use and Interpretation of Anthropometric Indicators of Nutritional Status," 929-41.

20. James Neel mentions data nearly identical for the Parima Mountains. "In

northern aspects of their distribution

[i.e.,

Parima Mountains], the

ing the term pygmoid. For instance, in one village the

women

only 137.5 cm." Neel, Physician

21. Dufour, "Diet

and Nutritional

to the

Gene

first

Change

BWHO 64 (1986):

some

villages in the

are very small, warrant-

averaged only 147.7

cm

in height

and the

205.

(New York: Simon

& Schuster,

1954). Gheerbrant

Europeans to cross the Sierra Parima's central massif (1948-50), where he recorded

horrible scenes of hunger

ancianos y los ninos con tos

in

251.

Status of Amazonian People," p. 156.

22. Alain Gheerbrant, /