Yanoomami Tribe Religious Beliefs

Cultural and Religious Practices of the Yanomami Tribe
South America is home to one of the most fascinating tribes in the world--the Yanomami, also known as Yanomamu or Yanomamö. Found along the banks of the Amazon, the Yanomami have a rich culture riddled with symbolic rituals and deeply-held beliefs, especially regarding life after death (Jacob 1). The Yanomami are incredibly isolated, however their culture is not immune from being influenced by outside systems (Chen).
The Yanomami practice and uphold many systems and dynamics that we as first-world Americans would consider barbaric, yet are as natural and normal as breathing to them (Chen). For example, the Yanomami are polygamous, with each male having several wives (Chen). Neither
men nor women wear much clothing, and animism (“the belief that all living organisms and all parts of that organism have spirit”) is a vital part of Yanomami religion (Chen).
The Yanomami’s religious beliefs, in fact, are shaped very deeply around their belief in animism, so far that they believe that the soul of a person must be carefully protected even after death (Jacob 2).
When a member of the tribe dies, their body is cremated, and the ashes and bones left over are then placed into a pot (2). After some time, the family members and relatives of the deceased person will mix the ashes and bones with cooked, mashed bananas and then eat it (2). They believed that by consuming the ashes (and in the ashes, the spirit) of their deceased relative, they were releasing his or her soul into freedom (2). If the ashes are not consumed, the Yanomami thought that the soul would forever be stuck between life and death (2). The most hazardous situation to the Yanomami would be if a tribe member was killed, but they could not find the body to burn, meaning the soul would forever be trapped (2). Frank Jacob, in his article titled “They Eat Your Ash to Save Your Soul – Yanomami Death Culture”, compares this theory of the unsaved soul to “the catholic belief in purgatory, where Christians who have committed suicide are captured until they have served a sentence for their sins”
(3).
The Yanomami, believing that every living thing is inhabited by spirits, try to reach these spirits through ingesting a hallucinogen made from the bark of the virola tree (Ushiñahua).
The hallucinogen, often referred to as yopo, is blown directly into the nose, which the Yanomami believe gives them incredible spiritual power (Ushiñahua).
Yanomami culture and religion are greatly enhanced by the tribe’s love for myths and stories (Chagnon). Napoleon Chagnon, an anthropologist who has studied the Yanomami extensively, writes that the stories that the tribe tells to each other are well-known and well-adored, saying,
Everybody knows, for example, how Iwäriwä (Caiman Ancestor) was tricked into sharing his fire with everyone – an obscene act made him laugh, and the fire escaped from his mouth. That part of the story cannot be changed. But the description of the act, what gestures and comments he make, his tone of voice, and other details are subject to considerable poetic license, and it is this that entertains and amuses the listener.
(Chagnon)

One of the reasons that the Yanomami are an incredibly “endangered” or “threatened” tribe is because of a 1980’s gold rush that negatively affected the Yanomami’s quality of life (Ushiñahua). Anthropologist Charito Ushiñahua writes that “the resulting massacres and diseases brought by these invaders is estimated to have caused the death of over 2,000 Yanomami”. In addition, the miners have introduced extreme amounts of mercury to the ecosystem, which has resulted in various birth defects (Ushiñahua). Birth rates among the Yanomami have greatly decreased, and an estimated 13% of the tribe have died to malaria every year (Ushiñahua). Ushiñahua believes that this is due to the stagnant pools left by the gold miners, increasing the presence of mosquitoes among the Yanomami. Not only is the tribe itself threatened, but the land that has been their home so long is being threatened as well. Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami leader states, "The forest-land will only die if it is destroyed by whites. Then, the creeks will disappear, the land will crumble, the trees will dry and the stones of the mountains will shatter under the heat. The xapiripë spirits who live in the mountain ranges and play in the forest will eventually flee. Their fathers, the shamans, will not be able to summon them to protect us. The forest-land will become dry and empty. The shamans will no longer be able to deter the smoke-epidemics and the malefic beings who make us ill. And so everyone will die” (Kopenawa qtd. in Ushiñahua). Only time will tell how truly devastated Yanomami culture and the Amazon rainforest will become due to our human invasion.