Ladakh, India

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Ladakh, India
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Kabul, Afghanistan
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Chaco, Paraguay
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Los Angeles, USA
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Credits

• All photographs by Paul McCurry

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Ecosystems

• Subsistence agriculture

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Key terms and concepts

• Acculturation
• Horticulture
• Patrilineal
• Moeity
• Household
• Spheres of exchange

• Slash and burn (swidden) agriculture
• Clan
• Polygany

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Horticulturalist Adaptation

• Yanomamo
• Tropical Rainforest Environments

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• Among the last indigenous peoples of Amazonia to
  be contacted by outside world.
• The term applied by Chagnonunacculturated
  implies they have not been incorporated into the
  wider Hispanic culture of Brazil or Venezuela.

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• Horticultural adaptation involves limited
  agricultural production at household scale.
• Food resources are for family or village
  sustenance.
• Supplemented by ongoing hunting and foraging.

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Leisure time is afforded by successful harvests.
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• Irregular contact with conquistadors, explorers,
  and missionaries.
• Fiercely independent and territorial.
• Village life,(shabono) centered on limited
  farming.
• Male roles include that of warrior as well as
  farmer.
• Characteristically highly distrustful of
  strangers.

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In addition to contact with loggers, miners and
government representatives, Yanomamo also have
contact with missionaries, and international
support groups.
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One arrangement of many village types.
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Villages influenced by government, and
missionaries. Non-traditional architecture.
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Horticulture

• Limited scale farming
• Seasonal
• Generally for family or village consumption only.
• Semi-sedentary and seasonally sedentary, but also
  some examples of permanent villages in especially
  productive areas.

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Marriage and kinship Bilateral cross cousin
marriage. Village endogamy. Polyggyny Patrilineal
Marriage from specified lineages.
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Internal sources of conflict

• Feuds based on land use
• Diminishing meat sources
• Marriage rules and sex ratio imbalance (practice
  of female infanticide is a contributing cause)
• Evil spirits and sorcery
• Raids between villages often lead to open
  warfare.

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External pressure for acculturation

• Advanced technology
• Roads built by companies altered settlement
  patterns, led to begging and limited seasonal
  employment.
• Two variants of Yanomamo society began to emerge.
• Pharmaceutical companies seek new drugs in the
  rainforest among tribes.

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Environmental problems

• Mining operations have poisoned the water
  sources.
• Logging has decimated the limited wild game.
• Lack of immunity to diseases led to 20 of
  population dying from epidemic.
• Yanomamo over hunting also depletes protein
  sources.

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Strange bedfellows

• The rush to protect Yanomamo came from
  environmental groups, who gained greater
  attention than rights activists.
• New question arises, Should Yanomamo be allowed
  to remain a they are? Is this not just another
  form of neglect?

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Protest over illegal mining.
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Land rights issue

• Yanomamo plight brought the political issue of
  indigenous rights to the public.
• In short, What rights do a indigenous people have
  relative to the dominant socio-political body?

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Alliances

• Environmental groups and human rights activists
  sought autonomy for Yanomamo.
• The alliance is based in part on recognizing the
  Yanomamo as significant players in the natural
  ecosystem.

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