![\"Yanomamo](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/\/2013\/06\/yano-header.jpg\")
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In 1964, anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon arrived in an almost entirely unexplored region of the Amazon Basin to spend a year studying the Yanomam\u00f6: one of the last large, isolated, and virtually uncontacted tribes in the world.<\/p>\n
Over the next 35 years, Chagnon returned to this area on the border between Venezuela and Brazil 25 times and lived among this primitive people for a total of 5 years. He spent his time there intimately and exhaustively detailing the lives of 25,000 Yanomam\u00f6 who lived in 250 separate villages in a way nearly unchanged from how humans existed for tens of thousands of years before the modern era. His education in anthropology had not prepared him for what he would observe. While he had been taught that tribal peoples were mostly peaceful, Chagnon found that war was a nearly constant state of affairs for the Yanomam\u00f6 that shaped every aspect of their lives and culture. While his textbooks and professors had said that when tribes did fight, the battles were rooted in conflicts over material resources, Chagnon found that the Yanomam\u00f6\u2019s wars were almost entirely over women. And while Chagnon had believed that all tribal peoples were highly egalitarian, he found that Yanomam\u00f6 men were in fact very concerned about status and that there were several ways for a man to elevate himself above his village peers.<\/p>\n
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Napoleon Chagnon and a Yanomam\u00f6 tribesman<\/p><\/div>\n
Chagnon describes these revelations and the controversy they caused in the anthropological world in his recent book, Noble Savages<\/i><\/a>. While every tribe around the world and throughout history has had their own distinct culture, what Chagnon observed about the Yanomam\u00f6 are traits that have been recorded in many other primitive peoples as well, and what I found most interesting about this quite fascinating book is the way many of his observations related to the tenets of honor we discussed in our series on the subject last year<\/a>. (Quick review: classical honor is defined as <\/b>a reputation<\/b><\/em> worthy of respect and admiration.<\/strong>) In that series, we talked about the way the code of honor for men has evolved, from bravery and physical prowess to virtue and character, while its basic mechanisms for achievement and enforcement have remained the same. By taking a look at how honor operated among the Yanomam\u00f6, we can discover specific examples of some of the principles which we previously described in the abstract, as well as a possible explanation of how and why the basic masculine code of honor-as-courage developed in the first place. At the same time, it causes us to reflect on how this primitive code of honor still echoes faintly in the present. For while the lives of tribes like the Yanomam\u00f6 can seem light years away from our own, in the long sweep of history, men lived like them far longer than they have lived like us; the many centuries the world has experienced modern civilization is really a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. So how did men live and earn honor in, as Jared Diamond would put it, \u201cthe world until yesterday<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n Chagnon\u2019s first big surprise when he arrived among the Yanomam\u00f6 was that the tribe existed in a state of chronic war — their lives were overhung with the \u201cubiquity of terror.\u201d Chagnon\u2019s education in anthropology had largely presented him with an image of primitive tribesmen as Roussean \u201cnoble savages\u201d \u2013 communal, peace-loving people who were one with nature and each other. Warfare, his fellow anthropologists argued, was largely the product of capitalist exploitation and colonization, and tribes had experienced very little conflict until disrupted by contact with industrialized nations. This academic image would collide sharply with what Chagnon found in the field. \u201cWhile it is also true that tribesmen spend many happy hours hunting, fishing, gathering, and telling wonderful stories and myths around the campfire,\u201d Chagnon writes, \u201cone of the most salient features of their social environment is the threat of attack from neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n This fear of attack was not an unfounded worry; early morning raids by neighboring villages happened with some frequency and the results were often fatal. Through his meticulous research and data-keeping, Chagnon found that in 1988, \u201ctwo-thirds of all living Yanomam\u00f6 over the age of forty [had] lost one or more close genetic kinsman\u2014a father, brother, husband, or son\u2014to violence<\/b>.\u201d In comparison, around one-sixth of Britons lost a member of their immediate family in the famously bloody Great War. This of course means that the percentage of Yanomam\u00f6 men who had killed another was also quite high; Chagnon discovered that 45% of these tribesmen had slain at least one other man.<\/b><\/p>\n Chagnon argues that other anthropologists had underestimated the violent nature of tribal cultures because their fieldwork had been done with tribes that had already changed their way of life due to contact with outsiders; there were very few uncontacted, \u201cdemographically intact\u201d tribes left to study at the time \u2013 places \u201cwhere populations of tribesmen were still growing by reproducing offspring faster than people were dying and were fighting with each other in complete independence of nation states that surrounded them.\u201d<\/p>\n From his fieldwork, and looking at the history of other tribes around the world, Chagnon theorized that war, far from being the product of capitalist exploitation and colonization was in fact the true \u201cstate of nature.\u201d He concluded that 1) \u201cmaximizing political and personal security was the overwhelming driving force in human social and cultural evolution,\u201d and 2) \u201cwarfare has been the most important single force shaping the evolution of political society in our species<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n If Chagnon was surprised to find that the Yanomam\u00f6 were not the peace-loving noble savages he had expected, he was equally surprised to learn the cause of their constant conflict.<\/p>\n Chagnon\u2019s education in anthropology had stressed that primitive peoples only went to war over material resources \u2013 land, food, oil, water, wealth, etc. \u2013 just like industrialized nations did. What Chagnon discovered in the field was the Yanomam\u00f6 did indeed fight over a scarce resource, but it was one his contemporaries completely dismissed: women.<\/p>\n Chagnon argues that the Yanomam\u00f6 were driven by a biological desire to pass on their genes just as other animals were, and that their conflicts were almost entirely rooted in reproductive competition. \u201cThe tokens of wealth that we civilized people covet are largely irrelevant to success and survival in the tribal world and were irrelevant during most of human history,\u201d Chagnon writes. \u201cBut women have always been the most valuable single resource that men fight for and defend<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the Yanomam\u00f6\u2019s desire to obtain a woman with which to sire progeny was not simply a biological imperative, but also related to the third surprise to come out of Chagnon\u2019s fieldwork: the tribesmen\u2019s desire for status and honor.<\/p>\n Because primitive tribes didn\u2019t have much in the way of material wealth, Chagnon\u2019s fellow anthropologists believed that their cultures were very egalitarian in nature. Which is to say, the only status differentiators were thought to come down to \u201cautomatic\u201d designations rooted in sex or age; older people had higher status than younger folks, and men had higher status than women, but there was nothing individuals could do to elevate themselves above their peers in order to attain \u201cvertical honor<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n In contrast, Chagnon found some Yanomam\u00f6 men were more prominent and given more deference than others. These men attained a greater degree of honor in several ways. First, the men with the most kin and the largest patrilineage enjoyed higher status, and Chagnon observed \u201cthat the political leaders in all Yanomam\u00f6 villages almost always have the largest number of genetic relatives within the group.\u201d They were also at an advantage when it came to perpetuating this higher status; the more male relatives a young man had, the easier it was for him to successfully find a wife. A young man\u2019s father and older male relatives would help him find a spouse, and other men in the village preferred to give their daughters in marriage to those who came from prominent lineages anyway. This, Chagnon argues, is in fact the main function of patrilineages: \u201cWhat these Yanomam\u00f6 descent groups control and defend are reproductive rights in nubile females and the male kin who give these women to you and take them from you.\u201d<\/p>\n The Yanomam\u00f6, like most tribes in history, practiced polygamy (more accurately polygyny \u2013 only men could have multiple spouses), and every Yanomam\u00f6 man hoped to have multiple wives. Yet this privilege was largely reserved for men of higher status. The problem with polygyny, of course, is that if some guys have six wives other guys will have none. Polygyny created a scarcity in women, which is why females \u2013 the key to reproductive success \u2013 became the one resource worth fighting over. A group of men from one village might raid another village to bring back some of their women; Chagnon found that 20% of the women in the villages he studied had been abducted from other villages. These raids could then set off a cycle of retaliatory violence; if the original raiding party killed someone during their abduction mission, men from the raided village would plan a counterattack to even the score. Back and forth it would go, creating the aforementioned conditions of constant \u201cwar\u201d and fear of attack.<\/p>\n From his observations of the pervasiveness of female-rooted conflict, Chagnon theorized that \u201cif we viewed the human ability to harness, control, and prudently deploy violence for reproductive advantage, we could consider this skill the most important of all strategic resources,\u201d and that need to regulate the deployment of this resource is what gave birth to social as well as political rules and laws. He summarizes his conclusions thusly:<\/p>\n \u201cRegardless of their marital status, most Yanomam\u00f6 men are trying to copulate with available women most of the time, but are constrained from doing so by the rules of incest and the intervention of some other man with proprietary interests in the same women. This is why there is so much club fighting and why villages split into two or more groups so easily. Conflicts over the possession of nubile females have probably been the main reason for fights and killings throughout most of human history<\/b>: the original human societal rules emerged, in all probability, to regulate male access to females and prevent the social chaos attendant on fighting over women. Males in this persistent kind of social environment sought the help of other related males\u2014brothers, sons, cousins, uncles, nephews\u2014and formed male coalitions to pursue their selfish reproductive goals as well as to minimize lethal conflicts within their own groups.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n At last we come to answering the question of how the most basic form of the male honor code came to revolve around prowess and courage. Here Chagnon\u2019s observations are especially interesting, and we will make ample use of them.<\/p>\n The Yanomam\u00f6 were interested both in maintaining the honorable reputation of their village as a whole, and as individual men within it.<\/p>\n Village-Wide Honor<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n As the Yanomam\u00f6 lived in constant fear of an attack and the abduction of their women by a neighboring village, it was crucially important that not only were the men of each village prepared to fend off such an attack, but that the village as a whole had the kind of reputation <\/i>that made other villages think twice about even attempting a raid. The maintenance of honor was thus a group project; each individual man in a village, if he wished to earn \u201chorizontal honor<\/a>,\u201d had to do his part to project and demonstrate courage and fierceness (\u201cThe Fierce People\u201d was a “phrase the Yanomam\u00f6 themselves frequently used to emphasize their valor, braveness, and willingness to act aggressively on their own behalf.”) If individual men didn\u2019t pull their weight, and evinced fear and timidity instead, this showed weakness, damaged the village\u2019s reputation for strength, and essentially invited attack. Chagnon explains further:<\/p>\n \u201cLet me emphasize the Yanomam\u00f6 view that when members of a group acquire a reputation of timidity and cowardice, their neighbors take ruthless advantage of them, push them around, insult them publicly, and take their women<\/b>. Thus it is strategically important to react decisively to any affront, no matter how trivial<\/b>. If a group is small, the men try to make up for their numerical disadvantage by acting as if the group is bigger, nastier, more ferocious, and ready to fight on a moment\u2019s notice. Feigning to be \u201clarger than life\u201d is a deception that is widespread in the animal world but is usually a characteristic displayed by individual combatants. The Yanomam\u00f6, however, engage in this masquerade as members of social groups. I often deliberately avoided visiting small villages because they were predictably very aggressive and unpleasant to be around in order to compensate for their actual military weaknesses.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As Chagnon notes, since reputation-maintenance is so important, villages are quick to address any perceived insults as to their manliness, strength, and courage from other villages. Because they don\u2019t want such \u201coffensive rumors\u201d spreading around, \u201cthey are immediately addressed by a \u2018we\u2019ll show you\u2019 melee.\u201d The Yanomam\u00f6 have varying degrees of these honor-defending contests that correspond to the seriousness of the insult received.<\/p>\n If one village feels that another has been unfairly spreading gossip about their timidity and weakness, but the insults have not been too serious in nature, the two villages will agree to resolve the issue with a good-natured fight, often when one is visiting the other for a feast. These free-for-alls consist of the men slapping (using a closed fist is considered unfair) each other\u2019s sides, pulling each other\u2019s hair, and wrestling in the mud and dirt. The younger men participate while the older men circle around, waving their axes and machetes, yelling instructions to the fighters, and keeping the skirmish from developing into a more serious fight. The young men hurt each other, but generally avoid causing severe injuries, and after about 40 minutes the fight breaks up. Nobody is declared the winner but the intention of the melee is fulfilled:<\/p>\n \u201cTh<\/strong>e whole purpose of the fight just seems to be to set the record straight as far as rumors of cowardice or unwillingness to fight<\/b>. When the young fighters regain their breath and composure, they quietly and unceremoniously get to their feet, go outside the shabono to clean up and wash their bodies, maybe even take a leisurely swim in the nearby creek. There seem to be no obvious hard feelings afterward and the more ceremonial events like eating, trading, chanting, and dancing proceed as though the fight had never happened. But they have now sized up each other and are better informed regarding just how far they can push or intimidate each other in the future without triggering an unanticipated and more serious reaction. And they usually learn the possible costs of spreading false rumors about people who are feasting with them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If a village feels it has been more seriously insulted, they may challenge the rumor-generating village to a more formal chest-pounding or side-slapping duel. In the former contest, two men face off. One agrees to take the first blows and offers his chest to his opponent as he gazes manfully into the distance. His opponent winds up like a baseball pitcher and delivers several powerful overhand blows to his pectoral muscles. The men then switch roles, and the guy who just got beaten can now deliver the same number of blows to his opponent\u2019s chest. The goal is to bear the blows as stoically as possible and make your opponent cry \u201cuncle\u201d first. A side-slapping duel works much the same way, with the two fighters squatting and kneeling and brutally slapping each other \u201con the flanks between the rib cage and the pelvis, with an open hand.\u201d In both kinds of duels, the fighters become deeply bruised and sore, and injuries to one\u2019s internal organs can occur; lung tissue is damaged and kidneys tenderized. Occasionally duelists do die from their injuries, but the contests are designed to be a nonlethal means to address honor-impinging insults.<\/p>\n In response to the most serious kinds of slander, as well as things like tobacco and food theft or another man trying to seduce or abduct one\u2019s wife, a club fight becomes the appropriate means of redress. Like in the aforementioned duels, two men square off, and one delivers the first blow — arcing the end of his club all the way from the ground, through the air, and square on top of his opponent\u2019s head. The recipient of the wallop is tasked with bearing the blow stoically, and attempts to remain motionless while leaning on his own club for support. Now the recipient of the first blow, often with \u201clarge chunks of their scalp bashed loose, flapping up and down on their crania,\u201d gets to deliver one in turn to his opponent. Club fighting matches start with two duelists, but may progress into all out melees where numerous men grab their clubs and start swinging them at each other with abandon.<\/p>\n Scars from club fighting.<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cMany accomplished and persistent club fighters have scalps that are crisscrossed with as many as a dozen huge, protuberant, lumpy scars two or three inches long after their scalps are healed,\u201d Chagnon observed. And they\u2019re proud of these scars:<\/p>\n \u201cMen with numerous club-fighting scars like these are not bashful about displaying them prominently. They shave the tops of their heads in a tonsure and then rub red pigment into their numerous deep scars, to exaggerate them. Such a man, if he lowers his face and head to you, is usually not showing deference: he is conspicuously advertising his fierceness.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Despite that fact that death was sometimes the result of these different degrees of duels and melees, \u201cnone of the fighting\u2026is intentionally<\/i> lethal<\/b>,\u201d Chagnon explains, and should rather be classified as \u201cdeliberately<\/i> sublethal \u2018alternatives\u2019 to warfare<\/b>.\u201d Just like the \u201caffairs of honor<\/a>\u201d and \u201crough and tumbles<\/a>\u201d engaged in by men of the 19th<\/sup> century, the fights were not specifically designed to kill, but were a means for a man, or a group of men, to show they were unafraid to fight and bleed in order to maintain their honorable reputation.<\/p>\n Individual Honor<\/i><\/p>\n While individual Yanomam\u00f6 men had a stake in maintaining their village\u2019s reputation for courage and fierceness and thus minimizing the chance of being attacked, it was not an entirely altruistic effort.<\/p>\n First, protecting one\u2019s relatives and their chances for finding a wife indirectly helped a man\u2019s chances of passing on his own genes even if he himself didn\u2019t have children, as Chagnon writes in explaining the \u201ckin selection\u201d theory:<\/p>\n \u201csince related individuals share genes with each other, an individual could get copies of his or her genes into the next generation by favoring close kinsmen and not reproducing sexually at all. For example, individuals share on average half (50 percent) of their genes with their siblings, they share one-fourth (25 percent) with their half-siblings, an eighth (12.5 percent) with their full cousins, etc. Thus if they engage in certain kinds of \u201cfavors\u201d that enhance a full cousin\u2019s reproductive success, then, to the extent that those favors enabled that kinsman to find a mate and produce offspring, their favoring of that kinsman helped them to get some of their own genes into the next generation. As one theoretical geneticist, J. B. S. Haldane, is rumored to have said: \u2018I\u2019d lay down my life for eight cousins. . . .\u2019<\/b> That\u2019s because eight cousins would carry, on average, 100 percent of the genes that the person who laid down his life carried.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nA State of War<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"Yanomamo](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2013\/06\/YanomamoWarParty100.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Yanomamo](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/\/2013\/06\/yanoboys2.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFighting Over Women<\/b><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nCourage and Fierceness<\/b><\/h3>\n
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![\"Vintage](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/\/2013\/06\/yano-man.jpg\")
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