YANOMAMÖ PHOTOGRAPHS

Napoleon Chagnon



PH003 Meat is a highly prized food. Waböama has cut up an agouti rodent. She wraps the meat in leaves to cook it by laying the package directly on the embers.

PH004 Young boys make a small cotton hammock for play. Hammocks are important items for formal exchanges between allies.

PH005 Yoroshianawä joins his brother Wadoshewä in deciding how to distribute smoked tapir meat to other people in the village.

PH006 Wadoshewä and his kinsmen distributing tapir and rasha.

PH009 Wadoshewä and his brothers cut up chunks of smoked tapir meat into appropriate portions before distributing them to others.

PH010 Curing ceremonies usually occur in the afternoon and preparations begin earlier in the day. Hurumöwä makes the hallucinogenic snuff powder ebene from yayoi leaves.

PH012 Asch and Johnson film boys making a toy hammock.

PH013 Wadoshewä and his brothers eat some of the choicest morsels before distributing the rest of the tapir to other people in the village.

PH014 A young man baby-sitting the child of another man to whose marriage he hopes to add himself polyandrously.

PH016 Baskets are indispensable for transporting loads of food and firewood from the gardens. Kaösarama makes a wöö basket for carrying loads up to seventy pounds.

PH018 Food preparation is a task that must always start from scratch. Waböama butchers an agouti rodent for cooking

PH022 A woman chopping and gathering firewood in a garden.

PH024 Two women and the shaman Dedeheiwä returning from garden with heavy loads of plantains

PH025 Much time is spent in the gardens. These young girls are delouse each other and decorate themselves with wild blossoms

PH027 Young and old work in the gardens. A girl with blossom halter talks to an old woman.

PH028 Plantains make up as much as 80% of the dietary calories. Women regularly carry back large burdens from the gardens.

PH029 Dedeheiwä rests on a log after weeding his garden. He pulls a thorn from his foot

PH030 Women are accompanied to the gardens by their children.

PH037 Even if pregnant or nursing, women must carry heavy loads back from the gardens every day.

PH038 The heavy loads in the carrying baskets have to be balanced carefully while traversing rough or slippery terrain.

PH039 As evening draws nigh, the cooking fires are lit. The smoke helps a little to keep insects away.

PH044 Dirimawä, Dedeheiwä's son, transplants plantain cuttings in his garden. The cuttings are heavy and this is men's work.

PH045 Each family's home is furnished with hammock strung between the house posts. Men stick their bows and arrows into the roof thatch when not in use.

PH047 Akaborebemi and Shikiwä---she is deaf/mute, he is crippled.

PH048 Dirimawä, Dedeheiwä's son, transplants plantain cuttings in his garden.

PH050 Peach palm or rasha fruit is cultivated especially to be given in formal exchanges of food. The trees have long thorns covering the trunk, so it is difficult to get the fruit down from the tops.

PH052 New gardens are cleared and burned by men. Rämoböwä transplants plantain suckers in his garden.

PH053 A woman sits in her hammock while Räaiyowä contemplates the photographer. Loads of plantains lie on the ground in front of his house.

PH054 Räaiyowä sits next to a large load of newly harvested plantains.

PH055 A woman and her child in rest in a hammock.

PH056 Dirimawä plants ohina tubers in his garden. The trunks of the felled trees will eventually be chopped up for firewood.

PH057 Yakahaiwä in hammock.

PH058 Pieces of firewood lean against the outer shabono wall where this woman and her child lounge in their hammock.

PH062 Asch and Johnson film shamans during a curing ceremony. Daramasiwä leans against a house post with both hands behind his head.

PH065 Tim Asch rests in the shade while Dedeheiwä weeds his garden.

PH067 Asch moves camera location. Camera and tripod together weighed almost 80 pounds, so zooming was usually preferable to moving. Tinfoil was put over batteries to deflect sunlight.

PH068 Insects are ubiquitous in and near Mishimishimaböwei-teri. Johnson shows the welts caused by multiple insect stings.

PH069 Johnson in his hammock. His 'space age' blanket rattled all night every night.

PH070 The expedition's living area. film gear on left; Chagnon's equipment, trade goods, food, and cooking equipment on right

PH072 Asch and his Arriflex gear at Boca Mavaca, filming New Tribes Mission

PH073 Asch rests in a garden while filming. Mishimishimaböwei-teri shabono is downhill in the background

PH075 Asch and Johnson film Dirimawä transplanting plantains in his garden. 'Double system' sync sound required two person teams for filming.

PH077 Asch and Johnson film shamans during a curing ceremony.

PH078 Koshiwä, the "sweaty one", waited until Tim's hands were in the changing bag and then kissed him

PH085 The rasha tree being climbed during the filming of "Climbing the Peach Palm." Plantains ripen on roof poles under the eaves.

PH087 Both men and women butcher animals for cooking. Sharama prepares to cut up this warö pig.

PH089 Man climbing rasha tree.

PH090 Hunter returning with a warö pig.

PH091 Both men and women butcher animals for cooking. Sharama prepares to cut up this warö pig.

PH097 Kaösarama snacks on one of the many abundant fruits gathered in the surrounding forest.

PH098 Warö pigs, or peccaries, are trussed up so they can be carried home on the end of a pole. The hunters often travel long distances since game around villages is usually scarce.

PH100 Grooming for lice can be a pleasant social activity.

PH101 Mishimishimaböwei-teri men take hallucinogens and summon the hekura spirits to take possession of their bodies in almost daily curing ceremonies.

PH106 Women paint themselves with colors derived from plants. This woman has used nara for her cosmetic.

PH108 Ahsökawä rests in his hammock. Joints of smoked meat hang from the rafters. The tube used for blowing ebene is called mokohiro. He is holding one.

PH109 Dedeheiwä and Shäyäremi, his youngest half-sister by the same father. He is 50 years older than his sister!

PH110 Cotton plants drying in sun.

PH111 Keböwä curing Barahiwä.

PH112 Girl making halter from yellow flowers.

PH113 Older woman in hammock with child.

PH114 Woman with skin dyed red in hammock.

PH115 Kumishiwä reclines in his hammock. He is the current headman of Mishimishimaböwei-teri headman, succeeding Möawä.

PH116 Hururuawä, one of Dedeheiwä's sons, hollows out a gourd. Such gourds are often (but not always) used to store the ashes of deceased kin.

PH118 Dikörawä in hammock.

PH119 Möawä, headman of Mishimishimaböwei-teri. The most violent man I have ever met.

PH121 Chagnon ascends the Mavaca River to Mishimishimaböwei-teri in a dugout canoe in order to begin his 1986 fieldwork there.

PH122 Boys must learn the skills of hunting and warfare. Practice with a toy arrow is both fun and practical.

PH123 In 1985, Chagnon again returned to Mishimishimaböwei-teri to continue his field studies there.

PH124 Girl delousing head of man who has many club-fight scars.

PH125 In 1974, a splinter-group from Mishimishimaböwei-teri was 'attracted' downstream by the Salesian mission. Believing that the missionaries would support them, they planted no gardens.

PH126 Boy with boy and arrow.

PH127 Warfare is endemic among Yanomamö villages in this region of Yanomamöland. Young boys are instructed in the ways of warfare from an early age. This group of young raiders was organized by Dedeheiwä.

PH128 Woman with child, making a Wöö basket.

PH129 Feast are important social occasions. This young woman has adorned herself with many of the conventional Yanomamö elements that accent feminine beauty.

PH130 Wadoshewä, Barahiwä, Keböwä and other important men of Mishimishimaböwei-teri prepare to eat the ashes of Reirowä who died in 1971. The dead man's ashes are mixed into plantain soup.

PH131 Mothers teach their daughters how to highlight their beauty. This woman decorates her daughter for a feast.

PH132 Plantains and firewood are the two bulk items consumed in the villages constantly and in quantity. This Mishimishimaböwei-teri woman carries a heavy load of firewood back home from the garden.

PH133 Mishimishimaböwei-teri men dance to display their prowess on the occasion of my second contact with them in 1969.

PH134 Handsome decorations honor guest and host alike. This visitor to Bisaasi-teri from Reyaboböwei-teri in 1965 has crowned himself with buzzard down.

PH135 These visitors from Mömariböwei-teri arrive at Bisaasi-teri for a feast in 1966, during Chagnon's first fieldwork.

PH136 Sinabimi returns home with large load of plantains. Homemade tump lines and baskets comprise the basic technology for transporting heavy loads on foot over rough ground.

PH137 Men from Mishimishimaböwei-teri arrive to visit Kaobawä's village after establishing peace. They display as a group in the plaza, then each person is invited by hosts in different parts of the village.

PH138 An archer's gear consists of a palmwood boy, arrows with points appropriate to the animal being hunted, and a quiver for extra arrows and points. This Reyaboböwei-teri man demonstrated the techniques of drawing an arrow.

PH139 Möawä's most recent wife, added to his family in 1974. He died in approximately 1978/79 and Kumishiwä, one of his agnates, eventually became the headman of Mishimishimaböwei-teri.

PH140 Yanomamö fishing techniques are more like gathering than catching fish. These Bisaasi-teri women collecting fish in a stream poisoned with barbasco plants by the men.

PH141 In this 1985 aerial view of Mishimishimaböwei-teri at the headwaters of Mavaca River, the village has divided into two shabonos. Although they are quite close together, they are separated by the river.

PH142 Chagnon records a conversation with Möawä, headman of Mishimishimaböwei-teri, and Daramasiwä.

PH143 Dedeheiwä instructing his son, Dirimawä, on the secrets of the Hekura.

PH144 Kaobawä, aging headman of Bisaasi-teri, in 1987. He is one of my best friends and informants.

PH145 Aerial view of Mishimishimaböwei-teri in 1969 where Chagnon and Asch filmed the ax fight in 1971.

PH146 Möawä making a bowstave while his wife, Dairama delouses him. Dairama is Dedeheiwä's daughter.

PH147 Yoinakuwä, intoxicated on ebene, strikes a magical blow with his machete at malevolent hekura. This occurred not long after the ax fight incident in Mishimishimaböwei-teri.

PH148 Mishimishimaböwei-teri men joining Bisaasi-teri raiders in an allied raid against the Patanowä-teri.

PH149 In 1990, this village near the headwaters of the Shanishani River was as yet uncontacted. This is the region where both the Bisaasi-teri and Mishimishimaböwei-teri originated.

PH150 Kumishiwä inspects a butchered tapir.

PH151 Dedeheiwä offering ebene to his son, Dirimawä. The hallucinogenic snuff powder will be blown through the tube into his son's nose.

PH152 Rämoböwä, Dedeheiwä's son, joins Bissasi-teri and Mishimishimaböwei-teri warriors in allied raid on Patanowä-teri in 1970.

PH153 In May 1996, this aerial photograph revealed that Mishimishimaböwei-teri village was abandoned, probably only temporarily. On a future trip I will try to determine where the Mishimishimaböwei-teri are currently located and update my census on them.

PH155 During a break in the filming, Möawä chants in hallucinogenic ecstasy to the hekura.

PH156 Yahohoiwä, Möawä's brother, spits on the effigy of a Patanowä-teri man. They hope to kill him in a joint raid together with their ally, Kaobawä.

PH157 Boy on log looking down into Mishimishimaböwei-teri from garden.

PH159 Dedeheiwä curing a sick villager by sympathetic magic. He symbolically pierces his own body with an arrow.

PH160 Hururuawä uses the mandible of a Warö pig to plane a palmwood bowstave he is making.

PH164 A view of Mishimishimaböwei-teri shabono looking toward the first camera position where the ax fight was filmed. The shot was taken along section F, standing at about post 30.

PH166 Yakahaiwä, wearing a feather armband, helps to cure his close agnate Yahohoiwä's sick child.

PH167 During a curing ceremony, Keböwä prances and struts with his bow and arrows, Daramasiwä stands against a post, and Yoinakuwä sits up front, near Keböwä, Dedeheiwä sits with hands clasped on his chest and wears a feather armband.

PH168 View from the house where Asch, Johnson and I stayed during 1971 filming. We were next to the village headman, Möawä.

PH169 While women and children play at tug-of-war in the rain, a young girl carries rasha fruits across the plaza.

PH171 Painted and decorated with ear ornaments, Keböwä chants to his hekura spirits.

PH172 Dedeheiwä lost his 'soul' and these people help find it. They all gather at night in the plaza to perform a noreshimou, or "soul search" ceremony.

PH178 Yoroshianawä is still high on the hallucinogenic snuff powder, ebene, after participating in a curing ceremony.

PH179 Yoinakuwä, painted red to attract his hekura spirits, participates in a curing ceremony

PH180 Dedeheiwä weeds his garden. Tim Asch and I made a short film about this event.

PH183 Möawä has decorated himself so that when he takes ebene through the pipe he is holding, the hekura spirits will be attracted by his chanting.

PH184 Dedeheiwä chants to summon hekura spirits. His older brother, Ishiweiwä, is in the background wearing a monkey tail headband

PH190 Hurumöwä prepares hallucinogenic snuff powder from yayoi kä hena, a cultivated plant grown in the gardens. The leaves are dried, roasted and then ground to a fine powder.

PH191 Yakahaiwä blows the ebene snuff into Dedeheiwä's nostril. The men are about to begin their regular curing ceremony.

PH195 Dedeheiwä having ebene blown into his nostril by Yakahaiwä .

PH197 A group of young children have lined up in the village plaza to delouse each other.

PH199 Dedeheiwä wretches after getting a strong blast of ebene in his nostril.

PH200 Dedeheiwä, in the middle of the plaza at Mishimishimaböwei-teri, chants to his hekura spirits not long after the ax fight incident.

PH203 Mishimishimaböwei-teri shabono in 1971 as seen from a garden.

PH206 Shamans sometimes succumb to the attacks of enemy hekura spirits and must depend on the efforts of their allies for help. Möawä stands over a prostrate shaman and attempts to revive him.

PH207 Hurumöwä pulls a sickness out through the head of Ruwamowä.

PH210 After a curing session, the shamans wash up and drink banana soup.

PH212 Hurumöwä displays the sickness that he has pulled out of Ruwamowä to the patient.