Blood Revenge

1. Rules or laws against killing are essentially a cultural universal, meaning all cultures have rules regarding the killing other people and the punishments for breaking these rules. How do the Yanomamo rules regarding killing and the consequences for breaking these rules differ from the rules in Western cultures in general? (5 pts)
Revenge killing seems to be an accepted retaliation for death in the Yanomamo.  For our culture, killing is punishable by law and a trial is set out to see what the circumstances are before a punishment is made. Amongst the Yanomamo, it seems that there are general ways of behaving, but it can mostly be decided by the individual or the group how to act. There is no system of law and punishment set up.


2. Describe the process of revenge killings as it is expressed in Yanomamo populations. (5 pts)
The notion of bereavement in their language and culture is synonymous with an anger that leans towards violence. They perform killing raids on villages in which a member has killed one of their members. Most of the fights initially begin due to women.


3. Revenge killings are a dangerous for those who take part. What are the benefits of obtaining the status of unokais? How do they compare to the benefits of being a non-unokais? Why would a man choose to become an unokais instead of being a non-unokais? (10 pts) Unokais are those who have killed. Those who back out of raids or have no killed eventually acquire a status as a coward. The non-unokais wives become targeted by other males as receiving more attention. Therefore, there is a certain amount of status that is associated with those males who have killed others.

4. Identify and describe the relationship between revenge killings and these aspects of the Yanomamo culture. How do they influence and affect each other?

a. Political structure (5 pts), c. Kinship (5 pts)b. Social Status/Social Organization (5 pts),d. Marriage & Reproduction (5 pts

The leaders of the group come from the family with the largest descent group. They usually have the most kin amongst the group. The headmen usually have up to a dozen or more different wives. They either appeal to these wives as being better mates because they have killed, or they could have been acquired forcefully or through an agreement. They also have many children, expanding the amount of kin they have. Because the groups are organized by kinship, it is an obligation to protect the tribe and kin by violence. This becomes a part of the politics because  the tribe is built on kin. Though the groups seem to be arranged by groups of kin, sometimes they split when there are disagreements. Some close kin can actually be separated due to marriage ties. If there is killing of their kin in another village by someone in their village, it does not necessarily mean they will side with the village that they reside in. That is why groups of kin are easier to group that actual physical villages when studying the behavior and motive of revenge killing.



5. Behaviors that are usually labeled as “anti-social”, such as killing other people, are generally thought to be a bad thing to do under most circumstances, other than defense. Why do we need laws against something that no one should want to do? Use your reading of the article to help you explain your answer. (10 pts)

We need laws in place as a standard of what is acceptable and not acceptable by the general population. By holding people accountable to these standards and setting up some method of punishment, it acts a deterrent for those that may be thinking of doing something wrong and know the consequences that will arise from those actions. In the Yanomamo, there are no sets of laws governing their rules against killing others. Therefore, when the benefits of killing and bringing that attention of themselves outweigh the costs of possibly being targeted by others, they go ahead with the killing raid, which seems to happen very often.