Yanomami << `yah` nuh MAH mee >>, an Indigenous (native) people of South America, live in rain forests and scattered grasslands along the Brazil-Venezuela border. Until the late 1900’s, they were the largest American Indigenous group whose way of life had been relatively unchanged by contact with Western culture. Their name is also spelled Yanoama, Yanomama, and Yanomamö.
There are about 35,000 Yanomami. Their communities range in size from a single extended family to about 300 people. In most cases, the entire community lives in a large circular structure made of poles and thatch. The Yanomami have gardens where they grow a number of food crops. But the main crop is a type of banana called the plantain. Traditional Yanomami also travel several months each year hunting animals and gathering wild plant foods. Intense wars have broken out between some Yanomami groups. Anthropologists have offered a number of possible reasons for this warfare, including scarcity of game, competition over women, and competition for Western manufactured goods.
Missionaries began entering Yanomami areas around 1950. But some Yanomami groups had no direct contact with the outside world until the early 1990’s. Since the 1950’s, increased contact with Western culture has brought deadly epidemics and social and environmental disruption to the Yanomami. The governments of Brazil and Venezuela have taken limited steps to protect Yanomami lands from invasion by outsiders.
