Politics & Violence
In the Western culture today, the laws are to prevent people from killing another person. There are laws that are very strict and will punish a person who does not obey them, such as the death penalty and life in prison. The Yanomamo have no formal laws and written language. Since the Yanomamo have no form of written laws, the rules are broken almost everyday.
In the Yanomamo population, one of the most common reasons for killing is for revenge on a previous killing. The main reason this is known as revenge in the Yanomamo is because of the women. The people who are out for revenge have to be careful for revenge coming back to their direction. This culture see revenge as a social benefit, giving men who take part of revenge as having higher reproductive success and marital success.
One who kills must follow a ritual protection called unokaimou. The main purpose of the ritual is to make any supernatural harm on oneself from the soul of the victim go away. One benefit of being a unokais is you are fierce and respected as one who enacts revenge. Another benefit would be higher reproductive success than a non unokais. One benefit of being a non unokais would be the benefit of a less risky life of killing and revenge.
Revenge killing is part of the Yanomamo culture and has relationships with all aspects of life. This includes political structure, social status, kinship, and marriage. The Yanomamo villages have certain descent groups, each group has one or more political leaders. These leaders can have many wives and lots of children. They are the headsman of the group and all of them are unokais. Revenge killing has a big influence on the social status of the Yanomamo culture. The people who participate in the revenge killings are seen as higher up on the social ladder. These people have more power and influence on social organization among the people of the village. Kinship relates to the revenge killings and how people are related to each other in the culture. A huge affect on marriage and reproduction behavior would be revenge killing. The unokais have the higher rate of marital success and a higher rate of reproductions success. Both of these are due to them having a higher success rate to finding a mate to marry and reproduce with.
I feel like we must have these laws against anti-social behavior, such as killing other people because violence is a powerful force in human society. Having these laws present can remind people the importance of taking another person's life. I feel like we should have more strict laws on anti-social behaviors because it would make it less likely for people to commit these crimes.
1. "The Yanomamo have no formal laws and written language. Since the Yanomamo have no form of written laws, the rules are broken almost everyday."
ReplyDeleteOkay, let's step back and re-examine this statement and your assumptions here. What do you mean by "formal laws"? Just because the Yanomamo don't have their practices written into a book somewhere doesn't mean they don't have rules that ARE followed. There are specific types of killings that are acceptable, even among the Yanomamo. You can't kill someone because they trod on your foot or kicked your dog, correct? They take into consideration cause and motive as well when they decide when killing is acceptable, it just happens to be different from what we consider to be acceptable.
A key difference is that their laws have removed the "revenge" aspect of criminal punishment. While the Yanomamo allow kin to exact revenge for the killing of a family member, Western society puts that responsibility into the hands of the state. But both cultures have rules about when killing is or is not reasonable or acceptable and how killing is punished if it is not permitted.
2. "The main reason this is known as revenge in the Yanomamo is because of the women."
Can you explain this statement? I don't understand what you are trying to say here.
You have the basics here on this practice, but it is very complex. More information and detail could have been provided.
3. Good discussion here.
4. Political structure: You describe the political structure but don't draw the connection to the revenge killing practice. How do revenge killings help to determine who has the political power the society? Who is more likely to be headman, unokais or non-unokais?
Social status/organization: Good. Can women improve their social status in some way through the revenge killing system?
Kinship: "Kinship relates to the revenge killings and how people are related to each other in the culture."
But this is what you needed to explain. HOW does revenge killing impact kinship? Who is more likely to share a large kin group, a unokais or a non-unokais?
Marriage and reproduction: Good.
5. You aren't actually answering the key question here: If killing is recognized to be socially/morally bad, why do we need laws against it? Shouldn't people just not kill? The point here is to recognize that there is killing in all cultures, including both the Yanomamo and Western societies. Both cultures have systems of dealing with it. But the question remains... why do people kill if this behavior is so universally recognized as "bad"?
Both Western cultures and the Yanomamo have laws against these behaviors, not because they are bad but because people may gain some benefit from engaging in those laws to the detriment of those around them.
We are creatures of biology, regardless of how "civilized" we might want to think we are. Killing can benefit an organism if they gain resources or a mate or defend their offspring in the process, correct? So that benefit is still there in humans, whether we like it or not. Killing is an instinctive, biological reaction to a threat of some sort, to our lives, to our family (genes) or to our resources, but it can also be a strategy to advance your survival, such as (for example) killing off a rival. Understand that this isn't excusing the behavior. It just explains it. But we need laws against this behavior, not because no one wants to do it but because sometimes people can benefit from this behavior... i.e., they DO want to kill because it benefits them. Laws protect us from selfish actions of others, acting to their own benefit and the harm of others.
Isaac,
ReplyDeleteSomething came to mind when reading your blog post. Wouldn't what we deem as 'war heroes' be in the same lines as unokais? It falls within the same guidelines, granted not every war that is fought is admired. I thought about WW2 and the people that went to fight halfway across the world. The United States was attacked, the United States retaliated, and the survivors that made it home are regarded as heroes. When you think about it a little more, it doesn't seem that much different from how culture functions in some regards.