On warfare: an answer to N. A. Chagnon

Abstract

N. A. Chagnon's recent article in Science, Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population, in which he offers an interpretation of violence and warfare among the Yanomami,1 has provoked the surprised consternation of the specialists and of all those who are interested in the survival of the Amazon Indians. Their concern is due simultaneously to the content and to the unfortunate political consequences of the theory expounded, these two aspects being quite obviously intimately intertwined. For a number of years now, a deadly menace has been threatening the Yanomami of Brazil; they are at risk not only of completely losing their cultural identity, but also of physically disappearing as well. The Yanomami were severely affected by the construction of the northern perimetral highway (BR-210), and since then the territory they traditionally inhabit has been invaded by hordes of gold miners supported by the authorities of Roraima and by the sinister Fundacao Nacional do Indio (FUNAI), the Brazilian bureau of Indian affairs. Bloody conflicts have caused the death of many Indians; severe illnesses and epidemics have increased; watercourses have been poisoned by the mercury used by gold seekers; embarrassing witnesses-missionaries, doctors, anthropologists-have been expelled; all medical assistance has been suddenly cut off at the very moment when it was most needed. Far from remaining confined to a scientific journal, even one as prestigious as Science, Chagnon's theories have-with the author's collaboration-become the object of sensational publicity in the U.S. press. A grotesque and malevolent image of the Yanomami has been put forth in indisputably racist terms, the Indians being presented as bloodthirsty people obsessed by the desire for murder. In Brazil, the newspapers that support the mining interests have taken up the Science article and the ensuing commentary with relish, using them to justify the ongoing genocide. Anthropologists' work can have serious, and sometimes tragic, consequences; the controversy surrounding the events in Brazil should give all anthropologists pause to consider the effects of their research on the people they study. The problem is precisely to determine if the hypotheses expounded by Chagnon have any scientific foundation and if they stand up to the demands of rigorous investigation. It is this aspect that the present article proposes to careful ly examine, from the point of view both of the general theory in whose framework the arguments reside and of the value of the ethnographic data presented as support. I will show that the theoretical framework is completely incongruous with respect to the theses expounded. To make the critical discussion more intelligible, and with the object of furthering some of the questions addressed, I will present my own interpretation of issues such as the presumed objectives of warfare, the causes of armed conflict, the status of brave warriors, and the American Ethnologist 21(4):845-862. Copyright ? 1994, American Anthropological Association.