34
34
34
the business of the day. Said Luyat, all he could think of as he filmed was the army
of the Greeks on the dusty plain outside the walls of Troy. The Homeric heroes,
Luyat was certain, must have made war very much like this. Then, his mind still on
primitive war, the film-maker said, "There is a book you must read. I will send it to
you tomorrow." The next day, there arrived a volume, in French, called Yanoama.
It was the first-person account of a European girl--Helena Valero-- living with her
parents on the Rio Negro who had been kidnapped by the Yanomamo when she
was still small. The Yanomamo had attacked Valero's parents, riddled her father
with arrows, then taken the little girl back into the forests and adopted her. After
all, soon she would be valuable as a wife. The writer spent her teens and some of
her adult years among the Yanomamo, experiencing far more of their brutal ways
than Chagnon in his landmark fieldwork was ever able to see. It is from her
account that I take my description of Yanomamo assaults. (Helena Valero's story is
available in English as Yanoama: The Narrative of a White Girl Kidnapped by
Amazonian Indians, as told to Italian anthropologist Ettore Biocca, Dennis Rhodes,
trans., E.P. Dutton, New York, 1970. The tale of a Yanomamo raid and the brutal
massacre of children appears on pages 34-37. See also: Allen W. Johnson &
Timothy Earle, The Evolution of Human Societies: From Foraging Group to
Agrarian State, pp. 124-126.)
36. According to anthropologist Judith Shapiro of the University of Chicago, quoted
in Marvin Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture, p. 77.
37. Here's how Eusebius put it: "writers of history record the victories of war and
trophies won from enemies, the skill of generals, and the manly bravery of soldiers,
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34
34
34
the business of the day. Said Luyat, all he could think of as he filmed was the army
of the Greeks on the dusty plain outside the walls of Troy. The Homeric heroes,
Luyat was certain, must have made war very much like this. Then, his mind still on
primitive war, the film-maker said, "There is a book you must read. I will send it to
you tomorrow." The next day, there arrived a volume, in French, called Yanoama.
It was the first-person account of a European girl--Helena Valero-- living with her
parents on the Rio Negro who had been kidnapped by the Yanomamo when she
was still small. The Yanomamo had attacked Valero's parents, riddled her father
with arrows, then taken the little girl back into the forests and adopted her. After
all, soon she would be valuable as a wife. The writer spent her teens and some of
her adult years among the Yanomamo, experiencing far more of their brutal ways
than Chagnon in his landmark fieldwork was ever able to see. It is from her
account that I take my description of Yanomamo assaults. (Helena Valero's story is
available in English as Yanoama: The Narrative of a White Girl Kidnapped by
Amazonian Indians, as told to Italian anthropologist Ettore Biocca, Dennis Rhodes,
trans., E.P. Dutton, New York, 1970. The tale of a Yanomamo raid and the brutal
massacre of children appears on pages 34-37. See also: Allen W. Johnson &
Timothy Earle, The Evolution of Human Societies: From Foraging Group to
Agrarian State, pp. 124-126.)
36. According to anthropologist Judith Shapiro of the University of Chicago, quoted
in Marvin Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture, p. 77.
37. Here's how Eusebius put it: "writers of history record the victories of war and
trophies won from enemies, the skill of generals, and the manly bravery of soldiers,
<< < GO > >>