Tribal Warfare

COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS

reproductive success; and repeated the process over decades of research. Towards the end of the book, Chagnon addresses the debate over his work. He gives a full description of his contentious relation- ships with many anthropologists, missionaries and indigenous-rights activists. His first conflict was with anthropologists who favour postmodernism (rejecting abso-

lute truths and focusing instead on the expe- GERARD SIOEN/ANZENBERGER/EYEVINE rience of the anthropologist) and advocacy (actively engaging in human-rights cam- paigns with indigenous peoples), who viewed his work as anti-Yanomami, deterministic and racist. The second was with Catholic missionaries who saw Chagnon’s influence as harmful to the Yanomami, and success- fully lobbied the Venezuelan government to expel him from the country. The third attack — with which I am most familiar, because I manage the online archive of material on it (http://anthroniche.com) — is related to the A Yanomami of the Majecodoteri tribe in the Amazon rainforest. ‘Darkness in El Dorado’ scandal, sparked by a book of the same name by journalist Patrick ANTHROPOLOGY Tierney (W. W. Norton, 2000). Darkness in El Dorado levelled accusations that Chagnon, several medical researchers and other anthropologists working among Tribal warfare the Yanomami were individually and some- times collectively guilty of exploitation, pae- dophilia and genocide — the latter by the Douglas William Hume assesses a first-hand account introduction of measles and other conta- of controversial work with the Yanomami people. gious diseases to the indigenous community. Noble Savages is, to a degree, the long-awaited response to Tierney’s book, and its final chap- apoleon Chagnon is perhaps best Noble Savages: My Life Among Two ter relates Chagnon’s perspective on events known for his classic 1968 Amazon Dangerous Tribes — the Yanomamö that unfolded after Darkness was published, ethnography Yanomamö: The Fierce and the Anthropologists both in the task-force investigation and NAPOLEON A. CHAGNON NPeople, now in its sixth edition. He is also among anthropologists. It is Chagnon’s Simon & Schuster: 2013. 544 pp. £23.20/$32.50 among a handful of scholars whose research detailed accounts of his research, however, prompted the 2001 creation of an American The book begins with Chagnon’s arrival in that serve to refute Tierney’s claims, which Anthropological Association (AAA) inves- 1964 at his first Yanomami village, Bisaasi- were based on interviews with missionaries, tigatory body, the El Dorado Task Force, teri in Venezuela, where he was greeted by anthropologists and the Yanomami. to investigate claims of ethical and schol- drawn arrows. His description of how he Sadly, however much evidence Chag- arly wrongdoing during research with the experienced Yanomami life is candid and non presents, his detractors will remain his indigenous Amazonian Yanomami. vivid, from challenges to his preconceptions detractors: the controversy has become more Although a referendum “to rescind the about the daily lives of so-called primitive about a moral cause (indigenous human AAA’s acceptance of the Report of the El peoples to the joy of discovering symbolic rights) than about facts. Dorado Task Force” passed with a clear meanings of ritualized behaviour. Chagnon Noble Savages is the story of a man who for majority of the AAA’s membership in 2005, goes on to describe how he learned about decades has tried to bring evolutionary theory Chagnon’s work and character have, in my Yanomami genealogy, violence and other and scientific methods to the study of human- view, been scarred by the accusations of mis- cultural traits by participating in village life ity in anthropology. In short, it is Chagnon’s conduct and even genocide that prompted and rituals, and collecting family and conflict philosophy-of-science case study, as he strug- the investigation and split anthropologists histories, between 1964 and the late 1990s. gles against anthropology’s retreat from sci- into camps representing the false dichotomy Chagnon’s central narrative focuses on ence. His book is an important contribution of ‘for science’ or ‘for indigenous rights’. how he applied biologist E. O. Wilson’s socio- to the debates over the methods and theories That controversy drives Chagnon’s biological theory to genealogy and violence used to understand humans in anthropology autobiography, Noble Savages. The title is among the Yanomami. Roughly, Wilson and evolutionary sciences — and to debates a satirical nod to the romanticization of posited that evolutionary processes shape over how visionaries become the targets of indigenous peoples as intrinsically good and social interactions such as altruism. Chag- those who do not share their vision. ■ close to nature, a concept often attributed non explains how he collected and analysed to eighteenth-century French philosopher ethnographic data by finding statistical pat- Douglas William Hume is an assistant Jean-Jacques Rousseau — and still accepted terns between kinship and violence; reached professor of anthropology at Northern by some anthropologists. Chagnon makes conclusions on probable causes of warfare Kentucky University in Highland Heights, it clear that he views neither the Yanomami such as abduction of women; developed new and maintains the website AnthroNiche. nor anthropologists as “noble savages”. questions about the impacts of violence on e-mail: [email protected]