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Profile of Napoleon A. Chagnon Paul Gabrielsen Science Writer PROFILE PROFILE Profile of Napoleon A. Chagnon Paul Gabrielsen Science Writer Nearly 20 years after leaving the Amazon for for his sophomore year. “I was just thrilled!” the last time, Napoleon Chagnon is retracing Chagnon says. “That’s like winning the lot- his first steps into the jungle. The University tery, where I came from.” He enrolled in of Missouri anthropologist and sociobiologist physics classes taught by 1960 Nobel laureate is archiving and documenting three decades Donald A. Glaser, and found work as an of fieldwork in the Amazonian rainforest for ambulance driver and dormitory house father deposition in a University of Michigan data to support himself. center. Preparing his notes and transcribing Chagnon was also required to take classes more than 250 hours of tape recordings, with in other departments within the College of the help of a postdoctoral scholar, have trans- Literature, Science, and the Arts. The only ported Chagnon back to the height of his such course available in his first semester at work on alliance and conflict in a tribal society. Michigan was an introduction to cultural Listening to the tapes has given Chagnon a anthropology, taught by eminent cultural renewed perspective on the scope of his anthropologist Elman Service. A second “ ’ scientific accomplishments. IdidntknowI course, taught by the equally renowned ” knew so much! he says. Leslie White, cemented Chagnon’s fasci- ’ Chagnon s exhaustive empirical study of nation. “I was hooked after White’s second the Yanomamö tribe in the Amazon rain- lecture,” he says. Chagnon completed a Bach- forest commenced 50 years ago. Chagnon, elor’s degree in anthropology in 1961 and elected to the National Academy of Sciences soon commenced his graduate studies. in 2012, also explored how kinship and vi- Napoleon Chagnon. Image courtesy of Chris olence unified and divided these societies. Into the Jungle Chagnon. He wove principles of statistics, ecology, and Whereas other cultural anthropologists stud- evolutionary biology into cultural anthro- ied societies such as urban street gangs, data he collected on genealogies, kinship pology in an effort to define the effect of Latin American peasants, or Native Ameri- relationships, and village social structures. violence on generations of Yanomamö fam- can groups living on United States reser- Chagnon’s assessment of the ties holding ’ ilies and villages. Chagnon s growing ar- vations, Chagnon chose a type of society village-scale societies together formed his chive will preserve for other researchers his that, in his view, was “the most difficult doctoral dissertation (1). “Most villages were experiences living among a previously uncon- society to live with that one could possibly fission products of a larger village,” he says. tacted Amazon tribe, an opportunity few pick,” an isolated, uncontacted tribe. “The village would grow to a certain size and anthropologists may ever have again. In 1964, as a doctoral student, Chagnon could not be held together by the traditional Discovering Anthropology traveled to the Amazon rainforest on the mechanisms that are found in tribal society, Venezuela–Brazil border for a 17-month ex- such as kinship, marriage alliances, and Born in 1938, Chagnon grew up in rural ” Michigan as the second of 12 children. An pedition to study the Yanomamö, a pop- lineage organization. Chagnon’s 1968 monograph, entitled avid hunter, Chagnon honed wilderness skills ulation of around 25,000 people scattered Yanomamö: The Fierce People (2), even- in his teens that would later prove valuable in across approximately 250 villages. Some vil- tually sold nearly a million copies as an remote Amazon villages. lages had never seen an outsider before. Be- introductory-level anthropology textbook (3). The launch of Sputnik in 1957 inspired cause of his persistent questioning and the Chagnon soon found himself with multiple Chagnon, then a recent high school graduate, challenging pronunciation of his surname, the “ ” job offers after graduation, yet chose to stay at to study science to aid his country’sprogress Yanomamö nicknamed Chagnon Shaki, the University of Michigan and continue his in the nascent Space Race. After a year meaning “pesky bee.” study of the Yanomamö. “My career in an- working as a highway construction surveyor, Chagnon found a society engaged in fre- thropology,” he says, “started off with a bang.” Chagnon followed most of his hometown quent intervillage warfare. Conflicts between classmates to the Michigan College of Mining villages erupted into deadly raids, which in Incorporating Ecology and Technology in Sault Ste. Marie, where he turn spurred retaliatory raids against of- Inspired by works in ecology and evolution- “ studied physics. fending villages. Few cultural anthropologists ary biology, Chagnon began applying life- A friend invited Chagnon, still a freshman, had studied a tribe that was still at war science methodologies to anthropology as he to a recruiting presentation by the University without being interfered with by the gov- of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Awed by the ernment or nation-state whose territory they ” This is a Profile of a recently elected member of the National prestige of the university, he applied for happened to live in, he says. The ongoing Academy of Sciences to accompany the member’s Inaugural Article a transfer and was surprised to be admitted violence provided a unique context for the 10.1073/pnas.1418639111. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1419269111 PNAS Early Edition | 1of3 Downloaded by guest on October 3, 2021 investigated the biological foundations of motivations behind Yanomamö behavior, data, he continued to grapple with central kinship ties. He adopted techniques for cal- he found himself Wilson’speerand,“by questions surrounding Yanomamö society. culating genetic relatedness between two accident,” he says, became known as a “Why is violence so commonplace in this genealogically related people as a quantifiable sociobiologist. society?” Chagnon asks. “How did disputes measure of their kinship and used his growing emerge and arise between individuals? And genealogical records to examine how a cul- The Meaning of Kinship what were the consequences for the political tural act, such as participation in intervillage Chagnon left Michigan for Pennsylvania organization or village life?” violence, might affect reproductive success. State University in 1972. During a sabbatical Chagnon explores some of these theo- ’ Chagnon found (4) that 44% of Yanomamö year at King s College, Cambridge, in 1980, retical questions in his Inaugural Article (8), males over age 25 had earned the designa- he contributed to a three-year project on which compares human kinship and vio- tion unokai, meaning they had killed an sociobiology, collaborating with notable an- lence to that of chimpanzees. Chimpanzee opponent in battle. Furthermore, 30% of thropologists Edmund Leach and Meyer violence has been considered as an evolu- adult male deaths were a result of violence, Fortes, who strongly disagreed with each tionary precursor of violent human inter- and nearly 70% of all adults over age 40 had other on the principles of kinship. Leach actions (9, 10), yet Chagnon says his data lost a close relative to violence. Chagnon’s argued that kinship ties were based on shared reveal more nuances to the comparison. research also revealed that 88% of unokai economic, legal, political, or religious inter- “Humans do things that chimps cannot do,” were married, compared with only 51% of ests (6), whereas Fortes held that the so-called he says, including establishing alliances with non-unokai. Chagnon acknowledged that social glue of kinship arose from closeness of groups outside their own through institu- various factors may account for this dispar- ties such as genetic relatedness (7). Chagnon tions such as marriage. Chimpanzees do not ity, yet his observations suggested that par- aligned with the latter view, and regarded form any exogamous connections outside ticipation in violent raids, a sign of cultural Fortes as his hero. their own patriarchal lineage, Chagnon says. success, may beget a Darwinian reproductive Chagnon moved to Northwestern Uni- Yanomamö men who have participated advantage, a mark of biological success. versity in 1981 and to the University of together in deadly raids, however, are re- In 1975, Chagnon’s blend of cultural an- California, Santa Barbara, in 1984. By then lated in uniquely human ways. “It’safun- thropology and evolutionary biology gained both Elman Service and Leslie White, along damental dimension of tribal behavior wide recognition with the publication of with several of their students, had joined the that’s all about making alliances with other ” Edward O. Wilson’s Sociobiology: The New Santa Barbara faculty. “It was like the Uni- individuals and communities, he says. Synthesis (5). Wilson used his studies of ant versity of Michigan-West,” Chagnon says. “It In repeated trips to the Amazon, Chagnon behavior to explain the evolutionary basis was like coming home.” developed field methods of systematic data behind social traits such as altruism and Continuing his study of the Yanomamö, collection and mathematical data analysis, aggression that, he wrote, also applied to Chagnon investigated the tribe’s significance methods that were codified in a 1974 book, human behavior. Because Chagnon was in the region and villages’ relationships to each Studying the Yanomamö (11), which focuses also exploring evolutionary and biological other. In the midst of collecting empirical on a single large village, Mishimishimaböwei- teri. The book contains sections on settle- ment patterns and village interrelationships, note-taking, genealogical data organization, and analytical objectives. The book describes, in Chagnon’swords,“everything I had to do to know what I know about that village.” Chagnon found that returning to the United States each time presented a culture shock greater than that of heading into the remote Amazon. “It’s much easier now for me to go live with the Yanomamö than it is to come back,” he says, adding that the American cultural norm of waiting in lines or rooms has become particularly intolerable.
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