Chagnon's ethnography, Yanomamö: The Fierce People was published in 1968 and later published in more than five editions and is commonly used as a text in university-level introductory anthropology classes, making it the all-time bestselling anthropological text.
As Chagnon described it, Yanomamö society produced fierceness, because that behavior furthered male reproductive success. According to Chagnon, the success of men in violent interaction and even killing, was directly related to how many wives and children they had. At the level of the villages, the war-like populations expanded at the expense of their neighbors. Chagnon's positing of a link between reproductive success and violence cast doubt on the sociocultural perspective that cultures are constructed from human experience. An enduring controversy over Chagnon's work has been described as a microcosm of the conflict between biological and sociocultural anthropology. [excerpted from the Wikipedia article on Napoleon Chagnon]
Author(s): Napoleon A. Chagnon
Series: Case studies in cultural anthropology
Edition: 1st edition
Publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Year: 1968
Language: English
Commentary: sparse yellow highlights, most concentrated in chapter 4
Pages: xiv + 142; illustrations, maps
Foreword vii
Acknowledgments xi
1. Doing Fieldwork among the Yanomamo 1
2. Adaptation 18
The Physical Environment, 18
Trails and Travel, 19
Technology, 20
Weapons, 21
Hallucinogenic Drugs, 23
Troughs and Canoes, 24
Shelter, 23
Food and Its Gathering, 29
Gardening, 33
Garden Products, 33
Conclusion, 39
Adaptation to the Sociopolitical Environment, 39
Alliances and Village Size, 39
Fission and Settlement, 40
Intellectual Environment, 44
The Cosmos, 44
The First Beings, 43
The Soul, 48
Noreshi, 48
Treatment of the Dead, 30
Shamans, 32
Conclusion, 32
3. Social Organization 54
Social Structure, 34
The Lineage, 63
The Local Descent Group, 68
Village Fissioning, 70
Discrepancies in the Marriage Pattern, 12
Demographic Basis, 74
Political Basis, 76
Division of Labor and Daily Social Life, 81
Male-Female Division, 81
Child-Adult Division, 84
Relatives by Blood and by Marriage, 86
Daily Activities, 88
Status Differences and Activities, 92
4. Political Alliance, Trading and Feasting 97
General Features of Alliance, 97
Trading and Feasting in Alliance Formation, 99
Historical Background to a Particular Feast, 102
The Feast, 103
The Chest-pounding Duel, 113
5. Yanomamo Warfare 118
Levels of Violence, 119
The Raid and Nomohoni, 122
A Specific War, 124
Glossary 139
References l4l
