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TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Anthropology > Myth In Yanomamo society

• Yanomamo consider themselves to be "real" humans, whereas foreigners are degenerate copies of real humans. In one of their myths, there was a great flood and many drowned. Some floated off on logs, and now came back speaking "crooked" Yanomamo (foreigners). A spirit fished them out off the water downstream, made them come to life again, and sent them back "home"

• Man: Yanomamo dwells on a layer of Hei Ka Misi created by the falling of another layer called hedu from above. There were original humans (Nobabdabo) who were part spirit and part human and part animal, When they did, they turned into spirits. Yanomamo men tell the stories of these myths to the locals whilst tripping on hallucinogens.

• Much of Yanomamo life revolves around sex: humour, fighting, insulting etc.

• Men are considered superior to women. Men were created via Moonblood. One of the ancestors shot Moon in the belly, his blood fell to the Earth and changed to men, who were inherently fierce. Thicker blood created more ferocious men and thinner blood less ferocious men.

• Women came from a fruit called "Wabu". While picking vines, one man noticed a fruit with eyes, tossed it on the floor and it became a woman with a large vagina. She eventually caught the men's attention with her large and hairy vagina, and they all copulated with her and produced many daughters, and everyone slept with the daughters too.

• Jaguar myths- A theme that repetitiously appears in Yanomamo myths is about Man's relationship to Jaguar. In mortal form, the jaguar is an awesome and much-feared beast, for he can and does kill and eat men. He is as good a hunter as the Yanomamo are and is one of the few animals of the forest that hunts and kills men - as the Yanomamo themselves do.

• The Yanomamo see great distinction between "nature" and "culture". An animal captured in the wild is "of the forest", but once brought into the village, it is "of the village" and somehow different, for it is then part of culture. Jaguar is an ambiguous creature to the Yanomamo, for he combines several human capacities while at the same time he is "natural". Yanomamo are somewhat jealous of him. But in their stories about him, he is consistently portrayed as a stupid brute, constantly being outwitted by man, and constantly subjected to the most scathing, ridiculous, and offensive treatments at the hands of Man.

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