And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Return-path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Venezuela Bans U.S. Anthropologist
>
>Venezuela Bans U.S. Anthropologist
>
>.c The Associated Press
>
> By BART JONES
>
>CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Napoleon Chagnon helped make the Yanomami Indians
>one of the most famous tribes on earth with a groundbreaking study that
became
>a classic among anthropologists.
>
>But Venezuelan officials don't want him anywhere near the endangered Stone
Age
>tribe. They claim his accounts of wife-beating, club fights and deadly raids
>on enemy villages are exaggerations, and that he is provoking conflicts among
>the tribe.
>
>Venezuelan authorities have banned him from Yanomami territory on-and-off
>since the mid-70s. In August, they rebuffed his latest attempt to return
after
>a five-year absence.
>
>Chagnon is fighting back, though, and getting support from prominent
>colleagues. The ban is ``outrageous,'' says Robin Fox, an anthropologist at
>Rutgers University in New Jersey. ``I consider him one of the truly great
>anthropologists of our time.''
>
>Chagnon says he is being punished because he has criticized a powerful group
>of Catholic missionaries and angered left-wing anthropologists by
>contradicting the myth of primitive people as ``noble savages.''
>
>``My views are absolutely politically incorrect,'' says Chagnon, an
>anthropologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
>
>Without a trace of modesty, he adds: ``I know more about the Yanomamo and
>their numbers and their villages than anyone on earth.''
>
>His detractors scoff at that assertion.
>
>``There's not a single Yanomami specialist who agrees with Chagnon's
theories.
>He's completely wrong,'' says French anthropologist Jacques Lizot, one of a
>handful of experts on the tribe.
>
>Until a decade or so ago, the Yanomami -- or Yanomamo, depending on the
>transliteration -- were living in isolation in one of the least explored
areas
>of South America.
>
>Today, some still go naked or wear loincloths, pierce their noses or lower
>lips with sticks, and live in communal thatched huts called ``shabonos.''
>
>The tribe has about 23,000 members in Venezuela and neighboring Brazil.
>Critics contend that contact with illegal gold miners and Christian
>missionaries is threatening their traditions and their survival.
>
>Chagnon, now 60, moved into one village in Venezuela in 1964. Four years
later
>he published ``Yanomamo: The Fierce People.'' The book sold 800,000 copies.
>
>In it he writes that violence and warfare are common. His studies showed that
>one in four Yanomami men were axed, clubbed or shot to death with arrows.
>What's more, those who kill enemies get more wives and have more children
than
>those who don't kill.
>
>``The Yanomamo themselves call themselves fierce,'' he says.
>
>Critics were aghast.
>
>The Yanomami are ``a generally fun-loving and peaceful people,'' says a
>pamphlet published by London-based Survival International, an Indian rights
>group. Chagnon ``has greatly exaggerated Yanomami belligerence.''
>
>Chagnon says he came up with the findings because he is the only
>anthropologist who has ever lived in a Yanomami village at war and collected
>statistics on violent deaths.
>
>Later he accused the Salesian missionaries of distributing shotguns to the
>Yanomamis and setting off a spate of killings. He also says they caused
deadly
>epidemics by introducing new diseases and then failing to provide adequate
>medical care.
>
>``Chagnon has accused us of genocide,'' complains the Rev. Jose Angel
>Divasson, the Salesian bishop of Amazonas state. He says the missionaries
>quickly reversed the shotgun policy after killings increased, and their
health
>services have saved hundreds of lives.
>
>Chagnon charges that as the dispute grew hotter the Salesians spread a rumor
>that identification photos he had taken of the Indians were causing their
>babies to die.
>
>In 1991 he landed by helicopter at one village he had long been friendly
with,
>but the Yanomamis surrounded him with bows and arrows and the chief raised an
>ax over Chagnon's head and threatened to kill him.
>
>Chagnon says he calmed them down and eventually convinced them the rumor
was a
>lie. The priests vehemently deny Chagnon's accusation.
>
>Gabriela Croes, head of Venezuela's national indigenous affairs office, says
>such conflicts are one reason why officials are barring Chagnon from Yanomami
>territory.
>
>She adds that his blunt portrait of the tribe presents a false image and that
>some Indians no longer want him to visit, partly because he makes them
violate
>a sacred taboo by repeating the names of their dead ancestors so he can chart
>their genealogical lines.
>
>Chagnon says the allegations are part of a smear campaign.
>
>If he continues to be blocked from working with the Yanomami, says Fox, it
>will be a ``tragedy for anthropology.''
>
>AP-NY-12-15-98 0327EST
>
> Copyright 1998 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP
>news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
>distributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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