Politics and Violence

​Tribal Populations and Politics 

Cultures and Killing 

The politics in comparison to cultures whether they be from the West, East or so on each has their own subset of rules. However, all these cultures have similar ways in which they deal with death and murder. Each culture has a way in which the consequences of their actions, in this case murder, is dealt with differently by the Yanomamö clan than by the West. Western cultures handle murder by investigating, prosecuting potential suspects, and either lock them up or sentence them to the "death penalty". In the terms of the Yanomamö, they handle "killings" depending on the situation. When handling conflicts between villages they enter "fights" with no intent of any mortalities, however, these fights usually always end in death anyways. In the result of these deaths, as revenge or as a "consequence" each village will raid one another in order to in act their revenge. For every killing that happens, the Yanomamö will raid the one who had committed the heinous act. The points of these raids isn't not only to act in revenge for a lost kin, but the increased revenge raids they act upon will increase their status and marital power/rates. In comparison to Western cultures, the west gives the murderer at a chance for reconciliation, while the Yanomamö will dive into the opportunity to act upon their revenge. 

Unokais 

Upon killing someone, the man who had killed must perform a ritual known as unokaimou. Those who perform this ritual are thusly known as the unokai. The importance of this ritual and becoming an unokai is in order to protect the individual from being haunted by his victims' souls. Not everyone has to perform the unokaimou, so men may avoid doing as such. Though it is quite beneficial to be considered unokai, as young unokai are encouraged for their violent tendencies even as far as gaining attention and marital status through being an unokai, it also puts a target on their back. So, being a non-unokai leaves them free from most harm, as they're seen as undesirable and thusly not a threat to other tribes who may want to kill unokai out of sexual jealousy. 

Yanomamö and Revenge Killings 

The structure of their politics seems to revolve around the idea of revenge killings, and so the more killings one may have the more powerful they are. However, each ground has their own reserved leaders known as "patas" that lead their groups and essentially the "headman" of their familial structure as well. This is due to their patrilineal descent in their kinship. The largest kin group follows their patrilineal ancestors as the main "leader". However, depending on the size, it may result in multiple leaders if the kinship groups are of similar sizes. The headmen of their groups are much more successful and this may be seen through their polygynous marriages and how many wives they retain. Though it isn't strict, these marriages tend to usually only be between cross cousins, the opposite sex aunt or uncle of your father or mother. 

Murder and Laws

Even though murder and other acts of violence are usually something people should not want to do. There are individuals who cannot control their urges or those who have a lack of self control of their emotions and commit crimes of passion. The reasoning for these laws is in order to subdue those who will commit violent and murderous acts, as Napoleon A. Chagnon explains that anthropologists struggle to figure out why humans are so enticed to cause violence, as the "phenomenon that occurs independently of other forms of violence," usually in the same group will choose to act on their violent urges independently of each other. With the lack of reasoning and explanation for these things, the one way to lower the chances of this happening is in order to make the consequences out weigh the "pros" of murder and violent crimes.

Language Experiment

 Part 1: 

    Communicating with each other was actually a lot simpler, because at least one of us were allowed to communicate. While I was making gestures and nodding or shaking my head, they would guess what I was talking about, albeit simple subject, based off of whether or not I agreed or not. It basically became a game of charades where they were free to speak as much as they'd like and I would simply go yes or no. 

    

    However, in terms of power, it felt... one sided, but also the answer to this isn't as black and white as one may thing. Sure the person who was able to be verbal may be the obvious choice here, but the entire time, me, with my lack of verbal speech steered the conversation, chose the subjects, controlled what I made the verbal speaker talk about all because I cannot communicate with them. I was in power of the conversation, despite my lack of speech. 

    Well, in terms of communicating complex subjects and cultures to the other person, I personally thing that the person with the ability to speak has much more power in that case. The reason being is that the abilities I have without verbal communication...they also have the same ability to do so, so they're able to do everything I can, however they can do even more due to their verbal speech. It allows them to have detailed instruction in their own language about how something works, and the only issue would be translating it. And with time and effort.. language is translatable. 

Part 2: 

    So what made this difficult, was the lack of vocal intonation. The way we solved the lack of body language, head movement, etc etc, was that we would talk to each other without seeing the other person. Aka like talking on the phone, and probably before the invention of written language and telephones this may have been difficult. However, having trained throughout our lives to learn how to communicate to people with the lack of everything but their voice, made it much easier to do this portion and we were able to have a solid conversation. Of course, it was boring because the lack of intonation made us sound bored and monotone, however, despite that it was not that difficult at all. 

    My partner in this situation felt the same as me, because we usually do this because we don't have time to talk to each other in person, so most of our conversations are via telephone call. The biggest issue for them was also vocal intonation. It was important for them to know the "highs" and "lows" of the words I was says as they put it, because it determined the emotional meaning behind the words I spoke. Without it, they said it felt like talking to a pre recording message. 

    This experiment shows that signs are definitely extremely important in communicating certain things in a conversations. The emotional capacity people have is determined in what we allow to show others, so the lack of "sign" makes this difficult and will force people to retract from the conversation and disengage. However, not every single "sign" isn't important as long as one is present it makes the conversation engaging and lets the other be able to express themselves. Because, not everyone speaks with intonations, not everyone can use facial expressions well, not everyone uses as many hand gestures, etc etc. However, not everyone lacks every single thing. So, as long as something is there it should be fine. 

    There are definitely people who cannot read body language, and those are usually people who "cannot read the room". There is nothing wrong with them, however they will struggle to find the right words to say, or not understand why everyone is acting one way but saying another. A setting where it may be beneficial to not reading body language is definitely a game of poker. Well, it's both beneficial and not beneficial depending on who you are. As a player, you may want to read body language in order to tell if someone is bluffing, or has a good set, however on the other hand you yourself don't want to express body language at all in order to not give yourself away. Or people watching from the outside in, they may be intrigued by the lack of body language as it is something that requires lots of control to do so and makes the game interesting to watch. 

Part 3: 

    Written language would've been immensely helpful, because in this day and age, we use written language more than we may even use spoken language, We have learned to communicate complex themes subjects, and emotions through written language and symbols. Written language would make things much more easier, as the way I express my emotions through written language changes drastically depending on where, what and who I'm typing to. It requires a lot of "signs" like we would use in physical language, but in terms of emoticons, or the way I type, or the number of !, ?, or " I use and so on. I can describe that I'm sleepy by simply saying, "Oh no.... I'm so sleepy....goodniiiiiight" It gives off this idea that I'm trailing off, that I can only speak so little words as if I'm about to pass out. All through text. 

    Written language provides a lot more use as it allows you to write as much as you'd like and perfect what you will say before sending it out the the person who may receive it. Receiving something in the mail? Well you better know that the person writing to you had probably rewritten it multiple times making sure it was perfect and  that they had not missed anything. It lets them take their time to think and use words they would never think on the top of their head to describe something. As long as both parties have experienced similar lives in order to understand the words they use to describe written language is much more better. 

    Written language influences a lot more people in the worlds because of how easily accessible it is. Written language can be translated, understood through symbols, use of periods and exclamations and whatever. But the most important thing, is that once it was written down it may be reproduces tens, of hundreds, of thousands of times for everyone to be able to read and spread. As for vocal language, you must repeat yourself which you your have a capacity for any may even miss a few things from your original speech, or you may rely on others to retell your words through words of mouth, however they may misremember your speech or cut it short and the context may be construed. It is like the rules of fourths. The farther it goes, the more lost the original content gets and the hazier it gets, however with written language it may be replicated perfectly everytime.