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.