Anthropologist Chagnon’s work

Anthropologist Chagnon’s work

1. Outline of the film “The Ax Fight.”

The combat happened on  February 28, 1971, which is the second day of Asch and Chagnon’s arrival to the village. The documentary film begins by showing a map that shows the village location. Then, the film proceeds with footage of a duel between a deadly group of people that are well armed with dangerous weapons such as clubs, machetes, and axes. The documentary presents a fight as chaotic violence, similar to what was experienced by filmmakers and anthropologists present during the recording.

Chagnon, in the next part, explains the identity of the duellists and their relationship with one another. The fight between the villagers and visitors turn out to be one of the most exceptional displays of hostility between the two groups. What caused the conflict is different from what the anthropologists thought; they thought that it was caused by an abusive relationship between two different tribes. Chagnon describes the duel as “a ritualized contest” in which the people that are fighting with progression from weapons that aren’t lethal to more dangerous firearms. Other people who do not participate in the duel will choose a side to support by weighing in their shared histories or kinship obligations with the duellist. After that, elders will help resolve the conflict. The film then continues showing the relationship between the two conflicting groups of the Yanomamo people. The documentary ends by illustrating the effect of the editing process on the establishment of anthropological knowledge.

2. Outline of the Article

Napoleon Chagnon is an anthropologist that is contentious because of his works that violently display Native American tribes. Napoleon published a monograph entitled “Yanomamo: The Fierce People” in 1968 that has sold almost a million copies since its first edition. Anthropologists use his work as a source of reference even though it was written in the 1960s. In his book, he views Yanomamo people that he is working with as violent towards women, and this makes him disgusted. Many anthropologists disagree with him for exaggerating violence because he is open to his own opinion when writing his work. Still, instead of ruining his reputation, napoleon rises into fame because of the many complaints targeted towards him.

In 1964 Napoleon arrived for the 1^st time from the jungle and started to document while analyzing the Yanomamo tribe for about 30 years. He then released a documentary film, “The Ax Fight,” that shows a fight that took place in Yanomamo in the year 1975. The film displays the violence that happened between Yanomamo people that directly supports Chagnon’s argument about Native Americans being violent. However, the film comes to an end when the conflict between Yanomamo people has been resolved. The people are now living in peace and harmony, and all their economic activities have been resumed. This ending of the scene makes people conclude that Chagnon exaggerated the violence. This assumption is also supported by the fact that Chagnon experienced rejection during the first few days of his visit. He was also treated as a weak person, and the Yanomamo people played with him by sending him to insult a neighboring village headmaster’s wife. But this all change when he showed the Yanomamo that he is a strong man.

In 1960 chagnon become more popular as he helped James Neel to provide vaccination against measles to Yanomamo people. He regards that biology plays a vital role in understanding how the Yanomamo tribe views women. He also thinks that the obsession of conflicts among Yanomamo people increases as a result of the acquisition of steel tools, which were more dangerous and long-lasting. Instead of fighting for power and territory like other tribes, they fight over women. Chignon was accused and blamed for causing more illness and death of many people in Yanomamo village despite him helping them with vaccination against measles. This destroyed his relationship with the residents of Yanomamo.

He ends his journey in a bad mood because he could not manage to stay on good terms with the local Salesian priest. Chagnon accuses the priest of allowing the Yanomamo to use of mission-issued guns to kill one another. Even though Chagnon’s articles get much support from scientists, he didn’t get much support from other places because he had lost contact with most people that helped him throughout his journey. In 1993 his time in the jungle ended when he came found Perez, who did illegal mining; Perez was put on trial. In an interview with the Yanomamo leader, he said that he had no problem with Chagnon’s work calling his tribe out as violent people. Still, he did comment on American Anthropologist who fight among themselves over a piece of writing.

3. Write a paragraph explaining your opinion about this Anthropologist and his work.

Napoleon Chagnon is one of the most famous controversial Anthropologists currently. Even though his work has been regarded as the best for studying Anthropology in most colleges, he still got a lot of complaints filed against him and his work. I agree with his critics about Chagnon’s exaggeration of portraying the violence that happened within the Native American tribe in his work, such as mentioning the Yanomamo people in his field observation as “noble savages.” He also put his opinion and feelings about the Yanomamo people by saying that he feels “disgusted” toward the Yanomamo people as they disregard women, and they fight against each other because of women just that they believe it is culture. However, it is undeniable that Chagnon’s works are considered one of the best anthropological papers that have ever been written. He is very observant and portrays every detail about the tribe comprehensively. Chagnon also did a very great job of analyzing the Yanomamo culture in more excellent detail.his drawbacks are that he outlined out too much of his opinions and observations; thus, his explanations could be viewed as utterly subjective and not objective. Chagnon collects a lot of data within his 30 years of study of the Yanomamo tribe by the end of his last trip to the jungle in 1995. by the end of 19centuary, change data consisted of 4000 Yanomamo people. Even though his action of attacking the Salesians in an Op-Ed in The New York Times in 1993 became one of the most disappointing response, he had done. Still, overall, Chagnon’s works are an incredible inspiration and should be learned by all anthropologists in the future.