Yanomami Research Paper

The Yanomami are an indigenous ethnic group living in Roraima, in the north of Brazil. This tribe holds a curious funeral ritual that includes the ingestion of the ashes of the deceased. A classmate from my statistics class, told me about this tribe, because his ancestors were part of it. My classmate and his parents have never practice any ritual, however, he knows about the history of the tribe. The funeral rite is divided into three ceremonies: the samples mourn crying, the ritual purification of the body, (body decoration and cremation) and the consumption of the ashes of the deceased. When a Yanomami dies, the first reaction of the members of the tribe is a deep anger. The Yanomamis ' believe that death is not a natural phenomenon, but rather it is caused by an evil spirit that was sent by a person from another tribe. The death is announced by sobs, shouts, sudden, outrageous gestures, and by ax against the floor. These are the moments of greatest tension and drama that the Yanomamis ' community lives. Noise, crying, and screaming are the manifestations of grief over the loss of a relative, and at the same time, the fulfillment of a ritual. The body is cremated instead of being …show more content…
Women cry and apply black paint on their face, as a sign of mourning. Relatives close to the deceased, repeat short phrases of continuous laments, while each family member calls the deceased by his name of kinship. By doing this, the family wants to get convince of the new state of the deceased which is that, the body of their beloved is still there listening, but he cannot answer. At this phase, it begins what they call "life from the dead", meaning that the deceased becomes part of a dimension whose state is to have no contact with society, the body is there, but his relational function is