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Warriors of the Amazon

Classroom Activity

Objective
To explore life-cycle events of the Amazonian Yanomami people and compare those events to those that students experience.

• copy of "Community Values" student handout (PDF or HTML)

1. Discuss the significant life-cycle events of the Yanomami people that students observed. Which practices seem specific to individual people or families? Which practices seem to be generally observed by all members of the Yanomami culture?

2. To help students explore these issues in a careful manner, distribute the "Community Values" student handout.

3. Once students are finished, have them do a similar chart for themselves and then compare the two. Students could also complete a third chart for another culture and make comparisons among the three charts.

In the Yanomami family section, students should include the values of mother and daughter staying together and a husband working for his father-in-law. In the Yanomami community section, students should include the behaviors of hunting and fishing, the value of mourning death, and the rituals of cremation and consuming the ashes of the dead. In the Yanomami culture section, students should include the values of marriage, family, leadership, and belief in spirits; and the rituals of tattooing, performing a dance to show strength, using medicine and calling on spirits to cure illnesses, and sharing food and exchanging gifts to restore peace. After completing the activity, students should recognize that several behaviors, values, and rituals of the Yanomami people exist in many other cultures, including their own.