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Warriors of the Amazon
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Classroom Activity
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Objective
To explore life-cycle events of the Amazonian Yanomami people and
compare those events to those that students experience.
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copy of "Community Values" student handout (PDF
or
HTML)
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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?
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To help students explore these issues in a careful manner,
distribute the "Community Values" student handout.
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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.
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