Epidemic Threatens To Decimate Endangered Amazonian Ya̧nomamö Tribe

Amazon Indians hit by deadly epidemic in Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan health workers say an epidemic that may be malaria has killed dozens of people, decimating three villages of the Ya̧nomamö Indians, whose struggle for survival in a remote part of the Amazon rain forest has attracted worldwide support.

The Ya̧nomamö are one of the largest isolated indigenous groups in the Amazon, with a population estimated at roughly 30,000 on both sides of the Venezuela-Brazil border. They have maintained their language as well as traditions including face paint and wooden facial ornaments piercing their noses, cheeks and lips.

Isolation has left the Ya̧nomamö vulnerable to many illnesses such as measles, yellow fever and hepatitis that have been spread by outsiders.

Source

The article goes on to explain that there was some evidence of Malaria, but that tests have not confirmed this, nor are other diseases ruled out as of yet.

Before I go on, allow me to put a few faces of the Ya̧nomamö here so that we can take this out of the abstract and think of all this in more human terms.







And some context about the Ya̧nomamö:

The Yanomami are also called the Yanomamö (pronounced Yah-no-mah-muh), and are one of the largest indigenous tribes in the Amazon. Some authors have used various other names and spellings, including Guaharibo, Guaica, Guajaribo, Ianomâmi, Yanoama, Yanomama, Yanomame, and Xirianá. There are approximately 30,000 Yanomami living in southern Venezuela and northern Brazil. Although they were first contacted in 1929, their culture has remained relatively unchanged until recently due to their isolated locations on unnavigable upland streams rather than living on the main rivers. The word "Yanomami" means human being in their language and was adopted by Chagnon to refer to the culture and the people. The Yanomami language family contains four subgroups: Yanoma (Yanomam), Sanuma, Ninam, and Yanam.

Some have characterized the Yanomami as "one of the world's most primitive stone-age tribes." However, this characterization is inaccurate in that the Yanomami are horticulturalists, possessing a relatively advanced knowledge of crops and their culture. In addition, they possess advanced bow and arrow technology, whose use was only introduced about a thousand years ago in the Americas. Even the advanced civilization of the Incas lacked this advanced technology. Characterizing the Yanomami as a "stone-age tribe" is ironically in that they do not use stone tools; for example, they use wooden arrow points rather than stone ones as is characteristic of most Amazonian tribes.

Like most indigenous Amazonians, the Yanomami traditionally practice animism as their religion. In the minds of the Yanomami people who live in the rainforest, the forest is not only composed of plant and animal life, but of spiritual life as well. To the Yanomami, every single tree, vine, shrub, and flower is inhabited with animal spirits. The Yanomami refer to these shamanic spirits as xapiripë (sometimes called hekura or hekurapë). In order to see these spirits one must use a hallucinogen called yopo or ebene. Yopo is prepared from the bark of the virola tree and is commonly used by shamans and lay persons as well. Most commonly, yopo is used in the afternoon after hunting and tending gardens. Yopo and potent strains of wild tobacco (Nicotiana spp.) are taken by being blown through a tube into the nasal cavities from one person to the other. In addition, this method of taking ebene represents a transfer of energy from one person to another. From the viewpoint of the shaman, taking yopo allows him to manipulate the xapiripë spirits so that they are maintained inside his body, giving him spiritual power. That is, the power to heal friends, and conversely, the power to harm enemies.

Source

It's a shame, to me, that these fascinating and unique cultures can fall prey to diseases, in this day and age, and face such adversity because of it. With each passing day, it seems, a bit more of our diversity passes away and we loose a bit of our human history.

Let's hope that this epidemic shows mercy and doesn't do too much harm to this fascinating society.

~Heff

Additional resources:

This tribes Wiki page
indian-cultures.com...
Conflict and Human Rights in the Amazon
On the Yanomami Crisis in Anthropology

diversity is great but i prefer the ideal of the melting pot, where we all blend together as one. yes it's sad when a smaller culture passes, but malaria can be easily and cheaply cured. if they are already accepting outside help from the west their culture is already doomed.because quinine is cheap but being westernized is a price beyond measure.

Yes it is very sad that the world's last tribes and the rituals and things that go along with them are diminishing. I often wonder if it is a form of keeping vital spiritual knowledge from the general public

reply to post by nittin
i highly doubt it. if those rituals were worth hiding the civilization would be able to at least cure their own malaria with them.

reply to post by abe froman


From my source:

A regional health official, Dr. Carlos Botto, said the initial accounts and tests have shown there was some type of epidemic and evidence of malaria. But he said the number of deaths remained unclear and further tests were needed to determine if other diseases could be involved. He said other officials were analyzing results of the five-day medical mission.

Re-link to OP source

Malaria is suspect but not confirmed as of now.

~Heff

treat for malaria and go from there, I guess they don't watch HOUSE in south america.

reply to post by abe froman


I am referring to tribes from across the world and like the article mentioned aren't the diseases from outside influences anyway?

not at all, malaria is an insect bourne disease, most commonly mosquitoes.

reply to post by abe froman


Again, from the OP:

"I've never seen it like this," said Shatiwe Luis Ahiwei, another Yanomami health worker who assisted in the medical mission and said about 100 more malaria cases had been identified in the area, more than half of them the deadly falciparum strain. The sick have had symptoms including high fever, shivering, vomiting and bloody diarrhea.

And this information about plasmodium falciparum:

Plasmodium falciparum is a protozoan parasite, one of the species of Plasmodium that cause malaria in humans. It is transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito. P. falciparum is the most dangerous of these infections as P. falciparum (or malignant) malaria has the highest rates of complications and mortality. As of 2006 it accounted for 91% of all 247 million human malarial infections (98% in Africa) and 90% of the deaths[citation needed]. It is more prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa than in other regions of the world; in most African countries, more than 75% of cases were due to P.falciparum, whereas in most other countries with malaria transmission, other Plasmodial species predominate.. A map based on the reported incidence of infection in 2007 is available at: www.map.ox.ac.uk...

Attempts to make synthetic antimalarials began in 1891. Atabrine, developed in 1933, was used widely throughout the Pacific in World War II but was deeply unpopular because of the yellowing of the skin it caused. In the late 1930s, the Germans developed chloroquine, which went into use in the North African campaigns. Mao Zedong encouraged Chinese scientists to find new antimalarials after seeing the casualties in the Vietnam War. Artemisinin was discovered in the 1970s based on a medicine described in China in the year 340. This new drug became known to Western scientists in the late 1980s and early 1990s and is now a standard treatment. In 1976 P. falciparum was successfully cultured in vitro for the first time which facilitated the development of new drugs substantially. A 2008 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine highlighted the emergence of artemisinin-resistant strains of P.falciparum in Cambodia.

Source

And from the CDC regarding the treatment of resistant Plasmodium falciparum, which isn't verified (in any form - including the normal variety - but which is possible as well)

Weekly doses of Fansidar and chloroquine may be taken together on the same day. It should be noted, however, that this combination may not be completely effective in preventing episodes of symptomatic malaria, as prophylaxis failures with sulfonamide-antifolate combination drugs have occurred (7,8). Travelers should be advised that any acute febrile illness may be malaria and that medical attention should be sought, regardless of whether chemoprophylaxis is being taken.

Source

At any rate... This thread isn't about debating whether or not quinine is cheap, or if McDonalds wants to build a new store in the Amazon... It's more a chance to learn a bit about a quickly disappearing society and to keep them in our thoughts as they deal with outside illnesses they have no natural immunities from.

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide


point taken, but i have no more sympathy for them than dinosaurs, neanderthals, cro magnon man , cherokees, or dodo birds, when a species passes it makes room for the next. i don't expect cockroaches to mourn homo sapiens.

Originally posted by abe froman
reply to post by Hefficide

 

point taken, but i have no more sympathy for them than dinosaurs, neanderthals, cro magnon man , cherokees, or dodo birds, when a species passes it makes room for the next. i don't expect cockroaches to mourn homo sapiens.

they are none of the above.
they are homosapiens just like you and your parents. therefore you are saying you have no sympathy for the people around you either.

your comments say a lot about the type of person you are

Originally posted by CitizenNum287119327

Originally posted by abe froman
reply to post by Hefficide

 

point taken, but i have no more sympathy for them than dinosaurs, neanderthals, cro magnon man , cherokees, or dodo birds, when a species passes it makes room for the next. i don't expect cockroaches to mourn homo sapiens.

they are none of the above.
they are homosapiens just like you and your parents. therefore you are saying you have no sympathy for the people around you either.

your comments say a lot about the type of person you are

I fully agree.

reply to post by Hefficide


Thank you for this thread. It is very interesting.

The young woman in the your pictures is very pretty to me. She and the young men have intriguing eyes and a look of knowledge we don't share.

My prayers and best wishes go out to their tribe.

Star and flag for you.

Here is a recent news story that shows the contributions that interacting with these remote societies provides for us as a species on the whole. The Ya̧nomamö have lived, for literally thousand of years in a region of the world that we scarcely know anything about. They are our only link to knowledge that could take us decades, or even centuries to regain if that knowledge were lost. A scientific source verifies that at least 8,000 years worth of a collective knowledge that this tribe has about one of the most dangerous and inhospitable places left on our planet.

The Yanomamo (Yah-no-mah-muh) also called Yanomami, and Yanomama, are deep jungle Indians living in the Amazon basin in both Venezuela and Brazil. The Yanomami are believed to be the most primitive, culturally intact people in existence in the world. They are literally a stone age tribe. Cataloged by anthropologists as Neo-Indians with cultural characteristics that date back more than 8000 years, these are a Last Encyclopedia. They have never discovered the wheel and the only metal they use is what has been traded to them from the outside. Their numbering system is one, two, and more than two. They cremate their dead, then crush and drink their bones in a final ceremony intended to keep their loved ones with them forever. They are hunters and gatherers who also tend small garden plots. They are one of the most successful groups in the Amazon rain forest to gain a superior balance and harmony with their environment. David Yanomami (one of the Amazon's most respected "Page" or Medicine men) foretells that if the white man does not stop his perverse destruction of our Mother Earth, that the white men are doomed to extinction, right along with the rain forest and the Yanomami.

Source

Understand that this is an environment notorious for being very deadly to European explorers, including Francisco de Orellana, a name you might recognize from the movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

This is also a region with vast deposits of precious metals and scores of previously unidentified plant and animal life. In fact, just a few days ago, a new species of primate was discovered because of the Ya̧nomamö...

New monkey species found in the Amazon. It is a new monkey species that was found by accident during a recent hunting trip in the Amazon. The species is known as the uakari monkey.

Jean-Phillipe Boubli of the University of Auckland found the monkey after following native Yanomamo Indians on their hunts along the Rio Araca, a tributary of the Rio Negro in Brazil. "They told us about this black uakari monkey, which was slightly different to the one we knew from Pico de Neblina National Park, where I'd worked earlier," Boubli said. "I searched for that monkey for at least five years. The reason I couldn't find it was because the place where they were was sort of unexpected."

Source

The discovery of any new primates is a very rare thing these days, and if it weren't for the help of the Ya̧nomamö this species might well have gone undocumented as slash and burn forestry practices destroyed its habitat and possibly led to the species extinction.

It saddens me that the final chapter of this story is probably already written in a passage within the first source I quoted in this post. That passage reads as follows....

Today: Continuous active genocide including the senseless massacre in September, 1993, An estimated 23 persons died, mostly women and children. Sixty two percent of Yanomami tested positive for new strains of malaria introduced by garimpeiros (gold miners) which have brought every conceivable disease known to modern man, from the common cold (Yanomami have no immunity to combat our most common ailment) right up to and including AIDS.

As another poster said, and which I agree with, these Indians have such beautiful and expressive eyes. I believe that eyes are windows to the soul - but they can also serve as mirrors...

Look at yourself through those mirrors and tell me you don't feel for the plight of this tribe....

~Heff

reply to post by CitizenNum287119327
you don't know me, putting words in my mouth and saying i don't care about the people around me because i don't cry over some tribe from a distant land is ridiculous. because i don't weep for a sick native you think i don't love my daughter? you think you can paint a portrait of a person based on a 2 sentence internet post? that seems pretty ignorant to me and when someone displays a holier than thou attitude it says alot about what kind of person they are. if their time is past, so be it. species come and go on this planet, that is just the natural order of things.since you have the god like ability to read the hearts and minds of men through the internet you should pack your things and travel to where these people are suffering and use your omniscience to save them.