<p>Your support will help the Yanomami keep control of their lands, lives and futures. There are many ways you can help. </p><ul class="actionlinks"><li><a href="/actnow/writealetter/yanomami" onclick="new Effect.BlindDown('embedded_letter_yanomami'); new Effect.ScrollTo('embedded_letter_yanomami_container', {offset: -24}); return false;">Writing a letter to the Brazilian government</a> can make a real difference.</li><li><a href="/donate">Donate to the Yanomami campaign</a> (and other Survival campaigns).</li><li><a href="http://www.writetothem.com/">Write to your MP or <span class="caps">MEP</span></a> (UK) or <a href="http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/">Senators and members of Congress</a> (US).</li><li>Write to your <a href="http://www.embassiesabroad.com/">local Brazilian embassy</a>.</li><li>If you want to get more involved, <a href="/contact">contact Survival…</a></li></ul>
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Mining, ranching, and health care chaos threaten Yanomami
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For thousands of years, the Yanomami have thrived in the rainforests of South America.
Now, they are struggling as the government fails to protect them from criminal invasions, attacks and disease.
For thousands of years, the Yanomami have thrived in the rainforests of South America.
Now, they are struggling as the government fails to protect them from criminal invasions, attacks and disease.
<strong>How do they live?</strong> We cannot know for
certain how long they have lived in their lands, but it is probable that they
have been there since the first peoples arrived in South America, anything up to
50,000 years ago. Each Yanomami
community lives in a huge communal house called a 'yano', which can house up to
400 people, although it is usually fewer. They build these in a large ring shape
- the centre is a wide open space for dancing and ceremonies, and each family
has its own hearth under the covered part around the edge. The family sleeps in
hammocks around their fire. The Yanomami provide for themselves partly by
hunting, gathering and fishing, and largely by growing crops in large gardens
cleared from the forest. As Amazonian soil is not very fertile, a new garden is
cleared every two or three years. They grow around 60 crops, of which about 20
are for food, and the rest for medicine, making everyday objects, or ritual
purposes. No hunter ever eats the meat that he has killed, rather sharing it
out among friends and family; in return he will be given meat by another
hunter.<br />
<br />
<strong>What problems do they face?</strong> During the 1970s and
1980s, the Yanomami suffered hugely from Brazilian goldminers invading their
land. The miners shot them, destroyed their villages, and exposed them to
diseases to which they had no immunity. Twenty percent of the Yanomami died in
just seven years. After a long international campaign led by Survival, Yanomami land was finally
demarcated as the 'Yanomami Park' in 1992 and the miners at last expelled. But
the Indians still do not have proper ownership rights over their land - Brazil
refuses to recognise tribal land ownership, despite having signed an
international law guaranteeing it, and there are many within the Brazilian
establishment who would like to see the Yanomami area reduced and opened up to
mining and colonisation. The army is also stepping up its presence in the area,
and has plans to build more barracks.<br />
<br />
<strong>How can I help?<br />
</strong>Click <a href="/how_to_help.php?howto_help_id=1" target="_self">here</a> to donate to Survival.<br />
Click <a href="http://www.writetothem.com/" target="_blank">here</a> to write to your MP or MEP (UK).<br />
Click <a href="http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/" target="_blank">here</a> to write to the President, your senators, congressmen or other elected officials (US).<br />
Write to your local Brazilian embassy, click <a href="http://www.embassiesabroad.com/" target="_blank">here</a> to find out the address.<br />
<br />
<strong>How does Survival
help?</strong> Survival, along with the Brazilian Yanomami support organisation
CCPY, was at the forefront of the international campaign for the creation of the
Yanomami Park. We campaigned on this issue for 20 years before the eventual
demarcation of the park in 1992. Now Survival is calling for militarisation of
the Yanomami area to be halted, for protection of their land, and for the
Brazilian government to respect its obligations under international law by
recognising the land ownership rights of the Yanomami and all other Brazilian
tribal peoples. Survival has also funded self-help medical projects in some Yanomami villages.<br />
<br />
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The Yanomami are one of the most numerous, and best-known, forest-dwelling tribes in South America. Their home is in the Amazon rainforest, among the hills that line the border between Brazil and Venezuela.
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the Yanomami
http://bit.ly/fzMeA
yanomami
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Yanomami
2009-05-28T15:10:31+01:00