Yanoama: The Story of Helena Valero, a Girl Kidnapped by Amazonian Indians (original Italian title Yanoáma: dal racconto di una donna rapita dagli Indi)[1] is a biography of Helena Valero, a mixed-race mestizo woman[2][3] who was captured in the 1930s as a girl by the Kohorochiwetari, a tribe of the Yanomami indigenous people, living in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil. She lived with the Yanomami for about two decades (variously given as 20,[4] 22,[5][6] or 24[7] years). While living with the Yanoama, Valero married twice and gave birth to four children (three sons and one daughter). She escaped in 1956[7] to what she refers to as "the white man" in the country of her birth. After rejection by her family and living in poverty at a mission, Valero chose to return to life with the Yanomami.[7][8]
 1996 English edition | |
| Author | Ettore Biocca, Helena Valero (uncredited) |
|---|---|
| Language | Italian |
| Publisher | Leonardo da Vinci |
Publication date | 1965 |
| OCLC | 253337729 |
| Website | https://archive.org/details/yanoamastoryofhe0000vale/ |
Valero recounted her life's story to Italian biologist and anthropologist Ettore Biocca, who published the account in 1965. In the book, Valero tells of life in the forest: hunter-gatherer living in the Amazon; the customs, lore, rituals, and observances of Yanomami culture; and the relationships and wars between individuals, families, and tribes.[4][6][9] The book includes detailed information about life in several Yanomami tribes.
According to James Clifford, its authenticity is not questioned by anthropologists.[10]
Compilation
editEttore Biocca, an Italian anthropologist,[7] compiled information about Valero's experience among the Yanoama from tape recordings[4][11] he made of Valero between 1962 and 1963. Biocca used a three-pronged method: asking the same questions, listening to the same stories several times, and comparing each story to the others. He found no inconsistency.
Biocca also published other volumes of Valero's accounts, which include a great deal of information on the culture of the Yanoama.[12]
Plot summary
editPart One (from kidnapping to living with the Namoeteri)
editHelena is a girl of Spanish descent ("white girl" in the book), who lives next to a river near the Amazon forest with her family of subsistence farmers. When she is a preadolescent (between 11 and 13 years old),[8][13] the family is attacked by native warriors ("Indians" in the book). She is wounded and her parents leave her behind, carrying her other two younger siblings with them. She is then found by the Yanoama tribe that attacked her family, called the Kohoroshiwetari, and they take care of her.
Another tribe called the Kawawetari demands the Kohoroshiwetari give them Helena. The Kohoroshiwetari refuse to hand her over. As a result, the Kawawetari warriors attack; the men of the Kohoroshiwetari flee, leaving the women and children defenceless. The Kawawetari slaughter the male children, bashing the head of one of the male infants against a rock. They then capture the women and female children, including Helena.
The Kawawetari worry the Kohoroshiwetari will attack them, having killed so many of their sons. However, they never do, but they are later attacked by a tribe called the Shamateri. The Shamateri kidnap Helena and a number of other women and female children, and Helena lives with the Shamateri for a time. After accidentally giving poisonous toad eggs to a child, the mother of the deceased girl wants the tribe to kill Helena, so she escapes into the forest and subsequently lives there for months.
Eventually, she reaches a tribe called the Namoeteri and approaches them. She initially lives with a older woman who wants her to eventually marry her brother-in-law, once they are both old enough. It is at this point she becomes "of consequence" (starts menstruating) which means she becomes eligible for marriage, but the brother-in-law still is too young, so she remains unmarried for a time. She later makes the mistake of unintentionally insulting Fusiwe, headman of the Namoeteri, and he shoots at her with a bow and arrows. She flees to the forest once again, and is later caught.
Part Two (life with Fusiwe, headman of the Namoeteri)
editAfter recapture, Fusiwe wants to kill Helena, but his brother-in-law, Rashawe, convinces him not to kill her. Rashawe tells him to take her his fifth wife, which he agrees to, and she becomes his second youngest wife. Helena also narrates the use of hallucinogenic drugs, her relationships with the other four wives, and political conflicts of the Yanoama. At one point, Fusiwe hits her hard enough to break her arm, after his favorite dog chokes to death on a bone, an incident he blames her for. After the birth of two sons, Fusiwe is killed by an opposing tribe.
Part Three (from Akawe to "the white man")
editAfter Fusiwe's death, the opposing tribe plots to kill her sons out of fear that they would grow up and avenge their father's death. Helena takes them to a distant tribe that was uninvolved with the concerns of the Namoeteri tribe.
After some time she marries again, this time to a man named Akawe. She bears him two children: a boy and a girl. There her life is not consistent, as she and Akawe often move between villages. Akawe also treats her rather poorly.
Her life is under threat again when the tribe that had killed Fusiwe relocates to live near her. That, combined with her husband's insanity, persuades her to move back among white men.
The last chapter is entitled "The wicked world of the white man." Helena bitterly recounts how nobody takes care of her among the whites, and that she often goes hungry. After a while, Helena decides to return to live with the Yanomami.
References
edit- ^ Biocca, Ettore (1965). Yanoáma: dal racconto di una donna rapita dagli Indi (PDF). "All' Insegna dell'Orizzonte" (in Italian). Vol. 23. Bari: Leonardo da Vinci. OCLC 253337729.
- ^ Ferguson, R. Brian (1995). Yanomami Warfare: A Political History. School of American Research Press. p. 197. ISBN 978-0-933452-38-1.
Valero , a mestizo girl , was captured by Yanomamo in 1932 or 1933
- ^ Handbook of Latin American Studies. University of Florida Press. 1971. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-8130-0355-9.
True story of Helena Valero a mestizo who lived among the Yanoama of the Upper Orinoco for almost 20 years after being kidnapped by them as a young child
- ^ a b c Shapiro, Judith (December 1971). "Yanoáma: The Narrative of a White Girl Kidnapped by Amazonian Indians – Reviewed by JUDITH SHAPIRO, University of Chicago". American Anthropologist. 73 (6): 1331–1333. doi:10.1525/aa.1971.73.6.02a00270.
- ^ Clastres, Pierre (1969). "Une Ethnographie Sauvage (A propos de Yanoama)". L'Homme. 9 (1): 58–65.
- ^ a b Mitchell, Simon (September 1970). "BOOK REVIEWS – Yanoama: The Story of a Woman Abducted by Brazilian Indians by Ettore Biocca". Man. New Series, Vol. 5 (3): 551–552. doi:10.2307/2799005. JSTOR 2799005.
- ^ a b c d Donovan, Corey (2003). "Real Ethnography vs. Anthropologically Inspired Fiction: Shabono and Yanoáma Compared". Sustained Action.
- ^ a b Valero (1996), Introduction: Two Irreconcilable Worlds by Jacques Lizot.
- ^ Wallace, David Rains (November 12, 2000). "The Left Hand of Darkness". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015.
- ^ Pratt, Mary Louise (1986). "Fieldwork in Common Places". In Clifford, James; Marcus, George E. (eds.). Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (PDF). Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. pp. 27–50. ISBN 978-0-520-05729-6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04.
- ^ Valero (1996), Preface by Ettore Biocca.
- ^ Biocca, Ettore (1965). Viaggi tra gli Indi: Alto Rio Negro – Alto Orinoco. Appunti di un Biologo. Volume Secundo: Gli Indi Yanoáma [Travel Between the Indians: High Rio Negro – High Orinoco. Notes from a Biologist. Volume Two: Yanoáma Indians] (PDF). Roma: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.
- ^ Valero, Helena (1996). Yanoama : the story of Helena Valero, a girl kidnapped by Amazonian Indians. Internet Archive. New York : Kodansha International. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-56836-108-6.
Bibliography
edit- Biocca, Ettore (1970). Yanoama: The Narrative of a White Girl Kidnapped by Amazonian Indians, as Told to Ettore Biocca. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company. ISBN 978-0525238881.
- Valero, Helena; Biocca, Ettore (1996). Yanoáma: the story of Helena Valero, a girl kidnapped by Amazonian Indians. Trans. Luigi Cocco. New York: Kodansha International. ISBN 978-1568361086.