A Man Called Bee Analysis

A Man Called Bee My reaction to what I took in from watching this documentary directed by

Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon was very interesting to see how he conducted

he’s research being part of it and getting close with the Mishimishimaowei-teri

Village. It was a good documentary and easy for me to understand his motivates for

he’s study and I also learned a lot about the Yanomamo and their way of life. The

Yanomamo, a culture not yet experienced by the outside world, from his perspective

and through the information he

They have no writing system they have to use verbal communication to

give messages. I could see how it would make it hard for them to keep a record of

their history. Yanomamos people lived in small tribes and they sleep in huts that

they refer to as shabonos. They had chiefs that are men who are responsible for the

general knowledge and safety of the group’s women. I was amazed how well he got

along with the locals and they even gave him the name “Shanki” since they couldn’t

pronounced his name, to them it sounded like their name for Pesky Bee. I’ve learned

much more about he’s research there and seeing how a civilized person who can

actually infiltrate an uncivilized village but it was wasn’t as easy as it sounds, for him

to get accepted by that village was a tough feat to experience.

He first had to learn their language and their culture to get their trust and get

further along with he’s research. In 1974, the research begun collecting data and

what would be important in understanding the Yanomamo people, it went on for 36

months among the Yanoama Indians southern Venezuela. Napoleon conducts

fieldwork in the best way possible talking notes and photographs of

The things that are the same would be most

Americans are Christians and we believe in marriage. The different would be we

have a language and a writing system. Their marriages are different than ours, it’s

arrange by older family members such as brother, uncle or father. They have a

shortage of women in their culture but men have more than one wife oddly. It’s such

storage that they marry their cousin. People are looked down on here when they

marry family members. Its also a law for US citizen to only have one husband or

wife.

Throughout his study Shanki took pictures of the people to record who the

people were. He did this so that later on, when questioning the people they could

reference the pictures he had and identify people they knew allowed for story

telling and sharing of experiences. Which is a huge opening to the culture of the

Vanomamo for Skanki. I enjoyed how he recorded conversations that he had with

the villages as to get the actual story of what had happened from their point of view.

Through these recordings we, as the audience, learned that the Yanomamo are

under threat from other villages nearby which they call the “raiders”. These