Napoleon Chagnon is a Professor Emeritus of
Sociobiology at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. He is recognized primarily for his studies on tribal warfare
of the Yanomamo
tribes in the Amazon Basin. He began studying the Yanomamo people in 1964 and
continued to do so until 1988. During his studies, Napoleon spent time in very
remote villages so he could better understand the warfare, as well as other
social features of the Yanomamo.
In 1988 there was a gold rush in the Yanomamo area that caused many people to come into contact with the Yanomamo tribes. This caused the tribes to become sick with diseases their immune systems could not handle. The tribes continue to contract more diseases all the time, so Napoleon Chagnon began taking action. He set up the Yanomamo Survival Fund, and started collecting data he hoped would lead to the development of new health care for the Yanomamo people.
Napoleon is currently working in more remote villages that he discovered between 1990 and 1992. He is interested in the amount of difference that he has noticed between the new villages he has discovered and the villages he has studied in the past. The new villages are different, but yet they are also historically related. The most notable changes are the differences in the intensity of the warfare. Napoleon hopes to focus on collecting more data that will shed light on the differences.
Napoleon has also worked with computers to help college students learn more about the Yanomamo. His main project consists of an interactive CD-ROM that contains footage he has taped of a Yanomamo ax fight. The CD-ROM shows the fight as rather uncontrolled, but is actually very specialized. The new project should help students to see how the Yanomamo tribes interact from an inside point of view.
Napoleon Chagnon is very dedicated to furthering the knowledge of himself and his students. The time he has spent working with the Yanomamo tribes has helped many students learn more about the tribal life of the Yanomamo in the Amazon Basin.
University of California, Santa Barbra Anthropology Department, 2007
Written by: Students in an Introduction to Anthropology Class, Minnesota State University, Mankato, Minnesota 1997