Important Facts For Prelims
Yanomami Tribe of South America
- 08 Sep 2020
- 2 min read
Why in News
The Yanomami tribe has launched a global campaign to expel 20,000 gold miners from their land amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Key Points
- The Yanomami live in the rainforests and mountains of northern Brazil and southern Venezuela, and are, according to Survival International, the largest relatively isolated tribe in South America.
- Guarani, Kaingang, Pataxó, Hã Hã Hãe, Tupinambá, Yanomami, Tikuna and Akuntsu are popular tribes of the Amazon basin. Amazon is a river of South America and its basin is the largest tropical rainforest in the world.
- Survival International is an international human rights advocacy based in London (UK), which campaigns for the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples around the world.
- The tribe numbers around 38,000 today, and its members live in contiguous forested territory of around 9.6 million hectares in Brazil and 8.2 million hectares in Venezuela.
- They live in large, circular houses called yanos or shabonos, some of which can hold up to 400 people.
- The Yanomami consider all people to be equal, and do not have a chief. Instead, all decisions are based on consensus after long discussions and debates.
- They are speakers of a Xirianá language.
- A Brazilian indigenous leader Davi Kopenawa who secured the land rights of the Yanomami people was awarded the Right Livelihood Award-2019, also known as Sweden's alternative Nobel Prize.
