Revenge?

As my blog is titled "revenge?", is due to the reason of how the Yanomamo tribes have grown and lived for several years. Although a large percentage of their males grow up with atleast one killing in their lifetime, several of them do think twice before doing so. It can often affect their tribe, family, or themselves. There are both negatives and positives. By killing, many of them do become acknowledge and empowered by others. As they said "individuals can achieve certain goals at the expense of other individuals". In many cases, that is the reality of our present culture. During elections and debates between candidates, they proceed in how they can affect the future for the better. And in doing so, they also point out the many defects in the ideas of their competitors and the position they stand for. Also the Yanomamo would have certain positions such as head hunter who after a few years were replaced by a younger and more efficient individual just as our government and political positions are changed every few years. Of course our situation is not as violent or gruesome but does have the same overall picture. In both cultures, one must compete or kill to get ahead and move up in either position or power.
Revenge killing is described as happening frequent in the past times and then settling down because of missionaries and other types of military help that help them acknowledge certain negatives that could later affect them. This was often caused by two reasons, material resources and reproductive resources. The main reason being reproductive (females). Once educated by other cultures, many of the males began to see how they might be best measured in terms of minimizing their losses rather than terms of maximizing their gains. This allowed them to realize more on how many lives were being lost within their own tribe and more importantly within their Kin.
Although most would agree on why revenge killing is more negative than positive, we must all look at unokais and compare that to certain situations we have in our current culture. Unokais males are labeled and given status through recruitment on self selective basis and are encouraged to be valiant and rewarded for showing aggressive tendencies. I look at this in our current militaries and in several athletes. In our militaries, troops are often rewarded by their hard work, aggressiveness, and ability to show their capable of handling the difficult atmosphere of combat. Athletes such as football players are often rewarded for the same characteristics and showing that they are an aggressive hard hitting individual. But many unokais males do not feel that they are cut out to grow up with these labels and are considered dropouts. These males "acquire a reputation for cowardice and often become the subject of frequent insult and ridicule, and their wives become targets of increased sexual attention from other men". This actually reminds me of middle school. I make this comparison because I remember most girls either being attracted to the athletic or the more violent kids. Meaning some girls want to feel protected by their man and feel secure that they are in good hands.
Our current culture can demonstrate how careful an entire nation must be with revenge killing in how the U.S. did not return and attack right away after the September 11 incident. It takes more than just violence and anger to react and retaliate. You must think of the consequences in how they can impact you as an individual and everyone around you (such as your tribe or nation). Surrounding countries or tribes can be impacted and can later combine with others to retaliate back. This can backfire and affect your kinship as well. Once this happens, it is that much more difficult in not retaliating. Kinship is most often the people closest to you in being family and can fuel an everlasting war such as present gangs. When kinship is affected, this can cause more offspring and can create a much larger kinship to retaliate as well. If the female of the kinship were to be decease, it would allow the male to move onto another female and begin another chapter or bracket to the kinship.
We must have laws towards these actions because although "most" people would consider this a negative act on another, there are still others who would differ. Not only can this be one life taken, but depending on how big the idea it can also be implemented on others just as the article used the Nazi's as an example with the jews. It can escalate into something much bigger and as we've been learning throughout this course, different cultures means different ideas.