AN INITIAL STATEMENT ABOUT THE CONTROVERSY TO THE AAA

The following statement was made on Friday evening, November 17, 2000, at the annual convention of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in San Francisco in the open forum about some of the multitude of diverse allegations in investigative journalist Patrick Tierney’s book Darkness in El Dorado.

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I am happy to see so much interest in the Yanomami. I wish there had been such interest over the Hashimu massacre [see Albert 1994, Rocha 1999].

There are plenty of things I could discuss about this matter at length. However, here I will simply pose three questions for the AAA leadership to consider in coming months and years, and then append a short comment. These three questions apply to both individual anthropologists who have lived and worked with Yanomami and to anthropology as a whole.

First, what have the Yanomami contributed to us?

Second, what have we contributed to the Yanomami for good and for bad?

Third, how are professional ethics and human rights involved?

These three questions apply to the past, present, and future. They could also be applied to other cultures or groups as well.

This controversy is not primarily a matter of science versus postmodernism, sociobiology versus cultural anthropology, war studies vs. peace studies, Hobbes vs. Rousseau, and the like. These are smoke screens. This is primarily about the harm done to the Yanomami, if any of the relevant allegations made by Tierney prove true. There is good reason to believe that some will. For example, on their web site Survival International of London states that the persistent characterization of the Yanomami as “the fierce people” led the British government to refuse an SI funding request for an educational program for the Yanomami and Sir Edmund Leach to refuse to support a SI campaign on behalf of land and resource rights for theYanomami. According to the current statement on professional ethics which can be found on the AAA web site, “Anthropologists must do everything in their power to protect the physical, social, and psychological welfare and to honor the dignity and privacy of those studied.” [See also the December 1948 “Resolution on Freedom of Publication” archived on the AAA web site under the Committee on Ethics].

Leslie E. Sponsel

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[References Cited:

Albert, Bruce, 1994, “Gold Miners and Yanomami Indians in the Brazilian Amazon: The Hashimu Massacre,” Who Pays the Price? The Sociocultural Context of Environmental Crisis, Barbara Rose Johnston, ed., Washington, D.C.: Island Press, pp. 47-55.

American Anthropological Association Committee on Ethics
http://www.aaanet.org

Rocha, Jan, 1999, Murder in the Rainforest: The Yanomami, the Gold Miners and the Amazon, London, UK: Latin American Bureau

Survival International
http://www.survival-international.org].