Why? My Personal Involvement with the Yanomami

and the El Dorado Controversy

Some background may be helpful for those who wonder about my involvement with the Yanomami and the El Dorado controversy. The controversy erupted in the fall of 2000 when investigative journalist Patrick Tierney published a book containing a multitude of diverse allegations about the violation of professional ethics and human rights by Napoleon Chagnon and a few other researchers among the many who have worked with the Yanomami people in the Amazon region straddling the borders of Venezuela and Brazil . (For details see AAA Committee on Ethics, Borofsky 2005, Hume 2000, Public Anthropology, Sponsel 2005a,b, Tierney 2000a,b, 2001, and Turner 2001).

My own involvement with and commitment to the Yanomami started in 1974-75, when I conducted field research in the Erebato River area of the Venezuelan Amazon with a northern subgroup called the Sanema. This was one component of my Cornell University doctoral dissertation on the behavioral ecology of human predator-prey dynamics in Amazon forest ecosystems (Sponsel 1981a). The first stage of the research aimed to apply a biological perspective to understanding human predation comparable to the approaches George Schaller pursued with lions, David Mech with wolves, and so on. In retrospect, this integrated ethological and ecological approach was a pioneering initiative in human behavioral ecology, although not as this approach has been conceptualized more recently. My research has always been holistic, not reductionistic (cf. Tax 1956). Subsequent stages of my dissertation fieldwork were intended to integrate data and interpretations of the Yanomami hunter as simultaneously a biological, cultural, and mental being. Now I would add a fourth component, the hunter as a spiritual being, because the Yanomami view the forest as frequented by spirits as well as by what Westerners might distinguish as natural phenomena (Sponsel 2005c). However, at the time I did not appreciate the importance of spiritual ecology; in fact, that perspective did not develop until the 1990s (Sponsel 2001a). Unfortunately, inter-ethnic politics in the Erebato region prevented me from going beyond the first stage/aspect of the research, but that is another story.

From the outset of the fieldwork two things impressed me most of all. First, I was impressed by the warm hospitality, courtesy, kindness, and humor of the Sanema. Second, the Sanema, although obviously in most ways like other Yanomami I had read about, were not by any means the so-called "fierce people" as persistently represented for decades by American anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon (1968, 1997). [See Statements on the Yanomami].

When as a graduate student at Cornell University I first read Chagnon's (1968) then classic case study, my first reaction was that the Yanomami were the last society I would ever want to visit! Anyone reading Chagnon's book could not miss his Hobbesian representation of the Yanomami as nasty and brutish savages, but apparently few ever questioned it, unless they knew better because they had actually lived with Yanomami (e.g., Good 1991, Lizot 1985, Ramos 1987, 1995, Smole 1976). However, I was intent on working in the Venezuelan Amazon on human predation. First, I had previously collaborated in field research in the Colombian Amazon on squirrel monkey (Saimiri sciureus) population ecology on a World Conservation Union (then IUCN) project (Sponsel, et al., 1974). During the fieldwork for this project I became enchanted by the awesome forests, wildlife, rivers, and people of the region. Second, Venezuela appeared to have several advantages over other countries that encompass a portion of the Amazon within their borders because at the time it was more politically democratic and stable and it was more economically prosperous. A Cornell alumnus, Venezuelan anthropologist Dr. Nelly Arvelo-Jimenez, kindly agreed to be my host country institutional supervisor, generously providing invaluable advice and assistance through an affiliation with the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Investigations just outside Caracas . Second, another Venezuelan anthrpopologist, Gustavo A. Eskildsen, had long been a close friend since our graduate student period at Indiana University where we shared a deep interest in classical music as well as anthropology. Both of us admired Professor David Bidney who brilliantly taught the history and theory of anthropology among other subjects. When I first wrote to Dr. Arvelo-Jimenez about my dissertation research orientation, she recommended the Yanomami as the most appropriate indigenous group to work with in the Venezuelan Amazon. Furthermore, later she mentioned to me that Chagnon had exaggerated the violence among the Yanomami, based on her encounters with them while working with an adjacent culture, the Ye'kuana. Her impression was later confirmed by the French anthropologist Jacques Lizot and the American anthropologist Kenneth R. Good, both of whom lived with Yanomami for many more years than anyone else. None of these three anthropologists (Arvelo-Jimenez, Good, and Lizot)denied the existence of interpersonal and intergroup aggression among the Yanomami. They simply indicated that it was not as ubiquitous and intense as Chagnon's writings indicated (see Good 1991:13, 35, 55-56, 69, 73, 174-175, and Lizot 1985:xiv).

Although I was only able to study Yanomami foraging for three months in the wet season and another three in the dry season, a very modest amount of time for fieldwork, that period was sufficient for a portion of my dissertation which evolved into a broader biological perspective on the behavior and ecology of predator-prey dynamics in Amazon rainforest ecosystems. It incorporated an extensive survey of the available literature on all relevant aspects of the subject. However, because of the short period of my fieldwork with the Yanomami, I have intentionally avoided publishing on their hunting, although other components of the dissertation yielded publications (e.g., Sponsel 1983, 1986, 1995). What is more important, the six months of daily living in one community, with brief visits to several adjacent ones, revealed that these were not "the fierce people" by any means, not that they were completely devoid of any violence (cf. Asch 1991, Good 1991, Heider 1988, Lizot 1994, Ramos 1987, Salamone 1996, 1997, Sponsel 1998). But I came to understand and appreciate the Yanomami as human beings, rather than as a laboratory for research on aggression (Allman 1988, Booth 1989, Bower 1991, Chagnon 1996, Horgan 1988, Monaghan 1994, Salamone 1996, 1997). Furthermore, they were not the isolated and pristine traditional society initially portrayed by Chagnon (1968), a point later exposed and meticulously documented (Ferguson 1995). The Yanomami were not "primitive," they were just fellow humans with a very different life style (Chagnon 1968, 1997, Fabian 1991, Montagu 1968, Neel 1970, Sponsel 1998:113-114). Moreover, I began to realize just how ideological, unscientific, distorting, dehumanizing, and dangerous the characterization of the Yanomami as "the fierce people" actually was (Allman 1988, Albert and Ramos 1989, Booth 1989, Bower 1991, Carneiro da Cunha 1989, Davis 1976, Hammersley 1990, Heider 1988, Horgan 1988, Martins 2005, Patterson 2001, Rabben 1998, Ramos 1987, 1998, Vincent 1990).

These basic impressions from this very modest fieldwork have since been sustained over the decades through communications with other anthropologists such as Kenneth R. Good (1991) who worked far more extensively with the Yanomami living with them for more than a dozen years, as well as through the publications of many other scientists (see the bibliography in Sponsel 1998). Indeed, of the more than three dozen anthropologists who have worked for any length of time with the Yanomami, Chagnon stands out as the only one to have focused on aggressive aspects of their lives and culture to the point of obsession with the consequent gross distortion of their ethnographic reality (Good 1991, Lizot 1985, Sponsel 1998). While he and his defenders have cited the account of Ettore Biocca as independent confirmation of Chagnon's view, scrutiny of that book does not sustain such an assertion (see Biocca 1996:xvii-xxvi).

The above considerations gained further importance in light of the invasion of illegal gold miners in the Brazilian portion of the territory of the Yanomami nation in the 1980s and the possibility that this catastrophic phenomenon might spread into Venezuela as well (Albert and Goodwin Gomez 1997, Berwick 1992, Chiappino and Ales 1997, Colchester 1985, Colchester and Fuentes 1983, Early and Peters 2000, Lizot 1976, O'Connor 1997, Peters 1998, Pro-Yanomami Commission, Rabben 1998, Ramos 1995, Ramos and Taylor 1979, Ramos, Albert, and Cardoso de Oliveira 2001, Rocha 1999, Saffirio 1983, Turner 1991a,b, Weiss and Weiss 1993).

Early Shelton Davis (1976:23) had warned:

"When a people is being exterminated, it is more than an academic question whether an anthropologist chooses to describe that people as harmless" or "fierce." The images which anthropologists present of other peoples and cultures are often determinative elements in the course of human events. Some of these images touch the roots of human sentiments and lead people to struggle for the national and international protection of aboriginal peoples's rights. Other images reinforce popular prejudices and, in the hands of more powerful elements, become convenient rationalizations for wiping native peoples off the face of the earth. In the 19 th century, ideas of "savagery" provided a national ideology for the slaughter and extermination of scores of Native American Indian tribes." (See the documentation and analysis in Bodley 1999, Churchill 1997, Dostal 1971, Elsass 1992, Jahoda 1999, Klein 1997, Maybury-Lewis 2002, Perry 1996, Stonich 2001, and Thornton 1987).

Unfortunately, Davis's serious concern became a reality in Brazil where some agents manipulated Chagnon's characterization of the Yanomami as "the fierce people" to try to undermine their territory to gain access to its natural resources. This has been demonstrated, for instance, by the contributions of Brazilian anthropologist Leda Leitao Martins and American anthropologist Terence Turner to the book edited by Robert Borofsky (2005) on the El Dorado controversy. Incidentally, that book is by far the most thorough, balanced, and fair critical analysis of the controversy. Furthermore, it is also most valuable in providing the general background of the controversy and in pursuing its broader implications. (See Public Anthropology). During the episode in Brazil in which some in the media, government, and military were trying to manipulate Chagnon's statements to undermine the rights of the Yanomami in ways that threatened their very survival, Chagnon remained silent. Yet as early as December 1948, the AAA issued a formal statement titled "Resolution on Freedom of Publication" that cautioned about possible negative consequences from publications. (That statement is archived on the AAA web site).

Actually Chagnon had been criticized a number of times about the potential damage that his characterization of the Yanomami as "the fierce people" could bring to them. He ignored all of this. Chagnon's failure to address this issue was one of several of the ethical problems that the Task Force on El Dorado recognized in its Final Report.

As just one other example of the negative consequences of Chagnon's work, on their web site Survival International of London stated that the persistent characterization of the Yanomami as "the fierce people" led the British government to refuse a funding request from SI for an educational program for the Yanomami and Sir Edmund Leach to refuse to support a campaign by SI on behalf of the land and resource rights of the Yanomami.

Given the dire plight of the Yanomami in Brazil, first with the encroachment of road construction into their territory in the 1970s, and then with the invasion of miners in the 1980s, most of my publications about the Yanomami have concentrated on aspects of advocacy anthropology and human rights (Sponsel 1979, 1981b, 1991, 1992, 1994a, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001b, 2005a,b,d). (Also see Ervin 2000, Mann, et al., 1999, Messer 1993, Nagengast and Velez-Ibanez 2004, Paine 1985, and Wright 1988). Because of my experience of being immersed in one Yanomami village for six months, I have an enduring concern for their survival, welfare, and culture in general, even though for various reasons I have since turned to research elsewhere. That concern was informed and reinforced during the years that I served as the Chair of the Commission for Human Rights (1992-1995) and the subsequent Committee for Human Rights (1996) of the American Anthropological Association (e.g., Nagengast and Velez-Ibanez 2004). However, this concern also stems from a long interest and commitment to professional ethics and human rights, although I do not recall any discussion of these matters in any of the many courses that I took during six years as a graduate student(1965-68 at Indiana University and 1970-73 at Cornell University), unless I raised them myself. Nevertheless, my dissertation research grant proposal to the National Science Foundation included an appendix on professional responsibility to the host community, and that was reproduced in my subsequent dissertation (Sponsel 1981a). (For general background, see Bartholomew 1973, Badly 1999, Homes 1972, 1999, Deloria 1969, Distal 1972, Harrison 1991, Pandian 1985, Patterson 2001, Scheper-Hughes 1995, G. Smith 1999, L.T. Smith 1999, Vincent 1990).

After 1975, I participated in other research opportunities elsewhere in the Venezuelan Amazon, including with Ye'kuana of the Cunucunuma River area, and with Curripaco and Geral of the Rio Negro River and Guainia River areas, while being privileged to work intermittently in various capacities at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Investigations until 1981 (Sponsel 1986a, 1993).

Since joining the faculty at the University of Hawai`i in 1981, I have concentrated mainly on Southeast Asia , given the institution's Asia and Pacific regional foci. Since marriage to Dr. Poranee Natadecha from Thailand I have collaborated with her and other Thai colleagues in fieldwork in that country during most summers. (See the entries on Publications, Research, and Thailand in this web site).

Even though I added Southeast Asia as a second areal interest to the Amazon, I have never forgotten the Amazon in general and the Yanomami in particular. For decades now I have persistently followed the literature and situation of the Yanomami as closely as feasible, occasionally publishing about their plight. Also many of my primary topical specializations--- anthropological aspects of human ecology, peace and war studies, and human rights--- inevitably intersect with Yanomami studies (Yanomamalogy)(Early and Peters 2000, Sponsel 1983, 1994b, 1996a,b, 1998:98-99, 2000a,b, 2002). For instance, for the 2002 annual convention of the American Anthropological Association, I organized and chaired an invited session on "The Yanomami People: Advocacy Research on Their Present Status, Concerns, and Future" that was co-sponsored by the Committee for Human Rights and the Society for Latin American Anthropology both of the AAA.

Because of my aforementioned second observation about the Sanema, I have been a persistent but scholarly critic of various points in Chagnon's publications, albeit mostly indirectly until a 1998 article in the journal Aggressive Behavior in which I explicitly identified and analyzed ten serious problems with his work. (Chagon never responded directly in a scholarly manner to these criticisms, a tendency he exhibited in the case of most other critics as well).

Chagnon's partisans have wrongly, maliciously, and libelously accused me of being critical of him simply because of professional jealousy, having some unexplained personal vendetta, and/or being against science or evolutionary and biological approaches to human behavior (e.g., Gross 2004, Hill 2005, Plattner and Gross 2002, Pinker 2002) (Also see Stenmark 1997 on scientism). Such accusations are utter nonsense. My criticisms of Chagnon are not made out of personal jealousy, I have my own achievements as revealed in my curriculum vitae, as do numerous and diverse other critics, including anthropologists of the stature of Clifford Geertz, David Maybury-Lewis, Marshall Sahlins, and Terence Turner as well as most researchers who have ever lived with Yanomami (Bruce Albert, Kenneth Good, Gale Goodwin Gomez, Jacques Lizot, Alcida Ramos, William Smole, and so on). (See Sponsel 1998:114 for citations of publications by a multitude of critics). My criticisms of Chagnon do not stem from any personal animosity or vendetta, so far he has never really done anything to seriously offend or injure me. However, he did threaten at least one editor of a journal with a lawsuit if my manuscript of an article critical of his work was published. But that article was eventually published anyway (Sponsel 1998).

My involvement in the El Dorado controversy is not a matter of my being against science, biology, or evolution, despite the ignorance, delusions, or lies of some of Chagnon's defenders. My undergraduate degree and early employment were in geology, a so-called hard science. My graduate studies in anthropology were primarily in the biological subfield and included many courses in biology (e.g., human anatomy, human physiology, vertebrate ethology, animal ecology, ornithology). One of my chief interests has long been ecological anthropology, and it deals as much with biology as with culture. My earliest anthropological research, publications, and teaching were focused on primate behavior and ecology, and in recent years I published on that subject exploring ethnoprimatology, a new specialization at the interface of biology and anthropology (Sponsel, et al., 2002).

In short, my criticisms of Chagnon are simply based on a sincere concern about the negative consequences of his work on the Yanomami as well as a genuine commitment to objective science, quality scholarship, professional ethics, human rights, and indigenous peoples. Many, although not all, of Patrick Tierney's (2000a,b, 2001) numerous and diverse allegations of abuses of professional ethics by Chagnon and the consequent violations of the human rights of the Yanomami have been demonstrated through investigations by various individuals and organizations in the United States and Brazil despite the disingenuous denials of his partisans (see Albert 2001, Borofsky 2005, Hume 2000, Turner 2001).

It should also be noted that, although Tierney appropriately acknowledges my assistance in his book and I contributed a statement of endorsement that was printed on the back cover of the first edition and on the first page of the second edition, I was certainly never involved in any conspiracy with him. I simply generously provided information as a professional courtesy, just as I have for many other individuals, including Robert Borofsky (2005:ix). I had never met Tierney until after the Thursday evening panel on the controversy at the 2000 annual convention of the AAA in San Francisco on November 16 when he was a panelist, unlike Chagnon who refused the AAA invitation to participate. After the panel discussion ended I went to introduce myself to Tierney and to compliment him. Prior to that he had interviewed me twice by telephone and we had a few other communications as well. I cited his forthcoming book in some of my own publications over several years in anticipation of its release (e.g., Sponsel 1998). However, its final publication was repeatedly delayed while Tierney pursued further leads in his investigation. To this day I still stand firmly by my endorsement of his book. Tierney exposed serious violations of professional ethics and human rights, although many were previously known for years, and the ensuing controversy has proven to be the ugliest scandal in the entire history of anthropology (cf. Spencer 1996). In these respects I still consider Tierney's book to be the most important one ever written about the Yanomami, albeit not as an ethnography which it was never intended to be.

In July 2000, Tierney's editor sent to a few individuals, including myself and Terence Turner, a bound copy of the galleys of his book for comments. While initially Tierner set out to document the impact of gold mining in the Amazon, his investigation led him to focus the book instead on the violations of professional ethics and human rights by a few of the researchers who had worked with the Yanomami, and especially Chagnon and geneticist James V. Neel (1994). After Turner and I read the galleys we agreed that the top leadership of the AAA had to be alerted because of the impending explosion of scandal. We felt that they needed to be prepared to respond to the inevitable public relations dilemma and other problems that were bound to ensue as the media would inevitably discover and publicize the scandal. Turner and I had both served as founding members on the Commission for Human Rights and then on the subsequent Committee for Human Rights of the AAA. Decades before Turner was also involved in the development of a formal statement on professional ethics within the AAA (e.g., Berreman 2003). Furthermore, Turner (1991) had chaired the AAA Special Commission to Investigate the Situation of the Brazilian Yanomami.

The above are the reasons why Turner and I both felt an ethical obligation to alert the top leadership of the AAA about the impending scandal so that they would be prepared. However, to our shock and dismay, one or more of the AAA officials leaked our memo into cyberspace and it soon became widely distributed like a chain reaction, the media focusing on the most sensational allegations by Tierney (e.g., Geertz 2001, Miller 2000, Roosevelt 2000, Sahlins 2000, Wilford and Romero 2000, Wong 2001). We never anticipated nor intended that our memo would be made public because it was a personal communication with the top AAA officials and obviously sensitive and confidential. The memo was only intended to summarize some of Tierney's more serious allegations to alert the AAA leadership, we were not making any changers ourselves. In retrospect, we would still send a memo to the AAA leadership to alert them to the impending scandal, but take more precautions to try to avert any public dissemination of the document.

The above facts concerning our memo were initially explained to Thomas Gregor when he telephoned me after the controversy erupted. However, a published paper trail demonstrates that he has repeatedly misrepresented the facts over the years in spite of being repeatedly challenged and corrected by us (e.g., Gregor and Gross 2002, 2004, Sponsel and Turner 2002). In this respect, Gregor's conduct is disingenuous, unprofessional, and unethical. This is all made worse because Gregor was on my dissertation committee, thus he is well aware of my deep commitment to professional ethics and human rights.

Beyond my aforementioned concerns, I have been involved in the El Dorado controversy in order to take advantage of the opportunity to try to help elevate the level of information, awareness, and responsibility among anthropologists in general regarding professional ethics. If that were to happen then it would encourage more responsible and responsive field research among the Yanomami and other societies (e.g., Fluehr-Lobban 1998, 2002, 2003, Glazer 1996). In fact, a comparison of the discussion of professional ethics in more recent textbooks in cultural anthropology with that in older ones where it is usually negligible or absent demonstrates that the controversy has had some positive impact since it exploded in the fall of the year 2000. Any contribution I may have made to this change, no matter how small, alone makes my sacrifice of time and effort from other matters worthwhile. I could have simply ignored the controversy and the Yanomami with the rationalization that I have been working exclusively in Thailand since 1986, but that would be unconscionable. I had to be engaged, and I wouldn't hesitate to do so again. Furthermore, unlike most of Chagnon's defenders, from the outset of the controversy I have offered several constructive suggestions to the AAA leadership toward enhancing professional ethics within the organization and beyond (see Recommendations 2000 and 2005 on this web site). The controversy has also stimulated the publication of edited books on professional ethics(Caplan 2003, Endicott and Welsch 2003, Fluehr-Lobban 2003, Salzano and Hurtado 2004, Trudy Turner 2005). However, some of the chapters in some of these books disseminate further misinformation and disinformation (e.g., Gross 2004).

Finally, since the eruption of the controversy, I have learned two other lessons albeit somewhat disturbing ones. First, even after decades of being colleagues and friends with some individuals, the nature of their involvement in the controversy and some of their statements have revealed that they lack personal integrity and that they do not really deserve to be considered as friends and colleagues. For instance, when the controversy first exploded, one naive colleague in my own department recklessly forwarded emails on the department listserv from the Evolutionary Psychology listserv with libelous misinformation and disinformation about me and without the professional courtesy of first discussing the controversy with me to obtain my perspective. Second, although since my undergraduate studies I have long respected scientists and academics in general, this controversy has impressed upon me like never before that many scientists and scholars are actually frauds. This is particularly evidenced in the communications of several of the defenders of Chagnon who purposefully ignore and/or detract attention from the real issue--- serious violations of professional ethics and human rights. Some of these defenders create distractions, such as some variant on the accusation that the controversy is an attack on sociobiology by postmodernists (e.g., Gregor and Gross 2004, Gross 2004, Hill 2005, Pinker 2002). In addition, there is the general silence of the majority of anthropologists who, for one reason or another, appear hesitant to engage in any civil and constructive discussion and debate about the controversy. This silence and the rationalizations for it that some have stated are both pathetic.

In conclusion, the above is the background to my personal involvement with the Yanomami and with the El Dorado controversy. Further details can be found in my publications and in the unpublished documents archived in this web site under the two topics of Yanomami and El Dorado Controversy. In the future, these sources will be synthesized in a book I have been researching which is tentatively titled Noble or Fierce? Yanomami and Anthropologists, Professional Ethics and Human Rights.

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