Culture, especially one that is of another tribe is something that is not easy to understand. This is because what is acceptable in a tribe can lead to one being hanged in another tribe. In most countries, cannibalism is highly unacceptable.
However, in a tiny village in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil, the Yanomami tribe does just that.
The Yanomami tribe is a group of about 35,000 indigenous people. They make up about 200 to 250 villages in the Amazon rainforest.
The rainforest is their primary resource for growing, gathering, and hunting food. To avoid using up an area’s resources, they constantly move their villages to new locations.
Death Beliefs
The Yanomami don’t believe that death is a natural occurrence. They believe that a rival tribe’s shaman sent an evil spirit to someone in their tribe.
It’s important to protect the spirit after death and help them reach peace in the spirit world. They don’t hunt certain bird types, because a spirit could enter the body and not achieve peace.
They also believe that the deceased’s spirit can’t reach the spirit world until they’re gone from the living world by completing specific funeral rituals.
Funeral Rituals
The deceased aren’t buried since the burial and decomposition process is too long. Instead, they have a special cremation ritual. When someone passes away, they cover their body with leaves in the forest for about 30 to 45 days.
Then, they collect the bones for the cremation ceremony. During the cremation, you can hear crying and singing among the village members.
After the cremation, they collect the ashes for a soup.
They believe that consuming the deceased’s ashes keeps the deceased’s spirit alive for the next generations. The deceased’s spirit can’t reach peace in the spirit world until they eat the soup.
For the soup, they mix the deceased’s ashes with fermented bananas. Then, they fill a gourd with the soup and pass it along for the entire community to eat.
If an enemy tribe member killed the deceased, they may keep the ashes around until they can get revenge for the deceased’s death. They don’t want to eat the soup until the deceased can have a peaceful path to the spirit world.
On the night of the planned revenge raid, only the women eat the soup.
They also worry about the spirits of deceased warriors whose bodies weren’t found, because they can’t perform their cremation ritual.
God need to sent His evangelists to the yanomami tribe in the amozon they are real innocently in the dark ,they need the gospel of Christ.