Yanoama
1996 English edition
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| Author | Ettore Biocca, Helena Valero (uncredited) |
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| Language | Italian |
| Publisher | Leonardo da Vinci |
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Publication date
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1965 |
| OCLC | 253337729 |
Yanoama: The Story of Helena Valero, a Girl Kidnapped by Amazonian Indians (original Italian title Yanoáma: dal racconto di una donna rapita dagli Indi) is a biography of Helena Valero, a white woman who was captured in the 1930s as a girl by the Yanomami, an indigenous tribe living in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil. She lived with the Yanomami for about two decades (variously given as 20, 22, or 24 years). While living with the Yanoama, Valero married twice and gave birth to four children (three sons and one daughter). She escaped in 1956 to what she refers to as "the white man" in the country of her birth. After rejection by her family and living in poverty at a mission, Valero chose to return to life with the Yanomami.
Valero recounted her life's story to Italian anthropologist Ettore Biocca, who published the account in 1965. In the book, Valero tells of life in the forest: hunter-gatherer living in the Amazon; the customs, lore, rituals, and observances of Yanomami culture; and the relationships and wars between individuals, families, and tribes. The book includes detailed information about life in several Yanomami tribes.
Its authenticity is accepted by anthropologists.
Ettore Biocca, an Italian anthropologist, compiled information about Valero's experience among the Yanoama from tape recordings he made of Valero between 1962 and 1963. Biocca used a three-pronged method: asking the same questions, listening to the same stories several times, and comparing each story to the others. He found no inconsistency.
Biocca also published other volumes of Valero's accounts, which include a great deal of information on the culture of the Yanoama.
Helena is a girl of Spanish descent ("white girl" in the book), who lives next to a river near the Amazon forest with her family of subsistence farmers. When she is a preadolescent (between 11 and 13 years old), the family is attacked by native warriors ("Indians" in the book). She is wounded and captured by one of the Yanoama tribes, and they take her to live with them.
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