Paper short abstract:

Going beyond the often cited micro-macro cosmic correspondences of the Yanomami communal house, this paper examines the secular, affectionate geometry of the elementary family dwelling. Inserted in the moral panopticon of the village, two opposite poles reveal an unstable balance of community life.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the relation between the Yanomami family house (yãno) and the roundhouse-village (shapono), as two poles in a dialectical enactment of central societal values. Micro-macro cosmic correspondences of the communal house have been over-emphasised in scholarly literature, calling for an interpretation of the secular interaction between house and village. Despite a variety of architectural types, all such Yanomami houses share the basic arrangement of beams around the hearth, the "elementary yãno".Cooking, eating, suckling, mutual grooming and caring, news exchange and visitor interaction take place here. These incorporate and reproduce the constitutive Yanomami morality of care and reciprocity.

A house is a roof, built to protect one or several elementary yãno, strung in a circular succession around a plaza, and expressing a defining feature of society as an aggregation of units of domestic production. But the circular arrangement of open houses performs a panoptic function, rendering visible the actions and food production of all domestic members. The perceived increase of wealth -such as as when privileged relations with outsiders provide tools, food or clothes- triggers negative reciprocity. Discursive demands of restitution by the person offended underscore the moral values of productive gardening and generosity. Significantly, these are expressed as the term "urifi noamai" ("valorising-defending the place"). The dialectics between the family unit and the village that emerges configures an emplaced tension between the domestic and the political, two poles which reveal the unstable balance of Yanomami community life, taking the house-village as a privileged scenario.