New Tribes Mission

Part of the Series: Yanomamo Collection

The mission in Bisaasi-teri has a style and orientation quite different from the Salesian mission shown in Ocamo is My Town. The New Tribes Mission has been in this region since the early 1950s. Their main goal, the missionary-teacher in the film explains, is spiritual: to bring the message of Jesus and salvation to the Indians, and to teach them to reject their false gods, demons, and drugs. "Only God makes men happy; life is nothing," the teacher leads the schoolboys in a Spanish song. She also speaks Yanomamo, not, she states, because she is particularly interested in the local language or the culture, but because it facilitates conversion of the Indians. Glimpses of a village near the mission reflect the material processes of change: shotguns and cane arrows hang side-by-side, and Yanomamo in varying degrees of Western dress socialize with others lying naked in their hammocks. Filmmaker: Timothy Asch, Napoleon Chagnon