15 Facts About Napoleon Chagnon

Napoleon Alphonseau Chagnon was an American cultural anthropologist, professor of sociocultural anthropology at the University of Missouri in Columbia and member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Napoleon Chagnon's work centered on the analysis of violence among tribal peoples, and, using socio-biological analyses, he advanced the argument that violence among the Yanomami is fueled by an evolutionary process in which successful warriors have more offspring.

Napoleon Chagnon was born in Port Austin, Michigan, and was the second of twelve children.

Napoleon Chagnon was best known for his long-term ethnographic field work among the Yanomamo, indigenous Amazonians who live in the border area between Venezuela and Brazil.

Napoleon Chagnon's positing of a link between reproductive success and violence cast doubt on the sociocultural perspective that cultures are constructed from human experience.

An enduring controversy over Napoleon Chagnon's work has been described as a microcosm of the conflict between biological and sociocultural anthropology.

Napoleon Chagnon was a pioneer in the field of visual anthropology.

Napoleon Chagnon collaborated with ethnographic filmmaker Tim Asch and produced a series of more than twenty ethnographic films documenting Yanomamo life.

Marshall Sahlins, who was a major critic of Napoleon Chagnon, resigned from the academy, citing Napoleon Chagnon's induction as one of the reasons he quit.

On 21 September 2019, Napoleon Chagnon died at the age of 81.

The interviews upon which the book was based all came from members of the Salesians of Don Bosco, a congregation of the Catholic Church, which Napoleon Chagnon had criticized and angered.

Emily Eakin countered that Albert "cannot demonstrate a direct connection between Napoleon Chagnon's writings and the government's Indian policy" and that the idea that scientists should suppress unflattering information about their subjects is troubling and supports the idea that nonviolence is a prerequisite for protecting the Yanomamo.

Napoleon Chagnon said that it was instead local Salesian priests who were supplying guns to the Yanomamo, who then used them to kill each other.

Napoleon Chagnon stated that his beliefs about sociobiology and kin selection were misinterpreted and misunderstood, similarly because of a rejection of scientific and biological explanations for culture within anthropology.

Napoleon Chagnon worked with ethnographic filmmaker Tim Asch to produce at least forty films on Yanomamo culture, including The Feast, Magical Death and The Ax Fight.