Book Reviews 535

though issued in an edition of 20,000 copies, this writer urges that an Ihglish-language version be published, with full credit to its Soviet compilers.

The H i g h Ti~lley. KENNETH I

536 American Anthropologist [68, 19661

ethnographic research, nor is it a model ethnographic report to be recommended to students. This was surely not Professor Reads intention. But it is an important docu- ment of a sensitive ethnographers reaction to the experience of cue-lessness in a strange and perplexing society. Participant observation and empathy arc necessary to good field work. Unfortunately, they are not sufficient.

The Suvage and the Innocent. DAVID MAYBURY-LEWIS. London: Evans BrothersLimited, 196.5; also, Cleveland and New York: The World Publishing Company, 1965. 270 pp., 37 illustrations, index, 2 maps. 35 s., $4.95.

Reviewed by CHARLES WAGLEY, Columbia University This is the story oC eight months field research among the Sherente and of a slightly

longer period among the Shavante Indians of central Brazil. As the author states in his preface: I have tried to put down here many of those things which never get told in technical anthropological writings. He has been eminently successful in doing so.

Furthermore, although Maybury-Lewis book is not intended as a travel book, it is far better than most books about the Brazilian jungle and the Indians. The author understood what he saw and heard-or he had the honesty to say that he did not under- stand. His story is intrinsically interesting and thrilling without seeking to be spectacu- lar. The book is well written. I am amazed that he was able to record so much dialogue and I am pleased that so much of it rings true to my ear.

The Sherente and the Shavante are central G& speaking tribes who were once thought to be a single people-or a t least closely related tribes. (I gather from the pres- ent book that they are not as similar as once supposed.) In the late 18th and early 19th century, both tribes had contact with Brazilian frontier society. The Sherente, after a period of hostility, entered into peaceful relations with Brazilians in about 18.50. As a result they were highly acculturated and living in misery when David Maybury-Lewis and his wife, Pia, came to study them in 1955 and 1956. The Shavante, on the other hand, reverted to outright hostility in the 19th century. They migrated westward across the Araguaya River where they fought and killed frontiersmen, missionaries, and Indian officers who intruded into their territory. It was not until 1946 that they entered into peaceful relations with the Brazilian Indian Protective Service. When Maybury- Lewis arrived (now accompanied by his wife and a baby son) in 1958, the Shavante were still leading a way of life little changed from that of aboriginal times. He had the un- usual experience of studying a basically hunting and gathering society before it was disrupted and disorganized.

Both tribes were already relatively accessible when the Maybury-Lewises visited them. The Sherente could be reached overland from the town of Carolina on the Tocantins River. There was a landing strip serviced by Brazilian air force planes a t the Indian post in Shavante country. But nothing is really accessible in central Brazil. Maybury-Lewis describes vividly the seemingly eternal days, even weeks, of waiting for the boat that does not come, the baggage that got left behind, or the airplane which suddenly swoops down without warning. Waiting is a large part of any field trip to this part of Brazil. He also describes his first contacts with the people, his relations with informants, his own moods and anxieties, and his vicissitudes and successes infield research. There is also considerable social and cultural data about the Sherente and the Shavante in this book. His data on the Sherente is particularly valuable since Curt Nimuendajus monograph reporting on field work in 1937 is available. In my opinion, Maybury-Lewis account of his field experience among the Shavante would have been more useful to a professional audience if it had been preceded by his forthcoming mono-