by Florinda Donner
Anthropologist Donner's account of her year-long stay in an isolated jungle village on the border of Brazil and Venezuela sheds a new, beautiful light on primitive life. Like her friend Carlos Castaneda, the Venezuelan-born Donner began by using conventional research methods. But then she made the difficult journey to a tiny village—a shabono, in the language of the Yanomama Indians. She studied the community by giving herself up to it: She ate grubs, painted her body, danced in religious ceremonies, and fought a neighboring tribe with a bow and arrow. Donner says she learned about love, nature and human dignity. She points out, too, that "the Yanomama, just like ourselves, have their biases; they believe whites are infantile and thus less intelligent." (Delacorte, $14.95)
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