Affable Savages

Huxley made two trips to the Brazilian jungle to live with the Urubu Indians, learning some of their language, listening to their stories and witnessing their lifestyles and ceremonies. He spoke with many of the elders, taking particular interest in their stories and legends.

While he is a trained anthropologist, his writing style is very non-academic - I mean that in a good way. He doesn't take a highbrow approach of analysis, but offers very simple down to earth explanation. I found an obituary about him, (and copied it to his author page) where it states that he “adopted a new, ‘reflexive' approach to the study of culture in which the author's encounters with the ‘other' are reflected as much in personal reactions as in objective descriptions.” and that “Francis was a pioneer of this form of anthropological writing.”

By far the best part of this book is when Huxley tells a legend of tribal story, and then gives a concise explanation of how the legend would have originated and for what purpose. For that alone, this book picked up and extra star.

As well as explaining the legends Huxley has organised the book into topic chapters such as: Urubu Manners; Chiefs; Hunting and Eating; Quarrels; Measles and Death; Sex; Puberty Rites; Shamans; etc. These all contain the various stories and legends mentioned above, and are all worked in to relevant chapters.

Huxley does a pretty good job with pace. There are some patches which slow down a bit, and had me looking forward a page or two to see how far away the chapter end was, but in general it moves from interesting point to interesting point at enough pace to keep the reader interested.

My edition contained no photos. Good photos would have helped interpret the descriptions, and would have added to the writing. They may well have been present in the original, non-bookclub edition.

Overall 3.5 to 4 stars. **