Living with the Wayapi, and their charismatic leader Waiwai, is a serious adventure. It is demanding, and can turn dangerous in a moment. The environment is a difficult one, but beautiful and baffling in its richness. And the job of learning about the people is like a journey without end. Alan Campbell tells the story of these people, and of the time he spent with them, in an imaginative, beautifully written account which looks back from a century into the future to relate a way of life that is being destroyed. In doing so, he addresses important and complex issues in current anthroplogical theory in a way which makes them accessible without sacrificing any of their subtlety.

Alan Tormaid Campbell teaches Social Anthropology at Edinburgh University. He is the author of To Square with Genesis: Causal Statements and Shamanic Ideas in Wayapí (Polygon, 1990) and has been involved with the Wayapí Indians since 1974.