"This ethnography is one of the classics in the field of South America. The Jivaro (Shuar) represent one of the most important and politically well-organized groups of South American Indians, and Harner's work, reissued here, will become the major introduction in English to these people for future students."--Brent Berlin, UC Berkeley "Harner, who bases his account upon extensive anthropological field work among the Jivaro, has written one of those rare books which appeal to both scholars and laymen. HIs book provides a solid overview of these freedom-loving people in a concise, readable form. Highly recommended. . . . "--G. Edward Evans, Library Journal "This thoroughly interesting book is based on fourteen months of field work among the Jivaro Indians of Eastern Ecuador. . . . Although the Jivaro have long been regarded as unique and even bizarre, being the most warlike people in the Americas, the author has succeeded in communicating an understanding of them as human beings with basic needs and responses like our own."--Gertrude E. Dole, Natural History

The Cannibal Within offers an evolutionary account of the propensity of human beings, in extreme circumstances to eat other human beings, despite the strong Western taboo against such practices. What sets this volume apart from the large body of literature on cannibalism, both popular and anthropological, is the underlying premise: cannibalism as an alternative to starvation is tacitly condoned by the same biological morality that would condemn cannibalism of other sorts in non-threatening situations. Deep as the taboos may be, the survival instinct runs even deeper. The title of the book reflects the author's belief that cannibalism is not a pathology that erupts in psychotic individuals, but is a universal adaptive strategy that is evolutionarily sound. The cannibal is within all of us, and cannibals are within all cultures, should the circumstances demand cannibalism's appearance and usage. Petrinovich's work is rich in historical detail, and rises to a level of theoretical sophistication in addressing a subject too often dealt with in sensationalist terms. The major instances in which survival cannibalism has occurred convinced the author that there is a consistent pattern and a uniform regularity of order in which different kinds of individuals are consumed. In considering who eats whom, when, and under what circumstances, this regularity appears, and it is consistent with what would be expected on the basis of evolutionary or Darwinian theory. In short, he concludes that starvation cannibalism is not a manifestation of the chaotic, psychotic behavior of individuals who are driven to madness, but reveals underlying characteristics of evolved human beings. Lewis Petrinovich is professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology of the University of California, Riverside and is currently a resident of Berkeley, California.

Only one tribe of American Indians is known ever to have successfully revolted against the empire of Spain and to have thwarted all subsequent attempts by the Spaniards to reconquer them: the Jivaro (hee'-va-ro), the untsuri suarii of eastern Ecuador. From 1599 onward they remained unconquered in their forest fastness east of the Andes, despite the fact that they were known to occupy one of the richest placer gold deposit regions in all of South America. Tales of their fierceness became part of the folklore of Latin America, and their warlike reputation spread in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when Jivaro "shrunken head" trophies, tsantsa, found their way to the markets of exotica in the Western world. As occasional travelers visited them in the first decades of this century, the Jivaro also became known not as just a warlike group, but as an individualistic people intensely jealous of their freedom and unwilling to be subservient to authority, even among themselves. It was this quality that particularly attracted me when I went to study their way of life in 1956-57 and I was most fortunate, at that time, to find, especially east of the Cordillera de Cutucli, a portion of the Jivaro still unconquered and still living, with some changes, their traditional life style. This book is about their culture.

“Imagine if Monty Python wrote the Mayo Clinic Family Health Book, and you sort of get the idea. Afraid you’re afflicted with an unknown malady? Finally you have a place to turn!” —Book Sense You hold in your hands the most complete and official guide to imaginary ailments ever assembled—each disease carefully documented by the most stellar collection of speculative fiction writers ever to play doctor. Detailed within for your reading and diagnostic pleasure are the frightening, ridiculous, and downright absurdly hilarious symptoms, histories, and possible cures to all the ills human flesh isn’t heir to, including Ballistic Organ Disease, Delusions of Universal Grandeur, and Reverse Pinocchio Syndrome. Lavishly illustrated with cunning examples of everything that can’t go wrong with you, the Lambshead Guide provides a healthy dose of good humor and relief for hypochondriacs, pessimists, and lovers of imaginative fiction everywhere. Even if you don’t have Pentzler’s Lubriciousness or Tian Shan-Gobi Assimilation, the cure for whatever seriousness may ail you is in this remarkable collection.

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