Women of the Forest

Rating:
Summary: Classic Study of Brazil's Mundurucu' Indians
Review: "In the morning we sat behind our house drinking coffee and watching the mists rising from the hillside in thin tendrils that were said by the Indians (who knew that it was really mist) to be the campfire of a mythical inambu bird. And the evenings often closed in brilliant, iridescent sunsets, kaleidoscopes of shifting colors. It was an enchanted land existing in a distant place and peopled by descendants of a remote age. To enter it was to step through the looking glass."

What would it be like to be a woman living in the Brazilian Amazon Basin? What if you lived in the moment, survival being a daily challenge? How would you set up your life so you had the support you needed when a man walked out of your life leaving you to care for his children? The women in the Amazon have it all figured out. In the first four pages you see the exotic beauty and undeniable reality of life.

The authors were a newly married couple when they first walked into a Mundurucu village in 1952. This book was written in the 70s and explains life from the perspective of a female anthropologist. Yolanda spent time with the women who accepted her as a friend and sister. Robert spent time with the men and learned about the ways they felt towards the women and how seriously they took their religious beliefs. This book really does include both sides, but has a definite focus on women.

This is a fascinating study of how the Mundurucu women humor the "mythically dominant" males, how they care for their men and how they survive when their marriages don't work out. It is a story about how women have found a way to survive by bonding with other women and sticking together through life.

When you read this book you realize how universal women really are. They all seem to basically want the same thing. You have to laugh when you read how the women encourage their husbands to work harder so they can buy new clothes and are even quite willing to do the work themselves. In fact, from this book, it does appear both sexes are working rather hard all day long just to survive. Afternoon naps are however a necessity because of the heat.

This story is also a beautiful look at survival. Of how men and women depend on one another to meet their basic needs. In the Mundurucu society, women and men took on various roles and responsibilities although the women tended to do most of the menial tasks and raised the children. Sound familiar? Well life is changing all over the world and by the end of this book, you can see how the Mundurucu Indians have already adapted to change.

Contents:

Woman's Day
The Land and the People
Munmdurucu Culture
Women in Myth and Symbol
The Woman's World
Women and Married Life
Women and Social Change
Women and Men

The work of Yolanda and Robert Murphy encourages an understanding of women's lives in the non-Western world. It focuses on gender relations and the social roles women play in the Amazon forest. Yolanda explains how the women rear their children, take care of their husbands, form groups to complete tasks and keep control of their lives even in difficult situations. There are descriptions of bathing in rivers, preparing foods, gardening, feasts, childcare, rubber collection and all sorts of interesting facts about the lives of the Mundurucu people.

While I thought this book would be only focusing on the women, the second chapter surprised me with information about the land and there are a few maps. There is also plenty of information about the men and what they desire, miss about the older cultures and how they even laugh and say that the homes really do belong to the women and in some areas the men live in a "men's house." There is information about hunting trips and the crafts the men work on in their spare time.

The processing of the manioc plant will interest anyone who has ever cooked tapioca. The myths are entertaining and it was interesting to read their version of the Adam and Eve story.

A widely read and beautifully written classic study of Brazil's Mundurucu Indians.

Rating:
Summary: Women of the Forest
Review: I found this book to be a rather insiteful and refreshing look at a culture from a woman's standpoint. Another reviewer of this book complained that the details of the women's daily life was dull and that the lack of the man's viewpoint left little to learn of the culture. I completely disagree. Traditionally, anthropology focuses on the lives of men when studying any culture leaving women to automatically seem umimportant and mundane. In studying the Mundurucu, the Murphey's realized that the women of the village were the real backbone. Yes, men provided the most coveted village luxury of meat, but little else. The women provided the staple of village nutrition, almost singlehandedly raised children, and furthermore, the Murphey's detected that the women of the village understood the importance of their role while allowing the men to believe themsevles in control. This idea gives the reader a much deeper understanding of the culture rather than just from the point of view of the male sex. The above mentioned reviewer also complained that Yolanda Murphey seems to have written the majority of the book: while this opinion cannot be proved of disproved here, I would refer this reviwer to the section of the book where the Murphey's discuss the overall advantage any female anthropologist has in the field. They found that Yolanda was readily accepted by the women of the village simply because she wasn't a man, furthermore, Yolanda was more accepted by the men in the village than her husband because she was seen as an outsider rather than as a woman whereas her husband was a man to them who did not have the hunting skills needed to be accepted by them. No wonder then, that Yolanda would be able to provide a more insightful outlook on the Mundurucu cluture! Overall, the book was anything but mundane and gave a refreshing view of anthropolocigal research. The tactic of viewing the culture from a woman's point of view gave a new meaning to the ideas that fuel the culture.

Rating:
Summary: How Typical and Dry Can They Get?
Review: This is the traditional anthropology book written during the women's lib movement. Certainly, women's issues are important to understanding a culture, but they are not the only part of the culture that one should focus on.

First, as mentioned earlier, they seem to only focus on the women's lives of the community. They may mention men here and there, but only in relevance to women. Are men unimportant without women? Do they not have a separate life? Perhaps if the men's lives had been discussed even a bit, I would have learned something about their culture.

Secondly, Yolanda seems to be the main author of this book. Her husband has done all of his publishing from their excursion, so he seems to have little influence over the content. Perhaps he should because then the reader might get a fuller picture of their lives.

Finally, they focus on the traditional and boring aspects of female lives. Perhaps that is great for a thesis, but not for the average reader. The details given are less interesting than a cold, gray day in London.

Perhaps this book was a great introduction into how not to write a book for anthropology, but it certainly would not be of any use for other purposes.