Hungry lightning : notes of a woman anthropologist in Venezuela / Pei-Lin Yu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Yu, Pei-Lin, 1964-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Yu, Pei-Lin, 1964-.

Yu, Pei-Lin.

Women anthropologists--Venezuela--Biography.

Women anthropologists.

Yaruro Indians.

Manners and customs.

Venezuela.

Yaruro Indians--Social life and customs.

Ethnology--Fieldwork.

Ethnology.

Genre:

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

xiii, 238 pages : illustrations, map ; 21 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, [1997]

Summary:

A young student of anthropology receives an offer she can't refuse: the chance to live among the Pume, a South American hunting-and-gathering people who call the tropical Venezuelan savannah home. During their time in the village of Doro Ana, the author and the principal researcher study a vanishing way of life in which cash money, the written word, automobiles, and airplanes are rare and frightening intrusions.

Adopted into a Pume family, Yu's informal and personal accounts of events during her two years' stay sparkle with descriptive flourishes and turns of phrase as she describes the daily cycles of birth, growth, romance, sickness, healing, and death among the villagers. Enlivened with the author's own illustrations, Yu's journal entries seek to present through a young American's eyes a sketch of her Pume family, their heroic struggle to survive in a changing world, and the power and mystery of the Pume way of life.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-238).

ISBN:

082631807X

OCLC:

36776381