Maybury-Lewis, David. The Savage and the Innocent. Essay, Summary, Review. ANTV 315

The Savage and the Innocent 
In his book David Maybury-Lewis offers an anecdotal narrative of his time among the Sherente in Brazil during the years of 1955-1956. Through a vivid and articulate serious of stories and thick description, Maybury-Lewis sought to offer an unrestricted view of indigenous life that succeeded in refusing to pander to favored images of the primitive. Establishing his work in technical, ethnographic description, Maybury-Lewis sought to bring transparency to the relationship between fieldwork and narrative.  
As a short preface, Maybury-Lewis established his voice and his audience by declaring, "This is an account of our experiences; it is not an essay in anthropology. Indeed I have tried to put down her many of these things which never get told in technical anthropological writings—Our impressions of Central Brazil, our personal reactions to the various situations in which we found ourselves, and above all our feelings about day-to-day business which is mysteriously known as 'doing fieldwork'. The narrative is therefore intentionally anecdotal." By providing that his book is not an essay in anthropology, The Savage and the Innocent anticipates the self-introspections in regards to the author's previous understandings of relational social processes. 
Maybury-Lewis and his wife actively participated within the community, giving children medicine and improving their Sherente by discussing dreams and magic with the community. This provides an insight to conflict and connection between this particular indigenous population and the widespread, dominant population.  
In a deviance from typical ethnographies, Maybury-Lewis was deeply reflective in his use of flowery description and long form narrative. Through his first three chapters he doesn't even make it to the community in which he is hoping to study, describing the long process of making it to his destination, first beginning in Europe, then the frustrating time within Brazil. As stated in his preface, this study is told more like a story than like scientific evidence. 
There is also a prevalent use of dialogue in conversation, in quite a different manner than we have studied previously in this class. Maybury-Lewis made sure to describe the setting, tone, and impact of each conversation he had. An example of this deeply descriptive and impactiful language comes from one of his many conversations with a native, "'We Sherente like to smoke,' he replied with a shy giggle. 'The civilisados sell us tobacco, but it is dear.' He drew out the word for emphasis. 'And when the Indian has anything to sell to the civilisado, then they don't want to give us anything for it.' He adopted the whining voice in which the Sherente intoned their wrongs, so I hastily changed the subject." (42-43).  
This quote leads one to read this study as a story. It is complete with the use of plot, conflict, and conclusion. Each chapter lists a conflict, such as when his wife became ill and it was declared she was bewitched, ending with her being healed. Despite being so narrative in nature, the use of thick description results in a comprehensive fieldwork dissertation, an account of considerable theoretical work that describes the structure and organization of more than one community in the eastern lands of Brazil. 
While The Savage and the Innocent details the journey to meet, study, and become a part of a people regarded by westerners as the "wildest Indians" and "notorious savages", known to have killed many white people previously, Maybury-Lewis does not utilize romanizations of the "savage", but rather reports how the community works in their daily lives and how they change when they open themselves up to newcomers. 
















Bibliography 
 Maybury-Lewis, David. The Savage and the Innocent. Beacon Press, 1988. 

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