Rating: 
Summary: A GIFT TO HUMANITY
Review: "Into the Heart" by Kenneth Good with David Chanoff was for me the most inspiring book of this decade and this century. When I began reading it, I could not put it down until I read the last sentence, in the wee hours of the morning.This book had such an impact on me that I was compelled to read it over and over again. It was THIS BOOK that inspired me to travel to the Amazon in October 1999. I would highly recommend this excellent account of life among stone age people for anyone who has an open mind and wants to learn of aboriginal cultures in South America. This book is for everyone who likes to read about adventure, travel, altruism, love, and the dangers one may encounter travelling in "unchartered waters." It would have been difficult for me not to identify with the protagonist (the author)as I read of his struggles to learn the language, to gain acceptance in Yanomami society, to learn the simple code of ethics in a primitive culture as well as his efforts to acquire survival skills such as learning to fish, hunt, climb trees, go on long treks. My own sense of wonder and excitement grew when I read of the author's "first contact" with hitherto uncontacted Yanomami tribes, and the reaction of these people upon seeing an outsider-a white man-for the first time! I was filled with admiration for the author when I read in chapter 9 that he distributed his very last malaria pill to a Yanomami tribesman, a deed for which he almost paid the ultimate price. His inner struggles with his conscience are apparent when in chapter 7 the author could no longer be the casual observer, the detached scientist-researcher, and allow the stabbing of a poor, whimpering, malaria stricken woman. A scientist in the field is supposed to observe but not intervene. By putting his feelings first, he saved a life. Upon reading this book, I felt the utter despair that the author must have experienced when he thought he would lose his wife, Yarima, because of needless red tape, delaying his permit to return to her and her tribe. I also felt his happiness upon finding her again. I was sorry to learn when I saw the National Geographic documentary entitled "Yanomami Homecoming" that Yarima decided not to return to the USA with her husband and children, especially since she indicated in the documentary that she loved her husband. This was why she had married him and moved to New Jersey where she lived for 6 years trying to adapt to western life. My life was greatly enriched by reading this book. I had learned a great deal about birth and death in Yanomami society, about funeral practices, incest taboos, practising agriculture in the jungle, strange customs such as body painting and other forms of body beautification. Having read several other books about indigenous people of the Amazon I can truly say, this book eclipses them all. Books I have read about the Yanomami include: "Amazon" and "Savages" both by Dennison Berwick; "Aborigines of the Amazon Rainforest" by Robin Hanbury Tenison; and "Amazon Journal" by Geoffrey O'Connor. From an avid reader in Alberta, Canada, October 30, 1999 *****
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Summary: A Bible-based love
Review: Book review I have found the book "Into The Heart" by Kenneth Good very appealing both from a woman's point of view and from a Scriptural aspect. When reading the Bible about how a husband ought to love his wife: Ephesians chapter 5 verses 25, 28, 29, 31, 33, is very clear on that. In Kenneth Good's book I could sense the genuine love this man had for his wife which he had demonstrated in so many ways. In the jungle, he tried to protect her from harm. During an imminent miscarriage, he insisted on carrying her heavy basket, while they were trekking in the rainforest. Husbands in that culture did not carry women's baskets even if these women were at death's door. Later, when the miscarriage was in progress, he was at her side in the dark of night, trying to comfort her. To shield her from insect bites he sprayed her back with mosquito repellent. A woman is obviously not at her attractive best during a miscarriage or childbirth, but this author was not turned off by her appearance. He did what he could to minimize her suffering. These were acts of kindness out of love. All he wanted to do was to ease her suffering, discomfort and fear. How many men in our Western civilized society would do this? A few but not all! He further demonstrated his love for his wife when he took her back to the United States. By marrying her, he had made a statement to the WORLD: This is the woman I love, she is the one I have chosen to be the mother of my children. He knew full well that by this interracial cross cultural marriage he would face some criticism. Racism after all is alive and well in our Western Societies. But this author stood by his wife, was never ashamed to be seen with her. Financial sacrifices were made to return for a visit to his wife's tribe and family. It was during such a trip that their second child was born in a jungle hut. It is obvious that every thought of the author was to please his wife, to make her happy, to make her isolation and separation from her family bearable. This is a poignant love story, a story of endurance, a story of sacrifice, a story of one man's unselfish love for his wife. Albeit he lost his wife, but I concur with the saying: " It is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all". A reader in Canada. macska@christiancanada.com
Rating:
Summary: Into the Heart and Into My Heart
Review: Good's work is a participant observation study of a primitive group of Indians who live along the Orinoco river in the Amazon. These people live communally and have a different world view than most of us are familiar with. As a result, the Yanomama normative structure is based on their world and culture. As I tell my sociology students, certain patterns may be considered universal, but the content of culture varies. For example, the Yanomama have no concept of privacy. Everything they did according to Good was public, except for sex and defecation. This is similar to the south African !Kung (Bushmen) who have no word for stranger. (Lee, 1969, !Kung Bushmen Subsistence...) They lived in large circular houses called shapono. There were no walls in these structures, and people arranged themselves by kinship and lineage so that the social organization of the families in the village is reflected in the placement of hearths and hammocks. It is within this structure and the central plaza that nearly all domestic activity takes place: child rearing, food distribution and preparation, trading and feasting, curing and cremation, drug taking of the men, singing and dancing of the women. (p. 33) Good referred to the Yanomama as the pain in the neck people instead of the fierce people as Napoleon Chagnon did in his original work of the same title. Good found the Yanomama's lack of concern for privacy somewhat difficult to deal with. In our culture, privacy and independence are the expected norm. We even have terms for behaviors that violate such norms such as invasion of privacy and, of course, trespassing. The Yanomama are not viewed as violent or aggressive but rather as highly emotional and acting without (social) constraints. We might call this behavior impulsive. Good believed that "... the best way to study the Yanomama was to understand the entire cultural context, rather than concentrate solely on the quantitative measurements...wanted to understand them--and I wanted them to understand me...not simply to record what they were doing, but to comprehend what it meant in the context of their lives." (p. 47) The Yanomama never use their names in public...they call each other by the appropriate kinship term (father, mother, son, daughter) (p. 52) With a numeric system that stops at two, the Yanomama do not reckon years or ages; instead they categorize people according to general age groups: infants, children, adolescents, adults, elders. (p. 66) Their sense of self (women) included lack of concern for the way they appeared to others. Judgments about another person were not based on how they looked/appeared. Although skills in hunting and shamanism were valued, still every person was on the same level as every other one. There was minimal concern with vanity. (p. 80). Among the Indians, a visit is never just a visit...and trade is always involved. (p. 97) Normally, the Indians don't like to have their pictures taken since they believe that the image (soul-noreshi) is captured. They were especially irritated when the German scientist Eibel-Eibesfeldt set up a video camera in the middle of the village all day. (p. 137) I certainly empathize with Kenneth Good's comments about Chagnon's work. Unfortunately, I have never been to the Amazon, or lived with the Yanomamo. I do envy his experiences. In addition, I give complete credibility to his comments and find them most interesting. In the past, I assigned his book as required reading for my Sociology classes. I also list Chagnon's work as supplementary reading as well.
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Summary: This is one of the only books that I've read from cover to c
Review: I am a sociologist, and have used Good and Chanoff's book, Into the Heart, as required reading in one of my courses for four years in a row. It's a large second-year course on comparative sociology, and it aims to help students develop an ability to understand and analyze societies of very different types. To this end, the course blends sociology, anthropology and history. The book Into the Heart was originally brought to my attention by a college representative of its publishing company; she said it was one of the most fascinating books she'd ever read, and she thought it might work well in my course. I dutifully began to read it, and wound up making the decision to adopt it even before I'd finished reading it -- I found it that good. Four years later, now, I can say this: out of all the books I've used as required reading in all the courses I've taught, none has ever caught the attention of my students as well as Into the Heart. I've had students come up to me spontaneously to say things like it was the most interesting book they'd ever read, that having started it they'd stayed up all night reading it, that they'd bought a copy for a friend as a Christmas present, etc. The book is unique in my experience in that way. The issues it revolves around divide opinion among students, but it seems to never fail to fascinate them, and the disagreements make for excellent discussions class discussions. My teaching assistants tell me the same about their experiences with it in the tutorials they run. They also tell me that the students engage themselves with this book like no other. I'd encourage anyone to read it, and would specifically encourage faculty looking for captivating reading for their students, in relevant courses, to check it out.
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Summary: Very moving, real account of cultural contact
Review: I have read many anthropological ethnographies and personal descriptions; this is perhaps the best I've read. (Another interesting book about the Yanamami, by a woman anthropologist, is Shabono.) I wanted to add to the previously contributed reviews that there is a follow-up documentary, done by National Geographic Society (I believe) a few years after the book was written, which describes what happened to the marriage between Kenneth Good and his Yanamamo wife. His wife was completely unprepared for life in the West and had almost no support systems available to her. She ended up returning to her people.
Rating:
Summary: A detailed, thoughtful book written to a wide audience
Review: I have used Ken Good's book, Into the Heart, as a text in my anthropology classes with great success. This is a captivating book that students devour, students have told me that they pass this book on to family members after reading it in class. It does much to dispel the erroneous claims that the Yanomama are somehow an overly fierce and unusually violent people. Good's extensive ethnographic experience and detailed account of Yanomama life make this a classic ethnographic text that will last for generations to come.
Rating:
Summary: Moving piece of work
Review: I was lucky enough to have Dr. Good for a class one semester at NJCU where he teaches. This book is an insightful look into a world far removed from ours. If one had read this book without meeting Professor Good, one would wonder what type of man he is given the difficulties he faced in the Amazon. Ken is one of the most down to earth professors I've ever had and opened my eyes to a new culture while teaching me to put aside ethnocentrism. If you attend NJCU, I suggest taking him for an anthropology class. Be prepared to have your cultural horizons broadened.
Rating:
Summary: Moving piece of work
Review: I was lucky enough to have Dr. Good for a class one semester at NJCU where he teaches. This book is an insightful look into a world far removed from ours. If one had read this book without meeting Professor Good, one would wonder what type of man he is given the difficulties he faced in the Amazon. Ken is one of the most down to earth professors I've ever had and opened my eyes to a new culture while teaching me to put aside ethnocentrism. If you attend NJCU, I suggest taking him for an anthropology class. Be prepared to have your cultural horizons broadened.
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Summary: Another anthropologist's take on "Into the Heart"
Review: Ken Good's Into the Heart is a valuable addition to anthropological literature for several reasons: it gives us a personal account of the trials, tribulations, and rewards of fieldwork; it adds some balance to the literature on the Yanomama, which has at times focused almost obsessively on the violent aspects of their culture; and it provides a context within which some aspects of the ethics of ethnographic fieldwork can be discussed. Ken's book is an account of the encounter between one anthropologist and the people he studied. It is absorbing always, joyful at times, painful at other times, and it certainly contains lessons about the difficulties of cross-cultural relationships. Ronald Kephart Ph.D., Anthropology
Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't be More Disgusting.
Review: Kenneth Good is an anthropologist who studies the Yanimamo indians. The Yanimamo, "Fierce People," settle disputes by shouting and hitting each other over the head with sticks. The Yanimamo males also have a charming custom of grabbing a random girl and dragging her into the jungle to molest her in a gang.
Furthermore, if a female won't get married, they kill her. If fellow clans don't have enough food at a feast, it triggers a war. The entire society is full of hostility and poor impulse control.
KG notes some facts about the Yanimamo. One is, there are no gay people. The other is, certain practices such as oral are incomprehensible and they'd never even think of such a thing.
KG also meets a young Yanimamo female, when she's just a little girl. When she's fourteen, she gets married to him. And later, although oddly enough I can't find how much (read: short) a time, they consummate their wedding. Well, hooray for pedophiliac overtones!
Okay. She's beautiful, and he suggests they get un-married because he's afraid he won't be a good Yanimamo husband to her. She won't hear of it; it's inconceivable. He leaves on an anthropologist trip. She gets assualted, abducted, and forced into the practice of oral. Despite her testimony that this happened, it remains in the book as unthinkable among the Yanimamo. Furthermore, he admires that she's gotten over having a group of men assault her, although today's modern woman would require much counseling.
Problem: she suggests un-marrying him so she can marry a Yanimamo husband who won't leave her for weeks on her own. She suggests this. And prior to her being abandoned and assaulted, it was literally beyond her comprehension.
When people majorly switch their worldview after trauma, it's a sign that they could use counseling. Good, however, just thinks of her as a blow-up noble savage doll. He talks her out of it and onward they go. Oh, what a wonderful picture of the true romance between a girl and a gray-haired man!
Have I mentioned that she gets pregnant? She has a stillbirth, several months before term, and KG leaves her into the jungle and goes back to the village. Partially at her own insistence, partially because it's dirty and icky and he doesn't need to see her perfect thighs with blood all over them because he had relations with a minor. He does come back to keep the flies off her.
If you think this stillbirth means she's going into town for a doctor's checkup before Kenneth Good has relations with her again, or before she gets left in the village alone again, you give Kenneth Good some humane points he doesn't deserve. Good doesn't spare much concern for potential scarring to her (or infertility because of her baby being stillborn so late in the pregnancy.) He's too busy patting himself on the back for marrying someone so resilient. It just makes me want to engage all the nine-year-olds I can find to Good!
She gets left alone in the village again. Maybe the Clue Fairies should turn him into a Yanimamo woman and strand him in their village until he catches on. Assault and abduction ensue again. Her ear gets half torn off by a suitor. Good recovers her and takes her into to the city to get her ear put back together. In other words, he's more concerned about her beauty being repaired than her damaged sexuality getting repaired. He's also not worried that physical or emotional scarring from her miscarriage and multiple rapes might give her fear and pain during further relations with her. It seems never to cross his mind.
He doesn't re-interpret his stance on oral after the assault on his wife included that practice, and it remains in the book as unthinkable among the Yanimamo. . . even though the Yanimamo do it. This also doesn't cause him to alter his thoughts that maybe, since he was wrong about one practice, he's overlooking homosexual attraction in the Yanimamo society. How can he be wrong? He, the savior of his barely pubescent bride and light of the rainforest?
Kenneth Good now spends a lot of time on his persecution by the government. What's more concern-worthy is when he finally takes her back to civilisation he is persecuted for cohabiting with a minor. . . and he has the gall to expect the reader to be on his side.
Let's turn this story into action/adventure! Flog him! Lock him up!
There's a lot of time spent by the cops scaring the girl into thinking he'll take her away from her village and she'll never see her parents again. Then, at the end of the book, he takes her back to the states and marries her there. So her fear that she'll take him away from her village and she'll never see her parents again is 100% correct. Good doesn't even bother to notice that she was afraid of this.
Okay, so the reason he's a hero among anthropologists is that he married a young, beautiful native wife, brought her back into the states, and now is married to a woman free of those pesky concepts like "equal rights." Oh, what a sweet, romantic story!
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