Invented Eden

by Robin Hemley

"In 1971, a band of twenty-six "Stone Age" rain-forest dwellers was discovered living in total isolation by Manuel Elizalde, a Philippine government minister with a dubious background. The tribe was soon featured in nightly American newscasts and graced the cover of National Geographic. They were visited by such celebrities as Charles Lindbergh and Gina Lollobrigida. But after a series of aborted anthropological forays, the 45,000-acre Tasaday Reserve established by Ferdinand Marcos was closed to all visitors, and the tribe vanished from public view." "Twelve years later, a Swiss reporter hiked into the area and discovered that the Tasaday were actually farmers who had been coerced by Elizalde into dressing in leaves and posing in caves with stone tools. Soon the "anthropological find of the century" had become the "ethnographic hoax of the century."" "Or maybe not. Robin Hemley tells a story that is more complex than either the hoax proponents or the Tasaday advocates might care to ad