Studying the Ya̦nomamö

by Napoleon A. Chagnon

"Napoleon Chagnon's well-known case study, Ya̦nomamö: the Fierce People, begins with a first chapter on doing fieldwork among them. It is one of the features of this case study that makes it one of the most widely used in this series. Ever since The Fierce People appeared in 1968 readers have expressed their strong interest in a more complete account of Chagnon's experiences and methods of research with the Ya̦nomamö. The present study is a response to this wish, and as the reader will discover, a very satisfying one. Studying the Ya̦nomamö is satisfying because in it Chagnon explains not only how he went about the collection of data, why he considered it important, and how he organized it analytically, but also because his personal experience is described in vivid detail. Much of what he describes is pure adventure of the kind that most field anthropologists encounter in some degree, but rarely in quite this dramatic a context, for there are few people remaining in this world like the