Keep the River on Your Right [Paperback]

Tobias Schneebaum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 1994

In 1955, armed with a penknife and instructions to keep the river on his right, Brooklyn-born artist Tobias Schneebaum set off into the jungles of Peru in search of a tribe of cannibals. Forgoing all contact with civilization, he lived as a brother with the Akaramas –– shaving and painting his body, hunting with Stone Age weapons, sleeping in the warmth of the body-pile.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (January 12, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802131336
• ISBN-13: 978-0802131331
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > History > Americas > South America > Peru

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even Better Twenty Years Later, November 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Keep the River on Your Right (Paperback)

I first read this beautifully crafted work in 1977. Shortly thereafter I had the great pleasure to meet Tobias in Northern California where he presented a slide lecture on his life among the Asmat of New Guinea. There is no question in my mind that Keep the River on Your Right is a work of non fiction. It is an astonishing journal as brutally honest as any I've ever read. It deserves to be in the pantheon with Beaudelaire (Intimate Journals), and Broughton (The Androgyne Journal). I've just reread this timeless work after 23 years after having recently seen the documentary on Tobias' life which no doubt will bring a new generation of readers to this elegantly written masterpiece.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes, it is all true, April 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Keep the River on Your Right (Paperback)

If the life of this man seems incredible, it is because the man himself is incredible. I have just seen the world premire of a documentary entitled "Keep The River On Your Right" in which Tobias returns with the filmmakers and relives his journey through Peru.He is 78 years old and not only did they find some of the tribes-people that he lived with while there, those same people remembered him, after 48 years. There need be no more proof of the validity of his book than that.

Even beyond the text of this book, Tobias's life offers a larger lesson, and that is one of acceptance and understanding of every human being and culture. I hope that people will continue to read this book and that this message will be taken into the hearts of the readers as a new way to live life.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Anthropological Memoir, February 5, 2004

By 

S. Fleming (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Keep the River on Your Right (Paperback)

We see from Stephen O. Murray and his ilk, a desire to suppress this important journey and its journal, by pretending it is not `scientific'. Schneebaum describes himself as a 'Painter' - not an anthropologist, and nor does he attempt to write in a scientific way.

Insight into our own ignorance is an important part of scientific study; on occasion it can be a sufficient condition. I congratulate Schneebaum for making this and other journeys, and for the memoirs these create.

This is most certainly not a textbook, or anything resembling a scientific treatise or paper. It is a stained glass window, decorated by Schneebaum's own homosexuality (sexual fantasy and desire). He views the `cannibals' from this perspective, and they view him in an equally astounding way. I recently saw Schneebaum on TV, and his current boyfriend explains Schneebaum's desire for an `aroused native'. Re-read this book from Schneebaum's perspective, and a flood of insight into this important people is revealed; rather like the Sun bursting through the colored window, illuminating the dark room within.

Reviewer S. O. Murray appears to consider himself a voice of authority; possessed indeed by an intellect surmounted only by his overwhelming ignorance. His reviews are based on conjecture, rather than the content of the book or document reviewed. Ignore him, he is just incapable of understanding; blinded by the heavy drapes over his window.