Wisdom from a Rainforest: The Spiritual Journey of an Anthropologist [Paperback]

Stuart A. Schlegel (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0820324914 | ISBN-13: 978-0820324913 | Publication Date: September 1, 2003

In the early sixties, Stuart Schlegel went into a remote rainforest on the Philippine island of Mindanao as an anthropologist in search of material. What he found was a group of people whose tolerant, gentle way of life would transform his own values and beliefs profoundly. Wisdom from a Rainforest is Schlegel's testament to his experience and to the Teduray people of Figel, from whom he learned such vital, lasting lessons.

Schlegel's lively ethnography of the Teduray portrays how their behavior and traditions revolved around kindness and compassion for humans, animals, and the spirits sharing their worlds. Schlegel describes the Teduray's remarkable legal system and their strong story-telling tradition, their elaborate cosmology, and their ritual celebrations. At the same time, Schlegel recounts his own transformation--how his worldview as a member of an advanced, civilized society was shaken to the core by a so-called primitive people. He begins to realize how culturally determined his own values are and to see with great clarity how much the Teduray can teach him about gender equality, tolerance for difference, generosity, and cooperation.

By turns funny, tender, and gripping, Wisdom from a Rainforest honors the Teduray's legacy and helps us see how much we can learn from a way of life so different from our own.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From the outset, Schlegel, a professor emeritus of anthropology at UC-Santa Cruz, informs readers that this book "is much more personal than just an ethnographer's report from the field.... I will also take you into some extraordinarily sensitive times in my own life. I want to introduce you to the thinking of these people in all its beauty and elegance." The subjects are the Teduray "forest people" of the Philippines. Schlegel lived among them twice in the 1960s, first as an Episcopal missionary and later as a graduate student of anthropology. He chronicles his second two-year stint, experienced as a participant-observer rather than as an evangelist. All aspects of Teduray society?cooperative farming, family structure, shamanic medicine and environmental care?were informed by one pervasive edict: not to "give anyone a bad gall bladder," meaning to avoid wounding anyone in any way. The result of this overriding principle, writes Schlegel, was a culture without competition, violence or inequality. Schlegel leads readers along his own journey toward the conclusion that contemporary American life, with its glorification of competition, is, in the words of the Teduray, "no way to live." Schlegel's observations of Teduray culture are sharp and insightful, a quality of attention that saves his book from slipping into the sort of vague, antimodern moralism that finds virtue only in the noble savage. His message is made all the more poignant by the fact that the peaceful Teduray with whom he lived were massacred in the early 1970s.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Less a conventional autobiography or a memoir than an account of the author's sojourns, this is the tale of Schlegel's experience with the Teduray people of Mindanao Island in the Philippines. Many readers will enjoy Schlegel's description of the Tedurays' gentle and generally non-violent ways, just as they will sympathize with his gradual movement from conventional Christianity toward a broader spirituality influenced by the Tedurays' "partnership of life." Recommended for collections strong in new religions.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0820324914
• ISBN-13: 978-0820324913
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #375,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Broadens your perspective, January 9, 2005

By 

Lauraloo Mattox "tumble3" (Atlanta, Ga USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Wisdom from a Rainforest: The Spiritual Journey of an Anthropologist (Paperback)

I believe that it is always beneficial to step outside our own culture for a while, to see how others live and how we can learn from them.

Especially when the culture we are observing is one as beautiful as the Teduray. They, like so many indigenous people, lived their lives with the well-being of the community as their focus. This is in sharp contrast to the lonely and individualistic lives of so many Americans.

The people of the Teduray village in which Dr Schlegel lived were all massacred years ago. We find this out in the beginning of the book. It was heartbreaking for him, as he lets us know. Then, as you go on to read the book, learning about his two years with the Teduray, you get to know the people - their names, personalities, lifestyles - you come to care about them. I found that knowing they had all been killed led me to place greater importance on learning from them. The temporary nature of their lives gave permanence to the wisdom they imparted.

They lived beautifully, communally, with great compassion. I felt humbled, and grateful to have read their story and learned from them.

I highly recommend this book. It is lovely, heart-centered, and written by a clearly beautiful man.

And if you like this book, you probably will also like The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff. I learned many of my better parenting skills from this book - another study of living within an indigenous community.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good choice for anthropology students, March 12, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Wisdom from a Rainforest: The Spiritual Journey of an Anthropologist (Hardcover)

This is a very good, readable book. It depicts a culture in which helping others was the normal--not the charitable--thing to do. The mindset of the Teduray people of the Philippine rainforest, with whom the author Stuart Schlegel lived for years, is a world view that, sadly, seems almost unbelievable for people who are indoctrinated into a capitalistic system. It's like a splash of cold water in the face. Wouldn't it be nice for every Anthropology 101 student in the U.S. to experience this book, if for no other reason at all simply to face the fact that there are human mindsets possible that are not ruled by money, greed, scarcity, and conspicuous consumption?

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars self help for the planet, November 6, 2000

By 

Paul Siemering (cambridge, ma United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wisdom from a Rainforest: The Spiritual Journey of an Anthropologist (Hardcover)

The people you will meet in this book are cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian, and truly democratic. They also live in harmony with the earth. There have been many books about tribal people, gathering- hunting societies, like the Bambuti of the Congo rain forest, the Kung Bushmen, the Inuit, Native Americans. Most of these people have values similar to those of the Forest Teduray. Gathering - hunting societies have to be cooperative because its the only way they can survive. There are no hierarchies for the same reason, and women are always at least equal to men because in most such economies they provide 70- 80% of the food Nevertheless the Forest Teduray are a special kind of people for a number of reasons. They are semi agricultural, and they live in villages rather than small bands, and these villages are connected to each other in a very loose, unstructured federation. And yet they have not only maintained the basic core values of traditional gatherer- hunting peoples, but have developed and refined them into a way of life that not only works perfectly for them, but actually seems possible for our own society. It is a bit of a stretch, I admit, and the historical record is hardly encouraging. It does appear that nation states must always develop male dominated hierarchical and violent, aggressive societies. Buit there is no compelling reason to believe that this is necessary. The Teduray think it is "no way to live" . Just imagine living in a Teduray world: a global human society living in harmony with everyone else, and with the planet. As difficult as it will surely be to get there, it's got to be worth trying. I never saw a better manual for how to live this way than Wisdom from a Rain Forest. The Teduray really know how to live, and they know how to talk about it. I think the world needs this book, and I wish everyone would read it. There are always many books on the best seller lists about how to fix your own personal inner life, to provide soup for your soul or something. But maybe we can't do any of that by ourselves. Maybe we need to work together to build a healthy society. A way to live the Teduray would call "just right". Many times you may hear people say "this book changed my life". I have always believed this is not really possible, that no book can ever really do that. This book changed my life.