Verswijver, Gustaaf.The way of warriors: annotated narratives of the Mebengokre (Kayapo) in Brazil. 679 pp., bibliogr. Almeria: Turuti Books, 2023. R$319.80 (paper)

The book attests to a monumental effort of research and compilation, facilitated by Verswijver's command of the Mẽbêngôkre language and almost half a century of research (1974-2019). It provides an authentic collection of what the author designates as eighty-three historical narratives and life stories, focusing mainly on the 1930s to the 1960s. It is best read in tandem with Verswijver's previous book, The club-fighters of the Amazon: warfare among the Kayapo Indians of Central Brazil​ (Turuti Books, 2018), where he makes a minute analysis of the strategies and objectives of Mẽbêngôkre (Kayapó) warfare. The narratives in the latest book are presented without any intervention from the author (as if the text speaks for itself), except for prolific though somewhat repetitive notes, and a glossary of terms used in the text, providing a wealth of ethnographic detail. For anyone interested in kinship, it is frustrating that English terms such as cousins and brothers-in-law are used throughout the book despite lacking exact counterparts in the Mẽbêngôkre language. Verswijver aims to explain how the present-day configuration of the Mẽbêngôkre came about after the gradual break-up of their ancestral village from the turn of the twentieth century onwards. The author gives voice to twenty-four narrators whose memories could otherwise have been obliterated. Each narrator recounts incidents in which he was involved personally, thereby providing a sui generis portrait of both internal skirmishes and external warfare expeditions from the perspective of a generation of Mẽbêngôkre warriors who were gradually dying out whilst their stories were being collected. The narratives detail how the Mẽbêngôkre were compelled to attack the non-Indigenous population that encroached upon their land to obtain firearms and ammunition (besides other booty and the odd captive), with which to protect their villages from both non-Indigenous and Indigenous enemies, including other Mẽbêngôkre subgroups who had already acquired such weapons. Bows and arrows, wooden clubs, and bone-tipped lances were no match for firearms, so a tragic arms race ensued which had repercussions on both external violence and on the lethality of internal fighting. Even today, old grudges and the desire for revenge continue to smoulder beneath the surface of everyday life. This book makes a gruelling read due to seemingly endless and often gratuitous violence, with some gruesome episodes recounted by various narrators, leaving the reader wondering if he has already encountered some specific gory incident told by another narrator or whether it is an analogous episode to a previous one. It is debatable whether the Mẽbêngôkre could have survived until the present day if levels of internal homicide were on a par with that described in the book for the twentieth century, besides the mortal attacks from Indigenous enemy peoples and from the non-Indigenous population. Implicitly the book raises an important question: does it characterize an ontology of violence or rather a reign of terror instigated by the increasing population density that followed the arrival of the Portuguese colonists from the sixteenth century onwards and the ensuing native population displacements? Recent linguistic research indicates that a proto-Northern Jê language may go back some two thousand years, thus the period dealt with in the book alludes to a tiny fraction of Mẽbêngôkre history. The sophistication of Mẽbêngôkre social and ceremonial organization, their elaborate adornments and body paint designs, their complex and prolific kinship categories, besides the profound knowledge of their environment, suggest the possibility of a former heyday or belle époque when they could have flourished, if not without strife, at least on an attenuated level in comparison to that described in this book. The price of the book established by Amazon ensures that it is essentially a product for the Northern hemisphere. It is unfortunate that funds were unavailable for a revision of the English, this not being the author's first language. The Mẽbêngôkre are increasingly interested in reading what is written about them, and the results of an AI translation are unimaginable due to the errors, a bane of self-publishing. Information is lacking concerning the whereabouts of the transcription of the narratives in Mẽbêngôkre and in Portuguese that are mentioned in the book. One of the narrators, the much-acclaimed leader Raoni, has just launched a book in Brazil of his memoires, in Portuguese, giving any interested scholar the opportunity to verify the congruity of style across these two publications. Verswijver does not exaggerate the violence but his book deals almost exclusively with it, whereas Raoni also recounts shamanic journeys and other episodes which alleviate the atmosphere.