Keep the River on Your Right

Last updated

Keep the River on your Right is a short memoir written by American anthropologist and artist Tobias Schneebaum, published in 1969.

Contents

Content

It is an account of his journey into the jungles of Peru where he is accepted by "primitive" Indians and ultimately a tribe of cannibals named the Arakmbut, which he refers to by the pseudonym Arakama.

Schneebaum was presumed dead by colleagues, friends, and family after he disappeared for years into the jungle, the last westerner to see him was a missionary who had given him instructions he would find the cannibals if he "kept the river to his right." However, Schneebaum struck up a friendship with the Arakmbut based partially around his considerable art skills and his interest in theirs. The book is most renowned for its anthropological observation of flesh-eating rituals and the honest, light-hearted style in which it was written.

Film

The book was the partial basis for a 2000 documentary film of the same name, Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale by sibling filmmakers David and Laurie Gwen Shapiro. The film also covers material from several of Schneebaum's other books and articles. [1]

Related Research Articles

<i>Heart of Darkness</i> 1899 novella by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel is widely regarded as a critique of European colonial rule in Africa, whilst also examining the themes of power dynamics and morality. Although Conrad does not name the river on which most of the narrative takes place, at the time of writing, the Congo Free State — the location of the large and economically important Congo River — was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. Marlow is given a text by Kurtz, an ivory trader working on a trading station far up the river, who has "gone native" and is the object of Marlow's expedition.

<i>Robinson Crusoe</i> 1719 novel by Daniel Defoe

Robinson Crusoe is an English adventure novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. Written with a combination of Epistolary, confessional, and didactic forms, the book follows the title character after he is cast away and spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near the coasts of Venezuela and Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. The story has been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra" which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966. Pedro Serrano is another real-life castaway whose story might have inspired the novel.

<i>Cannibal Holocaust</i> 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato

Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian cannibal film directed by Ruggero Deodato and written by Gianfranco Clerici. It stars Robert Kerman as Harold Monroe, an anthropologist who leads a rescue team into the Amazon rainforest to locate a crew of filmmakers that have gone missing while filming a documentary on local cannibal tribes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shere Khan</span> Fictional tiger and main antagonist from author Rudyard Kiplings "The Jungle Book"

Shere Khan is a fictional Bengal tiger and an antagonist of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book and its adaptations. The name roughly translates as tiger ruler, with shere being the Persian word for 'tiger' and khan being used as a title of distinction among the Turco-Mongol peoples, usually meaning chief or ruler. According to The Kipling Society, the name "show[s] that he is the chief among tigers".

Michael Clark Rockefeller was a member of the Rockefeller family. He was the son of New York Governor and later U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, a grandson of American financier John D. Rockefeller Jr. and a great-grandson of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller Sr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Percy Fawcett</span> British explorer and military officer

Percy Harrison Fawcett was a British geographer, artillery officer, cartographer, archaeologist, and explorer of South America. Fawcett disappeared in 1925 during an expedition to find an ancient lost city which he and others believed existed in the Amazon rainforest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobias Schneebaum</span> American artist, anthropologist, and AIDS activist, 1922-2005

Tobias Schneebaum was an American artist, anthropologist, and AIDS activist. He is best known for his experiences living and traveling among the Harakmbut people of Peru, and the Asmat people of Papua, Indonesia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruggero Deodato</span> Italian film director and screenwriter (1939–2022)

Ruggero Deodato was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor.

<i>Cannibal Ferox</i> 1981 Italian horror film directed by Umberto Lenzi

Cannibal Ferox, also known as Make Them Die Slowly in the US and as Woman from Deep River in Australia, is a 1981 Italian cannibal exploitation horror film written and directed by Umberto Lenzi. Upon its release, the film's US distributor claimed it was "the most violent film ever made". Cannibal Ferox was also claimed to be "banned in 31 countries", although this claim is dubious. The title derives from the Latin ferox, meaning cruel, wild or ferocious.

Cannibal films, alternatively known as the cannibal genre or the cannibal boom, are a subgenre of horror films made predominantly by Italian filmmakers during the 1970s and 1980s. This subgenre is a collection of graphically violent movies that usually depict cannibalism by primitive, Stone Age natives deep within the Asian or South American rainforests. While cannibalism is the uniting feature of these films, the general emphasis focuses on various forms of shocking, realistic and graphic violence, typically including torture, rape and genuine cruelty to animals. This subject matter was often used as the main advertising draw of cannibal films in combination with exaggerated or sensational claims regarding the films' reputations.

"The law of the jungle" is an expression that has come to describe a scenario where "anything goes". The Oxford English Dictionary defines the Law of the Jungle as "the code of survival in jungle life, now usually with reference to the superiority of brute force or self-interest in the struggle for survival".

<i>Man from the Deep River</i> 1972 Italian cannibal exploitation film directed by Umberto Lenzi

Il paese del sesso selvaggio, also known as Man From Deep River, Deep River Savages and Sacrifice!, is a 1972 Italian cannibal exploitation film directed by Umberto Lenzi and starring Ivan Rassimov, Me Me Lai and Pratitsak Singhara. It is perhaps best known for starting the "cannibal boom" of Italian exploitation cinema during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

<i>Ultimo mondo cannibale</i> 1977 Italian film

Ultimo mondo cannibale is a 1977 Italian cannibal exploitation film directed by Ruggero Deodato and written by Tito Carpi, Gianfranco Clerici and Renzo Genta. Starring Massimo Foschi, Me Me Lai and Ivan Rassimov, the plot follows a man trying to escape from a jungle island inhabited by a cannibal tribe.

<i>Jungle Tales of Tarzan</i> Short story collection by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Jungle Tales of Tarzan is a collection of twelve loosely connected short stories by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, comprising the sixth book in order of publication in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. Chronologically the events recounted in it occur within Chapter 11 of the first Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Apes, between Tarzan's avenging of his ape foster mother's death and his becoming leader of his ape tribe. The stories ran monthly in Blue Book magazine, September 1916 through August 1917 before book publication in 1919.

<i>Tarzan and the Castaways</i> 1965 collection of three stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Tarzan and the Castaways is a collection of three stories by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the 24th and final in his series of twenty-four books about the jungle hero Tarzan. The title novella, and the two short stories were first published in pulp magazines in 1940 and 1941. The combined book was published first as a hardcover by Canaveral Press in early 1965, and as a paperback by Ballantine Books in July 1965.

The 16th Independent Spirit Awards, honoring the best in independent filmmaking for 2000, were announced on March 24, 2001. It was hosted by John Waters.

Laurie Gwen Shapiro is an American writer and filmmaker. She resides in New York City, where she was born and raised, and is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School. The 2001 documentary film Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale, which she co-produced and co-directed with her brother David, received numerous awards, including:

<i>Cannibal Attack</i> 1954 American film directed by Lee Sholem

Cannibal Attack is a 1954 American adventure film, the fourteenth Jungle Jim film produced by Columbia Pictures. The film features Johnny Weissmuller in his inaugural performance as the protagonist adventurer Johnny Weissmuller, a character previously called "Jungle Jim." The film also features Judy Walsh. It was directed by Lee Sholem and written by Carroll Young. Filmed at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, there are no cannibals in the film

The Jungle Book is a Disney media franchise that commenced in 1967 with the theatrical release of The Jungle Book. It is based on Rudyard Kipling's works of the same name. The franchise includes a 2003 sequel to the animated film and three live-action films produced by Walt Disney Pictures.

Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale is a 2000 documentary film about the travels of American anthropologist and artist Tobias Schneebaum, directed by brother-and-sister filmmakers David Shapiro and Laurie Gwen Shapiro.

References

  1. "Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale (2000)". The New York Times . March 30, 2001. Retrieved September 12, 2011.