The Mountain People (Pimlico)

by Colin M . Turnbull (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $3.25

  This companion volume to anthropologist Colin Turnbull's The Forest People tells the gruesome tale of what happens to a tribal people - the Ik of Uganda - who have been dispossessed of their land. It describes the dehumanization and social collapse of a people who, a few decades ago, were a society of hunters and gatherers; they are now on the verge of extinction. The author draws parallels with western society, coming to the conclusion that our much vaunted civilized values are not inherent in humanity but are a luxury all too readily cast aside.

• Used

  Paperback
  1980

  $5.21

• New

  Paperback
  1987

  $18.50

  In The Mountain People, Colin The Forest People - describes the dehumanization of the Ik, African tribesmen who in less than three generations have deteriorated from being once-prosperous hunters to scattered bands of hostile, starving people whose only goal is individual survival.

  Forbidden by the Ugandan government to hunt game in the Kidepo National Park, the Ik are compelled to farm and forage for food in the barren mountain heights adjoining the park. Drought and starvation have made them a strange and heartless people, mistrustful of their own kind - their days occupied with constant competition and the search for food. Isolated from one another, each family is separated in its own compound within the village's fortress walls. And each family is itself divided: husbands, wives, and children remorselessly avoid helping one another find food.

  Sad, disturbing, and eloquently written, The Mountain People is a moving meditation on human nature, our capacity for goodness, and the fragility of human society. It is a brilliant, modern classic of anthropology.