IN SEARCH OF THE PRIMITIVE

Lewis Cotlow has been traveling in search of the primitive for nearly thirty years. He has penetrated the jungles of Africa and South America, traveled the high country of New Guinea and the Arctic. Pygmies of the Ituri forest have enacted their elephant hunt for him, the head-hunting Jivaros of Ecuador have performed their sacred tsanta dance. He has faced the essence of the primitive in an enraged gorilla, from which he barely escaped, and the more modern fear of crashing in the mountains. He has taken pictures and made friends -- even blood brothers (with the Coronado), witnessed and recorded daily life and ritual. It all started after World War I, when he determined to travel and to make money for his trips through insurance. When Jan Smuts warned the Foreign Policy Association in 1936, ""Come to Africa before it is too late!"" he moved and has been on the move ever since. His popular treatment, already evident in Head-hunting in the Amazon and Zanzubuku in book form, in numerous films, has color and pungency and a certain elan. This is the most far-ranging and comprehensive of his books and may well extend his readership. Highly satisfactory anthropological adventure.