In 1971, a tiny band of appealingly "primitive" people was discovered in the Philippines. Profiled on the NBC Evening News, the Tasaday, as they were called, were soon touted as "the most significant anthropological discovery of th[e] century," appealing to Westerners curious about the ancient past, and who also fretted about the impact modernity might have on such long-isolated peoples. But in the mid-1980s, Swiss reporter Oswald Iten revealed the group as a hoax. Fascinated by the controversy, Hemley (The Last Studebaker) looks to rescue the Tasaday from the verdicts of what he views as a hyperbolic Western media. From the outset, the Tasaday were tainted by their association with their megalomaniacal protector, Manuel "Manda" Elizalde, who combined genuine concern for the group with a naked desire to profit through them. Unsurprisingly, the band's reception was inextricably linked with the fortunes of the Marcos and Aquino regimes, and revolutionary guerrilla movements in the region made contact with the Tasaday dangerous. What's clear is that the Tasaday were exploited by enthusiasts and skeptics alike—fodder for romantic "noble savage" ideals as well as for cynicism. Arguments surrounding the Tasaday hinge on questions of language, location and genealogy, and Hemley's noncommittal approach—essentially that the Tasaday fell somewhere between genuine article and hoax—isn't the best conduit for clarity. What remains clear is that "isolation" of this sort is a construct; as Henley writes, "to our great dismay, no one is as isolated as we once thought." Indeed, stripped of Western rhetoric, the Tasadays' "real" identity proves elusive. To his credit, Hemley is the rare Westerner who leaves the Tasaday with their enigma—and dignity—intact. 8 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. Agent, Chris Calhoun. (May)
