Verrill Criticism 1928

This note is a criticism that was discovered by Alan Schenker. It appears to refer to Verrill's June 1927 article, Among the Amazons. The difference may be accounted for by differences in publishing international editions. Note also the differences in spelling the tribe name; Verrill calls them Wai-wois. /drf

Verrill Criticism 1928

American Anthropologist

30, 1928

Dr. Walter E. Roth of the Christianburg Magistrate's Office, Demerara River, writing on June 8th, 1927, encloses an article from The Daily Argosy (Georgetown, British Guiana) of May 22, 1927, in which he challenges Mr. A. Hyatt Verrill's article on the Wai Wai in the Wide World Magazine of May 1926. According to Dr. Roth the only approach to this people is by water and the sole difficulty is that of finding appropriate timber for suitable boats, the Wai Wai living on the uppermost reach of the Essequibo, a twelve days' boat trip from the head of the Kuyuwinni in country belonging to the Wapishana, their nearest neighbors to the north and west. According to Dr. Roth, Mr. Hyatt (Verrill) erroneously describes the women, not the men, as manufacturing hammocks, and a chief as wearing a loin cloth of bark instead of finely woven and dyed cotton. Dr. Roth mentions other inaccuracies and arrives at the conclusion that "Mr. A. Hyatt Verrill has never been to the Wai Wai country or seen its people."