I'm not an anthropologist or Bisayan, so I cannot comment with any authority on the author's treatment of these topics. I am an amateur student of the Bisaya language and Filipino culture, and I very much appreciated the author's effort to understand his subjects and their culture through revelations embedded in their language. Literally every page has examples of the language and the insight it help to provide in understanding/clarifying the people and how they viewed their lives. The book raised an obvious question - "how can a people be understood and described without making their language central?"

Dumont's study on the Panare Indians of Venezuela is by far the most narcisstic, self-centered anthropological study I have ever read. While any anthropologist brings in to the fieldwork experience their own biases and assumptions, Dumont takes this reality too far. Studying the Panare's affect on himself, and his own affect on the Panare is an interesting approach, but may have detracted from the reader receiving the real essence of the people. However, the study was well documented and fairly interesting.