In recent years the quality and quantity of ethnography of South America,the "least known continent", has significantly increased. Still compared to many other geographical regions, lowland South American research remains deficient in many respects. It seems an appropriate time to review what advances have been made and where serious gaps in research still exist. This review discusses ethnographic materials (excluding archeologyand linguistics and those written in German) appearing during the period 1960-1973, which illustrate some of the more interesting directions of recent research. It is not intended to be an encyclopedic coverage of all published work of this period. Strictly speaking, it is limited to the Amazon and Orinoco basins, although other regions are discussed when warranted by the topic at hand. In general, lowland ethnography has made significant advances in the past 15 years in many areas of research. The overall picture, however, is a patchwork, with a theoretical contribution here and a methodological advance there. Reviewing the recent literature brings into focus the enormous amount remaining to be done, and shows how rapidly opportunities for future work are being eliminated by the far-reaching effects of "progress" and "development" on all fronts, although seemingly most seriously in Brazil. To end this review on a happy note only requires mentioning an area to which lowland South American research has contributed more than its share: personal accounts of living and doing fieldwork among natives. It is true that most ethnographies are deplorably lacking in this area, but we do have excellent examples from Maybury-Lewis (160), Y & R. Murphy (187), a chapter from Siskind (232), occasional notes Goldman (81), and a novel by Matthiessen (157) which, although not at all about fieldwork, does succeed admirably in conveying the feel of tropical frontier areas. Chagnon’s work (39, 41) and an account by Valero (19) (who is extremely talented as an observer although not an anthropologist) together result in what is one of the best first-hand views of life among an almost uncontacted people in lowland South America, maintaining the tradition begun by Staden and continued by such luminaries as von Humboldt, Wallace, and Darwin.