Updated: January 2003

"In Mr. Cruz's rainforest, the people are an extension of nature's creative force. He focuses on decoration and adornment—body painting, women's pierced noses and cheeks, and feathered headdresses that look like snow warriors' hair.... Mr. Cruz reacts not as an anthropologist but as an artist.... In his photographs, what's on the wane is an exemplary relation between art, daily life, and human contentment." —Lyle Rexer for The New York Times "Arts & Leisure"

"Cruz, like Edward S. Curtis a century ago in North America, is documenting a sadly vanishing culture. But unlike Curtis', Cruz's images are intimate, informal, and authentic. The Yanomami are reminders that in more ways than one, we of the 21st century have not come so far as we may like to believe." —"Best Photo Books of 2002," San Jose Mercury News

"Working in the dim light of these South American Indians' homeland, Cruz detailed their daily lives. He catches them hunting, celebrating, mourning and at repose. He shows them at cheerful moments.... While preserving much of the Yanomami culture, unsparingly and with respect Cruz has been able to hint at the unsettling death to some." —Leica View

"The last of the Yanomami: This northern Amazonian tribe still live much as they have for thousands of yearsm but since they came into contact with outsiders, their numbers have been dwindling and their traditions are under threat....In the mid- to late 1990s, the Brazilian photographer Valdir Cruz travelled four times to Yanomami land, spending a total of eight months living with them. The result, now to be published in a book, is the most intimate set of pitcures taken of the Indian community..." —The Guardian