As a child, David Good told pals his mother had died in a crash but in reality she was really living with her native tribe in the Amazon jungle A man who grew up believing his mother was dead was stunned to find her living with an Amazon tribe. David Good grew up believing his mum Yarami had died in a road accident - but the truth was that she had returned to her native jungle home. Raised in a comfortable Philadelphia suburb by his dad Kenneth, along with brother Daniel and sister Vanessa, David was never told anything about who his mum was or why she had left.
But a school field trip to a natural history museum at the age of 10 brought him face-to-face with a picture of his mother in native clothing, bringing memories flooding back. But it wasn't until he was aged 24 that David was able to raise the cash for a one-way ticket to the Amazon, where he finally was able to meet his mother in 2011.
The whole tribe watched as he embraced Yarima, who wore traditional wooden shoots through her cheeks and nose. David, 28, a postgraduate student, said: “I said, ‘Mama, I made it, I’m home. It took so long, but I made it.’ ”
Feasting on grub worms, termites, and armadillo, he was soon made to feel at home and made a second, month-long return trip late last year. The journey began Dad Kenneth, an anthropology student, fell in love with Yarami in 1978 after spending months living alongside the Yanomami tribe in a part of the Amazon forest which covers Venezuela. The pair married and moved back to Kenneth' home in Philadelphia and their controversial romance hit the headlines as Yarami was still just a teenager.
But, despite going on to have three children, Yarami remained isolated and struggled to cope with modern city life and being thousands of miles from her native jungle home. She arrived speaking no English and her tribe do not count to more than two, describing other numbers as 'many'. After many soul-searching months, she made the wrenching decision to return to her tribe.
Reluctantly Kenneth agreed to the separation and the couple realised that the jungle was no place for children who were not born into the tribal way of life and had the skills to survive. His dad Kenneth, told the New York Post: “She knew the kids wouldn’t do well in the jungle. “She told me to take Daniel (then aged 18 months). Babies get sick there. They die.”
Talking about how he hid his past, David said: “I didn’t want my friends to know that my mom’s a naked jungle woman eating tarantulas. “I didn’t want to be known as a half-breed. And it was my revenge; I was angry that she left me. So I just wanted to stick with the story that she was dead.”
David, himself a biology graduate, said he took to drinking at age 14 to cope with his heartache. But since finding his long-lost mother after 20 years apart, the adventurer says he feels his family is now complete again. A www.mirror.co.uk extract.
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