won his friendship and overcame some of his fear of white men’s clothes and ways. They understood each other even though the boy was unable to master Spanish. When Major Rodriguez was transferred to the semi-tropical town of Puyo on the eastern slopes of the Andean cordillera, the boy went along. One day leaving his clothes behind, he took to the trees, apparently trying to find his way back to his jungle home. A rotten branch gave under his weight and he fell on a sharp rock. His would- be protector found him mortally injured. The most complete and recent re search on the tribe and its customs was done by a Swedish writer and explorer, Rolf Blomberg. He told his story in the book Vildar (Stock holm, Geber, 1949; English trans lation published by Allen and Un win, London, 1956, as The Naked Aucas). Along with a Colombian photographer, Horacio Lopez (who used the professional name “Rob inson” ), and David Cooper, a U.S. missionary belonging to the same group as those killed in the January massacre, Blomberg organized an expedition to the Curaray and Nu- shino rivers in the hope of meeting and pacifying the tribe. Trekking through steaming jungle, they ar rived at the Nushino and with the help of local Yumbo Indians built two balsa rafts. They thought they would be safer gliding through the Aushiri country on the water than taking their chances against such skilled woodsmen. Every night the party pitched camp on the river bank. Two na tive crewmen and one white man stood guard while the others slept. The river jou rney continued through five days of pitiless heat. The explorers knew that they could not have penetrated so far into hos tile territory without being observed by the watchful Aushiris. Yet they could not detect even the crack of a twig or the stir of a leaf that would reveal the Indians’ presence. They hoped to meet the Aushiris on friendly terms but were pre
pared to shoot at the first sign of an attack. Suddenly the two rafts, sticking close together, were blocked by a huge half-sunken log in a narrow river bend. The Yumbo lookouts shouted in Quechua: “Aucas—we are in danger!” The log was a de liberate barrier planted to slow them down and force them closer to the bank where, silent and ser pentlike, the Aushiris waited be hind the tangled foliage. With savage, bloodcurdling war cries, the Aushiris attacked. Their lances rained on the little fleet. Hastily the men dived off the rafts, keeping submerged as much as pos sible. Standing chest-deep in the shallow water, they fired for their lives. One of the heavy lances struck down a Yumbo carrier. Lo pez tried to take pictures but his camera was soaked, and he soon discarded that idea in favor of more effective defense measures. Light ing pieces of dynamite from the second raft, the Yumbos hurled them at the Aushiris like hand grenades. The explosion made a terrific din and a column of thick smoke rose into the air. Under this screen, the explorers made shore and surveyed the scene. On the sand, in a neat clearing the size of a large room, were Aushiri foot prints, the toes spread out, the big one separated from the rest. Razor- sharp chonta-wood lances, deco rated with bright feathers, were stacked by the river bank. About three yards long, they tapered into saw-toothed points designed to in flict gaping wounds. A bloody trail led off into the woods. When the ambush failed, the Aushiris, evi dently frightened by the dynamite blast, had fled with their wounded. In a forced cross-country march of five more days, the explorers reached the Napo River and safety. Previously Shell Company ex ploration parties had also been at tacked by the Aushiris, and the company had tried its hand at paci fication. A lengthy report has been compiled of all the murderous raids on settlers and travelers made by
this tribe over the past 40 years. Two Aushiri women who had run away from their people because of some transgression of tribal law were brought to Quito so that efforts could be made to learn their lan guage. One could not reconcile her self to captivity and starved herself to death in the Convent Reforma tory School where she was being kept. The other was sent back to the East and lives as a servant on a plantation on the upper Napo River. Catholic and Protestant mission aries, explorers, writers, scientific expeditions and the Ecuadorian army have tried to make friendly overtures to these people, but none have succeeded. The Aushiris seem to have branded in their brains and in their blood an age-old resentment of past persecution and an undying hatred of outsiders. The question inevitably arises whether the U.S. missionaries who fell victims to these people knew the history of their savagery. Had they taken into account the long and bloody vendetta of the Aushiris against encroaching whites, their lives need not have been sacrificed. A long-ranch view of pacification might in the end have achieved more positive results. The drama of this tragic loss lies in the impact between the savage mind bent on survival and revenge and the civi lized mind rendered defenseless by adhering, even in the face of death, to a doctrine that has been preached for almost 2,000 years but is prac ticed only by a minority of isolated mystics, martyrs and true Chris tians. The primeval jungles of the Am azon, with their vegetable slime- sluggish green rivers and soporific swamps shrouded in wraithlike mists, make up a voracious region that has engulfed many a human life. Now it has been tinged once more with the blood of white bear ers of the cross. Yet in the book of history that stain pales alongside the blotch of Indian blood shed through the centuries by the white bearers of the sword. END.
13
DECEMBER 1956
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