CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
The Aucas
For a number of years," Nate Saint once wrote, "the Aucas have constituted a hazard to explorers, an embarrassment to the Republic of Ecuador, and a challenge to missionaries of the Gospel."
Since his arrival in the Oriente, Nate had often flown over Auca territory, his trained eye trying to find houses or villages. It is no easy matter to find a people numbering perhaps five hundred to a thousand, in a dense jungle covering twelve thousand square miles. No census, of course, has ever been made; the area is merely estimated by the Quichuas-an area undoubtedly far larger than the Aucas themselves would claim, as the Quichuas (quite understandably) give them a wide berth. This part of the jungle lies about one hundred and fifty miles east of Quito. It is bordered by three rivers: on the west by the Arajuno, on the north by the Napo, on the south by the Villano. To the east it runs into the Peruvian border.
The history of the region goes back to the early days of the Spanish conquest of Ecuador. In 1541, Gonzalo Pizarro, brother of the famous Francisco Pizarro, who brought the Inca Empire to an end, crossed the Andes, explored their eastern slopes, and permitted one of his adventurous lieutenants to follow the Amazon to its mouth. In his astounding explorations he lost all but ninety-seven of his hundreds of soldiers. Some died of hardship but many were killed by hostile Indians. Some of these Indians were undoubtedly the ancestors of the Aucas. The conquistadors were followed in the seventeenth century by Jesuit missionaries, some of whom also were killed by hostile Indians. Little was done to settle or exploit the area from the seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth. Then the demand for rubber in the industrial parts of the world brought rubber hunters to the Amazonian basin, at that time the source of the best rubber in the world. Unscrupulous, treacherous, cruel, the rubber hunters wooed the Indians with presents only to raid their villages, plunder whatever of value they might find, carry off the able-bodied young men as slaves to work on haciendas, and murder the rest so that there would be no one left to drum up reprisals.
In 1874 a later Jesuit missionary made a trip down the Curaray intending to found a mission but instead spent his time-according to his own report-protecting the Indians from the rapacious rubber hunters. Another record called the rubber traders "civilized savages against unbaptized savages." Certainly from that time on, hatred spread throughout the Auca country, and a legacy of reprisal has been passed on from father to son. It was the behavior of the white man that closed off this area to colonization. There was a time when the country could have developed with the co-operation of the Aucas but that time is now past. In the early days of this century, haciendas were scattered throughout what is now a "closed" country.
The Aucas' growing distrust of the white man is illustrated in a story told in the Oriente of a hacienda owner, a Senor Santoval, who lived in the Aucas' domain shortly after the turn of the century. Senor Santoval had two captured Auca families working for him and managed to carry on a lively rubber trade with the Aucas still in the jungle. They would leave rubber for him at the edge of his property and in exchange he would leave machetes, knives, and clothing for them. For about ten years this peaceful trading continued with no violence on either side. The captured Aucas were such superior work men that Santoval asked them to approach their tribesmen with offers of work on the hacienda. Through his intermediaries, the patron offered them fair pay, good living conditions, clothing, anything they felt they wanted. The offer was refused out of hand and the answer came back that the Aucas wanted nothing whatever of the white man's world, that they were independent and wished to remain so. Santoval died in 1917 and his death was the signal for an Auca attack on the hacienda. Almost all his Indian workers were killed; those that survived, including some of the captured Aucas, moved permanently out of range of Auca attacks.
The Shell Oil Company, prospecting for oil in the Oriente from 1940 to 1949, had to contend not only with the usual hazards and inconveniences of the jungle but with attacks from Aucas on their workmen. In 1942 three of their employees were killed in the company's camp at Arajuno. The incident is described in a letter written by a Shell Oil Company executive:
"We regret to have to inform you that a most unfortunate incident occurred on Wednesday, January 7th last, in our camp at Arajuno. A group of hostile Indians attacked a gang of our laborers working near our camp and our foreman and two other Ecuadorian laborers were killed with spears. This attack caused some panic among the laborers which was aggravated when the following morning these Indians made another appearance and seemed to be surrounding the camp.... We fear it will become more difficult than before to engage an adequate number of laborers for our camp at Arajuno."
One year later the company lost eight employees. In an attempt to win the confidence of the tribe and ward off further killings, a visit was made to an Auca house. Gifts of machetes, shirts, magazines, and empty bottles were left for the inhabitants, who proved to be absent when the white men arrived. The Aucas responded with a present of a vine-woven basket which they left on the trail. This encouraged the oil men, and one of them reported: "It seems that our hope of friendship is going the right way. I think that this will become a reality in the near future, so long as our personnel always follow the indicated line of conduct which could be put down as 'absolute respect of private property....' Astray bullet might, in my opinion, constitute something like a declaration of war, which could be fatal to our party."
An attempt at dropping gifts from an airplane was also made by the Shell Oil people, but, as Nate later observed, "a two-thousand horsepower transport, roaring over the village at a low altitude, would seem sure to scare anyone, not to mention particularly a stone-age people with no knowledge whatsoever of science." In spite of all these overtures, the hopes of the Shell Oil Company were not realized and no one made any further serious attempts to win the Aucas.
It was becoming increasingly important for these young missionaries to know every available fact about the Aucas. They read the reports of the Shell Oil Company and talked to anyone who had ever had any contact with the Aucas. An invaluable source of information was Senor Carlos Sevilla, who owns and operates a hacienda about ten minutes' flight from Sandia. Don Carlos had lived in Auca territory for twenty-six years, before he was driven out by repeated attacks. He is a tall, spare Ecuadorian in his middle sixties who has probably had more experience with Aucas than any other living man. His body still bears six scars inflicted by Aucas during his last encounter with them.
His first narrow escape came in 1914 when seven Indians and one Columbian who were working for him were killed on the hacienda "El Capricho" on the Curaray. In 1919, while Sevilla was hunting for rubber, he left fifteen Indian families at a camp on the Tsupino River while he went upstream to get medicines. On his return, he was met by an Indian boy who was wounded in the arm, the sole survivor of an Auca attack on the camp. Hurriedly rounding up sixty Quichuas, Sevilla set off to find the Aucas responsible for the massacre at his camp. He found an Auca house, and one woman peacefully working in the manioc patch. She was captured, but as Sevilla's men surrounded the house, she broke away from her guards, and ran screaming into the bush. This sounded the alarm, and those who had been in the house were able to escape while the guards rushed to recapture the woman. As Don Carlos repeats this story, so many years later, there is still a note of bitter disappointment in his voice.
He has been able to observe Auca strategy closely. It seems that attacks are always by surprise, and that the Aucas invariably outnumber their opponents. One method of surprising travelers is to wait at the bend of a river until the current forces a canoe close to the shore, and while the polers are frantically trying to pull the canoe back into the mainstream, the spears are hurled, accompanied by wild yells to confuse the victims. The advantage is all with the Aucas. Sevilla's advice to any adventurer in savage territory is that he travel with at least two canoes, so that one canoe could fire to protect the other should an attack come.
In 1925 Don Carlos and his Indians were attacked twice within four months. Sevilla and his men were traveling by canoe upstream on the Nushino when, at a narrow bend in the river, they found themselves the target of dozens of Auca lances. The canoe capsized, five Indians were slain immediately, and Sevilla and one other escaped. Fighting his way through the hail of spears, he succeeded in killing two of the attackers with their own weapons, but emerged severely wounded himself. Eight days later he reached his hacienda on the Ansuc River, his body rotting with infection, his wounds worm-eaten.
An attack in 1934 finally drove him out of the territory, but it has not discouraged his making plans for a possible re-entry.
"I don't think it is too late," says Sevilla. "True, we've lost our best chances, but perhaps if we build a strong, lance-proof house fairly close to the Auca houses, make a large clearing around it, keep constant watch, and never use a gun, they would ultimately accept our friendship."
But there are men in the Oriente, who roamed the region looking for rubber, gold, or oil in the days when this was "open country," who say that never, never will the Aucas allow the white man to live peacefully in their land. It is too late. By the flickering light of kerosene lamps on the verandas of haciendas, these old-timers sit evening after evening recalling their experiences and conjecturing about the Aucas' real motives. Are they natural born killers? Do they kill only to preserve their land from outsiders? Do they kill to rob? No one knows and there is no set pattern that shows any one single motive behind the killings.
It is known that a few killings have been followed by robbery. Articles which the Aucas considered useful, particularly the machete, have been stolen. Other things, whose use they do not understand, they leave behind. In some cases all possessions of the victims have been left intact. Surprisingly, Quichuas are allowed summer fishing privileges in the heart of the Auca domain; undisturbed, they take their canoes down the Napo or the Curaray for weeks at a time. Then for no apparent reason, the Aucas will attack. They may kill or wound a group of Quichua fishermen within Auca boundaries, or they move just beyond their frontiers and attack a Quichua family working in its chacra. One fact only seems firmly established: the white man is unwanted. When he sets foot within the area that the Aucas have marked off for themselves, he risks his life.
Killings, however, also occur within the tribe. Anger finds immediate expression in a killing. As it was with the Hatfields and McCoys of the Kentucky mountains, feuds flare up frequently, each death to be avenged by the surviving members of the family to form a chainreaction of murder. Thus, the taking of life is not alien to the Aucas. From an early age on, young boys are trained in the accurate use of their nine-foot hardwood lances. Don Carlos tells of coming upon a deserted Auca hut, and finding there a life-sized human figure carved of balsa wood. The heart and facial features were clearly outlined with bright red achiote and the entire figure was torn with lance marks. This method, as modern as bayonet training for combat troops, had been used to develop the deadly marksmanship for which the Aucas are famous.
Don Carlos has working for him on his hacienda an Auca woman who escaped some years ago from a tribal killing. There had been a typical family feud, in which both her parents and brothers and sisters were killed by a neighboring group. Dayuma, then in her mid-teens, had managed to escape by hiding out in the chacra until the invaders left. She then made her way to the nearest settlement of Quichuas, who took her to Don Carlos.
Like any refugee, Dayuma spent her first years among the Quichuas, adapting herself as quickly and totally as possible to their customs. One of her hardest adjustments was the food of her hosts. Aucas have no salt and it took her almost a year before she could enjoy seasoned food. Clothing was another major change. Aucas are entirely naked, except for vines that are tied tightly around wrists, ankles, and waist. Now Dayuma wears the customary shapeless cotton dress of the Quichua woman. In an effort to hide her Auca ancestry she combs her hair down to cover her disfigured ear lobes-ear lobes once adorned with round balsa wood plugs more than an inch in diameter. Watching her go about her work on the hacienda, feeding the animals, helping in the kitchen, there is little else to distinguish her from her Quichua fellow workers. The Aucas have the same straight black hair, the same tea-colored skin, and about the same height-a few inches over five feet.
Dayuma has been able to give many facts of ethnological interest. Although the Aucas drink chicha, made just as the Quichuas make it, they drink it unfermented; consequently Dayuma never saw drunkenness until she reached the outside world. Wife-beating was also unknown to her. Auca houses are long, oblong shaped, with mud-packed floors, and hammocks used as beds hanging from the roof. Living in each house may be anywhere from twenty to fifty members of a clan. The women work in the plantations of manioc and cotton. The men work on their lances, shaping the sharp points with stolen machetes. Every man in the household has his collection of nine or ten spears, which he takes with him on a foray for food or on a raiding expedition. Dayuma says that the Aucas can recognize a footprint-in much the same way that we would recognize a familiar face, they can identify the individual Indian who has passed by. She told Don Carlos that every step he had ever taken in Curaray country was known to her people. They also spent many hours spying on the Shell camp at Arajuno. At one time during the Shell occupancy, the people had considered approaching the white man. They had talked seriously among themselves of the possibility of sending in two men as a scouting party and, if they were not killed, the rest of the group would follow. In actual fact, just the opposite happened; the Aucas attacked and killed three Shell employees.
Pets are common among Aucas; they snare parrots, monkeys, and the wild boar when they are still young and keep them in small huts surrounding the large main house. Like other people the world over, they have their legends and fairy stories. At one time, so goes the Auca legend, "fire fell from heaven," spread out all over the world, and burned all the trees. The Aucas hid under the leaves of the sweet potato plant until the fire was over and then came out and repopulated the earth. They fear evil spirits, as do all jungle people. They like their children and amuse them with tales. Dayuma tells one of the tales whose hero is a turtle:
One day a baby turtle met a powerful jaguar on the road.
"Ha!" said the jaguar. "Your parents are far away and there is no one to protect you."
The little turtle in fear drew in his head.
"Put out your head," the jaguar commanded.
And the turtle, hearing the mighty voice, put out his head. Then, looking into the jaguar's savage mouth, he said: "what terrific teeth you have!"
The jaguar was flattered. He opened his mouth still wider to display all of his fine fierce teeth. So the little turtle, who was much quicker than he looked, jumped into the jaguar's mouth and bit his throat so hard that the jaguar forthwith died.
Then the little turtle left the jaguar and went to the neighboring Aucas and told them that he had killed a jaguar and left it lying in the path. The Indians went to see, and there was the dead jaguar. Happily they snatched out the teeth and claws to make ornaments for themselves and went off, entirely forgetting to thank the little turtle. So the little turtle simply returned to the jungle and grew up to be a big turtle!
Dayuma is constantly asked why the Aucas kill, and she can only answer that they are killers. "Never, never trust them," she repeats with emphasis; "they may appear friendly and then they will turn around and kill."
There are those, however, who have not and will not accept this verdict as final-those who cannot rest in peace while generations of Aucas remain beyond the frontiers of Christianity. Pete Fleming was one of those who could not be content while the Aucas remained in darkness. In his diary he wrote: "It is a grave and solemn problem; an unreachable people who murder and kill with extreme hatred. It comes to me strongly that God is leading me to do something about it, and a strong idea and impression comes into my mind that I ought to devote the majority of my time to collecting linguistic data on the tribe and making some intensive air surveys to look for Auca houses. ... I know that this may be the most important decision of my life, but I have a quiet peace about it."