I felt as if I had licked the jungle. I laughed at it, shook my fist at the dark forest as I swept onward, cursed it. And there was more game along the stream. The first day I saw a tapir, two deer and an ocelot. I shot one deer, but I let the others alone. I couldn't have carried the tapir even if I had killed him. I didn’t want the ocelot, and there wasn't any sense in wasting a shell on a deer I didn't really need.
After the first two or three days I felt sure the stream flowed southwest. It turned and twisted of course; but I kept watch of the sun and found the general direction. I calculated it must flow into the Maranon, but it didn't really matter where it flowed. The main thing was that there would be settlements or Indian villages somewhere along the stream. I never gave a thought to the possibility of running into hostile savages. I was so lonely, so crazy to see another human being, that I would have yelled with delight at sight of a cannibal Amuensha.
You, no one, can imagine what I suffered from loneliness on that trip. It hadn’t been so bad even in the jungle. There I had been compelled to keep my mind busy—picking my way, avoiding obstacles, searching for game, but when floating down the river where there was nothing to occupy my mind, the stark horrors of the past weeks kept obtruding themselves. The more I tried to forget them the more vivid they became. I would have given anything—would have sold my soul were such a thing possible—just to have heard the sound of a human voice, just to have had some human being to talk to.
The Meeting with Head-Hunters
I guess it was about a week after I had taken to my raft that I met the first Indians. I awoke one morning to find them standing over me. For a moment I thought I was still asleep and dreaming. But they were real enough. They were brown-skinned, had long black hair, wore bands of red and yellow feathers about their heads, had skewers of bone tipped with feathers through their ears and had heavy strings of metallic-green beetles' wings about their necks. Both wore breech clouts of a peculiar reddish-brown cloth with a geometrical design in white. Both carried long paddle-shaped wooden clubs, and both held long-hafted lances. All this I took in at my first glance, but my gaze was focussed upon the spears. They had steel blades! That was the one detail I really saw, for it meant the Indians were in touch with civilization!
I gave a shout and leaped up so suddenly that the Indians sprang back with startled cries and upraised weapons. But they didn't strike, although I couldn't have blamed them if they had, for I must have looked like a wild man or a real devil. But I guess they thought me crazy, for I was so overjoyed, so delirious with delight at seeing men—even savages—and knowing I was done with that lonely awful jungle, that I danced and laughed and shouted like a madman. I spoke to them in Xinguay, but they didn't understand. I tried them with Putamo but with no better result. I spoke in Quichua and a puzzled frown came over their foreheads as if they were trying to make a mental translation of the words. Then I tried Jivarro. Instantly their faces lit up. They understood that tongue and one of them replied in a Jivarro dialect. I could talk to them.
Of course I knew they were head-hunters. But that didn't worry me in the least. Head hunting isn't just a hit-or-miss game like shooting rabbits. There are certain formalities to be observed in collecting heads. And a head isn't of any value as a trophy unless taken from an enemy slain in battle. Besides, if they had wanted my head they could easily have killed me while I slept. But I don't think it even occurred to me that they were head-hunters—not just then. I was too overjoyed at having the company of human beings to think of anything else or to care. I was so happy that I actually cried. The relief, the reaction was too great for me to control my feelings. Oblivious of their weapons I flung myself upon the Indians, patting their backs, shaking their hands, talking to them as if they had been long-lost brothers.
For a few moments the Jivarros seemed scared—they didn't know whether to turn and run or not. But pretty soon they began to grin and to answer my questions. Then, driving their spears in to the earth, points down as a sign of peace, they squatted down and accepted the smoked venison I offered them. By that time I had calmed down enough to talk sensibly and coherently. But I was awfully disappointed when they told me they had never been to the settlements and didn't know anything about them. But white men had been to their village—which was only a few hours' walk from where they had found me—so I knew I could make it. I think that was the happiest day of my life.
The village didn't amount to much—perhaps a dozen houses and about fifty people—and most of the men were away when we arrived. They had gone off on a head-hunting raid, my two friends told me. The Jivarros—or rather the Muyas, for they were not true Jivarros but a sub-tribe—treated me well enough. But I was mad with impatience to be off. The trouble was that none of the men remaining in the village knew the route to the settlements, except their general direction. And I couldn’t bear the thought of going alone. I had had all of the solitary jungle travel I could stand. But none of the Indians could go with me without permission of the chief, so I was forced to wait until he came back with his raiders.
How Heads Are Shrunken as Trophies
When the party finally returned they came in triumph with nearly a dozen heads, and for the next few days they were far too busy to bother with me. Did you ever see a shrunken head prepared? No, I thought not. Well, I have. I thought it would
