Ecuador 1987
Cannibals on the Rio Shiripuno?
(Rare contact with the legendary Auca Indians)
Suddenly there is uproar and shouting. The Auca Indians gather around two large pots in the straw hut, which is only lit by the fire. The huge containers remind me of cannibal stories in Africa, in which people were cooked according to old tales. I watch them curiously and am excited to see what happens. Women, men and children unabashedly reach in with their hands and fish out bones and pieces of meat. Steam rises from the jars, only to evaporate seconds later in the canopy of the hut. The atmosphere is disconcerting, almost eerie. The jungle dwellers slurp and smack their lips, give free rein to the excess pressure in their stomachs, lick their hands up to their elbows and quickly dip them into the hot brew again and again. The resulting soundscape has a unique, almost animal-like quality. I remain spellbound in a dark corner of the hut and watch a spectacle that I have never seen before in my life. My gaze is only briefly distracted by the three-meter-long blowpipes and spears leaning against a supporting beam of the hut. Hanging from an arm-thick cross brace, tied from wooden post to wooden post, are quivers containing hundreds of blowgun darts, about 3 millimeters thick and treated with curare poison.
“Ööörrrr!”, the eating noises quickly demand my attention again. Curious, I approach slowly to see what’s simmering in the pots. I jump back a step in horror as I look into one of the pots and discover vertebrae, hands and limbs of all kinds. My eyes wander, mesmerized, to the other pot. Naked horror, nausea and fear grip me as I see the burst heads with shaved hair and bulging eyes in my own brew. “Cannibalism!” I shout with a huff. Gallo, our friend and guide, laughs out loud. “What’s there to laugh about?” I ask in horror. “Mono” (monkeys), he says…
We spend many days with the Auca Indians, who live on the Rio Shiripuno in the heart of the Ecuadorian jungle. I have never had any contact with people still living in the Stone Age. With my first expedition to the origins of mankind, a long-cherished dream has come true and at the same time a new world of reality has been revealed. I quickly realized how threatened these people really are. Over time, I felt an inner connection to them and sensed that I had to do something about their threat.
Only a few groups of gatherers and hunters still roam the farthest corners of the green hell as they always have. The Aucas, who call themselves Huarani, humans, will not be around for much longer. Many of them have been living in slums for years and are dying of various diseases of civilization. Their misfortune is that they live on huge oil deposits. Even if they killed four engineers with their spears just a few weeks ago to defend their land, it won’t do them any good. Western civilization is pushing them further and further back until there will no longer be a refuge for them even in the seemingly endless primeval forests of this earth.
If time permits, I will publish a report on our contact with the legendary Auca Indians in the section “Diaries Ecuador Aucas”.
Ecuador 1987
First professional expedition. Expedition to the Amazon source region to visit the Auca Indians. In search of the Auca Indians, Denis Katzer traveled 400 kilometers through the jungle of Ecuador in a dugout canoe and documented the endangered Auca people (Waorani Indians).
