To the Amahuacas

By Jack Krayenhoff

The Amahuacas are an Indian tribe in the jungle part of Peru. My wife and I spent a year there as missionaries to the Indian tribes, and I as doctor to the Wycliffe Bible Translators. For that it is necessary to go to the tribes and catalogue the most common illnesses in the community, such as tuberculosis (picked up from the traders from the outside) and intestinal parasites (especially hookworm, which caused severe anaemia). That way the translators could diagnose and treat the commonest ailments themselves.

This trip was not going to be very prosperous, judging by the fact that the missionary, ten minutes after our departure, confessed that he had neglected to bring along food. That would mean twenty minutes extra flight time to turn back and pick it up, and the pilot decided that was not worth it. Oh well, the Indians probably would have rice. Otherwise we could be hungry for a couple of days; that was not going to kill us.

The arrival was not very good, either. The river was very low, and we had to get to the firm shore through ankle-deep mud. The pilot was not happy, for he thought he heard thunder to the east. That meant heavy rainfall upstream, with sudden heavy increase in the water level of our river. This would mean periodic adjustment of the anchor rope. He preferred to stay with his plane.

We climbed through the mud until we were in the village. The first thing we did was to get the signatures of the leaders of the Indians on some documents, provided by the government, necessary to get their claim to the land confirmed. It had been encroached upon by outside Peruvians, and it limited their hunting. The fact that the Indians could not write did not matter; they simply made a mark, like an X, in lieu of a signature. It was a procedure that could have been followed by our ancestors in Canada 100 years ago!

In the meantime the pilot had come up to tell us that his predictions had come true. The river had come up with the rainwater and already some tree branches were in it. That meant that eventually bigger branches and then whole trees would come down, and his pontoons were no match for that. They would be getting holes in them, and then the plane would be useless. He had to fly away to the main river, where our little river came out, and find a sand bank to park his plane.

In the meantime, I went about my regular work. It did not yield much information, other than a heavy infestation of worms which I was able to diagnose with my microscope. After that, much of my time went into the pulling of teeth. I was going to say “dentistry,” but that would be giving too grand a name to my universal cure for a toothache, which was a tooth extraction. You think that is an unusual course and drastic treatment, but you should have seen the line-ups. You should also have been one of those Indians suffering for weeks on end with one of those toothaches, without so much as an aspirin to relieve it. Also, it was darn hard work. I had a chair positioned so that the sun shone right into the mouth of the patient, with Joan, my wife, standing behind him, with the head securely clasped under her arm. That way the pain was not enough to move his head, if sometimes the tooth broke off. This happened to the chief of the tribe, who sat down pointing to his left upper canine tooth. I could not see the slightest thing the matter with it, so I was wondering if he wanted it out just because he would not be upstaged by his underlings. Moreover, the canine tooth had a colossal root, making it hard to extract. I took the translator aside and asked him what I should do, and his advice was to pull the tooth, so I went to work. I applied the forceps, I did with it what the dental surgeon who had instructed me to do, I made the movement frontwards and sideways to loosen it but all to no avail. Then I applied an extra amount of force... and broke the tooth off. But the chief was convinced that this was what I had in mind and that the treatment was successful, and before I could apologize he expressed his warmest thanks. That was my success as a dentist!

Meanwhile the pilot had disappeared with his plane, and our job was done. It was time to eat and fortunately the Indians gave us not only rice, but also eggs (they had some chickens) so that we had a tasty meal. Gratitude for the dentistry played a part, we were sure. We went to sleep, and had the following day off. Joan entertained the Indians with her recorder, and I tried to interest the youngsters with my microscope. For the rest, it was a matter of waiting for the pilot. In the afternoon we finally heard the promising sound of the approaching plane; the pilot landed and had a tale to tell. 

He had flown to the big river and found a sandbank, as planned. But then he saw a motor boat with soldiers in it. They said they had come to arrest him, for they were convinced that he belonged to the group known as the ‘Sendero Luminoso’, the revolutionary organization ‘The Shining Shining Path’ that not long ago had overpowered their river post and made off with all their weapons. The pilot said he belonged to the Instituto Linguistico (they called themselves that because Wycliffe Bible Translators would unnecessarily offend the Peruvians). When they wanted him to prove it with his papers, he had to explain rather lamely that he had no papers – in the jungle nobody was interested in them. “In that case, senor, get into our boat." But he had one more card to play: his radio. “Let me connect you with my headquarters, senores, they can answer your questions.” That was all that was necessary, for the Instituto had only last month enabled the government to fly their planes over the jungle. They let him go.

But it was time for us to go; on the way back the pilot had to pick up some gas which had been dropped there by the organization, for exactly the reason we had lost all this time: the extra gas required for the trip that the pilot had to make yesterday, was not in the tank. That was extra weight that could be used other ways.

So we went to the place on the river where the cache of gas was. How the pilot found it, in the sameness of the river bank, was a mystery, but another mystery was how he could land. The same trees that had flowed down our river, had now reached the big river, and it would be a tricky thing to come down on the water without hitting them. A bit of circling, and a stretch appeared free from trees. We tried, hit the water and came to a stop in one piece. The tank was filled in record time. Now the last chance had to be taken, during which we had to get safely into the air. We could not be sure that there were no floating trees in the way because the distance required was much greater than on getting down. We uttered a heartfelt but short prayer, and we went ahead. Faster and faster we went, and finally we were in the air! The pilot said, “There must be a safer way to do the Lord’s work, but I don’t know what it is.” It is unusual, but this occasion we felt only safe when up in the air.

Afterward we found that the rudder on one of the pontoons had been bent. No serious accident, but it showed how close to something more serious we had come.