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farther down the Tuichi. The campesinos, together with Don Matías, had already visited the village once. They said that the Indians were supposed to know where there was a large treasure of gold in the area. It got me curious, and I asked to go there.'

It was a difficult journey, three days' hike up a mountainside. There wasn't any water on the way, and they had to carry water with them, but they finally made it. It was a big village: six hundred inhabitants. The women wore short grass skirts and went barefoot and bare-breasted. They were solidly built, with high cheekbones and somewhat slanted eyes. All in all, Karl declared, they weren't bad-looking. The men wore loincloths, and most of them also wore belts from which the shrunken heads of their enemies dangled. Each man had two or three wives. Besides cooking and cleaning, the women also worked the fields. They tended banana groves and raised yucca and corn. They carried long knives, made of a very hard wood called chonta. Their bows, spears, and blowguns were made of the same wood. The men made the weapons and spent most of their time hunting or playing games. Jungle boys.

Not far from the village — about three days' walk, almost on the Peruvian border — lived another tribe, known for its ferocity. This tribe would attack the village, carrying off its women. The villagers protected their women, and when they killed one of their enemies, they cut off his head and shrank it. This was done by burying the head in the sand