(part 1)

JUNE 11, 2006

MARCH 20:
Today, as I and the rest of the party emerged from the undergrowth, I breathed a sigh of relief, one that had been waiting for release for seven seemingly interminable days. Nearly a whole month in the jungle and we had seen no sign of our objective, and now here we were, ragged, dirty and totally exhausted, and not a thing to show for our labours.

MARCH 29:
We are making final preparations for a return to the forest. A week of rest and we feel as good as new, fighting fit and ready to face the rigours of rain forest again. Incredible the resilience of the human body, it never fails to confound me.

APRIL 1:
The fools day and seemingly a day for a new expedition. Marcos feels very ill though, and the doctor thinks it must be the dreaded heat stroke. It’s already taken its toll on two others in the course of this venture, they had to be sent back to town by river boat and hospitalised. This is the problem of our over-sanitised so-called civilised world, no resistance to adversity of the natural kind.

APRIL 15:
Well, so far so good. No snake bites, no more illness, and unfortunately still no significant sign of the Cachui. Jose thinks he sensed something last night, like a nearby presence, someone watching us, but we gave up paying attention to that sort of sixth sense stuff a long time ago. Everyone of us has had these feelings in the past, but nothing has come of any of it yet. Anyway we live in hope.

APRIL 23:
At last. We sighted smoke to the West today. On the very rim of the forest. Dr. Villa was the first to spot it. As we broke through the underbrush into a clearing, he shouted loudly, and the rest of us went running to see what was up, and there it was, rising majestically over the canopy, at what the ever knowledgeable Jose estimated to be two miles Westward. We knew of no tribes in this whole section, so there was great hope that we may at last have found our ‘Lost Tribe”.

(part 2)

JUNE 14, 2006

APRIL 30:
We really have got ourselves into a mess this time. About an hour ago, which is to say around quarter past four in the afternoon, after a long spate of quiet, all hell broke loose. We have indeed found our tribe, or more precisely they have found us. Our quiet and rather slow progress was suddenly thrown into turmoil by a band of rather colourful and distinctly menacing hunter-warriors, who emerged out of nowhere and surrounded us with bow and arrows and short spears, and proceeded to circle us very slowly. They are not as frightened of us as we had hoped, nowhere near. There was amongst us a kind of vague idea that if such a situation should arise we should have the upper hand, since we fully believed that they would find us so alien as to be cowed by our appearance. Well there you have it, civilised man again! Always so cocksure of himself. We really do have a high opinion of ourselves. The audacity to think these ‘poor savages’ would find us frightening!

MAY 3:
They are not nearly as vicious as we first thought. In fact they seem to have accepted us very quickly as human, which is to say they seem to have no trouble in seeing that we are basically the same as they are. and that is a hell of a lot more than I can say civilised man’s first impression of so-called primitive tribes that he ‘discovered’. My god they haven’t even tried to convert us to any religions yet!
They are, aside from some minor problems of communication very eager to include us in their everyday life. They also seem to treat us as though we’re here to stay and not merely temporary and uninvited guests, though this is only a semi-educated guess. Their rituals are less numerous and, seemingly less binding than other tribes that we have records of. So far there are no heavy taboos that we can point to. Theirs seems to be a rather relaxed attitude to most things, including property, sexual and social relationships, and most importantly there seems to be no visible hierarchy. Indeed there appears to be no specific or significant difference in rank between the various members of their society. Discrimination between the sexes, or indeed between different age groups minimal to non-existent, everyone seems to take different responsibilities as the need for any specific action presents itself. Somewhat Utopian you might say, but I very much doubt it. I feel we must try as much as possible to avoid imposing our Westernised preconceptions on what we see, that is the fatal and wasteful mistake of our predecessors, the very wrong footing on which all mishandling and bungling of past explorers and pioneers. This is the tunnel vision that European adventurers have always suffered from. We, as it were the new generation of explorers, ourselves from the Third World, must at all costs avoid the foolishness of our predecessors.

(part 3)

JUNE 17, 2006

JUNE 5:
About a month with people and still non the wiser. We quite frankly can’t even begin to understand the very simples rules by which these people live. It would be a grave injustice to them to merely describe their apparent behaviour, observe and then just leave to head for home and, under lab conditions rebuild for our edification a case history out of this tribe, and as is usual in such cases, smugly declare ourselves privy to to their psyche. We do not know any more about them than they know about us, but one thing is certain, whatever their social system is, it works. It would not be too much idealisation to say that they lead an apparently idyllic life. This is not to say there is no hardship or that life for them is one great happy party, it is not. But it is strange that though warlike, they are not indiscriminate killers, though profoundly uninquisitive they nevertheless show every sign of great intelligence. They are by far quicker at understanding us than we are at working them out, yet they seem ultimately unruffled by the technological bric-a-brac that we have in tow.

JUNE 7:
Something very interesting happened today. After some deep discussion a small group set off towards the Northwest, carrying all manner of arms and supplies. we’ve of course absolutely no idea where they are off to, or what they intend to do. All we know is that the late yesterday a young girl who’d been away for a while, returned in a very exited mood and seemingly brought news of enough importance for practically everyone except for the very youngest, and of course us, was instantly mobilised. As it turned out almost the entire village worked through the night to pack all the supplies for the next days expedition. We are also rather excited, since we may be on the verge of some new and groundbreaking discovery of our own in fathoming this mysterious tribe. Perhaps we are about to witness something that will give us a key to shed a little light our confusion….?

JUNE 12:
At last, the expeditionary band has returned. It might be useful at this juncture to record that so far their, and therefore our, diet has been the usual jungle fare, some roots and vegetable, various birds and the occasional venison or buffalo meat and much fruit. As far as we’ve known it no special or noticeable variance in relation to other jungle tribes. But the returning hunters, for that was what they were, brought back what seems to be an inordinately large herd of an animal, pig-like in appearance, but otherwise unknown to us, which was received with great jubilation by the villagers. One of the old women, who seems to enjoy the special respect of the rest, was first to greet the returning heroes and heroines of the expedition. Here we witnessed the first overt sign of pomp and ceremony we’d seen so far. With great dignity she left the centre of the complex at the head of of the rest which formed itself eventually into a circle around the herd, and into an enclosure which was quickly constructed to contain the animals. Here the old lady made a loud call and a small group of boys and girls responded by bringing various instruments and the rest of the day and all of the following night was spent in dancing and celebration.

(part 4)

JUNE 19, 2006

JUNE 13:
The villagers chew, on certain occasions, a leaf very similar to coca leaves, and with very much the same effect. All through the night much chewing was done, with the result that today none of us are particularly active. So I shall not add any more for now, as of nothing of importance seems to be happening anyway.

JUNE 14:
Finally we have recovered from the party. The village is once more a hive of activity. As might be expected the ‘pigs’ are the centre of their attention. These people seem to live from hand to mouth, and presumably the discovery of these animals means a break from the hard and often fruitless pursuit of prey day in, day out. The aforementioned lady gave the call again today and a new ceremony was performed, again involving the whole population, but this time the purpose was the slaughter of one of the precious animals. This was done in a somewhat similar way to the Muslim style, which involves slitting the throat, as it were from ear to ear and allowing the blood to drain freely. Then the creature was skinned, and having dug a pit, which was filled with burning logs, it was placed inside and surrounded with fruits and herbs. The the whole was covered with broad leaves and then piled with earth, an it was left to cook slowly for hours. The resulting feast was truly magnificent. None of us had ever tasted anything quite so delicious, and we now understood the real reason for all the celebration, this was simply meat from heaven. No wonder they were all so excited…

(part 5)

JUNE 23, 2006

… I had always looked forward to today, whether with excitement or misgiving I can’t now say. But here it was at last. Today I saw the results, after a lifetime of desire and anticipation this miserable piece of flimsy paper was telling me loudly that I had reached nearly the end of it all. The experts were, sadly, sceptical of the exact length of time left to me, but nevertheless the situation being what it was, etc. etc. ad infinitum, there you had it. The hospital gave me a maximum of one to one and a half year life expectancy.

Well I was to be the one who should die a violent but colourful death. I was to die while exploring, or fighting for the cause of the less than unfortunate in this world. I was to add something to our world no matter how insignificant, no matter how small, I was the one who most wanted to be of some serious use in this miserable sack which supports us, God and the powers willing. This dirt from which we come and to which we return. It’s not really a case of being afraid of death, I had always felt that the idea of shedding the weight of this mortal form would be only too welcome, the idea of eternal rest only too attractive. But as long as death had some semblance of purpose, some sense of dignity.

To go like this, this gradual but interminable deterioration, it is truly the final desecration of all that one holds sacred about oneself. As a human being one is encouraged, indeed educated to feel one’s importance, to believe in the integrity and importance of the individual, in spite of all the injustice, torture, crime and abuse that the vast majority of us go through daily, we still cling desperately to some abstract notion of dignity, some mirage of the existence of the eternal and inalienable rights of the individual. Think about it and you’ll have to agree man’s only rights are those he can get for himself and those he can hold on to. And after all there is always someone with a sharper knife or a bigger gun than you. So if our rights are so much dependent on our muscle and the goodwill of others, then we each of us stands teetering on the very edge of a deep chasm, with the sole desire to hang on to solid land for as long as possible, even if it means actively throwing everyone else in, for a second’s delay of our own end.

I should like to have gone to many places, done many things, seen a multitude of wonders.

I would like to have died of snake bite…