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Yarinacocha where the base camp of Summer Institute of Linguistics gave the education for literacy.
Apparently Jum‘s coming to Yarinacocha was a chance for the whites and mestiz
os to get materials for trading. ‗These bosses, whites or Amazonian mestizos, periodically visited the tribes to buy rubber and animal
skins.‘ Due to his realizing that he and his people were being exploited, he decided not to sell the materials to them. For he was considered as denying the
contract, Jum was tortured by the whites and mestizos. A par
ty of whites and mestizos from Santa Maria de Nieva−a trading post on the banks of the Nieva River that we had also visited, put up in a
Catholic mission−had arrived in Urakusa, beat up all the Indians they could lay their hands on, and raped several women. They carried Jum off
to Santa Maria de Nieva, where they submitted him to the indignity of having his hair cut off. Then they tortured him in public Llosa, 1989: 74.
This moment when the narrator visited Amazonian jungle for the expedition reveals that the whites and mestizos are described through their
relation to the indigenous communities. Almost all of the description of the whites and mestizos in the story were about their conflicts with the natives.
b. Indigenous People
The indigenous people described in Peruvian society were the Indians. They are communities scattered through Amazonian jungle. There were various
groups of Indians in Peruvian society. Some of them were named by the language they speak.
In the story, some Indian groups are mentioned and described. At least four groups are depicted. They are Aguarunas and Huambisas, Shapras, and
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Machiguengas. In this analysis, the groups are discussed one by one by their characterization.
i. The Aguarunas and Huambisas
The analysis of the Aguarunas comes along with Huambisas because they have close family relation in terms of languages. Besides, they are often
mentioned together in the story. However, compared to Huambisas, Aguarunas are mentioned more frequently than Huambisas.
The Aguarunas and Huambisas are two of many other tribes dwelling in the jungle of Alto Marañón, nearby Marañón River, in northwestern of Peru. They
are explained as having close relation for they come from Jíbaro-speaking family. It is explained in the below quotation.
We went first to Yarinacocha and talked with the linguists and then, a long way from there, to the region of the Alto Marañón, visiting a series of
settlements and villages of two tribes of the Jíbaro family: the Aguarunas and the Huambisas Llosa, 1989: 72.
It is depicted that there were some settlements and villages in Alto Marañón in which the Aguarunas and Huambisas lived. They were considered as
‗the Jíbaro family‘ for they speak this language. These two tribes are also depicted in the similar way not only in terms of
language but also their tradition. It is depicted that both Aguarunas and Huambisas had certain beliefs of reaching perfectness through some traditions
which are considered as ‗cruelties‘ by people from outside the tribes. Their understanding of the perfectness is described in these ways.
The fact, for instance, that the Aguarunas and the Huambisas of the Alto Marañón tear out their daughters‘ hymen at her menarche and eat it, that
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slavery exists in many tribes, and in some communities they let the old people die at the first signs of weakness, on the pretext that their souls
have been called away and their destiny fulfilled Llosa, 1989: 25.
The traditions of women circumcision and letting old people die when in their early sickness are part of their ways to understand perfectness. Those
traditions are more or less the manifestation of their spiritual life. They also rely on their beliefs on good and bad signs happening in their communities. One of the
examples is described in the case of baby birth. The tribes believe that if a baby is born with ‗physical defects‘, it should be killed for they consider it is a bad sign
for the rest members of the communities Llosa, 1989: 25. The traditions and the beliefs seem to explain that from outside point of
view, these people still live in traditional ways since they strongly hold their inherited traditions. In addition to the tradition and the beliefs that reflect their
traditional culture, the tribes are described in the way they look. In an Aguaruna village, Urakusa, where we arrived one evening, we saw
through the potholes of the hydroplane the scene which had become familiar each time we touched down near some tribe: the eyes of the entire
population of men and women, half naked and daubed with paint, attracted by the noise of the plane, followed its maneuvers as they slapped at their
faces and chests with both hands to drive away their insects Llosa, 1989: 74.
It is seen from the quotation that it is such familiar scenery to see men and
women of the tribes half naked with their bodies painted. It depicts that the people of the communities still lived in their simple ways following the traditions.
Despite the traditional characteristics put in the description of the Aguarunas and Huambisas, these tribes have already opened contact with the people outside their
communities. ‗The Aguarunas had contact with the rest of Peru and some of their
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villages were undergoing a process of outbreeding whose results were visible at first glance
,‘ Llosa, 1989: 88. The quotation explains how the Aguarunas have already been able to open relation with people outside their communities and even
they marry with outsiders. To sum up, the Aguarunas and Huambisas are two of many Indian tribes
scattered through Amazonian jungle in Peru. Specifically, they mostly lived in Alto Marañón region. These two tribes are typically traditional communities that
relying their lives on the things in the jungle. It is no doubt that the way the dress and live is very simple. Besides, they also still hold their ancestor traditions and
beliefs which sometimes are considered as ‗cruel‘ by the outsiders. Yet, these tribes are still
more ‗familiar‘ with outsiders than some other indigenous communities.
ii. The Shapras
The Shapras live not so far from the Aguarunas and Huambisas. They live surrounding Lake Morona in a village called Moronacocha, still in northwestern
Peru. As well as many other indigenous communities in Peru, the Shapras also live surrounded by jungle and wildlife. It is explained when the narrator and his
friends visited the community. ‗When we reached the tribes, by contrast, there
before us was prehistory, the elemental, primeval existence of our distant ancestors: hunters, gatherers, bowmen, nomads, shamans, irrational and
animistic ,‘ Llosa, 1989: 73.
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Amazed by the scenery he saw, the narrator described the situation in the community as prehistory-like. From his description, the Shapra community is
described with its primordial touch. The way the narrator compared the Shapras to the
lives of ‗our distant ancestor‘ emphasizes that this community still lived in very traditional ways.
The terms ‗hunters, gatherers, bowmen, nomads‘ depict that this community relied on what nature provided them in the jungle. Besides, their
spirituality was still traditional also for the mentioning of shamans, irrational and animistic to describe their beliefs.
This, too, was Peru, and only then I became fully aware of it: a world still untamed, the Stone Age, magico-religious cultures, polygamy,
headshrinking in a Shapra village of Moronacocha, the cacique, Tariri, explained to us, through an interpreter, the complicated technique of
steeping and stuffing with herbs required by the operation−that is to say, the dawn of human history Llosa, 1989: 73.
The narrator then remarked that despite the primordial touch shown by the Shapras, this community was still part of the Peruvians. That this community
existed somewhere in Peru made him aware that besides the people he usually encountered, there were some other people lived in wildlife with their own ways
to survive. Thus, the Shapras as well as the Aguarunas and Huambisas are depicted
with its primordial touch. They are part of Peruvian society that still holds the old traditions. It is seen from the way they survive and also their spirituality.
