Gods & Fishhooks

Snug as bugs in the matted jungle of Brazil's Matto Grosso, a state twice as big as Texas with a population little more than that of Houston, lives an Indian tribe called the Yawalapiti. Last summer the Yawalapiti had a colossal surprise, concerning which Vincent M. Petrullo of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, anthropologist of last year's Matto Grosso Expedition (TIME, Dec. 21 et ante) last week issued a monograph.

The Yawalapiti, a primitive, vegetable-eating, pot-bellied folk were minding their daily affairs in their village on a source branch of the Rio Zingu. Women were tending babies, or grating manioc, or preparing the red paint with which they protect their naked bodies against insects. The bob-haired men were fishing with spear or bow & arrow, clearing manioc fields or fetching firewood. Some were erecting great communal houses of wicker. Although not new in anthropology, the construction of the houses was original with the Yawalapiti, who never saw any other houses. They invented trusses of tree trunks to bridge over the large areas which communal dwellings require.

A strange drone grew out of the southern sky. The Yawalapiti children ceased playing. The adults stopped working and talking. The droning thing became visible very high up in the sky. It looked like a dragon fly. But it was bigger than a condor. The amazed Yawalapiti watched it circle down upon their village with a snarl louder than the snarl of any jaguar that ever lived.

Vincent Petrullo and Eldridge Reeves Fenimore Johnson, son of the founder of Victor Talking Machine Co., were in the airplane. They saw the amazing red men below snatch their spears and bows & arrows, and form into fighting squads of six. The Yawalapiti were going to battle the huge creature circling down upon them. The women ran into the jungle, ripping off their uluri (genital charms) as sacrifice to the demon. But the village site was too small for the plane to land. Anthropologist Petrullo & Victrola-Hein Johnson dropped a sack full of good-will offerings upon the village, flew back south.

The brave Yawalapiti would not for a long time touch the "egg" dropped by the sky-thing. When it gave out no sound, no movement, no smell, one brave ventured to poke it with his fishing spear. The sack uttered a tinkle. The Yawalapiti leaped upon it, ripped it with his sharp spear. Out fell knives, fishhooks and other trade goods-which delighted them.

By those tokens the Yawalapiti knew that the Great Gods who had flown over their villages were not evil. They would return. Each morning the Yawalapiti women prepared manioc cakes and beverage and the entire tribe turned their faces to the south praying that the return would be soon. It occurred after seven weeks of prayer. From a jungle stream paddled Vincent Petrullo, his guides shouting that they wanted welcome. The Yawalapiti chief headman, wearing a diadem of jaguar hide, greeted him skeptically. When explanations were over, every one laughed loudly about the Great Gods. The women formed in a line, with arms linked and the palms of hands held against each other with the fingers interlaced and sang a song to Mr. Petrullo. He played them a song on his portable phonograph. Then he gave them images of a creature which they, a dogless people, had never seen. The figurines represented Nipper, the Victor dog listening to "His Master's Voice." Two clowns painted black & red, with nutshell rattles on their right ankles, did a dance and played a tune on pan pipes.

Here was a precious situation for An-thropology--an utterly indigenous, primitive people who had developed language, religion and customs from anciently lost seeds -- which Anthropologist Petrullo with pencil and camera zealously documented. From the pristine Yawalapiti and their neighbors may be learned much about man's origin and development.

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