Skull & Bones

In the early summer of 1925, Colonel Percy Fawcett, his son Jack and another English explorer named Raleigh Rimell jumped off into the jungles of Brazil's Matto Grosso, to look for the ruins of a lost civilization. Somewhere beyond the Rio das Mortes (River of Deaths) the party vanished, never to be heard from again.

Colonel Fawcett's fate swiftly became one of the celebrated mysteries of modern times. Sunday-supplement editors printed endless accounts of travelers who claimed to have seen or heard of Fawcett alive in the Amazonian wilds. Most experts felt sure that he was dead, probably murdered by the Kalapalo Indians through whose lands he had ventured in search of the original Garden of Eden. But over the years a score of international expeditions failed to find Fawcett, dead or alive. Last week the Brazilian government proudly announced that one of its Indian agents, following out the country's policy of winning over its untamed Indians by "love," rather than by stern discipline, had finally cleared up the mystery.

"Many Birds Will Come." The man credited with solving it was bearded Orlando Villas Boas, who had parleyed with the Kalapalos for five years. From the first, the tribesmen admitted knowing Ingueleze, as they called Fawcett, but always insisted that their neighbors, the Iarumas, had murdered him. In time the canaiba (white man), with his friendly talk and timely gifts of pots & pans, gradually overcame their suspicions. Last year a newly elected chief, Komatzi, hesitantly confided to Orlando the reason why his people feared to talk about Fawcett. "Many birds [i.e., airplanes ] will come," he said, "carrying many canaibas who will kill all the Kalapalos." Orlando then set to work at convincing Komatzi and his tribesmen that the white men had no desire to avenge Ingueleze's death.

Last month, after a council of the elders of the tribe had finally voted to cooperate with Orlando, Komatzi and 40 Kalapalo braves called at Orlando's headquarters deep in the jungle some 850 miles northwest of Rio. Taking Orlando and an interpreter, they marched eastward for five hours to the bank of the Kuluene River. There all halted in absolute silence. After another session with his elders, Komatzi sent a brave for a canoe. The chief stepped gravely toward Orlando, pointed to a mark cut in the trunk of a nearby tree. "This is how tall Ingueleze was on his last trip," he said.

"You Are Standing on It." The canoe carried the party across the river, and after a brief portage, across a lake. Each time, Orlando went last. On the far side of the lake he found the elders drawn up in council circle. Komatzi spoke for two hours, calling upon Orlando to defend the old men, women & children of the tribe in case of canaiba revenge. Orlando replied: "I give the Kalapalos my word and the word of the great father, there will be no revenge."

Then Komatzi's stern face softened. "The canaiba is clever," he said in friendly tones. "Little by little he has found out something." Raising his voice abruptly, he cried: "The canaiba still wants to see the place where the body is? You are standing on it."

Komatzi ordered four Indians to dig. They turned up first a skull with a few teeth well preserved, then thigh bones, followed by some ribs and a machete of European manufacture.

Orlando and his superiors, who plan to send the jawbone to a London dentist for definite identification, are convinced that the bones are Fawcett's. The Kalapalos have told him that the explorers were massacred because they had not given promised presents, and because Fawcett struck one Indian. They threw the bodies of the two young men into the lake, they said, but decided to bury Colonel Fawcett and the machete with which he tried to defend himself.

Brazil's No. 1 Indian pacifier, old General Candido Rondon, thinks that the tribesmen may have murdered the explorers partly out of fear, because Fawcett was demanding that they guide him through the adjoining territory of their dread foes, the savage Chavantes. Orlando is far too tactful to press them further now. At week's end he delivered to his friends $75 worth of red and blue beads and fishing lines--their reward for answering the question that had remained unanswered for 26 years.

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