Jungle Boys

To the oil companies of northwestern Colombia, the Motilon Indians of the jungle-tangled mountains are an industrial hazard. The Motilones (mo-tee-loan-es) ambush trucks, shoot 6-ft. arrows through the oilmen's tents--and sometimes through the oilmen. What is worse, they give the oilworkers' union a hard-to-answer argument for extra hazard pay.

But ethnologists cherish the Motilones as an unexploited treasure. They are one of the few remaining Indian groups in South America untouched by the white man's influence. Airplanes fly over their country and photograph their clearings, but that is about as close as anyone gets to the Motilones. Attempts to conciliate them, or even to talk with them, are met with flights of arrows out of the jungle. Their customs, language and religion remain a mystery. Presumably they have not changed since pre-Spanish times.

Two Little Indians. Last week Colombia's National Ethnological Institute had new hope of getting to know the Motilones. A nine-year-old Motilon boy recently led a settler near Petrolea to a hut in the jungle. In it were two dead Indians and a 15-year-old boy who was almost dead. The nine-year-old and 15-year-old were taken to the hospital of the Colombian Petroleum Co. While they were being nursed back to strength, Ethnologists Jean Caudmont and Francisco Velez Arango of Bogota hurried to Petrolea.

The Indian boys were kept in a room with barred windows, and the younger and healthier one kicked, bit, hit and spat at every visitor. The older boy, who eventually recovered, was slightly more tractable, but for a while the little Indians slept one at a time, while the other kept watch. Bit by bit they were both introduced to clothes and taken on guarded walks through their native jungle.

180 Words. Learning their language has been a slow process. The boys would not cooperate, but Velez and Caudmont eavesdropped on their conversation and jotted down the phonetic elements that form their speech. Then they began to catch whole words and could give meanings to some of them. Now they have a list of 180 words, many of which seem to be related to the language of the fierce Caribs* lived in the Lesser Antilles. Some of the boys' gestures, familiar to ethnologists, suggest that the Motilones may practice human sacrifice.

Eventually, the ethnologists hope either to teach Spanish to the jungle boys or to learn the Motilon language. Then they will try to find out from the boys why their people wage continual war against all outsiders. The cause may prove to be something that fair treatment will eliminate. By the end of this year, they hope, they can take their young interpreters, friends by that time, into Motilon territory and convince the rest of the Indians that war is no longer necessary.

*From whose early name, Caribales, the word cannibal is derived.

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