The Blue Disc

by William B. Waits

  “The outsized human brain is the jaguar’s only weakness,” a professor had said in Rick’s undergraduate biology class.

  Rick still felt helpless, like an infant. He recalled comments Professor Lasington had made in his seminar on social and cultural anthropology. Lasington had been treated as an infant when he first went into African societies, but after he learned more about them, they let him grow up through their age levels until, eventually, he was treated as an elder. Lasington had recounted the story with some pride, and rightfully so. Alone in the rain forest, Rick would settle for feeling any age older than infancy.

  Rick knew he would have to hike with his backpack until he contacted the Euromamo, but he wanted to gather his thoughts for a bit before lugging it into the dense vegetation. All was quiet around him, except for the low humming he did to keep himself company. Then he heard a sharp thump! His eyes snapped toward the sound, and became riveted on a bamboo dart stuck in his backpack. He gasped!

  As Rick frantically scanned the foliage, he felt his heart beating strongly in his chest. He couldn’t see anyone, although they were obviously there. Fighting would be futile. His only option was to try to make friends with whoever had blown the dart. Maybe they were Euromamo. He smiled at the surrounding vegetation and raised his hands, hoping that this gesture would not be misinterpreted. At least his open hands showed that he held no weapons.

  “Assume you’re surrounded,” he told himself. “Stay calm. Anthropologists commonly meet their groups this way. It happened to Chagnon, and it’s happening to me. Damn dart is probably poisonous, though.”

  Slowly, one by one, the natives moved out of the bushes and into view—about ten of them in all. They had two wide ochre stripes painted along their jaw lines and green dots around their eyes. The paint probably indicated that they were on a special mission: hunting, he hoped, but maybe it was warfare…or cannibalism. Rick wanted to communicate to them that he meant them no harm. Make a gift. That might work. All cultures give gifts and that might begin a relationship with them. As Rick walked over to his backpack, three of the natives—it seemed like the biggest ones—walked toward him. He bowed his head to them and kept his hands visible. He had packed some trinkets, costume jewelry mainly, in separate, small stashes so he wouldn’t have to show his entire treasure trove each time he gave a present to someone. If he showed it all, they might well take it all. Could he locate one of the bags of trinkets quickly? He remembered that he had placed one of the bags of trinkets in the outer pocket. Great! He lifted his backpack and carried it back to the center of the group. All eyes focused on his every movement.

  Rick unzipped the outer pocket, stuck his hand in, and found a clear plastic bag containing some costume jewelry. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief between his still-smiling teeth, as he pulled the bag out and held it high where it caught the sunlight. The three beaded necklaces and three beaded bracelets inside sparkled brightly. Rick’s first inclination was to open the bag immediately and hand out the items to those nearest, but he remembered he should go into a society at the top. If he handed out the trinkets randomly, he might give the best trinkets to the worst members of the group and leave the leader unrewarded; so he carried the entire trinket bag over to the apparent head of the group, opened it and presented it to him as deferentially as possible. The head seemed pleased. He handed out the trinkets to some in the group, just as Rick thought he might. Hopefully, Rick had won some favor with him.

  Meanwhile, two natives showed interest in his backpack. Rick feared he might lose everything. Some stuff, for example, his hatchet, hammock, and fishing tackle, was necessary for his survival, so he couldn’t just let them go. Moreover, the natives might lose respect for him if he let them do anything they wanted without any protest. Acting quickly and firmly, he got between them and his backpack and flailed his arms, managing a half-hearted smile at the same time. To his relief, the natives backed away immediately with an apologetic demeanor.

  Rick tried to get his mind to function, but it was extremely difficult given his excitement. The natives wore leather loincloths and leather vests made from skins that had been stitched together with leather strips so, apparently, they were a technologically primitive society. Maybe they weren’t the Euromamo, because the Euromamo were supposed to have great knowledge. But then, they seemed to be lighter skinned than the Primomamo, and a few of them had medium brown hair that curled a little, as opposed to the straight black hair of the Primomamo.

  “Silting nang bulongo troutine,” Rick heard one of them say.

  It was the first words any of them had spoken, and Rick didn’t have a clue what was said. Damned foreign languages. He was so bad at them. Why the hell had he gone into anthropology anyway? He should have stayed in the South and talked his drawl until the day he died. It was going to take him forever to learn this new language so he could do acceptable research. The head of the group handed his spear to the person next to him and stepped toward Rick, holding his hands up and his palms open. Rick took the gesture to mean that he meant him no harm so he mimicked the gesture as closely as possible.

  “Gratoinzing, futrurong pong, ban zu traitking,” the head said, sporting a small smile. Rick retrieved a personal present for him: a spare, cheap compass that he had stuck in his pocket to help him navigate. The head took it, examined it for a moment and then showed it to the others who seem pleased as they looked at it. Some even chuckled softly.

  Rick then heard a barely audible mumble from a young man behind him. To Rick, it sounded like he had said, “compass.” His first instinct was to turn to look at him, but he decided to act like he hadn’t heard anything. Rick watched the eyes of the others very closely and one of them looked sternly toward the young man. Maybe it was just his imagination working overtime.

  The head of the group looked puzzled and held the compass to his ear, mumbling, “Nifurtiag. Plutu Ongkong.” He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, as if to indicate that he had no idea what it was.

  Rick and the head made friendly expressions at one another for a few moments but then the head motioned for Rick to go with them along the path away from the river. Rick had no choice but to agree. He lifted his backpack onto his shoulders. Where were they taking him? What would they do with him? Of course, they could kill him at any time. Hell, it could be that the only reason they didn’t kill him right there was that they didn’t want to carry his sorry carcass to their village. Or maybe when he had lugged his backpack to their village, they would steal his stuff there. His mind was obviously racing. The head sent one member of the group ahead.

  The walk was Rick’s first extended excursion into the rain forest. Although he reminded himself to keep his eyes down for snakes and other dangers, he couldn’t resist glancing up from time to time at the thick canopy of leaves growing on the tall trees around them. Those trees had successfully made their way up to the sunlight. Vines had latched onto their trunks so they could race upward toward the light rather than grow trunks of their own. Because little direct sunlight made it through the canopy, the temperature was remarkably tolerable. They were on a clear trail, but even off to the sides of the trail, the undergrowth on the floor of the rain forest, was surprisingly sparse, probably because plants there couldn’t get enough light to thrive.

  About fifty yards down the faint path, Rick brushed against a plant and felt a sting as a sharp-edged leaf cut his forearm. It bled a little, but then stopped. Not a big deal, as he expected he’d get some nicks and scrapes as he walked along. But then he remembered that he was deep in a rain forest without professional medical care. He had no idea what germs might have been on the leaf and were now in the small wound. He wanted to treat it immediately, but his tube of antibacterial ointment was buried in his backpack and he couldn’t get to it easily. One of the natives looked at the wound while another chopped down the plant with a stone hatchet.

  It was hard to judge distances, but Rick estimated they had walked about half a mile when they entered a sma
ll clearing. Log benches were arranged in a circle around a stone fire pit that had a fire going under a large cooking pot tended by two women. Rick was feeling hungry and couldn’t help wondering what was in the pot. He reminded himself to not ask too many questions about that before eating. He would try his best to eat what was served and ask what it was the following day after it had gone through his system. Some rain forest groups, he knew, liked eels and knew he would probably have to choke down something like that. Some groups even had a taste for insects, usually roasted some way. The tales told in the seminars had made his stomach queasy, which he had been told was merely a learned cultural reaction and was not based on human biology. One can do well health-wise eating bees rather than honey, it seems.

  “It is important that anthropologists eat whatever is served to them by natives,” Professor Jones had said in his seminar. “If you don’t, they might be offended. If you really can’t stomach a dish, you can say that eating it is against your religion. Most groups will respect that.”

  The members of the group filed by a heavy wooden table and got bowls and wooden spoons that were stacked there. One of the men brought Rick a crudely glazed pottery bowl and a spoon for him. Rick could not help but wonder how clean the bowl and spoon were. Could the natives eat from them because they washed them after every use, or could they eat from unwashed bowls because they had developed immunities to the germs? Or did they die early from infection? Two women ladled out the food as the men and women filed by, in no particular order, except that the head of the group went first and Rick was served last. The fact that he was served food at all was good, he told himself. As soon as he looked inside, though, he saw a few fish fins and fish eyeballs. His brow furrowed slightly as he pushed them to the side and continued eating. The fins were probably not meant to be eaten anyway, he thought, although the eyeballs probably were.

  Someone brought him some water to drink. There was nothing that he wanted more than a good drink of water, but he looked carefully at the liquid to see if there were any visible impurities and saw none. Although that was a comfort, Rick knew that it was the invisible microbes in the water that he had to worry about. Yet he needed to stay hydrated in the tropical heat. He raised the gourd and drank the water down. It was wonderfully wet and cold.

  By the end, he had left only a small amount in the bottom of the stew bowl, which he made sure included the fins and eyeballs. Soon, a woman came over to look at the leaf cut on his arm, which still stung some. She then walked away and returned briefly with a small pottery bowl containing a grayish salve. She indicated, by gesture, that she intended to rub it on the cut. What if the salve wasn’t sterile? Before he could think what to do, she had gently smoothed the viscous potion into the cut. Rick braced himself for burning or itching or some other unpleasant sensation, but the salve calmed the inflamed flesh, reducing the irritation that had bothered him ever since he got the cut.

  The sun was beginning to go down. They motioned Rick to come with them down a path on the far side of the circle of benches. Around a small bend, not more than fifty yards from the circle, the head of the group motioned Rick toward one of the smaller hills. He had no idea of what he was supposed to do but, as he got closer, he saw an entrance to some sort of cave or bunker with a heavy wooden post-and-beam doorframe. On either side of it were low, half-plaster walls. They motioned Rick to enter but, once inside, he could see little until his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

  The building had only four small windows to let in light but, in spite of the darkness, Rick realized that this was not a crude dug-out bunker, but a well-crafted hut with a thatch roof built into the side of the hill, so it looked like it was part of the hillside. The room was about twenty-five feet across with a roof supported by timbers notched and pegged together. The timbers were spanned by intricately woven vines that supported the thatch roof. The interior resembled an English country cottage, complete with plaster walls up to about waist high. The stones in the floor were tightly fit and worn smooth from years of use.

  What was a substantial building like this doing in the rain forest? It certainly wasn’t needed to protect its occupants from the cold—or any other elements for that matter. Down river, the Primomamo, for example, had made do with shelters framed out of limbs and covered with layers of large leaves, which seemed to keep the sun out well enough, although admittedly he and Raul hadn’t spent much time in the village. However, in this well-crafted building, even the wooden furniture, though simple, was well made. The table and chairs in the middle of the room had smooth joints and a little decorative carving. They were more finished than the split-log furniture Rick had expected. Four large wooden chests, also well made, were placed around the wall. This was curious indeed. The head of the group that had captured him motioned for him to be seated in one of the chairs.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Leader

  In the bunker, Rick shifted in his chair and waited…for what he did not know. He smiled weakly at the natives and tried a few times to interact with them through gestures but they remained impassive. They weren’t hostile, he sensed, but they were certainly aloof. He wondered what they would do if he tried to leave the bunker, but he decided against it as it seemed he was not free to leave. Then, suddenly, a woman walked briskly into the room with several others in tow. She was about five-feet-eight-inches tall, and held her head high. She was well proportioned with black wavy hair and fine features. Rick guessed she was about fifty years of age, but it was hard to tell with any accuracy. She wore a leather vest decorated with twenty or so bright buttons and a silver necklace with a medal around her neck. Rick could tell she was a person of importance. The head of the scouting party that had brought Rick to the bunker stood up to greet her.

  “Welcome, Leader,” he said. “This is the person we captured on the north path.”

  Rick was stunned that the group knew English. How was that possible? The Leader’s eyes fixed on Rick for a moment, and then she smiled pleasantly.

  “You are only the second visitor from outside society that we have ever had in our valley. What is your name?”

  “Rick Johnson. And your name, if I may?” he asked deferentially.

  “I am Mary Olive-White. I am the Leader of this group and am usually called by that title. This does not make me all powerful by any means, but I do have my responsibilities.”

  “I am only the second visitor?” asked Rick, repeating what she had said.

  “Yes, I was a girl of just six when the previous outsider visited us,” the Leader offered, “an adventurous small-boat owner from La Puerta. He only lived with us for a month before he caught a deadly disease. There was nothing that even our knowledge of illnesses could do for him. Given the extreme rareness of visitors to us, your arrival is a matter of great interest and, frankly, great concern.”

  “I assure you that I intend you no harm,” said Rick.

  Fat chance that I could harm them, Rick thought to himself. He was surrounded by a dozen warriors.

  “At least for the moment, I can tell you that we feel secure and intend you no harm either,” the Leader said with a light touch of sarcasm. “However, in the rain forest, harm can come in all kinds of guises,” she said glancing down at Rick’s arm. “For example, I notice, Rick, that you have a cut from a slash plant on your arm. I’ve learned that it’s been treated with our ointment which is a good thing because otherwise you might lose your arm.”

  “Might lose my arm?!” he exclaimed. “I’d no idea that my small wound was that serious.”

  Looking at it carefully, she said, “Yes, serious, but I think she caught it in time. Lucky you. Another three or four days and things would have been much worse. Apply the salve daily for a week and let me know if it doesn’t get better. During that time, we’ll cover it to protect it.”

  “You’re the Leader of this group, but what’s the group’s name?” asked Rick.

  “We are the Euromamo. It’s a name we gave ourselves some years ago.”
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  “I thought you might be the Euromamo.”

  “How did you come to think that?” she said, her brow furrowing.

  “I learned a few things about you from a group down river that my boatman called the Primomamo,” Rick offered.

  “The Primomamo. I should have known. They talk too much,” the Leader retorted.

  “They have respect for your group.”

  “That’s all well and good, but I wish they’d talk less.”

  “You speak English,” Rick said, inviting an explanation.

  The Leader paused.

  “More on that at an appropriate time.”

  She paused again.

  “Since we have the names out of the way, where do you come from? I imagine it’s far away,” the Leader suggested.

  “Indeed, I do come from a long way away,” replied Rick. “I live in New Haven, Connecticut, in the United States.”

  “Far away, indeed.”

  “I’d never heard of your group even though I’ve read everything I could find on groups in this part of the rain forest.”

  “It’s very hard for outsiders to find us in our valley. We rather like it that way. Why are you here?”

  “I’m an anthropologist,” replied Rick.

  “That’s unfortunate,” the Leader mumbled to herself.

  Rick didn’t know how to respond, so he continued talking about the discipline.