Daily Hansan
EDITORIAL-FEATURE SECTION
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Friday, April 20, 1962
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
59th Year, No. 122 SECTION C
Beyond the Andes
Jungle People ...
...Live in Misery
Text and photos by Fred Zimmerman
A few hundred miles across the Andes Mountains from the modern city of Lima, Peru, there live in ignorance and poverty thousands of primitive Indians, clustered in small, isolated tribes along the banks of the Amazon headwaters.
Members of the Shapra Tribe pictured here are of the Jivaro family, whose prowess as head-hunters is legendary. The Shapras live on the banks of the Pushaga River in Northern Peru, hidden from civilization by dense jungles.
TARIRI (LOWER LEFT), THE CHIEF of the Pushaga Shapras, is believed to have shrunk the heads of 17 of his enemies, and to have killed more than 40 men. But now, largely through the efforts of missionaries living in the tribe, he and his clan are peaceful.
Because of a vicious system of reprisal killings that is the law of the jungle, however, Tariri lives in fear today. One night two years ago, members of a family whose relatives Tariri had killed floated quietly down the Pushaga and wounded him in an attempt on his life.
THE SHAPRAS HAVE strange customs, the most striking of which seems to be characteristic of many Peruvian tribes.
The Indians regard lice as choice delicacies. They plant them in each other's hair, and in idle moments reap the harvest.
TARIRI'S SON. A rush pa (upper right), sits on the prow of a canoe as it drifts down the Pushaga toward his home. In his hand is a parakeet.
The woman in the center of the picture at right is picking lice from her child's hair. She will eat each one she finds. The girl behind the woman is looking for lice in the woman's hair.
Many of the jungle children have bright faces and alert minds. With a haircut, a bath, and a clean change of clothes, most of them would look like average children in this country.
Arushpa's playmates line up for the photographer at upper left.
But it is rare that an Indian leaves the jungle. Thirty years from now, if these children survive disease and war-like Indians, they will still be on the bank of the Pushaga—dirty and hungry, not yet knowing how to write their names.