Tlwse Who Help 183 



for primitive Indians don't like to give away their names 

 any more than they do nail parings or bits of hair, which 

 might be used to bewitch them. Dr. Alfaro, a high official 

 of the Panamanian Government, went to Darien in 1922 in 

 a schooner which he chartered, to adjudicate a disputed 

 boundary between the claims of two oil companies. He 

 offered us a ride. Winthrop Brooks and I were dumped, 

 with our considerable gear, at a little village called Boca 

 de Sabalo, at the head of navigation on the Sambu River. 

 We went ashore, found a vacant palm-thatched hut with 

 a pole floor, and hired it for a few cents. We laid down 

 our floor cloth and set up our mosquito bars, for the place 

 was a hotbed of malaria. 



We had been advised in Panama by a friend in the 

 Survey Department, Major Omer Malsbury, to ask for 

 Juicio, who stood high in the councils of the Chokoi In- 

 dians. These Indians lived in the forests of this section of 

 Panama and the adjacent portion of Colombia. The popu- 

 lation of our little village was of mixed Indian and Negro 

 blood, but they traded with the Indians who lived farther 

 back in the woods. Next day Juicio appeared and Churima, 

 and a number of others of less import, in a band. We took 

 to each other at once. Juicio wore his hair in a long, straight 

 black mane, with an orchid stuck over his ear and his face 

 painted dizzily with the red derived from anotto. We 

 explained what we wanted and he advised us where to 

 camp. 



We spent some time in Darien, moving our camp every 

 seventh day and pitching our tents well away from any 

 permanent Indian habitation. In this way even if we in- 

 fected the local mosquitoes, for probably most of our 



