7952] 



PLANT HUNTING IN ECUADOR 



11 



community. First there is a jea or house to be builto This is no simple, three- 

 sided jungle shelter. It is a large place, with a series of separate interior apart- 

 ments, for himself, his first wife, the anticipated wives to follow, and their broods 

 of children. Arrangements also must be made for the cooking place for the whole 

 household, a general space and benches for conversation when visitors come, and 

 places where they may sleep when staying overnight. This all is under one roof. 

 The timbering must be well engineered for so large a structure, and the palm 

 leaves for the great expanse of roof thatch individually and carefully smoked -over 

 a special fire so that they will resist rot. 



The prospective bridegroom now has his tarimiat and his jea but, according to 

 tribal custom, he still cannot rightly claim his place in the social structure, and 

 he may not occupy his house. He first must prove his prowess in combat and ap- 

 pear with a tz'antza of his own. Since childhood he has been practicing the art of 

 making shrunken heads — and it is an art — by using those of monkeys caught in the 

 chase, and so this is no new thing. But this may be his first human one. Also, 

 one doesn't just wait along the trail and plunge a spear through the first unwary 

 passerby. It has to be obtained some distance away and in enemy territory, either 

 as part of a regular war expedition or as a lone-wolf affair. Having taken his head 

 and made his tz'antza, he may then return, enter his house by the front door with 

 full ceremonies, and take his place in the community as the head of a household 

 or jivaria. From there on, additional wives may be acquired either by barter or 

 theft. 



The details of the making of the tz'antza might be of some interest. Also, one 

 could record the complex social customs of these interesting people. But these 

 are outside the bounds of a brief note on the collecting of plants in this remote 

 region. One might add, however, that some of those who have written what seem 

 to be authoritative works on these subjects clearly indicate that they have never 

 lived with the Jivaros even for a brief time and so have no real understanding of 

 the situation. For example, three wives are a minimum number for a well-ordered 

 household. There must be expeditions away from home for hunting and fishing to 

 augment the proteins in the diet. One wife must stay at home to tend the garden 

 and take care of the accumulation of youngsters. The other two go along to assist 

 with the work. Usually they are nursing and must carry their infants with them. 

 Whether the quarry be fish or monkeys, it is cut up and dried over a fire and 

 smoked to further preserve the meat. Therefore one wife must remain in camp dur- 

 ing the day to tend to these chores; the other wife goes along to assist with the 

 fish traps or acts as a second pair of eyes, a great help — almost a necessity — in 

 jungle hunting. The wife in camp also tends and nurses the child of the one out 

 on the chase. The next day the wives exchange their duties. It is a system of 

 complete cooperation in the round of family duties but, for its proper function, re- 

 quires an imbalance of the human sex ratio, a 3:1 ratio rather than the usual 1:1 

 ratio. Those professional "do-gooders" who beat their breasts and deplore the 

 taking of human heads by these people, do not understand the nature of the life 

 required of them by their environment or the structure of the family. The elimina- 

 tion of two out of every three males in the adult population is the only way in 

 which the social structure can be maintained or the family kept as a functioning 

 unit. The making of the tz'antza is only a bit of symbolic ritual, closely akin to 

 the ceremony of Communion as practiced by Christians— the taking of human flesh 

 and blood as symbolized by the sanctified bread and wine, a ritual derived from 

 the ancient and sacrificially bloody helioatric religions of the Mediterranean 

 region. 



