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This sample is from Jane's first book, The Jungle Is a Woman (1955). The book is about how Jane broke away from her mundane life and embarked on her first adventure with Ken Krippene. Together they traveled to Peru and made their way deep into the Amazine interior in search of a rumored tribe that was a lost remnant of Stone Age times.
In this passage, Jane and Ken, led by their Kampa guide Kamalkeiri, have discovered a small tribe of natives deep in the Gran Pajonal of Peru that they believe is the Stone Age group. They hide among some trees, and we can tell how the young secretary from America is shocked and profoundly moved by sights that have seldom been seen by Westerners. And soon she discovers that her life is in danger!
 The situlli bush furnished an ideal hiding place. It must have been at least ten feet tall and resembled a century plant with large low-hanging leaves, interspersed with clusters of orange and yellow lobster claws suspended from its branches. Behind and to either side of us were many other trees and bushes, but none of them so well suited for our purpose. Directly ahead was a swift shallow stream which separated us from the primitive village.
Ken and I immediately fell flat on the ground while Kamalkeiri remained in a crouching position, his bow and arrows ready for an emergency. Having arrived at our destination and being actually contronfted by the primitives, I should have been frightened, but the excitement of the moment was so overwhelming that I felt more like a spectator than a participant in this, the culmination of over six months' accumulated deprivations and innumerable hardships.
As I inched forward to get a better view, a small twig broke beneath me, making a sharp cracking noise. Ken turned quickly and shook his head, putting his forefinger to his lips in a gesture of silence. In order to emphasize the seriousness of the situation, he drew his finger across his throat. I knew what he meant. Luckily, the sound of the rushing stream saved us from what could have been a serious, if not fatal, predicament.
The village was located in a small clearing about ten yards in width and forty yards in length. At the far end were three large teepee-style huts made from palm fronds which were still green, indicating that these people were nomads and their temporary houses had been erected only recently.
As far as I could see, there were approximately thirty nude men, women and children in the village. They were short and squat in stature. Long black hair hung down in matted snarls over their low receding foreheads and partially covered their dull dark eyes. Unlike all other tribes, the primitives wore no face paint or other ornamentation, except for rawhide things which were tied around their writsts and ankles and under their knees.
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As my eyes scanned this strange tableau, I suddenly realized that I had lost all sense of physical being. The present had ceased to exist. This was neither today nor yesterday, but the eons of a forgotten Time. An infinitesimal spot in this vast jungle had become the original Garden of Eden and these savage primitives, the progeny of its first inhabitants.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kamalkeiri grow tense. I looked at him. His eyes were following a squat, powerfully built, long-haired nude savage who was carrying a crude wooden spear and coming towards the stream in our direction. The primitive stopped. His cold eyes carefully searched the jungle, lingered momentarily on our hiding place, then swept on only to return and focus upon the bush behind which we were hiding. He tilted his head back and sniffed the air like an animal. It gave me a guilt complex. I hadn't taken a bubble bath in months, but I didn't realize it was noticeable at that distance. He advanced a few steps, stopped, and sniffed again. Gripping his spear with both hands and holding it in an alert position, he began wading in the water towards the situlli bush. Kamalkeiri, with a quirk nod of his head, motioned for us to leave and Ken and I made a hasty retreat on our hands an knees. Just before we disappeared deeper into the jungle, I turned and looked at Kamalkeiri who was still crouched behind behind the bush, his bow-string now drawn back and an arrow poised ready for flight. Ken arose and pulled me to my feet.
"We've got to make a run for it," he whispered. "Kamalkeiri will catch up with us later. Come on!"
"We set off at a rapid pace towards the trail completely disregarding caution in our effort to escape. From behind came a high piercing scream, immediately followed by many low gutteral shouts. As we ran, jumping over logs and breaking through innumerable bushes, the chorus of angry cries began to increase in volume.
"Faster!" Ken excalimed. "They're gaining on us!"
I ran until I thought my lungs were going to burst from the effort. My machete, now useless, was tossed aside in order to shed weight and gain speed. Branches and thorns tore at my hair, scratched my legs and arms. At that moment, had I met a Bushmaster I would have had the courage to spit in its eye. [Jane had encountered a deadly Bushmaster snake earlier that day.] Such is the bravery induced by abject fear. In the far distance I could still hear the gutteral shouts of our pursuers and I literally flew through the jungle on jet-propelled feet.
Ken, always a few yards in advance, occasionally looked back to make certain I was keeping up with him. As I ran blindly ahead, crazy thoughts flashed through my mind. What would happen, I wondered, if the primitives caught us? Would my intestine become a prized tidbit to be fought over by the hungry cannibals? The thought made me run a little faster. I visualized a pile of white bones--my bones--scattered around the primitive village and the cannibals smacking their lips after finishing their first full meal in months. And what about my mother? She would never know what had happened. There might me a rescue party some day, but who could ever identify me from a bleached skull and a few scattered bones?
Thoroughly exhausted, we suddenly emerged into a field of tall dead cañabrava grass. The dry, yellow stalks ten to twelve feet high were so thick that we had difficulty in breaking through. Ken suddenly stopped.
"Listen, Jane," he said, hardly able to talk from lack of breath, "break off . . . stalks. . . . Pile them up . . . set 'em on fire." He handed me a pack of matches. "I'll work at the other end," he added and disappeared into the maze of yellow.
I frantically breaking and piling up the dry stalks and setting them on fire. My hands became torn and scratched from the cutting edges of the sharp leaves. In less than two minutes, the grass was blazing, spreading rapidly as the wind carried the flames across the field. A huge pallor of black smoke arose as the curtain of fire leaped towards the sky. It blackened my face, singed my hair. Showers of burning leaves fell to the ground. My cushma caught fire [Jane was wearing the native dress of the Kampa Indians at the time.] and I had to stop several times and smother the sparks with the palm of my hand. The flames seared my face and blistered my lips; the bottoms of my feet were raw from stepping on live sparks.
In spite of my many physical discomforts I was happy, exuberant. I felt that I had personally won a great battle over the forces of evil. The sound of the fire turned into a roar completely drowning out the cries of the pursuing primitives.
From The Jungle Is a Woman, Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1955, pp. 186-192. |
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