Talk:Operation Auca

The article now reads:

Accounts differ on the effect of that bullet. Dawa, Dayuma, and other Huaorani relate that Nampa was killed months later while hunting, but others, including missionary anthropologist James Yost, came to believe that his death was a result of the bullet wound. Rachel Saint did not accept this, holding that eyewitnesses supported her position, but researcher Laura Rival, a critic of the expedition, suggests that it is now commonly believed among Huaorani that Nampa died of the wound.^[1][2]

It seems to me that "Dawa, Dayuma, and other Huaorani relate that Nampa was killed months later while hunting," is a major misinterpretation of Stoll. The text I'm quoting here is reproduced from an opinionated blog, but I don't have the original book, and doubt it says something different. Stoll actually says:

Accounts of the Palm Beach martyrdom had changed over the years in undeclared homage to Dayuma's younger brother Nampa, who died some weeks or months after the missionaries. According to Ethel Wallis, word that Nampa was no longer alive led to Dayuma's last rebellion before rejoining her people in 1958. Strangely, this important news took 'a few days' to emerge in non-stop conversation with Aunts Maengamo and Mintaka.

It came up as Dayuma pondered the death of Nate Saint. And Dayuma turned on Rachel as if she were to blame: 'I am never going back...I won't teach you any more of my language-' [Wallis 1971:141] Even more strangely, according to Elizabeth Elliot she had already learned of Nampa's death in the tape exchanges [Elliot 1961:63].

The likely cause of Dayuma's revolt was not the fact of Nampa's death but how he had died, in the words of the 1980 Kingsland account: 'The aunts described with great relish the wound in his head from one of the missionaries' rifles...." [Kingsland 1980:107] Yet the aunts blamed Nampa's death on witchcraft and a boa constrictor, leading Wallis to conclude that Nampa 'had been cruelly crushed by a boa while hunting in the forest. Black and blue and very ill, he lingered for a month. He had been cursed by the down-river Indians, Maengamo said, and finally died a horrible death' [Wallis 1971:141,199,212].

Saint was aware of the bullet no later than her 1960 epilogue to "The Dayuma Story." Here, reportedly as she learned from Gikita in his hour of confession and faith, we read that 'one bullet grazed the head of young Nampa,' who was 'hiding behind the plane' as the missionaries shot 'into the air' [Saint 1971:221]. The trajectory of the magic bullet is corrected in Saint's 1965 epilogue to "The Dayuma Story," as reported by her second convert Dawa. Now the accident occurs when Dayuma's own mother Akawo grabbed for a missionary gun and a shot went off, grazing her own son who was hiding in the forest on the other side of the plane [Saint 1965:290].

The enduring result of the Saint-Huao exchanges on Palm Beach was the most noble, graceful death to which Huao enemies have ever been priveleged: 'One by one the foreigners had fallen. Although they fired shots into the air, warning the Aucas that they had means of defense, they chose to be killed by Auca spears' [Wallis 1973:44]. In 1959, Huao informants told Saint that one of the missionaries had climbed onto the plane, looked back and rejoined his comrades (implication brother Nate)[Saint 1971:221]. A few years later Mincayi told her that the action had been much too fast for such heroism: 'before [her previous informants] were afraid' and this was 'talking wild' - Huao for nonsense [Saint 1965:290].

In early 1974 Erwin Patzelt interviewed one of Saint's legendary 'five killers' at Dayuno. From Nimonga, through Zoila and Pedro Chimbo as interpreters, he heard about the sixth casualty of Palm Beach. On Patzelt's tape, with Nimonga in the background, Chimbo explains that the last missionary to die shot Nampa as if he were trying to save himself. Later Patzelt asked Dayuma's son Sam Padilla what had happened to his uncle Nampa. 'He died after the massacre of the five missionaries,' Sam replies on Patzelt's tape. 'Why?' presses Patzelt. 'With sickness, I believe,' answers Sam. In June, Patzelt presented his evidence to Sam, eliciting the taped statement that 'one of the bullets came out and hit [Nampa] in the head, but it was not deliberate, it was an accident which happened. After the five were killed, Nampa was a little bad, he went home, felt bad and nearly died. The bullet was still in his head....After some months he died from the effect of the bullet.'

When El Comercio mentioned Patzelt's version of Palm Beach in April 1974, SIL protested but also asked its new anthropologist to investigate. James Yost discovered that 'he met a boa and he died' was the first Tigueno response to inquiries. Perhaps a month after Palm Beach, the story went, Dayuma's brother had gone hunting by himself. On his way home he encountered a boa coming out of a hole. The boa talked to him. Nampa tried to run away but the boa talked to him again. 'Now I know I'm going to die because the boa has spoken to me,' Nampa said.

Obviously this was a spirit boa, one associated with sorcery, which animists may regard as the cause of death even when they know that something else was the immediate agency. Whether the bullet lodged in Nampa's head or left a furrow which became infected, Yost's Tigueno interviews led him to believe that Nampa had not died from a boa attack but probably because of the bullet wound. When he asked Nimonga how the missionaries had shot Nampa accidentally if he was in hiding, Nimonga laughed and said Nampa had come armed with a spear to kill. Contrary to her earlier 'five killers' motif, even Saint now has three of four women in the party participating in the assault and only Nampa, old enough to go hunting by himself, aloof. According to Sam Padilla, everyone helped.

For various reasons - the lapse of time and the Huao definition of time, the problematica lHuao photo identification of whom they killed in what order, special interest lobbies among the Huaorani - it is probably impossible to determine precisely who shot Nampa, how he was shot and how soon he died. Among Saint's loyalists, Yost reports, the 1965 accidental version that Nampa's own mother was responsible seems firmly established. When he suggested that the bullet killed Nampa, Dayuma flew into one of her tantrums and insisted it was the boa. Since then her son Sam has used the two week bullet death to bludgeon SIL [Kingsland 1980:130].

In 1976, Rachel Saint was standing her ground: 1) if the five men had tried to shoot attackers, they would have been more successful; 2) Nampa was off the beach and in hiding, therefore the shooting was accidental; and 3) he died six months after Palm Beach, therefore the relation to the shooting is dubious [Author's interview, Quito, 10 November 1976]. But since learning the seven day week, the Huaorani have scrambled their old term for the lunar cycle into it: six months could be six weeks.

Saint also evidently influenced her converts to tell her what she wanted to hear. The martyrdom is basic to her understanding of Huao Christianity because, without it, the blood debt between herself and the Huaorani becomes mutual: while Dayuma's people killed her brother Nate, Nate and his associates killed Dayuma's brother.

I know it's complicated, but the "hunting" is definitely a figment of Wallis' imagination, according to Stoll (and this makes obvious sense to anyone who's written about the Huao worldview), and doesn't belong in the article.--Carwil 18:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I think I agree with what you're saying, but the fact of the matter is that there are sources that say that he later died while hunting, and Stoll confirms this (that other people say that he died while hunting). The primary problem I think is that it's not Dawa and Dayuma who said this, but Wallis. Thus, could we say, instead of "Dawa, Dayuma, and other Huaorani relate that Nampa was killed months later while hunting", that "Missionaries interpreted the testimonies of Dawa and Dayuma to mean that Nampa was killed months later while hunting"? Do you think that's sufficiently accurate? --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 15:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Boster, James S., James Yost and Catherine Peeke. 2004. Rage, revenge, and religion: honest signaling of aggression and nonaggression in Waorani conditional violence." Ethos 31(4): 471-494. It says:

The non-vengeful demeanor of Saint and Elliot reinforced something that had surprised the Waorani assailants of the five missionaries on “Palm Beach.” They later expressed their wonder that the five men, who carried guns, did not defend themselves, but responded only by shooting into the air - although a stray bullet struck Dayömæ’s brother, Nampa, where he was hidden by bushes on the bank15.

15. Geketa reported that on Palm Beach, Akawo (Dayömæ’s and Nampa’s mother) grabbed the pistol one of the missionaries was holding, and in the struggle, the pistol went off and she was wounded with a .22 bullet in the buttocks. It was most likely that during this struggle Nampa was shot as well.

--Carwil 20:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The article states that the missionaries' gifts, dropped from airplanes, "were reciprocated". In what sense? The assertion makes no sense to me. If it's true, it should be explained in more detail, and if it's not, it should be removed. --Haruo (talk) 00:29, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

As noted way above 15 years ago when the article was promoted, it is concerning that a great chunk of the article on a missionary expedition, is sourced to books by the wives/children of the missionaries, who are themselves missionaries. This would certainly not be accepted for modern FA standards Bumbubookworm (talk) 07:45, 7 October 2021 (UTC)