Amazon Adventure

The seventh baby born was a boy - my son. But he was not well. He was loved for the few weeks he lived, then I was asked if I wanted to bury him with a cross. We left his little body in the jungle.

According to Papa Prof, the language had no word for a number above five, and they seemed to have little concept of higher numbers, but he reckoned there must be above a thousand women in the valley.

He also had also worked out something else.

"I'm not a biologist, but I've had an idea. I think some of these women are actually men."

I used the word I was famous for.

"Biologically we all start out as girls, but testosterone changes the genitals, and gives the penis. But things can go wrong, and some babies with XY chromosomes grow up as girls and look like women. There have been some women athletes like this. I think it must be a common genetic fault here. Some of the couples are really man and woman, though they don't know it."

I had to reflect that it had often seemed that one of a couple was keener than the other, though I supposed they both wanted a baby to share. We decided there would be no way of explaining this to them, and it would not have made them any happier if we had.

As Papa Prof said, "At least it's a totally equal society in that respect."

CHAPTER 4

The years went by happily enough for us Papas, though we regretted the fighting and deaths which took place. We provided our service to women who wanted it across the valley. Prof was keen to visit and learn more of the society. We reckoned we could mostly tell the women from the men, and Papa Prof somehow persuaded them to let us choose. It may be my imagination, but the ones we were choosing seemed the more enthusiastic of the couples. Our hit rate improved and I was glad to see our daughters.

Then one day we were brought an old woman from another tribe. She had presented herself saying "Papa Jo", so was brought to us.

In the early days when prof was trying out languages, he had caused great offence by using one which was evidently similar to that of their greatest enemies, the tribe of this woman. Prof explained to me that these were not just dialects. The difference between two valleys could be as much as between French and Chinese, and it was rare for a member of one to survive long enough to understand the other.

He did not know the exact language, but recognised the pattern. The old woman knew a few words of Portuguese, so between them they eventually reached an understanding. Her people wanted peace and more.

Approaches before had always been by warriors, usually young men keen to prove their courage, not talk of peace. Their tribe was in trouble, with too few women. They had captured the occasional warrior from our tribe, but they had often been barren. Prof guessed that the front-line warriors were predominantly XY, whereas those in the further villages were more XX. In a sense they were self-selecting for what would be male and female roles in other villages.

Could the wisdom of Papa Prof help the two tribes to cooperate and survive? They had many young men without wives, and it was sad to see them dying by fighting neighbours.

Papa Prof was sent to talk with the neighbours, while Papa Fuck remained in case he did not return. The time was set for one moon.

When he returned, the process began. It was not without difficulties, but Papa Prof and the old woman basically kicked and cajoled their own people into cooperating. It was a big deal to get some of our older warriors to put their necklaces away, but it was done.

Conversely the men of the other tribe had to accept women in a new way. I noticed some of our warriors liked their company for hunting, and proved their capability. It was clear they were not available as wives. It seemed some of them were even joking together about how sexy some of the non-warriors were.

Our system of two women living together in a household, did not change. A man had to be accepted by both. Sometimes he would have two wives. Sometimes a woman would have two husbands, one a man, one a woman. At least in our view.

One of the best things we did was to bring the children together. Our girls would not grow up to be man killers, and the boys would not grow up to fear them. Prof observed that they were combining the two languages, in a way called a creole. He said he had been taught this had often happened, and was fascinated to observe it occurring. I myself found it easier to learn. Kids can be brilliant!

The tribes cooperated and our border areas were much more available for hunting and foraging.

Both tribes agreed that a man had to be faithful to one woman or pair of women. If not, a traditional trophy would be collected.

It meant that our special services were less in demand. I ended up with the mother of my first daughter and her scarred husband. We had four more daughters. One of them definitely seems like a boy to me.

Papa Prof, belonged to all, of course, so was occasionally asked to perform for women of both tribes at least once, just for luck, it seems.

One of the men from the other tribe managed what we could not, and produced a healthy son. Eventually there were others. Maybe it had something to do with the preponderance of men in his tribe. The prof reckoned the extra genetic mixing helped.

There the story should have ended, as we went on to be doting grandparents, but it did not.

It had taken a long time, but the modern world finally intruded. The prof and I confronted the men who thought they could just take over, fooling or trampling over the simple natives. Guides took us on a long trek to a river trading post, and bartered to get us clothes and transport to a town. We made contact with friends who thought we were dead, to get money. The prof contacted his university with a summary of the extremely overdue research report. Scenting valuable publicity, the university made him a full professor, and offered the law department and PR to support the right of the people to their land.

It was weird to be in clothes again, with our hair and beards trimmed, and our English was a bit rusty and strained. The PR people used this to our advantage to get public sympathy. They loved "Papa Prof", but we never said my native name.

The Prof (as he actually was now) had done his PhD thesis on a typewriter, so computers and other changes in the world were amazing. I think there was a bigger cultural shock for us than for our family and friends in the jungle.

We could not protect them for ever, of course, but there would be no destruction of their home for a while at least, and contact would be limited. Limited medical help would be made available when necessary, with a clinic on the boundary of the land.

A young woman at the university had a brilliant idea. In order to gather more data, we needed recordings of the languages, both that of the two tribes and the creole which was taking over. This was a unique historical opportunity for the study of language, if it could be kept from interference for at least a few years. As she predicted, the teenagers in the valley learned to use the equipment faster than we had, and were glad to roam around and show off by recording speech and playing it back. There was no shortage of older members of both tribes wanting to tell stories, or youngsters being amusing in the mixed language they were creating.

There was no need for big crews with special accommodation and helicopter supplies. In this way we kept outsiders away, preserving the culture we were trying to record for at least a while.

She joined us with a couple of friends from the university, and we let them in on what had happened, which made them more determined than ever to keep the secret and let the people develop in their own way.

We had to give interviews, of course. Some journalist said there was a story of a tribe of Amazon women. We laughed and said "How would that be possible?"