WIZARD OF THE UPPER AMAZON

A minor memoir, which is not to minimize its indigenous interest both personal and anthropological. Mr. Lamb, a forest engineer, has told Mr. Cordova-Rios' story, apparently just as it was told to him, with irreducible candor. The latter is now 83 with 50 grandchildren but as a boy of fifteen he was captured and taken to live (in the buff except for a piece of string) with the Huni Kui Indians at the headwaters of four rivers in the Amazon. He was a chosen person of this tribe whose name signifies Chosen People, fed on breast of partridge and indoctrinated as a once and future chieftain via a green liquid (honi) which induced vision sessions. Thereby he not only experienced ""mental acceleration"" but also a power to anticipate the future (he foresaw his mother's death). He also shared in all tire rituals of death, marriage, birth, the hunt, etc., etc. of this apparently hard-working and vigorous people before he finally escaped some years later. . . . All unretouched and thereby validated.