All language subtitles for [English (auto-generated)] Keep the River on Your Right_ A Modern Cannibal Tale [DownSub.com] (1)

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i was a reasonably

established painter at one time but that

was really in another world

i had

seven one-man shows

most of them on 57th street but i showed

also downtown

and i was part of that at one time

i never stopped drawing

but i did stop painting and i don't

think i'll ever go back to that

something happened in peru that

changed my way of thinking

i'm not sure which way i turned how i

turned

but it certainly

made a difference in my life

i felt hollow the galleries felt hollow

there was no way for me to make a

connection with anything anymore

i quit painting

because i kind of died somewhere along

the way

something in me

disappeared that

i had had and then it was gone after the

peruvian experience

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so

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why

should i want to go back

to peru

i mean i have

so many different memories of people who

are still alive

i'm very scared of what i might find i

mean that's the whole basis of it

the problem of going back

i don't want to do it

you can follow me to osmat

but that's as far as i'll go

i want to introduce you to tobias

schneebum he's a sweet dear pussycat and

he's the nicest person in the world

and he's not true no

he's kind of he's a renaissance man he

started out as a painter on a fulbright

and from being a painter he became an

anthropologist and after he became an

anthropologist he developed a museum in

osmond and he's published most of the

interesting catalogs on osmot you all

know more or less where australia is

you do

what is this island

new guinea that's the second largest

island on earth

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that sound

is the clacking of the paddles against

the side of the canoe

the translation

is

in the little river

there are shrimp

in the river there is [ __ ]

in the river there is piss

the shrimp eat the [ __ ]

the shrimp eat the piss

we eat the shrimp

okay

yes

how do people taste

i don't know i don't remember

i

it was never one of the things that i

i lingered over in my mind

any other questions

do i know which part i ate oh god

i didn't eat in asmr somewhere else

in peru

you're so dear let's have dinner soon

soon again thank you so much it's always

such a treat and the barnard girls love

you

aside from social security the money

that i get

is from working on a cruise ship that

goes around the islands of indonesia

i must say that as long as i have to

earn money

there couldn't be a better way

what i do is i lecture on the art and

the anthropology of various cultures

including osmat in the indonesian half

of new guinea

i do like most of the passengers

of course there are always people i

never talk to

and there are always people who are

boring but that's par for the course

are you expecting rain yeah

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this is a last call for all those who

are on the port side to make their way

up to the lay down

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bye

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oh

we're seeing

a ceremonial

circumcision

of 40 young boys

i will not start the ceremony yet until

everybody is present

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a hundred people or more coming from

another part of the world must be

terrifying that child so many of them

looking down at that child

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oh

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the tourist

is interested there's no question but

that

they are interested

in the lifestyle of the asthmate or

wherever we are they are at a particular

place

for a short period of time

on the other hand someone like an

explorer

stays and looks and examines and lives

with the local people

i don't like tourism and i rationalize

going on the ship by the fact that it's

the only way i can make any money i

don't have any money i never had any

money i never will have any money and

that's the way my life is

hand to mouth

and i

i like it that way

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ladies and gentlemen a very good

afternoon to you all in 13 minutes we

invite you into the main lounge for

tobias schneidbaum's lecture

presentation

entitled daily life in the asthma

good evening ladies good evening i guess

i didn't turn it on

good evening ladies and gentlemen

asthma

is a head hunting was a head-hunting

ancestor-worshiping cannibal group of

people

this was my mother

she died some years ago

this was my father he too died some

years ago

i still have relatives in this village

though

that's me when i was adopted

in that village

because there are several kinds of

adoption ceremonies

now

these men are lovers

these men are lovers

these men are lovers

and the tall man in the center is named

ipit and he was my close friend and my

informer

he never told me or never would tell me

what happened to his upper lip

me

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ugh

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oh

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that sound

it lives in me all the time

i've been in this village so many times

and the people have been so generous to

me

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they obviously enjoy having visitors

because they enjoy visitors we all like

visitors

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but they are

being watered down

to some extent

their strength is

slowly diminishing

their emotional strength their

mental strength

it's bad it's going to eventually

disappear i think

be like the american indians eventually

this is a

wonderful drum that's yes yes let me put

my glasses on for i can't hear without

my glasses

i just wanted to see whether there was

any indication whether it's male or

there are female

rather small but adequate i'm sure

i'm not quite sure what's going on but

it's something erotic

and the osmotic have no shame whatsoever

about displaying their genitals

and why should they

this

is

the main use for this is as bright price

another reason is formally to make a

hole in the temple

and then

to each extract the brains

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when the film crew and i leave the ship

we will be going into the interior of

asthma something i haven't been able to

do for years

we will be traveling in a small

motorboat

and the captain is worried that we might

turn over it because we're heading right

into the storm

the most intensive land air search in

south pacific history is drawing to a

close as hopes fade that the son of new

york's governor nelson rockefeller will

be found alive he swam for sure when his

exploration craft capsized and left no

clue to his fate the 23 year old sion of

one of america's great fortunes he was a

dedicated anthropologist that apparently

was held in respect by the natives

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tourists come here to be on the spot

where michael rockefeller presumably was

killed and eaten

they said that they found him on the

beach

and that they ate him

what they said

now like the rest of us

they are braggers

a lot of things in osman

could have happened to me there's no

question of that

but it was so

great to be with the people who were so

fresh and so alive

and so interested in me

and i was certainly interested in them

and there was no hesitation on their

part about answering any questions that

i asked

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foreign

foreign

you can imagine

in suburbs of new york

somebody from new guinea

knocking on the door coming in

and asking you how much money you make

uh what are your sexual practices and is

it true that your ancestors ate each

other i mean it's it's so bizarre it's

beyond our comprehension

but it happens all over the world

by representatives of western culture we

do go into other people's houses

we do sort of sit down they don't know

what to do with us really they don't

know how to get rid of us they don't

know what we want

and we do start asking them the most

intimate questions and questions that

have an awful lot of presumptions

just imagine sitting here on long island

and someone coming in and asking you

about your sex practices

um and then offering you maybe a dollar

for the information or a pound of sugar

i only know that

i like to put myself into positions

whereby i

become part of the landscape

i become

part of the of the world

here i am

i'm 76

and life doesn't go on forever

i'm happy to say

if i

fall slip in the mud osmat is known for

its mud if i slip in the mud that's it

i've had it

certainly nobody here will be able to

repair another broken hip

or rather another

prosthesis for the hip

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i write and do continue to do research

on osmotic carvings and i love doing

that

that brings me back to the painting

world or to the sculpture world and in

that way i have been able to relieve

myself of the pain of having left

painting

it was painful i always was searching

for a brush or searching for

the smell of the paint in my studio

it's a little small for my head

we've got big heads in the west

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this is the house that i used to live in

as a satellite dish now

didn't have that when i was here

i used to have orchids that were mostly

lining this walkway here i got them out

of the jungle it was lovely when it was

the right time of the year

it was always lovely

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foreign

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we were at this auction in august when

we ran into my very good friend

i pit

i really thought he was dead

and suddenly for him to appear

was shocking

sorry i am now i'm the author of what a

photo

i think

the relationship between myself and ipit

was one of uh

i think love and friendship and uh

also it included

sexual

uh activity

from washington here is cbs news

correspondent charlie rose

tobias nebaum is here where the spirits

dwell in odyssey in the jungle of new

guinea how do they how does this

homosexuality business work only in the

south of osman

every man has a male sexual partner who

is his bond friend and but can we also

exchange his wives so he has wives too

though it continues they have one wife

or two wives or three which is part of

that culture to have homosexual

relationships right

why did you do it with them why not but

because you're there to study them not

to play with them well

well that's true but nevertheless how

else can you study them if you don't

understand the acts and what acts oh no

one knows

what i mean they wouldn't if i had not

participated to any extent i would never

have gotten any information period

that's it in rome do as the romans do

well and i didn't see anything wrong

with it oh he's got relationships here

yeah pity map which is way up river

logging let's see where i got this

i got

i guess

pick up plenty of them

he has relationships

all the way along the coast

uh samoa

lucky lucky

yeah lucky lucky done

men and women

this is a man who clearly wants to find

homosexuality in most societies and

wants to find it as a natural part

and while i believe that that's probably

true and while he believes that that's

probably true he brings to it a

preconceived desire that i think over

determines what he actually finds

is this one of your lovers no not at all

that was not a sexual

uh meeting that is the normal greeting

in uh

new guinea there are many different

channels of greetings yes you rub chins

there

in the

uh north of this area directly north in

the baliam valley the greeting is to

hold testicles

is you reach out and you grab the

testicles of your male friend or not

necessarily friends we'll talk more

about this when we get back stay with us

i would characterize it as a love affair

he was so attractive and to me still is

and often i can't keep my hands off him

but that's uh

i know i'll have to separate and i don't

want to make that break again

it isn't easy

we've had wonderful times together

he taught me also about the

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not only the sexual side of life but

also the daily life

which uh included going fishing doing

this and that going to the sago fields

and

it was it was great while it lasted

his presence brings up the whole past

and i don't concentrate on anything else

i became a bishop in 1969.

at that time i was the youngest the

youngest in the world

you came as a tourist first right and um

i think really there was father trink

that told me that you were here i was a

tremendous artist here he would know how

to do these uh sketches

of

the art he said marvelous things so i

got a hold of tobias

he sat down and talked and he said well

we need a catalogue

the fact that he was jewish doesn't

matter at all

uh that though tobias is almost sexual

that was that was his matter not my

matter

i made drawings of about 300 of the

artifacts the copies of which are in the

museum now

beautiful beautiful beautiful carvings

oh to me this was so vibrant

that

simply by looking at the carvings i felt

remarkably alive once again

this speaks to me

i have no doubt that some of it is

directed right at me and i feel those

spirits

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i never thought of it as being in the

natural state of man

my search

it's so pretentious to say that i was

out searching for something but i

suppose i was

i wanted some kind of inner peace and i

hadn't yet found it

in my 20s

i certainly didn't find it in my 30s

i didn't find it in my 40s

it was only after the age of 50 that i

became aware that perhaps

life was getting easier for me not that

i had any money or anything that had

nothing to do with it

it was only that i was able to adjust to

life in general

i accepted the fact that i was

unattractive i accepted the fact

that i slept alone every night for years

and years and years

i accepted everything as if it were

natural and indeed it is natural

it's only now in recent years that i

understand so many people

are after the same thing i'm not sure

what

to call it inner peace is all i can say

and i think that we in the west

and i mean by the west all of europe and

the united states

canada probably that we have all lost so

much

in what we call the advance of

civilization

that

i at least for one have to come back and

renew myself

went native or primitive

i wouldn't say that i went

in the other direction i went more to a

more civilized world that's the way i

feel about it

in the past it would be the

excuse shall i say that i gave myself

for traveling so much into distant

places was that i used it in my painting

wherever i went i

drew and i made drawings over many parts

of the world and

indeed made paintings out of those

drawings

and therefore it

it allowed me to do almost anything and

to see almost anything

tomorrow

we are heading back to new york

it's

it's a very difficult moment for me

saying goodbye to my pit

i don't know whether i'll ever see him

again

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i've already said my goodbye to him

years ago

and to renew that relationship now would

only give me trouble later

hello

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do they still engage you say they still

engage in cannibalism

only in the very uh upstream part very

far where you were they did where you

live well it did happen

quite rarely

what did you do when they did that

well they didn't eat me

but i mean did you see it no i never did

your joined the agent not there i did in

peru you did engage in cannibalism yeah

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oh i love being close to my family

as long as i don't have to see them

every day

actually i see them about once every two

months or so

sometimes i see them on jewish holidays

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sometimes on special occasions

i ain't got nothing to say

except like we say in new guinea

martha

when i was a boy

i studied to be a rabbi

but i do remember the songs i used to

sing and the whole atmosphere of the

synagogue

but obviously i never became a rabbi

these are the ten plagues which the most

holy blessed be he brought upon the

egypt the egyptians in egypt

the whole road

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i don't drive i can't swim and i don't

ride a bicycle

let's face it i'm a lifer a lifelong new

yorker at this point in my life i cannot

think of living anywhere but where i am

right now all my friends are here

this is floriano my

closest and oldest friend

looking absolutely wonderful this was

taken about 25 or more years ago

i don't like to travel

if i have to go to brooklyn next morning

i mean i just i don't sleep well

5

200. five thousand two hundred dollars

five thousand three hundred

five thousand four hundred

five thousand five hundred wherever he

goes he becomes one of the people

and he's like a

camareonte we say in italian chameleon

it becomes it goes to india looks like

in india it looks like gandhi just like

him

he's accepted by all these people

five thousand eight hundred now five

thousand eight

five nine

five no

five thousand nine hundred to the

gentleman in the center fair warning

ladies and gentlemen five nine

so

donatus is the cultural representative

of the asmr people

this is not the first time that donatus

has been in the states in 1991

29 osmat men and one woman

arrived in new york

first they were demonstrating their

carving skills at the smithsonian

institute in washington then they spent

about a little over a week in new york

where they were an enormous success

they went from there to new orleans

people were riveted to see them when the

azmat would walk along the streets with

feathers in their hair and their faces

all painted it was like some halloween

that that came out of the jungle at some

point or other it was just beautiful

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they're very happy about it all here

it's very strange to me

but why not i mean why shouldn't he have

a spirituality coming out of new york

and being here

because i i've lived here all my life is

in the whole of the story

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tobias schneiderman was born on the

lower east side of manhattan spent most

of his youth in brooklyn and after the

war studied art under tamayo and has

been a painter ever since

as a painter in the early 50s

i went to the museum of modern art as

often as i could

at one point there was an exhibition of

photographs of the ruins and landscape

around machu picchu

and i took one look at the ruins and i

decided that's where i have to go one

day

and when i later applied for fulbright i

asked to go to peru

i just had to go and find out for myself

what the people were like

and it was one of the most exciting

experiences i ever had and ever will

have

and this is the kind of ladder that uh

erode

hitchhiking really from new york all the

way to peru

i traveled all over peru

and met an archaeologist who told me

about a remote catholic mission in the

jungle

and he told me that that's where i

should go

because he said that there was a mission

some days

into the jungle to which i would have to

walk and he would get the directions for

me and i went to this mission

where there was a dominican missionary

of some 69 years of age

and some two other white people and

while i was there

after

five or six weeks

a man appeared out of the jungle and he

had feathers

stuck into the flesh around his mouth

and that man told us that his whole

tribe had been killed by another tribe

and because the minute i heard that i

decided

there and i touched one of them on

probably the shoulder or the back

and suddenly he put his hands on my

shoulders

and then put his arms around me and we

kind of jumped up and down

this is me back in 55

i looked very different then i must say

i stayed there altogether several months

the americaida gave me the name

haber

i think it means the ignorant one

i loved every minute of my time up until

the moment we went on

a raid i didn't realize what was

happening but we went on a raid

and the night before

we danced around the fire i had no idea

what was going on

i will never forget the song they sang

that night

i can't remember the melody but it

haunts me

even now

i spent most of the day walking

i guess it was east i didn't know where

we were going i didn't know what was

happening

suddenly

they stopped

and they began to paint themselves

they put the red on their faces and they

put this black paint

and then they painted me

and the next thing i knew we were at a

village people were screaming running

back and forth

and there were these people who were

being killed by my friends

when i left peru i felt the whole

experience of being with the amara qaeda

was too vivid in me and i was so

disturbed by the events that happened

that i had to get it out one way or

another

i was approached by mary britton miller

a poet she wanted me to collaborate with

her on a children's book

it was based on my experiences in the

jungle in peru

she did the verses and i illustrated

them

working on that book

allowed me to grapple with the demons

that were in me

and it allowed me also to

express myself more fully in a book

called keep the river on your right

publishers weekly had this to say about

keep the river on your right

authentic deeply moving sensuously

written and incredibly haunting one of

the most engrossing and strangely

beautiful personal stories of this or

any season

and in the beginning tobias has a

quotation from the teachings of don juan

in which he writes look at every past

closely and deliberately

try it as many times as you think

necessary but ask yourself and yourself

alone one question does this path

have a heart

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so

i only know that i have been waiting

patiently to get a

frankfurter a hot dog from nathan's

i have always lusted after the wild man

of borneo

and my earliest memories reached back to

him

i was in coney island with my brothers

and mother

she hurting us along surf avenue into

the dark shadows under the broad door

i think it was at the time when my

mother had some

cancers on her face and on her body

and the doctor advised her to go into

the salt water

[Music]

so we would come at night so that nobody

could see my mother undressed

and she'd be right under where we're

standing now more or less

to change into her bathing suit and then

she would just lie in the water for an

hour or two

[Applause]

i couldn't

understand why

god if such a being exists

why god allowed such a thing to happen

to my beautiful mother

it was a horrifying time but somehow it

was also a curious time

i was walking with my mother and my

brothers

when we came upon this sideshow

i gasped when i saw this sign saying the

wild man of borneo

now gertie make a monkey face at the

boat so they'll always remember how

pretty you are i want them all to dream

about you when they go home tonight

[Music]

he intrigued me so much

that that image remains today

75 years later vivid in my mind

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part of the transition from primitivism

earlier in the century to primitivism in

the late part of the century is that

it's all much closer to home

instead of trying to venture out into

exotic space which was once the

privileged mode

places like tattoo collars uh like malls

where you can buy the the jewelry

that'll go into the ears or into the

into the penis those have become the

sites of primitivism

it's like consumer tribalism

i understand that young people

today like to get tattooed and pierced i

had the desire once

to have my nose pierced in the way the

asthma i do and have that big bone

a shell go through my nose but i really

didn't want to do it

the only thing i ever did was have

myself scarified

but i looked so many young people i'm

not sure what they're looking for

maybe they're looking for exactly what

i've been searching for all my life

maybe they're the same as i am

but it does look a little silly

but then again

things that i thought were exciting

would look silly to them today

[Music]

pictures of harry carey trudging through

the savage forest and the enervating

heat

rifles across the crooks of their elbows

clothes and shreds sweat pouring down

their faces and staining armpits

they were pushing on to gold or diamond

mines or off to rescue golden-haired

princesses held captive by leopard name

or by painted zulus known to trap and

mutilate all whites

tearing off their genitals and eating

them to gain the white man's strength

and magic

but i wanted it reversed

i wanted the wild man inside me

masticated swallowed

absorbed

yet i ask myself

is my drive to reach the unknown

to go farther and farther into danger

away to masculinity

or nothing more than a masochistic drama

i wrote that

no sour part in the summer

[Music]

very good probably the same outdoors

i thoroughly enjoy having sex i like it

i still enjoy it

alas i

to be perfectly honest

i'm ready for viagra or i've been ready

for viagra for quite a while

but nonetheless i can have as i can have

a great deal of pleasure as things are

right now

there's nothing toby likes more i think

than the idea

of

some kind of like smelly scarified

matted haired tattooed and pierced

black man

naked and with a heart on

and that's just toby's that's like

toby's dream i was very charmed by toby

when i met him for the first time

it's very charming in a cocktail party

the fact that he was so much older than

i was just

i don't know it just seemed like i was

glad to do something

with toby that he wanted to do

because he's a good friend and and i

can't you know i can't have sex with all

my friends but with toby

i could do that just because um

he's so he's so

undeceitful you know there's just

nothing about toby that is

that is that has a an ulterior motive i

mean it's it is what it is

how i was telling oh

all the way out no i think

which was rare in those days it was a

very conservative time

we knew each other back in the early 50s

51 even

i lived at 39 first avenue and norman

lived at 41. 41. yeah we lived next door

toby was like our house homosexual

you see we were lowering the bands for

him and then of course we did all these

things the attitude was

my god how did our house homosexual do

all this

you know so you changed my notions about

the

essential nature of homosexuals i've

really been quite complacent about it up

to that point you know homosexuals can

be very nice people very sweet people

but they're limited there's certain

things they don't do

toby's one of the most extraordinary

people i've ever known there was such

sensitivity in them at the same time

such warmth and such timidity and fear

in him he really has a

ends to himself that are larger than

anyone i know on the one hand he's

terrified of a dead mouse and on the

other hand he'll go into the jungle

and and live with cannibals i really had

never understood the depth of toby's

motivation his seriousness

when you're friends with someone you

tend to know them in their middling

periods and their low periods and not

often in their high periods you don't

necessarily see your friends at their

best

that's why you're friends with people

because you don't have to be at your

best with them you know there's a cut

there's an element of comfort and

friendship which so that generally when

your friends do exceptional things it's

a little surprising

and and that was the feeling i had i was

surprised i thought gee toby's got so

much to him and i never saw what kind of

novelist am i

why have i not been back to

peru in 45 years

how do i feel about going back now well

i am 78 years old

i have parkinson's

so i don't have much time anyway one way

or another

the minute the whole business started of

going back to peru i began having

nightmares

it's something that i don't want to

think about and i've tried over the

years not to think about it but i don't

want to go back

i really don't

the producers and directors have talked

me into it

because surely

all the people are dead that i had met

in 45 years how could they possibly have

survived

[Music]

[Music]

um

[Music]

once i wrote something about

the landscape

being so thrilling to me and my god

it's like having an orgasm

i didn't have an orgasm but it felt like

i was going to have one

[Music]

everything is sacred to me

landscape

human beings

light

the sun

my painting

my writing

my friends

i

absorb whatever i can from the

atmosphere

and that almost makes me

makes me into another human being one

that can make contact with others

it's very scary

wow look at this

at this unbelievable place called machu

picchu

to come and put my feet again on the

stone steps and walk around here

is like being it's like a magic

and like my being back at the times of

the inca

my imagination goes a little kaflui at

times

but i really feel

some

continuation

from the

inca

through ruins like this to somebody like

myself

so what is that

hello little bird

ah look at that isn't that gorgeous

it is a passion fruit

delicious

oh boy

we pride ourselves and all the

advancements we made

but they weren't so bad the inca or the

aztec

the maya who kind who

invented for themselves the concept of

zero which

we probably didn't have it at the time

they invented it

my older brother was a mathematician

and he worked for nasa

i followed in his footsteps or at least

that's what i wanted to do i admired him

greatly

then he died as many people do

i'm old

yet look with what i'm doing

machu picchu one of the great

ruins of the world and here i am sitting

in the middle of it

78 years old doesn't seem to

matter

i'm just about ready to move on

see it isn't so bad getting older even

if i have a heart attack on the way up

i will have done everything that i

wanted to do in my life

so

why complain about anything

do i fear death i don't think i do

when the time comes maybe i will be

terrified but at the moment i don't

i don't think so

i remember when i had my first operation

for cancer of the colon

26

27 years ago

and they had given me valium or

something i don't remember what it was

but i was wide awake

and they wheeled me the wheel the gurney

on which i was lying

into the elevator

and i said to myself

well the worst thing that can happen to

you is that you'll die

and somehow that made everything much

easier for me

[Music]

[Applause]

our next guest wrote this book which i'm

showing you in which he relates his

experiences while living with a tribe of

cannibals for seven months in south

america

he does this uh things like this because

as an artist and a part-time

archaeologist he feels he can get closer

to the essence of man by observing

primitive cultures would you agree

tobias schneiderman

[Applause]

for starters what sent you to south

america

uh i had a

painting fulbright to go to peru

and i had always wanted to see the ruins

of machu picchu a great inca ruin

in the andes and i wandered around pluto

i

saw what i wanted to see and then i

wandered into the jungle

we're now in the cloud forest when we go

down

to the bottom

of the eastern slope of the andes from

here it's all downhill

[Music]

the first time i came here i was on the

top of a truck

the people were kind of squashed in

warming me because we were all

in a bundle so to speak

they were

they were so friendly and so gentle and

so sweet to me

they kept offering me sweet potatoes or

cassava

they were all chattering at me even

though they knew i didn't understand

quechua

which is the local language the language

of the

inca

[Music]

[Applause]

keep the river on your right

yeah

how did that title come about uh that

was the direction given to me for the

mission just keep the river right around

my right i took a truck down from cusco

as far as i could go

and then i walked the rest on foot eight

days

[Music]

what i'm trying to do tobias i'm trying

to find out where you actually started

walking from and i think we have two

candidates and i think this is one of

them but i'm sure it's completely

unrecognizable too if it couldn't have

been from here because the the river has

to be very close by

it's making me very nervous

walking here because it's so

familiar

but it may not be the right place

but it looks so familiar

sounds like the river

too but there has to be a bridge or

would have been a bridge

it's scary to come back to a place that

you're not sure about whether it's the

place you were at before

could you tell me please

uh whether there was ever a bridge here

yeah a little really

okay he remembers the trail on the left

side of the river with the river on your

right

going all the way down to the mission

the only bridge here

was right at the spot where the modern

day bridge is i'm looking

see there where that concrete foundation

is there's some cables coming out

this is the madios river

the river that i kept on my right in my

book

and my travels i climbed and i didn't

climb but i went along those mountains

there

the mission the catholic mission was

down that way

who went alone without a compass or a

gun in the jungle of peru

he had no sense he had no fear call him

a fool

he did not wear heavy shoes but wore

only a pair of sneakers on his feet

a pair of pants and on his back a khaki

shirt

he had no sack nothing of use to him at

all and all tobias had to eat was some

farina in a bowl

he had his ears he had his sight

to buy a snail-bound traveled light

wow

this is the trail

i don't think i'll ever forget

the time i got lost

i couldn't find the trail for the river

it was supposed to be following the

river on the left bank

but it didn't

i couldn't find it so i just sat down

nobody around nothing

was there but

me

and all the animals and all the forest

an exciting experience in itself but i

was lost

i was lost

so

every night since you've been here

you've had nightmares do you know that

no but it doesn't surprise me

do you know what your nightmares are

about

no

and i don't want to know

i really thought that the amara caye was

still going to be here but they weren't

there were these machi gengar who

recognized me

after 45 years not having been there

he remembered him

he saw me passing and he remembered

beautiful

i'm quite overwhelmed

it's very scary

to come back after 45 years and somebody

recognizes me right away

that's something

yeah these people here are now living in

another

uh

were not used to to living in a

community there were always conflicts

between families

struggles discussions over women and

they just left

how far has san jose

it is six hours away and

i don't know whether i can make it

i'm mad at the film

what made you want decide to seek out

the cannibalistic tribe

well actually i didn't seek out at first

first the cannibalistic tribe i sort out

the mission

a mission in the jungle

makes me more and more nervous if there

is anyone who is left of the malacada i

hope

one of the photographs will trigger them

their memories

we'll see what happens

i am supposed to be

all the americans

still were still living when i met them

so living a more pure life

that had to do with their own culture at

them

rather than father

alvarez or father moiseas as i called

him in the book

who was of course converting them to

catholicism

of course i couldn't say anything about

that

that's

what he wanted to do and they accepted

it so i can't complain

it does that

[Music]

i really love that sound

the harder the better the more difficult

it is to get to a place the fewer other

people have been there if you were

foreigners or westerners or whatever you

call them i've been there and that's the

kind of place i'm most enjoy going to

where there have been either no one

before me

or only a few

okay

yes

[Music]

i thought you know i'm a painter i'm

going to be very clever i'm going to

write down all these make all these

drawings and show them and they will

know everything and you didn't they had

never seen a drawing in their lives they

had no idea no concept of what a drawing

was

change is brought about by

the first person who arrives

for the good or the bad

it's rarely for the good as far as i see

it

[Music]

this is me here over here and with my

white skin

and this is uh

whose brother

is right here

he appears on the on both photos this is

him and this guy here with the

bows and arrows is

[Laughter]

foreign

[Laughter]

did you try to give them something from

our society

like a camera to show them something

that will open their mind they won't

understand where minds were open our

minds are the closed minds let's not say

that but let's say that our minds are

different did you try to show their mind

which is in your words bigger than ours

did you try to show them something that

our mind grasped do they have a family

structure as we know it no no they uh

nobody got married they had a kind of uh

free and open society

what can i say like the hippies

is it

wasn't like

[Applause]

here's an interesting point though i

understand that there is no crime in a

society such as this is that true there

was no such thing as personal property

or anything like that nobody stole it

from anybody or anything nobody stole it

do you know how long it takes to make a

bow

they have nothing else to do

well that's all right true they see they

have nothing just loosely they make it

what do

those are personal belongings so they

sit in an office all day long that's

better

than

[Laughter]

on going on hunting expeditions with

them yeah and he tried very hard but

he couldn't it's absolutely true

did you learn anything from them well i

learned about compassion and love and

humane things

things that are very difficult to find

here

i mean people in our society no longer

have compassion for each other

they're only interested in themselves

when you say compassion for each other

how do you how do you justify them

killing another tribe

it's another tribe it's out of their

group

that's hardly showing compassion though

to walk out and kill a whole tribe

[Music]

presumably a more primitive society than

we are we go around killing people we

have wars all the time

[Music]

[Music]

m

[Music]

this is

the real

um

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

[Music]

yo

[Music]

[Music]

did you leave and when did you leave

oh well i left at the uh soon after that

business of the

murder and i left partly because of that

and partially because i had to return to

civilization that i needed

more than that they offered did you tell

them did you inform them no i just got

up and left one day

[Music]

oh

[Music]

[Music]

oh

came another hunting trip with many men

and me among them freshly painted going

farther and farther into the forest

carrying in my hand my bow and arrows

while they carried theirs too and axes

of stone as well

the reigns of the season had already

begun

and sheets of water drenched the jungle

and flooded the rivers

did you know you were going on a

railroad no idea we went on a longer

hunt than we had gone before and we

waited until nightfall and then we all

raised we ran into this village and they

killed all the men inside

they didn't try to stop them or anything

no i was in their society

i mean i was living and trying to live

their kind of life why should i stop

them from doing what their things what

was your reaction when you saw them well

i got sick

[Music]

but i'm not ashamed

i participated in somebody else in a

group with a group of people who had a

different kind of lifestyle

before going there or

meeting other

so-called primitive people

i always

tried to

delve into their lives or to move into

their lives as closely as possible

but it

was always difficult separating myself

from them later what was your feeling

about all the killing

well the killing was what disturbed me

the cannibalism didn't bother me at all

i participated to uh

to much more much much more of an extent

then i would have wished let's face it

as long as i had to participate

one of the men

who

came over to me

and put the spear in my hand

and

pushed the spear into what was already a

dead body

even though it didn't matter to me that

the body was dead it was

that the spear went into it just

i don't know it's very hard to cope with

something like that

and i

i can't i still haven't coped with it

let's face it

no matter what i say

i still know that it's too difficult for

me

did you actually take part in the eating

of the flesh yes i did oh goodness

why do you say that well i did

how could you it was powerful it was

simple i was there

how did you think you told me if i liked

pork like pork

everyone was up dancing and

having a great time

and when it came my turn i just ate a

piece

there wasn't much that i ate but it was

certainly human flesh

at first i thought it was part of the

heart but i don't think so

i don't even remember now what part of

the body it was

it was just a small piece of flesh

awful

are you accountable

well that one instance

certainly

i was a cannibal

but that doesn't make me a cannibal

i'm not a cannibal i'm something quite

different i'm the opposite of a cannibal

at least i think i am

but then

one always looks at oneself quite

differently from by the way other people

see you

my friends never bring up the subject

not because they do it consciously

but because that

business of the cannibalism was such a

tiny part of my life it was

didn't get

any publicity it didn't get any uh

and it had no effect on me in the

beginning

i left because i couldn't stand the

concept

but then i kind of dropped it out of my

head

i pushed it out of my head maybe i

pushed it down into my stomach somewhere

because that's what becomes painful that

part of my body

i am a cannibal

that four word sentence doesn't leave my

head

no matter into what far corner of my

mind i push those words

they flash along the surface of my brain

like news along the track that runs

around the building at times square

so thoughts of death are natural now as

love i tell myself

and i repeat it on and on

hoping some impression will be made

so

do they expect food

oh come on this way boys

whenever you want

[Music]

me

[Music]

so

[Music]

yes i'm certainly glad i came back to

peru

i am

it's at this time of my life

these trips are getting fewer and fewer

[Music]

this is for my closest oldest friend

florian novecki

who

i gave

two of these

to him and a friend

way back i don't know 45 46 years ago

and i wanted to take something back

almost exactly alike

we said here that's just

[Music]

i have come full circle in a way that i

never expected

and i'm not even sure i wanted it but

now that it's over with it's fabulous

i'm just tired

and i want to go to bed

i had a little drink around an hour ago

and it's gone right to my head

to show me the way to go home

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

so

[Music]

you