here
generally consist of from fifty to five hundred or more persons living
in big houses called '_malocas_.' Unless the tribe is very big, one
house holds them all. There may be any number of _malocas_, the
inhabitants of which are all of the same racial stock; yet each _maloca_
is, as far as government is concerned, a tribe to itself, controlled by
a chief. No _maloca_ owes any duty to any other _maloca_. There is no
supreme ruler over all, nor even a federation among them. They live
merely as neighbors--distant neighbors. At times they fight like
neighbors. You understand."

"'When Greek meets Greek--'" quoted McKay.

"Just so. When I say, then, that the Red Bones are a big tribe, I mean
that there are about five hundred--maybe more--individuals in their main
settlement. They live in huts, not in one big tribe-house like the
Mayorunas. They are not Mayorunas, in fact; they paint differently, are
darker of skin, and more cruel.

"The Mayorunas, by the way, are not so debased as you might think.
Though cannibals, they do not kill for the sake of eating 'long pig,'
like the cannibals of the South Seas. Neither do they eat the whole
body. Only the hands and feet of their dead enemies are devoured. These
are carefully cooked and eaten as delicacies along with monkey meat,
birds, fish, and other things prepared for a feast in honor of a
victory. The eating of human flesh seems to be symbolism rather than
savagery. Furthermore, they do not range the jungle hunting for victims.
They eat only those who come against them as enemies.

"So it is quite possible, you see, that strangers might go among them
and escape death. It would depend largely on the ability of the
strangers to convince the savages that they were friends. The difficulty
is that the savages consider all strangers to be enemies until
friendship is proved."

"A sizable difficulty," McKay remarked.

"Almost insurmountable. Yet it might be done. Mind, I speak now of the
Mayorunas, not of the Red Bones. I tell you again that the Red Bone
country is closed."

"And where is the Mayoruna region?"

"In the same general section. The Mayorunas are much more widely
distributed. They are on both banks of the Javary and extend as far west
as the Ucayali.

"Now if I sought to enter the Red Bone region--and again I say I would
not--this would be my way of going at it. I would go first among the
Mayorunas near the Red Bones and seek to convince them that I was their