End of the Spear

The Waodani people of the tropical rain forest along the Curaray River in a remote and mostly undeveloped the Amazonian region of Ecuador live with a traditional animist worldview. As children, Mincayani saves Dayumae after a vicious nighttime spear attack on a Waodani village by a neighboring tribe, and Dayumae's younger sister (in Dayumae's care) is killed in the attack. Other events of tribal life are pictured. In a conflict with her family, Dayumae—who, in part, has been blamed for the death of her sister—decides to leave the tribe for her safety, and runs to the "foreigners" around her: foreigners who speak Spanish and dress very differently. Nate Saint, a missionary jungle pilot and aircraft mechanic, lives with his family at a mission outpost where his job includes flying other missionaries and supplies into remote locations. He builds a small airplane out of wood with his eight year old son, Steve. Nate becomes obsessed with making contact with a jungle tribe who have resisted contact with the outside world before, often violently: the Waodani. Nate's older sister Rachel has had extensive contact with the now much older Dayumae, and has learned some of the Waodani language from her. Nate does not want to tell his sister of his and others' plans to attempt contact with the Waodani, for fear she would pass the information along to her superiors, and the planned contact would be forbidden. Young Steve learns a few words of Waodani—"I am your sincere friend"—from Rachel, and ultimately begs his father to learn them before his father and several others land their airplane on a sandbar in the Curaray and attempt to make peaceful contact with the Waodani, who they know people that area of the forest that surrounds the sandbar. Mincayani is now a much older and more developed warrior, exhibiting great leadership in the tribe. After some days, one Waodani man and two women approach the missionaries who have camped on the sandbar, and have a reasonably friendly, although difficult to communicate, first encounter. Subsequently, misinformation about the meeting is shared with the other Waodani tribal members, and a group of Waodani warriors decides to attack and spear the foreigners. They do so, and all five men associated with the airplane at the sandbar camp are killed with spears; the airplane—which the Waodani refer to as the large wood bee—is destroyed with punctures and slashing by spears. Authorities from Ecuador and the US military come up river in canoes in a large party, protected by many rifles, and recover four of the five bodies. Years later, Steve Saint flies from the US to attend the funeral of Rachel Saint, and comes into contact again with Mincayani. Mincayani asks Steve to live in Ecuador, and become family to the Waodani, like Rachel had. Steve says that would be "impossible", but he does do so a year or so later. Later, Mincayani tells Steve he needs to show him something, with no other detail, and takes Steve on the Curaray river in a canoe to the sandbar where his father had been killed many years earlier. Mincayani digs furiously in the bank of the river, and uncovers a bit of the metal frame and fabric of Nate's airplane that the Waodani had buried, and informs Steve this is where his father died. He explains that he had speared his father, that his father was a special man, and that before his father died, angels appeared in front of them to take his dying father. Mincayani gives Steve his spear, with the point at his own chest, and tells Steve to kill him. Steve struggles emotionally but does not do so. He tells Mincayani that his father did not lose his life, but he gave his life. It is, as it has been for the Waodani people for some decades now, truly the "end of the spear." == Cast ==