Bruchko: The Astonishing True Story of a 19-Year-Old American, His Capture by the Motilone Indians and His Adventures in Christianizing the Stone Age Tribe

Once back in the jungle, Olson camps near the bank of a stream, at the intersection of three Barí trails. His plan is to wait until he is approached and signal his friendly intentions by leaving gifts on the trails. For two months, nothing happens until one day, the gifts he left disappear. He leaves more, and they too disappear. The third time he leaves gifts, a bow and arrow are left as an exchange. On the fourth day, arrows are stuck into the ground where his gifts had been, a warning to stay away. Olson puts the arrows flat with gifts on top of them as a sign he does not want violence. As he starts walking back to his camp, he finds evidence that there are people by the trail, but as he tries to greet them, he hears someone running away through the bushes. Angry with his failure, he returns to his camp to make a raft but then sees Barí men with bows. One is the man with the scar near his mouth who had been kind to him before. Olson smiles at them to try to communicate, and this appears to work, as they lower their bows and bring Olson to the communal home.

Olson says that as he arrived at the tribe’s communal home, he caused a large commotion. Many poke, prod, and massage him, to their enjoyment and his own. He is given a hammock and falls asleep listening to the Barí speaking, hoping that he will soon understand it.

The next day, Olson introduces himself to the tribe. The Barí pronounce Bruce Olson as Bruchko, and so this becomes his name. Olson says that everything he does is interesting to the Barí; people follow him around, watch him eat, and try to copy his speech. Olson then describes the daily life of the Barí. In the morning, men go out hunting, women work within the communal home, and children play games. When the men return home, there is a meal of what they had hunted that day. Each family cooks their food, and once full, they walk around patting their bellies as a sign of happiness.

Soon, staying among people with whom he cannot communicate takes a toll on Olson. To alleviate his boredom, he tries to make arrows with Arabadoyca (the man with the scar who had helped him earlier) and watches the woman weave. He is bored again soon and becomes depressed.

The Barí cultural practices intrigue Olson. Their parenting style is notably gentle, their family units are never charitable to each other, families occasionally leave the communal home without others commenting on it, and the Barí seem to never show negative emotions. The lack of negative emotions among the Barí is especially jarring to Olson, who thinks it proves that they have no feelings he can relate to.

The difficulty of learning their language irritates Olson. He knows that mission board missionaries would go home after four years to tell the stories of those they had converted. He has been in South America for three years at this point with little to show for it. One morning, after leaving the communal home, nearly falling in excrement, and being chased by an old woman, Olson wonders if he still wants to put in the effort to convert the Barí.

The narrative resumes with Olson in his hammock, wondering if he would be able to bring any value to the Barí. A boy named Cobaydra, not yet old enough to wear the G-string that indicates a Barí man, brings him food. Cobaydra then makes Olson join a tribal fishing expedition. While Olson fails to catch any fish, he feels by the end of the day that he has made a friend in Cobaydra.

From this point on, Cobaydra makes Olson go on hunts with the men, providing a distraction from the tedium of his days. Olson makes a point of shouting loudly during hunts to communicate his enjoyment. One day, having shouted too much, he develops a sore throat and so has a deeper voice than usual. He asks Cobaydra for a banana in the Barí language and is puzzled when he is given an ax. Asking again, he is given an ax once more. Olson feels certain that he has the right word, so he decides to experiment by asking at a higher pitch. When this works, Olson realizes that the Barí language must be tonal. He sets about expanding his store of words through conversation with Cobaydra, allowing him to finally begin to truly make connections.

At some point later, Cobaydra’s father invites Olson to a ceremony denoting Cobaydra becoming an adult. He is given the traditional G-string and takes on a new name: Bobarishora. Olson cannot pronounce this well and calls him Bobby instead. Afterward, Olson and Bobby decide to make a pact of brotherhood in another Barí ritual. Following this, Olson says that Bobby began to follow him around, a sign that Olson had become his personal chieftain.

A few weeks after the ceremony, Bobby confides in Olson that his true name is “In the Heavens” (118). The Barí all have a secret name, which denotes their true identity. Knowing someone else’s true name is believed to give complete power over them. As Bobby explains this to Olson, Olson begins to cry and happily embraces Bobby, celebrating that he has finally found the brotherly love he has been searching for.

After Olson and Bobby become brothers, the issues of living in the jungle remain, but Olson worries about them less now that he feels accepted. Olson and Bobby begin to visit other communal homes for several days at a time. On one occasion as they are coming back from a trip, Bobby learns that his father has died. Olson describes the funerary rites; the body is suspended in a hammock high in the trees for vultures to devour. Despite the death, none of the Barí, including Bobby, appear to mourn. Olson is shocked at the lack of emotion and wonders how people who do not seem to have empathy could understand Jesus’s message of love.

Moving on, Olson says that wherever he travels, he hears the name Abaratatura spoken with reverence. He learns that Abaratatura is a high chief of sorts among the Barí, who apparently hates white men and would kill Olson if given the chance because of a Barí legend. Abaratatura was on his way to kill Olson during his earlier captivity, arriving just a day after Olson escaped. That he narrowly escaped from this was confirmation for Olson that God has given him the compulsion to leave. Arabadoyca then tells Olson that their tribe no longer believes he needs to be killed. Instead, some think he is the man from a different Barí legend, who has yellow hair and will come with a banana stalk from which God will emerge.

Olson insists on joining a visit to Abaratatura but becomes feverish on the road. On the ninth day of traveling, he figures out he has Hepatitis but knows he cannot reach a hospital quickly enough to be saved. He decides to press on. At the end of the second week, the group arrives at Corrorncayra (Abaratatura’s home), and Abaratatura sends men to kill Olson. He is saved by the Barí belief that killing a dying man will bring a curse. For the next two weeks, Olson tries to recover until one day, he wakes up to hear a helicopter coming closer. A man named Dr. Hans Baumgartner picks Olson up and flies him to a hospital. Olson is certain that God sent this helicopter to save him.

Olson is advised against ever going back to the jungle because his liver has been permanently damaged. When Olson cannot be dissuaded, a doctor asks him to bring some modern medicine to the Barí. Three days after he goes back to the jungle, Olson again feels dizzy, has chest pains, and excretes dark urine. He prays that he can recover so he can help the Barí. The next morning, he wakes up feeling better and sees he has clear urine. He makes for the communal home of Abaratatura, who has heard he is coming. They meet on the trail.