While having a time of testimony for my Bible class of Yanawamo Indians I was blessed to hear Caicique's testimony. (Missionary Mike Dawson tells us the following story.)

Caicique, a Venezuelan Yanowamö Indian, told how the day before, he had gone to his garden in the jungle to pick up some yucca plants to plant in his new garden. Knowing he was going to have a huge load walking back down the trail, he decided to go empty handed, no machete or bow and arrows. The trail was well traveled and he did not expect any problems. He picked up the basket load of the yucca stalks and started back down the trail with his family plodding slowly behind him with their own loads of cuttings to plant. Suddenly, he noticed that the jungle was deafeningly silent. Caicique stopped and looked around, getting nervous because it is never quiet in the jungle. He knew the only reason for this type of silence and he wished he had not left his bow and arrows. " I continued walking, hoping to make it out to the boat, but my eyes were running all over the place and the hair on the back of my neck was sticking straight out." He said. "I came around a bend in the trail and stopped in my tracks. Not far in front of me, staring straight at me, actually making eye contact, was not one, but two jaguars. They were staring me in the eye, non blinking. I could not help but notice the blood dripping from the open jaws of one of them and noticed from the corner of my eye a dead spotted *aqouti (Lapa) at their feet." "This is really bad. Jaguars will defend their kill as you all know and there being two of them, this was real trouble! I figured I would have a fight with my bare hands and was pretty sure I would lose the fight. As I was lowering my basket of cuttings, making sure I did not break eye contact, I prayed to God to protect me and my family, who had silently come up behind me. After getting the basket off and finishing my prayer, I began to get angry that these cats were making me scared like a woman, so I told them. 'come on, if you think I'm afraid of you, come on.' They continued to stare at me. I felt they were playing with me. All of a sudden, the cat sitting apart from the kill broke eye contact and looked away. Slowly it got to it's feet and started walking away. The other cat set there still watching me. Finally, without a backward glance at the bloody animal at it's feet, it also got up on all fours and followed the other cat away."

"What did you do then?" I asked Caicique. "Well, I got out of there, I can tell you that," he grinned, "but only after we picked up the bloody half of the spotted agouti and bringing it home with us. It made a nice supper for us after being half scared to death because of it, I figured God had sent the jaguars away, so he was giving the leftover *aqouti (Lapa) to us."

We all praised the Lord together with him for the protection the Lord had given him and his family.

*very large rodent like animal.