Loving enemies in the Amazon

On Jan. 8, 1956, a man in the company of eight other men killed Steve Saint’s father.

Nate Saint died on a sandbar in the Curraray River, in the eastern Amazon Basin of Ecuador, where the man attacked and speared him. Ten years later, two men who had accompanied his father’s killer would baptize Steve Saint, along with his sister, Kathy, in the waters of the same river.

A Los Angeles Times headline on Jan. 11, 1956, read, “Planes Hunt 5 Feared Captured by Savages.” Below the headline was a photograph of Nate Saint smiling and holding Steve, his 5-year-old son. The world didn’t know it yet, but Nate and the four other men, all of them Christian missionaries, were dead.

Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully and Roger Youderian had been speared and hacked with machetes by members of the Waodani tribe, then known as the “Auca,”or “the savages.” At the time, six of every 10 adult deaths in the tribe were homicides. Considered by anthropologists as the most violent tribe ever documented, the Waodani was on the brink of self-induced extinction.

Life magazine devoted 10 pages to the story. Maps and excerpts from the missionaries’ diaries, dozens of their black-and-white photographs, and others taken by photojournalist Cornell Capa accompanied the feature. A year later, Jim Elliot’s wife, Elisabeth Elliot, would present her book-length account, “Through the Gates of Splendor.” But the story was only beginning.

True yet hard to believe, the story may in fact be neverending.

If you see the full-length feature film “End of the Spear,” which opens tomorrow on the 50th anniversary of the missionaries’ deaths, you will begin to know what I mean. In September, I saw a preview screening of the film, which was introduced by Steve Saint.

“Every family has a story,” he told the audience. But few families have a story like his.

Still, nothing in Saint’s manner speaks of drama. Soft-spoken and at ease, he’s less animated than someone telling you about his new car or his best catch on a recent fishing trip. Middle-aged, balding and bespectacled, he’s an unremarkable speaker who appears to be a most ordinary man living out a most extraordinary story.

On a DVD media reel, Saint describes his as the story of “how my family became part of a Stone Age Amazon tribe ... a story that began before I was born and is still being written today.”

“End of the Spear” tells that story from fresh viewpoints, that of the 5-year-old Steve Saint as well as if Mincaye, the Waodani leader who killed Saint’s father. From Mincaye’s point of view, we get to understand for the first time why the Waodani, after initially making friendly overtures to the missionaries, killed them.

The story is the mesmerizing tale of how a handful of 20th century North American Christian missionary families and the notoriously violent members of the Waodani tribe found the courage to put their lives on the line to do what Jesus commanded but few people ever dare: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

The result forever changed them.

The Waodani once killed with little regret or remorse. They taught their children that life had one choice: spear others and live, or be speared and die. Yet today, murder among the Waodani is nearly nonexistent, and the tribe’s aggression toward other tribes has ceased.

As an adult, Steve Saint, with his family, went to live with the Waodani. He says, “Those very people who killed my dad are some of my dearest friends.... If you saw me with the Waodani in the jungles, and my family, you would know we are family.” His children call Mincaye “Grandfather.”

At a Wycliffe Bible Translators meeting in Lancaster, Pa., in 1997, Mincaye, while visiting the United States, described his and his tribe’s spiritual transformation: “We acted badly, badly till they [the missionaries] brought us God’s carvings [the Bible]. Now we walk his [God’s] trail.”

Those words inspired Mart Green, founder and CEO of Every Tribe Entertainment, to make “End of the Spear.”

But in 1999, when Green first flew to the jungle with Steve Saint to ask Mincaye and the Waodani tribe for the rights to the story, they turned him down. Then Saint told them the story of the shootings at Columbine High School that had taken place a few months before.

Seeing a reflection of their past in the story, the Waodani let Green make the film. It shocked the tribe to learn how our society is gripped by the cycle of violence from which they are now free.

This week, which includes the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, seems an appropriate time to release this movie, with its theme of nonviolence and spiritual, moral and social change. An independent, tightly budgeted film, rated PG-13 for its intense, albeit necessary, sequences of violence, it is well-made.

It walked away with the $50,000 Crystal Heart Award at the Heartland Film Festival in October. Actors Louie Leonardo, who portrayed Mincaye, Chad Allen (both Nate and the adult Steve Saint) and Chase Ellison (the young Steve Saint) all deliver engaging performances. The cinematography is breathtaking, at times almost distractingly beautiful. Its message of a purpose and a peace worth dying for is alluring and provocative.

If the film has a fault, it’s the hugeness of its story and cast. Viewers never get to know any one of its characters deeply. The story is there, but the characters -- not for lack of acting prowess but a lack of time for ample character development -- remain mere sketches of the real-life people they represent.

At the beginning of the film, little is known about the missionaries, and their decision to approach the savage Auca tribe threatens to seem impetuous. For those with little previous knowledge of the missionaries, it might be helpful to first read one of Elisabeth Elliot’s books (“Through the Gates of Splendor” and “The Savage My Kinsman”) or to see Every Tribe Entertainment’s documentary, “Beyond the Gates,” which is based on Elliot’s books and is available on DVD. Even a look at the documentary’s website (www.beyondthe gatesthemovie.com) could be a help.

“Beyond the Gates” reveals more overtly what “End of the Spear” is inclined to be subtle about. For example, it shows in more detail the missionaries’ educations as well as their prayer and spiritual lives. It reveals the Waodani’s profound fear of death and the afterlife, a fear that led them at times to be buried alive when mortally wounded, often taking a child with them for company.

This is a true story, and it deserves to be believed. Knowing its characters that much better will make it that much easier.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She can be reached at [email protected].

20060119gzerqeke(LA)