Whimpering Flayed

Last summer Donald S. Wees of Elkins, W. Va. went to Paraguay under auspices of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. Mr. Wees said that he was going to collect mammals, birds, insects and plants for Harvard.

This spring amazing accounts began reaching the U. S. from Mr. Wees describing the miseries which he encountered in a neighborhood about 700 mi. west of Rio de Janeiro and 700 mi. north of Buenos Aires: "We spent days and nights hunting and when we shot nothing we were hungry in a forest of game. Braised alligator tail tastes like flaked codfish. Here spider webs enmesh birds. Ants drive us from our hammocks into a circle of ashes. The hordes of insects for which the region does not provide a living cause us night after night of sleeplessness. One especially virulent species has poisoned us all. Potent does not describe this land of mold and blood."

Fortnight ago Mr. Wees was at Asuncion, Paraguay, telling the Associated

Press correspondent "a story of excruciating suffering in the Paraguayan jungle, including being almost eaten alive by ants nearly an inch long. . . . He told of battling floods . . . chopping his way through a jungle with a machete. . . . His companions sickened and faced starvation. In spite of the fact that his feet were rotting from the humidity he walked 18 miles until he found some Indians with whom he was able to barter cloth, fish hooks and soap for some beans, corn and mandioca root to feed his party. . . ."

These accounts of Mr. Wees's tribulations exasperated Professor Thomas Barbour, director of the Harvard Museum for which Mr. Wees ostensibly traveled. Professor Barbour had made zoological explorations in the East and West Indies, in Burma, China and Japan, in Central and South America. As a professional explorer he had no sympathy for the whimperings reported from Paraguay. On the other hand, as museum director he was mightily concerned with the public's reaction to a Harvard traveler's troubles. The sensationalized murder of Columbia University's Henrietta Schmerler when she bungled among the Apaches (TIME, March 28, et ante) has made every institution wary of inept field agents. But Professor Barbour held his tongue until last week from Buenos Aires came a fresh despatch : "The existence of white Indians with blonde hair, who live like animals . . . was confirmed by Dr. Donald S. Wees, Harvard Museum explorer. . . . The explorer said the Indians were completely naked and without homes, shelter or traps of any kind, subsisting on food gathered in the jungles or shot with bow and arrow. . . . Dr. Wees was unable to photograph the Indians, who were as shy as animals and every bit as dangerous. Their chief menace to the jungle traveler, he said, was their quest for horses and mules which they sought for meat. . . ."

This was too much for Professor Barbour. To Mr. Wees (no doctor) at Buenos Aires he snapped a cablegram which spoke for all first-rate institutions to all explorers : "For your guidance previous reported discoveries of tribes of white Indians shown to be hoaxes and scientifically any new report is a hoax until absolute proof is available. Collectors under any sort of Harvard auspices cannot indulge in publicity involving it in controversial subjects or in frequently discredited reports without disavowal. Suggest in friendly spirit your white Indians only albinos such as often reported from various regions in the past. This phenomenon usually pathological."

Professor Barbour to the Press: "An obviously inexperienced amateur . . . Mr. Wees has emphasized in a most extraordinary way the inevitable and commonplace, though by no means inconsiderable discomfort of journeying in the backwoods of South America. We have been sympathetic almost as much as annoyed at the publicity regarding his sufferings in general. But on top of this, for him to revive the white Indian hoax is more than flesh can bear."

In Buenos Aires last week Explorer Wees stuck fast to his white Indian story, had local evidence to back him, notably that of Jeronimo Zubizarreta, onetime (1931) Paraguayan foreign minister.

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