Untitled (Death among the Aliguanies) by Gally No one really understands the way old world cultures work, and in most cases they really don't want to. Such as the case with the Aliguanies in the Amazonian rain forest. It was just a routine exploration trip. Martha, her husband Simon, and their 8 year old daughter Lisa were walking through the jungle. They took their daughter thinking it would be a wonderful experience, the trip of a life time! How horribly wrong they were. "Simon, I'm tired. Can we take a break?" Martha asked, winded from their 6 mile trek. "Mommy, we haven't even seen the monkeys yet!" her daughter exclaimed. "Yeah that's fine hun, I need a smoke anyway" said Simon setting down his pack and his machete. He pulled a cigarette out of his pack and went to light it as a spear exploded through his stomach. His eyes flew open and he gasped as he fell over. "DADDY!" "SIMON!" the women screamed as dozens of brown tribal people came running out from the trees howling and chanting like demons. They circled the females and wrapped them in rope. The tears and screams were endless. One of the Aliguanies smacked them over the head with a club. Martha woke up with a huge headache. The haze was slowly wearing off, and her senses returned. The first thing she noticed was she was in a wooden cage. Then she heard the screams of her little 8 year old. "MOMMY!" She screamed heartbreakingly. Martha ran to the cage bars screaming to let her out. Drums beat and the people sang and danced around Lisa who was tied to a rock struggling to get up. "THAT'S MY BABY! LET HER GO NOW!" She cried in desperation, trying to reach her daughter but only slid down to the earth floor in defeat. The drums became sullen now and the chief walked up to the white child in all his feathered glory. He chanted to the sky then grabbed a stone chisel and hammer. He placed the tip to her teeth and struck the end. Two of her teeth ripped out giving her a jack-o'-lantern grimace. "AAAH! AAAAHAAAAHHH!!" she continued screaming and coughing on blood as he continued smacking out her teeth till they were all gone. "Nooooo! What are you doing to her you monsters! STOP IT!" Martha cried. The chief removed the teeth out of the bloody young mouth and set them aside. He guided his expert fingers to her eyelids, holding them open and while her eyes rolled back and forth, desperate to escape their assailants, another pair of fingers pushed in past the rubbery globes and pulled them out. The eyes were removed followed by the strands of moist ocular nerves which were ripped out with a snap. The little girl screamed at the top of her lungs and her head shook wildly from one side to the other in darkened disbelief as to what just happened. Her mother could only cry for her little baby's sake. As for the next step in the ceremony, the chief took a stone knife and cut around the skin of her jaw. The skin was peeled off and blood poured out. An assistant placed a red-hot stick to the area sealing off the blood loss some. The chief placed his hand on her toothless jaw bone and in one hard yank ripped the mandible straight off. This raised a great cry from the people watching the ceremony take place and from the poor mother who had to watch her only daughter getting mutilated beyond recognition. Lisa was still very alive and concious due to the mixture they had forced down her throat only an hour before. It really was amazing the drugs the rainforest can provide. The jaw came off and her tongue flailed wildly up and down against her neck and throat hole. Her screams were inhuman, and heartbreaking to say the least. An assistant came to her with pots of boiling animal fat and poured it over her legs and arms over and over again, catching the melting chunks of skin and meat that fell off of her bones. The child, who was still barely coherent, tried moving her skeleton limbs with no success. Finally the chief took one final pot and poured it over her whimpering face. The steam and boiling sound was the last thing she heard as her face slowly flowed down the side of her skull. The people cheered in glory and went for the now good as vegetable mother who only drooled and stared at nothing. The Aliguanies are now an extinct race, gone like so many tribes that existed in seclusion for many thousands of years. However there is a reminder and a popular tourist attraction still in view to this day. The two skeletons with jaw-less skulls of a woman and child holding each other on display leaning on two sharpened stakes.