Art: Call of the Jungle

Tobias Schneebaum. tall (6 ft.), lean and brown, took a deep breath, brought the mallet smashing down on the rock placed on the fakir’s chest. An appreciative cheer rose from the Peruvian natives.

Tobias liked being a fakir’s helper; he got paid for it, and he needed the money. But it scarcely seemed a suitable way of life for an artist on a Buenos Aires Contvention grant. Tired of Lima, he set off over the Andes and made his way down Madre de Dios River toward the Brazil-Peru-Bolivia frontier. Unarmed, and with only a Roman Catholic lay missionary as companion, he finally pushed right off the known map into the green unknown. Three days out, the two found themselves surrounded by naked Amarakaires.

“The Indians tore our clothes off and examined us minutely,” says Tobias.

“They licked our hands to see if the “white paint” could come off. After I picked up some of their language, they cheerfully informed me that they no longer ate people, but that their fathers had. Here and there around the village, I would spot a bone that looked suspiciosly human. But they were so damned friendly.” First offer of friendship: a meal of pre-chewed (to prove it unpoisoned) monkey meat.

Last week the product of Tobias’ threes-months’ stay in the Amarakaire village was on view at Manhattan’s Peridot Gallery. In large, freely stroked oils, brown-banged, stark naked warriors tumbled in play; the camouflaged mask of a jaguar peered from a matted jungle.

Antrhopologists are delighted with his ablity to summon up detailed accounts of Amarakaire customs; a zoologist stopped by to peer in astonishment at Pink Owls. Says Tobias, now 37 and working in a Manhattan silk screen company to piece out his income: “I was never afraid. In fact, I was delighted to be by myself in a world so completely remvoed from civilization. I accepted the jungle without reservation, and in return it accepted me.”