Initial Contact
The first stage of Operation Auca began in September 1955. Saint, McCully, Elliot, and fellow missionary Johnny Keenan decided to initiate contact with the Huaorani and began periodically searching for them by air. By the end of the month, they had identified several clearings in the jungle. Meanwhile, Elliot learned several phrases in the language of the Huaorani from Dayuma, a young Huaorani woman who had left her society and become friends with Rachel Saint, a missionary and the sister of Nate Saint. The missionaries hoped that by regularly giving gifts to the Huaorani and attempting to communicate with them in their language, they would be able to win them over as friends.
Because of the difficulty and risk of meeting the Huaorani on the ground, the missionaries chose to drop gifts to the Huaorani by fixed-wing aircraft. Their drop technique, developed by Nate Saint, involved flying around the drop location in tight circles while lowering the gift from the plane on a rope. This kept the bundle in roughly the same position as it approached the ground. On October 6, 1955, Saint made the first drop, releasing a small kettle containing buttons and rock salt. The gift-giving continued during the following weeks, with the missionaries dropping machetes, ribbons, clothing, pots, and various trinkets.
After several visits to the Auca village, which the missionaries called "Terminal City", they observed that the Huaorani seemed excited to receive their gifts. Encouraged, they began using a loudspeaker to shout simple Huaorani phrases as they circled. After several more drops, in November the Huaorani began tying gifts for the missionaries to the line after removing the gifts the missionaries gave them. The men took this as a gesture of friendliness and developed plans for meeting the Huaorani on the ground. Saint soon identified a 200-yard (200 m) sandbar along the Curaray River about 4.5 miles (7 km) from Terminal City that could serve as a runway and camp site, and dubbed it "Palm Beach".
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