Died: Feb. 13, 1997

Age: Approximately 80 years

Location:

Died in his own little clearing on the headwaters of the Tzapino river in the Eastern jungles of Ecuador, South America

Survivors:

Survived by his wife Mankamo (blackbird), sister Mintaka (blue macaw) (the two women who risked their lives to visit the outside world in 1958 and invited Rachel Saint and Elizabeth Elliot to accompany Dayuma into Waodani territory and live with the tribe). (Mintaka is the older of the two women in the "Through Gates of Splendor" documentary film). Also survived by numerous children including Come who is married to Dayuma.

Guiquita (Gikita in English) was born into the stone-age tribe known to the outside world as the feared and hated Aucas. Living in the rugged Amazon rainforests on the Eastern flanks of the Andes mountains of Ecuador, his tribe was known for its violent contacts with the outside world, as well as their habitual spear - killings within the tribe.

In 1956, 5 young North American missionaries attempted to make peaceful contact with the tribe. Guikita led the attack that killed them and left their little yellow plane, stripped and ruined, as a monument to the awesome task of sharing a message of peace and forgiveness with peoples who have no concept of a loving and benevolent God.

After the death and burial of Rachel Saint in November of 1994, I, as Rachel's nephew had the sad task of taking word of her death to Gikita at his remote clearing. "Dying I will again see my sister Nemo (Star) in God's place. I will see her little brother (Nate) whom I myself speared and, laughing and happy, we will live together in peace"

Gikita's father was speared before he was born. He grew up in a world that taught violence and vengence as a way of life. He spent his childhood years learning to flee from and hate those he would one day kill in retaliation for the numerous killings of his own family group. Gikita began spearing his enemies while just a teenager and soon distinguished himself as a proficient and prolific killer.

In 1956, when Nate Saint and Ed McCully first spotted Auca houses from the air, it was Gikita's clearing that they had found. After months of weekly gift exchanges from the airplane to the ground, using a trailing line technique that Nate had devised, an attempt was made to meet the Aucas face to face. Nate and Ed, along with Pete Fleming, Roger Youderian and Jim Elliot, landed on a sandbar in a nearby river and waited for Guikita's people to find them. After several days of waiting, two naked women and one man emerged from the dense jungle to make the first known friendly contact between this "stone age tribe" and "cowodi" (subhumans from the outside world).

At the same time that this exciting and provocative contact was in progress, tensions within the Gikiteidi clan were building over unrelated matters within the tribe. Realizing that these tensions were on the brink of starting a new round of spear-killings within the family, Gikita turned the animosity and hatred outside. He convinced the group to kill the outsiders, hoping that this would provide a release for their building fury with each other.

Killing the five cowodi did not difuse animosities within Gikita's tribe. Nankiwi, whom the five missionaries nicknamed "George" and whose face appeared in magazines and news releases around the world as the first Auca man to have friendly contact with the "outside world", was soon threatening to spear Gikita himself. Gikita was warned of the threat against his life, but surprisingly, refused to take action against Nankiwi. Two younger men took it upon themselves to spear Nankiwi. In his mid thirties, he was an old man for his culture. He had lost his passion for revenge and his lust for life if it required continual hating, living in fear, and killing.

In early 1958, tensions and uncertainties within the tribe were so severe that Gikita's wife and sister risked a visit to the territory of their historic enemies, the Quechuas. Miraculously, they survived the encounter and were soon reunited with Dayuma who had fled from killings within the tribe and had never been heard from again. Along with Dayuma, they were introduced to Rachel Saint (sister of one of the "Palm Beach" martyrs) and Elizabeth Elliot (the wife of another). They pled with Dayuma to return to the tribe with them and then returned to invite Rachel and Betty with her little girl Valerie, to go live in their territory with them.

Gikita heard of Wangongi, the Man Maker, and Itota, His only Son, from the two "cowodi" women whose men he himself had speared to death. He learned that God, who created man, wooly monkeys, and even the feared jaguar and anaconda with their great spirit powers, had said that men should live in peace and not kill each other. This "stone age" warrior who had mercilessly taken the lives of outsiders and Waodani (their name for themselves, meaning "the people") alike, finally had a reason to lay down his spear alongside his life of fear and hatred. This man that had set the standard for murderous living now became the model for living God's way and walking God's trail. "My heart was black with sin! But Jesus' blood dripped and dripped and washed my heart clean". "When we killed Nemo's brother and Gikadi's husband and their three friends, we did not do well, but dying we will see them again. I will just wrap my arms around them and laughing and happy we will live together in peace."

That reunion is taking place right now. This old "stone age" warrior is reunited with his sister Nemo and the five young men he killed some forty years ago.

In our last meeting just a few months ago Gikita repeated what he has told me every time we have been together since I took him word of Aunt Rachel's death. "I am old and have lived enough. I just want to die and go to live happily with your father in God's place. But you stay here and keep telling the young people not to live badly as they are doing now. Tell them to walk God's trail as I have done, so that dying I will see them again too, in God's place."

A big earthly loss for those of us who loved him and the many more who were moved by the story in which God strategically used old Grandfather Gikita for His own purposes. A big gain for all those in heaven who have been waiting for this old warrior to arrive, especially the one whose blood dripped and dripped to wash all of our hearts clean!"

(By Stephen F. Saint)