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Now some anthropologists, such as Boster, who is a professor at the University of Connecticut, say Christianity was pivotal in ending the tribal violence.

"I believe that conversion to Christianity was instrumental in saving the Waodani," Boster told CT. He says the five missionaries' refusal to fight back, despite their guns, and the forgiveness shown by the missionaries' close kin showed the Waodani the power of Christianity.

Aside from salvation, medicine has been the biggest need among Amazonian tribal groups during the last 50 years. The difference now is that the medical treatment may come from within the group rather than from foreigners. Previously, dentistry for the Waodani had been like other gifts of the cowadi, or foreigners. It was dropped from the sky.

Steve Saint's aunt Rachel, called "Star" by the Waodani, lived with the people for three decades after her brother's martyrdom. She helped translate the Bible into their language. When she died in 1994 of cancer, Waodani leaders quickly invited Steve, who had spent school vacations in the jungle, to take her place. After moving his family to Ecuador, Steve discovered that the Waodani were still dependent on foreign money and missionaries.

The Waodani wanted Steve, a former MAF pilot, to teach them to fly. "Before, when Star was living with us, when people's teeth were hurting, some foreigners came to fix our teeth, but they only came sometimes," Mincaye recalls. "So Kimo and I started thinking, Why can't we do this?"

Steve, with a business background, launched a new company, I-TEC (Indigenous People's Technology and Education Center), to help the Waodani use new technology. One project modified a powered parachute to transport passengers, cargo, and even stretcher patients in and out of the jungle.

Then the Waodani asked Steve to teach them basic dentistry. According to the World Health Organization, cavities and poor oral health afflict much of the world and are too costly to treat using traditional methods. But Mincaye says that the Waodani see dentistry in much the same way as missionary dentists see it—as a way to evangelize. "Teach us the tooth thing, and they will see us well," Mincaye told Steve. "That's the door opener so the people know we really care about them."

Ignoring the seeming impossibility of first learning dentistry—a profession requiring years of schooling and experience for Westerners—and then teaching it to people who 50 years ago were using stone axes to fell trees, Steve turned his entrepreneurial skills to the new challenge.

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January 2006, Vol. 50, No. 1