As an undergraduate I took a course devoted to Beowulf. This tale of honor, courage, betrayal and slaughter made a deep impression on me. But some of my most vivid memories of the course are of the professor. He was a trim, tweed- coated man of about 60. His salt- and- pepper hair was close- cropped. He sat at a table, alternately reading and interpreting. He was a captivating teacher. The poem was very real to him. I remember that he would sometimes grind his teeth as he read the bloodier passages. His interpretations were vivid. And it seemed clear to me that this man's heart beat in sympathy with the poem, that his vitals yearned for a more muscular age, that in his eyes Portland was but a poor, soft place in 1966. I wondered at the time if he was aware how casually Beowulf or Achilles would have burned his house, taken his Chevrolet and his daughter and eaten him for breakfast.

It seems to me now that Tukup's oral autobiography might have proved illuminating for my professor. Tukup was a South American headhunter, a Shuar Indian, a shrinker of human heads (Figure I.1). Tukup's ideas about what is necessary for personal honor and what is necessary in the pursuit of revenge are close to Beowulf ‘s. Still better, perhaps, my professor might have read Monster: The Autobiography of an L. A. Gang Member and some other street- gang autobiographies, because they take us into the mind and the territory of tribal warriors who lived just down the block (Figure I.2). Beowulf and Achilles live at a safe distance in time. Piegan, Crow, Sarsi and Sioux warriors are nearer, but they are bathed in the light of a glorious sunset. Tukup was cutting heads just 60 years ago, but in a remote region of Ecuador.