I was talking with the Wycliffe missionaries who have been out in Tsoroja for a number of years, and they told me the story of how the Gospel first came to the Caquinte. Below is the story as best I can remember it.
A number of years ago there was a Caquinte man named Shanquentenni. He was a Shaman, and he had 7 wives. One day he was walking through the jungle and he happened upon a flower. As he looked at it's perfection it dawned on him that there must be a Creator. He thought that if there was a Creator who made the flower, that same creator must have made him, and all other people. With this realization he knew that it was wrong to kill people, and that the Creator wouldn't want him to spend all of his days drinking.
He started searching for this Creator spirit, and climbed to the top of the mountains to find him. He went to the lowest valleys, and rivers, but he could not find the Creator there either. He then took ayahuasca and had a shamanistic vision.
In his vision he was on a hill overlooking a valley. An angel came up to him and tells him to jump across the valley. Shanquentenni tells him that he can't, but the angel insists. Shanquentenni jumps and makes it the other side of the valley, only to see a larger valley. The angel tells him to jump again, and this time he immediately obeys. This happens a few more times, each valley larger than the last, until finally Shanquentenni is overlooking a valley that is impossibly big to cross. On the hill across the valley there lies a shining city. The angel turns to him and says, "You will die soon, but your children will come to learn the Inquirishi, and they will come to now the Creator through them."
Shanquentenni awakes from his vision, and tells all of his children about what he saw. Soon afterwards he dies, and three of his children go on a long journey to a Machiguenga village. when they arrive they come into contact with a Wycliffe missionary who told them that if they came to live in the village they would be able to learn about the Creator. Now the three brothers return to their home and on trail a man from the village that they just left kills the eldest brother. The youngest brother becomes very sick, which leaves the middle brother, who is only about 12 years old, to carry his younger brother home on his back. Even so, the brothers tell of what they heard, and convince there families to move to the Machiguenga village where they could learn about the Creator.
Years later the Caquinte made their own village, and got their own translators. But even before they met a single American they were told in a dream that they would learn about the Creator from the Inquirishi, which so happens to be the way that they pronounce "English" in Caquinte.
