Chapter 14, The Tuan Eat Brains Summary and Analysis

Richardson begins the chapter with a much more lighthearted antidote. He describes the young boys of the village watching the missionary family eat dinner though the window, as the natives often did, with curiosity. On one such occasion, a young boy runs off to excitedly tell his friends that the Tuans eat brains for supper. Not possessing the language skills to understand yet, the Richardsons continue eating their dinner of macaroni, which the natives, having never seen, mistake for brains.

He next tells a short antidote of an instance when he heard a woman, Mao, crying in distress. The Sawi refuse the Richardsons' offers of help. Richardson learns the next morning that the woman died in childbirth, along with the twin babies. Richardson mourns the loss of three Sawi citizens to whom he...