Huaorani

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Huaorani
Total population approx. 2,000 (various post-2001 est.)
Regions with significant populations Huaorani settlements: approx. 2,000,

Nomadic "uncontacted" Tagaeri, Taromanane, Huiñatare, and Oñamenane: approx. 250,
Language Huao Terero, many also speak Spanish.
Religion Christian, Animist
Related ethnic groups Quichua, Shuar, Achuar, Siona people, Secoya people, Shiwiar, Záparo, Cofán

The Huaorani, also known as Waorani, Waodani, or Auca (Quechua for "savage"), are an indigenous tribe of the Ecuadorian Oriente (in the Amazon region). The tribe's ancestral lands are currently threatened by oil exploration and illegal logging practices. These homelands are located between the Curaray and Napo rivers, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Dureno. These lands are approximately 120 miles (190 km) wide and 75 to 100 miles (120 to 160 km) from north to south. The Huaorani have guarded their lands from both indigenous foes and outsider colonials (referred to as cowode, literally "nonhuman cannibals").

The Huaorani speak Huao Terero, a language isolate, and comprise approximately 2,000 people. In the last forty years, they have become a largely settled people living mostly in permanent forest settlements. As many as five communities, the Tagaeri, the Huiñatare, the Oñamenane and two groups of the Taromenane, have rejected all contact with non-Huaorani, and continuously move into more isolated areas, generally in the direction of the Peruvian border.

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[edit] Name

The word Huaorani means simply human in Huao Terero. Prior to the mid twentieth century, it was used to designate only those kin associated with the speaker. Others in the ethnic group were called Huaomoni, while outsiders were and are known by the somewhat derogatory term cowode. This structure duplicates the in-group/out-group naming conventions used by many peoples (e.g., the Jewish references to Jews and goyim), and may reflect a period of traumatic conflict with outsiders during the nineteenth and early twentieth century rubber boom.

[edit] Subdivision

The Huaorani are subdivided into the Huamuno Dayuno, Quehueruno, Garzacocha (río Yasuní), Quemperi (río Cononaco) Mima, and Caruhue.

[edit] Technology

The Huaorani have an elaborate knowledge of the plant life of the surrounding rainforest. One of their more elaborate skills is the extraction of curare, a potent neurotoxin, and its use in elaborate blowguns, both in hunting and in warfare. Blowguns are often used to hunt howler monkeys. Some Huao are involved in an ethnobotany project to document, preserve and pass on their knowledge of plant life and its uses.

[edit] Culture

[edit] Worldview

In the animist Huaorani worldview, there is no distinction between the physical and spiritual worlds and spirits are present throughout the world. The Huaorani once believed that the entire world was a forest (and used the same word, ömë, for both) and the Oriente’s rainforest remains the essential basis of their physical and cultural survival. For them, the forest is home, while the outside world is unsafe: Living in the forest offers protection from the witchcraft and attacks of neighboring peoples. In short, as one Huaorani put it, “The rivers and trees are our life.” (Kane 1995:199) In all its specificities, the forest is woven into each Huaorani’s life and conceptions of the world. They have remarkably detailed knowledge of its geography and ecology.

Plants, especially trees, hold a complex and important interest for the Huaorani. Their store of botanical knowledge is extensive and ranges from knowledge of materials to poisons to hallucinogens to medicines. They also relate plants to their own experiences, particularly that of growing. Among trees, certain kinds are auspicious. Canopy trees, with their distinctly colored young leaves and striking transformation as they mature to towering giants, are “admired for their solitary character … as well as for their profuse entanglement” with other plants. Other significant trees are the pioneer species of the peach palm (used for making spears and blowguns, as well as for fruit), and fast-growing balsa wood, used for ceremonial purposes. Peach palm trees are associated past settlements and the ancestors who live there. (Rival 1993)

The Huaorani believe the animals of their forest have a spiritual as well as physical existence. They believe that when one dies he walks a trail to the afterlife which has a large python in waiting. Those among the dead who cannot escape the python, fail to enter the domain of dead spirits and return to Earth to become animals, often termites. This underlies a peculiar mix of practices that recognize and respect animals, but do not shield them from harm for human use. Huaroani who become Christians believe that God sent his son to experience death and walk the trail and encounter the python for them.

Hunting supplies a major part of the Huaorani diet and is of cultural significance. Traditionally, the creatures hunted were limited to monkeys, birds, and wild peccaries. Neither land-based predators nor birds of prey are hunted. There is also an extensive collection of hunting and eating taboos. They refuse to eat deer on the grounds that deer eyes look similar to human eyes. While a joyful activity, hunting even permitted animals, has ethical ramifications: “The Huaorani must kill animals to live, but they believe dead animal spirits live on and must be placated or else do harm in angry retribution.” (Seamans 1996) To counterbalance the offense of hunting, a shaman demonstrates respect through the ritual preparation of the poison, curare, used in blow darts. Hunting with such darts is not even considered killing, but retrieving, another kind of harvesting from the trees. Spearing wild peccaries on the other hand, is killing and is practiced with violence and rage. (Rival 2002)

While never hunted, two other animals, the snake and the jaguar have special significance for the Huaorani. Snakes are considered "the most evil force in the Huaorani cosmology" (Kane 1995:44), particularly the imposing (though nonpoisonous) anaconda, or obe. A giant obe stands in the way of the forest trail that the dead follow to an afterlife with the creator in the sky. Here on earth, snakes are a very bad omen and killing them is a powerful taboo.

The Huaorani identify themselves deeply with the jaguar, an important and majestic predator in the Oriente. According to myth, the Huaorani were the descendants of a mating between a jaguar and an eagle. Elders become shamans by metaphorically adopting “jaguar sons” whose spirits communicate medical and spiritual knowledge. A jaguar shaman is able, they claim, “to become a jaguar, and so to travel great distances telepathically and communicate with other Huaorani.” [citation needed]

As with many peoples, the Huaorani maintained a strong in-group/out-group distinction, between Huaorani (people who are kin), Huaomoni (others in their culture who are unrelated) and cowode, other humans described as inhuman cannibals. It is not known if their view of outsiders predates the slavery and kidnapping associated with the 19th century rubber boom. The use of Huaorani as a term for their entire culture emerged in the last fifty years in a process of ethnogenesis, which was greatly accelerated by the creation of ONHAE (see Indigenist political reorganization below), a radio service and a soccer league.

The Huaorani notion of time is particularly oriented to the present, with few obligations extending backwards or forwards in time. Their one word for future times, baane, also means "tomorrow". (Rival 2002)

[edit] Weapons

Spears are the main weapons of the Waodani culture used in person to person conflict.

Their main hunting weapon is the blowgun. These weapons are typically from 9 to 12 feet long, and the arrows that are in them have curare poison, which paralyzes the animal that is hit with it.

[edit] Marriage

Huaorani families practice exogamy. A boy can marry his cousins from a sister on his father's side, or a cousin from a brother on his mother's side. The men also have many wives. Sometimes, a man may kill another man to gain another wife. This was traditionally common if a man had no cousin to marry.

An interesting point of Huaorani culture is that women remove all their body hair. For this purpose first they rub ashes on their bodies in the area they don't want hair and then they pull the hair with no pain.

[edit] Recent history

Around the time of World War II, there was a great increase of inter-clan killings, resulting in the deaths of as many as 60% of the Huaorani. These killings were carried out in revenge for a number of deaths that most likely resulted from the introduction of outside diseases (Robarchek & Robarchek 1997). The Huaorani were also immensely hostile to outsiders on their land (mostly prospectors for foreign oil companies and their Quechua employees). Some of the Huaorani trace the beginning of the killing to the breakdown of clan relationships around ten generations prior to this time. Prior to this period large gatherings frequently brought distant clans together from time to time to celebrate, arrange marriages etc.... these were organized by informal tribal leaders (although the Huaorani have no chiefs or formal leadership in general). When these gatherings became less common clans became estranged and offended with one another and conflicts began to escalate until the Huaorani became one of the most violent cultures ever documented (Saint 2005).

In 1956, a group of five American missionaries, led by Jim Elliot and pilot Nate Saint, made contact with the Huaorani. The missionaries were all killed. Nate Saint's sister, Rachel Saint, prior to these killings, had befriended a Huaorani woman named Dayuma. While it has been said that Dayuma's brother had been killed by the missionaries (Rival 2002), the recorded testimony of the warriors who were present at the missionaries' killing does not support the claim that the missionaries killed anyone (Saint 1996, Beyond the Gates of Splendor 2005). It is undisputed that most of Dayuma's clan had been killed in the inter-clan battles. Saint, Dayuma, and Jim Elliot's wife Elisabeth converted the group of Huaorani. This helped stop most of the revenge killings, but it also led to increased oil scouting in the area. Many of the Huaorani were then concentrated into a protectorate under the responsibility of SIL International (SIL). (For more on the relationship to oil and the CIA, see Thy Will Be Done by Colby and Dennett.)

Once the Huaorani schools were brought under the control of SIL missionaries, there was an attempt made to introduce the beliefs of Christianity. There was also an attempt made to convert the tribe from hunting-and-gathering to farming in order to provide an agro-export, thus "contribut[ing] to the national good".[citation needed] Teachers were mainly of the neighboring Quechua. New systems of government were also introduced.

Acting on the advice of anthropologist James Yost, SIL eventually asked that Saint leave the Huaorani due to her interference with their culture and concerns about fostering dependency on imported goods (Brysk 2000:220). Rather than follow these instructions, Saint rather left SIL, maintaining her relationship with the Ecuadorian government. Since that time, the 60 mile (100 km) Vía Auca has contributed to the rise of oil exploration and settlers.

[edit] Indigenous political reorganization

Prior to 1989, the Huaorani were very divided and politically unorganized. The two settlements were Rachel Saint's (the Toñampare) and Dayuno, which was also under missionary influence. There were also a number of traditional clans and the Tagaeri. Though the Huaorani were surviving and healthy, their society was controlled almost entirely by missionaries, and there was no clear voice to communicate to the outside world.

In 1989, some of the Huaorani attempted to regroup. A group consisting of over sixty, known as the Ñihuari and led by a man named Ñame, left Dayuno and travelled to the Shiripuno River, where they founded the community of Quehueire Ono. The main intention of this settlement was to create a community separate from the mission settlements (and Rachel Saint's/Dayuma's dominance) and return to the old Huaorani culture, though without giving up some of the more modern tools. A school was begun in the settlement in 1990, thanks to funding from the Napo Provincial Government. By 1993, Quehueire Ono was the second-largest Huaorani community, with approximately 223 members.

In March of 1990, an organization called ONHAE (The Organization of the Huaorani Nation of the Ecuadorian Amazon; the acronym means flower) was founded. This was with the assistance of CONFENIAE (The Oriente Indigenous Confederation), of which ONHAE later became a member. The main purpose of ONHAE was to provide for self-representation of the Huaorani in dealings with the Ecuadorian government, oil companies and other cowode. Also thanks to CONFENIAE, the Huaorani were given legal ownership of over 2,600 square miles (6700 km²) of land, approximately one third of the traditional lands. ONHAE currently operated by holding consensus-based assemblies (Biye in Huao Terero) drawn from across the contacted Huaorani communities.

An August 2005 assembly of over 250 Huaorani convoked by Moi Enomenga, ONHAE and AMWAE (Association of Huaorani Women of the Ecuadorian Amazon) in the community of Tiwino (Orellana province) further rejected drilling and denounced ten Huaorani, contracted by the company to negotiate, for acting without broader support. ONHAE is currently headed by President Nancano Enomenga and Vice President Moi Enomenga.

[edit] Land rights

In 1990, the Huaorani won the rights to an indigenous reserve covering some 6,125.60 square kilometres, thus enabling a semi-autonomous existence. A demarcation process is underway to surround this region with a distinctive band of monoculture trees in order to discourage colonization. However, the land title does not extend to subsoil minerals including extensive oil deposits. The Ecuadorian government has proceeded to license the petroleum drilling rights in the region to multinational oil corporations. The protected status of Yasuní National Park, which overlaps with the Huaorani reserve provides some measure of environmental protection. Additionally, the government has created a protected zone to avoid contact with the Tagaeri.

The conflict over oil drilling rights came to head once again in 2005, as many Huaorani have vocally challenged the national government's concession of Oil Block 31 to Petrobras to drill in 1,000 km² of Yasuní National Park. A delegation of more than 100 Huaorani to Quito in July called on the national government and that of Brazilian President Lula da Silva to withdraw from Yasuni.

[edit] References

  • Brysk, Alison (2000). From Tribal Village to Global Village: Indian Rights and International Relations in Latin America. Stanford University Press.
  • Kane, Joe (1995). Savages. Alfred A. Knopf.
  • Smith, Randy (1993). Crisis Under the Canopy: Tourism and Other Problems Facing the Present Day Huaorani. Abya-Yala.
  • Rival, Laura. Right to a way of life, Resurgence 189.
  • Rival, Laura. (1993) “The Growth of Family Trees: Understanding Huaorani Perceptions of the Forest.” Man 28(December), 635-652.
  • Rival, Laura (2002). Trekking Through History: The Huaorani of Amazonian Ecuador. Columbia University Press.
  • Huaorani Elect New Anti-Oil Officer to ONHAE, the Huaorani Government
  • Robarchek, Carole and Clayton Robarchek (1997). Waorani: The Contexts of Violence and War. Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
  • Saint, Steve (1996). "Did They Have to Die?". Christianity Today (September 16, 1996): 20-27.
  • Joe Seamans, The Last Shaman, NOVA website. 1996.
  • Beyond the Gates of Splendor, Documentary 2005.
  • End of the Spear, Film 2006.

[edit] External links

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