These non-contacted groups, whatever their provenance and trajectory, all live like refugees in their own lands, by choice. They no longer prepare clearings, but plant root crops and maize under the canopy to avoid being spotted by helicopters.
They cook late at night, so that the smoke rising from their hearths does not give them away. They are on the move at all times, endlessly searching for quieter hunting spots, and better hiding places. According to my Huaorani friends, they hate the noise of machines and engines, and choose to flee to the same places where the monkeys and the peccaries flee.
These self-isolated groups have suffered a great deal because of the loss of their territories, the invasion of oil companies, and the continuous encroachment of poachers, loggers, drug traffickers, tourist companies, and other adventurers. They too have become enemy outsiders. These fears are not unfounded. More than once, I heard young Huaorani men boast that they will attempt to pacify the Tagaeri. Non-contacted groups are not a threat to any one, except to intruders; they only want to be left alone.
As I argued some years ago, we need to invent a new human right for all the groups still hiding in the Amazon forest: the right of no-contact. In continuation, let me illustrate the predicament of these non-contacted groups, and the persecution to which they are subjected, with two stories. The ultimate modern dream: film the first contact.
According to the script, the first episode would show how Christian Huaorani contacted their savage brothers, and managed to convince them of the virtues of western civilization, with the help of the army.
The second episode would focus on the encounter between the chief Tagae and Loren Miller, the former sharing his knowledge of medicinal plants with the latter.
The TV company, which was seeking the support of CNN and the National Geographic for this project, had to back off in the face of a wave of protests from the indigenous peoples organisations, COICA, and various other indigenous rights organisations.
In fact, many members of the tribe do not know their exact age. Physically, the Huaorani seem healthy by most appearances. The tribe practices several types of body modification in keeping with Huaorani standards of beauty. Many of the elders have gaping, loose earlobes, the effects of traditional gauging. Both men and women grow their thick, black hair long, and no one in the village shows signs of balding.
Men and women, especially in the older generation, walk around in a state of semi-nudity, wearing neither shoes nor any kind of sun protection. As a result, their feet have taken on a splayed and malformed shape from constant exertion without the support of shoes, though the condition appears to have no effect on their ability to walk, or on their gait.
Although tribesmen boast of their resistance to the smoldering heat of the equatorial sun, skin cancer has been an occasional problem.
As for their diet, the Huaorani do not take prenatal or daily vitamins or consume any kind of dairy product. They live off of monkey meat, bird meat, fruit, fish, and the occasional government shipment of food. Despite their limited exposure to the outside world, the Huaorani believe themselves to be healthier than average Ecuadorians and associate most health problems they have with outsiders. Their wariness of outside contagions is a historically justified fear, given the outbreaks of smallpox and malaria that struck shortly after missionaries began to live alongside the tribe, diseases against which the Huaorani had no immunity.
More generally, the Huaorani concept of disease revolves around the idea of nature as a net good, capable of producing cures, and outside forces as pathogenic. They believe their own exposure to processed and artificial foods has worsened their health, as has exposure to foreigners. The shaman, the healer and the spiritual leader of the community, is venerated within the tribe.
A shaman is selected by being healed by the previous shaman during his youth, and then receiving a vision in the case of the current shaman, this was a panther in a dream as an adult to inform him of his calling. The shaman is responsible for the practice of traditional medicine. The Huaorani have hundreds of uses for plants and animals, from an extract from boiled termites used as an antibacterial agent for infected wounds to curare employed as a poison for the tips of their darts.
The shaman is responsible for this knowledge, and for the passage of these ancient recipes to the next generation. Hundreds were relocated, while others fled to even more remote parts of the jungle. Accounts of the relocated Huaoranis' experiences differ.
At one extreme, some have written of this event as "ethnocide. An unquestionable outcome is that many had their life and culture changed forever, while others chose and in some cases were never presented a choice to stay deep in the forest and live the way they'd only ever known.
The visitor can see this polarization today in Ecuador. Eventually, many missionized Huaorani moved to so-called oil frontier towns, particularly Coca. Spanish is now their first language; drug abuse rates are high. On the other end of the spectrum, two groups remain virtually uncontacted to this day. The Tagaeri and Taromenane clans who are believed to live together these days still live the way they always have — entirely off the land. The Tagaeri are known for killing, by spears, trespassers on their land in , and Although they have been successful in avoiding contact, with their number undoubtedly low one has to wonder whether their gene pool can be viable for much longer.
The best population number available is 37, as reported by a Tagaeri woman who was kidnapped in by other Huaorani. Viability of the gene pool is not only a concern for uncontacted Huaorani. Before I visited communities around Tiguino, I was informed of cases of physical deformity due to incestuous reproduction — although I didn't witness that myself.
Living on the edge of Huaorani territory, these communities live next door to colonists comprising many ethnic groups, who moved in following the construction of the "Via Auca" by Texaco in the past forty years. There has been, however, little intermarriage with these other groups.
The contacted Huaorani today differ widely in the dealings they wish to have with outsiders. Some embrace tourism and work with tour companies they trust. In the long houses, extended families are very close. Everyone helps out: men, women and children. The men fell trees to clear fields for the women to tend. The food that they plant includes bananas, peanuts, sweet potatoes and maniocs. Once they have used the soil to its full potential, they leave the area to find another.
They do this to allow the ground to heal. Women take care of the crops, clean the homes, and look after the children. Huaorani like to sing, dance and drink manioc beer. The Huaorani have a vast knowledge of plants and trees, with uses including poisons, medicines, hallucinogens, building materials and many more. The Huaorani groom one another, making the tradition an important social activity. They take great care in planning ceremonies. Many of their ceremonial drinking festivities lead to marriages.
For at least a thousand years, the Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador, the Oriente, has been home to the Huaorani. The Huaorani consider themselves to be the bravest indigenous group in the Amazon. They are outstanding hunters and warriors who live in a world that is green, wet, and filled with the sounds of the forest.
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