ISSN: 2639-2119
Authors: Patricio Trujillo-Montalvo* and Roberto Narvaez-Collahuzao
The Waorani are family groups of recent contact that inhabit an extensive region of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest of more than two million hectares, called Yasuni. In the global imaginary they are recognized for their fascinating history contact and in the academic ethnographic tradition for being considered the human group with the highest homicide rate in the world. Waorani preserve characteristics of a tropical forest culture: • Have a low population density, • High mobility, • Basic social order, • Family clan groups or nanikabos, and, • Semi-permanent cyclical settlements of horticultural product. Arly ethnohistoric references, from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, related both by their ethnic neighbors and by various actors from State institutions, called them aucas, a word that in the Kichwa language means wild, violent, uncivilized and which includes the vision of Amazonian otherness, framed within a scenario of intra-group and extra-group tribal violence. The word wao in his tededo language, means, man, human; and, Waorani, men or true human beings. This is how this group identifies itself and creates its ethnic boundaries in front of other groups, whom it calls cuwuri or non- Waorani. These symbolic borders that the Waorani built on the meaning of humans and non-humans, marked for a long time their warlike relations and contact with their ethnic neighbors, be these other indigenous groups (Kichwa, Shuar), mestizo settlers or workers of extractive companies, be they rubber, mining or oil companies.
Keywords: Yasuni; PIAV; War; Alliances; Mobility; Ethnography
