South America - Clean Breaks: 500 New Ways to See the World - page 265

357 meet tHe Huaorani,
ecuador

Dawn is a magical time in the rainforest.
Especially just before the sun rises: nocturnal
creatures have gone into hiding and there's
a fragile period of peace before the forest
reawakens. It's at this bewitching hour when you
set off through the cool morning mist in a dugout
canoe along the Shiripuno River to meet the
Huaorani, a tribe of native Amerindians.
The Huaorani have long inhabited the
headwaters of the Ecuadorian Amazon,
hunting game with blowpipes and gathering
food from the forest. They were the last of
Ecuador's indigenous peoples to be contacted by
missionaries - in 1956 - and they now mostly
live in permanent settlements, though at least
one clan continues to shun all contact with the
outside world. Their chronicles tell of ancestors
who escaped from cannibals and moved
downriver a thousand years ago from what is
now Brazil. At present their territory covers
“an untouchable zone” of about 6000 square
kilometres of rainforest in northwestern Ecuador
- about a third of the size of their ancestral
lands, thanks to encroachment by logging and oil
companies.
On this trip you are taken to meet the small
community of Quehueri'ono (“Cannibal River”),
hunter-gatherers who live in the northwestern
part of the Huaorani territory. Such a unique
encounter is the result of years of consultation
between their chief Moi Enomenga and an
Ecuadorian travel company, Tropic EcoTours
(see p.272). For twelve years, Tropic has run
hiking tours with Moi, employing Quehueri'ono
villagers as guides - a sign of its success is
that a permanent ecolodge, used as a base for
village trips, has now been built, with five cabins
equipped with twin bed, shower and flush toilet.
As you approach their village (an hour's walk
from the ecolodge), your guide whacks a fallen
tree trunk with a stick to signal your arrival.
But don't expect a welcome party: there will
be no beating of drums; no-one will greet you

Local Huaorani guide Omene Paa leads the way along the Shiripuno River;
Learning the art of a hunter gatherer