Very little is known about the Huaorani's past, except that they have for centuries constituted nomadic and autarkic enclaves fiercely refusing contact, trade and exchange with their powerful neighbours, be they indigenous or white-mestizo colonists.
The non-contacted Huaorani, known as the Tagaeri and the Taromenani, comprise between thirty and eighty people. they did not wish to receive "the benefits" of civilisation. In other words, it was their political decision...
more »Very little is known about the Huaorani's past, except that they have for centuries constituted nomadic and autarkic enclaves fiercely refusing contact, trade and exchange with their powerful neighbours, be they indigenous or white-mestizo colonists.
The non-contacted Huaorani, known as the Tagaeri and the Taromenani, comprise between thirty and eighty people. they did not wish to receive "the benefits" of civilisation. In other words, it was their political decision to live in isolation.
During the next thirty years, many raiding and killing episodes marred the interactions between Tagaeri and outsiders. Famous for their fierceness, the Tagaeri have 'spear killed' oil workers, missionaries, and others whom they saw as intruders. Most famously, they killed an Archbishop from the Capuchin Mission and a Colombian nun from the Laurita mission in July 1987.
And their people have been wounded and killed as well. In the early 1990s, various informants told me that military helicopters had thrown rockets on Tagaeri longhouses, and that Tagaeri dwellings had been burnt down by company security guards. There was once a plan to exterminate them all. And then the hope, especially amongst missionaries, that they would finally surrender and accept 'pacification'. Oil exploration in the block where the Archbishop and the nun had been found dead was suspended, and the government promised to grant protection to the non-contacted Huaorani who kept fleeing away from the blocks operated by PetroCanada, Texaco, PetroBras, Shell, and Elf Aquitaine. The implicit policy, though, was to push them further to the south, in the hope that they would cross the border with Peru, and cease to be a national problem.
-Laura Rival
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