The Tagaeri are an eastern Waorani people living in Yasuni National Park, in the Ecuadorian Amazon Basin, named after one of their members, Tagae. Nearby Kichwa communities sometimes refer to them as Awashiri, or "high-ground people". They live a hunting and foraging lifestyle and have resisted outside contact, making them one of the so-called uncontacted peoples of the world. In addition to Tagaeri, the area is home to their kin, the Taromenane, another eastern Waorani group.
Tagae and his followers were among the Waorani families who separated off in 1968 after refusing missionary settlement, and have since lived in voluntary isolation. Contact with other Waorani has remained at a low level, but marked by bursts of inter-clan violence, e.g. 1993, 2003. In the 1990s, eastern Waorani groups moved westward, near to the Kichwa community of Curaray, in part to escape the effects of petroleum exploration and logging activity and possibly due to reduced game stocks. [1] Curaray Kichwa, who occasionally see them but avoid interacting with them, say these are the Tagaeri, speaking a language like that of the western Waorani. [1]
Attempts at contact by outside peoples have often been violently rebuffed, beginning with a series of attacks on the colonial settlement of Coca in reprisal for the attempted evangelization by the Summer Institute of Linguistics. The most recent such attack was the 1987 spearing of missionaries Alejandro Labaca and Inés Arango. In 2003, a Kichwa couple was speared on the banks of the Curaray river, and Kichwa say the perpetrators were the Tagaeri. [1] More recently, the body of a 37-year-old rare wood poacher, Luis Castellanos, was found in March 2008 in the Yasuni area, with nine iron-headed spears jutting out of his stomach. According to local officials, the killers are presumed to have been Tagaeri or the Taromenani. [2]
It is estimated that there are perhaps only 20–30 surviving Tagaeri. Together with the Taromenane, they make up the last two known indigenous groups living in voluntary isolation in Ecuador. Grave threats are posed to them by the possibility of foreign diseases. They are also threatened by illegal loggers of tropical hardwoods, smugglers, settlers, and oil companies moving into the area, with drilling taking place ever closer to their lands. On February 15, 2008, authorities in Ecuador agreed to investigate reports that five tribespeople belonging to the Taromenane and Tagaeri tribes had been killed by illegal loggers. [3]
Entities attempting to protect the Tagaeri and other Amazonian peoples in the area include the Ecuadorian government's Yasuní-ITT Initiative, launched by President Rafael Correa in 2007. The Yasuní-ITT Initiative was ended in failure in 2013.
The Awá are an Indigenous people of Brazil living in the Amazon rain forest. There are approximately 350 members, and 100 of them have no contact with the outside world. They are considered highly endangered because of conflicts with logging interests in their territory.
The Waorani, Waodani, or Huaorani, also known as the Waos, are an Indigenous people from the Amazonian Region of Ecuador who have marked differences from other ethnic groups from Ecuador. The alternate name Auca is a pejorative exonym used by the neighboring Quechua natives, and commonly adopted by Spanish-speakers as well. Auca means 'savage'.
Uncontacted peoples are groups of Indigenous peoples living without sustained contact with neighbouring communities and the world community. Groups who decide to remain uncontacted are referred to as indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation. Legal protections make estimating the total number of uncontacted peoples challenging, but estimates from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the UN and the nonprofit group Survival International point to between 100 and 200 uncontacted tribes numbering up to 10,000 individuals total. A majority of uncontacted peoples live in South America, particularly northern Brazil, where the Brazilian government and National Geographic estimate between 77 and 84 tribes reside.
Yasuní National Park is a protected area comprising roughly 10,000 km2 (3,900 sq mi) between the Napo and Curaray Rivers in Pastaza and Orellana Provinces within Amazonian Ecuador. The national park lies within the Napo moist forests ecoregion and is primarily rain forest. The park is about 250 km (160 mi) from Quito and was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve along with the adjacent Waorani Ethnic Reserve in 1989. It is within the ancestral territory of the Huaorani indigenous people. Yasuní is also home to two uncontacted indigenous tribes, the Tagaeri and the Taromenane. Many indigenous people use the riverways within the park as a main mode of travel. Several waterways in the area are tributaries that lead into the Amazon River, including blackwater rivers high in tannins boasting vastly different floral composition than the main riverways. The spine-covered palm, Bactrisriparia, and aquatic plant Montrichardia linifera typically line the edges of these slow moving rivers, often referred to as Igapós.
The Waorani (Huaorani) language, commonly known as Sabela is a vulnerable language isolate spoken by the Waorani people, an indigenous group living in the Amazon rainforest between the Napo and Curaray Rivers in Ecuador. A small number of speakers with so-called uncontacted groups may live in Peru.
The Curaray River is a river in eastern Ecuador and Peru. It is a tributary of the Napo River, which is part of the Amazon basin. The land along the river is home to several indigenous people groups, including the Kichwa and Huaorani. The river itself is home to caimans and piranhas.
End of the Spear is a 2005 American biographical adventure drama film directed by Jim Hanon, written by Bill Ewing, Bart Gavigan and Hanon, and stars Louie Leonardo and Chad Allen. The film recounts the story of Operation Auca, in which five American Christian missionaries attempted to evangelize the Waodani people of the tropical rain forest of Eastern Ecuador.
Operation Auca was an attempt by five Evangelical Christian missionaries from the United States to bring Christianity to the Waorani or Huaorani people of the rain forest of Ecuador. The Waorani, also known pejoratively as Aucas, were an isolated tribe known for their violence, against both their own people and outsiders who entered their territory. With the intention of being the first Christians to evangelize the previously uncontacted Waorani, the missionaries began making regular flights over Waorani settlements in September 1955, dropping gifts, which were reciprocated. After several months of exchanging gifts, on January 3, 1956, the missionaries established a camp at "Palm Beach", a sandbar along the Curaray River, a few kilometers from Waorani settlements. Their efforts came to an end on January 8, 1956, when all five—Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Peter Fleming, and Roger Youderian—were attacked and speared by a group of Waorani warriors. The news of their deaths was broadcast around the world, and Life magazine covered the event with a photo essay.
Roger Youderian was an American Christian missionary to Ecuador who, along with four others, was killed while attempting to evangelize the Huaorani people through efforts known as Operation Auca.
The Taromenane are an uncontacted people living in Yasuni National Park, at the Ecuadorian Amazon Basin.
Shell is a city located on the western edge of the Ecuadorian Amazon and in the eastern foothills of the Andes. It is located about 94 miles (151 km) southeast of Quito, and roughly 4 miles (6.4 km) west of the provincial capital, Puyo. Its name comes from the Royal Dutch Shell corporation.
Dayuma was a member of the Huaorani tribe and a citizen of Ecuador. She is a central figure in the Operation Auca saga, in that she was the first Huao to convert to Christianity, as well as the missionaries' key to unlocking the Huaorani language, a language that had not been previously studied. Later Dayuma also became an influential figure in her tribe.
Amazonian Kichwas are a grouping of indigenous Kichwa peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon, with minor groups across the borders of Colombia and Peru. Amazonian Kichwas consists of different ethnic peoples, including Napo Kichwa and Canelos Kichwa. There are approximately 419 organized communities of the Amazonian Kichwas. The basic socio-political unit is the ayllu. The ayllus in turn constitute territorial clans, based on common ancestry. Unlike other subgroups, the Napo Kichwa maintain less ethnic duality of acculturated natives or Christians.
The Yasuní-ITT Initiative was a project that attempted to keep over a billion barrels of oil in the ground under the Yasuni National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The initiative was launched in 2007 by Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa and offered a perpetual suspension of oil extraction from the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oil field (ITT) in return for $3.6 billion from the international community.
Although China's economic influence is growing rapidly throughout Latin America, it is perhaps most evident in Ecuador where it enjoys a near-monopoly of crude oil exports. Critics of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa say that the Chinese influence has gone too far and threatens national sovereignty while indigenous peoples' rights and biodiversity could be severely harmed because of Ecuador's oil commitments to China.
The Napo moist forests (NT0142) is an ecoregion in the western Amazon rainforest of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Alicia Cawiya or Cahuiya is the vice-president of the Huaorani Nation of Ecuador and one of the leaders of the movement against oil exploitation in her region. In 2013, she made a speech in Ecuador's parliament to protect the Amazon basin from oil companies.
Nemonte Nenquimo is an Indigenous activist, author and member of the Waorani Nation from the Amazonian Region of Ecuador. She is the first female president of the Waorani of Pastaza (CONCONAWEP), co-founder of the Indigenous-led nonprofit organization Ceibo Alliance, and co-founder of the nonprofit Amazon Frontlines, which works to protect the Amazon rainforest, protect its biodiversity, and strengthen Indigenous guardianship of the Amazon. In 2020, she was named in the Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world, the only Indigenous woman on the list and the second Ecuadorian to ever be named in its history. In recognition of her work, in 2020 the United Nations Environment Programme gave her the "Champions of the Earth" award in the category Inspiration and Action.
Waorani of Pastaza vs. Ecuadorian State was a 2019 court case filed against the Ecuadorian State by indigenous communities of the Amazon rainforest regions. The CONCONAWEP filed a suit in the Pastaza Provincial Court alleging that the Ecuadorian government was selling Waorani indigenous land for oil drilling without proper informed consent or consultation. The judges ruled in favor of the Waorani people, stopping projects on their land and setting precedent for informed consent and indigenous participation.