A blowgun is a simple ranged weapon consisting of a long narrow tube for shooting light projectiles such as darts. It operates by having the projectile placed inside the pipe and using the force created by forced exhalation ("blow") to pneumatically propel the projectile. The propulsive power is limited by the strength of the user's respiratory muscles and the vital capacity of their lungs.
Elisabeth Elliot was a Christian missionary, author, and speaker. Her first husband, Jim Elliot, was killed in 1956 while attempting to make missionary contact with the Auca people of eastern Ecuador. She later spent two years as a missionary to the tribe members who killed her husband. After living in South America for many years, she returned to the United States, wrote over twenty books, and became widely known as an author and a speaker. Elliot toured the country well into her seventies, sharing her knowledge and talking about her experience.
Nathanael Saint was an evangelical Christian missionary pilot who, along with four others, was killed in Ecuador while attempting to evangelize the Huaorani people through efforts known as Operation Auca.
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 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.
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.
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.
Rachel Saint was an American evangelical Christian missionary who worked in Ecuador, with her language helper Dayuma translating the Gospel of Mark and the book of Acts into the Wao tededo language of the Huaorani people.
Arrow poisons are used to poison arrow heads or darts for the purposes of hunting and warfare. They have been used by indigenous peoples worldwide and are still in use in areas of South America, Africa and Asia. Notable examples are the poisons secreted from the skin of the poison dart frog, and curare, a general term for a range of plant-derived arrow poisons used by the indigenous peoples of South America.
The Taromenane are an uncontacted people living in Yasuni National Park, at the Ecuadorian Amazon Basin.
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.
The Jivaroan peoples are the indigenous peoples in the headwaters of the Marañon River and its tributaries, in northern Peru and eastern Ecuador. The tribes speak the Chicham languages.
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.
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.
