Blowguns & wi-fi in the Amazon finds his inner warrior as he joins an ancient tribe in Ecuador.
Guy Needham
mash it on the head’’ yelled Geranio, our guide. ‘‘Quick!’’ The freshly caught piranha was flip-flopping in a desperate attempt to get back to water, sharp teeth biting at air as I brought a rotting stick down on its head. Minewa, a 60-year-old local tribesman, added it to his string of dead fish and smiled at me. ‘‘Now you are a warrior!’’’ laughed Geranio.
We were fishing in the Amazon Basin on the edge of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystem. I was there to spend time with the Waorani, one of Ecuador’s indigenous tribes who today number no more than 3000. Not that any of that mattered to the piranha.
Getting to the Amazon had been no easy task. Far from the cobblestones and thin mountain air of colonial Quito, it had taken us two days by boat. I say ‘‘us’’ because I wasn’t the only tourist onboard. Sitting in front of me was a machete-wielding, cocachewing, bird-spotting Dutch sociologist. He had been travelling for three months now and had something of a gaunt Colonel Kurtz of Apocalypse Now look about him.
The Cononaco River – one of the feeders to the 1000-kilometre Rio Napo river – was low as the rains hadn’t come. The upside was that the bird and animal life were a zoologist’s dream. As we skimmed logs and scraped rocks, a black vulture screeched in the distance. Overhead, a pair of white-throated toucans flopped from one river bank to the other. Squinting into the sun, we could make out an Amazon kingfisher, perched on the far branch of an even farther tree
‘‘Look!’’ said my new Dutch companion. Bringing our eyes back down to earth, he pointed to a strange animal grazing on the river bank – thin long snout, big bushy tail – a cross between a giant raccoon and a stretched pig. With a nonchalant glance the giant anteater ambled back into the grass behind it. And on we continued.
As we approached another curve, Geranio abruptly raised his fist. The engine was cut. Off the bow we saw movement: a pale fin cutting through the calm brown waters. Then bubbles – and we watched in awe as a rare Amazon pink dolphin surfaced 30 metres from us. The largest dolphin of its kind had just made our day.
Still on a high by the time we got to our destination, we disembarked and made our way through the mud carrying water, camping gear and cooking supplies.
I’d prepped myself for meeting the Waorani. Having spent time with tribes in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, I knew to expect very basic conditions, traditionally dressed people and a limited understanding of the modern world. How wrong I was.
I found something even more fascinating – a tribe in transition between two worlds. While the older members were traditionally (un)dressed, the rest of the tribe wore Western clothes. While their malookas (huts) were built using no nails, concrete bricks were lined up for construction of new houses. While we had taken two days to get there by boat, there was an airstrip down the middle of the village. And while they hunted using blowguns and poison darts, the wi-fi kicked on every night. The dichotomy intrigued me.
Minewa was the personification of the old ways, with his stretched ear lobes dangling under his long hair, naked except for the twine tying up his foreskin. He led us on our first hunting expedition.
Before starting out, he gave me a closer look at his weapons. His blowgun was more than 2m long and perfectly straight, its pre-poisoned darts in a cylinder looped over his shoulder. Just as impressive was his spear, sharpened to a point with slight notches to make it difficult for monkeys to pull out.
Following Minewa’s lead, we crept as quietly as two non-Amazonians can creep. The deeper into the jungle we went, the more distinctive the loud calls of the howler monkeys became. Suddenly Minewa took off, his spear raised above his head. By the time we caught up to him he was motionless, staring down at a salt lick between a group of trees.
Ahead of us were a family of collared peccaries (pigs) snorting through the undergrowth. With an almighty throw and not a single word, Minewa launched the spear at the boar. Narrowly missing by inches, the piggy family rapidly grunted off, Minewa in close chase behind. When he returned half an hour later, with nothing more than a look of resignation, it was time to return to the village.
On the way back I asked Minewa about the changes he must have seen in his lifetime. The Waorani, I was told, were only ‘‘discovered’’ by Europeans in the 1950s.
That is now four generations ago, given the average age of childbirth in these parts is 16. But it wasn’t until we got to the village that we were shown what had the biggest impact on their way of life.
Standing in front of a map, Geranio drew a circle around the Waorani territory that is officially part of the