In 1956, when my parents and
I were living in Quito, a group of Waorani warriors attacked five American
Evangelical missionaries. They speared the men to death, threw their bodies and
belongings into the Curaray river, and
vanished into the forest.
The Waorani, a Stone Age
tribe living in the Amazon forest, were a far cry from Rousseau’s “noble
savage.” They were extraordinarily violent—not only did they kill every outsider that
came into their territory, but they slaughtered each other as well. One study
found that, over five generations, 42% of Waorani deaths--women and children as
well as warriors--were caused by revenge raids carried out by Waorani from
neighboring groups.
In other
respects, however, the Waorani showed traits that we consider exemplary. They lived
in complete harmony with Nature, trusting that the forest would provide for all
their needs. With their blowguns and curare-tipped arrows they hunted only the
animals they needed for survival. They had little notion of past and future, and
drew no difference between the physical and the spiritual realms.
Our house backed onto the
grounds of HCJB, The Voice of the Andes, a radio station manned by American
Protestant missionaries who lived in a neat little American-style suburb
surrounding the station. My parents became friendly with some of the families,
and one of the men, who took music lessons from my father, was instrumental in
our eventual move to the U.S. At age twelve, although I envied their manicured
lawns and pristine houses, I resented the missionaries’ frequent allusions to
Jesus and their endless Bible quotations, and I kept warning my parents that
their supposed friendliness was a ploy to convert us to Evangelism. Secure in
their Catholicism, my parents would laugh and urge me to be more tolerant.
The deaths of the five young missionaries,
who left behind their wives and half a dozen tow-headed infants and toddlers,
devastated the HCJB community. What had begun as an exciting adventure to bring
Jesus to a previously uncontacted tribe ended in a tragedy made all the more
wrenching by the unexposed film found in the dead men’s pockets, which
documented their final hours.
The men’s first attempts to
contact the Waorani consisted of flying over their settlements in a yellow single-engine
plane and dropping gifts of pots, buttons, ribbons, and machetes. In return,
the Waorani sent up a parrot, with a piece of banana to sustain him during the
journey, in a sturdy cage made of woven reeds.
After several fly-overs and
gift-drops, the missionaries landed on a strip of sand by the Curaray river.
Soon, three Waorani emerged from the forest: a young man, a girl who looked
about fifteen, and an older woman, all wearing only a g-string. With many smiles
and welcoming gestures, the Americans bestowed more gifts, including a model
airplane. Then they put a shirt on the man, whose name was Nankiwi, and,
without further preliminaries, put him on the plane and took him for a ride.
Reading the Americans’
journal half a century later, I am astounded that they give no hint of any doubts
about the wisdom and ethics of their project. Rather, the journals reveal nothing but exuberant confidence, optimism, and the conviction that this
is the Lord’s work, which will result in the happiness and salvation of their
intended converts.
Nankiwi shouted with excitement
during the entire plane ride, and by the time they returned to the beach, the
Americans had decided to call him “George.” The girl they nicknamed “Delilah.” Whether
they gave the older woman a name the journal does not say.
I remember at the time
looking at the photos of this naked girl, just a few years older than I, and
wondering about her new American name. I knew about the Biblical Delilah, the
voluptuous seductress who betrayed Samson. I found it weird and disquieting
that they would name the girl after her. Surely the missionaries were aware of the
original Delilah. Were they trying to be funny, or what?
After more gifts and pleasantries,
the man and the girl returned to the jungle, and the woman followed sometime
later. Euphoric with the success of this first contact, the missionaries prayed
and sang hymns, and settled down on the beach to await their next visitors.
When they finally came, armed
with spears and the gift machetes, they massacred the Americans in minutes.
I was enthralled by the
mystery and violence of this story, and a part of my childish self admired the
Waorani. Good for them, I thought, for not wanting to be converted, wear
clothes, and sing hymns! Good for them, for defending their exciting life deep
in the dark and unknown jungle. The lack of apparent justification for the
massacre added to its fascination. Why had the Waorani seemed so friendly at
first, and then suddenly changed their minds?
Two years after the killings,
Elisabeth Elliott, the widow of one of the slain missionaries, picked up a
Bible, put her toddler on her back Indian style, and walked into Waorani
territory. Unlike her husband and his friends, she was accepted. Other
missionaries soon joined her, and the Waorani converted to Evangelism.
Eventually, the new converts explained
what had caused the massacre. It seems that Nankiwi and the girl were
romantically involved, but her family and especially her brother were against
the relationship. When the pair went to meet the missionaries, the older woman accompanied
them as chaperone. But when the girl’s brother saw the couple returning
unescorted from the beach he became enraged and turned on Nankiwi who, to
distract attention from himself, said that the missionaries had attacked them.
This prompted the warriors to organize the revenge raid.
Today the majority of Waorani
live in villages, go to school, and enjoy internet access. They have mostly stopped
killing each other. They wear clothes, and have forsworn polygamy, their chants
and dances, and their ayahuasca rituals. Some still hunt, but many depend on the
ecotourism industry for economic survival. Despite the protection afforded by the Ecuadorean
government, their lands are under constant threat by the oil companies.
But a couple of Waorani
groups, the fiercest, refusing to be Westernized, have retreated to the few
remaining deep jungle pockets, from which they continue to repel invaders with
their spears, and possibly a machete or two.
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Delilah, photographed by one of the missionaries
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