The first face-to-face contact between the Huaorani and outsiders came in January of 1956. The Summer Institute of Linguistics launched a project called: operation Auca.1 The missionaries prepared for moths before the encounter. They had decided to visit a community on the Curaray river they called the "Terminal City."2 The evangelical missionaries dropped Western gifts from helicopters for months leading up to the first face-to-face contact. On January 8, 1956, five missionaries initiated contact with the Huaorani of the “Terminal City.” The Huaorani killed them all.
Peaceful contact between outsiders and the Huaorani was established two years later, in 1958. At the time, the Huaorani numbered around 600 individuals and lived in a territory approximately 20,000km² in size. The SIL, Summer Institute of Linguistics, translated the New Testament into Huao. The SIL is better known though not for translating the bible into Huao, but for something else.
Evangelical missionaries from the SIL convinced many Huaorani that their way of life was savage. The SIL converted the Huaorani woman known as Dayuma, brought her to the U.S. and paraded her around the country, showing off their most prized convert.3 Still, what the SIL might be most famous for is its cooperation with oil companies to destroy Huaorani culture. When Huaorani warriors used their spears to drive off oil company invaders, “Texaco collaborated with Ecuador and the evangelical Christian missionaries from the U.S.-based Summer Institute of Linguistics/Wycliffe Bible Translators to pressure and trick Huaorani clans into leaving the areas where Texaco wanted to work, pacify the Huaorani and exterminate their culture and way of life.”4
When a “protectorate” was set up, where the Huaorani could live without disturbance from oil companies, it was the SIL that was eventually named to manage it. The missionaries of the SIL helped relocate Huaorani from their native lands to this new “protectorate.”5 Many of the Huaorani had no choice but to follow. Sickness and environmental change drove them from their homes to the new, Christian land.6
Today, the largest Huaorani communities also tend to have had the most influence from missionaries and other outsiders. Some villages have churches, outhouses, airplane strips and even bars. Many of the Huaorani have given up their “savage” lifestyles to instead attend church and live more decent, pacified, Christian lives.
Auca is a Quechua term meaning savage. It is a derogatory term and offensive to most Huaorani. It is often times used by outsiders: a highway built through Huaorani territory is named La Via Auca; in the oil boomtown of Coca, the Hotel Auca hosts some of the richest, and whitest, visitors to the Amazon. Many of said guests have gained their fortunes through exploiting Huaorani territory for its oil. The hotel is covered with pictures of the Huaorani and sells postcards covered with the painted faces of Huaorani in traditional garb. The Huaorani have yet to, officially, receive any compensation for these pictures and postcards.
1 Auca is a Quechua term meaning savage. It is a derogatory term and offensive to most Huaorani. It is often times used by outsiders: a highway built through Huaorani territory is named La Via Auca; in the oil boomtown of Coca, the Hotel Auca hosts some of the richest, and whitest, visitors to the Amazon. Many of said guests have gained their fortunes through exploiting Huaorani territory for its oil. The hotel is covered with pictures of the Huaorani and sells postcards covered with the painted faces of Huaorani in traditional garb. The Huaorani have yet to, officially, receive any compensation for these pictures and postcards.
2 Mondragón, Martha L., and Randall Smith: (18).
3 Dayuma even appeared on late night talk shows.
4 Kimerling, Judith. "TRANSNATIONAL OPERATIONS, BI-NATIONAL INJUSTICE": (459).
5 “Using aircraft supplied by the company, missionaries contacted and physically removed some 200 Huaorani from the path of the oil crews and took them to live in a distant Christian settlement located in the southwestern corner of Huaorani territory” (459). Kimerling, Judith. "TRANSNATIONAL OPERATIONS, BI-NATIONAL INJUSTICE." “The company” is a term used by the indigenous of Ecuador to refer to oil companies as a whole.
6 On December 25, 2007, an elder of the community of Buanamo related to the author the story of how “civilization came.” When the Huaorani of this man’s community first came into contact with outsiders, they wondered how they peed, seeing as the outsider’s were wearing pants. These outsiders pressured the people to go to a new land, the “protectorate.” The people did not want to go. As time passed and the people of the village continued to interact with outsiders, they became sick more and more often. Whole families began to die off. The Huaorani began to have terrible diarrhea. The hunting was no longer good and eventually the people had to move. Furthermore, Penti Baihua related to the author part of this same story: “civilization made another world after which there were many sicknesses…our defenders died…the Huaorani were not left happy.” 12/28/07. Translated by the author from Spanish.