Resistance in an Amazonian Community

Huaorani Organizing against the Global Economy

Lawrence Ziegler-Otero

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781782382034
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Studi sullo sviluppo globale

Like many other indigenous groups, the Huaorani of eastern Ecuador are facing many challenges as they attempt to confront the globalization of capitalism in the 21st century. In 1991, they formed a political organization as a direct response to the growing threat to Huaorani territory posed by oil exploitation, colonization, and other pressures. The author explores the structures and practices of the organization, as well as the contradictions created by the imposition of an alien and hierarchical organizational form on a traditionally egalitarian society. This study has broad implications for those who work toward "cultural survival" or try to "save the rainforest."

Chapter 1

HISTORY AND BACKGROUND

The Huaorani cannot be discussed without an understanding of the multiple contexts of their environment. The origins of the Huaorani people and the roots of their culture are unrecorded. Much of the history that we do have is the story of contacts between the Huaorani people and non-Huaorani. Each of these contacts must be understood as collisions which have shaped the trajectory of Huaorani cultural development—a dialectical process of crisis, reaction, and resolution.

Beyond the natural environment—itself a key factor in the development of Huaorani social organization—the twentieth century evolution of Huaorani cultural practice has taken place within a context of increasing encroachment on Huaorani land and cultural practices by outsiders. The principal actors in this conflicted space are the rubber merchants and slave dealers of the early part of the century, and more recently the evangelical missionaries, oil companies, and expanding indigenous neighbors of the Huaorani. This chapter provides an introduction to the environmental and historical contexts of the Huaorani. Their culture has evolved in a very particular ecological niche, so a discussion of the geography and ecology of the region is needed. Further, the extent of the Huaorani isolation from the rest of the world will be described. The Huaorani have usually been portrayed—implicitly or explicitly — in published accounts as living in “isolation,” apart from all others (see Broenniman 1981; Elliot 1981; Wallis 1960; and discussion in Rival 1994: 253-88). In fact, this has suited the needs of certain groups of people who have wished to exoticize and use the Huaorani in one way or another. The missionaries raise money through their tales of isolated “savage tribes” in the Amazon; further, their own sense of what they are doing is based on “reaching the most remote corners of the world with the word of God” (Saint 1996). People interested in seeing themselves as “adventurers” objectified the Huaorani as “primitive” in order to form the proper backdrop for their own feats of daring (Broenniman 1981; Kane 1995). As discussed by Rival (1994), the Ecuadorian media has also frequently portrayed the Huaorani as exotic savages. In the Ecuadorian national consciousness the “Auca”¹ represent a wild, fearful, and dangerous “other”—in a sense, the wild side of the national character. Alternatively (and simultaneously), however, the national media has identified them as representative of the “noble savage”—an exotic, wise tribe of spiritual and mysterious people who live in perfect harmony with their surroundings. This idealist view has also permeated much of the discourse being generated by the international environmental movement, in which the Huaorani are depicted as helpless innocents whose well developed environmental consciousness is juxtaposed against the rapacity of multinational corporations and the venality of the government of Ecuador. The truth of course, is that the Huaorani are not truly “isolated,” for they exist within a variety of local, national, regional, and global political and social contexts and always have. Even before pacific contact took place, their hostility, fear, and avoidance of “outsiders” (cowode) were defining factors in the development of their society. The Huaorani may certainly be viewed as different from others, but they cannot be viewed in isolation or without reference to the social, political, and environmental contexts of their society.

Geography

Strictly speaking, the Amazon Basin is a riverine drainage area extending from the continental divide of the Andean chain in the west and northwest, to the Atlantic Ocean in the east, and from what is today north central Brazil to the beginning of the Río Platte drainage in the Matto Grosso and Chaco forests. In practice, however, it is more useful to think of the “Amazon Basin” as an area that encompasses all of the tropical forest regions from the Andes to northern Argentina, thus including the Orinoco Basin, all of the Chaco, and the forests of the Guyanas. The Amazon represents one of the largest and most diverse regional ecosystems in the world. This diversity extends to biological, geological, and cultural variance. The region contains more species of plants and animals (many still unclassified by western science) than any other. Historically, it seems likely to have constituted a “refuge zone” during the last ice age—that is, one of the areas in which older species were able to survive the period of dramatic climatic change. Homo sapiens is a relatively recent addition to this diversity, arriving within the last 10,000 years. In this brief period, a wide variety of cultural/ethnic groups have formed; more than twelve of Julian Steward’s twenty-two “culture areas” are located at least partly within the region (Murdock 1974; Steward and Faron 1959). Although perhaps useful taxonomic structures, the reality of Amazonian cultures is much more complex than Steward’s areas would indicate. A quick look at some of the other attempts at classification (Lowie 1961; Sorenson 1967; Meggers 1996) demonstrates that linguistic and other evidence indicates much more fragmented and multivariate origins for Amazonian groups.

The Ecuadorian piece of the Amazon drainage basin is part of the westernmost rim of the region, beginning at the continental divide and running east to the (disputed) Peruvian border. Several elements distinguish the Ecuadorian Amazon: its altitude, the presence of an array of distinct microclimates, and (not unrelated to the previous point) the presence of a great diversity of indigenous groups.

As one enters the region, particularly by air, one is struck by the rugged, mountainous topography. Most of the Amazon is relatively flat—hence the meandering flow of such great quantities of water. But in Ecuador the region drops dramatically, from over 4,000 meters (with intermittent peaks of more than 5,000) to below 600 meters near the Peruvian border, therefore leaving only 600 meters of “fall” from Ecuador to the Atlantic Ocean. What this creates in Ecuador is a seemingly endless variety of “microclimates.” Within each band of altitude, there exist distinct climatic zones, delineated and physically separated by the mountain ridges that spread out like fingers along the basin. These formations contain species of flora and fauna which are in many cases unique to the particular microclimate. There are surprising disparities as well in the amount of rainfall received, seasonality of the rain (how distinct the “rainy season” is in a particular area), and temperature. The ruggedness of the terrain and other difficulties hindering movement from one to another of these areas have provided a degree of isolation to the indigenous groups that reside there.

People

The diversity mentioned above is manifest in the wide variety of quite different ethnic groups to be found in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The time depth of this diversity is evident in the linguistic, economic, and organizational differences that exist between relatively small groups occupying geographically close, even neighboring territories. The Huaorani, in particular, have been referred to by James Yost (1981a: 677) as a linguistic isolate whose language is unrelated to those of neighboring groups, and Rival (1992: 55), citing Whitten, states that Huao Terero (the Huaorani language) is notable for its extremely small number of “borrowed” words. The social organization of production varies markedly among, for example, the Shuar, Quijos (lowland) Quichua, and Huaorani groups, although it is difficult to arrive at an accurate picture of their pre-Columbian economic structures relying on only the accounts of the early Jesuit missionaries in the area. Among the groups identified by Linda Newson (1995: 83-105) as inhabiting the Ecuadorian oriente in pre-Columbian times are the Cofán, Coronado, Quijos, Macas, Zaparoan, Panoan, Kandoshi, Jívaro [sic], Omagua, and Tucanoan peoples. Many of these groups did not long survive the Spanish conquest, and either died off completely or assimilated within other indigenous groups. The tragic result has been labeled “ethnic simplification” (Muratorio 1991: 40-43)—a time in which circumstances (disease, reducciones, etc.) brought about a decrease in the diversity or led to the homogenization of the ethnic groups in the region.

The critical phase in the modern development of the Ecuadorian Amazon was the rubber boom. The effects of this boom on the Huaorani specifically will be discussed in more detail below; here I wish to provide a general overview of the boom and its effects on the structures of economic life in the region generally. In 1839 Goodyear discovered a process to vulcanize natural rubber—the product of a tree that only grows wild in the Amazon. By the 1880s enormous demand for rubber from European and North American industrial capitalists had led to a rubber boom throughout all of the Amazon basin. A thorough discussion of the effects of the rubber boom in the Ecuadorian Amazon would merit a full book-length treatment, but here it is enough to cover some basic facts that must be considered when we speak of the experiences of the local indigenous populations. First, traders, merchants, and middlemen, who were engaged in a fierce competition as much for workers as for rubber itself, resorted to the widespread use of slavery and other forms of coercive labor. Later, as the conditions of the boom became unstable and the lower-quality rubber of the Ecuadorian Amazon failed to maintain its high price, rubber merchants became slave merchants, selling large numbers of Amazonian indigenous people in slave markets as far away as Iquitos and Manaus in order to satisfy their debts (Muratorio 1991: 104-6). Late in the nineteenth century the British smuggled rubber tree seeds out of Brazil and successfully grew them in their colonies in southern Asia, which effectively and abruptly ended the rubber boom in South America. It should be noted that as devastating as the impact of the rubber boom was for Amazonian indigenous populations, and as profound as were the social changes it wrought in the region, it did not have the same national consequences that other bursts of growth had. The nineteenth-century cacao boom, for example, established the lasting primacy of an agricultural bourgeoisie from the Pacific coastal provinces, while the late twentieth-century oil boom has led to the penetration of international extractive capitalism and a new experience of foreign domination, neocolonialism, and debt peonage.

Muratorio (1991: 106-7) identifies the rubber boom as the time of the first really significant capitalist penetration of the Ecuadorian Amazon and calls the rubber merchants “intermediaries for the penetration of industrial capitalism into the Amazon,” but I would qualify this statement: I believe that the rubber boom was not a penetration by capitalism but a penetration by precapitalist or what I call “paracapitalist” forces launched by the capitalist enterprises of the time. It is true that the end users of the material produced (rubber) were capitalists, and to some extent it may be argued that the traders who acted as middlemen between the collectors and the agents of foreign capital represented some sort of incipient mercantile or comprador bourgeoisie, but the collectors and the organization of production did not represent immanent capitalism. On the contrary, the widespread use of actual slavery, threats, torture, and terror on the part of the rubber merchants is more consistent with precapitalist economic organization. Further, no attempt was made to rationalize or expand production—virtually all South American rubber production during the boom was based on the gathering of wild rubber.

The Huaorani

Any attempt to provide an account of the origins of the Huaorani or of their history prior to the twentieth century is speculative. Cabodevilla (1994) has attempted such an account, relying on references found in accounts of other neighboring groups, and Whitten (quoted in Rival: 1992, 55-6) has found evidence to indicate the ancestors of the Huaorani were Zaparoan refugees. What is clear is that the Huaorani existed in more or less their current territory by the time of the rubber boom in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and that they may have been in contact with one or more of the eighteenth-century Jesuit mission stations in the area.

One reason for the astounding cultural diversity of the oriente is that the Ecuadorian Amazon was never conquered by any of the great tributary states of the pre-Columbian Andes. Chavin and the other pre-Inca states never expanded eastward to any great extent. Only the late Inca Empire ever effectively penetrated the territory that makes up modern Ecuador, and this conquest was confined to the sierra. Although the Inca Empire had penetrated far to the east of the continental divide in southern Peru, they never had the opportunity to similarly expand into the Ecuadorian Amazon, although they did enter the region on at least several occasions. It is also worth noting that Quichua (the northern variant of the Inca/ Peruvian Quechua) was well established as the lingua franca of the upper Amazon before the arrival of the Spanish. It has been suggested (Urban and Sherzer 1988; Urban 1991) that Quichua had already established itself before the Inca conquest took place, possibly as early as 800 C.E.. Clearly, it was in the interests of efficient colonial administration and the most orderly exploitation of the indigenous societies that the Spaniards encourage the spread of a single language. Thus Quichua became the generally used language of Ecuador’s upper Amazon, where Spanish colonial administration was firmly established quite early.

Farther to the east, however, where difficulties in transport and communication made the efficient establishment of Spanish rule more problematic, active and open resistance to the Spanish was more common. In the sixteenth century the Jesuits established a series of missions, accompanied by the creation of encomiendas (part of a system of plantation agriculture based on essentially feudal labor relationships, with indigenous people tied as serfs to particular encomenderos) and reducciones (reservations). This led to at least one massive, multi-ethnic rebellion against Spanish (and particularly Jesuit) rule in 1578-79. This rebellion was brutally suppressed and followed by punitive expeditions in which the Spanish hunted indigenous people in order to quarter them. Following the rebellion, the only effective resistance open to the indigenous populations was to escape the jurisdiction of the encomenderos by falling back deeper into the forest. Additionally, while living within the social contexts of these colonial institutions, members of different indigenous groups were forced to live side by side. At the same time, new diseases (particularly smallpox and measles) brought by the Spanish led to further massive decreases in population. The result has been labeled “ethnic simplification” (Muratorio 1991)—a time in which circumstances brought about a decrease in diversity or the homogenization of the ethnic groups in the region.

In 1767 the Jesuits were expelled from the region, and the indigenous people were left in the hands of a small and dwindling number of Spanish settlers and adventurers. In 1830 Ecuador became independent of Spain. Throughout the early years of the republic, the upper reaches of the oriente were subjected periodically to harsh attempts by the Quiteño governments to institute one new policy or another and otherwise to general neglect and widespread corruption, abuse, and violence—in one period the government actually ceded control over its eastern provinces to the Jesuits after they were readmitted in the mid nineteenth century. In the end, during the 1890s, a dispute that developed between the Jesuits and the trading bourgeoisie led first to open rebellion beginning in 1892 and then to the victory of the traders (now linked with the trade in rubber) and a change in the nature of Ecuadorian Amazonian society; in time, this new local dominant class would be the default power in even the Huaorani territory. In the lower oriente, virtually no attempt was made to enforce any but the most nominal administration of the region. Thus the various indigenous peoples of the lower oriente (including what is today the territory of the Huaorani) experienced a period of what was, for them, benign neglect.

None of the early missionary or explorer accounts concerning the indigenous peoples of the region have been found to make any explicit reference to the “Huaorani.” Different contemporary writers have attempted to glean information about the ancestors of the Huao people from references to groups that have seemed to share cultural or territorial traits with the Huaorani.

Cabodevilla (1994) has attempted a history of the Huaorani that places the Huao people in contact with Catholic missionaries and explorers as early as 1592. These accounts refer to the Omaguas, a warlike group living near present-day Huaorani territory. Cabodevilla’s highly speculative account relies on sketchy and obscure chronicles left by early Jesuit missionaries, containing little information that would confirm that these people were indeed the Huaorani. Bertha Fuentes (1997: 79-81) has reviewed summaries of the old missionary records of the period from 1538 to 1669 and has found that within the “Zaparo block” there were groups referred to variously as Omaguas, Abijiras, Aushiris, and Agouis. Whitten (quoted in Rival 1992: 55) also indicates that the ancestors of the Huaorani were Zaparoan. True, the Zaparo were riverine people, while the Huao specialize in the “hinterland” or highland areas; this may however represent a refugee strategy adopted by some Zaparoan groups—attempting to get away from the relatively high visibility of the river’s edge. The missionary accounts refer to intertribal conflict and warfare that created refugee populations and affected migration patterns. Fuentes identifies these displaced groups as “proto-Huaorani” and claims that they represent the northernmost extension of the migrations of Tupi-guaraní, also identified as Omaguas. Fuentes goes on to describe how in 1605 and again in 1620 Rafael Ferrer organized expeditions on the Rio Napo and found that the “Abijiris” inhabited the southern banks of the Napo. There are accounts that indicate that after resisting missionization and the encomenderos, they were finally subjugated in 1620-21 but soon rebelled, fleeing to the southern bank of the Napo (present-day Huaorani territory).

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 History and Background
• Chapter 2 Onhae: Structures and Achievements
• Chapter 3 Practice and Praxis: Onhae in Action
• Chapter 4 Toward an Organizational Evaluation
• Chapter 5 Conclusion
• Works Cited
• Index