THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JIM ELLIOT

The Huaorani Indians

 

“[The Huaorani] had gained a reputation for violently defending their territory against rubber tappers during the turn of the century”. Only within the last century has contact been made with the native Huaorani people of Ecuador, and the contact started with violence.  Originally, the Huaorani people are spread into twenty-four different villages located in the Napo, Orellana, and Pastaza provinces of the Ecuadorian Amazon. The Huaorani name directly means “the group of us”, which is significant because it references the daily living of these people and how they live in individual house-groups. The twenty-four individual tribes make up about 1500-2000 Huaorani people in Ecuador total. A typical Huaorani settlement would consist of two to three families occupying a simple clearing, staying for three to four months, and then leaving once again.  They are representative of a typical seminomadic lifestyle. As a whole, the Huaorani is considered the least “accultured” tribe in Ecuador, meaning they have integrated the least with the outside Ecuadorian society. This is important to important to note because the contact with outsiders is thus an uncommon experience for these people.  In fact, they referred to outsiders as “cohouri” which means nonhuman cannibal. As the “cohouri” name developed it slowly transformed into the more generic term, “Quicha” meaning savage or barbarian.  So to the Huaorani people not only are not acquainted with outsiders, but they also consider them as deep threats and barbarians.

 

The spiritual beliefs of Huaorani people differ significantly from those of Christians and Jim Elliot.  Similar to many native tribes, there is no distinction or separation between spiritual and physical beings. And when one dies it is custom to walk a trail from the West to the East to be judged by a snake on the quality of the life lived.  The introduction of a religion, like Christianity, to these people would be a difficult idea to grasp after so many years of developing their own spiritual beliefs.