Hunting in the Amazon with the Waorani

Waorani, a clan-based hunter-gatherer tribe of the Amazon, can smell a pack of huangana, or white-lipped peccary, before any of the animals have even appeared, and even after they have passed. Huangana travel in large packs, with sometimes as many as 80 or 100 animals. For the hunting cultures of the Amazon, huangana embody the bounty of the forest. One adult huangana
can provide food for an entire family for several days. Skilled hunters
can often kill several, although tradition dictates that the balance of
forest life must be respected and hunters should only kill as many
animals as they truly need.

When a pack of huangana passes by, it creates a moment of
sheer excitement: the smell of the animals, the sound of their feet
rustling through the undergrowth, their noses rooting up the soil, their
teeth chomping and cracking wild coconuts. The Waorani hunters grab
their guns and spears and sprint into the woods after their prey.

I was in the community of Yawepare when a pack of around 80 huangana
crossed the oil road from one section of forest to another. Two
Waorani, Ocata and Rafael, grabbed their shotguns and pursued them into
the woods. They killed two and captured a baby. They would have shot
more but they only had two shells. Because of government prohibition,
ammunition is hard to come by in the Ecuadorian Oriente and is very
expensive.

The photo above shows Rafael’s wife, Obe, as she carries a full-grown male huangana
out of the woods and uphill along a muddy oil road. In Waorani culture,
the hunter never carries the animal he has killed. This leaves much of
the heavy lifting to the tough-as-nails Waorani women. Obe gently
cradles her baby with one hand with the heavy peccary slung over her
shoulder.

Sitting around a fire in the traditional long house, we shared a meal of huangana
meat, cooked plantains, and yucca, laid out on banana leaves on the
ground. Everyone was happily reaching into the pile of food, pulling out
steaming chunks of meat while talking and laughing. For the Waorani,
this is a slice of the good life: plenty of food, family, a nice fire,
and a well-built roof to keep the rain out.

After dinner I noticed Ocata’s young granddaughter Kireya sitting off to one side of the gathering, the baby huangana
in her lap. She was looking down at the baby as a mother would look at
her child, stroking its head as it slept. Its mother had been killed;
now Kireya would raise the baby. link

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