Poems and stories from another life - Part II - Moi

Moi
Part 3 of 4
story and photos by E.J. Brunton

Soon we were at the clearing where we would stay for the duration of our trip. The handsome palm frond huts stood up on stilts. Even the floors were woven palm. They were airy and surprisingly cool. There was a fresh latrine out back.

We laid out our sleeping bags and stripped for a dip in the river. Moi warned us to make lots of noise and splash to scare away the piranha and cayman. That went against everything that I had ever heard but, “When in Rome” I thought. The water was warm but still refreshing and no sign of piranha.

When we got back, there was a fire going and the smell of singed hair assaulted my nostrils. A whole small deer, complete with fur and hoofs was draped over the coals. Only the intestines had been removed.

We weren’t supposed to partake of their food. Already there was a dilemma. Well, we reasoned, we could share some of our food with them. It was just too tempting to taste what to us were delicacies, perhaps never to be savored again.

During that week we were treated to monkey, capybara (the world’s largest rodent) and turtle eggs as the Huaorani smacked their lips over our tinned sardines and ham, cereal with cartons of milk, cookies and granola bars.

Moi took us two girls out cayman hunting by the light of the full moon in a dugout. We didn’t see any caymans but it was a wonderful evening. We beached the canoe on the silky-white sand, leaned up against a log and just soaked in the awesome jungle night. Frogs boomed and night birds called. I was exhilarated and as we talked I found myself impressed by the intelligence of this young man.

Moi is a radical. An activist who was well known to the oil companies for his vigorous campaigns against them. He wore a tee shirt that said “Get the $hell out of Ecuador” and sported the familiar scallop shell emblem of Shell oil. Through his contact with Joe Kane and the auspices of the Sierra Club he had even managed to go to Washington D.C. in 1993.

In his book “Savages” Joe Kane quotes Moi as he stared in awe at the Washington traffic “There are so many cars,” he said. “How long have they been here? A million years?”

“Much less.”

"A thousand years?”
“No. Eighty perhaps.”
He was silent then, and after a while he asked, “What will you do in ten more years? In ten years, your world will be pure metal. Did your god do this?”

When Moi took a shower in the hotel bathroom Joe says, “I heard the water go on and off several times. Finally he emerged wearing only his shorts, his skin red as a boiled lobster.

“Tomorrow I would like a new hotel room,” Moi said.
“Why?”

“I would like a room that also has cold water.”

He dressed himself completely and had me tie his tie. Then, fully clothed he got into bed. Like many Huaorani he drew no hard distinction between day and night."

Next day we went for a 5 hour hike up hill under the steamy canopy. Moi walked barefoot, encumbered only by his gleaming machete. We guinea pigs were laden down with all the trappings of civilization that we couldn’t be separated from: rubber boots, back packs filled with water bottles, toilet paper, cellophane- wrapped snacks, movie and still cameras.

I looked and felt ridiculous. I also looked apoplectic. My face purple, my shirt soaked, I stumbled over roots, vines slapped me in the face, my rubber boots, sucked off in mud holes, deserted me.

We crawled under logs, skipped dizzily across fat fallen trees that forded streams and thankfully plunged up to our armpits in cool jungle rivers holding our burdens over our heads. I loved it!

Finally we were back at the Shiripuno River. A tribesman was putting the finishing touches on a balsa wood raft. He had hacked down the small trees and lashed them with vines to form our craft. We climbed aboard, or rather astraddle. They were only 2 logs wide and our legs hung down into the water on either side. My rubber boots were now full of water and my shorts soaked as the raft rode low in the water with our weight. Thus we made the ½ hour trip down river to our settlement. I had been damp for so long that diaper rash was imminent.

Our days were filled with hikes where Moi identified the flora and fauna and told us fascinating stories. He pointed out toucans and monkeys and undergrowth-rustling jaguars but our city eyes could rarely see what he was pointing at. He politely never mentioned our exceeding stupidity.

We came upon a naked hunter. He carried a 10 foot blow gun made of “chonta”, and a bamboo case of poisoned darts. Moi negotiated rapidly with him for some meat which he had cached in the undergrowth when he heard us coming. There was a large black bird called a “paucar” about the size of a small child. There was also a spaniel-sized deer.

Moi told us that the Huaorani language only has numbers up to 5. He gave me a book in Huaorani that some Missionaries had printed up for the school children. He taught me some Huaorani words and constantly asked me how to say and write things in English. He already spoke Spanish and Quichua (the Quechua are the largest jungle tribe and most other tribes speak their language) and was learning French. He had a voracious curiosity and rapier intelligence. In addition Moi gave me lessons in blowgun wizardry.

Back home at the hut one of the women was making a basket out of palm leaves. It was done in a flash and was handy for carrying any fruits or grubs you might find as you traveled. My friends looked on from their double wide hammocks.

In the afternoon he took me by canoe over to his father’s compound on the other side of the river. I expected to see his father the shaman on some sort of throne but he was squatting over two lengths of chonta gouging out a trough in the middle of each. These two halves would be lashed together and glued with tree resin to form the blow gun. His long pierced ear lobes dangled flaccidly without the aid of the wooden plugs worn for dress up occasions.

Moi dug out a bag full of colorful feathers that he used to make ceremonial head dresses. He gave me some as we enjoyed more chicha, made this time from fermented bananas. Pet monkeys and parrots performed acrobatics on the ceiling beams.

Continued in part 4 of 4

Poems and stories from another life - Part II - Moi

Moi

Part 2 of 4

Story and photos by E.J.Brunton

After we chatted with them a few moments, with Moi interpreting from Spanish to Huaorani and back, an elder told us something about the origins of the tribe. “The others call us Aucas” he said. “This means savages in jungle Quichua. Our language, Huaorani, is only spoken by the 1,500 remaining tribes’ people”. I had read that it is unrelated to any other language on earth.

He continued, “Our totem animal is the jaguar. We were once headhunters and feared throughout the Amazon. A branch of our tribe, the Tagueri, is still fiercely independent and avoided by the sensible. Recently they killed a Catholic bishop and 6 nuns who had managed to reach them and live among them for several months. The Tagueri mark out their territory with crossed spears and if you cross that boundary you are a dead man.”

After the informative speech we were taken on a half hour trek through the jungle to our huts. We were part of an experiment; the first group of tourists to visit the Huoarani. There had been missionaries and scientists but no tourists before.

We had been given certain rules. We were not to live with the tribe and pollute them with our outsider’s ways. Anything we took in must leave with us. The exception to this rule was pencils (not pens) and paper for the children. We brought our own food so that we would not put additional stress on the environment. We would take our garbage back out with us.

Moi, like the rest of the tribe, spoke in a quiet voice barely audible to our city ears but useful when hunting in the jungle. I strained to hear as he recounted how the oil companies had built roads in the jungle and settlers (colonistas) had moved in. As a result of the these interlopers he said “We are starving because the animals are moving farther away. They dynamite the rivers and kill too many fish they can’t even eat. They slash and burn the jungle for their crops and for grazing their cattle. What they don’t scare, kill or burn, they pollute. Some of our men are going to work for them to feed their families. That is why I am working with an ecotourism company to find another way to preserve our environment and our way of life.”

I had heard from another friend that the eternal flames of the oil wells attracted billions of moths and their  singed hulls were mounded 6 feet high around each flame. The effect this had on the night birds is as yet unknown. Tiny Ecuador was, at that time, home to 33% of all the known species of birds in the world.
I saw for myself that many rivers had a black oily scum at the edges. The people were dying of cancers heretofore unheard of. The Shiripuno where we were visiting was still pristine, but for how long?

This experiment we were involved in hoped to prove that the Huaorani and other tribes could make a decent living by sharing their home with eco tourists without contributing to their own destruction. Their harmony with and deep respect for all forms of life is exemplary.

As we walked through the jungle Moi pointed out various plants to us. As the son of the Shaman he had a vast knowledge and would be next in line for the throne.

The Shaman fills a vital role in the life of a tribe. He (and sometimes she) is their religious and secular leader as well as their doctor. They look to him for their very existence. By the aid of certain plants such as the hallucinogenic Huando (Datura or Angel’s Trumpet) he communes with the spirits of the animals and plants and advises the tribe what animals to hunt, where and when. He performs healing rituals to drive out the spirits that cause disease but his.her arts are no match for the measles and sexually transmitted diseases brought by the white man in the guise of missionaries, rubber workers, oil workers and colonists.

Moi pointed at various plants and trees as we walked. “This one is the shampoo tree. We use the sap from its bark to wash our hair.” Pulling off a spiny brown pod from another plant he added “And this we use as a comb.”

Stopping at a small bush he pulled a twig off and peeled back the bark. There were dozens of small black ants scurrying for cover. He caught a few, squished them with his brown fingers and handed them to me saying, “Taste these.” I popped them into my mouth, some still kicking and squirming. They were just like scratchy lemons!

“Don’t go near these ones,” he pointed at the 3 inch black Conga ants marching over a rotting log. “They have a fierce bite that will make you feel like you are on fire.”

Other ants were busily at work harvesting tiny bites of leaf. They carried them umbrella-like over their shiny black heads and marched in a wavering line back to their nest. I knew that they used the leaves as a mulch in which to grow miniscule fungi which they dined on. The intelligence and diversity of ants has always been fascinating to me. I was thrilled to be up close and personal with creatures I had only read about.

Iridescent blue Morpho butterflies, the size of bread and butter plates, floated lazily by. Others had transparent wings and Moi patiently pointed those out to us. “There, No, there, right in front of you”. He would say as we peered and peered in vain. Flocks of parrots clattered overhead. Monkeys were heard but not seen. Toucans clacked their oversized bills. Red and yellow Heliconium flowers hung upside down forming handy watering troughs for the birds and insects. Tiny frog orchestras were tuning up. My senses were overloaded.

Continued in part 3 of 4