Thank goodness for new friends and good drugs; I was finally able to sleep last night! And I was a good bit less afraid. Trying to push rationality through fears is a difficult task for me but I was able to do it a little.
Our morning consisted of another hike through the rain forest. It was absolutely pouring outside! But for the Huaorani, that’s a good thing. They haven’t gotten much rain this season so the river is very low. And I’ve found that in the Amazon, you are NEVER dry. So don’t expect to be and you’re bettered off.
The hike was so cool! The rain forest canopy shielded a lot of the rain so we weren’t pounded on and, again, everything is just so lush and alive that it takes your breath away.
Uweme brought his blow gun and spear with him today. He was going to show us how the tribe uses them to hunt and we’d get to try it! He brought his personal bow gun which his grandfather used to hunt with. This blow gun is about 11 feet tall but they do make them in different sizes and are used according to what they’ll be hunting. For example, a longer blow gun will be more accurate and can shoot longer distances – to over 100 feet. Uweme showed us how it’s done and after his instruction, every single one of hit the target! It was heavy but once you got your aim right, extremely accurate. They put poison on the darts used in the blow gun. Of course the poison is made by the tribe with plants from the jungle. So a relatively small dart (approximately 1 foot) can easily kill a monkey. With a larger animal, it will at least slow them down enough to “finish them”.
We also learned how the tribe uses spears to hunt. Typically the blow gun is used for smaller prey and the spear for larger prey. The spear was about 9 foot long and sharpened on both sides so that if they have to break off part of the spear they still have the other side to hunt. Usually, they’re thrown while running through the jungle. Uweme created a target for us and off we went. This was definitely more difficult than shooting the blow gun but also more rewarding when you got it right – which I did not 😊.
Back before the missionaries made contact with the Huaorani they obviously only used blow guns and spears to hunt. Now a few of them have guns and the younger members of the tribe sometimes use them for larger prey. But they do like to maintain traditions and some of the older tribe members know only blow guns and spears.
On our way back to the canoe, Uweme wanted to stop by a tree that typically served as a “monkey house”. And there they were! We saw owl monkeys which are very small and the Huaorani wouldn’t hunt but would instead keep them as pets. They were so cute! We think there were 4 of them. There was a baby monkey among them. Oh, baby monkeys are to-die-for!!! Jen wanted to bring one home with her.
We spent the afternoon at the lodge just hanging out and it was wonderful! They have a main gathering area here where you are sheltered from the weather and you can just look out into the jungle and listen to its amazing sounds. I was sitting alone reading and Uweme came to sit next to me. We communicated with my limited Spanish and hand-gesturing. He asked to see pictures of my mom and dad, we talked about his family and where I would travel to next. I was actually honored that he would take time out to spend one-on-one time with me. Especially when my Spanish sucks!
After a short while the others joined us and Uweme showed us how to make traditional Huaorani crowns – which are of course made from strips pulled from specific trees in the jungle. While we worked, he told us more legends from the tribe. Soon, more of the Huaorani joined him – our canoe poler and the patriarch of the home we visited yesterday, Eloy, as well as his mother Veronica and the manager of the hotel, Gallo. With Roberto serving as a translator, we sat and talked for over 2 hours – us learning about them AND them learning about us. It was such an incredible experience and honestly one of the very best parts of this trip! For example, we learned how upset they are that they’ve opened their land to the oil companies and feel they’ve gotten nothing from it. And that Eloy would love for his children to grow up and go to university but also to continue to maintain Huaorani traditions. It made me realize that even though people are so radically different, we can all find common ground – in this case the desire to give our children more than we had.
It was another absolutely amazing, life-changing, eye-opening day in so many ways. I’m so deeply grateful for this experience. Even with the creepy crawlers (which I’m now talking to instead of stomping on), the fact that I haven’t been dry in 3 days and the afro on my head, I would not change one moment!!