HUAORANI OF ECUADOR

Huaorani of Ecuador

Introduction

The Huaorani or Waorani (also called Sabel auishiri, auca and Huao) are people of Amerindians living in the northwest of the Amazon, eastern Ecuador. The Huaorani are divided into groups toñampare, quenahueno, tihueno, quihuaro, damuintaro, zapino, tiguino, huamuno, Dayuno, quehueruno, Garzacocha (río Yasuni), quemperi (river Cononaco) pampers (in the middle of the river Cononaco) Caruhue (river Cononaco) and Tagaeri (Ades, Graham, 2010). The Huaorani are one of the people living even in the most traditional ways throughout the Amazon. The ancestral territory extended from the Napo Curaray north to south. Now they have been legally recognized in only one third of this territory. In fact, were not even respecting the minimum. At present, 2005, further east, passes Retrobas belong to Yasuni National Park, home to several Huaorani clan, and is one of the most abundant natural parks in biodiversity, in the world. The Huaorani community has lived in the heart of the Amazon for thousands of years and has lived as hunters and gatherers, with no contact with the outside world until the end of 1960. In fact, at least one Huaorani clan continues to shun all contact with the outside world. Counted approximately 1,200 individuals, they continue to maintain a lifestyle largely traditional, living from the Amazon, although missionaries and oil companies have had some influence on their culture (Ades, Graham, 2010).

Thesis Statement

The Huaorani community has lived in the heart of the Amazon for thousands of years and has lived as hunters and gatherers, with no contact with the outside world until the end of 1960.

Discussion

Kinship Social organization

The kinship group I chose to describe is the Btsisi who are a horticulturalist society, which means they cultivate plants and prepare the soil, horticulturalists differ from foragers in their dependence on domesticated plants for most of their food energy”. For the purposes of this paper, I will provide information on the Btsiti tribe kinship, and specific examples of how the kinship system impacts their way of life, about the culture itself, as well as, compare their information to my own society. Kinship is the key or the foundation to social relations in the Btsisi tribe, like foragers in food producing cultures such as cultivating cultures and social relationships need to cope with a more sedentary life. Among the horticultural communities, which the Btsisi are a part of that community, “a family composed of at least three generations including grandparents, parents, and children, and possibly married siblings and their spouses and children—is most common and adaptive”. The reason why extended family are important because they are larger, which provides more labor and more completion of both domestic and subsistence work. When the extended group is not enough there is much larger group called the descent groups (Ades, Graham, 2010). There are several different types of Descent groups. Descent group is defined as a social group identified by a person to trace kinship relationships. Lineage is another descent group in which is how people trace their lineage by ...