IN 00:00:00 WAORANI by J. Michael Seyfert (orig, Spanish title. Los Soberanos)BLACK international associations of professional creators
IN 00:00:37 The Waorani are an indigenous people deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon region. Ever since oil companies have moved into their territory, the Waorani have entered into agreements, but agreements in exchange for nothing.
IN 00:00:53IN 00:01:18 On December 10, 2001, the Italian oil company AGIP entices the Waorani to allow them to enter their land. AGIP promises them a bag of rice, a bag of sugar, a bucket of grease, a pack of noodles, two packs of salt,
two soccer balls,
OUT 00:01:19
IN 00:01:20 two frying pans, two spoons, 15 plates, - this is hardly community relations.
IN 00:01:36 The State of Ecuador does neither control, nor protect and is impartial towards the relations between oil companies and native communities.
IN 00:01:48 April 1, 2002: Occidental Petroleum signs an agreement with the Ministry of National Defense, in order to militarize the entire block 15 region of Amazonia, engaging the 19th jungle brigade as armed patrol and counter espionage unit to prevent acts of sabotage and criminal activities that would interfere with the oil companys general operations.
IN 00:02:34 In exchange for what does the army sign this annual agreement ?1 million dollars. The environment a deposit for toxic waste.
IN 00:02:50 The Waorani are an ancestral nation and the oil companies are provoking their extinction.
IN 00:04:04 It is rather difficult to describe such an original people, with a reputation for merciless ferocity; and western society wont easily understand their thoughts or way of life.
IN 00:04:16 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) Many books have been written about them, mostly loaded with fantasy or focusing only on the bloody details of their warring history.>>>>
IN 00:04:30 This pretends to be a different story. It is neither an anthropological analysis, nor the exaltation of a myth nor the description of the spear battles these people lived not more than 50 years ago. Here I will try to relate a lesser-known facet as embodied by some of the older members of this fantastic culture during the time that I lived among them, and through that, I hope to help us to embrace their true spirit.
IN 00:04:51 These people are an example of what human beings can accomplish after generations of living fully immersed in nature.
IN 00:05:14 Unique beings, each one an archetype of the different human expressions, limited to their purest and unaltered forms.
IN 00:05:28 SUBTITLES: In the past wed be hunting only big monkeys.
IN 00:05:32 SUBTITLES: Today you dont even see tigers and pumas around here.
IN 00:05:36 SUBTITLES: Killing a monkey with a blow gun takes a lot of skill
IN 00:05:42 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) Fluid and dynamic, without material ties, accustomed to nothing, completely relaxed,
IN 00:05:53 living only in the present. IN 00:06:00 Stronger than anyone but unaware of their own force or of the perfection of their bodies.
IN 00:06:14 One can only behold the ideal integration that they seem to have achieved between their minds, spirits and bodies.
IN 00:06:30 If you dont realize that they are like a mirror in which your own state of conscience reflects itself, you may be quite disappointed.
IN 00:06:38 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) What I am relating here is what these personalities have allowed me to see and understand.
IN 00:06:50 They are absolute sovereigns: unencumbered, free of doubt and free of internal chaos.
IN 00:07:15 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) We are like parrots of brilliant colors, flying through the air looking for fruit trees. One finds the fruit, sings, and the others follow
OUT 00:07:30
IN 00:08:08 SUBTITLES: My entire family has been killed.
IN 00:08:11 SUBTITLES: Now I will defend my people
IN 00:08:13 SUBTITLES: Families everywhere have been killed.
IN 00:08:15 SUBTITLES: I am not interested in the future.
IN 00:08:20 SUBTITLES: We have made contact with stranger people.
IN 00:08:24 SUBTITLES: I want to threaten and kill them just like my grandfather would have.
IN 00:08:28 SUBTITLES: I am ready to fight
IN 00:08:31 SUBTITLES: I am able to kill and have no feelings for strangers.
IN 00:08:37 SUBTITLES: I want to scream!
IN 00:10:55 Sovereignty is the soul of the Waorani. Every family is a nation and every individual a completely independent entity, but everyone has to achieve this sovereignty on their own.
IN 00:11:07 Asking for help is like flirting with death. From age 11, a Waorani youth can survive alone in the rain forest, at least this is the case with those who have not yet been colonized.
IN 00:11:22 This personal independence is experienced in every aspect of daily life. If you need something from the other side of the dwelling, you would not ask anyone to go and get it, - you yourself would get up to fetch it. Nobody orders anyone around, or tells you what to do or how to do it, not even the children. IN 00:11:46 Dependence isolates the individual from his natural being, but the free individual, who has not abandoned their very essence, depends neither on rituals nor on their culture or credence, and this is my impression of the elder Waorani. They are always in tune with the universe, every moment is like a new life and every instant an eternal state of newness.
IN 00:12:09 It is precisely this spiritual integration and the conservation of their original nature, arguably the biggest treasure to which any human being may aspire.
IN 00:12:20 Regrettably, today colonization and acculturation is separating them from their pristine nature. Now begin truly difficult times.
IN 00:12:28 As the great Native American Chief Seattle put it, when a similar process occurred with his people: ' This is the end of living and the beginning of survival .
IN 00:14:47 Among many things I asked Aua was what the word COWODI meant. That´s the name for all those who are not Waorani, he explained. Waorani means THE PEOPLE. All those that are not Waorani, are THE NON-PEOPLE.
IN 00:15:07 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) for this, I consider myself fortunate to have been able to visit these people and for having been able to learn from them.
IN 00:16:01 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) What cheerfulness, what a way to enjoy time! IN 00:16:18 One sunny day we were walking in the jungle, when Aua enthusiastically pointed to a butterfly. It was definitely an insignificant butterfly, even without notable colors. Simply a boring, common mariposita, but for Aua it seemed to be the most marvelous show. Look, look!, he gesticulated, jumping with delight, as the butterfly was homing in on a little flower, just a simple flower, Aua was cracking up! He almost lost his breath. When the butterfly began feeding on the pollen, the spectacle came to a climax. Aua was rolling on the ground, laughing with his hands holding his belly. He was observing the butterfly eye to eye.
IN 00:17:18 On another occasion I saw a more exaggerated expression of this brutal independence and how harshly it is lived. A man was stung by a stingray, limping in pain as he tried to return to his house, while other Waorani were strolling alongside him as if he were well. Neither did he ask them for help nor did they ask him if he needed any.
IN 00:18:01 I asked myself, how many of our own problems originate from our lack of independence, be they social, economical or emotional, and how much less we would be affected by the crisis of the respective systems in which we live, if we werent so dependent on them.
IN00:18:48 When we were not cutting firewood, we were busy with crafts, went fishing, cleaned the CHACRA or prepared a new one. From dawn to dusk, there wasnt a moment in which we were simply not doing anything.Aua spent the mornings and evenings telling stories about the past.
IN 00:19:47 In the time that I spent with them, I didn´t see them engage in any type of defined rite or ceremony. Rituals are mere links between individuals and their original nature. Over time, many were substituted by fetishes, because people were feeling empty.
IN 00:22:55 Among Amazon peoples, the Waorani are unique in several ways. The most notable may be that they do not use any psychotropic substances. They don´t drink ayahuasca, floripondio or chiricaspi. They don´t smoke tobacco and when the Chicha starts to ferment, they dump it.
IN 00:23:31 In a traditional Waorani village, during the whole day and a big part of the night one is likely to listen to someone´s singing. When in a particular house the singing stops, it begins in another. Our story is very, very long Kempere points out that's why we may not stop singing, to not forget. IN 00:23:32 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) This is the DURANI BAI, the way of our forefathers
IN 00:24:18 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) We are the people of the rain forest. This is the rain forest party.SUB TITLES: (SUNG) we are the people of the rain forest. This is the rain forest party. We are like clever parrots of brilliant colors, we are flying through the air looking for fruit trees. One finds the fruit, sings, and this way the others know where to eat,
IN 00:24:42 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) We are like wild hogs, running in groups, chasing the clever parrots, when they find a tree of fruits and start sucking, we are going to eat all the fruits that falls down, we are Waorani,.
IN 00:25:07 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) We are WAORANI, we are the people of the rain forest. This is the rain forest party.
IN 00:25:53 The Waroani, a warrior people that have fought for a century against caucheros, soldiers and oil companies besieging their territory. Today, they have accepted peace in a conscious way, because peace is what all of them love. Nevertheless, now they are facing their most difficult challenge (ever): their insertion into a market economy and mercilessly unequal cultural contact. Actually, the change has already begun and it is visibly affecting the new generations. When these elders die, their knowledge and customs will only remain in the memory of those of us who were lucky enough to have known them. In a few years, this extraordinary Amazon culture will certainly not be the same.Undoubtedly, the best thing to do for the Waorani is to simply leave them alone. They know how to live and definitively don´t need help from anyone, no matter what the intention.If the Ecuadorian nation would just let them be, I believe we could continue to rely on the Waorani as pillars between the earth and sky.
OUT 00:27:02
IN 00:27:13 FADE IN SUPERIMPOSE TITLEExploiting every drop of petroleum under the Waoranis feet provides the United States with gasoline worth 13 days of automotive traffic.
IN 00:27:35 FADE IN SUPERIMPOSE TITLE WAORANI A film by J Michael Seyfert.
IN 00:00:37 The Waorani are an indigenous people deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon region. Ever since oil companies have moved into their territory, the Waorani have entered into agreements, but agreements in exchange for nothing.
IN 00:00:53IN 00:01:18 On December 10, 2001, the Italian oil company AGIP entices the Waorani to allow them to enter their land. AGIP promises them a bag of rice, a bag of sugar, a bucket of grease, a pack of noodles, two packs of salt,
two soccer balls,
OUT 00:01:19
IN 00:01:20 two frying pans, two spoons, 15 plates, - this is hardly community relations.
IN 00:01:36 The State of Ecuador does neither control, nor protect and is impartial towards the relations between oil companies and native communities.
IN 00:01:48 April 1, 2002: Occidental Petroleum signs an agreement with the Ministry of National Defense, in order to militarize the entire block 15 region of Amazonia, engaging the 19th jungle brigade as armed patrol and counter espionage unit to prevent acts of sabotage and criminal activities that would interfere with the oil companys general operations.
IN 00:02:34 In exchange for what does the army sign this annual agreement ?1 million dollars. The environment a deposit for toxic waste.
IN 00:02:50 The Waorani are an ancestral nation and the oil companies are provoking their extinction.
IN 00:04:04 It is rather difficult to describe such an original people, with a reputation for merciless ferocity; and western society wont easily understand their thoughts or way of life.
IN 00:04:16 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) Many books have been written about them, mostly loaded with fantasy or focusing only on the bloody details of their warring history.>>>>
IN 00:04:30 This pretends to be a different story. It is neither an anthropological analysis, nor the exaltation of a myth nor the description of the spear battles these people lived not more than 50 years ago. Here I will try to relate a lesser-known facet as embodied by some of the older members of this fantastic culture during the time that I lived among them, and through that, I hope to help us to embrace their true spirit.
IN 00:04:51 These people are an example of what human beings can accomplish after generations of living fully immersed in nature.
IN 00:05:14 Unique beings, each one an archetype of the different human expressions, limited to their purest and unaltered forms.
IN 00:05:28 SUBTITLES: In the past wed be hunting only big monkeys.
IN 00:05:32 SUBTITLES: Today you dont even see tigers and pumas around here.
IN 00:05:36 SUBTITLES: Killing a monkey with a blow gun takes a lot of skill
IN 00:05:42 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) Fluid and dynamic, without material ties, accustomed to nothing, completely relaxed,
IN 00:05:53 living only in the present. IN 00:06:00 Stronger than anyone but unaware of their own force or of the perfection of their bodies.
IN 00:06:14 One can only behold the ideal integration that they seem to have achieved between their minds, spirits and bodies.
IN 00:06:30 If you dont realize that they are like a mirror in which your own state of conscience reflects itself, you may be quite disappointed.
IN 00:06:38 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) What I am relating here is what these personalities have allowed me to see and understand.
IN 00:06:50 They are absolute sovereigns: unencumbered, free of doubt and free of internal chaos.
IN 00:07:15 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) We are like parrots of brilliant colors, flying through the air looking for fruit trees. One finds the fruit, sings, and the others follow
OUT 00:07:30
IN 00:08:08 SUBTITLES: My entire family has been killed.
IN 00:08:11 SUBTITLES: Now I will defend my people
IN 00:08:13 SUBTITLES: Families everywhere have been killed.
IN 00:08:15 SUBTITLES: I am not interested in the future.
IN 00:08:20 SUBTITLES: We have made contact with stranger people.
IN 00:08:24 SUBTITLES: I want to threaten and kill them just like my grandfather would have.
IN 00:08:28 SUBTITLES: I am ready to fight
IN 00:08:31 SUBTITLES: I am able to kill and have no feelings for strangers.
IN 00:08:37 SUBTITLES: I want to scream!
IN 00:10:55 Sovereignty is the soul of the Waorani. Every family is a nation and every individual a completely independent entity, but everyone has to achieve this sovereignty on their own.
IN 00:11:07 Asking for help is like flirting with death. From age 11, a Waorani youth can survive alone in the rain forest, at least this is the case with those who have not yet been colonized.
IN 00:11:22 This personal independence is experienced in every aspect of daily life. If you need something from the other side of the dwelling, you would not ask anyone to go and get it, - you yourself would get up to fetch it. Nobody orders anyone around, or tells you what to do or how to do it, not even the children. IN 00:11:46 Dependence isolates the individual from his natural being, but the free individual, who has not abandoned their very essence, depends neither on rituals nor on their culture or credence, and this is my impression of the elder Waorani. They are always in tune with the universe, every moment is like a new life and every instant an eternal state of newness.
IN 00:12:09 It is precisely this spiritual integration and the conservation of their original nature, arguably the biggest treasure to which any human being may aspire.
IN 00:12:20 Regrettably, today colonization and acculturation is separating them from their pristine nature. Now begin truly difficult times.
IN 00:12:28 As the great Native American Chief Seattle put it, when a similar process occurred with his people: ' This is the end of living and the beginning of survival .
IN 00:14:47 Among many things I asked Aua was what the word COWODI meant. That´s the name for all those who are not Waorani, he explained. Waorani means THE PEOPLE. All those that are not Waorani, are THE NON-PEOPLE.
IN 00:15:07 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) for this, I consider myself fortunate to have been able to visit these people and for having been able to learn from them.
IN 00:16:01 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) What cheerfulness, what a way to enjoy time! IN 00:16:18 One sunny day we were walking in the jungle, when Aua enthusiastically pointed to a butterfly. It was definitely an insignificant butterfly, even without notable colors. Simply a boring, common mariposita, but for Aua it seemed to be the most marvelous show. Look, look!, he gesticulated, jumping with delight, as the butterfly was homing in on a little flower, just a simple flower, Aua was cracking up! He almost lost his breath. When the butterfly began feeding on the pollen, the spectacle came to a climax. Aua was rolling on the ground, laughing with his hands holding his belly. He was observing the butterfly eye to eye.
IN 00:17:18 On another occasion I saw a more exaggerated expression of this brutal independence and how harshly it is lived. A man was stung by a stingray, limping in pain as he tried to return to his house, while other Waorani were strolling alongside him as if he were well. Neither did he ask them for help nor did they ask him if he needed any.
IN 00:18:01 I asked myself, how many of our own problems originate from our lack of independence, be they social, economical or emotional, and how much less we would be affected by the crisis of the respective systems in which we live, if we werent so dependent on them.
IN00:18:48 When we were not cutting firewood, we were busy with crafts, went fishing, cleaned the CHACRA or prepared a new one. From dawn to dusk, there wasnt a moment in which we were simply not doing anything.Aua spent the mornings and evenings telling stories about the past.
IN 00:19:47 In the time that I spent with them, I didn´t see them engage in any type of defined rite or ceremony. Rituals are mere links between individuals and their original nature. Over time, many were substituted by fetishes, because people were feeling empty.
IN 00:22:55 Among Amazon peoples, the Waorani are unique in several ways. The most notable may be that they do not use any psychotropic substances. They don´t drink ayahuasca, floripondio or chiricaspi. They don´t smoke tobacco and when the Chicha starts to ferment, they dump it.
IN 00:23:31 In a traditional Waorani village, during the whole day and a big part of the night one is likely to listen to someone´s singing. When in a particular house the singing stops, it begins in another. Our story is very, very long Kempere points out that's why we may not stop singing, to not forget. IN 00:23:32 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) This is the DURANI BAI, the way of our forefathers
IN 00:24:18 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) We are the people of the rain forest. This is the rain forest party.SUB TITLES: (SUNG) we are the people of the rain forest. This is the rain forest party. We are like clever parrots of brilliant colors, we are flying through the air looking for fruit trees. One finds the fruit, sings, and this way the others know where to eat,
IN 00:24:42 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) We are like wild hogs, running in groups, chasing the clever parrots, when they find a tree of fruits and start sucking, we are going to eat all the fruits that falls down, we are Waorani,.
IN 00:25:07 SUB TITLES: (SUNG) We are WAORANI, we are the people of the rain forest. This is the rain forest party.
IN 00:25:53 The Waroani, a warrior people that have fought for a century against caucheros, soldiers and oil companies besieging their territory. Today, they have accepted peace in a conscious way, because peace is what all of them love. Nevertheless, now they are facing their most difficult challenge (ever): their insertion into a market economy and mercilessly unequal cultural contact. Actually, the change has already begun and it is visibly affecting the new generations. When these elders die, their knowledge and customs will only remain in the memory of those of us who were lucky enough to have known them. In a few years, this extraordinary Amazon culture will certainly not be the same.Undoubtedly, the best thing to do for the Waorani is to simply leave them alone. They know how to live and definitively don´t need help from anyone, no matter what the intention.If the Ecuadorian nation would just let them be, I believe we could continue to rely on the Waorani as pillars between the earth and sky.
OUT 00:27:02
IN 00:27:13 FADE IN SUPERIMPOSE TITLEExploiting every drop of petroleum under the Waoranis feet provides the United States with gasoline worth 13 days of automotive traffic.
IN 00:27:35 FADE IN SUPERIMPOSE TITLE WAORANI A film by J Michael Seyfert.