Thranduil’s not-so-common New Year’s Eve. Another spin-off from “Many fruitless victories.”

Warning: It is somehow laden with annoying footnotes, yet those are perfectly avoidable, I believe…. You don’t need to have read “Many fruitless victories” to follow this, but you’ll surely want to know that this is an “elves-in-modern-day” series…

Deep in the Forest.

Last Day of December 2006. Somewhere in the Huaorani Reserve, Yasuni National Park, Amazonia, South America.

The old man moved across the forest with the stealth and gracefulness of the jaguar, his mate spirit.  He looked up to check the position of the first rays of sun filtering through the dense canopy high above his head and decided that he had enough time left for one last task before the heat of the day became unbearable. He took out the stone knife from its sheath and began to scrap the bark of a young tree with deft, precise movements. He carefully placed the shavings in a small container made of palm fiber that hung from the cord that circled his waist. He rearranged a handful of thick vines over his shoulder, secured a bag that contained the leaves he would use to prepare the Mi’i - the ritual draught he would need that night- and began the slow return home.

The forest noises were dimming as most creatures went in search of shelter. The boisterous spider monkeys, though, had already begun their morning foraging routine. By their excited cries the old man could tell that a new feeding place, most probably an area with ripened fruit, had been found. He smiled softly. Well-fed monkeys meant more food for his people. He was sure that the hunting party had been successful last night, although he had left their hamlet too early to know for sure. The season was good for gathering turtle eggs, too, as the charapas had just finished their laying in the white beaches in the rivers’ junction. Food was not lacking, the old shaman observed grimly, yet his people did not thrive as it would have been expected.

They were a dwindling community, he thought vaguely as he paused to accommodate the vines and take a look around to check his way in the apparently impenetrable rainforest. He still remembered how life had been before the missionaries and the oil companies first arrived and began cornering them. He and Taga, their beloved and mourned leader, had already been friends back then, the son of the tribe leader and the newly minted shaman. It had been after heated debates –and following the path revealed by the shaman’s spiritual guide, the jaguar- that Taga decided to break up with the rest of their Huaorani kin, those who called themselves the people, and retreat even deeper into the jungle, followed by his shaman friend and a host of relatives.

To no avail, the shaman admitted wryly, for it had not served to free them from the traditional blood-debts and revenges that were common among the Huaorani tribes, nor from the suffocating pressure of illegal timbering, poaching or drilling.

In fact, that decision had in the end claimed Taga’s life and had kindled another bloodied conflict between the people that now called themselves the Tagaeri and the rest of the world.

They fought with brutality, armed with blowguns and piercing spears of chonta palm, to preserve their isolation and independence, killing with unexpected ferocity any stranger that dared trespass their self-declared limits and keeping themselves from the outside world, as they had decided long ago. They only wanted to live as they had always done, as hunters and gatherers, taking what they needed from the forest and enjoying each day as it came, waiting for nothing and desiring nothing.

Yet they were dwindling, the shaman sighed, seeing in his mind eye how many of them -youngsters, women, warriors- had died in the past rain seasons, killed by fire guns or spears, or by spiritual diseases his powers were unable to prevent or heal.

If it was the will of the creator that they, the people, ceased to exist, it surely meant that the world was about to reach its end, the shaman concluded resignedly, feeling an acute sense of compassion for the forest creatures that would be doomed to perish with it. 

He was brought out of his thoughts by a particular trail in his path, so he stooped to have a closer look. It had been long since he had seen the tracks of an adult jaguar in their territory, and the proximity of the creature that embodied his spiritual self made him think of the only stranger who had been admitted within their borders and in their company, and who was counted as one of them, despite his fair skin and yellow hair. Tengomai, the jaguar shaman of the Tagaeri, wasn’t sure, after all those years, who or what the stranger they knew as Malléhuenga, the son of the jaguar, was.

The cry of a harpy eagle made him lift his head. A slow smile crept into his ageless face. The eagle was heralding a welcome arrival and the jaguar was around. Those were indeed good news.

 ****

It took Thranduil –Dr. Greenwood, the renowned ethnobotanist, as he was known there- almost two weeks to reach the seasonal settlement of the Tagaeri after he left the Yasuni Scientific Research Station making it loudly known that he was heading east, towards Tiputini River. Once he was sure that he was out of sight, he retraced his steps and turned southwest, entering the Huaorani Ethnic Reserve as secretly as he could. The Tagaeri had chosen to remain out of touch and he knew that if the rumor of his long friendship with those mysterious people was confirmed it would mean a death sentence for the encroached and failing tribe.

Not that they would escape their doom anyway, he sighed, studying his surroundings and following a faint trail that led towards the river, but they deserved to disappear in the way they chose, rather than dwindling and fading in a sad loss of their spirit and ways of living, slowly abandoning their culture and habits and dying from alcoholism, drug addition and starvation.

He shook his head and felt an ancient surge of anger threatening to overcome him. It was always the same in these days and all around the world; yet for some reason he had felt particularly attached to those bellicose, fiercely independent and proud warriors long before they were “discovered” in the middle of the twentieth century. He had hunted with them, had learnt their ways and their speech and had returned to them each generation, to feel the pure joy of living day to day without doubts or worries, just hunting and gathering what the forest had to offer and enjoying the harmony and peace that came from living in such way.

As a warrior, he had never marched with one clan against another, keeping his distance and being thus considered as one of the elders, the son of the jaguar or Malléhuenga. Yet, he had stood by their side when the illegal foresters and poachers began using fire weapons against the Huaorani, and had wielded their chonta spears with deadly accuracy in defense of their lives and their forests, with a wild abandon that had frightened himself and had earned him a place in the legends of those warlike tribes.

That had been before Taga decided to separate his clan from the rest of the Huaroani and had led them even deeper into the forest, turning his back on his enemies in what he thought was the only way to keep his people safe.

Thranduil still mourned the bold, fearless leader. He had been massacred –together with his wives and children- by another branch of Huaorani relatives seeking revenge for a crime committed by Taga’s father long ago. The rest of the story had unfolded in a well-known tale of retaliation.

Now, half a century after that, less than forty individuals of the Tagaeri group remained, and that year Thranduil had felt the sudden urge to visit his friends before it was too late.

Equipped by the half-Occidentalized Huaorani who lived near the Scientific Research Station with three chonta spears, a barbed harpoon, a long blowgun and a quiver of feathered arrows, a bark box of curare and a hammock of threaded chambira, Thranduil felt ready to face the challenges of a forest that made him feel more alive and at home than any other place in the world, despite the peculiarity of its flora and the dark, untamed hearts of many of its trees.

War was incessantly waged in the rainforest, yet it was a primal struggle, one for light, for nutrients and for reproduction. The wild beating of life there reminded the Wood Elf of the voices of the once endless and equally alive forests of the lands of his youth.  

He walked along the river for five days until he reached the last Huaorani settlement, where he traded six monkeys for a dugout canoe and some reluctant and vague indications of where their secretive, isolated enemies had last been spotted.

The heat was humid and almost tangible, and the sun slipped along the luxuriant leaves and reached even the darkest spots of the forest as the Elf paddled calmly upstream, enjoying the colours, the smells and the sounds of the jungle. That was the most diverse forest in the world, he thought wistfully as he led his canoe along the wide river, and a Wood Elf never tired of seeing new trees and learning their voices.

He traveled slowly for days, studying the forested shores in search of traces of human occupation. It was time for turtle eggs, he knew, so the Tagaeri would not be far from the river.

On the ninth day of his journey, as he lay comfortably in his hammock perched between two strong palm trees and protected from insects’ bites by the juice of the palm’s nuts, he heard dim voices brought downstream by a lazy breeze.  He picked up his weapons and walked silently to the place whence the voices came, suspecting a Huaorani foray. Half the way there, though, the hated sound of a sawing machine made his blood roar in his ears. 

He took to the sheltering branches then, and he advanced silently and quickly until he reached a clearing where three men were cutting down mahogany trees with a lack of respect that enraged the former King of Lasgalen. Images of his ravaged forest, of forests loved and lost around the world assaulted him, and he gripped his spears tightly, fighting the urge to pin those men to the same trunks they were defiling and watch as the curare slowly paralyzed their muscles and killed them by suffocation.  He closed his eyes for a moment. That would not solve the problem, and would create more for the already besieged tribes. He willed himself to loosen his clutch and calm his ragged breathing, forcing himself into a cool appraisal of the situation. After some thought, he decided to retreat silently. He searched for –and soon found- the men’s camp, which happened to be not far from the clearing and close to what had been a Tagaeri’s seasonal settlement. Fortunately, the settlement had been abandoned some time ago, Thranduil could tell by the ruinous state of the roof of the long hut, which had been almost completely devoured by voracious termites.

He methodically destroyed the men’s tents and equipment, scattered their provisions and ammunition and emptied their containers of fresh water. After a short hesitation, he drove one of his spears into the ground in the middle of the ruined camp, as a warning sign. The tales surrounding the mysterious and ferocious tribe of the Tagaeri, and the fact that his spear was of Huaorani manufacture would confuse and frighten the men, Thranduil hoped. That would be enough to convince them to abandon that part of the jungle, forbidden to them by law and ancient custom.

He had no other encounters on his way, nor other company than that of the excited shrills of the monkeys, the menacing clicks of the harpy eagles, the curious faces of the tapirs as they peered from behind the shrubs and the carefree calls of the brightly coloured macaws and indifferent toucans, busy in their daily search for food. Even silence was colourful and resonant in the rainforest, Thranduil thought with the same amazement that threatened to overwhelm him every time he found himself deep in those untainted woods.

When he spotted a couple of pink dolphins swimming under his boat he knew he was getting closer to a junction, a likely place for the Tagaeri to have settled down in that season. Trusting his instinct, he set ashore and spent the rest of that day, and part of the night, hunting monkeys and fishing, as no guest should arrive without a present for his hosts.

Early next morning he returned to the river and found that the pink dolphins seemed to be waiting to lead him upstream. The sun was beginning to rise above the tallest trees when he reached a wide bending on the river.  With a playful pirouette, the dolphins swam under his canoe and splashed him with their tails in goodbye as they surfaced, before disappearing downstream. The sharp cry of a harpy eagle surprised him and the Tagaeri woman who was gathering turtle eggs in the large strand formed by the junction of the two rivers that met in the broad bend.

She looked up straight to meet his gaze and smiled openly in recognition. Then, she picked up her shirga, the threaded bag in which she was carefully placing the eggs and ran into the jungle.

“Malléhuenga! Malléhuenga”! She cried as she disappeared under the dense canopy. Thranduil shook his head as he carefully paddled to the nearest shore.

“Apparently, I am expected,” he told himself amusedly, slinging his burden of meat over his broad shoulder and picking up the harpoon. He refused to wonder how they had known: the dolphins, the eagle, and the people. Those were wood people, much as his own had been, and he smiled softly remembering how little went unnoticed in his own forest so many ennin ago.

 ****

When Tengomai, the jaguar-shaman of the Tagaeri, returned to their settlement that morning the merry voices only confirmed what he had already known. He smiled at the picture that received him. The tall, wild son of the jaguar was sprawled on a low hammock, half buried under the only five children of the tribe, and their laughter mixed with that of the adults as Malléhuenga recounted how he had killed the monkeys that were piled beside the fire. He mimicked the movements to show them how he had blown his blowgun, and his long, pale hand imitated the arrow as it flew to its target. The children laughed and shrilled excitedly and the warriors, returned from the hunt, nodded in appreciation and laughed, too, at the explanations of the “spotless jaguar”, as they also knew him.

“I am glad to hear that you have not lost your ability with the blowgun, Malléhuenga,” the shaman offered as he stepped into the friendly reunion.

Thranduil smiled at his friend and stood up nimbly, two of the children still clutching at his powerful arms. His chest already showed the red and black patterns of the Tagaeri hunters as a sign of respect.

“The Huaorani taught me before they became the Tagaeri, Mallé-shaman,” he answered courteously, nodding before the shaman. “The forest still blesses me with his gifts…” he added seriously.

“The forest will always bless its children, Malléhuenga,” the shaman returned with another bow. Once the ritual greeting was performed, and the visitor was officially welcome in camp, the activity became frantic, like in a harassed anthill. The hunters turned to prepare the monkeys for consumption and preservation while some of the women returned to the river to gather more turtle eggs and the children followed their visitor around.

It was a very busy day, in which Thranduil confirmed for himself the extent of decay in the once fearless and proud tribe. It had been thirty years since he had last visited him, yet he missed the faces of many warriors who had been but youngsters or mere children then.

“We have lost many warriors to the poachers and their fire guns,” his shaman friend recognized sadly as they shared a bowl of yuca chicha. “And to an unexplained ailment,” he added in a lower voice. Thranduil had seen the effects of malnutrition and the malformations that proclaimed the exhaustion of the gene pool and could only nod in sympathy. Never before had the shaman acknowledged his impotence, but Thranduil was more than a welcome friend. They believed him to be a herald of the sun-creator, a god that walked among The people when he tired of other occupations.

“We are fading, my friend,” the shaman added with an equanimity that froze the Elf in place, as long-buried memories of a distant past and other people now vanished returned abruptly to him. “We know that the world is about to end…and it is only fair that The people shall disappear first…we shall follow the sun where he leads us…yet I feel for these trees, for these waters, for the brother jaguar and the spirits of the forest…. What shall become of them when The people are gone?”

Thranduil felt a lump growing in his throat as his shaman friend –a man who had never left the forest- began to list the warning signs that heralded the end of their world. He could not hold back a bitter smile, noticing how the symptoms were repeated along the world, in modern as well as in primitive societies. Yet these forty people had managed to hold decay at bay for a long time, like true Stewards of ailing Arda, preserving a wide forest with their nomadic habits and their deep knowledge of all the biodiversity that it held. Their disappearance would not only mean a great loss of ancient, traditional wisdom, but of another patch of protected, untainted, untouched natural world and the umpteenth defeat of a different way of living.

“I have no apprentice,” the shaman observed softly, standing up with some difficulty and walking to the entrance of one of the long huts that sheltered them, bending to check a great bowl that had been left there. Thranduil followed him and observed the dark, thick, pastry substance in the bottom. “They know enough to prepare a good, fast curare, almost as good as this,” the shaman kept on as he put a stick in the mixture and tested its consistency. “Yet they won’t survive long without spiritual guidance and protection. They don’t know how to invoke the protection of the jaguar, or the blessing of the forest; they don’t know where to find the right herbs for some ailments or to counteract the spells of our enemies. They are warriors, and they shall die as such, but shall they find the way to the creator, without a shaman to prepare their path? Will the creator ever forgive us if we fail to protect His forest?” 

Thranduil sighed heavily. One of the children ran to them in that moment, wielding his toy spear and challenging the “spotless jaguar,” saving him from answering a question he did not want to answer. Soon, the other children joined in the fray and their happy shrills attracted the approving looks of parents and elders. In no time, the mock fight involved the warriors, and it ended up in a half-serious spear-throwing contest between Thranduil and Tihti, Taga’s younger brother and his successor. The Elf’s arm hid the strength of millennia, yet the tribe leader was a worth contender, and it took all of Thranduil’s skill to finally beat him by driving his spear right into the center of the appointed target and dislodging Tihti’s, breaking its point in the process, a feat that was received with awe by all. There was no shame in being defeated by a god, anyway, and the tribe leader palmed Thranduil’s back repeatedly, laughing loudly and wielding the two pieces of his spear with pride.

Later that night, as the children lay in their mothers’ laps beside the fire, listening to the soft chants and rhythmic music of the rattles, while the warriors took turns at recounting tales of valour and great peril, Tihti waved to Thranduil to join him apart from the rest.

“How far were those foresters?” he asked bluntly. Thranduil thought he was disappointed that he had not killed them there.

“Four days down the river...”

“You did good not to attack them, Malléhuenga; we cannot draw more attention to us...”

Thranduil watched him in doubt. The Huaorani, all of them, were warriors above all. To see their lands invaded thusly was the most grievous offence that could be inflicted to them. That apparent discretion simply did not fit with what Thranduil knew about his bellicose friends, and Tihti’s next words confirmed his suspicions.

“We’ll march against Babé’s settlement after the rains,” he kept on with a ferocious glimpse in his dark eyes. Babé was his half–uncle, now an old man of eighty and the responsible for Taga’s death. “They have set the foresters on us, and they shall pay for it. They are defiling the forest as well as our ancestors’ spirits. My brother’s soul claims for revenge,” he added eagerly. “Will you fight with us, Malléhuenga?”

Thranduil felt an immense tiredness overcome him. Here they were, those ancient people marching to their utter demise with the same confidence with which the ents had marched to their destruction.

“Don’t do that, Tihti, they are many more and better armed than you; they have fire weapons and they shall use them against you…” He knew the uselessness of his efforts even before speaking. The tribe leader’s face was set.

"We are warriors, we don’t fear the enemy! We shall drink their blood and rip their hearts from their bodies, and the creator will be glad!”

“And what of your women, and your children? What, if you fall in battle and do not return to them?”

“The Tagaeri are warriors, Malléhuenga, they do not hide from their enemies. Our women know what we are. They would not respect us if we did not make them pay. Will you fight by our side?” he insisted.

“You know that I will not. And I wished that you reconsidered. You are a wise leader and you would not like to see your people vanish and fade because of a rash decision….” Thranduil was almost pleading now, despite the futility of it all. The tribe leader fixed him with a thoughtful, somewhat outraged glare, and for a moment the Elf feared that he had offended him. Then, his sudden, open, loud roar of laughter made Thranduil shook his head and smile in spite of himself.

“You are tempting me, Malléhuenga! You wanted to know if the heart of the Tagaeri is still firm and strong enough!” He laughed heartily, palming Thranduil’s back and shaking his head in joy. “I passed the test, didn’t I? Aren’t we worth of the creator’s blessing?” he demanded proudly. 

“Of course you are,” Thranduil agreed softly, watching as the man returned to the fire and greeted his warriors. The Elf shook his head in desolation as he heard their roars and the warlike songs with which they received their leader’s speech.

“The jaguar does not recoil before any prey…why should his people?” Thranduil turned to see the old shaman standing beside him, looking at the men around the fire with a strange expression in his slightly unfocused eyes. “You want to join me?” he added, placing a bowl of a fuming drink before the Elf. It was the Mi’i, the ayahuasca, the ritual beverage that gave the shamans their power over the spiritual world through visions and foresight, enhancing their awareness and inducing a state of trance. 

Thranduil shook his head. He had once tried the ayahuasca, and the effects had frightened him deeply, for it had made his memories become unbearably close and clear. He had since then learnt that the shamans could perceive his own faer when they were in that state of trance, and he had been able to impart some counsel and visions to them. Wondering if he would be able to dissuade Tihti through the shaman, he suddenly remembered why Tengomai had been drinking the Mi’i.

“How is she?” Even as he asked he perceived the answer in the shaman’s tired mind. Tihti’s wife, who had been very ill, had finally passed away, despite the shaman’s best efforts. She had given the tribe leader three sons, though none had lived enough to beget children on their own, and she had been by his side for most of her more that fifty years.

Thranduil sighed and sat on the ground, resting his back against the firm trunk of a palm tree. The men were still singing by the fire. They would mourn Tihti’s wife briefly in the morning. They were a dour, stern people, who saw death as the logical balance to life. He knew them well enough to know that Tihti’s plans for revenge had nothing to do with the loss of his wife, but with their ancient culture and the only way of life that made sense to them.

Yet he felt suddenly tired, as if all the battles of his long life were weighing upon his shoulders. He closed his eyes, trying to banish all thoughts from his weary, worried mind, and then he felt it, the shaman’s mind in his faer, in the form of an agile, swift jaguar that ran through a dense forest. He stilled then, trying not to disturb him as the shaman’s spirit revisited the most significant moments of his life and showed them to the Elf.

Thranduil watched in amazement as the jaguar showed him the life of that man that was his friend: his apprenticeship as a shaman, his first healing and how he had ran into his first jaguar. His marriage, Taga’s death, and the death of his children…he watched until the jaguar stopped at the top of a small hill and looked down to a devastated land. The whole forest –and the wide lands beyond- were on fire, and the sky was black as the pits of Dol Guldur.

“Is that what awaits us, Malléhuenga?” he heard the amazed gasp in his mind and met the sparkling amber eyes of the jaguar in his vision. “That’s what the creator shall do with our forest when The people are here no more?”  Thranduil shook his head in disbelief, as the jaguar turned back on that sight and got lost in the forest. “Thank you for letting me see that, my friend,” the shaman sighed in his head. “Now I know which course is ours…we shall die as warriors… and the world shall perish after our passing.”

Thranduil opened his eyes with great effort and focused his attention on his friend, who was sitting before him with his eyes closed and humming softly to himself, deeper now in his trance. The Elf shivered and stood up, uncertain of what had just happened. He turned his gaze to the fire, and much to his surprise he noticed that it was almost out. Only the younger men remained there, still trading tales and warming up, Thranduil suspected, for the battle their leader had just announced.  

The Elf who had once been the mighty King of Eryn Lasgalen, who had fought in Dagorlad and had held the Dark Lord at bay for a whole age bowed silently before those brave, reckless and valiant people who were about to confront their final defeat with the same grace and dignity with which they had faced their lives. He felt suddenly drained, grieving for their doom even if they seemed to accept it gladly.

He picked up a spear as a precaution and walked into the near forest, searching for a tree tall enough for his purpose. He needed to find rest under Elbereth’s stars, and he felt as if the dense canopy of the rainforest threatened to suffocate him. He found a great ceiba not far from the hamlet and began to scale slowly, relishing the touch of that soft, light bark that seemed happy to receive his caress. When he reached the first branches, he was more than one hundred feet from the forest floor and he commanded a wide view. The presently leafless tree had also sheltered a harpy eagle’s family, as he could tell from the abandoned nest in the nearest junction. He chose a strong branch and sat there, pressing his body against the trunk, watching the moonless night and finding comfort in the dim heartbeat of the tree and the pale stars that shone shyly through the night’s mists.

He was confused and disoriented by the shaman’s vision, which had also haunted his dreams for a long time now. He wasn’t sure, in truth, if he had actually followed the shaman’s spirit, or rather it had been his friend reading in his own mind, or maybe it had been the forest’s own vision of the future, or of what had once came to pass. Anyway, it had only served to strengthen those people’s convictions about the end of their world, and it pained Thranduil to admit that there was little he could do to prevent it from happening.

Too baffled to keep dwelling on that sad defeat, Thranduil closed his eyes and snuggled against the comforting trunk, allowing his memories to carry him to a time long past, when he had been truly young. They had lived up in the treetops then, and he could still hear his mother’s soft silvan accent, and his father’s strong, determined voice.

Oropher.

It had been ennin since he had last thought of his father, and a soft smile curved his lips as he admitted that those stubborn, valiant warriors reminded him of the brave King who had led his people to fight the Dark Lord armed with spears and bows.

“What am I doing here, Adar?” he sighed tiredly. His family was in the West, or in Mandos Halls, and he had refused to sail in what he had thought was an appointed mission to preserve his failing forest and which had, somehow, turned into a desperate, meaningless fight to save the forests of Arda from an unavoidable decline.

A soft gush of wind tore away the dense clouds that heralded the approaching rains, allowing bright Eärendil to cast his light over the confounded, lonesome Elf.  

“Ai, Eärendil, what do you see from up there? Is yours a vain, hopeless mission too?” he wondered. He had always thought that the Valar had been too cruel to impose such a ban upon the half-elf, yet in that moment he was glad the he still sailed the skies of Arda, for his presence offered a most welcome comfort to him.

“I should have heeded Celeborn, we should have reunited, the four of us,” he acknowledged reluctantly. Out there, the world was celebrating the coming of another year in an arbitrary display of chronology. Thranduil had always refused to join in that calendar, arguing that it seemed a thing born out of the Shadow, to celebrate the New Year in mid winter, when the trees were under the winter spell and the shadows were stronger.

Yet he could not help missing his friends and wondering how they were faring those days. They had not met since last July, in Rome, and despite their differences they were his only kin, the only other elves left in that world, fighting to save the Secondborn again from the shadow they had carelessly brought about themselves.

“I’ll invite them to join me in April,” he decided, blinking back the unwanted tears that were welling in his eyes. He would spend the rain season with the Tagaeri and would try to dissuade them from their planned war. Then, he would call his friends home for the Elven New Year and would show them how to keep their customs and traditions in that tainted world.

Reassured by his New Year’s resolution and comforted by the presence of the friendly light of Eärendil, he accepted the embrace of the tree and tried to find some sleep.  

“I would never hear the end of it, if Maglor ever got to know that I have missed them…” he thought grimly before taking the elven path of dreams.  

*****

Footnotes and boring stuff:

Huaorani: A dwindling ethnic group in the Ecuadorian Amazonia. There are less than 1500 people left. They speak a language that has defied classification until now. Little is known of their origins or that of their language. Huaorani, as they name themselves mean “the people.” They were first contacted by occidental people in the fifties. Until then they had led a nomadic life in the rainforest. Unfortunately, the lands they had lived upon for centuries happened to be full of oil. You don’t want to hear the rest of the story.

Tagaeri: A clan of the Huaorani who refused to become Occidentalized and retreated into the forest to preserve their independence. Family feuds with other Huaorani tribes and their fierce defence of their lands have led them to fight unbalanced wars with oil companies, Huaorani kin armed with weapon, illegal foresters and so. About 45 people of his clan are supposed to remain now. 

Mi’i one of the many names that receive the ayahuasca or yagé, the “vine of the souls” an Amazonian brew prepared form a concoction from segments of a species of a particular vine (Banisteriopsis) mixed with leaves from other plants and resulting in a potent hallucinogenic tea with effects similar to those of peyote. It is used by shamans to reach a state of enhanced conscience that allows them to identify the ailments in their patients, or in ritual celebrations.

Charapa: species of fresh- water turtle

Malléhuenga: son of the jaguar. Huaorani term. The jaguar is their most sacred animal, one of the creatures that embody their creator whenever he decides to assume bodily form.

Chonta: a type of palm tree. Its wood is used for making weapons, mainly spears, harpoons and blowguns.

Curare: a deadly venom, generic term for many types of preparations containing scrapings from the bark of some vines and other substances. It kills by suffocation, as it relaxes the muscles until breathing is impossible. It is used for hunting as well as for battle. Arrows are wetted into the sticky mix and shot with deadly accuracy with long blowguns. Death can take up to twenty minutes for large mammals.

Chambira: Another palm tree. Its threaded fibers are used mainly for hammocks and bags, called shirgas.  

Pink dolphins: Species of fresh-water dolphins.

Chicha: Fermented drink of smashed grain or roots.

Ceiba: Gigantic tropical trees, with umbrella-shaped crown. They host many different types of species, vegetal and animal, upon their branches. They easily reach 160-180 feet. Their wood is mainly used for building great dugout canoes.