It was around the middle of the 19th century, when a long and bloody war between the Waorani and the Sequoia  peoples took place in the Amazon Rainforest, in South-America. 

The survivors of those battles, or skirmishes, related their anecdotes of the traumatic conflict to their children, and thus, these events were passed from generation to generation, preserved over time.

Sequoia  vs Waorani 

In the north-western Amazon region, in a territory that probably belonged at that time to the nascent republic of Ecuador, recently separated from Greater Colombia, the Sequoia  and the Waorani tribes were neighbors in a fragile balance. 

Between both towns there also lived another, smaller, now extinct, probably called the “Tetete”. In a village of this last ethnic group, with Tucano linguistic roots and, therefore, related to the Sequoia , there lived four siblings: two brothers and two sisters. The two brothers were powerful shamans, and their two younger sisters were beautiful ladies, admired and coveted by many. The inhabitants of this village were people of peace, and maintained good relations with their neighbors. They got along well with both the brave Waorani and the wise Sequoia people.    

In a dry season, the shaman brothers shared fruits and hunted meat with a group of Waorani who had crossed the river in search of food. Their wisdom allowed them to attract animals by bathing with a magical herb, whose irresistible aroma called the animals towards them. What they obtained from the hunt they shared with their Waorani friends, who deeply valued this relationship. In addition, the “Tetete” shamans offered them axes, salt and sugar that they brought from the distant city of Iquitos.

The Waorani, although grateful, maintained their peculiar rejection of clothing. They said that when they dressed “their skin fell off,” and they preferred to remain naked, proud of their ancestral connection with nature.

Thus began a brief alliance between the small village of the Tetete and the Waorani warrior people, traditionally not very friendly or sociable with foreigners. Eventually, some Waorani returned the favor by helping them build their houses or gifting them some of their peculiar spears. 

The calm was interrupted when a group of Sequoia  men went to visit the shaman brothers. They were attracted by the fame of both, with the idea of ​​receiving advice that would help them be successful in the hunt. But upon arriving, they recognized the traces of the Waorani in the design of the houses and became alert. Later, when they were invited to come in, they noticed the spears that the Waorani had given to the shaman brothers and then they had no more doubts, their relatives had joined that race of dangerous savages with whom the Sequoia  preferred to keep a safe distance. 

 For the Sequoia , who already harbored an ancestral fear of the Waorani, this friendship seemed like an act of betrayal. Tension increased, and visitors made their discontent known. However, the shaman brothers tried to calm them down by offering them “masato”, a sort of amazonic beer made out of fermented cassava. The Sequoia  visitors accepted. Immediately, the beautiful sisters appeared carrying jars full of fermented cassava. Visitors were immediately captivated by the beauty of both women. Between the drinking and the laughter, the leader of the group proposed marriage to one of them. But the young woman politely refused. Then the Sequoia chief did the same with the other young woman and was equally rejected. The men insisted repeatedly but they rejected the insistent proposals again and again. Finally, the shaman brothers stood in favor of their sisters’ decision and demanded that the visitors accept their refusal. The Sequoia  chief, enraged, threw the clay pot hard to the ground, breaking it, and left the maloca followed by his people.

In the following days the shaman brothers drank yagé, or ayahuasca, and predicted to their sisters what they already feared. The Sequoia s would come back to kill them all. Only one of the sisters would survive. 

At dawn the next day the invaders arrived carrying spears, knives and torches, ready to burn their houses and kill all the people in that peaceful village. The shaman brothers, along with the other men of the village, defended themselves as best they could, caused some casualties among the invading Sequoia  group, but ultimately lost their lives at the hands of the attackers. The sisters ran to hide and one of them managed to escape into the thick of the jungle. The other died that same night at the hands of the man who had proposed to her days before. The invaders continued searching everywhere for the other sister. And they would have gotten it if it weren’t for a miraculous event that saved his life at the last moment. The spirits of his three deceased brothers appeared to him and gave him a jug of annatto water brought from heaven. The survivor, following the instructions of her deceased brothers, bathed in this water, becoming invisible in the eyes of the murderers. With this protection, the sister was able to escape from the Sequoia , who looted what they could from the place and returned the way they had come.

A few days Later, after an excellent hunt, a Waorani group went to visit the Tetete village, with the intention of sharing their hunting prey with the shaman brothers who had been so generous to them. When they arrived, they found only burned houses, charred bodies, ashes and death. With luck they found the surviving sister, who was crying inconsolably for the loss of her loved ones. The Waorani fed her and invited her to come with them to their village. The sister accepted and on the way she told them what had happened. Upon learning what had happened, the fury of the brave Waorani knew no limits. They swore to avenge their fallen friends, marking the beginning of a feud that would become legend.

Meanwhile, the Sequoia s, oblivious to the imminent storm, continued with their daily lives, safe in their malocas. 

The attack came at dawn. The Waorani crossed the river on rafts and infiltrated silently, using their ability to imitate the sounds of the machine monkeys, fooling the Sequoia  dogs. They approached a main maloca, where families were gathered drinking chicha.

The spears fell like rain. The Waorani, with their faces painted red with annatto and feather crowns, seemed like figures from another world. They did not attack indiscriminately; They sought to capture children and provoke fear. The chonta and guadúa spears were stabbed with such force that the bodies of the victims were erected as if they were still alive, a terrifying image that would remain engraved in the memory of the Sequoia .

When the chaos ended, the Sequoia  survivors fled to a neighboring village of their own town, carrying their wounded. Upon arrival, they told what happened to their relatives, avoiding telling the real reason that sparked the enmity. In this Sequoia  village three powerful shamans lived. During the night, they prepared yajé, the drink that connected them with the terrestrial jaguars, the celestial ones, and those who inhabited the underworld. In their trance, the three shamans, transformed into three large jaguars, clearly saw the Waorani camp and discovered their intentions for a second attack.

Without waiting any longer, the 3 jaguars entered the Waorani village, in search of the invading warriors, causing destruction, sowing terror, chaos and confusion among them. The Waorani warriors took their spears with the intention of defending themselves from the fierce attack of the jaguars, but they were protected by a devil who is the specialist in avoiding the enemy’s spears. Thus, the felines ended the lives of a handful of Waorani warriors, and would have continued murdering the rest of the residents of that village with impunity… If it had not been for the intervention of the old Waorani shaman, who, before the eyes of the intruding jaguars, appeared like a great burning fire from which they should stay away. The old Waorani shaman, brandishing his scepter, managed to expel the large cats from that hamlet, but not before identifying in their eyes the presence of the shamanic spell of the Sequoia  trees. From that day on, the Waorani understood that the Sequoia  were protected by powers from beyond, which they could not confront with their conventional tactics. This is how they began to think of new stratagems that would allow them to harm their enemy again. One of the most intelligent warriors, who had united with the surviving sister of the extinct Tetetes, had learned many words of the Sequoia language and proposed to use this knowledge to the detriment of his enemies.

After being repelled by the old shaman or shaman of the Waorani, the three jaguars returned to the Sequoia  village.  On the way back they resumed their human forms. Their women were waiting for them with large jars full of hot water to wash them as is tradition, because when a shaman kills when he becomes a jaguar, he should not enter his house without first cleaning himself. They arrived at the village naked and bloody. Their wives bathed them, cleaned their wounds, and removed their victims’ hair from their mouths. 

A week later, the youngest daughter of one of the shamans, who was barely 8 years old, disappeared in the Sequoia  camp.  Then another child disappeared, and then another. Panic gripped the village. The Waorani posed as sequoia, pronouncing words in the language of their rivals, attracting children who were playing nearby and capturing them. In this way, they managed to inflict damage where it hurt the most, avoiding a direct confrontation. 

The Sequoia  then organized themselves and dug deep ditches around their villages, at the bottom of which they placed sharp spears. In this way, they managed to end the lives of dozens of Waorani, but the kidnappings of children and skirmishes, although they had almost completely decreased, had not ceased. In order to definitively dissuade the attackers from invading their territories, the 3 powerful Sequoia  shamans decided to apply a more terrible and deadly defense. This time, they decided to use a terrible disease called “deer witchcraft” which is similar to epilepsy. To do this, the three shamans placed the disease around the village, so that the attackers would catch it when they approached. The spell caused sudden death in the majority. The attackers who managed to return home infected their families, who also died. This scared the Waorani so much that they stopped attacking.

For his part, the old Waorani shaman conjured the Wati, mocking spirits of human appearance, to help him in his counter-offensive. He knew that the Sequoia s would eventually leave his territory and he would take advantage of this slip for his attack. 

Indeed, months later a group of Sequoia  indigenous people descended the Napo River, navigating with caution among its currents. Facing an apparently calm shore, they decided to disembark. 

Among them, a man walked away from the group to fish. Upon returning, he found traces of a Waorani presence. Alarmed, he ran to his sister and mother-in-law to show them what he had discovered. But they, skeptical, laughed at their fears, dismissing the threat. “You must be imagining things,” they told him. Feeling misunderstood, the man decided to leave alone in his canoe.

As he paddled down the river, he heard a voice, clear and inviting, speaking in perfect Sequoia :

—”The Auca have already left, now we are free, you can come back.”

The familiarity of the language only increased his distrust. He knew that the Waorani were known for learning words from other peoples to lure their victims. Resisting the temptation, he continued rowing, determined not to fall into the trap.

Shortly after, his canoe became stranded in the middle of the river, as if the waters themselves were conspiring to stop him. From the shadows appeared the Wati, mysterious figures of humanoid appearance, with gestures and movements that revealed their supernatural nature. They tried to push the canoe with what looked like sticks, but as they got closer, the man discovered to his horror that they were actually live snakes.

With desperate courage, he used his oar as a weapon, killing the snakes one by one. The Wati, frustrated, murmured among themselves and, at dawn, exclaimed:

—”It’s getting dark, we’re leaving.”

With the sunrise, the Wati They disappeared, leaving the man exhausted but alive.

The man staggered to his relatives’ house, his body soaked and his face marked by fatigue. He could barely utter a word:

—The Orans…

He then fell into a deep sleep that lasted the entire next day. Meanwhile, the others, alarmed by his condition, organized an expedition to search for the missing ones: his sister, father-in-law and brother-in-law.

What they found was a chilling sight. All three had been killed and their bodies placed in a grotesque position, with spears holding their chins as if they were sitting, motionless and alive. To add to the horror, their corpses had been covered with nettles, intensifying the cruelty of the scene. The survivors collected the bodies, took them back to the house and, following tradition, buried them under the floor of the maloca.

This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Sequoias could no longer live in peace with the terror generated by their ruthless neighbors. The three great shamans met again to decide how to end the war once and for all.  To do this, they had to destroy the Waorani’s most effective defense, their old shaman. “It is impossible,” said the youngest, and inexperienced one, “The power of the shamans, as well as that of their auxiliary jaguars, has a limit: we cannot defeat and devour the Waorani shamans, due to the rauë that their bodies emanate.” The young shaman was referring to a substance that was like a fire that protected shamans from attacks by other shamans turned into jaguars. The oldest and wisest among them said he knew a way to avoid this fire, but it was very dangerous. It was necessary to call a male jaguar from the underworld called yái uí Wati, which is two-headed and has another smaller jaguar attached to its back. 

With no other alternatives, the shamans decided to take the risk and call this dangerous creature from the underworld to come to their aid. After taking ayahuasca, that horrendous creature appeared. The powerful trio of shamans managed to convince this spirit to head towards the enemy village. Once there the two-headed jaguar went in search of the Waorani shaman. Everyone came out scared to meet him. Not even the bravest of the Waorani dared to face him. Once it arrived in front of the old Waorani shaman, the beast roared in such a way that it deafened the shaman and left him motionless. Afterwards, he rubbed the old man’s body with leaves to extract his magical substance, and proceeded to devour him.

The next morning, the entire Waorani people left those lands, heading west. They walked days and nights with their hearts oppressed by defeat. Finally they settled between the Napo and Aguarico rivers, where they live today. But such events did not dampen their ferocity and to this day they are recognized as a warrior people, feared by many. Many of them remain in voluntary isolation, rejecting invaders or visitors who dare to pass by.

This story is based on a research work entitled “shaman defenders and ancient wars according to the Sequoia  perspective (Western Tucano, Upper Amazon, Peru and Ecuador)” where the Argentine anthropologist María Susana Cipolletti collects various testimonies from descendants of the Sequoia s, mainly the by Fernando Payaguaje, who emigrated from Peru to Ecuador as a young man in 1942, after the Peruvian-Ecuadorian war.

References

Cipolletti, M. S. (2017). Shamanes defensores y antiguas guerras según la perspectiva secoya (Tucano occidental, Alto Amazonas, Perú y Ecuador). Anthropos, 112(2), 429-442.

https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/0257-9774-2017-2-429.pdf

Daniel Osorio

Daniel Osorio holds a BA in Social Communication with a mention in Communication for Humanistic Development (Universidad de Los Andes, 2005). Film and TV director and screenwriter. Specialist in Digital Marketing (SEO, SEM, Adwords, Adsense). General Manager (CEO) at DMT Agency. He is the founding editor of the portal delamazonas.com among others.