7 April 2011Last updated at 00:02

In pictures: The life of the Huaorani in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest

The Huaorani have only had contact with outsiders in the last century. They are known to have killed oil workers in the 1940s, when Shell Oil had a station on their territory. Many Huaorani were relocated in the 1970s to make way for oil exploration. All photos by Keith Morris. (Some contain images of nudity)

Huaorani people performing a welcome song

The Huaorani shaman Kemperi (middle) and some relatives greet visitors with welcoming dances and songs. His nephew Penti (L) wears jaguar teeth on his necklace.

One Huaorani woman grooming the hair of another

The Huaorani usually wear Western-style clothes like the woman on the right, but many choose traditional clothes and adornments to receive guests.

This Blue and Gold Macaw managed to steal a piece of croissant from one of the BBC team members. The Yasuni region where this Huaorani community lives, is one of the most bio-diverse places on the planet.

The Huaorani leaders and their wives and relatives sheltering under a sacred kapok tree

The Huaorani like to visit this kapok tree. Kapoks are "emergent" - they are so tall they grow beyond the rainforest canopy - and they are sacred to the Huaorani. The trees also supply materials for the blowpipes the Huaorani use to hunt.

Two Huaorani men display a blowpipe against a tall tree

The blowpipes are 4m long and weigh 10-15kg. It takes Huaorani men a whole week to make one. The poison, which paralyses prey such as monkeys, is made by boiling the curare vine into a pitch-like substance. The toxic secretions of poison dart frogs are also used.

Huaorani people waving off a departing single engine plane

The single engine plane that brought the BBC crew leaves to return to town with Huaorani passengers on board. No plane journey is wasted. Their village, Bameno, on the Cononaco river, is more than an hour's flight from the nearest town, Shell.

Huaorani women with traditional red dye around their eyes and temples

The oil companies - "las petroleras" - are one of the biggest challenges faced by the Huaorani. Daborto (L), Penti's wife, feels she can no longer grow food along the river due to the contamination that comes downstream.

Ecuador is the fifth largest oil exporter in South America and the Huaorani's ancestral land holds large oil reserves.

But they have no rights to the oil and mineral deposits beneath the soil of their territory - or to the wealth that mining those deposits would bring.

Penti Baihua (R), the nephew of the shaman Kemperi (L), is the only adult in the village who speaks fluent Spanish. He has travelled to the UN as an advocate for his people. You can find out more about the Huaorani and Ecuador's oil on Thursday 7 April: first in Crossing Continents on BBC Radio 4 at 1100 BST and later on Newsnight on BBC Two at 2230 BST. You can also get those programmes on the BBC iPlayer.

World

In pictures: The life of the Huaorani in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest

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