Penti’s message to the world

Penti, Chief of the Waorani village of Bameno, has a message for the outside world.

He says:

"We want our children and the children of all Waorani to never forget how our ancestor’s lived. That they remember each day their chants of war, chants of love and their chants of life. That even though we live close to the cowode (white people) we don’t forget how to use our spears and blowpipes, and that we save our forest and our territory that gives us life and food. It is true that there are changes in our young people, but that they also listen to the Waorani histories in our proper language. That’s important. We would like that the Government of Ecuador respect our culture and our territory; therefore we fight each day of our lives. We would like to live like Waorani.

From outside they destroy our homeland. We lost much of our land but with the strength and knowledge of our ancestors we fight to keep our territory. Before, our warriors defended the Waorani territory with spears. Today we learned the language of the white men and we know that we have rights that we have to make sure that they are respected.

Three things are important to us: Territory, language and culture. And this has to be respected."