The saga of the Waorani has not ended. The great River Curaray, which bathes its lands in the Ecuadorian Amazon, feeds its people, transports its canoes, and conceals its history, then follows its winding course all the way to the sea, so that those who have died and were left on its beaches may rise up as story teller for us who remain. “Gentle Savage” is a tribute to the oral traditions of a people who did not know how to forgive, but along their pathway learned to do so. This remarkable narration is a rustic song that emerges out of indigenous culture with all the voices of liberty that our own moral censure does not know how to fully appreciate. But here it is, the work of Menkaye Ænkædi, with Kemo and Dyowe, sculpted with the almost indigenous talent of the “Moipa of Peace”, who for our providential good fortune brings back to life the sleeping voices of a people known as the Waorani—strong, fearless, resilient, and enduring.
— Cleiton Oliveira
Cleiton Oliveira is a Brazilian sociologist/missionary serving with Harvest Foundation, and works with the indigenous populace in the areas bordering Brazil, Peru, Columbia, and Paraguay, offering mediation services between those urban and indigenous communities and their governments.
Timo Paulson’s translation of Menkaye’s narrative opens up for the reader the mind (and heart) of a nomadic hunter-gatherer living in a stone-age culture in the Amazon rainforest. As disturbing as this perspective might be to the western mindset, one can easily recognize the fundamental questions that we all must answer: What is right, and what is wrong? Who am I, and what does the Man Maker want with me?”
— Brad Quist, MD (Nantue)
Doctor to the Waorani
