Joe Kane

Savages

They are joyful in a way that is complete and without self-consciousness. You and I are condemned to live our joy knowing in each moment of that joy that it must end, but in the moment when the Huaorani experience joy it lasts forever.

When the Huaorani kill, there is a spiritual discipline to it. Americans kill without knowing they are doing it. You don't want to know you are doing it. And yet you are going to destroy an entire way of life. So you tell me: Who are the savages?

Dusk turned to night, and as we approached our hotel Moi stopped beneath a streetlamp. He pointed to the street. 'More people, more cars, more petroleum, more chaos,' he said. Then he pointed straight up at the light. 'But there are the Huaorani, all alone in the middle of the world.

The company planned to extract more than 200 million barrels of raw crude from Huaorani territory, and in its quest to exploit that oil, it had revealed itself to be an enemy far more powerful than the Huaorani had ever known: an enemy that, as Moi saw it, killed by destroying the source of all life, the forest itself.