Outside civilisation also brought pollution. There was no protection for the Waorani against sewage from upstream colonists or oil spillage that caused serious and toxic contamination of water supplies. As if that was not enough, an extensive mining programme was proposed to extract gold, uranium, vanadium, lead, zinc, copper, gypsum, clay, sulphur, bentonite and phosphate. Although the Ecuadorian government ceded legal right to the Waorani for some of their ancestral lands, a total disregard of law and an all-pervading corruption erode the borders of even that concession.

Oil installation, Waorani territory, Ecuador, 1993

Dayuma, and a Waorani called Moi, made separate trips to Washington as representatives of the Waorani people, paid for by a team of lawyers from the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, to file petitions on Human Rights. It was a response to the untreated toxic waste products being dumped daily into the natural water drainage in Waorani territory. Their journeys had begun deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon and ended in Washington DC.. Travelling on foot, canoe, bus, train and aeroplane, they had crossed centuries. Tucked into Moi's hand woven palm string bag he had brought from home were his passport, toothbrush, bird feather head dress, and a letter addressed to the President of the United States of America. The letter invited the President to visit the Waorani, to explain to them why the outside world was trying to destroy them. His, and Dayuma's efforts, were in vain. They had hoped, as representatives of their people, to be received by the President, but the closest they came to meeting Bill Clinton was a cardboard effigy that a Polaroid photographer had placed for tourists outside the gates of the White House

Texaco oil installation, rio Cononaco, Ecuador, 2002

By 1995, encroachment on to Waorani lands was out of control. The networks of roads had grown, opening up some seven million hectares of Waorani territory to speculators and colonists. As well as roads, thousands of hectares of forest had been cut and numerous helicopter landing sites prepared. At hundred metre intervals, explosives had been detonated to generate sound waves for seismic analysis, before drilling started. Once the wells were established, contamination from waste products was constant, and discharged onto surrounding land or open pits, from where it found its way into streams. Many streams could no longer support life, but indigenous people had no choice but to use this water for drinking and cooking.

The Waorani, like many indigenous peoples, proved to be easy to exploit. With fundamentally very different attitudes to us they have no concept of land ownership, although they have always had a strong sense of private ownership of goods. Their economic system is one of generalised reciprocity - they have never had the need for a monetary system, since the forest has always provided their basic needs and they do not exploit it for money; and, as an egalitarian society, there are no political leaders; family groups function independently. Outsiders use obvious methods to make indigenous peoples more amenable to land exploitation: gifts are offered, but they are conditional; creating dependency and community destabilisation. They are told that they are backward, that they must change, and embrace the more dominant culture. The results of this are displacement, poverty, declining health, deterioration of community life and devaluation of traditional culture. As the younger Waorani struggle to come to terms with a new and difficult way of life, Caempaede and the other elders are the only direct link with the old ways.

Waorani Indian boy, rio Cononaco, Ecuador, 1993