Amazingly, even amid the turbulent way of life led by the Waorani, the underlying culture of the tribe maintained strong social ties: an egalitarian society with no concept of competition or rank, where children had nearly the same status as adults. And there was greater equality between the sexes than within Western culture between men and women, even if there were separate roles; while men hunted, women planted the gardens and prepared the food. They even used stone axes, treasured objects and fiercely protected, found, remarkably, as archeological artifacts in the forest, discarded by other peoples from another time. Living as semi-nomadic hunter gardeners, and because of the violence, they needed to roam a huge area in order to survive.

They traditionally lived in small groups of thirty to forty people, remaining in any one place for only a few months, during which time they hunted, prepared gardens for growing manioc, and took note of the whereabouts of trees, vines, and other plants essential to their lifestyle. While they harvested one garden, they simultaneously planted another next to it. Once hunting in the area became less successful, they burned the house and moved on, repeating the process at a new location, and returning in time to harvest the gardens when the manioc was ready. It was a cycle of life that was in equilibrium with their forest home, but they were continually on the move, and that's why they needed so much space.

Traditionally, the Waorani had no form of writing; no reason to count beyond ten; and are one of those rare groups to be classified as linguistic isolates - people whose language bears no resemblance to any other in the world. Their ethnic origins are obscure: no one knows how large their population may once have been. Their environment offers almost insurmountable difficulties for archaeological research, since their day to day material needs were mainly of plant origin and are therefore ephemeral.