Author: Lena Smith
Occidental students, faculty and guests got a taste of the Amazon on Sept. 25 when the college hosted Moi Enomenga, the elected leader of the indigenous Huaorani tribe of Ecuador. Enomenga participated in a presentation in Johnson Hall that consisted of pictures and videos of the Huaorani. Afterward he displayed Huaorani crafts and weapons at a reception in Dumke Common.
Enomenga, 48, has worked since he was about 19 years old to protect his people’s rights to their land and culture. He was born just when missionaries made their first successful contact with the Huaorani and as a result, Enomenga grew up speaking both the Huaorani language and Spanish.
With his Spanish fluence, Enomenga was able to get a job as a teenager with an oil company that was drilling in the Amazon. Upon seeing the company commit acts like dumping oil on the roads, he became determined to unify the historically warring clans of the Huaorani. Due to his diplomatic efforts, they now work together to protect their portion of the Amazon against oil companies and loggers.
Scott Braman, a documentary filmmaker who acted as both a spokesman and interpreter for Enomenga, led the presentation and interpreted Enomenga’s responses to the audience’s questions. He met Enomenga in 2003 while making a documentary on ecotourism in the Amazon through his Fulbright Scholarship. Braman still makes trips to the Huaorani territory and documents the lifestyle of its indigenous tribe.
“Being out there is a lot of fun. The people are really wonderful,” Braman said.
Enomenga’s visit was part of a trip to the United States during which he appealed to the United Nations to protect the Amazonian groups that have still never been contacted by Western civilization. Their land has been in jeopardy since Ecuador cancelled a program that requested funding from other countries to keep the Amazon’s rich resources, trees and oil from being tapped. Diplomacy and World Affairs (DWA) Professor Sherry Simpson-Dean finds the situation worthy of discussion at Occidental.
“It pulls you apart in terms of your values,” Simpson-Dean said.
Enomenga came to Occidental through the combined efforts of the Model UN Club, the DWA Majors Association (DWAMA) and the John Parke Young Initiative on the Global Political Economy. He is part of a series of speakers sponsored by the Young Initiative who will present diplomatic issues that complement classroom studies.
Over 100 attendees of the two-hour presentation and discussion nearly filled the Choi Auditorium in Johnson Hall. A large number were DWA majors, but there were also students and professors from a range of departments as well as guests from the local community. Students found it invigorating to hear first-hand about issues that they typically only see in textbooks.
“Sometimes when you’re studying in the library it’s easy to feel like what we study so much only exists on that paper. This is such a great way of showing that these things are really real,” DWA major and DWAMA Co-president Jennifer Miller (junior) said.
At the presentation, Enomenga answered questions about his culture, life and political work, directly engaging with audience members who asked questions in Spanish. He responded to each at such length that Braman interrupted multiple times to interpret. Some of the questions inquired into how many Huaorani choose to work for the oil companies, the style of the Huaorani government and whether they are subject to Ecuador’s national laws.
In response, Enomenga explained that there are some, but not many, Huaorani who work for the oil companies and the tribe has never been forced to follow Ecuadorian law. The Huaorani have so far been successful at keeping their culture and laws distinct from the more Westernized government of Ecuador. Until missionaries contacted them in the 1940s, they were among the shrinking number of tribes still unaware of western civilization.
At the reception, Enomenga gave a demonstration with the dart blower that he brought from the Amazon. After loading the weapon with a dart, he raised it to his mouth and shot into the fabric back of a chair. The mud-colored dart protruded incongruously from the tidy, blue chair. Enomenga then offered the dart blower to those in the room who wanted to try it, including Simpson-Dean. The reception ended with Enomenga taking pictures with everyone.
Sophomore Daniel Calzadillas, a fluent Spanish speaker, offered a comment that Enomenga made about his experience at Occidental.
“[Enomenga] said he could tell the students are engaged and interested in this sort of politics,” Calzadillas said.
DWAMA and Model UN Club plan on staying in contact with Enomenga through Braman, who lives near Occidental. They are currently working on providing the Huaorani with new radios, which are their major method of communication between villages.
“We’re going to have a long-standing relationship with the Huaorani. There’s a big chance of sending students to Ecuador,” DWA and economics double major and Model UN President Emily Linebarger (sophomore) said.
Enomenga hopes Occidental students will learn more about the Huaorani and encourages students to visit their land in Ecuador.
“We’re hoping for engagement with the community. We want to students to learn about our lives, culture and experiences,” Enomenga said.
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