Give Me A Name, Give Me A God, Give Me A Land: The Waorani´S History of Contact and Evangelism

For generations, the Waorani people were known as the "Aucas," a term used to designate their family groups. However, in September 1955, missionaries from the Summer Linguistic Institute-Wycliffe Books Translators (SLI-WBT) and Fellowship-Christian Mission in Many Lands (FAM) were hired by the Ecuadorian government to evangelize, pacify, and civilize these indigenous groups. This marked the beginning of the so-called Auca's operation, aimed at contacting and evangelizing a clan of Waorani near the Curaray River settlement. Employing strategies such as dropping steel objects from airplanes as gifts, the missionaries sought to build trust with the Waorani. This paper utilizes extensive ethnographic data and the lens of orientalism to explore how colonialism transformed the mindset and ethos of the Waorani people. It examines the cultural changes resulting not only from physical domination but also from the colonization of the mind, which reshaped their perception of places, people, and history. By analyzing the hegemonic construction of the other, it seeks to elucidate the impact on modern Waorani identity in the Ecuadorian rainforest.