About this project

They venerate the jaguar, and believe they are children of Nweke (thunder). They call themselves the bravest people in the rainforest. Only five or six decades ago, Huaorani used stone axes and lived as nomadic hunters and gatherers. Now life is changing fast. 

Some Huaorani still continue as they have for a millennia, existing in supreme harmony with nature, hunting with blowguns and spears. I am creating a documentary photobook about these beautiful people and their lives in the rainforest, before their remarkable traditional life is lost. It’s about one of the last remaining tribal people living unchanged in a changing world.

Check out the video above to see some of the photos, there are nearly 100. Below are a couple short excerpts from the story:

Kickstarter is a way to share your story with backers and make them a part of the process. It is not a donations platform. In my case, you will be purchasing a book, archival photographs and the other things listed.

"As my ancestors lived, so also will I live! As my ancestors died, so also will I die! Waaponi, Waaponi, Huaorani Waaponi!” Chief Kemperi

'I crash through the Amazonian underbrush as a tangled vine grabs my foot, and I plunge tumbling into a fetid, green, swampy pool. A naked four and a half foot native runs by, nearly crowning me as I duck below his ten-foot blowgun. Spitting mud, I get up and dash headlong after him. The woolly monkey we are chasing races one hundred and fifty feet above us through the dark canopy, allowing only brief glimpses as he leaps from tree to tree. When I catch up with the hunter, he is drawing a nineteen-inch poison-tipped dart from the quiver hanging around his neck. He cuts a notch near its point with a row of razor sharp piranha teeth, and then spins a short length of fluffy white fiber circling the dart’s base as he fits it into his blowgun. All the while his eyes fix intently on one point high in the treetops. I scan the foliage, but I am unable to spot any glimpse of his prey. The hunter positions the blowgun on his lips, and I follow the aim of the blowpipe. Lining up countless tiny openings through the myriad layers of vegetation, I notice a tiny, barely perceptible, dark patch of movement in the loftiest branches. Surely, I think, a shot now would be futile. Firing through that array of minute gaps would be like directing an arrow up ten stories, through a multitude of three-inch openings in each floor. He fills his lungs, and throwing his body forward, gives the blowgun a great blast of air and makes a hit...'

“The world outside the forest has a great opportunity to gain priceless information from these wise and knowledgeable people before it is lost forever. They possess a vast library of invaluable data, awareness and perception of the rainforest that we cannot afford to lose. But, life is changing fast for the Huaorani. Now many of the young wear shorts and t-shirts and long for western radios and whisky. For the traditional Huaorani, between this world and the next stretches the Great “Obe” (anaconda). To reach the “the next place”, one must jump over the Great Obe into paradise, a forest of peace and good hunting. If you live your life correctly as a great warrior hunter, charitable and helpful to your neighbor, you can jump over and meet all the worthy Huaorani in the next life. Huaorani elders are trying to keep their traditions alive, but some tribe members are interested in what the western world can offer. I overheard a conversation Kemperi had with his grandson, who had just come back from working in an oil camp wearing sunglasses, shorts and a t-shirt. "I will jump over the Great “Obe” into paradise,” Kemperi said “but you will never. You will come back as a termite!...'