Nemonte Nenquimo with Mitch Anderson
Wildfire (UK, on sale) (US, 17 September, as We Will Be Jaguars)
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES rarely appear in 91av‘s culture pages. This one, however, isn’t just unusual, it is ground-breaking: the first book of its kind to be written by a member of the Waorani people, an Indigenous Amazonian group. Humans have been recording their life stories for over four millennia, so it is about time we heard from people like Nemonte Nenquimo. What she has experienced, while still only in her 30s, is astonishing.
Nenquimo is famous for her work as an environmental activist. It won her a place on list of the 100 most influential people of 2020. That is a colossal achievement, but her book, We Will Not Be Saved: A memoir of hope and resistance in the Amazon rainforest, reveals her to be impressive in many ways, including in her ability to spin a good yarn.
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The book (written with husband Mitch Anderson) is beautiful and gripping. It reads like a novel, but is really a fascinating work of cultural anthropology, told from the inside. Nenquimo is a force of nature, and her story encompasses the best and worst of humanity – from power politics and deadly tribalism to collectivism and ingenuity.
It starts when she is 6 years old, living in the Pastaza region of the Ecuadorian Amazon, with her family (part of the Waorani nation) and a menagerie of animals. A US missionary – the improbably named Rachel Saint – has turned up and is attempting to force her worldview on the villagers.
An inquisitive, intelligent child, Nenquimo is keen to explore what the “Land of Rachel” has to offer. Suffice to say, it doesn’t go well. Dentistry, with chisel, hammer and pliers, is excruciating. Her fascination with lipstick is severely punished. And, when she runs away to join a mission, aged 14, she is repeatedly sexually assaulted.
Meanwhile, missionaries aren’t just after the souls of Indigenous people, they also want their land. And not far from Waorani territory, Big Oil has made inroads (literally) into the jungle, throwing up shanty towns, replacing lush forest with parched pasture, poisoning rivers and polluting the soundscape with the thrum of drilling. The result is an almighty culture clash.
One small but telling example is how incomers co-opt the local word auca to name their hotels and roads – and that Saint uses it to refer to the villagers. “Auca is actually the word the Kichwa [community] use for the Waorani,” writes Nenquimo. “It means savages.”
Eventually, pushed beyond endurance, Nenquimo leaves the mission. It takes her seven years to recover from the ordeal: “I had dispensed with their white dresses and their prayers but not the stains on my spirit, not the shame, not the pain.” Her real crusade begins. As a child, she was told missionaries had come to save the Waorani. Now, reconnecting with her culture, her family and the forest, she realises that Indigenous peoples must save themselves – and they can only do so by working together.
Given the recognition Nenquimo has received, it is no spoiler to say her environmental leadership has had remarkable success. We Will Not Be Saved details her co-founding of the , a coalition of Indigenous Amazonian communities, and how, in April 2019, it against the Ecuadorian government to protect half a million hectares of rainforest from oil exploration and drilling.
Nemonte means “many stars” and the name is apt. She shines brightly. Her experience is testament to the power of curiosity and an indomitable spirit, and the way she and the Waorani see the world is inspiring. To be immersed in Nenquimo’s story is a privilege – even if it can make uncomfortable reading for Westerners.
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