You also write of Connie, an American woman who encouraged you to listen to your people’s stories and write them down. Now you’ve written yours for the world to read, and haven’t shied away from difficult topics, including sexual abuse. Why is it important for women to share their experiences?
Writing my story—and of my journey meeting other women—was a form of therapy. It was healing, and in the end I felt free. It was as if I took flight. I said, “I’m a new Nemonte.” I overcame everything and put it all aside. I [started to] feel very strong and inspired to uplift other women—not just Indigenous women, but all women.
We must have the courage to share our pain in order to free ourselves. That’s my message to other women all over the world. I believe that women are really suffering from intergenerational trauma. We have to break our silence so that we can help other women heal.
The court’s ruling in your landmark victory against the Ecuadorian government in 2019 indefinitely suspended the auctioning of your territory for oil extraction. What have you learned from your female pikenanis, the elder Waorani women and leaders who sat in the courtroom with you as co-plaintiffs during the hearing?
I learned a lot from their wisdom, hope, and confidence. My pikenanis saw the land as our ancestral territory, where the Waorani people have existed for thousands of years, and what the government is now saying is a wasteland. My pikenanis said: They’re only thinking about resources, oil, mining, and deforestation. They are wrong. Our ancestors have existed for thousands of years before civilization and now we will continue to exist. We are jaguars who surround, protect, and live in a forest teeming with life and giving life to the world.
I was responsible for bringing hundreds of people into the city and organizing other Indigenous communities, and it was my pikenanis’ first time outside of the territory. When I told one of them that I felt stressed as we entered the courtroom, she took my hand, sat down calmly, and said, “Nemo, don’t be afraid. We are going to win.” Then, when the court didn’t want to listen, she said, “We’re going to sing. Let’s stand up and sing!” We sang loudly without stopping for 25 minutes. The judges and lawyers didn’t know how to react. We weren’t afraid, we didn’t believe that we were going to lose, or that their laws were more important than us. We were confident that they must respect us, listen to us, [and understand] it’s our home, period.
As the first woman elected leader of the Waorani of Pastaza, what’s your approach to influencing positive change in your communities?
In my culture, before the conquest of the modern world, women were for peace and harmony and made the decisions, not men. The goal of my leadership is to unite women. As a team we work together to raise the voices of the grandmothers, the youth, and the children, with women at the forefront. Even if a giant monster arrives, we can face it together. Only when united can we stop the threats [to the Amazon].
