Nemonte is a Waorani woman. See bio below from: Amazon Frontlines
"Nemonte Nenquimo is a Waorani woman, mother, and climate leader, who has dedicated her life to the defense of Indigenous ancestral territory and cultural survival in the Amazon rainforest. She is the co-founder of Ceibo Alliance and Amazon Frontlines, and has won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize."
When I was a kid growing up in an enclave of evangelicalism, some of our heroes were Jim and Elisabeth Elliot. Jim Elliot and Nate Saint were killed in an attempt to evangelize indigenous people in Ecuador (the Waorani people then known as "Auca.") Elisabeth Elliot and Nate Saint's sister Rachel (featured in this memoir) returned to the area to try to establish influence with the Waorani.
Although I believe that the evangelizers were trying their best to follow an ideology that they had persuaded themselves to believe and were themselves a victim of (I understand I was there), it's heartbreaking to read firsthand about how such doctrines negatively impacted others and how the Waorani people were abused and manipulated by people who hoped to "save them" or exploit the resources on their lands.
Nemonte emerges from oppression and seeks to integrate her own cultural identity with the one that has been imposed on her by outside forces. She is broken by abuse at the hand of "missionaries" and by the messages that she had deeply internalized that would lead her to believe that she and her people were "less than." As the story continues, she discovers healing and succeeds in forging a new life that embraces progress while maintaining an allegiance to deep cultural values and practices.
The reader is taken on a quest with Nemonte who finds her voice, her unique role as a unifier of her people, activist, dreamer, partner, and mother. She reclaims the beauty of her heritage and unites her family and the greater community to defend their lands against those that would seek to harvest and destroy.
On a personal level, as someone who has recently emerged from religion and cast aside doctrines that I had long found distasteful but now openly disbelieve, I found myself identifying with certain parts of her story when as a child, she continually prayed to God "the white man's God" hoping for some kind of supernatural experience that never happened. What she did experience were dreams, visions, and symbolic messages linked to her heritage that served as guides. You can call this god or not, I'm not sure what it is, but to me, it solidifies my position that there are many different ways of tuning into the mystical. The minute that one person claims that one way is superior to another, or that the experience that they have had is somehow something that everyone needs to have, is where I walk away. I'm more than saturated with that attitude.
As strange as it may be for some, the deep indoctrination that all other mystical experiences (outside of a certain Christian one) should be viewed with skepticism and mistrust and are likely demonic, is hard to shed. I really enjoy being able to read, watch, listen to the stories and art of others without the fear of being "tainted" or worse falling under the influence of the devil.
Thank you Nemonte for being courageous and sharing this fascinating story.
