Waorani - Settlements

Waorani traditionally settled on hilltops above small feeder streams in the hinterland, consciously avoiding the flood-plains of the major rivers where Zaparoans lived and traders traveled. A settlement typically included one or two thatched longhouses occupied by an older married man, his wives, their unmarried sons, and their married daughters, sons-in-law, and grandchildren. At times a brother of the senior male would live in the house, along with his wives and children. When the household became too large, usually over thirty people, one brother would build his house nearby, typically within an hour's walk. These neighborhood clusters of closely related kin provided mutual assistance and defense. Two or three days' walk from one neighborhood cluster were other neighborhood clusters of Waorani who were more distantly related and hostile. In 1958 there were four major groups of Waorani, each hostile to the other, living in small neighborhood clusters dispersed over 20,000 square kilometers. With the disappearance of the Zaparoans from the floodplains, the cessation of hostilities with the outside world (around 1900) and of internal revenge killings, and the influence of new ideas from surrounding cultures, Waorani began settling along the floodplains in the late 1970s and switched from extended-family longhouses to nuclear-family dwellings, although the smaller dwellings still tend to be built in tight clusters of extended families.