Operation Auca

The Waorani, also known pejoratively as Aucas (a modification of awqa, the Quechua word for 'savages'), were an isolated tribe known for their violence, against both their own people and outsiders who entered their territory.

After several months of exchanging gifts, on January 3, 1956, the missionaries established a camp at "Palm Beach", a sandbar along the Curaray River, a few kilometers from Waorani settlements.

Their efforts came to an end on January 8, 1956, when all five—Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Peter Fleming, and Roger Youderian—were attacked and speared by a group of Waorani warriors.

Several years after the death of the men, the widow of Jim Elliot, Elisabeth, and the sister of Nate Saint, Rachel, returned to Ecuador as missionaries with the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now SIL International) to live among the Waorani.

The Waorani around the time of Operation Auca were a small tribe occupying the jungle of Eastern Ecuador between the Napo and Curaray Rivers, an area of approximately 20,000 square kilometers (7,700 mi2).

Viewing all cowodi as cannibalistic predators, they killed rubber tappers around the turn of the 20th century and Shell Oil Company employees during the 1940s, in addition to any lowland Quechua or other outsiders who encroached on their land.

Attempts to build truces through gifts and exchange of spouses became more frequent as their numbers decreased and the tribes fragmented, but the cycle of violence continued.

He began corresponding with his friend Pete Fleming about his desire to minister in Ecuador, and in 1952 the two men set sail for Guayaquil as missionaries with the Plymouth Brethren.

There they worked under the supervision of a Christian Missions in Many Lands[6] missionary, Wilfred Tidmarsh, and began exposing themselves to the culture and studying the Quechua language.

Following graduation, he married Marilou Hobolth and enrolled in a one-year basic medical treatment program at the School of Missionary Medicine in Los Angeles.

On December 10, 1952, McCully moved to Quito with his family as a Plymouth Brethren missionary, planning to soon join Elliot and Fleming in Shandia.

[5][8] The team's pilot, Nate Saint, had served in the military during World War II, receiving flight training as a member of the Army Air Corps.

He worked with Nate Saint to provide important medical supplies; but after a period of attempting to build relationships with them, he failed to see any positive effect and, growing depressed, considered returning to the United States.

Saint, McCully, Elliot, and fellow missionary Johnny Keenan decided to initiate contact with the Waorani and began periodically searching for them by air.

Saint soon identified a 200-yard (200 m) sandbar along the Curaray River about 4.5 miles (7 km) from Terminal City that could serve as a runway and camp site, and dubbed it "Palm Beach".

[21] After seeing Nankiwi in the plane, a small group of Waorani decided to make the trip to Palm Beach, and left the following morning, January 7.

The girl's brother, Nampa, was furious at this, and to defuse the situation and divert attention from himself, Nankiwi claimed that the foreigners had attacked them on the beach, and in their haste to flee, they had been separated from their chaperone.

He excitedly relayed this information to his wife over the radio at 12:30 p.m., promising to make contact again at 4:30 p.m.[22] The Waorani arrived at Palm Beach around 3:00 p.m., and in order to divide the foreigners before attacking them, they sent three women to the other side of the river.

[24] The next morning, January 9, Johnny Keenan flew to the camp site, and at 9:30 a.m. he reported via radio to the wives that the plane was stripped of its fabric, and that the men were not there.

Soon, aircraft from the United States Air Rescue Service in Panama were flying over the jungle, and a ground search party consisting of missionaries and military personnel was organized.

[29][30] A follow-up photo essay by Capa about four of the five widows who stayed in Ecuador to continue with their deceased husbands' missionary work appeared sixteen months later in the May 20, 1957 issue of the same publication.

The two also appeared in a Billy Graham crusade in New York City, contributing to Saint's increasing popularity among evangelical Christians and generating significant monetary donations for SIL.

The settlement relied on aid from SIL, and as a Christian community, followed rules foreign to Waorani culture like prohibitions on killing and polygamy.

By the early 1970s, SIL began to question whether their impact on the Waorani was positive, so they sent James Yost, a staff anthropologist, to assess the situation.

He found extensive economic dependence and increasing cultural assimilation, and as a result, SIL ended its support of the settlement in 1976, leading to its disintegration and the dispersion of the Waorani into the surrounding area.

SIL had hoped that the Waorani would return to the isolation in which they had lived twenty years prior, but instead they sought out contact with the outside world, forming villages of which many have been recognized by the Ecuadorian government.

Even so, Christians have noted with concern the disintegration of traditional Waorani culture and westernization of the tribe, beginning with Nate Saint's own journal entry in 1955 and continuing through today.

[40] Others are somewhat less negative—Brysk, after noting that the work of the missionaries opened the area to outside intervention and led to the deterioration of the culture, says that the SIL also informed the Waorani of their legal rights and taught them how to protect their interests from developers.