Better info available about tribe

To the editor;

In response to the story "Wayne Co. native takes part in film on Ecuador tribe": I think your article is outrageous. Two things need to be addressed about it. First, the "Woadoni" are the Huaorani (WAH-oh-RAH-nee), which means "the people" in their language. Second, the Huaorani indeed killed Nate Saints and his party, not because they were bloodthirsty, but because their warning to stay outside their territories was not respected.

What came next was the colonization and brainwashing process led by Nate's sister, Rachel Saints, a pure act of revenge and genocide. Her works facilitated the acculturation of the Huaorani people, and their inability to resist to the imposition of the oil industry was the nail in the coffin for these people.

The presence of evangelical missionaries, in the eyes of many ethnographers, is the worst thing that has happened to the Huaorani since the Spanish conquistadors. Not being enough, someone has to come up with some sensationalistic movie where American missionaries (for a change) are presented as victims and heroes, victims of nothing but their own ignorance and arrogance, and heroes for no one but their own fellowmen.

Read the book about the Huaorani called "Savages" by Joe Kane. There are about 100 other publications on the life and history of this tribe that should be consulted to find out the right information.

PAOLA CARRERA, Corvallis, Ore.