Book Extract | We Will Not Be Saved by Nemonte Nenquimo & Mitch Anderson

Book Extract
Excerpted with permission from the publishers We Will Not Be Saved Nemonte Nenquimo & Mitch Anderson, published by Headline Publishing Group/ Hachette India ***

I knew that my dad was not pleased that Rachel had allowed the company into our old lands, the faraway lands where he was born. He worried most of all about the uncontacted.

“How can our relatives live in the forest if the company builds roads and cuts down trees and digs holes into the earth?” my father asked.

Mom stirred the pots and fried the meat and did not reply.

“And us too,” he continued. “How can we live here if there are no animals left to hunt?”

“Rachel says the company will give us food,” Mom said.

Dad shook his head. “We don’t eat the company kind of food.”

Mom was silent. We all knew that some people did eat that kind of food. If they were offered chicken and rice, a few villagers were pleased to take it so that they did not have to go out hunting.

“We don’t eat cowori food,” Dad repeated as if Mom had argued with him.But that was not the end of the conversation. At night, I woke up and heard them speaking softly by the fire. They were talking about leaving the village.

“I don’t want to walk so far from the village to hunt peccary,” Dad was saying. “There are many animals downriver.”I soon understood that he wanted to leave Toñampare and she did not.

I expected her resistance to be still and silent, or perhaps angry, but instead she simply said: “I am not dreaming well.” “Ao,” murmured Dad.

“My dreams are filled with snakes. That means the people are talking too much. There is gossip and envy in the village. Did you know they are stealing from our gardens?”

“We should go soon and make our own village downriver,” Dad said. Mom was whispering and yet I could hear her as clearly as if she was whispering in my ear. “There will be no school.”

“Our kids will do better without school. They can learn from us about the forest.” There was a long silence. “We should go,” Dad said again.

At last Mom spoke: “It is not time yet.” I knew then that we were certainly leaving Toñampare, although I did not know when. And there were rumors about another departure. People said Rachel was going away for a while. Some thought she was going off to live with the oil company. A few whispered that she was sick and that she was thinking of going away to get better, that Dayuma had offered her all the plant medicine the forest had to offer and Rachel had said no to this. But time passed and Rachel stayed, so maybe the rumors were just gossip.

And then something happened.

That day did not start well. When I woke up, I found that a rat had sneaked into the oko and eaten its way through the liana we used to make hanging bird cages. It had eaten the heads off all my baby birds. There were just feathers and intestines left.

“I’ll find you some more birds,” Dad said when I could not stop crying. “I hate those rats,” I sobbed.

“There never were rats until the cowori came in their planes. They cleared runways and brought in grass seeds on the soles of their feet and the wheels of the planes. And once we had long grass, we had rats.” Dad blew on his chicha before taking a huge gulp of it. “They love cowori food. Rice, sugar, pasta, candy. It’s food for the rats.”

Dad was born before any of that food came to the forest. Before there were any churches or missionaries. Before clothes, before blankets. When everyone had been the uncontacted, not just the Taromenane and the Tagëiri

Mom was outside, preparing to go to one of our gardens in the forest.

She had been so irritated by my persistent sobbing that she had threatened to beat me with a stinging nettle. But I could not stop crying as I stooped to pick up the black and bright-red feathers of my tepeña bird. It must have chirped loudly when it had been attacked but I had not come to save it.

“We will make a crown of feathers,” said Dad. “Those red ones are for going to war.”

I went to school clutching a handful of bloody bird feathers and con- tinued to cry until I was startled by a sudden commotion at the door. Voices. Loud voices. Then a couple of elders appeared. They were naked, wearing feathered crowns and bandoliers across their chests. The teacher started to protest but one of them was addressing us.

“Children!” he boomed. “You are spending all your days in school, but what are you learning here? What can this man, this teacher who knows nothing about the forest, teach our young? Well, we are going to have a celebration tonight. Many elders are walking along the trails. They will be here soon. We have more peneme than we can possibly drink, but we will drink it all and we will dance and sing! Come with us now and we will show you how our ancestors celebrated a good harvest.”

The teacher looked on, expressionless. He couldn’t understand any- thing they were saying. He was powerless to stop us as we poured out of the schoolhouse. My brothers were shouting and jumping and rolling in the grass. I took off my itchy uniform and shoved it in my bag, then hid it in the bushes. I stuffed the wad of bloody feathers down the side of my underpants and ran with all the kids barefoot to the longhouse.

It was true! The elders were gathering! My father was there, sitting naked on a rough bench that wrapped around the inside of the smoke- filled space. His arm was resting fondly over Moipa’s shoulder. Everyone was hooting and hollering. Young women were serving huge gourds of peneme and forcing the men to drink every last drop. I saw my mother serving peneme to Äwä. She didn’t look directly at him. But she didn’t appear afraid either.

A group of women circled across the room, chanting a song. Their arms were woven together, and their feet pattered against the hard-packed earth in unison. They wore anklets made of hollow seeds that rattled with each step, like the rustling of wind in dry leaves.

“We live well. We have many gardens. The sun does not bother us. We are Waorani women. We have good hands for growing. Our children live well,” they sang.

Aunt Wiamenke was singing and dancing with the other women. She called to me and I joined them in the middle of the longhouse. We cir- cled and circled and circled the room, singing. I held Wiamenke’s hand. I knew how to sing some of the songs, but not all of them. Our songs go on forever, like the forest. And so too are they always changing.

“Cayawe cayawe cayawe cayawawe, uummp, cayawe, uump cayawe.”
The longhouse was filled with the music of my people. Smoke twirled up into the leaf thatch. My spirits soared. I forgot the rats and the dead birds and my sadness.
**********

Nemonte Nenquimo & Mitch Anderson We Will Not Be Saved Headline Publishing Group/ Hachette India, 2025. Pb. Pp.368

The first memoir by an indigenous tribal leader in the Amazon, who fought Big Oil to preserve her tribe's territories, and thousands of acres of pristine rainforest.

''I'm here to tell you my story, which is also the story of my people and the story of this forest.''

Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador''s Amazon rainforest, Nemonte Nenquimo was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. Age 14, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. Eventually, her ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture.

She listened.

Two decades later, Nemonte has emerged as one of the most forceful voices in climate-change activism. She has spearheaded the alliance of indigenous nations across the Upper Amazon and led her people to a landmark victory against Big Oil, protecting over a half million acres of primary rainforest. Her message is as sharp as the spears that her ancestors wielded - honed by her experiences battling loggers, miners, oil companies and missionaries.

In this astonishing memoir, she partners with her husband Mitch Anderson, founder of Amazon Frontlines, digging into generations of oral history, uprooting centuries of conquest, hacking away at racist notions of Indigenous peoples, and ultimately revealing a life story as rich, harsh and vital as the Amazon rainforest herself.

''An unforgettable memoir about fighting for your home and your heart.'' - Reese Witherspoon (Reese''s Book Club November ''24 Pick)

If you want to understand the climate crisis and do something about it, read this book. Nemonte's writing is as provocative as it is inspiring, a heroine speaking her truth which is exactly what we need to hear. Had we listened long ago to these voices we wouldn't be in the eye of the storm now. – Emma Thompson, Actor and Writer.

Nemonte Nenquimo, a Waorani leader, was born in Ecuador's Amazon, one of the most bio-diverse and threatened rainforests on the planet. She is the co-founder of both the Indigenous-led non-profit Ceibo Alliance and its partner organization, Amazon Frontlines. Nemonte led her people in an historic legal victory against the oil industry, protecting half-a-million acres of rainforest and setting a precedent for Indigenous rights across the region. Her leadership has been widely recognized; in 2020, she won the Goldman Environmental Prize for Central and South America and was named to the BBC 100 Women and TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Mitch Anderson is co-founder and Executive Director of Amazon Frontlines, a non-profit organization based in the Upper Amazon, which defends indigenous peoples' rights to land, life, and cultural survival. In 2011, he moved to Ecuador's northern Amazon to start a grassroots clean water project with Indigenous communities living downriver from contaminating oil operations. Through building more than 1,000 clean water systems in over 70 villages, Mitch supported the formation of the Ceibo Alliance, an Indigenous-led non-profit that won the prestigious UN Equator Prize and whose victories for the Amazon rainforest have inspired millions worldwide.