We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People

4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars | 238 ratings

Price: 21.49

Last update: 02-05-2025


About this item

From a fearless, internationally acclaimed activist, We Will Be Jaguars is an impassioned memoir about an indigenous childhood, a clash of cultures, and the fight to save the Amazon rainforest and protect her people.

Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest—one of the last to be contacted by missionaries in the 1950s—Nemonte Nenquimo had a singular upbringing. She was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. She played barefoot in the forest and didn’t walk on pavement, or see a car, until she was a teenager and left to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city.

But after Nemonte’s ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture, she listened. Nemonte returned to the forest and traditional ways of life and became one of the most forceful voices in climate change activism. She spearheaded an 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.

We Will Be Jaguars is an astonishing memoir by an equally astonishing woman. Nemonte digs into generations of oral history, uprooting centuries of conquest, and hacking away at racist notions of Indigenous peoples. Ultimately, she reveals a life story as rich, harsh, and vital as the Amazon rainforest herself.


Top reviews from the United States

  • Olivia
    5.0 out of 5 stars The book of a generation
    Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2025
    A stunning book, beautifully written and immensely important. Everyone should read We Will Be Jaguars.
  • Linda Harrington
    5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent read
    Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2024
    I loved this memoir of a young girl growing up in a remote area of the Ecuadorean Amazon under the influence of white missionaries and oil companies striving for control. Her honesty and courage was awe inspiring. Even better was her success in protecting a large area of life giving forests. A must read!
  • Publius
    4.0 out of 5 stars Main point is correct, but perspective of SIL is faulty
    Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2024
    These are the critical omissions in her account
    Rachel Saint was removed from SIL affiliation in 1976 after an investigation of her cultural abuses that violated SIL policy, as in the culturally insensitive behaviors described in the memoir. One of the main focuses of SIL language preservation was also the cultural preservation that would go along with it. Any conversion to a belief in Christian theology should be a supplement woven into indigenous life and not a replacement. However, SIL did not have authority to keep her out of Ecuador or living with or exerting an influence over Waorani members. But SIL recognized the issues the author presents a decade before she was even born and took the action it had the authority to exercise.
    I cannot speak for Ms. Saint, but every other SIL affiliated adult I ever knew when I lived in Lemoncocha despised and hated the oil companies for their threats to indigenous culture and environmental degradation. Hence, as early as the mid-1960s, SIL initiatives were launched to create nature preserves that would be under tribal control and supervision. This advocacy was the actual main reason for the Ecuadorian government removing SIL from working in their country in the early 1980s, again several years prior to the author’s birth.
    SIL official linguistics policy was to record (both audio and in printed form - my mother on the team producing the typed versions) tribal stories, myths, or legends as a first step to translating the New Testament. Language is culturally conceptual and no meaningful translation can be produced on a word-for-word replacement system. That’s why there are so many ‘modern’ versions of the Bible coming out every few years. That Ms. Saint was not following this procedure with the Wao Tededo translation work is one of the reasons SIL withdrew its sponsorship of her, again a decade before the author’s birth.
    Finally, as indicated under point 2 above, the advocacy for indigenous nature preserves began twenty years before the author’s birth. That vision became more of a reality with the formation of the Cofan Survival Fund in 1999, led by Randy Borman - a cowori- a son of one of the original SIL linguistics teams in Ecuador. The CSF had as its primary goal a preserve managed by the A’I Cofan people in their traditional homeland which became a reality with the first preserve granted in 2002.
    Conclusion: The overall point of the work is spot on; however, her work as it stands does a disservice to SIL staff who actually shared her concerns and ultimate goals for the peoples and environment of Ecuador long before she was even born and to others whose work prepared the way for hers. She has continued an effort rather than initiating one. Her narrative fails to recognize a main portion of the “elephant” upon whose back her successes of pan-tribal cooperation rests as a foundation.
  • AmazonCustomerNiu
    5.0 out of 5 stars Life changing read: how we can thrive with nature
    Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2024
    I listened to the audible version and then bought the paper version. And I'm in awe. It's the first book written by someone who lived in an undisturbed indigenous way with nature for her childhood and early teens. You will experience the unfathomably deep connection her people has with all the living and non living beings of the nature. She was able to unveil the tips of the iceberg of indigenous wisdom and joy through personal experience: how to hunt for an animal without losing deep love respect and devotion to protect, how to have a pet monkey without having to put it in cages or deprived it of it's future freedom in the forest, how to fully enjoy the nature's abundance without depleting it: take what you need, with permission, and give back more than you take. I'm completely mesmerized especially by the audio book where the reader vocalize birds songs so effortlessly, and the purest sense of joy and wonder that permeated throughout the details of her childhood stories.

    And the most heart renching part of the read, and also most thought provoking, is have to witness how she and her community get teared away from this fascinating life to face colonialism and utter destruction of her world. And this book doesn't just tell you the consequences, but most importantly how that can happen: through small things that seem harmless, through the design of power system dynamics.

    And finally, despite the unmeasurable amount of destruction and devastation already been done and will happen, I'm impressed by how the author still have that forest spirit in her heart. Where she share with us the amazing fight she embark on as a true Amazon warrior: a warrior is opposite to a soldier, soldier listen to command and bring wars, a warrior already knew what they will do: protect and love.

    For the indigenous, war is not with those who harm us, but is with the human ego that hunts us. And the world as a whole has so much to learn from their profound wisdom. And maybe in the process, we will realize all the worriors already within ourselves.
  • Cheryl Reed Barreiro
    5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning
    Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2024
    An important story everyone should read. It transports you to the Amazon where you feel the jungle and her people. The battle they fought was not just for them but for all us because this is the lungs of the world.
  • Armin Vajraca
    5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you for your story. One of my favorite reads. Beautifully done
    Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2024
    I thank all the people Who have helped publish this important work. There is so much wisdom distilled in these pages. The stories flow like a river into an ocean. Thank you for propegating the voice of the voiceless, the meek, the most volunarble. These actions reflect the best humanity can offer. The bridge between the known and unknown, from hurt to healing is possible. This book is a Testament to the way we as a collective can move forward and choose a better tomorrow.
  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible read
    Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2025
    What a gift - read it now!
  • goldie
    4.0 out of 5 stars hard read
    Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2024
    This is a hard read for a white person who never understood what the missionaries and oil companies did to the Amazon rain forest in the name of progress and civilization. It needs to be read by all people who think their way is the only way.

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