The first thing the Waorani do when building a house is to make the frame using plain tree trunks. They cover the frame completely with very wide leaves used as tiles in order to prevent the water from getting into the house when it rains. Finally, the whole roof is reinforced with a thick cover of palm leaves. This gives these houses their distinctive appearance.

houses, however, they no longer live communally. Instead, each family lives in a different house due to the population growth. The Waorani

have often come to replace the leaf tiled roofs with plastic, which has various advantages and disadvantages. In some cases the houses are no longer built in their traditional shape and one can see the influence

of metal sheets which create a lot of noise in the house when it rains, a very common thing in the Amazon Rainforest. The sound is so loud, in fact, that people can no longer have conversations. In some cases oil companies have even built concrete houses with roofs made of metal for communities with whom they frequently make contact.

of other tribes or outsiders in its construction. In other cases the roofs are made

Nowadays the Waorani houses have changed in many ways. In some communities there are still families living in traditional

The traditional Waorani house is very different from the traditional houses of the tribes that surround them. It has no real walls, instead, the roof reaches the floor. The walls are only on the front and back of the house and are made of large palm leaves. Each of these walls has a small opening used as an entrance. There are no doors, as an alternative, the leaves that cover the opening also close it, which prevents breezes from flowing into the house and causing disturbances.

These roofs made of leaves can last for 5 or 10 years, after that the roof has to be rebuilt. The smoke from the fires which the Waorani keep inside of their houses helps to extend the life of these roofs, as it prevents the insects from eating the leaves and other animals from making it a house of their own. Moreover, the smoke contributes to the waterproofing of the whole structure.

Traditionally, all the families of a community lived under the roof of a single long house. There were no rooms, but instead, areas belonging to each family. When the whole community moved to a new location in the jungle, as they used to be nomadic, they burnt the old house before leaving the area.