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Sun, Nov 16, 2003
Colombia Nomadic Tribe Faces Extinction
By VANESSA ARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer

BARRANCON, Colombia - Following traditions of hundreds of years,
the Nukak-Maku Indians roamed the jungles of southeastern Colombia,
hunting game with blow guns and gathering berries, as oblivious
to the modern world as it was to them.

Then one day in 1988, the two worlds collided when a group of
Nukak men ventured warily into a town carved out of the jungle.
Townspeople stared in disbelief at the naked Nukak as the equally
astonished Indians stared back.

That first encounter was peaceful. The Nukak men felt so trusting
that they brought out their women and children who had been waiting
in the bush.

But the aftershocks are devastating Colombia's last nomadic tribe.

Cut down by diseases brought by settlers, lured by the conveniences
of the modern world and caught in the crossfire of Colombia's civil
war, the Nukak are being driven along a path to extinction that
more than 100 other Indian tribes across the Amazon region have
walked before.

Missionaries estimate at least 1,200 Nukak roamed the jungles
in groups of 30 or so when that first hesitant contact was made
in the town of Calamar. Fifteen years later, their number has
plunged to about 380, the Health Ministry says.

Anthropologists believe only a few dozen Nukak still live deep
in the jungle relatively untouched by civilization.

"At this rate, in a very short time there will be no more Nukak,"
said Humberto Ruiz, an anthropologist who has studied the tribe.
"They will be a vague memory."

The Nukak are a branch of the Maku family of nomadic Indians
who have lived in the northwestern Amazon River basin of
current-day Colombia, Peru and Brazil for thousands of years.

Contact with settlers brought influenza, for which the Nukak
had no resistance and pneumonia caused many deaths. At the
same time, deforestation has removed their traditional hunting
grounds and led to malnutrition.

Adding to the pressures, leftist rebels and outlawed right-wing
militias have been battling in the Indians' homelands for control
of coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, which flourishes naturally
in the region and provides the warring groups with huge revenues.

No Nukak has been reported killed, but the clashes have terrified
the Indians and caused some to flee ancestral grounds.

One Nukak clan of 10 families left its camp near a settlers'
village on the edge of their reservation last January because
of the fighting. "We were afraid, afraid of the explosions,"
said Yeuna, the clan's leader.

The clan is now at a makeshift camp in a jungle clearing near
the village of Barrancon, a half-hour boat ride upriver from
San Jose del Guaviare, the provincial capital of Guaviare state.

Aid workers deliver rice, lentils and yucca every 15 days to the
camp, where colorful hammocks swing from trees whose dense leaves
filter the sun's burning rays. The food has led to stomach ailments
because of the change from the Indians' traditional diet, but more
critically it is increasing their dependence on the outside world.

Hugo Quijano, one of the aid workers, acknowledged the help
is undermining Nukak culture but said it is needed because
Yeuna's clan lacks the wide areas it needs for hunting and
fishing.

"We are trying to limit our contact with them as much as
possible, but the conditions of the area they are in make
that difficult," Quijano said.

Yeuna's clan is gradually trading nomadic ways for a more
sedentary existence. They are learning Spanish, wearing
T-shirts and baseball caps and drinking Coca-Cola.

Still, the clan maintains traditions. The women pluck their
eyebrows and cut their hair very short. The men, who are lean
and practically hairless, sometimes leave camp to fish or hunt
monkeys.

During a recent visit by a reporter, Nukak children ignored
a radio in the camp and became mesmerized by a woman of the
clan as she broke into song in the Nukak's native language.
More than half the 40 Indians in the camp are children.

There are no elders. They have all died. The oldest known
living Nukak is estimated to be in her early 40s. Ruiz said
the Nukak used to live into their 60s, but contact with outside
diseases has taken a toll.

There is little consensus on how to preserve Nukak culture
while still allowing those who want to integrate into modern
society to do so.

"One cannot force a group to conserve itself, like an artifact
in a museum," Ruiz said.

Assimilation appears to be unstoppable.

Most Nukak clans - like Yeuna's - are drifting closer to towns
and cities, where life is seen as easier than living hand-to-mouth
in the jungle. The Indians are still susceptible to the flu,
but access to health care means it is less likely to turn into
pneumonia and kill them.

Once they leave the old ways behind, it's hard to go back.

Manuel Garcia grew up with his Nukak clan, but after both
his parents died when he was 8, he was adopted by a settler
in San Jose del Guaviare. After turning 18, he reconnected
with a group of Nukak.

"I tried to live with them in the jungle, but I only lasted six months.
I had to leave. I just didn't have the same toughness that they did,"
said Garcia, who is now a health worker and is helping Yeuna's clan.

Yeuna, sitting in a hammock and surrounded by his five children
and his pregnant wife, insisted he wants to lead the clan to their
ancestral lands.

"We want to go back," he said in broken Spanish. "But we are
waiting for them to stop fighting."

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