The Nukak Need You

Suffering and suicide as Nukak plead to go home

The Nukak have fled their land after becoming caught up in the violent conflict of Colombia’s drugs war. Their remote rainforest has been overrun by colonists growing coca for the lucrative cocaine trade.

Last year the Colombian government tried moving the Nukak to a new part of the rainforest, but the area chosen was far too small and poorly resourced. After a flu epidemic and the suicide of leader Mao-be, the Nukak abandoned the area.

Act now ↓

The Nukak Indians live between the Guaviare and Inírida rivers, on the fringe of the Amazon basin. They are just one of six groups who together make up the Maku peoples, all nomadic hunter-gatherers living in the headwaters of northwest Amazonia.

Although the stereotype of the Amazonian Indian is of a nomadic hunter-gatherer in the depths of the forest, nearly all Indians in the Amazon actually live in settled communities on the river-banks. The Maku, however, are one of the very few societies which do conform to the stereotype.

They live in small family groups, prefer the deep forest to the rivers, and are constantly on the move. As they are so mobile it means that they can have very few possessions, and what they have must be easily portable. At a minute’s notice, therefore, they can wrap up their fibre-string hammocks (which are their only real furniture), put their pots and few remaining items in home-made rucksacks, and move on.

Maku houses tend to be very light structures made of wood and palm-leaves, just enough to provide a roof to sling a hammock under. Each family has its own hearth. This is used not just for cooking and warmth, but certain plants can be burned on the fire at night to keep mosquitoes away. The Maku eat fish, game, turtles, fruit, vegetables, nuts, insects and honey. The men hunt using blowguns, with darts coated with curare, a poison made from up to five different plants.

What problems do they face?

The Nukak have already suffered the devastation of their population by malaria and flu since their first contact with outsiders in 1988; now their lands have been occupied by coca growers, left-wing guerillas, right-wing paramilitaries and the Colombian army.

Both Colombia’s main left-wing guerilla army, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), and the right-wing paramilitary army, the AUC, have large numbers of forces in the Nukak’s territory. Both groups seek to control the lucrative coca crop, and sometimes force the Indians to work in the coca fields. The Indians have therefore become embroiled in Colombia’s quasi-civil war, and some have been forced to flee their land.