Nukak People

Nukak People

The Nukak people (also Nukak-Makú) live between the Guaviare and Inírida rivers, in the depths of the tropical humid forest, on the fringe of the Amazon basin, in Guaviare Department, Republic of Colombia. They are nomadic hunter-gatherers with seasonal nomadic patterns and in addition they practice a shifting horticulture in small scale. An "uncontacted people" until 1988, they have since lost half of their population, primarily to disease. Part of their territory has been used by coca growers, ranchers and other settlers and occupied by guerrillas, army and paramilitaries. Responses to this crisis include protests, requests for assimilation, and the suicide of leader Maw-be'. Some 210–250 are estimated to live in provisional settlements at San José del Guaviare, while about as many live nomadically in the Nukak Reservation (Resguardo).

Nukak are expert hunters. The men hunt using blowguns, with darts coated with curare "manyi", a poison made from different plants (curares). They specially hunt several species of monkeys (Alouatta spp., Cebus spp., Saimiri sp., Lagothrix spp., Ateles sp., Saguinus spp., Callicebus torquatus), and birds (Muscovy Duck, chachalacas, guans, curassows, Grey-winged Trumpeter and toucans). Also they use javelins of Socratea exorrhiza palm wood to hunt two species of peccaries (Tayassu pecari and T. tajacu) and Caiman sclerops, whose eggs they consume too. Nukak neither hunt nor eat brocket deer, Odocoileus virginianus and tapirs (Tapirus terrestris); these animals are considered by them as part of the same group of origin as human beings.

The Nukak also capture rodents (Agouti sp., Dasyprocta spp.); armadillos (Dasypus sp.) tortoises (Geochelone sp); frogs (in large quantities); crabs; shrimps; snails; larvae of palm weevils (mojojoy, "mun", Rhynchophorus spp.); larvae of several species of wasps and caterpillars.