Nukak

The Nukak are a nomadic hunter-gatherer people of the rainforest between the Guaviare and Inírida rivers in Guaviare department, and Colombia's best-known recently contacted people. They remained essentially outside sustained contact until 1988, when a group of 43 appeared at the settler town of Calamar. Their language is tonal and closely related to Kakwa, within a grouping often called Makú-Puinave or Nadahup, and few Nukak speak Spanish. Traditional life is built on high mobility: bands move through the forest seasonally, hunting monkeys and other game with curare-tipped blowgun darts, fishing, gathering palm fruits and honey, and tending small, temporary gardens.

Contact was catastrophic. Respiratory epidemics, malaria, and measles killed roughly half the population within a decade of 1988. Since then the coca economy, armed groups, and advancing cattle ranching have occupied much of their legally recognized territory — a large resguardo — and a substantial share of the Nukak, by some counts over a third, live displaced in and around San José del Guaviare, dependent on aid.

The Nukak are formally protected by Colombian court orders as a people at risk of physical and cultural extermination, and state and indigenous organizations are working on plans for a safe return to their territory. Their situation requires careful, non-sensational treatment; locations should be given only at department level.