Sápara

The Sápara are one of the smallest Indigenous nationalities of the Amazon, living between the Pindoyacu, Conambo and Alto Corrientes rivers in Ecuador's Pastaza province, with a small related population in Peru. Their Zaparoan language once anchored a family spoken by tens of thousands across the Napo–Pastaza interfluve; epidemics, the rubber-boom slave economy and absorption by Kichwa and Shuar neighbors reduced a people estimated in the tens or even hundreds of thousands around 1900 to a few hundred today, with only a handful of elderly fluent speakers remaining.

Sápara livelihood rests on hunting with blowguns, fishing, gathering of palm products and small forest gardens, and their culture is noted for a rich dream-interpretation tradition that guides daily decisions. Most Sápara today also speak Kichwa and Spanish.

In 2001 UNESCO proclaimed the oral heritage and cultural manifestations of the Zápara people a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, shared between Ecuador and Peru. The nationality is legally recognized in Ecuador with its own territory and organization, and its leaders are visible opponents of oil licensing in blocks that overlap Sápara lands, while running language-revitalization efforts such as the Witsaja festival.