Nukak Tribe Research Paper

Nukak Maku Tribe of Colombia
Change is inevitable and in most cases, change is a good, and much needed thing, especially when it comes from a place of adaptation and progression in a culture. However, there is a vast difference between culture change, and culture loss. While the gradual changing of a culture can be a revitalizing thing, the complete loss and total disappearance of a culture is never a thing to be celebrated. Less than ten years ago, a visit to the tropical rainforests between the Guaviare and Inirida rivers on the Amazonian basin of Colombia, you would have come across the indigenous people of the Nukak Maku tribe. Take a trip there today however, and the Nukak people will not be there. The Nukak people are just one of
The whole Nukak Maku tribe in its entirety only get together a couple times yearly for certain ceremony’s and rituals. One of the rituals referred to as “entiwat”, is a when the whole tribe comes together and dances with one another and then physically assaults and injure each other until they all come together and emotionally embrace each other while reflecting on stories of their shared ancestors. Another time the whole tribe will get together is for a form of exchange called “ihinihat”, where the different groups trade resources that they cant find in their own territories. All the different groups of the tribe speak the same language, Nukak, named after the tribe, which comes from the Nadahup language family, Nukak is recognized by Colombia as the official language within the Nukak territory. The Nukak language is a very simple language, with only six oral sounds, and six nasal sounds, however the Nukak Maku tribe is the only known culture to speak or understand this
The conditions that they now live in, in their refuge of San Jose del Guaviare, are horrible for any human being, let alone a group of people who are totally unfamiliar with the whole sense of lifestyle and humanity around them. The Nukak people now live completely at the will of the government, their survival depends solely on the government handouts they receive form a group called “Accion Social”, that delivers food rations. A culture that once hunted down all its own supply of food and lived for generations off the land that has now become a culture less than half the size now living off government handouts completely unfamiliar and inadequate to their needs is exactly what the definition of cultural loss defines when it says the complete disappearance of a culture. The Nukak Maku culture will never cease to exist the way that it once did, despite any best efforts the Colombian government may be putting forward for the people. Through the government aid program in 2006, the government attempted to moved the Nukak people back into the rainforest but the only location available to them not run by farming and violence was far too small for them to