Nukak-Maku Dispossession
Amazon Indians, Native Stereotypes And Indigenous Survival
The Nukak people of the Amazon have managed to avoid colonisation for hundreds of years, ironically by conforming to colonial stereotypes.
Nomad Stereotype
As with most indigenous peoples, Amazon Indians (not only the Nukak) are usually portrayed by the dominant culture as nomadic hunter-gatherers wandering through the forest. This is to help deny any claim to native title, and perpetuate the myth of "wilderness" and "terra nullius".
But the reality, as is usually the case, is very different from the colonial propaganda. The reality is that most Amazon Indigenous people have a sedentary lifestyle in permanent villages on river-banks. As a result, the myth of nomadic wanderers has resulted in dispossession and large-scale genocide for most Amazonian tribal peoples.
But ironically, the Maku people have eluded this destruction for a long time by actually conforming to the nomad stereotype. The Nukak live between the Guaviare and Inírida rivers, in the headwaters of northwest Amazonia. They follow long established home-line routes through the jungle, seldom settling in one place for long. They travel light, in small family groups, ensuring they can move on quickly when invaders approach. Their only weapons are blow darts, but they have thus far been able to escape much frontier conflict.
Civilisation/Syphyllisation
Although the Nukak have been able to outrun the invaders, they have not been able to avoid the spread of foreign diseases like influenza and STD's, which have devastated their population since their first contact with outsiders in 1988. Since then, their territory has been taken over by coca farmers and warring military groups.
Opposing groups in the civil war there are battling for control of the coca crop, and both force captive Nukak to work as slaves in the plantations. Indigenous slavery is a big part of the illegal drug industry worldwide. You might think of that next time you have a "harmless joint" - your money is funding criminal organisations that are responsible for indigenous slavery in the illegal drug and sex industries.
Neo-colonialism
It is shameful to think that a people who managed to evade outside contact throughout the entire colonial era are now meeting the same treatment as all tribal peoples did hundreds of years ago, back when the invaders supposedly didn't know any better. So how can we justify calling this the "post-colonial era", when expansion, genocide and dispossession are still rampant - not only in the Amazon, but throughout the world? Don't make the mistake of assuming this is only in third-world nations - colonisation is still alive and well wherever there are mining, logging or fishing interests around the planet, including in Australia and the U.S.
The criminality of these governments in their ongoing pursuit of finite resources on indigenous land is equal to that of the druglords and soldiers responsible for the enslavement and murder of the Naku.
