The Indigenous ‘watchmen’ safeguarding Peru’s isolated tribes
Al Jazeera
Protection agents risk their lives to prevent deadly contact between remote tribes coming to contact with settled communities.
Balta, Peru – On an overcast afternoon in April, Nolasco Torres and Freddy Capitan navigate their canoe along a jungle-veiled ravine. Along the route, they scrutinise the creeping understory for footprints and broken branches – telltale signs of the imminent return of isolated tribes in this cutoff region.
After rounding a bend, they steer their boat towards Nueva Vida, a tiny Indigenous hamlet hidden within Peru’s eastern Amazon, some 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the Brazil border.
“When this ravine dries, they’ll make contact here,” Torres says. “Summer is coming. We have to make sure our communities are prepared.”
Torres, 47, and Capitan, 33, are Indigenous Huni Kuin fathers and community leaders. They are also friends and neighbours of Nueva Vida’s 30 villagers. But they are not here to pay a social call.
Wearing khaki vests stitched with the letters “PIACI” (Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact), they are among 50 government-contracted, predominantly Indigenous protection agents working for Peru’s Ministry of Culture. Their work has brought them to the Curanjillo Ravine, an epicentre of recent contact.
