Amazon Akuntsu tribe had about three women left; birth brings hope

Body

With only three women remaining as the last Akuntsu man died in 2017, the isolated Indigenous group in Brazil’s Amazon faced prospects of disappearing, an Associated Press report said. In December, however, Babawru—described by the report as the youngest of the three women in her 40s—gave birth to a boy, shifting expectations about the tribe’s future.

The report focuses on Pugapia and her daughters, Aiga and Babawru, who for years lived as the only surviving members of the Akuntsu after decades of violence linked to efforts to occupy rainforest territory. With no child to carry on the line, many had expected the group to vanish as the women aged and died, the AP reported. Babawru’s birth in December changed that outlook, according to the AP.

Joenia Wapichana, president of Brazil’s Indigenous protection agency Funai, said the newborn would carry broader meaning beyond the Akuntsu themselves. “This child is not only a symbol of the resistance of the Akuntsu people, but also a source of hope for Indigenous peoples,” Wapichana said, adding that the child “represents how recognition, protection and the management of this land are extremely necessary.”

The AP said protecting Indigenous territories is widely seen as one of the most effective ways to curb deforestation in the Amazon, which is the world’s largest rainforest and a major factor in the global climate system. It cited researcher concerns that continued forest loss could accelerate global warming and referenced a 2022 MapBiomas analysis that tracked land use, saying Indigenous territories in Brazil had lost 1% of native vegetation over three decades compared with 20% on private land nationwide.

In Rondonia state, where the Akuntsu are described as living, the report said about 40% of native forest has been cleared, and that remaining untouched areas are largely within conservation units and Indigenous lands. The Akuntsu’s territory was described as standing out in satellite views as an “island” of forest surrounded by pasture and crop fields.

The AP tied the violence in the region to Brazil’s earlier push to occupy the rainforest during the military regime in the 1970s, which included an infrastructure program financed in part by the World Bank and domestic migration encouraged by a highway project across the state. In the 1980s, the AP said Rondonia’s population more than doubled, and that settlers were promised land titles if they cleared forest while risking losing claims if Indigenous people were present—conditions the report said fueled violent attacks by hired gunmen on Indigenous groups.

Funai made first contact with the Akuntsu in 1995, the AP said, finding seven survivors. Experts believed the Akuntsu numbered about 20 a decade earlier, when they were attacked by ranchers seeking to occupy the area, the report said. It added that Funai agents found evidence of the assault, and that survivors recounted what happened, with some still bearing gunshot wounds.

The report said territorial protection came later, when Funai granted protection in 2006 by establishing the Rio Omere Indigenous Land, which the Akuntsu have since shared with the Kanoe people. It described the relationship between the two groups as complex, with cooperation mediated by officials along with cultural differences and language barriers.

The AP said the agency arranged contact with the women through a linguist, Carolina Aragon, who it described as the only outsider able to communicate after years studying and documenting the Akuntsu language. It said Aragon works closely with Funai, translating conversations almost daily through video calls, and that she supported Babawru remotely during labor and was with her during an ultrasound exam that confirmed the pregnancy.

Aragon said Babawru was “stunned” by the news, recalling that “She said, ‘How can I be pregnant?’” The report said Babawru had taken precautions to avoid pregnancy, while it described the earlier choices of the surviving women as shaped by the community’s violent history and a sense that their world had become too disorganized to raise a child.

Anthropologist Amanda Villa said Akuntsu women relied on Kanoe men for tasks considered masculine, including hunting and clearing fields, and that the two groups had exchanged spiritual knowledge, including learning by the current Kanoe spiritual leader from a late Akuntsu patriarch. Villa also said social collapse after genocide shaped the women’s decisions, calling it “somewhat catastrophic understanding.”

Aragon said the women were starting a “new chapter,” choosing to welcome the child and adapt their traditions with support from the Kanoe and Funai, and Villa said having a newborn boy could create the possibility of restoring male roles such as hunting. The AP added that researchers and officials had worked on the premise that protecting the territory depended on the Akuntsu’s survival as a people, and it cited the case of Tanaru, an Indigenous man discovered after living alone without contact for decades, as an example of the difficulties authorities faced when they tried to protect his territory.

After Tanaru died in 2022, the AP said non-Indigenous groups began disputing the land, and that late last year the federal government secured the area and turned it into a protected conservation unit. Funai’s Wapichana said Babawru’s child is “a hope that this next generation will indeed include an Indigenous person, an Akuntsu, ensuring the continuity of this people.”

The report concluded by describing the bond the Akuntsu have with their forest home as central to life for the group, and by quoting Aragon on her hopes for the newborn: “What kind of relationship will this boy have with his own territory?” she said. “I hope it will be the best possible, because he has everything he needs there.”