A Voice For the Voiceless

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Association of the Zapara Nation in Pastaza Province

The Zapara of Ecuador live in central Pastaza province between the Conambo and Pindoyacu rivers, occupying 54,000 hectares of land surrounded by Quichua, Achuar, and Shuar communities. The Zapara have traditionally had to defend their land from these nations, which chipped away persistently at the Zapara’s formerly much vaster holdings. But today, the main threat to Zapara land comes from oil development.

ANAZPPA activists Susana Segovia and Oscar Montahuano.

A century ago the Zapara were one of the most powerful and numerous indigenous groups in the southern Oriente and northern Peru. But in the 20th century, the forces of conquest combined in a particularly lethal way to decimate the Zapara. By the 1970s, anthropologists declared them an extinct nation. But in fact, there remain five remote Zapara villages in Pastaza province, and in recent years the Zapara, numbering around 200, have organized to fight against all odds for their survival.

In 1941 Ecuador and Peru fought a border war. During this time, some Zapara were forcibly resettled in an area that came under the control of Peru. No peace treaty was formalized between the two countries until the late 1990s. Because of this ongoing dispute, the two parts of the Zapara community lost contact with each other for most of 60 years.

The remaining Zapara struggle to hold on to what they can of their culture. Traditionally they lived a mobile life, based on hunting, fishing, and subsistence farming, with communities changing locations periodically to avoid depleting their own resources. However, with encroachments on their territory by Mestizos and neighboring indigenous people alike, they were forced to settle in permanent villages.

In the last ten years a new and potentially fatal threat to the Zapara culture appeared with the advent of oil exploration in oil concession Block 10, in western Pastaza province. Drilling has concentrated around Triunfo and Villano, but it will expand towards the remote Zapara settlements that are several days’ walk from current production centers. Facing this development, the Zapara are aware that they will soon come under severe pressure from the oil company to change their way of life.

In 1998 the Zapara held an assembly of their people, during which they discussed possible strategies for responding to the new threat of oil. This meeting marked a historical turnaround in the consciousness of the Zapara. Until that time, they had been represented by OPIP (Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza), which is dominated by the Quichua.

At the assembly, the Zapara discussed the fate of their embattled nation: Should they try to go on as Zapara, or should they assimilate into the Quichua, especially as this was almost a fait accompli? A group of young leaders persuaded the community to form an independent Zapara organization. This took place the same year with the formation of ANAZPPA, (Association of the Zapara Nation in Pastaza Province).

The Zapara’s last shaman ("shimano" in the Zapara language) died in the mid-1990s. Until then, the shimano was both a spiritual and political leader of the community. Oscar Montahuano, staff member of ANAZPPA, explains the importance of the shaman:

There are no more Zapara shamans in Ecuador, but one survives in Peru. For this reason, the reunification of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Zapara is a particularly important element of the ANAZPPA program, and is an urgent part of the struggle for cultural survival. In 1998 Peru and Ecuador signed a peace treaty that settled their border dispute. In the next few years the Zapara traveled to Peru to visit their relatives. In the spring of 2001, they brought Cesar Ushigua, the last Zapara shaman, to Ecuador to meet his people for the first time. Reintroducing shamanism to the Ecuadorian Zapara, with the hope of bringing up a new generation of shimanos, is part of the Zapara strategy for cultural survival.

In May of 2001, UNESCO declared the Zapara culture a "Masterpiece of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity," for its oral traditions and other cultural treasures. This distinction breathed new life into the Zaparas’ struggle to preserve their culture, and work is underway to record the traditional stories of the community. ANAZPPA also hopes to promote a revival of the Zapara language by teaching it to the youth of the five villages.

While ANAZPPA works to foster a cultural revival among the Zapara, it is also moving ahead to educate itself in ways to face the threat of oil development. In this work the organization receives assistance from the Pachamama Alliance and the Center for Economic and Social Rights. Today, the priorities of ANAZPPA are to protect their culture (including documenting and reviving their language), to reunite with their Peruvian relatives, and to protect their territory.

ANAZPPA -- Association of the Zapara Nation in Pastaza Province
For more information contact the Zapara Cultural Alliance:
21 Brompton San Francisco, CA 94131 (415) 239-0709
stevenrudnick@hotmail.com
In Spanish: Bartolo Ushigua, Presidente
Asociacion de la Nacionalidad Zapara de la