The Colombian Amazon is home to a large and diverse Indigenous culture. There, numerous ethnic groups have coexisted peacefully, and together they have resisted the attacks of colonization.

The Muinane ethnic group is one of them.

Settled mainly in the Amazonas department, in the south of the so-called “Colombia”, where the Caquetá, Putumayo and Paraná rivers converge, this Indigenous community has disappeared little by little, along with its language. Today, the Muinane population is reduced to less than 59 people, of which only 13 speak their Native language. A small number of Muinane can also be found on the banks of the rivers Caquetá and Putumayo in La Sabana, near Araracuara, and the urban area of ​​Leticia.

The extermination of this ethnic group began with the rubber boom and other extractive activities in the Igará-Paraná river. To preserve their life, language, and traditions, the few who survived were forced to leave their territory. Some were welcomed by the Uitoto, Bora, and Okaina, neighboring ethnic groups that opened their arms and territories in La Chorrera, located to the south of the same department. They have also resisted timber exploitation, the fur boom, and evangelization. However, their Native language has been threatened by the imposition of Spanish as the dominant language and other deeper problems, which not only put their identity at risk, but also the continuity of their rich culture and worldview.

The mother tongue is the soul of an ethnic group, and in the case of the Muinane, that soul has quickly faded, deepening social isolation, especially among younger generations who increasingly feel less connected to their cultural heritage.

With young Indigenous people moving to cities in search of better opportunities, the intergenerational transmission of their culture has been interrupted, eroding their way of life and reducing opportunities to use their language in their daily life. Added to this is a context in which the COVID-19 pandemic and accelerated digitalization have further altered the social and cultural dynamics of the community.The loss of words, songs, and rituals represents the extinction of a cultural legacy that leaves the community with a fragmented identity and its youth culturally orphaned. That is why the fight to revitalize the Muinane language is more crucial today than ever.

Some efforts focus on bilingual education and seek to integrate the dialect not only in classrooms, but also in traditional learning spaces such as the maloca, the chagra, and the river. Still, Muinane children face significant barriers to learning and using their Native language in an educational system where Spanish predominates. Although some schools in the Amazonia offer education models with a differential approach, Muinane is not part of the curriculum, which aggravates the problem.

Furthermore, despite the fact that documenting the language is limited, initiatives such as the creation of dictionaries, digital records and cultural memories are vital steps to ensure that this invaluable linguistic treasure is not lost in time, as it has happened with nearly 44 Native languages ​​in “Colombia” since colonization.

The resilience and determination of the current leaders of the Muinane ethnic group are a powerful example of the importance of cultural diversity in a constantly changing world. These leaders not only express their concern about their language disappearing, but also demand that the Government provide tools and actions that allow them to create cultural memories to resist.

However, the projections are grim: it is estimated that in the next 20 years, the number of Muinane language speakers could shrink to fewer than five people. With the loss of the last speaker, the Muinane ethnic group would join the statistics of the more than four dead languages ​​in the Amazon, shared by “Colombia”, “Brazil” and “Peru”.

Is it possible to prevent centuries of knowledge from disappearing before our eyes?