IMONORWA, Colombia — Spaniards in clanging armor trudged up the mountain first, subjugating Indians in the search for gold. Farmers, clear-cutting forests, came next. Catholic missionaries followed, forbidding the Arhuaco Indians to speak their native tongue or practice their religion.

It amounted to five centuries of encroachment. But the Arhuacos, an agrarian tribe whose nation stretches across the thick forests and fertile valleys of these mountains of northern Colombia, managed to preserve their way of life through stubborn resistance and, later, modern-day political savvy.

Today, in 28 villages like this one, a tribe of 18,000 people operates schools where the ancestral tongue is taught. They hold religious rituals in forest clearings, giving thanks to the creators of the divine mountains and rivers of the range where they live, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Theirs is a traditional life in which men farm, dressed in long white robes, while women maintain homes of adobe and thatched roofs.

But now, the Arhuacos are facing a threat their leaders consider most serious — the arrival of Colombia's brutal civil conflict, a force they say could destroy their tribe.

The concerns are well founded. Across Colombia, leftist rebels are forcibly recruiting Indians to work as guerrillas and jungle guides, while paramilitary gunmen mount retaliatory killing rampages. Some Indian populations, already precariously small, have shrunk by half or more. Entire languages and, in isolated cases, whole tribes that have survived tumult for centuries are now being lost.

Thousands have fled their homelands. Some Indians — their tribes in tatters — beg on urban streets.

"The last two years have been catastrophic," said Augusto Oyuela Caycedo, a Colombian anthropologist at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. "These are groups that have their own language, that have their own race. But in some cases, only 50 people in a tribe are talking the language, and what will happen is they will disappear."

The Arhuacos, while among the strongest, most traditional of all Colombian tribes, have felt powerless as leftists rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have increasingly trod through their villages. Much to the Arhuacos' alarm, the rebels have insisted on buying provisions and have forcibly recruited young Indians as fighters.

The tribe fears that the guerrillas could soon attract right-wing paramilitary gunmen — who specialize in massacring those they accuse of collaborating with rebels. That is what happened to the Arhuacos' neighbors, the Kankuamus, who were killed by the dozens and relocated to shantytowns by paramilitary gunmen.

"What is coming now are men with guns," said one Arhuaco elder, 43, who asked that his name not be used. "And that has affected us. We don't feel like we did before. We were alone, free. We didn't worry. Now, we feel things are not so normal."

Of Colombia's 84 tribes, about 30 are considered to be seriously endangered because of the conflict and other factors like land invasion, oil exploration and development, according to the Indigenous Organization of Colombia, a nongovernmental group. Four are in imminent danger of disappearing altogether: the Bari of Norte de Santander Province; the Sikuani and the Cuibas of Arauca Province; and the Macaguaje of Amazonas Province.

Advocates for Indians said the threat was most dire in the Chocó- Antioquia region of the northwest, here in parts of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta where the Arhuacos live, in Arauca Province and in the Amazon region.

In the jungles of the Colombian Amazon, as many as 58 tribes are facing encroachment from guerrillas, paramilitaries, the army, gold miners, drug traffickers and gun runners. Unsophisticated in modern- day lobbying and organizing, many of the Indians have simply withdrawn deeper into the jungle.

Advocates for the Indian tribes say that among the most endangered groups are the Nukak hunter-gatherers of Guaviare Province, in southeastern Colombia, whose population has been cut nearly in half, to 500 today from 900 five years ago, because of illness and conflict. In Córdoba Province in northern Colombia, leaders of the Embera-Katios were assassinated and hundreds fled to cities as violence escalated.

In Putumayo, dozens of Cofanes fled to Ecuador after American-supported defoliation of their coca fields and legal crops. Another group from a conflict-ridden region in the south, the Karijonas, has dropped to 70 members, from 280 in 1993.

"The indigenous communities are considered a military objective by all the armed groups," said Alberto Achito, a director at the Indigenous Organization and an Embera-Siapiadara Indian. "Not for belonging to any one side, or having connections, but rather for defending our position."

The Arhuacos of the Sierra Nevada have avoided the fate of many Indian groups, but they are increasingly feeling the pressures from armed groups, notably the rebels.

"They want us to do things for them, everything," said one leader, 48, who like other Arhuacos who talked about the conflict asked that his name not be used. "And as for the youth, they want every family to give a son for the war. They want the war to mix with this culture, and that cannot be."

In an effort to articulate their concerns — and highlight the richness of a culture they want to preserve — Arhuaco leaders invited a reporter and photographer to spend four days on their reservation, observing rituals, learning about ancestral practices and visiting their sacred capital, Nabusimake. In interviews, the Arhuacos spoke in Spanish.

To reach the Arhuacos means a two-hour walk along winding paths from the non-Indian town of Pueblo Bello to here in Simonorwa, the foothills of which rise to become the world's highest coastal mountain. At 19,000 feet, the Sierra is considered among the world's most biologically diverse mountain ranges — featuring eight separate climates, 35 rivers, 1,800 species of flowering plants and 635 species of birds, many of them found nowhere else.

The spectacularly rugged terrain also affords the Arhuacos a measure of isolation — and the chance to live as their ancestors did.
 

Arhuaco men work and socialize with a mouthful of coca, which they mix with crunched seashells from a pear-shaped gourd. Greetings with other men mean exchanging handfuls of leaves. The women spend much of their time weaving the men's woolen conical hats, colorful pouches and robes that most Arhuacos wear. The villages lack electricity, and most homes lack plumbing.
 

              (Page 2 of 2)

              When it comes to religion, the Arhuacos
              follow the teachings of wise men called
              mamos and believe in several "mothers and
              fathers" who created nature. A central tenet
              holds that the Sierra is the "heart of the
              world," which the Arhuacos, wiser than
              outsiders, must protect.

              In monthly rituals held simultaneously across the Arhuaco nation, families gather in
              forests or hillsides under the guidance of mamos. Holding little cotton threads, rocks
              or tree shavings, which the Arhuacos see as representations of the many facets of
              nature, the worshipers project their thoughts into the objects as a way of purifying
              and honoring nature. The items are later meticulously arranged and left to the mamos
              to give up as offerings.

              "We are happy about living life like this," said Jeremias Torres, 40, an Arhuaco
              leader. "The point is to live, to live a tranquil life, without being dependent on
              anyone."

              It is a way of life that, at one time, had been on the decline. The tribe, however,
              made a resurgence from the early 1980's, when they ousted Capuchin missionaries
              who had squelched its language and religion.

              Now, a majority of people in the tribe can speak the native language. A dictionary
              of Arhuaco is being completed. Indian stories, once passed on orally, are in written
              form. And in all 28 villages, children are taught in Arhuaco — an increase from just
              two villages in 1990, said Rubiel Salabata, the tribe's university-trained linguist.

              "We are getting our culture back, learning that we should not be ashamed of our
              way of life," said Aquilino Ramos, 16, who is slowly learning Arhuaco.

              Modernity, of course, has touched the Arhuacos.

              Baseball caps and running shoes and shiny watches abound. Jeeps ferry Arhuacos
              from one town to the next, and many live in lowland towns with non-Indians. The
              young people often prefer the Vallenato music of northern Colombia over traditional
              pipe and drum melodies. And on nights when the cantinas in non-Indian towns are
              hopping, some Arhuacos come down from the hills to drink themselves into a
              stupor.

              Isael Niño, 80, a mamo priest and among the tribe's most respected elders, worries
              about the intrusions. "Now there are many white people who come to hinder," Mr.
              Niño said. "They come in with their roads, their progress, their electricity."

              But it is the conflict that is most distressing, already having touched Arhuaco towns
              to the west like Yeibin, Singuney and Barranquillita. Rebels, promising adventure,
              weapons and pay, have recruited youths in those villages.

              The Arhuacos, who have learned the art of lobbying and political arm- twisting in
              their battles to keep non- Indians off their reservation, have sent delegations to
              Bogotá to meet with ministers, foreign ambassadors and human rights groups.

              Indian leaders propose that the government urge the paramilitaries and rebels to
              declare the Sierra off limits. The proposal may not be realistic, since the government
              refuses to negotiate with the paramilitaries. Arhuaco leaders, however, say there is
              no other way.

              "We could have, at any moment, a war and they could finish us off, commit
              genocide," said an Arhuaco leader in Nabusimake. "But we don't carry arms. We
              must comply with the laws, the mamos say. That's the way we must do it. We are
              not warlike communities."

Reprinted from The New York Times, May 14, 2001