Profile
- What they call themselves
- Nukini (older records also call them Inucuini, Nucuini or Remo)
- Language family
- Pano
- Population
- 726 people (Siasi/Sesai, 2020)
- Where they live
- Municipality of Mâncio Lima, state of Acre (Brazil), in the Terra Indígena Nukini
- Land
- Timbaúba, Meia Dúzia, República and Capanawa creeks, and the left bank of the Môa river, next to the Parque Nacional da Serra do Divisor
- School
- Escola Estadual Rural Indígena Pedro Antônio de Oliveira
Data from the Nukini people profile at Povos Indígenas no Brasil (Instituto Socioambiental).
History
Like their neighbours, the Nukini bore the full force of the rubber boom that began in the mid-nineteenth century. By the early twentieth century they had been absorbed into the labour system of the seringais, under exploitative conditions, and the pressure on their land and their language was relentless.
Official recognition of their land came in the late 1970s, and the demarcation was completed in 1991. Today their territory borders the Parque Nacional da Serra do Divisor, one of the most biodiverse areas in the Amazon.
The Nukini language, of the Pano family, has very few speakers today: the discrimination suffered during the rubber period cut off its transmission. Bringing it back is one of the community’s challenges.
Summary prepared by EiAmazonia from the Nukini people profile at Povos Indígenas no Brasil (Instituto Socioambiental).
The land: the Serra do Divisor
The Terra Indígena Nukini stretches along the igarapés —the Amazonian creeks— Timbaúba, Meia Dúzia, República and Capanawa, and along the left bank of the Môa river. On the far side begins the Parque Nacional da Serra do Divisor, a chain of low mountains on the border with Peru which, according to biodiversity studies, holds more species per square kilometre than almost anywhere on Earth.
Living beside a national park cuts both ways: the forest is better protected, but the communities are caught between the park’s use restrictions, the road schemes announced every so often, and the pressure of cattle ranching and logging nearby.
So here too, defending the land and running the school go together: a community with educated, organised young people is a community that can defend its land with arguments, maps and paperwork.
The school
La Escola Estadual Rural Indígena Pedro Antônio de Oliveira is the main school in the area. It teaches Nukini pupils and also students from the Nawa people, who live across the river: in practice it serves several villages.
That detail matters for understanding our work: when a school like this is strengthened, the effect does not stop at one community. It reaches every community that depends on it.
What we do together
Extending the Network to the Nukini people is under way. During the 2025 project we visited the community to present the Network, invited by its leaders and by the school community; their school also teaches students from the Nawa people, across the river, and serves as the reference centre for several villages in the area.
Out of those conversations came an interest in repeating what has been done with the Escola Ixubãy: teacher training, digital inclusion and environmental education, always starting from what the community decides.
What we do not know yet
This profile is shorter than the Puyanawa one, and we want to say why: our relationship with the Nukini community has only just begun. We know what the published sources say and what we saw on one visit, and that is not enough to tell the story of a people.
What is missing —their history in their own words, their names, their festivals, what they want known and what they do not— we will write with them, at their pace, and not before. We would rather have an unfinished page than a handsome one that speaks in nobody’s name.
Sources
- Instituto Socioambiental, Povos Indígenas no Brasil, Nukini people profile.
- Siasi/Sesai, Brazilian Ministry of Health (population data, 2020).
- Narrative report for project 4106 submitted to the Fons Català de Cooperació (visit presenting the Network to the community).
This profile is short on purpose: we will fill it in together with the community, not before.
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