Maku

The Maku Indians reside in the Northwestern part of the Brazilian Amazon close to the Peruvian border.

They are one of the last groups of nomadic tribal peoples in the Amazon. It is only a question of a decade or two before their traditional trekking lifestyle is eroded into the sedentary agricultural village life. This drastic cultural change is happening under the influence of the Western culture. They use long blowguns with darts dipped into the curare poison to hunt in the forest canopy, mostly for monkeys. The blowguns are made from the straight trunks of the Stilt Palm, sometimes inserting one tube inside another until the length can reach 8 feet. Their quivers are made of bark cloth with a protective flap to cover the darts.