The Cofán people (endonym: ''Ai'') are an
Indigenous people native to
Sucumbíos Province
Sucumbíos () is a province in northeast Ecuador. The capital and largest city is Nueva Loja (normally referred to as Lago Agrio). It is the fifth largest province in the country, with an area of 18,084 km2. In 2010, it had a population o ...
northeast
Ecuador
Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
and to southern
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
, between the
Guamués River (a
tributary
A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...
of the
Putumayo River
The Putumayo River or Içá River (, ) is one of the tributaries of the Amazon River, southwest of and parallel to the Japurá River.
Course
The Putumayo River forms part of Colombia's border with Ecuador, as well as most of the border with Per ...
) and the
Aguarico River (a tributary of the
Napo River). Their total population is now only about 1,500 (2000 survey) to 2,100 (2010 survey)
people, down from approximately 15,000 in the mid-16th century, when the
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas
**Spanish cuisine
**Spanish history
**Spanish culture
...
crushed their ancient civilization,
of which there are still some archeological remains.
They speak the
Cofán language
Cofán or Kofán, known in the language itself as ''Aingae'', is the primary language of the Cofán people, an indigenous group whose ancestral territory lies at the interface between the Andean foothills and Amazonia in the northeast of Ecuador ...
, which they call ''Aingae''. The
ancestral land, community health and social cohesion of Cofan communities in
Ecuador
Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
has been severely damaged by several decades of
oil drilling
An oil well is a drillhole boring (earth), boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produ ...
. However, reorganization, campaigning for
land rights
Land law is the form of law that deals with the rights to use, alienate, or exclude others from land. In many jurisdictions, these kinds of property are referred to as real estate or real property, as distinct from personal property. Land use ...
, and
direct action
Direct action is a term for economic and political behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a governm ...
against encroaching oil installations have provided a modicum of stability. Major settlements include
Sinangué,
Dovuno,
Dureno and
Zábalo, the latter of which has retained a much more extensive land base.
History
Pre-Spanish history

The Cofán are an ancient civilisation of
Chibchan people and have lived in the region for many centuries.
Spanish colonial history
The Cofáns have had many encounters with Europeans, Spanish colonial forces
and Ecuadorians and Colombians over the years. They defended their vassals and allies from Spanish colonization in the late 16th century and eventually destroying the Spanish town of Mocoa, inducing a Spanish retreat. Padre
Rafael Ferrer, a successful
Jesuit
The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...
who arrived in 1602, was chased out only after soldiers and
colonists
A settler or a colonist is a person who establishes or joins a permanent presence that is separate to existing communities. The entity that a settler establishes is a settlement. A settler is called a pioneer if they are among the first settli ...
sought to follow his lead. Occasional visits from outsiders seeking
gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
, land, trade, and
converts
Conversion or convert may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''The Convert'', a 2023 film produced by Jump Film & Television and Brouhaha Entertainment
* "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman''
* ...
occurred over the next few centuries as European diseases caused a population crash.
Post-Spanish history
The Amazon
rubber boom, in the 19th and early 20th century, brought increased contact, especially with missionaries, both cultural and religious.
Measles
Measles (probably from Middle Dutch or Middle High German ''masel(e)'', meaning "blemish, blood blister") is a highly contagious, Vaccine-preventable diseases, vaccine-preventable infectious disease caused by Measles morbillivirus, measles v ...
,
malaria
Malaria is a Mosquito-borne disease, mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects vertebrates and ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. Human malaria causes Signs and symptoms, symptoms that typically include fever, Fatigue (medical), fatigue, vomitin ...
, and
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
brought the population down to no more than 350; before contact there had been 15,000-20,000 Cofáns.
Randy Borman describes the Cofan response to this traumatic history as follows: an attitude "which can be best termed stoic acceptance of the incomprehensible ways of the outsiders as a survival strategy. Rape and robbery are preferable to death, and if we do not rock the boat, the outsiders will eventually go away, and we will pick up the pieces and continue."
A Cofan Foundation has been formed to help preserve the culture, restore traditional foods in the rivers and to raise money to send children to Quito for education. While the tribe traditionally employs wooden dugout canoes for river travel, they have recently been building large fiberglass canoes for sale as well as their own use, allowing them to preserve the few large trees growing along the rivers. There is no road access to Cofan settlements. Typically a 7-hour trip by motorized canoe is required to reach Zabalo from the nearest road.
Bub and Bobbie Borman, a husband and wife team of missionaries from the
Summer Institute of Linguistics
SIL Global (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics International) is an evangelical Christian nonprofit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, to expan ...
, were among the few outsiders to stay. SIL's mission was to translate the
New Testament
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
into new languages and introduce
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
. The Bormans provided medicines, opened a school in the
Cofán language
Cofán or Kofán, known in the language itself as ''Aingae'', is the primary language of the Cofán people, an indigenous group whose ancestral territory lies at the interface between the Andean foothills and Amazonia in the northeast of Ecuador ...
, and offered skills training. The Bormans went further by raising their children in Cofán culture and acting in cooperation with the Cofán chief
Guillermo Quenama. Their son Randall Borman, became an influential leader to the Cofan people, furthering conservation throughout their ancestral land.
Oil drilling
An abortive
oil shale
Oil shale is an organic-rich Granularity, fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of Organic compound, organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general compos ...
surveying mission by
Shell Oil
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company, headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Y ...
visited Cofán territory from 1945 through 1949.
In 1964,
Geodetic Survey, Inc. cleared seismic trails and detonated underground explosives to locate petroleum deposits for a Texaco-Gulf consortium, which were finally drilled in 1967. A road was built in 1972 from
Quito
Quito (; ), officially San Francisco de Quito, is the capital city, capital and second-largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its metropolitan area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha Province, P ...
to the new oil town of
Lago Agrio and oil extraction began. Colonization by landless
peasant
A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...
s from the highlands followed. By 1982, 47% of the population consisted of migrants, 70% of whom had arrived in the last decade of major oil development. Meanwhile,
oil spills
An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into th ...
,
gas flaring, and untreated wastes undermined the environment, and compromised the subsistence and health of both the Cofáns and the colonists. The
rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...
around
Lago Agrio has been all but obliterated in this region and
environmental degradation
Environment most often refers to:
__NOTOC__
* Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...
is severe, with catastrophic
oil pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the component ...
in some areas. The effects of the oil spills should have been a wake-up call to stop the oil production in the Indigenous lands. Instead, it did not stop. Texaco decided to come to Ecuador. In 1994 a group of Peruvian citizens living downstream from the Oriente region also filed a class action lawsuit against Texaco in US federal court.
An oil industry waste water dumping pit was dug in the
Sucumbíos Province
Sucumbíos () is a province in northeast Ecuador. The capital and largest city is Nueva Loja (normally referred to as Lago Agrio). It is the fifth largest province in the country, with an area of 18,084 km2. In 2010, it had a population o ...
of Ecuador's Amazon in 2005 to the locals' disgust.
Two Ecuadoran born Cofán activists,
Luis Yanza and
Pablo Fajardo, who are demanding that the Chevron Corporation clean up a major toxic waste spills in the Ecuadorian part of the Amazon rainforest received the 2008 and 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize.
Later in 2009, they filed a
class-action legal suit in
Ecuador
Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
against the oil company
Texaco
Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American Petroleum, oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its Gasoline, fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an Independ ...
, which had been bought out by
Chevron in 2001. They legal claim is that, between 1964 and 1990, Texaco dumped 18,000,000 gallons of post-drilling wastewater into the rainforest around the north western town of
Lago Agrio, heavily contaminating the land and threatening the health of up to 30,000 Amerindians and local peasants who live there. Cases of
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...
had increased dramatically in the region since oil drilling began.
Shushufindi Attorney,
Pablo Fajardo and two of his colleagues also started their own related local campaign in 2009.
As of 2009, Chevron was also mounting a public relations campaign to tell its side of the story.
The Indigenous
Kichwa
Kichwa (, , also Spanish ) is a Quechuan language that includes all Quechua varieties of Ecuador and Colombia ('' Inga''), as well as extensions into Peru. It has an estimated half million speakers.
Classification
Kichwa belongs to the Nor ...
tribal leader Guillermo Grefa joined forces with the activists, appearing in
Houston
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
to confront
Chevron at the annual
shareholders
A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of corporate stock refers to an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the ...
meeting. Both tribes were upset by what the oil companies had done to their ancestral lands.
In 2018 the final verdict of the Chevron Corp. said on Friday an international tribunal ruled in its favor in an environmental dispute with Ecuador, finding the South American nation had violated its obligations under international treaties.
The tribunal unanimously held that a $9.5 billion pollution judgment by Ecuador's Supreme Court against Chevron "was procured through fraud, bribery, and corruption and was based on claims that had been already settled and released by the Republic of Ecuador years earlier."
On 26 February 2023
Eduardo Mendúa, a Cofán leader from Dureno as well as a director of the
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, was shot dead outside his home, with it being speculated that this was led to his vocal opposition to oil drilling on Cofán lands.
The Cofan Bermejo Ecological Reserve
Area
The Cofan are entitled to live in and patrol the
Cofan Bermejo Ecological Reserve (''Reserva Ecológica Cofán Bermejo''), which was created on January 30, 2002. The Cofan are presently in control of almost 4,000 square kilometres (1,000,000 acres) of rain forest. It is only a fraction of the more than 30,000 km
2 originally belonging to their former nation.
Agriculture
Cofans in
Zabalo are currently working to bring back some of the traditional animals of their culture to the tributaries of the
Amazon River where they live. They are raising turtles and caimans to be released. They are also starting to raise
chickens
The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...
as a source of food. Many animals that live within their domain are endangered in other regions, including several
monkeys
Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...
,
tapir
Tapirs ( ) are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a Suidae, pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk (proboscis). Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, South and Centr ...
and
pink dolphin. All have healthy populations in Cofan territories.
Political representation
Political representation is through the Federación Indígena de la Nacionalidad Cofán del Ecuador (FEINCE – Indigenous Federation of the Cofan Nationality of Ecuador). Until December 22, 2006, FEINCE was a member of CONFENIAE, the regional Indigenous confederation. Membership was withdrawn, however, in protest to the political infighting presently going on in this organization. FEINCE maintains its headquarters in Lago Agrio, in the province of Sucumbios.
The Orito Ingi-Ande Medicinal Plants Sanctuary
In June 2008
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
created the
Medicinal Plants Orito Ingi-Ande Flora Sanctuary, a 10,204-hectare
National Park
A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...
intended to protect the
plants
Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars f ...
traditionally used by the Cofan.
Reptile eponym
The Cofán people are commemorated in the scientific name of a species of lizard, ''
Enyalioides cofanorum''.
[ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Cofan", p. 56).]
References
Bibliography
* Randall B. Borman, "Survival in a Hostile World: Culture Change and Missionary Influence Among the Cofan People of Ecuador, 1954-1994," ''Missiology'' 24, no. 2 (1996).
* Randall B. Borman, "Survival in a Hostile World: Culture Change and Missionary Influence Among the Cofan People of Ecuador, 1954-1994," ''Missiology'' 24, no. 2 (1996): 186.
* Hicks, James F., et al. ''Ecuador's Amazon Region: Development Issues and Options''. Washington, D.C.: The
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
, 1990.
External links
Cofan.orgfrom ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
''
Nace El Santuario de Flora Plantas Medicinales Orito Ingi-AndeColombia's Cofan still fighting for survival*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cofan
Indigenous peoples of the Amazon
Indigenous peoples in Colombia
Indigenous peoples in Ecuador