The Zápara people are the last remaining members of an ethnolinguistic group that included many other people before the Spanish conquest. The indigenous Zápara live in a biodiverse area of the Amazon jungle straddling Ecuador and Peru. They developed an oral culture that is particularly rich when understanding their natural surroundings. Their abundant vocabulary for flora and fauna is evident, as well as their knowledge of the medicinal plants of the forest, which are expressed through myths, rituals, artistic practices, and language.
The language is the depository of traditional oral knowledge and practices, constituting a people's memory and the region's heritage. People of the Sapara tribe do not have a religion. What they believe in and how they express themselves depends on their environment. Their dreams and the spiritual significance of Amazonian animals play an important role in their decision-making process.
Over time, Sáparas have been fishermen, hunters, gatherers, and farmers. During the 1940s, they began moving to cities for study and job opportunities. At the same time, some men were drafted into the Army. Some Sápara people attended mainstream education, while others went to Kichwa-language schools located in their villages. Sápara people also have a second education system, the Intercultural Bilingual Education System of the Governmental Education Division of Ecuador.
More than a dozen extinct tribes spoke a family of languages known as the Zaparoan or Saparoan, included in this group are the Coronado, Omurano, Andoa, Gae, and Záparo languages. Because of diseases, forced migrations, and slavery, the Sápara population decreased. Disease brought by rubber companies and religious missionaries caused the Sápara to become one group. The separation of the Sápara people took place in the war between Ecuador and Peru in 1941. This resulted in the loss of their identity.
Currently, the Zápara people are in a very critical situation, and today they are in serious danger of disappearing entirely. In 2001, there were not more than 300 people in the Zápara region (200 in Ecuador and 100 in Peru), and only five still speak the Zápara language, all over 70.
Zápara history illustrates that Europeans continue to exercise devastating repercussions on native peoples in the Americas as the result of their conquest over five hundred years ago. Their plight also demonstrates the problems of the climate crisis and environmental degradation, adding to the rising tide of awareness at this time for the global community.