COLOMBIAN TRIBE IS THREATENED BY AN ENCROACHING CIVIL WAR

SIMONORWA, 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 Choco- 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 Cordoba 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.

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 Nino, 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. Nino 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 Bogota 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."