Unreached people group Frontier
Juma
The Juma are an Indigenous people of the Tupi-Guarani language family, belonging to the group known as Kagwahiva. They live in the southern part of the state of Amazonas, in the region of the Assuã River basin, near Lábrea and Canutama, where the Juma Indigenous Land is located. Their language is Kagwahiva, in the variety spoken by them, today with very few speakers.
The history of the Juma is marked by profound suffering. It is estimated that in the past they were a numerous people, but successive waves of settlement, conflicts, and massacres over the centuries reduced them to a very small number of people. An especially tragic episode in the 1960s left only a few survivors, and since then the people have lived under grave threat of disappearing.
The elder and warrior Aruká, regarded as the last oldest man of the group, died in 2021. His daughters remained, and, seeking to preserve the continuity of the people, joined with men from a related people who speak the same Kagwahiva language. Thus, even in a situation of extreme vulnerability, the Juma continue striving to keep their identity, their memory, and their language alive.
| Country | Share of the people | Population |
|---|---|---|
Brazil Unreached
|
0%
|
The Juma live in a small village in the Amazon rainforest, traditionally sustaining themselves through hunting, fishing, gathering fruit, and cultivating gardens, especially cassava and other foods grown on a family basis. Their social organization has always been tied to kinship bonds and knowledge passed down by elders, now gravely threatened by the loss of so many people and the deaths of the elders.
The group faces immense challenges: an extremely small number of members, fragility in passing on the language and customs to new generations, lack of infrastructure in the village, and pressures on their territory. The very survival of the people as a distinct group is at risk, and each generation carries the weight of preserving a cultural heritage on the verge of disappearing.
The Juma worldview is traditionally tied to the ethnic religions of Amazonian peoples, marked by a vision in which the forest, rivers, animals, and spirits of nature are deeply intertwined with human life. Origin myths, dreams, and ancestral knowledge guide the people’s relationship with their environment and with the sacred.
In this understanding, there is no rigid separation between the visible and the invisible: the beings of nature possess spiritual power, and daily life, hunting, and health are all connected to this world of spirits. As far as is known, the Juma people remain with practically no significant contact with the message of Jesus Christ, and the Gospel has not yet been proclaimed in an understandable way in their language and within their reality.
The most urgent need of the Juma is spiritual: that they come to know the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ, faithfully expressed in their language and culture. Alongside this, there are concrete and deep needs, such as the very preservation of the people’s existence, the protection of their territory, the continuity of their language, and the dignity of a community that has survived so much loss. To intercede for the Juma is to cry out for life, for comfort in the face of so much grief, and for hope that reaches even the last remaining members.
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