About Us

In the decade prior, in 1951, the Salesian Mission of Bomboiza was established at the initiative of Conrado Tsamaraint, a resident of Pumpuis, and Salesian Father Luis Casiraghi. The intention of the Salesian missionaries was to concentrate their evangelizing efforts on the Shuar people, leaving the Gualaquiza Mission (established in February 1893) responsible for the increasingly numerous settlers inhabiting Gualaquiza and nearby hamlets. The growth of Gualaquiza and alignment with state policies promoting regional colonization in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s increased colonial pressures on land in the region, leading to a multiplication of colonial abuses, resource and space pressures, and a lack of legal security over Shuar ancestral land ownership. This process led to the establishment of the Shuar center Pumpuis, alongside the Bomboiza Mission, and its territorial demarcation and administrative organization.

Immediately, a territorial reserve of 10,000 hectares was demarcated between the Chuchumbleza River and the Bomboiza River (encompassing the current centers: Pumpuis, Kenkuim, Chumpias, Kunchaim, Chatus, Kayamás, Nayanmak, Sakanás, Yawints), followed by additional territorial demarcations in the centers of Asau, Tiink, Piunts, Yantsas, Kupiamais, Kapanak Entsa, and Pakintza. All these centers would receive collective legal titles from the Ecuadorian government in May 1981, following numerous collective efforts led by the leaders and government councils of the Shuar Association of Bomboiza, democratically elected among the trustees of each of the centers and Shuar communities within their territory.