The Ashaninka Indigenous people, who have recovered their once lost territory inside the Brazilian border with Peru from "settlers" more than three decades ago, are under attack again.
This time their way of life is at risk from drug trafficking gangs that have encroached on their land in the state of Acre, where the criminals utilise rivers that connect to the Amazon estuary and the adjacent forest for their drug routes.
The cultural leaders of the Arawak-speaking nation say they have reported violent episodes from the gangs to Brazilian authorities, asking for protection on the Ashaninka territory, which is key to the country's trafficking trade.
Security forces have since been deployed on the broader transformation of the Solimões River route - the Portuguese name initially given to the Indigenous peoples that the European explorers encountered along the Amazon border - but the presence of the forces have been far too infrequent, the Ashaninka say, as invasive criminal activities look to expand their control further.
"There's an institutional and intercultural blind spot in the public security services provided to the Indigenous peoples," Major Jonatas Soares, a senior police officer in the nearby city of Tabatinga, told the Associated Press.
"The (Brazilian) state formally recognises their territories, yet it fails to translate that presence into continuous protection tailored to their specific needs."
The latest intrusion follows a period of regaining ancestral Indigenous territory from decades of the Seringueiros tappers, who moved into the western Brazil in the late 1800s, to cut latex off wild rubber trees during the Amazon rubber boom.
The Ashaninka have since established and sustained their own governance structures, grew self-sustaining crops for their communities while also protecting the Amazon basin in what is a thriving story of revitalisation for Indigenous culture in South America.
Environmental experts say protecting Indigenous land is one of the most effective ways to curb deforestation in the Amazon, the world's largest rainforest, a key regulator of the global climate. But the same forests these communities help protect leave their people particularly vulnerable.
Dense tree cover in remote, hard-to-reach areas also offers attractive hiding sites for drug traffickers.
Despite appeals to authorities, the Ashaninka and other smaller Indigenous people groups say the Brazilian government's offer to assist continually falls short.
The Solimões River route, which includes a series of navigable rivers flowing from the Peruvian side of the border onto the Brazilian river port metropolis of Manaus, has become a primary journey over the past couple of decades for moving cocaine produced in Peru, Colombia and Bolivia onto the continent's Atlantic side ports.
This drug route is said to be mostly controlled by the Brazilian gang, Red Command, according to Colonel César Mello, a professor at the Federal University of Para and the University of the State of Amazonas, who is also a retired police officer.
The remote location of Indigenous territories, lack of government oversight, language barriers and cultural differences "make Indigenous peoples a vulnerable population and an attractive source of labour for criminal organizations," Col Mello said.
Criminal groups often recruit disenfranchised Indigenous youth by offering them tempting cash lures and a status in communities where economic opportunities are scarce.
Col Mello said when that does not work, the gangs use violence to intimidate the barely couple of thousand people that live in the Alto Juruá region. But there is signs that suggests preserving traditions has strengthened their Indigenous resistance.
The Ashaninka have become an enduring block to trafficking networks in both Peru as well as Brazil.
More than 95 per cent of Ashaninka people live in neighbouring Peru, proving to be a reassuring safeguard for their Indigenous brotherhood from the other side of the transnational border.
The drug traffickers had previously approached the Indigenous community seeking to build a clandestine airstrip inside their territory, but the Ashaninka have staunchly refused to cooperate.
"We have a long history of opposing any kind of illegal activity," Francisco Piyãko, a coordinator for the Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of the Juruá River, said.
Tensions escalated last month after a group of armed men had reportedly invaded the Kampa do Rio Amônia Indigenous Territory. That is where five Spanish-speaking men, carrying machine guns, threatened families amid a search for the tribe's community leaders that had previously turned down past overtures.
Mr Piyãko filed a formal complaint with Acre state authorities and the Brazilian Army, prompting the deployment of the security forces.
"It is one thing for outsiders to enter our territory to steal resources, like timber and wildlife, but this was different," he said.
"They entered our land looking for our leaders, intending to kill them."
A Brazilian Supreme Court earlier this year ordered the national government to intensify efforts against criminal organisations operating in the Amazon, citing the state's official records and investigations to prove their growing presence was a literal threat to Indigenous lives.
The Ashaninka community shaken by the recent threats say the state is responsible to provide greater protection.
"They allowed this to happen through their absence, so they bear that responsibility," Mr Piyãko said.
