The first Catholic priest who arrived in Awajún territory was called ‘apuchi’, which means grandfather in the Aguaruna language. This word began to be used to name all the people who were not awajún, the Apach.

The Awajún people did not feel conquered by the Incas or Spaniards, the natural defense of the Amazonian geography and its warrior attitude kept the outsiders away from their land. It is until relatively recently, at the beginning of the last century that contact with the ‘apach’, the outsider, begins. From his hand came the Catholic religion, commerce, the extraction of oil and minerals. Under the promise of schools and medical posts, communities were grouped into sedentary villages and the balance with the environment maintained by a nomadic way of life disappeared. Returning to the previous way of life, in the words of one of the Awajún leaders, Santiago Manuín, is already impossible. Now with one foot in each world, the Awajún people seek to maintain their identity and determine what their place in Peru will be.