[12] In an incident that took place some time before 1996, a Kanoê family, the sole survivors of a massacre, attempted to contact the Akuntsu to find marriage partners.

[13] Before official contact, the Akuntsu had violent confrontations with colonists, loggers and cattle ranchers who began entering their land in the 1970s, after the construction of a highway.

At least fifteen were killed in this attack, which is thought to have been motivated by the knowledge that if the Akuntsu were officially contacted the forest would be declared an indigenous reserve and closed off to logging and cattle ranching.

In December 1986, a state interdiction on the area that had been put in place for FUNAI to conduct its search was lifted and farmers, cattle ranchers and loggers were able to resume legal expansion into the forest.

When an expedition finally made official contact with the Akuntsu in October of that year the tribe numbered seven: two men, three adult women and two young girls.

[15] The 26,000 hectare Igarapé Omerê Indigenous Territory was created for the Akuntsu and Kanoê, but the area of protected forest is still threatened by loggers and cattle ranchers which FUNAI have been unable to eject.

[3][5][6] The neighbouring Kanoê have been similarly reduced in number through contact with settlers,[19] as were the people of the so-called Man of the Hole, an individual living alone in the Igarapé Omerê reserve who was believed the sole survivor of his tribe.