The Teteté were a small group of Western Tucanoan speakers, who once lived in the Ecuadorian Amazon or Oriente.
Today, their territory would lie within Ecuador’s Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, a popular site for ecotourism.
From 1877 through the 1920s, however, Ecuadorian and Colombian rubber collectors (caucheros) and their native press gangs worked this part of the upper Aguarico and Putumayo watersheds, shooting or kidnapping Tetete people whenever they showed themselves (Cabodevilla 1997).
Large numbers of the Teteté were ultimately driven to extinction by missionaries and petroleum companies after oil exploration began nearby in 1964.
The Ecuadorian Government officials have stated that the extinction of the Tetete people was partly caused by the encroachment of Texaco onto their land.