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The Embera and three related tribes, the Wounaan, the Katio and the Chami, who hunt and fish in this northern swath of thick rain forests and limitless waterways, have helplessly watched as 15 young people, many of them girls barely out of puberty, have committed suicide since March 2003.

With barely 3,000 people in the tribes the yearlong spate of deaths adds up to a suicide rate of 500 per 100,000 people. The overall suicide rate in Colombia was 4.4 per 100,000 in 2003, according to government statistics.

"For us, for one to die is like losing 100," said Victor Carpio, a Wounaan leader.

Colombia's 40-year conflict, pitting rebels against right-wing death squads and state security forces, is an easy culprit. But it is not the only one. Encroaching modernity, from logging to settlements, threaten the Emberas, who worry that their whipsawed young are losing the indigenous identity at the root of the tribe's existence.

Colombia has no psychologists trained to deal with indigenous groups like the Embera, with many members who barely speak Spanish and have no experience with Western forms of therapy.

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Colombia has no psychologists trained to deal with indigenous groups like the Embera, with many members who barely speak Spanish and have no experience with Western forms of therapy.

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WW, these stories are so heart-breakingly familiar to us, or should be, from following the stories of aboriginal communities here, especially in the North.

That's why that sentence leapt out at me. What good has Western therapy done here is my first reaction to that sentence.

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That's why that sentence leapt out at me. What good has Western therapy done here is my first reaction to that sentence.

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