Arhuacos
Encyclopedia
The Arhuaco people, also called the Aruacos, Ica, Ijca or Bintuk, names of a Native American
ethnic group part of the Chibcha family, descendents of the Tairona
Culture concentrated in northern Colombia
in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
.
The Arhuacos live in the upper valleys of the Piedras River, San Sebastian river, Chichicua River, Ariguani River and Guatapuri River, in an Indian Reservation
in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
Mountains. Their traditional territory before the Spanish colonization, was larger than today's boundaries which exclude many of their sacred sites that they continue to visit today, to pay offerings. These lost territories are the lower parts by the steps of the mountains, lost to colonization and farming.
The population is dispersed, but gets together in these towns for reunions and ceremonies, with Nabusimake being the most important of them and with an especial significance: it's composed of fifty squared shaped houses and circular temples named Kankura, for men and women.
, which traditionally was practiced by every family in the community in their own parcel by their houses. Each family owned two houses, one in the high lands where the weather is cooler and another in the warmer, lower lands of the mountains.
Nowadays they can only practice this on the higher lands due to expropriation of land during the Spanish colonization.
In the higher lands, they cultivate potato
es, onion
s, cabbage
s, lettuce
, blueberries
, tamarillo
es, pumpkin
s, garlic
and wheat
. In the mid-lands; corn
, beans, yuca
, arracacha
, malanga
, coca
, cotton
, pineapple
, papaya
, guava
, passion fruit, sweet granadilla
, orange
s and lime
s. Coffee
is cultivated for commercial purposes only along with Mochilas (handmade bags, fashionable among both males and females in Bogota and other major Colombian cities), and other arts and crafts to exchange in the lower lands for products they don't get in the high lands. They also raise chicken
s, cattle
, sheep and goat
s. Men produce entirely the traditional clothing, but nowadays they also use modern clothing.
to be the heart
of the world, and believe that the well-being of the rest of the world depends on it.
Nature and society as a unity are ruled by a single sacred law, immutable, pre-existent, primitive and survivor to everyone and everything. The material world can exist or cease to exist but this law is believed to continue without being altered.
This universal law Kunsamü is represented by a boy, Mamo Niankua. This law of nature is an explanation to the origins of matter and its evolution, equilibrium, preservation and harmony, that constitutes the fundamental objectives and the reason being of the Mamo; the spiritual authority of the Arhuaco society.
Each Mamo or Mamü is selected among different candidates, boys ranging eight to ten years old that will receive a training for a minimum of nine years to fifteen years in average and are free to determine if they want to continue with it further the training period. To become a Mamo, they stay in a cave for nine years while the elders teach them everything they need to know. They specialize in certain knowledge areas such as philosophy, sacerdotalism, medicine and practical community or individual counselors. Their influence is decisive in their society.
. The Friars prohibited the children from learning about their culture, established a "regime of terror" and put them aside in an orphanage. They also established forced labor, ignoring the Arhuacos' plea to leave them alone.
In 1943, politicians from Valledupar
, missionaries and Ministry of Agriculture, expropriated without compensation the best terrains of Nabusimake and built a State-owned, agricultural farm. The Arhuacos fought back and in 1944 created the Liga de Indios de la Serra Nevada (Sierra Nevada Amerindians League), but were outlawed later in 1956 by a military government.
In 1962, the government imposed the construction of a communications tower for TV in Mount Alguacil, considered sacred by the Arhuacos. This outraged them because they believe mountain peaks to be sacred. The government also established a military post to intimidate them, and later ordered the construction of a highway from their territory to Valledupar. Ignoring the threats, the Arhuacos reestablished their league. In 1972 the Arhuacos created the cabildo Gobernador, a better structured and adequate organization to defend their values and land.
On August 7, 1982 they rebelled against the Capuchins and took over the mission's buildings. The Capuchins finally left in 1983.
planting, the drug dealers produced Cocaine
through chemical processes. The money later attracted the Colombian Armed Conflict
, and conflict among the different factions: mainly guerrillas and paramilitaries, who competed for the control of the area, and indiscriminately accused the Arhuacos and others of being collaborators of the rival party, assassinating and intimidating them, forcing many to leave. The government also started fumigations to eradicate illicit plantations leaving the Arhuacos in the middle of a crossfire.
The government of Colombia is trying to develop an irrigation system for the Valley of Cesar by constructing hydroelectric dams and ecotourism
routes in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
The Arhuacos are strongly opposed to all these projects and organized the Confederación Indígena Tairona (Tairona Indigenous Confederation).
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
ethnic group part of the Chibcha family, descendents of the Tairona
Tairona
Tairona was a group of chiefdoms in the region of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in present-day Cesar, Magdalena and La Guajira Departments of Colombia, South America, which goes back at least to the 1st century AD and had significant demographic growth around the 11th century.The Tairona people...
Culture concentrated in northern Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is an isolated mountain range apart from the Andes chain that runs through Colombia. Reaching an altitude of 5,700 metres above sea level just 42 km from the Caribbean coast, the Sierra Nevada is the world's highest coastal range...
.
Territory
Indian reservation
An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...
in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is an isolated mountain range apart from the Andes chain that runs through Colombia. Reaching an altitude of 5,700 metres above sea level just 42 km from the Caribbean coast, the Sierra Nevada is the world's highest coastal range...
Mountains. Their traditional territory before the Spanish colonization, was larger than today's boundaries which exclude many of their sacred sites that they continue to visit today, to pay offerings. These lost territories are the lower parts by the steps of the mountains, lost to colonization and farming.
Communities
The Arhuacos are distributed into 22 sections.- Central Zone: Nabusimake (Capital of the Arhuaco nation), Yechikin and Busin.
- Western Zone: Serankua, Windiwameina, Singunei.
- Southern Zone: Zigta, Yeurwa, Gumuke, Yeiwin, Seiarukwingumu, Buyuaguenka, and Simonorwa.
- Southeast Zone: Wirwa, Yugaka, Karwa.
- East Zone: Sogrome, Donachwi, Timaka, Aruamake, Seinimin and Izrwa.
The population is dispersed, but gets together in these towns for reunions and ceremonies, with Nabusimake being the most important of them and with an especial significance: it's composed of fifty squared shaped houses and circular temples named Kankura, for men and women.
Economy
The Arhuacos' main economic activity is subsistence agricultureAgriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
, which traditionally was practiced by every family in the community in their own parcel by their houses. Each family owned two houses, one in the high lands where the weather is cooler and another in the warmer, lower lands of the mountains.
Nowadays they can only practice this on the higher lands due to expropriation of land during the Spanish colonization.
In the higher lands, they cultivate potato
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
es, onion
Onion
The onion , also known as the bulb onion, common onion and garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion The onion...
s, cabbage
Cabbage
Cabbage is a popular cultivar of the species Brassica oleracea Linne of the Family Brassicaceae and is a leafy green vegetable...
s, lettuce
Lettuce
Lettuce is a temperate annual or biennial plant of the daisy family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable. It is eaten either raw, notably in salads, sandwiches, hamburgers, tacos, and many other dishes, or cooked, as in Chinese cuisine in which the stem becomes just as important...
, blueberries
Blueberry
Blueberries are flowering plants of the genus Vaccinium with dark-blue berries and are perennial...
, tamarillo
Tamarillo
Solanum betaceum is a small tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Solanaceae. It is best known as the species that bears the tamarillo, an egg-shaped edible fruit...
es, pumpkin
Pumpkin
A pumpkin is a gourd-like squash of the genus Cucurbita and the family Cucurbitaceae . It commonly refers to cultivars of any one of the species Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbita mixta, Cucurbita maxima, and Cucurbita moschata, and is native to North America...
s, garlic
Garlic
Allium sativum, commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion genus, Allium. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, and rakkyo. Dating back over 6,000 years, garlic is native to central Asia, and has long been a staple in the Mediterranean region, as well as a frequent...
and wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
. In the mid-lands; corn
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
, beans, yuca
Cassava
Cassava , also called yuca or manioc, a woody shrub of the Euphorbiaceae native to South America, is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates...
, arracacha
Arracacha
The arracacha is a garden root vegetable originally from the Andes, somewhat intermediate between the carrot and celery...
, malanga
Malanga
- Plants :* Xanthosoma, also known as Malanga, a tropical and sub-tropical edible or ornamental plant* Eddoe, also known as Malanga, a tropical vegetable- People :* Gerard Malanga , poet and photographer* Steven Malanga, author...
, coca
Coca
Coca, Erythroxylum coca, is a plant in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. The plant plays a significant role in many traditional Andean cultures...
, cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
, pineapple
Pineapple
Pineapple is the common name for a tropical plant and its edible fruit, which is actually a multiple fruit consisting of coalesced berries. It was given the name pineapple due to its resemblance to a pine cone. The pineapple is by far the most economically important plant in the Bromeliaceae...
, papaya
Papaya
The papaya , papaw, or pawpaw is the fruit of the plant Carica papaya, the sole species in the genus Carica of the plant family Caricaceae...
, guava
Guava
Guavas are plants in the myrtle family genus Psidium , which contains about 100 species of tropical shrubs and small trees. They are native to Mexico, Central America, and northern South America...
, passion fruit, sweet granadilla
Sweet granadilla
Passiflora ligularis, commonly known as the Sweet granadilla or Grenadia is a plant species in the Passiflora genus. The epithet ligularis comes from the plant's ligulate corollae. It is native to the Andes Mountains between Bolivia, Venezuela and Colombia. It grows as far south as northern...
, orange
Orange (fruit)
An orange—specifically, the sweet orange—is the citrus Citrus × sinensis and its fruit. It is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world....
s and lime
Lime (fruit)
Lime is a term referring to a number of different citrus fruits, both species and hybrids, which are typically round, green to yellow in color, 3–6 cm in diameter, and containing sour and acidic pulp. Limes are a good source of vitamin C. Limes are often used to accent the flavors of foods and...
s. Coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
is cultivated for commercial purposes only along with Mochilas (handmade bags, fashionable among both males and females in Bogota and other major Colombian cities), and other arts and crafts to exchange in the lower lands for products they don't get in the high lands. They also raise chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
s, cattle
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
, sheep and goat
Goat
The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...
s. Men produce entirely the traditional clothing, but nowadays they also use modern clothing.
Beliefs
The Arhuacos are a profoundly spiritual people who follow their own unique philosophy that tends to globalize their surroundings. They believe in a "Creator" or "father" named Kakü Serankua, who engendered the first gods and material living things, other "fathers" like the sun and the snowy peaks and other "mothers" like the earth and the moon. They consider the Sierra Nevada de Santa MartaSierra Nevada de Santa Marta
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is an isolated mountain range apart from the Andes chain that runs through Colombia. Reaching an altitude of 5,700 metres above sea level just 42 km from the Caribbean coast, the Sierra Nevada is the world's highest coastal range...
to be the heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
of the world, and believe that the well-being of the rest of the world depends on it.
Nature and society as a unity are ruled by a single sacred law, immutable, pre-existent, primitive and survivor to everyone and everything. The material world can exist or cease to exist but this law is believed to continue without being altered.
This universal law Kunsamü is represented by a boy, Mamo Niankua. This law of nature is an explanation to the origins of matter and its evolution, equilibrium, preservation and harmony, that constitutes the fundamental objectives and the reason being of the Mamo; the spiritual authority of the Arhuaco society.
Each Mamo or Mamü is selected among different candidates, boys ranging eight to ten years old that will receive a training for a minimum of nine years to fifteen years in average and are free to determine if they want to continue with it further the training period. To become a Mamo, they stay in a cave for nine years while the elders teach them everything they need to know. They specialize in certain knowledge areas such as philosophy, sacerdotalism, medicine and practical community or individual counselors. Their influence is decisive in their society.
Conflicts with colonizers
In 1916 the Arhuacos asked the government of Colombia for teachers to learn to read and write and also learn about mathematics, but instead the government sent Capuchin FriarsOrder of Friars Minor Capuchin
The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an Order of friars in the Catholic Church, among the chief offshoots of the Franciscans. The worldwide head of the Order, called the Minister General, is currently Father Mauro Jöhri.-Origins :...
. The Friars prohibited the children from learning about their culture, established a "regime of terror" and put them aside in an orphanage. They also established forced labor, ignoring the Arhuacos' plea to leave them alone.
In 1943, politicians from Valledupar
Valledupar
Valledupar is a city and municipality in northeastern Colombia. It is the capital of Cesar Department and was founded in 1550 by the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Santana. Its name, Valle de Upar , was established in honor of the Amerindian cacique who ruled the valley; Cacique Upar...
, missionaries and Ministry of Agriculture, expropriated without compensation the best terrains of Nabusimake and built a State-owned, agricultural farm. The Arhuacos fought back and in 1944 created the Liga de Indios de la Serra Nevada (Sierra Nevada Amerindians League), but were outlawed later in 1956 by a military government.
In 1962, the government imposed the construction of a communications tower for TV in Mount Alguacil, considered sacred by the Arhuacos. This outraged them because they believe mountain peaks to be sacred. The government also established a military post to intimidate them, and later ordered the construction of a highway from their territory to Valledupar. Ignoring the threats, the Arhuacos reestablished their league. In 1972 the Arhuacos created the cabildo Gobernador, a better structured and adequate organization to defend their values and land.
On August 7, 1982 they rebelled against the Capuchins and took over the mission's buildings. The Capuchins finally left in 1983.
Prohibited Cultivation
In 1975, Colonials, not Arhuacos, started cultivating Marihuana in the Sierra Nevada. This brought more problems to the community, like forced recruitment for plantations, assimilation of the drug dealers' culture by some, and violence. Many poor peasants from other regions of Colombia came to work in the Marihuana bonanza of the 1980s. Different from the traditional, non-commercial CocaCoca
Coca, Erythroxylum coca, is a plant in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. The plant plays a significant role in many traditional Andean cultures...
planting, the drug dealers produced Cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
through chemical processes. The money later attracted the Colombian Armed Conflict
Colombian Armed Conflict
The Colombian armed conflict or Colombian Civil War are terms that are employed to refer to the current asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict in Colombia that has existed since approximately 1964 or 1966, between the Colombian government and peasant guerrillas such as the Revolutionary Armed...
, and conflict among the different factions: mainly guerrillas and paramilitaries, who competed for the control of the area, and indiscriminately accused the Arhuacos and others of being collaborators of the rival party, assassinating and intimidating them, forcing many to leave. The government also started fumigations to eradicate illicit plantations leaving the Arhuacos in the middle of a crossfire.
Government Projects
Ecotourism
Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...
routes in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
The Arhuacos are strongly opposed to all these projects and organized the Confederación Indígena Tairona (Tairona Indigenous Confederation).