Zaparos
Encyclopedia
The Zápara are a tribe
Tribe
A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...

 of South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

n Indians
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...

 indigenous to the Amazon jungle that straddles the border of Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

 and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

. They once occupied some 12,000 mi² between the Napo River
Napo River
The Napo is a tributary to the Amazon River that rises in Ecuador on the flanks of the volcanoes of Antisana, Sincholagua and Cotopaxi.The total length of 1075 km. Catchment area of ​​100,518 square kilometers...

 and the Pastaza. Early in the 20th century, there were some 200,000 Zapara. From the year 2009 on the Ecuadorian Zápara call themselves Sápara. The official name is Nación Sápara del Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

 (NASE). It means Sápara Nation of Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

. The president of this nation from September 2009 until September 2013 is Bartolo Alejandro Ushigua Santi also known as Manari Kaki Ushigua Santi or Manari Kaji Ushigua Santi. The Sápara Nation was officially registered by CONDENPE – the Council of Development of the nationalities and peoples of Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

 – on September 16, 2009. The new name and organisation are results of a unification process with other indigenous communities which called themselves Záparos or Záparas as well. There was a conflict between these different groups about their real authentic ethnic identity in the last years of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. With this unification this conflict seems to be solved. CONDENPE confirms as well officially the legal status of autonomy or self-government of the Sápara Nation of Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

 N.A.S.E. and confirms their territory between the rivers Pindoyacu, Conambo and Alto Corrientes (Upper River) in the province of Pastaza
Pastaza Province
Pastaza is a province in the Oriente of Ecuador located in the eastern jungle. The capital is Puyo, founded on May 12, 1899 and which boasts 25,800 inhabitants...

. It is confirmed as well that the head office of NASE is the city of Puyo, Pastaza
Puyo, Pastaza
Puyo, also known as El Puyo, is the capital of Pastaza, a province in Ecuador. Puyo is located at an altitude of approximately 950 AMSL by the Puyo River, a tributary of the Pastaza River, which eventually leads into the Amazon River...

.

The name Sápara is also a result of the fact that the alphabetic character Z does not exist in the alphabet of the Sáparas. This is an information of Bartolo Ushigua Santi from Dezember 10, 2009. He wrote that this fact is a result of investigations about the grammar of the Sápara language made by the Sápara Board of Education Bilingual – Dirección de Educación Bilingüe Sápara (DIENASE). They found out that the alphabet of the Sáparas ended with the character W.

Culture

They ate palm hearts as their main vegetable and they fished the many rivers of their jungle home. Using blowguns and bamboo darts, they hunted tapir
Tapir
A Tapir is a large browsing mammal, similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile snout. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia. There are four species of Tapirs: the Brazilian Tapir, the Malayan Tapir, Baird's Tapir and the Mountain...

s, peccaries, wood-quail
Wood-quail
The Wood Quails are birds in the genus Odontophorus of the New World quail family, which are residents in forests in the Americas...

, and curassows. They did not hunt spider monkey
Spider monkey
Spider monkeys of the genus Ateles are New World monkeys in the subfamily Atelinae, family Atelidae. Like other atelines, they are found in tropical forests of Central and South America, from southern Mexico to Brazil...

s because they believed them to be their ancestors. The 20th century demand for rubber lead to the destruction of much of their jungle (and the animals who lived in it) and the enslavement of the people. The men were forced as slaves to cultivate rubber. The women and girls were raped and forced into sexual slavery.

Language

Their numbers dwindled precipitously to the point where there are fewer than 300 remaining and only a handful who speak their native language. Most speak Quichua, some speak a patois of Kichwa
Kichwa
Kichwa is a Quechuan language, and includes all Quechua varieties spoken in Ecuador and Colombia by approximately 2,500,000 people...

 and Záparo. The oldest surviving Zápara is a woman, about 70 years old, Ana Maria Santi. She refuses to drink alcoholic chicha
Chicha
For the musical genre, see Peruvian cumbiaChicha is a term used in some regions of Latin America for several varieties of fermented and non-fermented beverages, rather often to those derived from maize and similar non-alcoholic beverages...

 or to eat spider monkey
Spider monkey
Spider monkeys of the genus Ateles are New World monkeys in the subfamily Atelinae, family Atelidae. Like other atelines, they are found in tropical forests of Central and South America, from southern Mexico to Brazil...

 meat, which most Zápara now hunt and eat because they can get no other meat. To Ana Maria, this seems cannibalistic. "When we are down to eating our ancestors, what is left?" She and her family live in the hamlet of on the river, home to some forty people, about a seventh of what remains of their nation.
  • In 2001, their population numbered no more than 300 (200 in Ecuador
    Ecuador
    Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

     and 100 in Peru
    Peru
    Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

    ), of whom only five, all aged over 70, still speak the Záparo language.

The UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

 declared the Záparo language as an "Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity
Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity
The Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity was made by the Director-General of UNESCO starting in 2001 to raise awareness on intangible cultural heritage and encourage local communities to protect them and the local people who sustain these forms of cultural...

" in 2001

Films

"Talking with Fish and Birds – The Záparo Indians in the Ecuadorian Jungle", documentary, a film by Rainer Simon
Rainer Simon
Rainer Simon is a German film director and screenwriter. He directed 17 films between 1964 and 2000. His 1985 film The Woman and the Stranger won the Golden Bear award at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival.-External links:...

 (1985 Golden Bear at the International Berlin Film Festival and GDR critics' award for the feature film "THE WOMAN AND THE STRANGER"), Director of Photography: Frank Sputh, Germany 1999, 43 minutes, A Simon/Sputh-Production, www.franksputh.agdok.de

Videos

A Message of Bartolo Alejandro Ushigua Santi – the president of the Sápara Nation of Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

– in Spanish with the title “Becario Zapara ONU 2007 – Ecuador” you can find in youtube, June 2007, 2 minutes

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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