Aguaruna
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The Aguaruna (or Awajún) are an indigenous people, whose cultural practices and language is very closely related to the Shuar (or Jivaro). Historically, they lived primarily on the banks of the Marañón River, a tributary of the Amazon in northern Peru near the border with Ecuador. Currently, they possess titled community lands in four of Peru's regions: Amazonas, Cajamarca, Loreto, and San Martin. According to Peru's 1993 Census the Aguaruna numbered aproximately 45,137 persons.
History
Unlike many other cultural groups in what is now Peru, the Aguaruna were never successfully conquered by the Inca, although there are accounts of attempts to extend into the territory by Incas Huayna Capac and Tupac Inca Yupanqui.The Spanish conquistadors first encountered the Aguaruna in 1549 when the towns of Jaén de Bracamoros and Santa Maria de Nieva were founded. Fifty years later, a rebellion among the indigenous people of the region forced the Spaniards out of the area. An agricultural colony was later established at Borja in 1865. Attempts by Dominican and Jesuit missionaries to convert the Aguarunas were largely unsuccessful.
Traditionally, the economy of the Aguaruna is based mostly on hunting, fishing and subsistence agriculture. However, over the last few decades they have increasingly become engaged in various market activities. Some communities now cultivate rice, coffee, cocoa and bananas for sale, either in local markets or for transport to coastal cities like Chiclayo. Maintenance of the transandean oil pipeline and the medicinal plant industry also play roles in the local economy.
Religion
The Aguarunas traditionally believed in many spirits and mythological figures, among them: Etsa, or the Sun; Núgkui, or mother earth, who ensures agricultural success and provides the clay for ceramics; Tsúgki, water spirits who live in the rivers; and Bikut, or father shaman, who transforms himself into hallucinogenic plants that, mixed with ayahuasca, allows one to communicate with other superior worlds.Young men would traditionally take drugs including ayahuasca to help them see visions. The visions were believed to be the souls of dead warriors, and if the young man showed no fear he would receive spirit power known as ajútap. A man with such spirit power would be invulnerable in battle.
In the past, the Aguarunas engaged in the practice of shrinking human heads to make tzantza.
Evangelical missionaries began contacting the Aguaruna in the mid-20th century, and today many Aguarunas have converted to Christianity.
Contemporary Situation
In the latter half of the 20th century, the arrival of Protestant and Jesuit missionaries, the building of roads, and the construction of an oil pipeline created substantial tension between the Aguaruna people, poor agricultural colonists, state agencies, and profit-seeking corporations [link]. In response to new threats to their way of life the Aguaruna began to organize a political and social response to defend themselves on the basis of principles consistent with other rights of indigenous peoples. The most historic organizations of Aguaruna communities include the Organización Central de Comunidades Aguarunas del Alto Marañon (OCCAAM), founded in 1975, and the Consejo Aguaruna y Huambisa (CAH), an organization founded in 1977 that represents the Aguaruna and a closely related ethnic group, the Huambisa. Since then Aguaruna community organizers have founded more than 12 local organizations (including an Aguaruna women's federation). They have also played an absolutely central role in national level indigenous movements in Peru and in the founding of the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), which represents Amazonian peoples from all over the South American continent.
In the mid 1990s the Aguaruna became internationally famous for their role in negotiating a novel bioprospecting agreement with a US based pharmaceutical company (G.D. Searle & Company) and a group of ethnobotanists from Washington University. The project involved an initial controversy over alleged violations of the Aguarunas' right to an equitable share in the potential profits derived from a future pharmaceutical based on their traditional knowledge of medicinal plants. A consortium of Aguaruna organizations successfully renegotiated the project and achieved several legal "firsts" in the process. Aguaruna organizations signed a "know-how license" in order to lease indigenous medicinal knowledge directly to the pharmaceutical corporation while retaining the collective intellectual property rights to it. The "know-how license" concept as applied to indigenous peoples' knowledge is a legal first. Aguaruna organizations also became co-applicants on a patent for a possible malaria cure.
References
- [www.peruecologico.com]
- Greene, Shane. 2004 "Indigenous People Incorporated?" Current Anthropology, 45(2).
- Greene, Shane. 2006 "Getting over the Andes" Journal of Latin American Studies, 38(2).
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