HUITOTOS CULTURE

Huitotos they are an ethnic group or indigenous people of the Colombian and Peruvian Amazon, whose original territory was in the middle of the Caquetá River and the jungle area that goes to the Putumayo River. They speak a language of bora - Huitoto family. Currently they are scattered in various regions of the Amazon, inhabiting the region known as the Middle Colombian Amazon and a major Peruvian sector on the border with Colombia.

HISTORY

The Huitoto people were composed of one hundred eleven villages or 31 tribes, but disease and conflict have reduced their numbers. Until the early 20th century, Huitoto population was 50,000. The boom in the mid-20th century brought diseases and displacement to the Huitotos, causing their numbers to plummet to 7,000-10,000. Since the 1990s, cattle ranchers have invaded Huitoto lands, depleting the soil and polluting waterways. In response, Colombia has established several reservations for Huitotos.

TERRITORY

The Huitoto consider La Chorrera (Amazonas) as their place of origin. Theyare divided into three segments, each of which speaks a different dialect:    

Mɨnɨka (Meneca): at the head of Igaraparaná river and the banks of the Caqueta and Putumayo rivers.
Nɨpode (muinane: people from the east): In the Putumayo (Colombia), in the region of Peruvian and Colombian border near Araracuara and El Veinte in Caqueta.
 Mɨca Bue (Murui: people from the west): in the department of Loreto (Peru) and the department of Amazonas (Colombia) and the banks of the river Caraparana.


SUBSISTENCE
Huitotos all practiced swidden or slash and burn. To avoid depletion of the earth, its fields are moved every few returns. The main crops are cocoa , coca , corn , sour and sweet cassava , bananas , mangos , palm trees, peanuts , pineapples , bananas , sugar cane , sweet potatoes, and snuff . Huitoto ethnobotanical studied agriculture because of their efficiency and sustainability. Huitoto men also hunt with blow guns and shotguns.




CULTURAL ASPECTS
Traditionally they were divided into lineages, patrilineal and exogamous, who lived, although some still do, in a community house known as jofómo or longhouse. Several families share this vital space led by the pair of greater knowledge, usually the oldest. Inside each family it has a separate hob and a special area on which to hang their hammocks. Where there food is essential Casabe, corn bread made from cassava flour brava about one meter in diameter are processed, and that is the foundation of your diet, along with animal protein, the product of hunting and fishing.


In the longhouse there is also a specific place where men at night, sit to consume a green powder obtained by crushing coca leaves and ash yarumo, a process known as "Mambe" or jiibie. During this activity the mythological and cosmological ancestral knowledge is transmitted. Traditionally via a communication code important messages in a longhouse is transmitted to another through two drums called Maguaré, whose sound used transmitted for several kilometers through the acoustic formed by the river beds and the walls formed by the forest trees. Fernando Urbina Rangel investigated the ancient mythology of the uitoto. In addition, the Institute for Environmental Studies (I.D.E.A) presented a breviary on the worldview of the Uitoto in his text "Agaro and the creation of man Uitoto" or Uitoto Ethnicity "Culture Cassava".