Camsá people
 Chaquira (=‘beaded’) mask used in the folk rituals of the indigenous Kamëntsá people of Colombia | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 4,020 (2007)[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Colombia[2] | |
| Languages | |
| Camsá, Inga, Spanish[1] | |
| Religion | |
| Traditional tribal religion (Shamanism), Roman Catholicism (syncretized) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Inga people |
The Camsá, or in their language Kamëntsá, are an indigenous people of Colombia. They primarily live in the Sibundoy Valley of the Putumayo Department in the south of Colombia.[3]
Name
The name is rendered variously as Camsá, Camëntsëá, Coche, Kamemtxa, Kamsa, Kamse, Sibundoy, and Sibundoy-Gaché.[1]
Language
The Camsá language is a language isolate,[1] although linguists have tried to connect it to the Chibchan language family in the past. The language is written in the Latin script.[1]
Culture
They are known for their carved wooden masks that are worn during ceremonies and festivals.[3] They farm maize, beans, potatoes, and peas, and use a number of different entheogens, including ayahuasca (yagé), Brugmansia species, Iochroma fuchsioides and Desfontainia in their rituals. Kamëntsá shamans are noted for the number and variety of Brugmansia cultivars which they have propagated in their gardens of entheogenic plants, and which bear leaves in a wide variety of curiously misshapen forms. One of these cultivars - 'Culebra' ('snake' in Spanish) proved so aberrant that it was, for a time, actually removed from Brugmansia and accorded monotypic genus status as Methysticodendron (Greek : 'intoxicating tree'), the full Linnaean binomial of the plant becoming Methysticodendron amesianum before it was subsumed once more in Brugmansia.[4]
Gallery
Kamëntsá People
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Kämentsá dancers -
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Craftsperson threading traditional beadwork -
Wood carving of Kämentsá in traditional costume in the Parque de Sibundoy
Entheogenic plants of the Kamëntsá
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Brugmansia x candida var. ‘Culebra’, Kew gardens -
Conventional form of Brugmansia x candida -
Conventional form of Brugmansia aurea -
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Banisteriopsis caapi, principal ingredient of ayahuasca -
Psychotria viridis: most important ayahuasca additive -
Desfontainia spinosa: ‘borrachera del paramo’
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Notable Kamëntsá people
- Hugo Jamioy Juagibioy, poet and indigenous rights activist
References
- ^ a b c d e "Camsá." Ethnologue. Retrieved 24 Nov 2013.
- ^ "Kamëntsá - Orientation." Countries and Their Cultures. Retrieved 24 Nov 2013.
- ^ a b "Arts and Crafts in Colombia." Archived 2016-05-01 at the Wayback Machine Footprint Travel Guides. Accessed 29 Jan 2014.
- ^ Schultes, Richard Evans; Hofmann, Albert (1979). The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens (2nd ed.). Springfield Illinois: Charles C. Thomas
External links
- Declaration by the Inga and Kametsa peoples, Colombia Support Network
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