Chango (people)
Chango (also Camanchacos or Camanchangos ) is the name for the pre-Columbian inhabitants and their descendants on the southern Peruvian and northern Chilean coasts in western South America . There are only sparse sources about the people, who mainly live from fishing and agriculture, and so little is known. Today they are extinct or assimilated.
Name and settlement area
The original name Camanchacos probably goes back to the Camanchaca , the typical coastal fog on the coast of the Atacama Desert . (Camanchaca means fog in Aymara ). The Spaniards called her Chango. The name referred to various indigenous groups who lived mainly from fishing . Over time, the term “chango” became a collective term in the ethnic, geographical and lifestyle sense. In this summary, the extent to which individual population groups and tribes differ culturally and technologically was largely ignored. In reality, for example, one has to assume a complex tribal structure in a multi-ethnic system for the north of Chile, especially after the Inca under Huayna Cápac incorporated the area into their empire. The term Changos can therefore be seen less to emphasize an ethnic identity than to describe a way of life as a fishing society in a certain geographical area.
The Chango lived - with settlement focus on the coast - in today's south of Peru and north of Chile, for example between the cities of Camaná and Coquimbo , but in Chile also occasionally south of them.
Way of life
The Chango lived as fishermen and collectors of seafood and bird eggs and hunted seals . There were also trade relations with the Inca living in the interior. The Spanish sources emphasize their "primitive way of life". In adulthood, the men were on average 1.60 meters and the women 1.45 meters tall.
Extinction or assimilation
The Chango who lived on the Rio Loa around 1866 were called Sinquilla, Llombeque, Seyama, Vilayo, Casana, Capollo, Cissama, Llapa, Huaca and Sullo. Most recently Chango lived in Paposo south of Antofagasta and in La Quiaca in Tacna . The Chango have been considered extinct since around 1890. There are still descendants alive who have mixed with other groups and assimilated into the majority society.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from April 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
