Machiguenga

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The Machiguenga (also Matsigenka or Matsigenga ) are a South American ethnic group of the Arawak in the rainforest area of Peru .

The Machiguenga settlement areas are located in the Peruvian provinces of Calca (Department of Cusco ), La Convención (Department of Cusco) and Manu (Department of Madre de Dios ), on the Urubamba , Río Camisea , Río Picha , Río Manú , Río Timpia , Río Tigompinia, Río Cumpirosiato and Río Mishagua.

language

The Machiguenga language, spoken by about 10,000 people, is one of the Arawak languages and is most closely related to the Nomatsiguenga and Asháninka languages.

Culture

The Machiguenga live from slash and burn construction , hunting and fishing. Its main crops are cassava ( yuca ), sachapapa (a type of tuber fruit ), pituca , sweet potato ( camote ), peanut , corn and bananas . More recently, coffee and cocoa have been grown for marketing purposes.

In the Machiguenga society, the medicine man has special power. His ability to overcome boundaries and unite opposites forms a social control mechanism. The culture, history and mythology of the Machiguenga are a main theme of the novel The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa .

history

Already since 1572, at that time by Martín García Loyola, attempts have been made several times over the centuries to evangelize the Machiguenga, but without success. During the rubber boom in the late 19th century, the machiguenga were exposed to massive slave hunters , and their numbers declined significantly due to massacres and introduced diseases such as smallpox and malaria .

Since 1940, when it was assumed that malaria had been eradicated, there was an increased, state-sponsored colonization, mainly by Quechua settlers from the Andean highlands . This was reinforced by the road construction to Koribeni completed in 1958 and a bridge built in 1962. Since 1980 the Machiguenga have been threatened primarily by oil production .

literature

Web links

annotation

  1. ↑ Plural without or with "s" - just like with the better known Inca (s).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Åke Hultkrantz , Michael Rípinsky-Naxon, Christer Lindberg: The book of the shamans. North and South America . Munich 2002, ISBN 3-550-07558-8 . P. 140.