Uitoto

The Witoto or Uitoto , Spanish Huitoto, are an indigenous people in south-east Colombia and northern Peru . The Uitoto call themselves Komini . The word Uitoto comes from the language of the Caraiben tribes, who use them to denote an enemy (Koch-Grünberg, Journ. De la Soc. Des Amér. De Paris NS III, p. 158). The German ethnologist Konrad Theodor PreussDuring his research stay 1913-1919 spent a few months with the Uitoto and describes his experiences and findings in his book "Religion and Mythology of the Uitoto", published in 1921. Preuss attached particular importance to the recording, translation and interpretation of the myths of the Uitoto. During the rubber boom at the beginning of the 20th century, the Witoto were enslaved for rubber extraction, which most of them paid with their lives.

Settlement area

The settlement area of the Uitoto (about 35,000 km²) lies in the Colombian departments of Caquetá , Putumayo and Amazonas and to the south and east across the borders of Peru and Brazil. In Colombia they live in 13 protected areas (Spanish: Resguardos): Aguas Negras, Coropoya, El Quince, Mesai, Monochoa, Puerto Zabalo and Huitora in the municipality of Solano , Caquetá, Predio Putumayo in the Amazon and Agua Negra, El Progreso, Jirijiri, Lagarto Cocha and Huitoto de Tukunare in the parish of Puerto Leguízamo , Putumayo.

history

Enslaved Amazon Indians, from Walter Ernest Hardenburg : The Putumayo, the Devil's Paradise (1912)

The Witoto lived largely undisturbed in the area of the Putumayu River until the end of the 19th century . In the course of the rubber boom , the Peruvian rubber entrepreneur Julio César Arana del Águila secured the catchment area of the Putumayu for the extraction and trading of rubber , and from 1899 he relied on the obligation of the indigenous population on the Putumayu. The Witoto, characterized as particularly peaceful, seemed particularly suitable to him. Initially, the indigenous people collected rubber for the company in exchange for knives, axes and other tools, but they soon recognized the disadvantages and refused to cooperate. As early as 1900, Arana began, in collaboration with the rubber company Calderón, to enslave the Witoto and members of other ethnic groups ( Andoque , Bora and Nonuya ) for rubber production with the help of armed men . At the same time, the indigenous peoples were prevented from activities to secure their subsistence - hunting, gathering and cultivation. As of 1904, Arana employed two hundred armed men from Barbados who made sure that the indigenous people worked without a break. There were separate facilities in which forced laborers who did not bring in the required amounts of rubber were tortured. Violence against family members was also used to make slave workers lawful. This meant that the Witoto gathered a raw material with which they could not do anything and no longer had the opportunity to pursue their traditional self-sufficiency. The atrocities first became known from 1907 through reports by the Peruvian journalist Benjamin Saldaña Rocca in Iquitos , but internationally through the monograph The Putumayo, the Devil's Paradise (1911) by the American engineer Walter Hardenburg and an official investigation by the British diplomat Roger Casement . However, Arana was able to continue its activities with impunity, so that most of the Witoto - several thousand people - perished during this period. The rubber boom in the region and with it the time of the immediate reign of terror for the Witoto gradually ended with the development of rubber production in Malaysia from the 1920s and finally with the Colombian-Peruvian War in 1932.

population

The population of the Uitoto was estimated by Preuss at 25,000 in 1921 .

The last Colombian census gives the Uitoto with a population of about 6,100 on Colombian territory; 1,271 were counted in the municipality of Solano. Furthermore, according to the 1993 census, around 1900 Uitoto live in northern Peru and around 180 in the Brazilian Amazon.

language

The Uitoto speak dialects of the Uitoto language family . There are mainly four dialects spoken: Mika and Minika are common in the area of the Caquetà and Putumayo rivers. The dialect Búe is spoken in the area of the Río Caraparaná, the Nipode dialect is common among the northern Uitoto. The speakers of the Noferuene dialect are spread over the entire Uitoto area.

The worldview

Based on the myths of the Uitoto, the world is composed of five parts. In the middle lies the human world. It is referred to by the Uitoto as Komini Iko or Anadiko , which means "the lower one", i.e. H. the world under heaven, means. It is also called Nikarani - the dreamed, the dream image. There are two heavens over this middle world. The first heaven, referred to by the Uitoto as Biko , is in turn divided into three heavens in the myth. The middle sky embodies the realm of the sun being Husiniamui ( Husiniamui ibirei = Husiniamuis world). Above lies the light sky Reredeiko , while below Husiniamui's world there is the red sky Hiarereiko , which we can see from earth. Above the first heaven lies the uppermost heaven, which is inhabited by a magical creature, similar to a spider ( Siinamo ), about which Preuss could not find out anything more. Below the human world lies the first underworld, the world of the ancestors of the Uitoto, also called Okinuyema ibirei . The word Okinuyema stands for one of the most important mythological ancestors of the Uitoto. The Uitoto return after death to this place, where the rest of the ancestors also live. The souls of exiled people go up to Husiniamui. Under the first underworld is the residence of the forefather , the lowest world, which is called Hudyarai or Igori and is filled with fire. Humans rose to the surface through a cave in the east. The place of the ascent, i.e. the cave, is also equated with the place of the sunrise ( Biko Buadiagomei ). Neighboring tribes living in the east are considered direct ancestors of the Uitoto ( Muinane ). (Preuss 1921, p. 49.)

Festivals

The Uitoto festivals are all religious in nature, although they occasionally stage dances from them for mere entertainment. The Uitoto have the following festivals:

okima , the festival of manihot and ancestors

uike , the ball game festival
dyadiko , dancing on the dance tree of the same name
huare , the festival for making the slit drums
eianyo , the festival of weeping
bai , the festival that is celebrated after eating human flesh
meni , the festival of soul capture
rafue , the festival of the dead

Web links

Commons : Uitoto - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ Mariano Ospina Peña: El paraiso del diablo ( Memento of October 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). Caballeros Andantes.
↑ Wade Davis: One River - Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest . Simon and Schuster, New York 2010. pp. 236-239.
↑ Plan de Desarrollo 2012-2015, Municipio de Solano.
↑ Peru Ecológico: Etnias Witoto

[1] Mariano Ospina Peña: El paraiso del diablo ( Memento of October 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). Caballeros Andantes.

[2] Wade Davis: One River - Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest . Simon and Schuster, New York 2010. pp. 236-239.

[3] Plan de Desarrollo 2012-2015, Municipio de Solano.

[4] Peru Ecológico: Etnias Witoto