The Siona people (also known as Sioni, Pioje, or Pioche-Sioni) are an indigenous

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

living in the Ecuadorian Amazon or Oriente (est. population 250 in Ecuador (2000 Juncosa)), and in

Putumayo Department Putumayo () is a department of Southern Colombia. It is in the south-west of the country, bordering Ecuador and Peru. Its capital is Mocoa. The word ''putumayo'' comes from the Quechua languages. The verb ''p'utuy'' means "to spring forth" o ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Cari ...

(est. population 300 in Colombia (1982 SIL)). They share territory along the Shushufindi, Aguarico, and Cuyabeno river with the Secoya people, with whom they are sometimes considered a single population. The

Siona language Siona (otherwise known as Bain Coca, Pioje, Pioche-Sioni, Ganteyabain, Ganteya, Ceona, Zeona, Koka, Kanú) is a Tucanoan language of Colombia and Ecuador. The language is essentially the same as Secoya, but speakers are ethnically distinct. A ...

is a Tucanoan language. The Siona people are organized politically through the National Organization of Seona Indigenous People of Ecuador (ONISE), whose president as of July 1996 was William Crioll

According to Richard Evan Schultes, Where The Gods Reign, p. 27, the "Siona are one of the western Tukanoan groups and live in the Department of Putumayo, Comissaria del Putamayo in the region of Mocoa." I lived in this area in the summer of 1961 with members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Our home was on the Ecuador side of the Putamayo River and the Siona lived on both sides of the river. The Siona live in Sucumbios Province in Ecuador, mainly in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve and in the Department of Putumayo along the

Putumayo River The Putumayo River or Içá River ( es, Río Putumayo, pt, Rio Içá) is one of the tributaries of the Amazon River, southwest of and parallel to the Japurá River. Course The Putumayo River forms part of Colombia's border with Ecuador, as well a ...

. Besides some traditional activities for subsistence, they have been participating in the tourism activities since the 1990s. Nevertheless, their participation in the tourism sector has generated various sociocultural and economic changes such as immigration to neighboring cities, gender issues, economic dependency on tourism revenues. The religion of the Siona people is a type of

shamanism Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiri ...

that has many spirits that live inside of things like trees, bugs, plants, etc., . Their origin story is about a being named Baina, who did mythic deeds that made up the world as it is today. The Siona people hold many rituals and ceremonies but, the main ceremony is a healing ritual called Yahé Varga, P. (2007) ''Ecoturismo y Sociedades Amazonicas.'' Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala.

References

External links

Siona dictionary online
(select simple or advanced browsing)
Ethnologue report for Siona
Indigenous peoples of the Amazon Indigenous peoples in Colombia Indigenous peoples in Ecuador Ethnic groups in Ecuador Indigenous languages of the South American Northern Foothills {{SouthAm-ethno-group-stub