The Tegua or Tecua were an

Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater ...

-speaking

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

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 Car ...

who died out in the 19th century.Historia de los Teguas
/ref> The territories of the Tegua stretched from

Macanal Macanal is a town and municipality in the Colombian Department of Boyacá, part of the subregion of the Neira Province. The urban centre is located in the Tenza Valley in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes at an elevation of but parts of ...

, Boyacá in the west to

Aguazul Aguazul () is a town and municipality in the Department of Casanare, Colombia. Its economy is dependent on oil, mainly Cupiagua and Cusiana fields. Other important products of its economy are livestock and rice. As of 2004, Leonel Torres has been ...

in the east and from

Berbeo Berbeo is a town and municipality in the Lengupá Province, part of the Colombian department of Boyacá. The urban centre of Berbeo is located at an altitude of in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. Berbeo borders San Eduardo in the ea ...

in the north to Villanueva in the south, on the eastern flanks of the

Eastern Ranges The Eastern Ranges is an Australian rules football team in the NAB League, the Victorian statewide under-18s competition. The club is a founding member of the competition (1992) and has produced several players for the Australian Football Leagu ...

of the Colombian

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

. Knowledge of the Tegua is scarce, but has been provided by pre-modern

scholars A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher ...

Lucas Fernández de Piedrahita Lucas Fernández de Piedrahita (1624, Bogotá – March 29, 1688) was a Spanish Neogranadine Roman Catholic prelate who served as the Bishop of Panamá (1676–1688) ''(in Latin)'' and the Bishop of Santa Marta (1668–1676).Arzobispo de Pa ...

, Basilio Fernández de Oviedo and

Pedro Simón ''Fray'' Pedro Simón ( San Lorenzo de la Parrilla, Spain, 1574 - Ubaté, New Kingdom of Granada, ca. 1628) was a Spanish franciscan friar, professor and chronicler of the indigenous peoples of modern day Colombia and Venezuela, at the time for ...

and in modern times by

Javier Ocampo López Javier Ocampo López (born 19 June 1939) is a Colombian historian, writer, folklorist and professor. He has been important in the fields of Colombian folklore and history of Latin America and Colombia, especially contributing on the department of ...

and Pedro Gustavo Huertas Ramírez.Las esmeraldas de Colombia
/ref>Los Teguas
- El Tiempo

Etymology

The name of the people Tegua, originally meaning "boy", is presently a word in

Colombian Spanish Colombian Spanish (Spanish language, Spanish: ''español colombiano'') is a grouping of the varieties of Spanish spoken in Colombia. The term is of more geographical than linguistic relevance, since the dialects spoken in the various regions of ...

and means "shaman" or "witchdoctor", referring to the advanced knowledge the Tegua had of medicinal plants.Tesoros legendarios
/ref>

Tegua territory

The Tegua inhabited the area of the lower and central

Lengupá River The Lengupá is a river in the department of Boyacá, Colombia giving its name to the valley and the province it crosses. The Lengupá flows into the Upía River, which in turn flows into the Meta River The Meta River is a major left tributary ...

valley in the

of the Colombian

and the foothills (''Piedemonte'') towards the Llanos Orientales, such as the Casanare municipalities Recetor, Chámeza and Aguazul. To the south, the Guayupe were living, the eastern part was bordering the territories of the Achagua and the western and northern terrains were inhabited by the

Muisca The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan langu ...

. The Tegua living east of

Guatavita Guatavita is a municipality and town of Colombia in the Guavio Province of the department of Cundinamarca. Guatavita is located 75 km northeast of the capital Bogotá. It borders Sesquilé and Machetá in the north, Gachetá and Junín in t ...

paid tribute to the Muisca. The origin of the Tegua people was in

Campohermoso Campohermoso () is a town and municipality in the Colombian Department of Boyacá, part of the subregion of the Lengupá Province. Climate Campohermoso has a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with th ...

, Boyacá, where both the Lengupá and

Upía River Upía River, a river in Colombia originating at Lake Tota (5°29'31" N, 72°56'04" W), is a tributary of the Meta River flowing into the Orinoco River The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, somet ...

s flow.Campohermoso rescata su memoria histórica
- El TiempoHistoria de Campohermoso
/ref>

Municipalities belonging to Tegua territories

Description

De Piedrahita has written that the Tegua spoke another language and looked different from the Muisca. As noted by Pedro Simón, the Tegua had a diet formed by

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

coca Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. The plant is grown as a cash crop in the Argentine Northwest, Bolivia, Al ...

and

peanut The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible Seed, seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, important to both small ...

s. They cultivated

yuca ''Manihot esculenta'', commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively cultivated a ...

and made pies of yuca and

ants Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of 22,00 ...

.La yuca, alimento prehispánico
/ref> The chroniclers of the 17th century describe a Tegua woman with the assigned name ''La Cardeñosa'', as a beautiful Tegua. The first contact with the Tegua was made in 1538 by Juan de San Martín. In 1556 the evangelization process was started to convert the Tegua to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. Names of Tegua ''

cacique A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indigenous inhabitants at European contact of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The term is a Spa ...

s'' are reinstalled as street names of Campohermoso; ''Pirazica'', ''Yayogua'', ''Onayomba'' and ''Yapompo''.

References

{{authority control z Indigenous peoples in Colombia Colombian culture

Etymology

Tegua territory

Municipalities belonging to Tegua territories

Description

See also

References