The Ese Ejja are an

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 ...

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

and

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

, in the southwestern

Amazon basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivi ...

. 1,687 Ese Ejja live in Bolivia, in the Pando and

Beni Department Beni (), sometimes El Beni, is a northeastern department of Bolivia, in the lowlands region of the country. It is the second-largest department in the country (after Santa Cruz), covering 213,564 square kilometers (82,458 sq mi), and it was cre ...

s, in the foothills along the

Beni is a Japanese R&B singer, who debuted in 2004 under the Avex Trax label. In 2008, Arashiro left Avex Trax and transferred to Universal Music Japan where she started to perform as simply Beni (stylized as BENI). She was initially best known fo ...

and the

Madre de Dios River The Madre de Dios River () is a river shared by Bolivia and Peru which is homonymous to the Peruvian region it runs through. On Bolivian territory it receives the Beni River, close to the town of Riberalta, which later joins with the Mamore Rive ...

s. In Peru, they live along the Tambopata and

Heath River The Heath River, which runs from the Andes surrounding Lake Titicaca northwards to the Madre de Dios River, marks the natural border between Peru and Bolivia. The Eja Sonene indigenous community lives in the area. They are an ethnic group belon ...

s, near

Puerto Maldonado Puerto Maldonado () is a city in southeastern Peru in the Amazon rainforest west of the Bolivian border, located at the confluence of the Tambopata and Madre de Dios rivers. The latter river joins the Madeira River as a tributary of the Amazo ...

Name

Their name derives from their autonym, ''Ece'je'', which means "people." They are also known as the Chama, Ese Eja, Ese Exa, Ese’ejja, Huarayo, Tambopata-Guarayo, or Tiatinagua people.

Language

The

Ese Ejja language Ese Ejja (Ese'eha, Eseʼexa, Ese exa), also known as Tiatinagua (Tatinawa), is a Tacanan language of Bolivia and Peru. It is spoken by Ese Ejja people of all ages. Dialects are Guacanawa (Guarayo/Huarayo), Baguaja, Echoja, and possibly extinct C ...

is a

Tacanan language Tacanan is a family of languages spoken in Bolivia, with Ese’ejja also spoken in Peru. It may be related to the Panoan languages. Many of the languages are endangered. Family division * Ese Ejja (a.k.a. Ese’eha, Tiatinagua, Chama, Huara ...

, spoken by all ages, and written in the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...

. A dictionary has been produced for the language.

Subsistence

Ese Ejja people are traditionally

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

s, farmers, rangers, and fishermen.

Notes

External links

Ese Ejja artwork
, National Museum of the American Indian {{DEFAULTSORT:Ese Ejja People Indigenous peoples in Bolivia Indigenous peoples in Peru Indigenous peoples of the Amazon Hunter-gatherers of South America