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Indigenous peoples of Colombia, are the
''Colombia: A Country Study''
(Rex A. Hudson, ed.), pp. 82-86.
ethnic groups
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, ...
who have inhabited Colombia since before the European colonization
The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turks, and the Arabs.
Colonialism in the modern sense began ...
, in the early 16th century. According to the last census, they comprise 4.4% of the country's population, belonging to 115 different tribes
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...
.https://www.dane.gov.co/files/investigaciones/boletines/grupos-etnicos/presentacion-grupos-etnicos-2019.pdf
Approximately two thirds of the Indigenous peoples of Colombia live in La Guajira
La Guajira () is a department of Colombia. It occupies most of the Guajira Peninsula in the northeast region of the country, on the Caribbean Sea and bordering Venezuela, at the northernmost tip of South America. The capital city of the departm ...
, Cauca, Nariño, Cordoba and Sucre Departments. Amazon Basin, a sparsely populated region, is home to over 70 different Indigenous ethnic groups.
History
Some theories claim the earliest human habitation of South America to be as early as 43,000 BC, but the current scholarly consensus among archaeologists is that human habitation in South America only dates back to around 15,000 BC at the earliest. AnthropologistTom Dillehay
Tom Dillehay is an American anthropologist who is the Rebecca Webb Wilson University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Religion, and Culture and Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University. In addition to Vanderbilt, Dillehay has tau ...
dates the earliest hunter-gatherer cultures on the continent at almost 10,000 BC, during the late Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...
and early Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...
periods.Bushnell, David and Rex A. Hudson. "Indigenous Peoples". I''Colombia: A Country Study''
(Rex A. Hudson, ed.), pp. 82-86.
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
Federal Research Division
The Federal Research Division (FRD) is the research and analysis unit of the United States Library of Congress.
The Federal Research Division provides directed research and analysis on domestic and international subjects to agencies of the Unit ...
(2010). According to his evidence based on rock shelters, Colombia's first human inhabitants were probably concentrated along the Caribbean coast and on the Andean highland slopes. By that time, these regions were forested and had a climate resembling today's. Dillehay has noted that Tibitó
Tibitó is the second-oldest dated archaeological site on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia.Bogotá, is one of the oldest known and most widely accepted sites of early human occupation in Colombia, dating from about 9,790 BC. There is evidence that the highlands of Colombia were occupied by significant numbers of human foragers by 9,000 BC, with permanent village settlement in northern Colombia by 2,000 BC.
Beginning in the 1st millennium BC, groups of
Muisca raft Legend of El Dorado Offerings of gold.jpg, The ''
The complexity of the Indigenous peoples' social organization and technology varied tremendously, from stratified agricultural chiefdoms to tropical farm villages and nomadic hunting and food-gathering groups. At the end of the colonial period, the native population still constituted about half of the total population. In the agricultural chiefdoms of the highlands, the Spaniards successfully imposed institutions designed to ensure their control of the Amerindians and thereby the use of their labor. The colonists had organized political and religious administration by the end of the sixteenth century, and they had begun attempts to religiously convert the Amerindians to Christianity, specifically Roman Catholicism.
The most important institution that regulated the lives and welfare of the highland Amerindians was the '' resguardo'', a reservation system of communal landholdings. Under this system, Amerindians were allowed to use the land but could not sell it. Similar in some respects to the Native American reservation system of the United States, the resguardo has lasted with some changes even to the present and has been an enduring link between the government and the remaining highland tribes. As land pressures increased, however, encroachment of white or mestizo settlers onto resguardo lands accelerated, often without opposition from the government.
The government generally had not attempted to legislate in the past in matters affecting the forest Amerindians. During the colonial period,
Indigenous peoples hold title to substantial portions of Colombia, primarily in the form of Indigenous Reserves ( es, resguardos), which encompass one-third of the country's land. The Indigenous Affairs division of the Ministry of Interior has 567 reserves on record, covering approximately 365,004 km² which are home to 800,272 persons in 67,503 families.
The 1991 National Constitution of Colombia defined Territorial Entities (''Entidades Territoriales'') as departments, districts, municipalities and Indigenous territories.
Within an Indigenous Territory Entity (ETI) the people have autonomy in managing their interests, and within the limits of the constitution have the right to manage resources and define taxes required to perform their duties. ETIs are to be defined by the government in conformance with the Organic Law on Land Management.
However, this law has yet to be sanctioned so in practice the territories are unregulated.
Indigenous people's mobilization and their struggle for rights in Colombia"
COPAL. During their struggle for rights, Indigenes abandoned the armed struggle of the 1980s and the new strategy included forms of legal liberalism, a politics of identity and the use of transnational networks putting pressure on the state to achieve recognition and respect. This hasn't always led to success and often turned into victims of the cultural project of neoliberalism. Besides the cultural accomplishments there was an escalation of the acts of persecution and in the number of violations committed against them. According to the Indigenous National Organization of Colombia (ONIC) there are 102 Indigenous peoples in Colombia and only 82 of them are recognized by the Colombian government. One of the main problems the Colombian Indigenous communities are currently facing is the lack of recognition of their right to be consulted. Poverty is another central aspect in order to understand the contemporary situation of the Indigenes of Colombia, which has been measured making use of the Unsatisfied Basic Needs (UBN), considering people poor who have insufficiencies in living, services and education. Facts show differences between zones: those of greater influence of poverty measured with the UBN standard are Chocó, Sucre, Boyacá, Nariño and Córdoba, with numbers that exceed the 50% of the population and those of less influence are found in Bogotá and the departments of El Valle, Atlántico and the cafetero-core: Caldas, Quindío and Risaralda. In 1986 the concept of pobreza absoluta was introduced in the nation, during a situation of crisis of governability and the escalation of the problems concerning the armed conflict. With the politics of struggle against poverty the presence of the state was tried to be consolidated in zones which were considered 'marginal', especially those areas including Indigenous population. Politics between 1986 and 1990 tried to rehabilitate the marginal zones and their integration to achieve development; specific institutions were set up to work with Indigenous communities, seeing them as farmer communities which habits and forms of production had to be modernized. As a consequence, the Indigenous minorities revolted, arguing that it was not up to them to reintegrate but it was the state that had to reform his ideas and recognize them as the original Colombian population. The goal was to solve the crisis of governability by eliminating poverty, without excluding local necessities and impulse development from out of the perspective of diversity. The Indigenous communities were considered to be marginal sectors in disadvantage, a highly retarded population which had to be incorporated and integrated in greater society. The Indigenous people were not seen as a part of the diversity of the nation which participation was needed for the construction of it. This conception has survived since the colonization of the continent until now: generally, the Indigenous and also the black diversity is still seen as a negative element which has to be reduced or completely wiped out to guarantee the development and the modernization of Latin American societies. Despite the Constitution of 1991 with the introduction of the multi-ethnic and multicultural character of the Colombian nation, the contemporary relation between the state and the Indigenous communities seems to be contradictory, particularly because of the presence of the demands of autonomy of the latter. Until today the Colombian government has recognized the Indigenous groups only as communities, meaning that they are considered to be culturally diverse and therefore require a different political treatment to be able to integrate them in national society. Different forms of participation have been assigned to the communities, but always in conformity with legal and constitutional regulations of the state, defined and established throughout history. Though the 1990s were a decade of mobilization and in some way a victory in terms of neoliberal multiculturalism, after twenty years of the Constitution of 1991 people have realized the need of turning to other forms of mobilization, more than legal mobilization. It has been shown that the recognition of equality is not enough; Indigenous peoples have also demanded their right to difference, that is, access to particular rights as Indigenous communities. Currently, Indigenous political participation, both in national and local elections, remains low, because of various reasons: the fragmentation of the movement due to the several groups within the Colombian Indigenous communities; the loss of the vote from non-Indigenous leaders and the low number of voters due to the fact that they comprise a small part of the national population and most of them live in the countryside without possibilities to vote.
UNESCO report on education of indigenous peoples in Colombia
*
Ethnic groups of Colombia
Documentary about the Wayuu Indigenous people of Colombia
Wayuu women
{{DEFAULTSORT:Indigenous Peoples In Colombia Colombia Ethnic groups in Colombia Colombia Colombia
Amerindian
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples.
Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...
s including 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 ...
, Quimbaya, Tairona
Tairona (or Tayrona) was a Pre-Columbian culture of Colombia, which consisted in a group of chiefdoms in the region of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in present-day Cesar, Magdalena and La Guajira Departments of Colombia, South America, which g ...
, Calima, Zenú, Tierradentro
Tierra abajo (meaning "Underground" in Spanish for their well-known tombs) is one of the ancient Pre-Columbian cultures of Colombia. It started to flourish around 200 BC in the mountains of southwest Colombia, and continued into the 17th century. T ...
, San Agustín, Tolima, and Urabá became skilled in farming, mining, and metalcraft; and some developed the political system of ''cacicazgo
''Cacicazgo'' is a phonetic Spanish transliteration (or a derivative) of the Taíno word for the lands ruled by a '' cacique''. The Spanish colonial system recognized indigenous elites as nobles in Mexico and Peru, and other areas. Nobles could e ...
s'' with a pyramidal structure of power headed by caciques
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 ...
.
Colombia's Indigenous culture evolved from three main groups—the Quimbaya, who inhabited the western slopes of the Cordillera Central; the Chibchas; and the Kalina
Kalina may refer to:
People
* Kalina people, or Caribs, an indigenous people of the northern coastal areas of South America
* Kalina language, or Carib, the language of the Kalina people
* Kalina (given name)
* Kalina (surname)
* Noah Kalina, ...
(Caribs). When the Spanish arrived in 1509, they found a flourishing and heterogeneous Amerindian
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples.
Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...
population that numbered between 1.5 million and 2 million, belonged to several hundred tribes, and largely spoke mutually unintelligible dialects. The two most advanced cultures of Amerindian peoples at the time were 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 ...
and Taironas, who belonged to the Chibcha group and were skilled in farming, mining, and metalcraft. The Muisca lived mainly in the present departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá, where they had fled centuries earlier after raids by the warlike Caribs, some of whom eventually migrated to Caribbean islands near the end of the first millennium A.D. The Taironas, who were divided into two subgroups, lived in the Caribbean lowlands and the highlands of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (English: ''Snow-Covered Mountain Range of Saint Martha'') is an isolated mountain range in northern Colombia, separate from the Andes range that runs through the north of the country. Reaching an elevation of ...
. The Muisca civilization was well organized into distinct provinces governed by communal land laws and powerful caciques
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 ...
, who reported to one of the two supreme leaders.
zipa
When the Spanish arrived in the central Colombian highlands, the region was organized into the Muisca Confederation, which had two rulers; the ''zipa'' was the ruler of the southern part and based in Muyquytá. The ''hoa'' was the ruler of the ...
'' used to cover his body in gold and, from his Muisca raft
The Muisca raft (''Balsa Muisca'' in Spanish), sometimes referred to as the Golden Raft of El Dorado, is a pre-Columbian votive piece created by the Muisca, an indigenous people of Colombia in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The pi ...
, he offered treasures to the ''Guatavita'' goddess in the middle of the sacred lake. This old 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 ...
tradition became the origin of the '' El Dorado'' legend.
Museo del Oro Zenú Bogota mod.jpg, A lowland Zenú cast-gold bird ornament that served as a staff head, dated 490 CE. This culture used alloys with a high gold content. The crest of the bird consists of the typical Zenú semi- filigree. Regular filigree is braided wire, but the Zenú cast theirs.
Taironapendants metropolitan 2006.jpg, Tairona
Tairona (or Tayrona) was a Pre-Columbian culture of Colombia, which consisted in a group of chiefdoms in the region of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in present-day Cesar, Magdalena and La Guajira Departments of Colombia, South America, which g ...
figure pendants in gold.
Cacique Quimbaya de oro (M. América, Madrid) 01.jpg, Golden statuette of a Quimbaya '' cacique''.
Parque Arqueológico de San Agustín - tomb of a deity with supporting warriors.jpg, San Agustín Archaeological Park (UNESCO World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...
), contains the largest collection of religious monuments and megalithic sculptures in Latin America and is considered the world's largest necropolis.
Lost City Ruins.jpg, Ciudad Perdida
Ciudad Perdida (Spanish for "lost city"; also known as Teyuna and Buritaca-200) is the archaeological site of an ancient city in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta of Colombia, within the jurisdiction of the city of Santa Marta. This city is beli ...
is a major settlement believed to have been founded around 800 CE. It consists of a series of 169 terraces carved into the mountainside, a net of tiled roads and several small circular plaza
A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...
s. The entrance can only be accessed by a climb up some 1,200 stone steps through dense jungle.
Pre-Columbian history
The complexity of the Indigenous peoples' social organization and technology varied tremendously, from stratified agricultural chiefdoms to tropical farm villages and nomadic hunting and food-gathering groups. At the end of the colonial period, the native population still constituted about half of the total population. In the agricultural chiefdoms of the highlands, the Spaniards successfully imposed institutions designed to ensure their control of the Amerindians and thereby the use of their labor. The colonists had organized political and religious administration by the end of the sixteenth century, and they had begun attempts to religiously convert the Amerindians to Christianity, specifically Roman Catholicism.
The most important institution that regulated the lives and welfare of the highland Amerindians was the '' resguardo'', a reservation system of communal landholdings. Under this system, Amerindians were allowed to use the land but could not sell it. Similar in some respects to the Native American reservation system of the United States, the resguardo has lasted with some changes even to the present and has been an enduring link between the government and the remaining highland tribes. As land pressures increased, however, encroachment of white or mestizo settlers onto resguardo lands accelerated, often without opposition from the government.
The government generally had not attempted to legislate in the past in matters affecting the forest Amerindians. During the colonial period, Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
missions were granted jurisdiction over the lowland tribes. With the financial support of the government, a series of agreements with the Holy See
The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of R ...
from 1887 to 1953 entrusted the evangelization
In Christianity, evangelism (or witnessing) is the act of preaching the gospel with the intention of sharing the message and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Christians who specialize in evangelism are often known as evangelists, whether they are ...
and education of these Amerindians to the missions, which worked together with government agencies. Division of the resguardos stopped in 1958, and a new program of community development began to try to bring the Amerindians more fully into the national society.
The struggle of the Indigenous people on these lands to protect their holdings from neighboring landlords and to preserve their traditions continued into the late 20th century, when the 1991 constitution incorporated many of the Amerindian demands. New resguardos have been created, and others have been reconstituted, among forest tribes as well as highland communities. The 1991 constitution opened special political and social arenas for Indigenous and other minority groups. For example, it allowed for creation of a special commission to design a law recognizing the black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...
communities occupying unsettled lands in the riverine areas of the Pacific Coast. Article 171 provides special Senate representation for Amerindians and other ethnic groups, while Article 176 provides special representation in the Chamber of Representatives: two seats "for the black communities, one for Indian communities, one for political minorities, and one for Colombians residing abroad". Article 356 guarantees Amerindian territorial and cultural rights, and several laws and decrees have been enacted protecting them. Article 356 refers somewhat vaguely to both "Indigenous territorial entities" and Indigenous ''resguardos''.
By 1991 the country's 587 resguardos contained 800,271 people, including 60,503 families. The general regional distribution of these resguardos was as follows: Amazonia, 88; llanos, 106; Caribbean lowlands, 31; Andean highlands, 104; and Pacific lowlands, 258. They totaled , or about 24 percent of the national territory. Colombia today may have as many as 710 resguardos in 27 of the 32 departments.
Indigenous political organization
Individual Indigenous groups have a variety of governance structures. A number of Indigenous groups are represented through theNational Indigenous Organization of Colombia
The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia ( es, Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia or ) is an organization representing the indigenous peoples of Colombia, who, according to the 2018 census, comprise some 1,905,617 people or appro ...
(ONIC - Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia). Increasing organization and agitation have sharply broadened the Indigenous land base over the past forty years. The government titled more than 200 new reserves from 1960 to 1990, with 334 total operating as autonomous municipalities by 1997.
Territories
Indigenous peoples hold title to substantial portions of Colombia, primarily in the form of Indigenous Reserves ( es, resguardos), which encompass one-third of the country's land. The Indigenous Affairs division of the Ministry of Interior has 567 reserves on record, covering approximately 365,004 km² which are home to 800,272 persons in 67,503 families.
The 1991 National Constitution of Colombia defined Territorial Entities (''Entidades Territoriales'') as departments, districts, municipalities and Indigenous territories.
Within an Indigenous Territory Entity (ETI) the people have autonomy in managing their interests, and within the limits of the constitution have the right to manage resources and define taxes required to perform their duties. ETIs are to be defined by the government in conformance with the Organic Law on Land Management.
However, this law has yet to be sanctioned so in practice the territories are unregulated.
Major ethnic groups
According to theNational Indigenous Organization of Colombia
The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia ( es, Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia or ) is an organization representing the indigenous peoples of Colombia, who, according to the 2018 census, comprise some 1,905,617 people or appro ...
(ONIC), there are 102 Indigenous groups in Colombia. The ethnic groups with the greatest number of members are the Wayuu
The Wayuu (also Wayu, Wayúu, Guajiro, Wahiro) are an Amerindian ethnic group of the Guajira Peninsula in northernmost part of Colombia and northwest Venezuela. The Wayuu language is part of the Maipuran (Arawak) language family.
Geography
...
(380,460), Zenú, (307,091), Nasa
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
(243,176) and Pastos (163,873). These peoples account for 58.1% of Colombia's Indigenous population.
Highland peoples refer to the cultures of the 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 ...
and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (English: ''Snow-Covered Mountain Range of Saint Martha'') is an isolated mountain range in northern Colombia, separate from the Andes range that runs through the north of the country. Reaching an elevation of ...
of Colombia, while lowland peoples refer to the inhabitants of Chocó, Amazonia, Guajira and the Caribbean Coast, the Urabá Region and other non-mountain cultures.
Highland peoples
* Arhuacos/Ijka * Awá * Coconuco * Guambiano/Misak *Guane
Guane is a municipality and town in the Pinar del Río Province of Cuba. It was founded in 1602.
Geography
The municipality is divided into the barrios of Cabo de San Antonio y La Fe, Catalina, Cortés, Hato de Guane, Isabel Rubio (Paso Real d ...
* Inga
''Inga'' is a genus of small tropical, tough-leaved, nitrogen-fixing treesElkan, Daniel. "Slash-and-burn farming has become a major threat to the world's rainforest" ''The Guardian'' 21 April 2004 and shrubs, subfamily Mimosoideae. ''Inga''s ...
* Kamsá (Sibundoy)
* Kankuamo
* Kogui/Kággaba
* 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 ...
* Páez/Nasa
* Pacabuy
* Pasto
* Panche
* Pijao
* Sutagao
* Tama
* Totoró
* Umbrá
* U'wa/Tunebo
* Wiwa/Sanhá
* Yanacona
Yanakuna were originally individuals in the Inca Empire who left the ayllu system and worked full-time at a variety of tasks for the Inca, the ''quya'' (Inca queen), or the religious establishment. A few members of this serving class enjoyed high s ...
* Quimbaya
Lowland peoples
* Achagua * Amorúa * Andaquí * Andoque * Bara * Barasana * Barí/ Motilon * Betoye * Bora *Cabiyarí
Cabiyarí (Caviyari) is an Arawakan language spoken along the Cananarí River in the Vaupes Region of Colombia in north western South America. The name is also spelled ''Cabiuarí, Cauyarí, Kauyarí, Cuyare, Kawillary.''
Notes
Languages ...
* Carapana
Carapano (Karapanã, Carapana-tapuya, Möxdöá) is a Tucanoan languages, Tucanoan language of Colombia and Brazil.
Phonology
Carapano has 11 consonants, plus 3 tones: high, medium and low.
It also has 6 vowels and their nasalized forms.
...
* Carijona Carijona are a South American indigenous group known for the Carijona language. They numbered in the thousands in the 1840s, but war with the Witotoans and exploitation from the rubber industry led to virtual extinction. Some live among the Correg ...
* Catío
* Cocama/ Kokama
* Cofán/ Kofán
* Coreguaje
* Cubeo
* Cuiba
Cuiba or Cuiva is a Guahiban language that is spoken by about 2,300 people in Colombia and additional 650 in Venezuela. More than half of Cuiba speakers are monolingual, and in Colombia there is a 45% literacy rate. Cuiva is also referred to ...
* Curripaco
* Chimila
* Chiricoa
* Desano
Desano is a Tucanoan language of Colombia and Brazil. There are several alternative names, including Boleka, Desâna, and Kusibi. It is spoken primarily in northwest Brazil and southern Colombia.
Location
The primary concentration of Desano ...
* Emberá
* Guahibo (Sikuani)
* Guayabero
* Guayupe
* Kuna (Tule)
* Kokama
* Hupda
* Letuama
* Makaguaje
* Makuna
The Macuna are a Tucanoan-speaking group of the eastern part of the Amazon basin, located around the confluence of the Pira Paraná River and Apaporis river, in the Colombian Vaupés Department and the Brazilian state of Amazonas. There are ...
* Masiguare
* Mvatapí
* Miraña
* Mokaná
* Muinane
* Muzo
Muzo () is a town and municipality in the Western Boyacá Province, part of the department of Boyacá, Colombia. It is widely known as the world capital of emeralds for the mines containing the world's highest quality gems of this type. Muzo ...
* Nonuya
Nonuya (''Nononotá, Nyonuhu, Nonuña, Achiote)'' is a Witotoan language formerly spoken in Colombia and Peru that is now nearly extinct. Genocide, disease, and forced migration caused the Sparrowhawk and Backpacker tribes to form families with t ...
* Nukak
The Nukak people (also Nukak- Makú) live between the Guaviare and Inírida rivers, in the depths of the tropical humid forest, on the fringe of the Amazon basin, in Guaviare Department, Republic of Colombia. They are nomadic hunter-gatherers ...
* Ocaína
* Piapoco
Piapoco is an Arawakan language of Colombia and Venezuela.
A "Ponares" language is inferred from surnames, and may have been Piapoco or Achagua.
History
Piapoco is a branch of the Arawak language, which also includes Achagua and Tariana. P ...
* Piaroa
The Piaroa people, known among themselves as the ''Huottüja'' or ''De'aruhua'', are a pre-Columbian South American indigenous ethnic group of the middle Orinoco Basin in present-day Colombia and Venezuela, living in an area larger than Belgium ...
* Piratapuyo
* Pitsamira
* Puinave
* Sáliba
* Siona
* Siriano
Siriano (also called "Selea" or "Sürá") are a Tucanoan people indigenous to Colombia and Brazil. Their total population is estimated at 750, with most living in Colombia. Their exogamous culture means that, glossologically, speakers are identif ...
* Taiwano
Barasana (alternate names ''Barazana'', Panenua'', ''Pareroa'', or ''Taiwano is an exonym applied to an Amazonian people, considered distinct from the Taiwano, though the dialect of the latter is almost identical to that of the Barasana, and outs ...
* Tanimuka
* Tariano
* Tatuyo
* Tikuna
The Ticuna (also Magüta, Tucuna, Tikuna, or Tukuna) are an indigenous people of Brazil (36,000'')'', Colombia (6,000), and Peru (7,000). They are the most numerous tribe in the Brazilian Amazon.
History
The Ticuna were originally a tribe that ...
* Tukano
* Tuyuca
* Wounaan
* Wanano
* Wayuú
* Witoto/ Huitoto/ Uitoto
* Yagua
Yagua are an indigenous people in Colombia and northeastern Peru, numbering approximately 6,000. Currently, they live near the Amazon, Napo, Putumayo and Yavari rivers and their tributaries. As of 2005, some Yagua have migrated northward to ...
* Yarigui
* Yukuna
Yucuna (Jukuna), also known as Matapi, Yucuna-Matapi, and Yukunais, is an Arawakan language spoken in several communities along the Mirití-Paraná River in Colombia. Extinct Guarú (Garú) was either a dialect or a closely related language.
...
* Yukpa/Yuko
* Yuri Yuri may refer to:
People and fictional characters
Given name
*Yuri (Slavic name), the Slavic masculine form of the given name George, including a list of people with the given name Yuri, Yury, etc.
*Yuri (Japanese name), also Yūri, feminine Jap ...
* Yurutí
* Zenú
Struggle for rights
The Indigenous people represent 2-3% of the population of the Colombian region and its levels of income as well as the indicators of human development as education and health conditions are laying behind compared to those of the rest of the Colombians. During the last twenty years, there has been a remarkable increase of the interest dedicated to the concerns of Indigenous communities all over the world. Therefore, the United Nations proclaimed the disclosure of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People and in Latin America on 10 December 1994 and in Latin America. More than in any other region, this period was characterized by a wave of Indigenous movements which practised a growing political power, since the resistance of the Chiapas of 1994 until the fall of the governments of Ecuador and Bolivia. The rise of Indigenous mobilization in Colombia is explained as a reaction of crisis at various levels: a crisis of representation, caused by the shortcomings of political parties with sufficient representation to shoulder all collectives' interests; a crisis of participation, that is the result of the lack of citizen's participation in state's business; and a legitimation crisis, due to the discrimination against some social groups.Benavides Vanegas, F. S. (2009Indigenous people's mobilization and their struggle for rights in Colombia"
COPAL. During their struggle for rights, Indigenes abandoned the armed struggle of the 1980s and the new strategy included forms of legal liberalism, a politics of identity and the use of transnational networks putting pressure on the state to achieve recognition and respect. This hasn't always led to success and often turned into victims of the cultural project of neoliberalism. Besides the cultural accomplishments there was an escalation of the acts of persecution and in the number of violations committed against them. According to the Indigenous National Organization of Colombia (ONIC) there are 102 Indigenous peoples in Colombia and only 82 of them are recognized by the Colombian government. One of the main problems the Colombian Indigenous communities are currently facing is the lack of recognition of their right to be consulted. Poverty is another central aspect in order to understand the contemporary situation of the Indigenes of Colombia, which has been measured making use of the Unsatisfied Basic Needs (UBN), considering people poor who have insufficiencies in living, services and education. Facts show differences between zones: those of greater influence of poverty measured with the UBN standard are Chocó, Sucre, Boyacá, Nariño and Córdoba, with numbers that exceed the 50% of the population and those of less influence are found in Bogotá and the departments of El Valle, Atlántico and the cafetero-core: Caldas, Quindío and Risaralda. In 1986 the concept of pobreza absoluta was introduced in the nation, during a situation of crisis of governability and the escalation of the problems concerning the armed conflict. With the politics of struggle against poverty the presence of the state was tried to be consolidated in zones which were considered 'marginal', especially those areas including Indigenous population. Politics between 1986 and 1990 tried to rehabilitate the marginal zones and their integration to achieve development; specific institutions were set up to work with Indigenous communities, seeing them as farmer communities which habits and forms of production had to be modernized. As a consequence, the Indigenous minorities revolted, arguing that it was not up to them to reintegrate but it was the state that had to reform his ideas and recognize them as the original Colombian population. The goal was to solve the crisis of governability by eliminating poverty, without excluding local necessities and impulse development from out of the perspective of diversity. The Indigenous communities were considered to be marginal sectors in disadvantage, a highly retarded population which had to be incorporated and integrated in greater society. The Indigenous people were not seen as a part of the diversity of the nation which participation was needed for the construction of it. This conception has survived since the colonization of the continent until now: generally, the Indigenous and also the black diversity is still seen as a negative element which has to be reduced or completely wiped out to guarantee the development and the modernization of Latin American societies. Despite the Constitution of 1991 with the introduction of the multi-ethnic and multicultural character of the Colombian nation, the contemporary relation between the state and the Indigenous communities seems to be contradictory, particularly because of the presence of the demands of autonomy of the latter. Until today the Colombian government has recognized the Indigenous groups only as communities, meaning that they are considered to be culturally diverse and therefore require a different political treatment to be able to integrate them in national society. Different forms of participation have been assigned to the communities, but always in conformity with legal and constitutional regulations of the state, defined and established throughout history. Though the 1990s were a decade of mobilization and in some way a victory in terms of neoliberal multiculturalism, after twenty years of the Constitution of 1991 people have realized the need of turning to other forms of mobilization, more than legal mobilization. It has been shown that the recognition of equality is not enough; Indigenous peoples have also demanded their right to difference, that is, access to particular rights as Indigenous communities. Currently, Indigenous political participation, both in national and local elections, remains low, because of various reasons: the fragmentation of the movement due to the several groups within the Colombian Indigenous communities; the loss of the vote from non-Indigenous leaders and the low number of voters due to the fact that they comprise a small part of the national population and most of them live in the countryside without possibilities to vote.
See also
* Pre-Columbian cultures of Colombia * Spanish conquest of the Muisca *Spanish conquest of the Chibchan Nations
Spanish conquest of the Chibchan Nations refers to the conquest by the Spanish monarchy of the Chibcha language-speaking nations, mainly the Muisca and Tairona that inhabited present-day Colombia, beginning the Spanish colonization of the Amer ...
* Indigenous peoples of South America
* National Indigenous Organization of Colombia
The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia ( es, Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia or ) is an organization representing the indigenous peoples of Colombia, who, according to the 2018 census, comprise some 1,905,617 people or appro ...
(ONIC)
* Colombian mythology
* Colombian folklore
* Archaeological sites in Colombia
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes ...
* Race and ethnicity in Colombia
* Mestizo Colombians
* Concordat of 1928 (mostly deals with Missionary activities among Indigenous peoples)
Bibliography
* ''Ideologia mesianico del mundo andino'', Juan M. Ossio Acuña, Edicion de Ignacio Prado PastorReferences
13. http://juankbusaenz.blogspot.com/2011/External links
UNESCO report on education of indigenous peoples in Colombia
*
Ethnic groups of Colombia
Documentary about the Wayuu Indigenous people of Colombia
Wayuu women
{{DEFAULTSORT:Indigenous Peoples In Colombia Colombia Ethnic groups in Colombia Colombia Colombia