U'wa People
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The U'wa are an
indigenous people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...
living in the
cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, Montane forest, montane, Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist forest characteri ...
s of northeastern
Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
. Historically, the U'wa numbered as many as 20,000, scattered over a homeland that extended across the
Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
-Colombia border. Some 7-8,000 U'wa are alive today. The U'wa are known to neighboring indigenous peoples as "the thinking people" or "the people who speak well". They were formerly called ''Tunebo'', but today prefer to be known as ''U'wa'', meaning "people".


Struggle to prevent oil drilling

They gained international visibility in a 14-year-long struggle to prevent
oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...
drilling on their land, which secured the withdrawal of
Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company, headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...
and
Occidental Petroleum Occidental Petroleum Corporation (often abbreviated Oxy in reference to its ticker symbol and logo) is an American company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration in the United States and the Middle East as well as petrochemical manufacturing in the ...
(Oxy), and continues as Ecopetrol and Repsol YPF seek to drill on their land. Their representative to the outside world in this struggle, Berito Kuwaru'wa, won the
Goldman Environmental Prize The Goldman Environmental Prize is a prize awarded annually to grassroots environmental activists. History Awardees are named from each of the world's six geographic regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, an ...
in 1998. The conflict came to a head as Oxy prepared to drill at the Gibraltar 1 test site. The U'wa, who had previously threatened to commit mass suicide if the oil extraction project went forward, constructed a small village on the site of the drillsite. They also set up numerous roadblocks and a coordinated (together with neighboring campesinos and the Guahibo) a regional social strike that paralyzed the surrounding area. Although the Colombian military dislodged the protesters from the site, no commercially viable deposits were found. The U'wa were then in a new dispute with Ecopetrol, which was seeking to prospect for oil on their lands, after legal battles and non-violent protests, Ecopetrol withdrew.


Geography

The U'wa people live in northeastern
Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
, in the departments of Arauca, Boyacá, Casanare, Santander and Northern Santander. Historically, they also populated what is now
Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
.


Territory

The U'wa ancestral homeland, known as ''Kajka-Ika'' or ''Kera Chikara'', lies in the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy and covers more than . The area includes the headwaters of the
Orinoco River The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers approximately 1 million km2, with 65% of it in Venezuela and 35% in Colombia. It is the List of rivers by discharge, f ...
. Historically, substantial portions of their homeland have been protected from any human access. The U'wa have been engaged in a major project of land recovery, expanding their recognized territory from to Unified Reserve (''Resguardo Unido'') in 1999.


Municipalities belonging to U'wa territory

The U'wa inhabited the highlands of northernmost Boyacá and western Arauca and Casanare.


Culture

The U'wa speak a language of the Chibchan family called Uw Cuwa ("people's tongue"). They have no written tradition and have passed down their knowledge and customs primarily through
song A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...
. Their religious tradition includes an obligation to gather in the summer months and "sing the world into being" as well as to maintain equilibrium between the layers of the world: earth, water, oil, mountains, and sky. Their identification of
petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...
, which they call ''Ruiria'', with the blood of Mother Earth, stiffened their resolve in their conflict with oil corporations in the 1990s. The U'wa consider non-U'wa to be impure, and place high importance on purification rituals, which makes interaction with outsiders difficult.


Institutions

The U'wa organize their political life in a collection of institutions known to the outside world as the ''U'wa Traditional Authorities''. This body is made up of Werjayás (wise elders) and Karekas (
medicine people A medicine man (from Ojibwe ''mashkikiiwinini'') or medicine woman (from Ojibwe ''mashkikiiwininiikwe'') is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Each culture has its own name in ...
) from each of the U'wa clans. The system of Cabildos mandated by the Colombian state includes an upper and lower council or Cabildo Mayor and Cabildo Menor, as well as the positions of President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Public Prosecutor and Speaker. Berito KuwarU'wa has served as president in recent years. The U'wa have affiliated with the Guahibo in the Association of Cabildos and Traditional Indigenous Authorities of the Department of Arauca (ASCATIDAR), officially founded in June 2003 to promote the local autonomy of the department's indigenous peoples. The Association's president is Dario Tulivila, a Guahibo leader.


Clans

The U'wa were grouped into eight clans from time immemorial to the 20th century. Three clans survived their dramatic population loss in the last hundred years and structure their communal life today: Kubaruwa (Cobaria), Tagrinuwa (Tegria) and Kaibaká (Bokota), each of which includes multiple communities. The U'wa population includes some 822 families.UNESCO Centre of Catalonia
U'wa Dossier
/ref>


See also

*
Muisca The Muisca (also called the Chibcha) are indigenous peoples in Colombia and were a Pre-Columbian culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The Muisca spe ...
* Guane, Guayupe, Lache


References


Further reading

*


External links


Rainforest Action Network background

Profile of the U'wa
from
Minority Rights Group International Minority Rights Group (MRG) is an international human rights organisation, headquartered in London, with offices in Budapest and Kampala. The organisation's mission statement is to secure rights for ethnic, national, religious, linguistic mi ...
. Accessed Oct. 22, 2017. {{Authority control Indigenous peoples in Colombia