 Yagua man demonstrating the use of a punaca at one of the Amazonian islands nearIquitos | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 6,000[1] (2000) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Colombia, Peru | |
| Languages | |
| Yagua,Spanish[1] | |
| Religion | |
| traditional tribal religion,Christianity[1] | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Yameo people |
Yagua are anindigenous people inColombia and northeasternPeru, numbering approximately 6,000.[1] Currently, they live near theAmazon,Napo,Putumayo andYavari rivers and their tributaries. As of 2005, some Yagua have migrated northward toColombia, near the town ofLeticia.
Currently the Yagua live in some 30 communities scattered throughout a section of the Peruvian and ColombianAmazon basin which can roughly be described as a rectangle 200 miles wide and 350 miles long (70,000 sq. miles) extending southward from thesecond to thefifth parallel and westward from the70th to the75th meridian west.[2]
TheYagua language is classified as aPeba-Yaguan language.[1] The only closely related languages that have been documented arePeba[3] andYameo[4] both of which are now extinct.
2000 Yagua people in Peru weremonolingual in 2000,[1] and of these, 75% were women and 25% were men. The majority of the rest are bilingual inSpanish to varying degrees.
Yagua people are also known as Llagua, Nijyamïï Nikyejaada, Yahua, Yava, and Yegua.[1]
There are two possible etymologies for the term 'Yagua', both of which originate outside theYagua language. First, theQuechua termyawar meaning 'blood' or 'the color of blood', is a likely possibility due to the Yagua custom of painting their faces withachiote, the blood red seeds of theannatto plant (Bixa orellana).
During the pre-conquest period, the Yaguas could have been in sporadic contact with theIncas, as to this day there are far moreQuechua (language spoken by the Inca) words in Yagua than there are Spanish words, another hypothesis points out that Spanish missionaries imposed Quechua as the common language, a customary practice during most of the colony. The term in Quechua would have been something likeyawar runa, 'the blood-red people', which could easily have been assimilated into Spanish asyagua.
Second, the termyagua in Spanish means 'royal palm'. This term could have been applied to the Yaguas by the Spanish explorers because much of the native clothing is made of palm fiber. There is no data on whether a name resemblingyagua was first used by the Quechuas of the area or the Spanish, therefore there is no principled way to distinguish between these two possible etymologies.
The only native term that might be thought of as a self-referent isnijyąąmíy 'people.' This word is often used in contrast withmááy 'white people' andmunuñúmiy 'savages', 'enemies' or 'non-Yaguas'. However,nijyąąmíy is also the generic term for all human beings.
The third earliest documented European contact with the Yagua was probably made by the Spanish explorerFrancisco de Orellana in January 1542. While exploring in the area of modern-day Pebas, Orellana encountered a village called Aparia, and captured two chiefs named Aparia and Dirimara, as well as some others.[5] These names could conceivably have come from the Yagua words(j)ápiiryá 'red macaw clan' andrimyurá 'shaman' respectively. The former could very well be a village name as well as a name applied to an individual; today clan names are still used by many Yaguas asfamily names. The word for shaman might also be used to refer to an individual, especially one singled out as a 'chief'. Regular European contact began in 1686 with the establishment of aJesuit mission at San Joaquin de los Omagua, on an island in the Amazon river probably near what is now the mouth of theAmpiyacu River.[6] Though this mission was established to serve theCambeba people, there was undoubtedly contact with the Yaguas as well. From the 17th century to the last half of the 19th century, contact with the Yaguas was mainly through the Jesuit andFranciscan missionaries. In the early 18th century, Portuguese raiding parties attacked the Spanish missions throughout the Amazon region causing much geographic dispersion of the tribes that were in contact with the Spanish, and inflicting severe casualties.[4]
The present extreme geographic dispersion of the Yagua, however, is due largely to the effects of the 'rubber boom' in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At that time Europeans arrived in large numbers fromBrazil and began to exploit the indigenous people to extract naturallatex from the jungle. Many Yaguas died in conflicts with these Europeans, as well as by exposure to European diseases. Others were exploited asslave labor. Still others fled to remote regions of the jungle. Ever since therubber boom, the Yagua sense of unity and of common culture has declined.
Ethnographic descriptions of the Yagua are found in Fejos (1943) and P. Powlison (1985). The history and migrations of the Yagua are described in Chaumeil (1983).
Yagua mythology was often told at night when they were not conducive to sleep along with them not being preoccupied with other matters. Most of their stories started with "My deceased father (mother, grandfather, grandmother etc.) used to tell me," to make the stories more real.[7]
The tremendous distances between villages make it very difficult to have consistent interaction with Yaguas outside one's home village. All economic activity outside the village is with non-Yagua peoples, usually Spanish-speakers. Thus there is economic andsocial pressure to learn Spanish and assimilate to the generalPeruvian culture. Villages are also characteristically quite small (2 to 30 families). This fact further limits the breadth of interaction with other Yaguas, and increases the tendency to want to reach out beyond one's village for social and economic advantages.
However, the Yagua culture and language do continue to be viable, especially in some of the larger and more isolated communities. Some children grow up speaking only Yagua, and native arts and crafts are a significant economic activity.
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