Indigenous Peoples in Peru

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The Indigenous peoples in Peru (pueblos indígenas in Spanish) comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the country's present territory prior to its discovery by Europeans around 1500. Like Christopher Columbus, who thought he had reached the East Indies, the first Spanish explorers called them índios ("Indians"), a name that is still used today in Peru.

At the time of European discovery, the indigenous peoples of the Amazon were traditionally mostly semi-nomadic tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. Many of the estimated 2000 nations and tribes which existed in 1500 died out as a consequence of the European settlement, and many were assimilated into the Peruvian population. The indigenous population has declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated 4–6 million to just 100,000 in 1950—probably one of the largest genocides in human history. Most of the surviving tribes have changed their ways of life to some extent, e.g. by using firearms and other industrialized items, trading goods with mainstream society, using schools and medical posts, etc. Only a few tribes (such as the Matsés, isolated in remote areas of the Amazon Rainforest) still retain their original culture.

1 Origins
2 The Indians after the European colonization
3 Indigenous Political Organization
4 Territories
5 Major ethnic groups
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Origins

The origins of these indigenous peoples are still a matter of dispute among archaeologists. The traditional view, which traces them to Siberian migration to America at the end of the last ice age, has been increasingly challenged by South American archaeologists.

Anthropological and genetic evidence indicates that most Native American peoples descended from migrant peoples from North Asia (Siberia) who entered America across the Bering Strait in at least three separate waves. In Peru, particularly, most native tribes who were living in the land by 1500 are thought to be descended from the first wave of migrants, who are believed to have crossed the so-called Bering Land Bridge at the end of the last Ice Age, around 9000 BC.

A migrant wave around 9000 BC would have reached Peru around 6000 BC, probably entering the Amazon River basin from the Northwest. (The second and third migratory waves from Siberia, which are thought to have generated the Athabaskan and Eskimo peoples, apparently did not reach farther than the southern United States and Canada, respectively.)

The three main linguistic groups that dominated the territory now known as Peru during the pre-Colombian period were the Quechua, Jivaro and the Pano linguistic families. They possessed different organizational structures and distinct languages and cultures.

[edit] The Indians after the European colonization

After European colonization, the Indians were soon infected by diseases brought by the Europeans against which they had no natural immunity, and began dying in enormous numbers. Many were also forced from their lands by the aggressive conquerors. They refused to be enslaved, sometimes in extreme ways, such as suicide, and receded into the backlands, so that the Spanish had to start importing black slaves from Africa.

Matsés Cat Woman

[edit] Indigenous Political Organization

Individual indigenous groups have a variety of governance structures. MATSES, the Movement in the Amazon for Tribal Subsistence and Economic Sustainability (MATSES), is an indigenous peoples rights organization that is working for the cultural survival of indigenous people in Peru.

[edit] Territories

Indigenous peoples hold title to substantial portions of Peru, primarily in the form of communal reserves (Spanish: reservas comunales). The largest indigenous communal reserve in Peru belongs to the Matsés tribe and is located on the peruvian border with Brazil on the Yavari or Javari river.