Indigenous people in Peru (pueblos indígenas in Spanish) comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who have inhabited the country's since territory since before its discovery by Europeans around 1500. The first Spanish explorers called the indigenous peoples índios ("Indians"), a name that is still used today.
The indigenous peoples in Peru comprise about 45% of the total population of Peru of 29,248,943 (2011).[1] The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2001–2003) estimated the proportion of indigenous in the overall population as 31%.[2][3]
At the time of the Spanish invasion, the indigenous people of the Amazon Basin were mostly semi-nomadic tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. Those in the Andes and to the west were dominated by the Inca, who had a complex, hierarchical civilization that built many cities and major temples and monuments with highly skilled stonemasonry. Many of the estimated 2000 nations and tribes present in 1500 died out as a consequence of the Spanish conquest, especially because of associated infectious diseases, and many survivors were assimilated into the general mestizo (mixed race) Peruvian population. Most of the surviving indigenous groups, such as the Urarina, have changed their ways of life to some extent, e.g. by using firearms and other manufactured items, and trading goods with mainstream national Peruvian society.[4] Only a few indigenous groups (such as the Matsés, Matis, and Korubo) still live isolated in remote areas of the Amazon Rainforest and cling to aspects of their traditional culture.
The AIDESEP is the premier indigenous rights organization in Peru defending the interests of indigenous people in Peru. Its current president is Alberto Pizango.
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Anthropological and genetic evidence indicates that most of the original population of the Americas descended from migrants from North Asia (Siberia) who entered North America across the Bering Strait in at least three separate waves. DNA analysis has shown that most of those resident in Peru in 1500 were descended from the first wave of Asian migrants, who are believed to have crossed the so-called Bering Land Bridge at the end of the last ice age, around 9000 BC.
Migrants from that first wave around 9000 BC are thought to have reached Peru around 6000 BC, probably entering the Amazon River basin from the northwest. (People of the second and third migratory waves from Siberia, who are thought to have been ancestors of the Athabaskan and Inuit people, apparently did not travel further than the southern United States and Canada, respectively.)
During the pre-Columbian period, the three main linguistic groups that dominated the territory now known as Peru were the Quechua, Jivaro and the Pano. They possessed different organizational structures and distinct languages and cultures.
The origins of these indigenous people are still a matter of dispute. 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.
Of the 29,248,943 estimated total population of Peru, the indigenous people represent about 45%.[1] 97.8% are Andean and 2.1%, Amazonian. However, other sources say the indigenous people comprise 31% of the total population.[2][3] In the Amazonian region, there are 16 language families and more than 65 ethnic groups.[5] After Brazil and New Guinea, Peru is believed to have the highest number of uncontacted tribes in the world.[6]
Before the arrival of Spanish soldiers in Peru,[7] local people began dying in great number from Eurasian infectious diseases brought by the invaders and which spread across the New World ahead of the invaders—diseases against which they had no natural immunity. Later more people died because of the harsh treatment of the conquerors: they were killed in battle, forced from their lands, or died from the ill-treatment of forced labor. Many indigenous people refused to be enslaved, receding into the backlands, or if captured, committing suicide.
Individual indigenous groups have a variety of governance structures. MATSES, the Movement in the Amazon for Tribal Subsistence and Economic Sustainability, is an indigenous people rights organization that is working for the cultural survival of indigenous people in Peru.
Indigenous people 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 Jahvari) River.
Peru is a signatory of the ILO Convention 169.[5] In 1994, Peru signed and ratified the current international law concerning indigenous people, the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989.[8] The laws made to protect the indigenous people are not always respected by the Peruvian government or the companies, such as Perenco, Repsol YPF, and Petrobras,[9] who seek to explore the natural resources of their land.[10]
There is an institution for Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian People called the INDEPA.[5] It is an autonomous ministerial-level decentralized public body that reported directly to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, and was created by a law issued to the Congress of the Republic.[11] On 23 February 2007, the government decided to abolish the authority and make it a Native People' Department within the MIMDES, without consulting the indigenous people. But, on 6 December, Congress passed a law cancelling the executive decree.[11]
In health care, discrimination against indigenous people exists.[12] Peru has one of the highest maternal death rates of the Americas.[12]
The draft law 1770, presented by the government, wanted to formalise and title rural plots, peasant and native communities that may suspend the regulations protecting communal such as Law 22175 on native communities and Law 24657 on the Demarcation and Titling of Peasant Community Lands.[11] It would supersede the property titles of communities registered in the Community Lands Register and revise the community property titles according to the new law.[13] The draft law 1900, of the Peruvian Aprista Party, proposes to authorise the COFOPRI to return lands not cultivated by the communities to the state, so they may be sold in a public auction.[11]
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