Wayuu people

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. The Wayúu inhabit the arid Guajira Peninsula straddling the Venezuela-Colombia border, on the Caribbean Sea coast. Two major rivers flow through this mostly harsh environment: the Rancheria River in Colombia and the El Limón River in Venezuela representing the main source of water, along with artificial ponds designed to hold rain water during the rain season. The territory has equatorial weather seasons: a rainy season from September to December, which they call Juyapu; a dry season, known by them as Jemial, from December to April; a second rainy season called Iwa from April to May; and a long second dry season from May to September. Although the Wayuu were never subjugated by the Spanish, the two groups were in a more or less permanent state of war. There were rebellions in 1701 (when they destroyed a Capuchin mission), 1727 (when more than 2,000 natives attacked the Spanish), 1741, 1757, 1761 and 1768. In 1718, Governor Soto de Herrera called them "barbarians, horse thieves, worthy of death, without God, without law and without a king". Of all the Indigenous peoples in the territory of Colombia, they were unique in having learned the use of firearms and horses. In 1769, the Spanish captured 22 Wayuus in order to put them to work building the fortifications of Cartagena. The reaction of the natives was unexpected. On May 2, 1769, at El Rincón, near Río de la Hacha, they set their village afire, burning the church and two Spaniards who had taken refuge in it. They also captured the priest. The Spanish immediately dispatched an expedition from El Rincón to capture the Wayuu. This force was led by José Antonio de Sierra, a mestizo who had also headed the party that captured the 22 Guajiro. They recognized him and forced his party to take refuge in the house of the curate, which they then set afire.