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Concept
Jivaroan peoples
Summary
The Jivaroan peoples are the indigenous peoples in the headwaters of the Marañon River and its tributaries, in northern Peru and eastern Ecuador. The tribes speak the Chicham languages.
Their traditional way of life relies on gardening, and on hunting with blowguns and darts poisoned with curare. Complex spiritual beliefs are built around both of these activities. Jivaroan culture also features headhunting raids and ayahuasca ceremonies.
In the 16th century, Jivaroan warriors stopped the expansion of the Inca Empire into the Amazon basin, and destroyed settlements of Spanish conquistadors.
The word Jivaro is likely a corruption of xivar, a word that means people in the Shuar Chicham language. During the Spanish colonial period, "Jivaros" were viewed as the antithesis of civilized. The word Jíbaro thus entered the Spanish language; in Ecuador it is highly pejorative and signifies "savage"; outside of Ecuador, especially in Mexico and Jíbaro in Puerto Rico, it has come to mean "countryside people who farm the land in a traditional way".
The principal groups are:
Shuar
Achuar
Humabisa
Aguaruna
Some have also named the following:
Antipas
Mayna
Additionally, the Shiwiar are a group of Achuar speakers living along the Corrientes River, next to Quechua speakers; many Shiwiar also speak this other, unrelated, language.
The Jivaroan worldview is built upon the idea that both animate and inanimate objects hold souls that cannot be seen by human eyes. These souls contain power, or karáram, that the Jivaroan people believe can be contained and harnessed within one's self. Michael Harner talks about these souls, called arutam:"A person is not born with an arutam soul. Such a soul must be acquired, and in certain traditional ways. The acquisition of this type of soul is considered to be so important to an adult male’s survival that a boy’s parents do not expect him to live past puberty without one. By repeatedly killing, one can continually accumulate power through the replacement of old arutam souls with new ones.
Official source
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