Root International Peace Corps

English Report

Aguaruna (People of the Water)

In January of 2002, CNN reported a massacre in the remote jungle region of Northern Peru . Settlers had been attacked by upwards of 150 Aguaruna Indians. The Aguaruna were in war paint, their faces red and black. They used rifles, bows and arrows, machetes, shotguns and blowguns (loaded with poison tipped darts) to kill 15 settlers, seven of them children. Scores of others were wounded in the attack.

The Aguaruna have been struggling against this incursion into their lands since its beginning. They are the most politically organized of Peru ’s indigenous groups, and until recently their battles were carried out mostly in the courtroom. This tactic saw much success, especially in the late 1990s, with several different courts finding in favor of the Aguaruna and recognizing as valid the property titles the Aguaruna hold for the land.

The colonist settlers did not recognize the claims of the Aguaruna. They stayed on the land, leaving only briefly in 2000, but returning after the case was appealed and moved into a higher court. The Ministry of Agriculture offered the settlers other land, but the settlers were adamant- they would not leave. When they saw that their final appeal had failed, the colonists formed their own paramilitary force, comprised of peasants and known as the “ronderos”. Several of the settlers armed themselves with rifles, preparing to defend against forcible eviction. The police are not allowed to use their weapons in such situations, so the settlers remained.

On January 12 2002 , the eviction was again supposed to take place. The settlers, demonstrating no small amount of media savvy, invited a local television station to witness the proceedings. The Peruvian government, unwilling to risk a public relations disaster, backed down.

Seeing the government as unwilling, or unable to rid their land of the trespassers, the Aguaruna decided that they had to act, and on January 19, they did.

The roots of the problem date back to 1981 when then-president Fernando Belaunde Terry declared the Cajamarca jungle an economic expansion zone, and launched a campaign to” Peruvianize” the Aguaruna. Belaunde did this for security reasons. He wanted to create a demographic barrier to curtail Ecuador ’s attempts to penetrate the area. This involved not only making the Aguaruna identify as Peruvians, but also bringing in settlers from other parts of Peru to help populate the sparsely inhabited region. The colonists flocked to the area- engaging in agriculture, especially the growing of coffee.

The Aguaruna have always been hostile to outsiders. When the Inca Empire covered much of modern Peru , Ecuador , Chile , and Paraguay Aguaruna territory was an impenetrable pocket of resistance. When the conquistadors came from Spain , they easily overturned the Inca Empire, which had been weakened by a civil war over succession to the throne. The Spanish were no more able to conquer the Aguaruna than the Incas.

The Spanish found the Aguaruna territory hostile. It is rugged terrain; much of it covered by dense jungle, with extreme temperatures and unfriendly wildlife. There are tarantulas that emit a powder that blinds for days, as well as flesh eating piranhas, and yellow, white and black cayman (a type of alligator) which can grow to 2 -4m . The Aguaruna were even scarier than the wildlife. They were fierce warriors, who would remove the heads of their foes after battle.

They then shrunk the heads, using a method that involved curing, boiling and roasting. These shrunken heads, worn around the neck and known as “tsantsa” were believed to contain the soul of the person killed.

The Aguaruna’s success in keeping out foreign intruders later led to some problems. The Spanish colonialists created many of the borders that divide the modern states of the region. The border between Ecuador and Peru runs directly through the heart of Aguaruna territory. Before 1941, the Aguaruna were able to move freely between the two states, oblivious to their existence, and unconcerned with political boundaries. Others, namely the governments of Peru and Ecuador , were quite concerned with this border.

The Spanish had never been able to penetrate Aguaruna territory, and hence had been unable to map out a 75-mile area that included where the Peru-Ecuador border would fall. In 1941 a war over this border began. A brutal and ugly conflict, it was fought almost entirely on Aguaruna land. Later that year, the two sides met in Rio de Janeiro , hoping to settle the dispute. They both signed a treaty known as the Rio Protocols, which was supposed to end the war, but did nothing of the sort. While they were able to agree on 95% of the border, 5% was left in dispute. This 5% was the area of the Cenepa River , the area that ran through the middle of Aguaruna territory. This area was to be fought over for more than fifty years, with hostilities flaring up intermittently, most notably in 1981, and 1995. No peace treaty was signed until 1998; it had been the longest running border conflict in the Western Hemisphere .

During the conflict, the border was closed. Aguaruna were unable to visit friends and family who lived on the other side. More than 20,000 Aguaruna villagers were displaced by the fighting, and at least 28 were killed by stepping on land mines, between 130,000-150,000 of which were planted by both sides throughout the border region. The war wreaked havoc on the natural resources of the area. Chemicals from exploded and unexploded munitions contaminated rivers. Acres of rainforest were cleared for troop transport and the building of military bases.

The Aguaruna suffered another environmental disaster in the mid 1990s when potential oil reserves were discovered in northern Peru . Oil companies rushed in eagerly, destroying the rainforest by the hundreds of acres, often using TNT, in order to build paths and heliports. This wanton disregard of the environment has been very troubling for the Aguaruna. They have been, for centuries, ardent conservationists of their portion of the Amazon. In order to survive in such a remote and apparently inhospitable region they have had to carefully adapt to and respect its unique ecological balance.

The Aguaruna know how to use the plants of the Amazon in a way that is just now being understood by western scientists. They, like other tribes of the Amazon used the bark of the Quina tree as a malarial antidote. The active ingredient, Quinine, was developed and spread around the world as the first preventative treatment of malaria, becoming one of the most important medicines of the 20 th century. Other plants of the forest have been used by the Aguaruna to treat ailments such as gastritis, dysentery, snake bites, skin disease, constipation, and used as birth control. The Aguaruna have long extracted poison from frogs to use on arrows when hunting. This extract is a powerful muscle relaxant, a synthetic of which is used during surgery by major hospitals all over the world. Recently, the Garabato plant (cat’s claw), used by the Aguaruna as an anti-arthritic and anti-inflammatory drug, was labeled by the World Health Organization as the most important medical discovery to come out of South America since quinine.

Take a look at your feet. Are they blistered, callused, or cracked?
Can you work barefoot for eight hours a day tending crops in the jungle?
One of the more prominent physical differences between people living traditional
lifestyles and those living modern ones are condition of our feet. (Left) Feet of a 35 years old Aguaruna women.

Most Aguaruna now realize that in the future they will be unable to remain as isolated as they have been in the past. Many of them are taking steps so that they can take control of their future. They have become politically savvy, organizing with other indigenous groups, and young Aguaruna have placed great importance on education. Their conflicts with outsiders are surely not over, but it is safe to say that they will be able to retain a great deal of cultural integrity for years to come.

Agriculture

Most of the Aguaruna survive through subsistence farming. With an average per capita income of only US $34, they are unable to buy much food, and must grow or catch their meals. 80% of the Aguaruna diet consists of carbohydrates, so malnutrition is common. Hunting and fishing are practiced by men using the traditional methods, and have great cultural significance for the Aguaruna, but they do not provide nearly as much sustenance as agriculture and domesticated animals.

The Aguaruna mainly grow plantain, maize, and yucca. Plantain is the main cash crop, one of the few viable exports of the region, but yucca is what feeds the Aguaruna. Yucca is an essential part of not only the diet, but of the culture as well. It is consumed daily by the Aguaruna, both as a staple food, and as a beverage, masato. Masato is a beer made by fermenting yucca. It is an intoxicating drink, much valued as a social lubricant. It makes parties and festivals lively, relaxing inhibitions. It is common for couples to form after meeting at village socials while under the influence of masato.

Traditionally Aguaruna women are in charge of gardening and farming. A woman’s standing in her household and in the community is related to her horticultural abilities. This is rooted in the Aguaruna mythology of Nuguki, the earth mother who is said to reside within the soil. The following story is an Aguaruna myth about their first encounter with Nuguki.

Long ago, the ancestors had no cultivated plants or clay pots, and had to live on a diet of mashed balsa wood cooked in their armpits. Then one day a woman saw peeled yucca skins floating down the river, and followed its trail until she saw Nuguki along the riverbank. The woman wanted Nuguki to return home with her to provide food for her hungry family, but Nuguki declined and instead sent her daughter. Once in her new home Nuguki’s daughter continued to provide an abundance of beautiful food and clay cooking pots, until one day some mischievous children made her summon fierce animals for their entertainment. The children however, became frightened of the animals and threw ash into the daughter’s eyes. So abused, she fled and hid inside the stem of a bamboo plant. Later, a woman from the house found the daughter and began to kick her. In an attempt to escape she crawled into the woman’s anus, which is why humans have intestinal gas today. After the daughter disappeared, the people were forced to go back to their previous depressed state. Nuguki however, took pity on them and appearing in a woman’s dream directed them to a field of infant plants that were then cultivated and used to feed the people.

Making masato is easy: Boil yucca over an open flame until sofe.Remove from heat and drain excess water.
Mash the boiled yucca with a wooden spoon.Chew the mash and spit it into a vat.Mix with water and let sit
for two days. If you are ever passing through Belen village, stop by the Chief’s house(Right) and share a cup
with him.