Carijona


Carijona, Koto or Huaque is an indigenous town that lived until the 19th century in the Bajo Yarí (Caquetá, Colombia), in the vicinity of the Iguaje mountain range (Mesay river basin, Cuñaré and Amú rivers and Tunaima lagoon) ). Currently, a community lives in the indigenous reservation of Puerto Nare, Municipality of Miraflores (Guaviare) and some families along the Caquetá River in the towns of La Pedrera, Puerto Córdoba and Puerto Santander, in the department of Amazonas.

His Tsahá language is part of the Caribbean Family. It is assumed that the Carijona (carífona), penetrated the Yarí from the east, by the Caquetá River (Japurá). According to the oral tradition of the Miraña, the Carijonas dominated the Caquetá River due to its warrior power. In 1849 there were 9 thousand people but the exploitation of the rubber and the transfers linked to it, caused the drastic descent of the population, which was exacerbated by the wars with the witoto and by the miscegenation with the rubber employers, as Salvador Perea. It is known that the carijona resisted the cauchería and attacked the facilities of the company "Calderón Hermanos" in the Cuñaré and the town of Calamar (Guaviare) in 1904.

Part of the surviving carijona have united in marriages with Tucano or other indigenous ethnic groups. (1994) "Karihona"; Johannes Wilbert (ed.): Encyclopedia of World Cultures: South America VII: 191-194. Verenigde Staten: Gale Group. ISBN 0-8161-1813-2

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