Shuar people

A Shuar man in traditional dress.

The Shuar people are an indigenous people of Ecuador and Peru. They are members of the Jivaroan peoples, who are Amazonian tribes living at the headwaters of the Marañón River.

Name

Shuar, in the Shuar language, means "people." The people who speak the Shuar language live in tropical rainforest between the upper mountains of the Andes, and the tropical rainforests and savannas of the Amazonian lowlands, in Ecuador extending to Peru. Shuar live in various places — thus, the muraiya (hill) shuar are people who live in the foothills of the Andes; the achu (swamp-palm) shuar (or Achuar) are people who live in the wetter lowlands east of the Andes (Ecuador and Peru).

Shuar refer to Spanish-speakers as apach, and to non-Spanish/non-Shuar speakers as inkis. Europeans and European Americans used to refer to Shuar as jívaros or jíbaros; this word probably derives from the 16th century Spanish spelling of "shuar" (see Gnerre 1973), but has taken other meanings including "savage"; outside of Ecuador, Jibaro has come to mean "rustic". The Shuar are popularly depicted in a wide variety of travelogue and adventure literature because of Western fascination with their former practice of shrinking human heads (tsantsa).

Social organization and contacts with Europeans

From the time of first contact with Europeans in the 16th century, to the formation of the Shuar Federation in the 1950s and 1960s, Shuar were semi-nomadic and lived in separate households dispersed in the rainforest, linked by the loosest of kin and political ties, and lacking corporate kin-groups or centralized or institutionalized political leadership.

The center of Shuar life was a relatively autonomous household consisting of a husband, his wives (usually two), unmarried sons, and daughters. Upon marriage sons would leave their natal household, and sons-in-law would move in (see matrilocal residence). Men hunted and wove clothes; women gardened. Both men and women were involved in feuding warfare with other groups. In 1527, the Shuar defeated an incursion by the Inca armies of Huayna Capac.

When Shuar first made contact with Spaniards in the 16th century, they entered into peaceful trade relations. They violently resisted taxation, and drove Spaniards away in 1599.

Colonization and missionization in the 20th century have led Shuar to reorganize themselves into nucleated settlements called centros. Centros initially facilitated evangelization by Catholic missionaries but also became a means to defend Shuar land claims against those of non-indigenous settlers. In 1964 representatives of Shuar centros formed a political Federation to represent their interests to the state, non-governmental organizations, and transnational corporations.

Tsantsa, the shrunken heads

A shrunken head exhibited at the Museum of the Americas in Madrid.

Tsantsa or shrunken head.

In the 19th century muraiya Shuar became famous among Europeans and Euro-Americans for their elaborate process of shrinking the heads of slain Achuar. Although non-Shuar characterized these shrunken heads (tsantsa) as trophies of warfare, Shuar insisted that they were not interested in the heads themselves and did not value them as trophies. Instead, they sought the muisak, or soul of the victim, which was contained in and by the shrunken head. Shuar men believed that control of the muisak would enable them to control their wives' and daughters' labor.

Since women cultivated manioc and made chicha (manioc beer), which together provided the bulk of calories and carbohydrates in the Shuar diet, women's labor was crucial to Shuar biological and social life. In the late 19th century and early 20th century Europeans and Euro-Americans began trading manufactured goods, including shotguns, asking in return for shrunken heads. The result was an increase in local warfare, including head hunting, that has contributed to the perception of the Shuar as violent. In 1961 Edmundo Bielawski made the only footage showing what appears to be their head-shrinking process.

Adulthood rituals

Tunic in toucan feather MHNT

Prior to missionization in the 1940s and 1950s Shuar culture functioned to organize and promote a warrior society. Boys of about eight years would be taken by their fathers or uncles on a three- to five-day journey to a nearby waterfall, during which time the boy would drink only tobacco water. At some point the child would be given maikua (Datura arborea, Solanaceae), in the hope that he would then see momentary visions, or arútam. These visions were produced by a wakaní or ancestral spirit.

If the boy were brave enough he could touch the arútam, and acquire the arútam wakaní. This would make the boy very strong, and possession of several arútam wakaní would make the boy invincible. Shuar, however, believed that they could easily lose their arútam wakaní, and thus repeated this ritual several times.

A Shuar warrior who had lived to kill many people was called a kakáram. Shuar believed that if a person in possession of an arútam wakaní died a peaceful death, they would give birth to a new wakaní; if someone in possession of an arútam wakaní were killed, they would give birth to a muísak.

Illness and shamanism

Shuar generally do not believe in natural death, although they recognize that certain epidemics such as measles and scarlet fever are diseases introduced through contact with Europeans or Euro-Americans. They fought primarily with spears and shotguns, but—like many other groups in the region—also believed that they could be killed by tsentsak, invisible darts.

Any unexplained death was attributed to such tsentsak. Although tsentsak are animate, they do not act on their own. Shamans (in Shuar, "Uwishin") are people who possess and control tsentsak. To possess tsentsak they must purchase them from other shamans; Shuar believe that the most powerful shamans are Quichua-speakers, who live to the north and east.

To control tsentsak Shuar must ingest natem (Banisteriopsis caapi). Many Shuar believe that illness is caused when someone hires a shaman to shoot tsentsak into the body of an enemy. This attack occurs in secret and few if any shamans admit to doing this. If someone takes ill they may go to a shaman for diagnosis and treatment.

Shuar and the Ecuadorian State

The discovery of oil in the upper Amazon has motivated Ecuadorian and Peruvian interest in the region. In the 20th century Ecuadorian Shuar and Peruvian groups like the Achuar have had significantly different histories.

Shuar in Logroño, Ecuador.

There are at least 40,000 Shuar, 5,000 Achuars and 700 Shiwiars in Ecuador.

At the end of the 19th century Catholic Jesuits re-established missions among the Shuar, and poor and landless Euro-Ecuadorians from the highlands (colonos) began to settle among Shuar. Shuar entered into peaceful trade relations, exchanged land for manufactured goods, and began sending their children to mission boarding schools to learn Spanish. In 1935 the Ecuadorian government created a Shuar reserve, in part to regulate Euro-Ecuadorian access to land, and gave Salesian (Catholic) missionaries charge over the reserve.

Missionaries were largely successful in the acculturation process, teaching Shuar Spanish, converting Shuar to Christianity, encouraging the Shuar to abandon warfare and the production of shrunken heads, encouraging Shuar to abandon the puberty rites through which Shuar acquired an arútam wakaní, and encouraging Shuar to participate in the market economy. They were largely but not completely successful in encouraging Shuar to abandon polygyny for monogamy. They were relatively unsuccessful in discouraging the practice of shamanism.

By the 1950s Shuar had lost a considerable amount of land to settlers. At this time they abandoned their semi-nomadic and dispersed settlement pattern and began to form nucleated settlements of five to thirty families, called centros (Spanish for "centers"). These centros facilitated missionary access to Shuar. They also provided a basis for Shuar petitions to the Ecuadorian government for land; in return Shuar promised to clear rainforest to convert to pasture, and the government provided loans for Shuar to purchase cattle which they would raise for market.

In the 1960s Salesian missionaries encouraged leaders of the centros to meet and form a new organization. In 1964 they formed the Federacíon Interprovincial de Centros Shuar-Achuar ("Interprovincial Federation of Shuar and Achuar Centros"; many Achuar live in Ecuador, although most live in Peru). The Federation is democratic and hierarchically organized, most of its leaders are salaried by the Ecuadorian state.

In 1969 the Federation signed an accord with the Ecuadorian government in which the Federation assumed administrative jurisdiction over the Shuar reserve. The Federation assumed the duties of educating children, administering civil registration and land-tenure, and promoting cattle-production and other programs meant to further incorporate Shuar into the market economy. Since that time the Federation has splintered into several groups, including a separate Achuar Federation, although the various groups maintain cordial relations.

Thanks to the work of the Federation Shuar identity is very strong. Most Shuar also identify strongly to the Ecuadorian nation-state and have entered Ecuadorian electoral politics. Many Shuar also serve in the Ecuadorian Army, and the Army has appropriated the perception of Shuar as "fierce warriors", forming elite "Iwia" units of Shuar soldiers (although all commissioned officers are non-Shuar). These units distinguished themselves in the 1995 Cenepa War between Ecuador and Peru.

In popular culture

• In James Rollins' novel Amazonia, Dr. Favre's Shuar mistress, Tshui, is described as a "witch" who concocts poisons, brews psychoactive tea, and maintains a large collection of shrunken heads. Her process of shrinking one such trophy, which she wears around her neck, is described in great detail.
• In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film), there is a talking shrunken head at the front of the Knight Bus.
• In Hotel Transylvania, there were shrunken heads as doorknob decorations, one of which said, "Do not disturb!"
• In Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End, Captain Jack Sparrow wears the shrunken head of his mother on his belt.
• Luis Sepúlveda's novel "The Old Man Who Read Love Stories" written in 1989, explores the Shuar people and their culture/traditions/beliefs as the main character is adopted/befriended by their people. The author was close friends with a Shuar union leader and build aspects of the story around the stories he told him about his way of life.
• In the film Back from Eternity (1956) the Shuar (called Jivaros in film) attack the stranded crew in an unnamed South American country

See also

• Ecuador
• Jivaroan peoples

References

• Gnerre, Maurizio (1973). "Sources of Spanish Jívaro", in Romance Philology 27(2): 203-204. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Harner, Michael J. (1984). Jivaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-05065-7
• Karsten, Rafael (1935). The head-hunters of Western Amazonas: The life and culture of the Jibaro Indians of eastern Ecuador and Peru ([Finska vetenskaps-societeten, Helsingfors] Commentationes humanarum litterarum. VII. 1 Washington, D.C. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletins. ASIN B00085ZPFM
• Mader, Elke (1999). Metamorfosis del poder: Persona, mito y visión en la sociedad Shuar y Achuar. Abya-Yala. ISBN 9978-04-477-9
• Rubenstein, Steven (2006). "Circulation, Accumulation, and the Power of Shuar Shrunken Heads" in Cultural Anthropology 22(3): 357-399.
• Rubenstein, Steven (2002). Alejandro Tsakimp: A Shuar Healer in the Margins of History Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-8988-X Google Books
• Rubenstein, Steven (2001). "Colonialism, the Shuar Federation, and the Ecuadorian State," in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 19(3): 263-293.
• Lowell, Karen (1994). "Ethnopharmacological Studies of Medicinal Plants, particularly Cyperus species, used by the Shuar Indians" Ph.D. Thesis, University of Illinois Health Science Center, Chicago, Illinois, 420 pp.

External links

• Organizations: Shuar grassroot organisation in the Pastaza region Fundación para Desarrollo Comunitario de Pastaza (FUNDECOIPA). Sustainable development and conservation projects in the Pastaza region.
• Ethnologue report on Shuar
• The Shuar (jibaro) people: History and information
• Head Hunting: History of the Shuar
• Project to support the Shuar initiated by the shuar with German support. Besides most of the information from CODENPE about the Shuar is translated here into the English language.
• Photo gallery of Shuar & Jungles & Seed Art
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• Museum and Virtual Library (Museums of Central Bank of Ecuador) english