Page 8 - Amazonia

8 8 | Amazonia
Magazine Name

THE YAGUAS

carvings to tourists, as well this initial confusion. Other
as jewelry, dolls, and colorful traditional garb includes a
masks. red dye made from berries

In preparation for festivals, that is painted on the skin.
the Yagua make masato, Around the turn of the cen-
an alcohol made from fer- tury, Amazon people began
mented yucca root. To make to get involved in the ex-
the yucca the right consist- port of rubber plants from
ency, they chew the pulp the jungle. This is often cit-
prior to the fermenting pro- ed as the time the Yagua
cess. When you visit, you and other native Amazo-
may have the opportunity nians developed a connec-
there are some 6,000 Yagua living in north-eastern to see atunas, traditional tion with the modern world.
Peru and southern Colombia, in 30 communities dances performed to a drum Since then, assimilation into
along the Amazon
beat that has reverberated the surrounding Peruvian
While you’re visiting the Am- throughout the Amazon for culture has become increas-
azon Basin near Iquitos, you many generations. ingly common. Yagua is one
have the chance to encoun- Many members of the tribe of the few native Amazonian
ter one the Amazon’s native still wear traditional clothing languages that has made it
tribes, the Yagua. With only made of palm fiber. Yagua to the 21st century. Although
4,000 to 6,000 members men traditionally wear grass smaller in size, the Yagua
left, meeting the Yagua is skirts, a garment that made tribe persists – some of the
a rare opportunity and the the Spanish arrivals mistake Yagua still only speak their
best way to get an idea of them for women, specifically native tongue, and there are
what the original face of the the legendary Amazon wom- still children who grow up
Amazon looks like. en. To this day, we refer to speaking only Yagua.

Some Yagua communities it as the Amazon because of
are willing to have tourists
come to the villages and ob-
serve the traditions that they
have carried into the 21st
century. Outsiders are fasci-
nated by the Yagua’s use of
blow darts. The Yagua still
use blow darts to hunt for
their meals in the Amazon
jungle. The darts are made
from carved wood, dipped in
poison extracted from a vine.
The Yagua sometimes enter-
tain visitors with blow dart
demonstrations. They sell
blow darts and other wood
https://www.anywhere.com/peru/attractions/yagua-tribe-indigenous-culture