The Lache were an indigenous,
agrarian people in the highlands of what is now central
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the ...
's northern
Boyacá and
Santander departments, primarily in
Gutiérrez Province and
García Rovira Province
The García Rovira Province is a province of the Colombian Department
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative ...
.
[Los Laches y Chitareros y sus caminos a la llegada de los españoles]
/ref> They were part of the Cocuy Confederation and spoke Chibcha, trading predominantly with other Chibcha speakers, such as the Muisca, Guane, Pijao
The Pijao (also Piajao, Pixao, Pinao) are an indigenous people from Colombia.
Ethnography
The Pijao or Pijaos formed a loose federation of Amerindians and were living in the present-day department of Tolima, Colombia. In pre-Columbian tim ...
and Chitarero
The Chitarero were an indigenous Chibcha-speaking people in the Andes of north-eastern Colombia and north-western Venezuela. They were responsible for the death of the German ''conquistador'' Ambrosius Ehinger in 1533 by means of poisoned arrows ...
.maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American English, North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous ...
, potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern Uni ...
es, quinoa
Quinoa (''Chenopodium quinoa''; , from Quechua ' or ') is a flowering plant in the amaranth family. It is a herbaceous annual plant grown as a crop primarily for its edible seeds; the seeds are rich in protein, dietary fiber, B vitamins, ...
and cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
, among other crops.
In the 17th century, Lucas Fernández de Piedrahita wrote of the habit of the Laches in bringing up younger male children as culturally female.barrio
''Barrio'' () is a Spanish word that means " quarter" or " neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city, usually delimited by functional (e.g. residential, commercial, industrial, etc.), social, a ...
'' of Bogotá
Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...
known as Los Laches.
Municipalities belonging to Lache territory
The Lache inhabited the highlands of eastern Santander and northern Boyacá and a small part of northwesternmost Casanare.[Lache people territories]
/ref>
- Banco de la República
See also
* Muisca
* Conquest of the Lache, Chibcha, U'wa
* Guane
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
Further reading
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lache people
Andean civilizations
Indigenous peoples in Colombia
Extinct ethnic groups