Andoque (or Andoke) are an Indigenous people in Colombia. They live along the Aduche tributary of the

Japurá River The Japurá River or Caquetá River is a long river in the Amazon basin. It rises in Colombia and flows eastward through Brazil to join the Amazon River. Course The river rises as the Caquetá River in the Andes in southwest Colombia. The Caqu ...

. The people refer to themselves as ''Pʌʌsiʌʌ́ hʌ'', meaning ‘People of the Axe’.

Language and culture

The

Andoque language Andoque is a language spoken by a few hundred Andoque people in Colombia, and is in decline. There were 10,000 speakers in 1908, down to 370 a century later, of which at most 50 are monolingual. The remaining speakers live in four residential ...

is a

language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

and is extinct in Peru. The culture values "sacred plants" and a ritual called "Yuruparí." The "Yuruparí" ritual concerns their transcendent vision of cosmology. The Yuruparí ritual makes men initiates "die" then be "reborn" as members of the tribe.

Religion and oral history

The various bee species originated from the nasal bone of Heron-of-the-Center when he was consumed by fire while wearing a jaguar-skin. Tapirs of various colors originated from "the star people, who are bees and wasps", when they ate the body of a honey-drinking old man, who "fell into a trap" which had been dug by his own son.Jara 1995, p. 157

Notes

References

Fabio Jara : "Bees and Wasps : Ethno-Entomological Notions and Myths among the Andoke of the Caquetá River". In :- ''LATIN AMERICAN INDIAN LITERATURES JOURNAL'', Vol. 11 (1995) Indigenous peoples in Colombia Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean Witoto {{SouthAm-ethno-group-stub