The Guane people of

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live mainly in the cities of Santander, Bucaramanga and Barichara. A population estimate made by DANE(Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística) in 2005, was that around 812 people in Santander identified as Guane, with 409 being men and 403 being women.

Etymology

The etymology of the word Guane is not known with certainty. The most prominent reasoning states that it came from the Muisca people, the Guane’s neighbors, who referred to them as ‘Guatas’ which means ‘tall’ in the Musyccubun language. It evolved to become ‘Guates’ and then eventually Guanes. Guane people from this time period were reported to be as tall as 1.76m, taller than most other native groups at the time.

Pre-colonial Guane people

Before European-contact the Guane People lived in the area of Santander and north of Boyacá, both departments of present-day central-

. They were

farmers A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mi ...

cultivating

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, 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 ...

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a Tropical vegetation, tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been culti ...

and other crops, and skilled

artisans An artisan (from , ) is a skilled worker, skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by handicraft, hand. These objects may be wikt:functional, functional or strictly beauty, decorative, for example furnit ...

working in cotton textiles. The Guane lived north of the Chicamocha River, around the

Chicamocha Canyon The Chicamocha Canyon ( , ) is a steep sided canyon carved by the Chicamocha River in Colombia. With a maximum depth of , an area of and a length of , the canyon is the second-largest worldwide. The canyon is situated in the departments of Bo ...

in an area stretching from Vélez in the south to the capital of Santander;

Bucaramanga Bucaramanga () is the capital and largest city of the department of Santander Department, Santander, Colombia. Bucaramanga has the fifth-largest economy by GDP in Colombia, has the lowest unemployment rate and is the ninth most populous city i ...

in the north.Guane people and their territories
/ref> Other sources state their territory did not extend so far north.Reconstruction of the Guane people
-

El Espectador ''El Espectador'' () is a nationally circulated Colombian newspaper founded by Fidel Cano Gutiérrez in 1887 in Medellín and published since 1915 in Bogotá. It was initially published twice a week, 500 issues each, but some years later became ...

Guane, a

corregimiento ''Corregimiento'' (; , ) is a Spanish term used for country subdivisions for royal administrative purposes, ensuring districts were under crown control as opposed to local elites. A ''corregimiento'' was usually headed by a '' corregidor''. The ...

of Barichara, Santander, is said to have been the capital of the Guane people.

Culture and art

Guane culture during this time period had many aspects to it. They celebrated on many different occasions such as the start of puberty, the teething of a baby, and the start of the new lunar year. They had multiple leader for each village, however, all of the Guane were led by a man named Guanetá by the time the Spanish . WalletMadeFromFique

The Guane made their own weapons, including arrows and spears. They interchanged plants for the stewpot with the Chitarero on the east and the

Muisca The Muisca (also called the Chibcha) are indigenous peoples in Colombia and were a Pre-Columbian culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The Muisca spe ...

to the south of their territories. The mantle making of the Guanes was well known in

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

Colombia. Mantles made from cotton have been dated back to the 11th century AD. The Guane cultivated

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

and made products of

fique Fique is a natural fibre that grows in the leaves of plants in the genus '' Furcraea''. Common names include fique, cabuya, pita, penca, penco, maguey, cabui, chuchao and coquiza. History The Indigenous peoples of the Americas extracted and use ...

. Like the Muisca, U'wa and Lache, the Guane spoke a

Chibchan The Chibchan languages (also known as Chibchano) make up a language family indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian Area, which extends from eastern Honduras to northern Colombia and includes populations of these countries as well as Nicaragua, Costa ...

language.The Guane also had their own style of music and art. Many illustrations and iconographies are found all over Santander that depict interpretations of people, events, animals, and other forms of artistic expression.

Colonization and the Spanish genocide

Like with most Indigenous groups the Guane suffered at the hands of the Spanish, nevertheless they fought back. At first, Spanish explorers entered their territory on friendly terms, however, eventually a Captain named Martín Galeano made his way into their land with an armed force at his back. The Guane, led at the time by Guanetá, fought back with all their projectile weapons in order to slow the advance of the Spanish. The Spanish eventually made it to there position and unleashed a violent attack of which few of the Guane people present were able to escape. Guanetá, in the face of being captured, chose to sacrifice himself instead of being succumbing to the violence of the Spanish.https://web.archive.org/web/20170502075152/http://zapatoca-santander.gov.co/apc-aa-files/36306437323430333533323464346562/EL_PUEBLO_DE_LOS_GUANES.pdf Another rebellion was later led by another Guane leader named Chanchón. Despite the many other Guane leaders that formed diplomatic relationships with Galeano, Chanchón fought against the diplomats that were sent by the Spanish. Chanchón continued to fight numerous battles against the Spanish with the goal being to liberate the Guane territory and remove the Spanish from the region, however, despite his best efforts and collaborations with other Guane leaders, many thousands of Guane were slaughtered at the hands of the Spanish as they continued their presence in the region.

Current Guane culture

Today the Guane people continue to exist. There are no known speakers of Guane´s original language, however, their culture has evolved and is still practiced. For example, museums around Santander preserve the culture and claim it as Santandereana Heritage, a woman named Doña Ana Felicia Alquichire continues to make ceramics in the traditional Guane style, and many Santandereanos sing songs about their Guane heritage every day. The Guane also continue their tradition of gastronomy by preparing of 'hormigas culonas' which translated to big butt ants, arepas, and chicha.

Municipalities belonging to Guane territory

The Guane inhabited the area of central and south Santander, around the

and a small part of Boyacá.

References

External links

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Video about the Guane people and their culture
{{authority control Indigenous peoples in Colombia Andean civilizations