The Guayupe are an

Arawak The Arawak are a group of Indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. The term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to different Indigenous groups, from the Lokono of South America to the Taíno (Island Arawaks), w ...

-speakingDescription Guayupe

Indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology) In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often populari ...

group of people in modern-day

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. They inhabit the westernmost parts of the department of

Meta Meta most commonly refers to: * Meta (prefix), a common affix and word in English ( in Greek) * Meta Platforms, an American multinational technology conglomerate (formerly ''Facebook, Inc.'') Meta or META may also refer to: Businesses * Meta (ac ...

. At the time of the

Spanish conquest The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It ...

, more than 250,000 Guayupe were living in large parts of Meta. The territories of the Guayupe stretched from the neighbouring Guahibo terrains to the east and north 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 ...

territories to the west over an area of . Knowledge of the Guayupe has been provided by

Pedro de Aguado Friar Pedro de Aguado (1513 or 1538 – late 16th or early 17th century) was a Spanish Franciscan friar who spent around 15 years in the New Kingdom of Granada, preaching to the indigenous people. During this time he published a work written by ...

and others.

Guayupe territory

The territory of the Guayupe before the Spanish conquest stretched from the rivers Upía and

Guayabero Guayabero is a Guahiban language that is spoken by a thousand people in Colombia. Many of its speakers are monoglots, with few fluent Spanish speakers in the population. Phonology The Guayabero syllable structure A syllable is a basic un ...

to the peaks of the

Eastern Ranges The Eastern Ranges is an Australian rules football team that currently competes in the Talent League, the Victorian statewide under-18s competition. History Inaugural playing squad (1992) Honours *Premiers (2): 2002, 2013 *Runners-up (6): 199 ...

of the Colombian

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

. Their area covered around .Description of the Guayupe
/ref> The Guayupe lived mostly around the

Ariari River The Ariari River is a river of Colombia, located entirely within the Meta Department. Part of the Orinoco River basin, it merges with the Guayabero River to forms the Guaviare River, one of the principle tributaries of the Orinoco. See also *Lis ...

Municipalities belonging to Guayupe territories

Description

The first report on the Guayupe nation is from German conquistador

Philipp von Hutten Philipp von Hutten (18 December 1505 – 17 May 1546) was a German adventurer and an early European explorer and conquistador of Venezuela. He is a significant figure in the history of Klein-Venedig (1528 - 1546), the concession of Venezuela Prov ...

, participant of the expedition led by Georg Hohermuth von Speyer from Coro in Venezuela to the borders of the Amazon bassin (1535 - 1538). He describes them as "very good looking people and very able in defending themselves." Indeed, Hohermuths army never was able to make peace with the Guayupe, crossing their entire land from the northern shores of Upía river down to the regions south of the

Guaviare river The Guaviare is a tributary of the Orinoco in Colombia. It flows together with the upper Orinoco (until here also called Río Parágua), which it clearly surpasses in length (altogether about 1,760 km) and water flow. Thus, the Guaviare is hydrol ...

. On their way, the conquistadors were engaged in various skirmishes and even in a big battle with the Guayupe warriors. "They tried their luck on us frequently but although they killed and wounded many of us, we always gave them the rawer deal. This nation fights with bow and arrow and spears and shields made of tapir skin, and they throw gins." The Germans were not the first Europeans to encounter the Guayupe. Near the Guaviare river they found some items of clearly European origin. As they knew later, it were belongings of an expedition led by Alonso de Herrera, who likely came up the Guaviare river with boats. In 1534, the Guayupe "had slaughtered 90 of Herrera's men and the survivors escaped downstream. In Coro, we met some of them." The Guayupe are a tribe of farmers living in the tropical mountain forests of the Eastern Ranges and the Llanos of Meta, Colombia. 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 ...

times they constructed pallisades around their villages consisting of houses around a central square with a ceremonial building in the middle.Onofrio, 1995, p.438 Because of the sophisticated defence works including palisades, thorn bushes and well-camouflaged pitfalls, the Spanish soldiers in Hohermuth's army nicknamed one of those well fortified villages "Little Salses", referring to the Catalan Fort de Salses, an innovative type of fortress at this time. The Guayupe were an

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

society with

yuca ''Manihot esculenta'', commonly called cassava, manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although a perennia ...

one of their main crops. The Guayupe people went naked, only ornamented with

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

, feathers and shells. The Guayupe society was organised around the ''

cacique A cacique, sometimes spelled as cazique (; ; feminine form: ), was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, who were the Indigenous inhabitants of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles at the time of European cont ...

s''; chiefs of the community. The ''cacique'' was regarded as an important person who lived by strict norms in the ceremonial activities; births, marriages and burials. When a ''cacique'' of the Guayupe died, the body was cremated and his successor had to drink his ash mixed with

chicha ''Chicha'' is a Fermentation, fermented (alcoholic) or non-fermented beverage of Latin America, emerging from the Andes and Amazonia regions. In both the pre- and post-Spanish conquest of Peru, Spanish conquest periods, corn beer (''chicha de jo ...

. The society of the Guayupe was egalitarian; ''

s'' only had the use of stools and more feathers on their blankets. At every marriage, half of the bride treasure was going to the ''cacique''. They built canoes of wood and consumed

and casabe, fish and meat. They didn't eat bird meat.Cultura Guayupe
/ref> According to

scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...

, the Guayupe defecated in the rivers around and not near their houses.

Religion

As in the

Muisca religion Muisca religion describes the religion of the Muisca people, Muisca who inhabited the central highlands of the Colombian Andes before the Spanish conquest of the Muisca. The Muisca formed a Muisca Confederation, confederation of holy Muisca ruler ...

, the main gods were the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

and the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

who were husband and wife.The Guayupe of Granada, Meta
The supreme being of the Guayupe, in the Muisca religion called

Chiminigagua Chiminigagua, Chiminichagua or Chimichagua was the supreme being, omnipotent god and creator of the world in the religion of the Muisca.Ocampo López, 2013, Ch.1, p.15 The Muisca and their confederation were one of the four advanced civilizatio ...

, was ''Inaynagui''. The products the Guayupe used in their rituals were

coca Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. Coca leaves contain cocaine which acts as a mild stimulant when chewed or ...

and

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 ...

. Cannibalism is not reported of the Guayupe.

Modern age

In 1996, fifteen

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcela ...

pots were found, pertaining to the Guayupe culture. In 2011, after the excavation of a Guayupe burial site, the museum of the Guayupe in Fuente de Oro was opened, containing bones, burial

urn An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape ...

s, artefacts and plates. As of 2009 yearly a ''Reina de Guayupe'', miss contest in Puerto Santander, located at from the urban centre of Fuente de Oro, 1999
Guayupe museum
- El Tiempo is held among the Guayupe.Díaz Moreno, 2012, p.187

References

Bibliography

* * * * *Fray Pedro Aguado. ''Recopilación Historial'', Parte 2, Vol. III. Bogotá 1957. *