The Toromona are an

indigenous people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

. They are

uncontacted people Uncontacted peoples are groups of Indigenous peoples living without sustained contact with neighbouring communities and the world community. Groups who decide to remain uncontacted are referred to as indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation. Leg ...

living near the upper Madidi and Heath Rivers in northwestern Bolivia. Bolivia's Administrative Resolution 48/2006, issued on 15 August 2006, created an "exclusive, reserved, and inviolable" portion of the Madidi National Park to protect the Toromona.

Language

The Toromona language is a Tacanan language.

History

No non-natives have contacted this tribe. During the Spanish colonization, settlers found it difficult to adapt to the area of the

Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributary, tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries ...

. Besides surviving, their main goal was to find a secret place called Paititi, an alleged hiding place of the Incas' most valuable treasures which had been sequestered away from the Spaniards. There are some historical records confirming that the Incas, in fact, sealed storage tunnels in ritual ceremonies. Father Miguel Cabello de Balboa wrote about a city of gold, describing Paititi as a place supposedly protected by warrior women; he also mentioned the Toromona tribe, alleging that they possessed no qualms or reservations with regards to the executing of outsiders. Norwegian biologist Lars Hafskjold had searched exhaustively for the Toromona, and became quite famous due to his disappearance, somewhere in the region of the Madidi park in 1997. The Toromona have occasionally been seen by other indigenous peoples in the region. In the 21st century, anthropologist Michael Brohan was informed by members of the Araona people that they had contacted a group in voluntary isolation on the eastern bank of the Manuripi River, who were speakers of either Toromona or a nearly unintelligible dialect of Araona.

Notes

External links

Bolivia: Indigenous Toromona in voluntary isolation in serious danger of disappearing
World Rainforest Movement {{DEFAULTSORT:Toromona People Uncontacted peoples Indigenous peoples of the Amazon Indigenous peoples in Bolivia