Uru-Chipaya

South Americaother subsistence combinations

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expand_more Description

The Uru-Chipaya are a linguistically and culturally distinct (and by some accounts ancient) people of the Titicaca-Poopó basin of the Andean [i]altiplano[/i]. Increasingly marginalized and assimilated from Inca through modern times, by the early twentieth century the few Uru remaining in the single settlement of Iru-Itu or Angoake just south of Lake Titicaca retained some of their traditional economic focus on aquatic resources but had been all but absorbed by the dominant Aymara. A culturally distinctive branch, the Chipaya, had become isolated several hundred kilometers to the south in a village of the same name; since joined by a settlement at Ayparavi. Subsistence depends on a combination of farming, animal husbandry and wage labor, with mostly opportunistic pursuit of once dominant fishing and hunting. The nuclear family is the fundamental unit of an egalitarian society that is divided into three [i]ayllus[/i], each of which annually chooses a chief mayor with civil and religious authority, and a field mayor regulating agricultural affairs.

Identifier
Region
  • South America
Subregion
  • Central Andes
Subsistence Type
  • other subsistence combinations
Samples
Countries
  • Bolivia
External Links