Wayuu Culture, a small historical insight
This Blog has the purpose of increasing awareness of our audience´s view towards Wayuu Cultural Traditions and to provide a Historic Insight of their community. We are not only seeking to promote one of several Colombian Indigenous Tribes, but to promote our Country as a whole; as we consider wayuu mochilas to be a national icon that very well suits Colombia´s international image.
This Internet-Promotional task has become increasingly essential for small Colombian handcrafts enterprises, providing very efficient mediums for spreading valuable information. Even if regional handcrafts seem to be far distant from fast paced internet culture, internet itself serves as an excelent tool for achieving our main goal, the expansion of custumer´s concience towards the historical background and the cultural facet of the wayuus that drive their creative endeavours.
The Wayuus is the biggest Indigenous Tribe in Colombia, there are currently 200,000 inhabiting the northern Peninsula Of South America. This Arid and dry landscape , poor in water and natural resources is oddly the birthplace of colorfull and complex-patterned mochilas.
Wayuu Bags are one of the main sources of Income for Colombia´s Wayuu Indigenous Tribe. They are medium sized bags, woven in crochet, a technique which was absorbed by the Wayuus after, catholic missionaries settled in La Guajira in the mid 19th century . That would Nevertheless proove that wayuus tribal culture as a whole would be deeply transformed by spanish colonialism, In fact , The wayuu´s would be one of the few Indigenous Tribes in Colombia that would remain more or less culturally intact during the Spanish colonialist empire. Language,Culture and Religion would remain undisturbed after the wayuus fiercely resisted foreign subjugation. Several Historic Incidents can verify tribal resistance; In 1701 the wayuus allegedly burnt down a capucin church and in 1769 after some wayuu members resited forced labour in Cartagena, they burnt down a catholic church and killed several memebers of spanish military forces.
Wayuu´s language , Wayuunaki, is one of the fewest examples of indigenous dialects that remained impermeated during spanish colonialism. Wayuus Cults also resisted catholic´s church evangelization process which almost entirely eradictaed indigenous ritualistic cults all over Colombia.
Cultural confrontations against european traditions during spanish colonization became natural, they nevertheless decreased years after a new effort to evangelize the tribe restarted in 1887 when the capucin friars established several orphanages in La Guajira. The institutional presence of the Catholic church would proove to be an effective tool to impose western traditions,Christmas and New Years Eve would be celebrated in Uribia in 1942.
The wayuu political organization is according to several historical references ,a structure that has strengthened itself due to various historic episodes of cultural resilience . The First appereance of Wayuu Tribes in La Guajira (1800ac)is remembered by the Kogui and Arhuaco Imagery as a fierce imposal that resulted in the displacement of the Tayrona Culture to the skirts of La Sierra Nevada.
The appereance of German and Spanish Colonizators from Santa Marta and Caracas also became a source of cultural turmoil, forcing several Wayuu tribes to transform traditional migrational habits aswell as forcing them to adapt to new conditions.For example, the Guanebucanes Tribe which was forced to displace from the Sierra Nevada to the upper and middle Guajira in a violent migrational process.
La Guajra ,during spanish colonization became a strategic region for discovery and conquest enterprises. Trading and development of economic structures in the region confered to the wayuus a critical degree of political relevance. They would frecuently pact and break allegiances with European powers depending on the current political climate. Such economic and political conditions some say are critical to understand the wayuus indomitable spirit.
This Blog has the purpose of increasing awareness of our audience´s view towards Wayuu Cultural Traditions and to provide a Historic Insight of their community. We are not only seeking to promote one of several Colombian Indigenous Tribes, but to promote our Country as a whole; as we consider wayuu mochilas to be a national icon that very well suits Colombia´s international image.
This Internet-Promotional task has become increasingly essential for small Colombian handcrafts enterprises, providing very efficient mediums for spreading valuable information. Even if regional handcrafts seem to be far distant from fast paced internet culture, internet itself serves as an excelent tool for achieving our main goal, the expansion of custumer´s concience towards the historical background and the cultural facet of the wayuus that drive their creative endeavours.
The Wayuus is the biggest Indigenous Tribe in Colombia, there are currently 200,000 inhabiting the northern Peninsula Of South America. This Arid and dry landscape , poor in water and natural resources is oddly the birthplace of colorfull and complex-patterned mochilas.
Wayuu Bags are one of the main sources of Income for Colombia´s Wayuu Indigenous Tribe. They are medium sized bags, woven in crochet, a technique which was absorbed by the Wayuus after, catholic missionaries settled in La Guajira in the mid 19th century . That would Nevertheless proove that wayuus tribal culture as a whole would be deeply transformed by spanish colonialism, In fact , The wayuu´s would be one of the few Indigenous Tribes in Colombia that would remain more or less culturally intact during the Spanish colonialist empire. Language,Culture and Religion would remain undisturbed after the wayuus fiercely resisted foreign subjugation. Several Historic Incidents can verify tribal resistance; In 1701 the wayuus allegedly burnt down a capucin church and in 1769 after some wayuu members resited forced labour in Cartagena, they burnt down a catholic church and killed several memebers of spanish military forces.
Wayuu´s language , Wayuunaki, is one of the fewest examples of indigenous dialects that remained impermeated during spanish colonialism. Wayuus Cults also resisted catholic´s church evangelization process which almost entirely eradictaed indigenous ritualistic cults all over Colombia.
Cultural confrontations against european traditions during spanish colonization became natural, they nevertheless decreased years after a new effort to evangelize the tribe restarted in 1887 when the capucin friars established several orphanages in La Guajira. The institutional presence of the Catholic church would proove to be an effective tool to impose western traditions,Christmas and New Years Eve would be celebrated in Uribia in 1942.
The wayuu political organization is according to several historical references ,a structure that has strengthened itself due to various historic episodes of cultural resilience . The First appereance of Wayuu Tribes in La Guajira (1800ac)is remembered by the Kogui and Arhuaco Imagery as a fierce imposal that resulted in the displacement of the Tayrona Culture to the skirts of La Sierra Nevada.
The appereance of German and Spanish Colonizators from Santa Marta and Caracas also became a source of cultural turmoil, forcing several Wayuu tribes to transform traditional migrational habits aswell as forcing them to adapt to new conditions.For example, the Guanebucanes Tribe which was forced to displace from the Sierra Nevada to the upper and middle Guajira in a violent migrational process.
La Guajra ,during spanish colonization became a strategic region for discovery and conquest enterprises. Trading and development of economic structures in the region confered to the wayuus a critical degree of political relevance. They would frecuently pact and break allegiances with European powers depending on the current political climate. Such economic and political conditions some say are critical to understand the wayuus indomitable spirit.
