Guayupe

The territory of the Guayupe before the Spanish conquest stretched from the rivers Upía and Guayabero to the peaks of the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes.[6] Their area covered around 22,000 square kilometres (8,500 sq mi).[5] The Guayupe lived mostly around the Ariari River.[5]

Municipalities belonging to Guayupe territories

Name	Department	Altitude (m) urban centre	Map
Acacías	Meta	498
Barranca de Upía	Meta	200
El Calvario	Meta	1987
Cubarral	Meta	534
Cumaral	Meta	452
Fuente de Oro	Meta	359
Granada	Meta	372
Guamal	Meta	525
Restrepo	Meta	570
San Juan de Arama	Meta	510
San Juanito	Meta	1795
Villavicencio	Meta	467

The first report on the Guayupe nation is from German conquistador Philipp von Hutten, 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."[7] 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. 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."[7] The Germans were not the very 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 1934, the Guayupe "had slaughtered 90 of Herrera's men and the survivors escaped downstream. In Coro, we met some of them."[7]

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 times they constructed pallisades around their villages consisting of houses around a central square with a ceremonial building in the middle.[8] 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",[9] referring to the Catalan Fort de Salses, an innovative type of fortress at this time. The Guayupe were an agricultural society with yuca one of their main crops.[8] The Guayupe people went naked, only ornamented with gold, feathers and shells.[8]

The Guayupe society was organised around the caciques; 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.[8][10] The society of the Guayupe was egalitarian; caciques 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.[8]

They built canoes of wood and consumed yuca and casabe, fish and meat. They didn't eat bird meat.[8][11]

According to scholar Pedro de Aguado, the Guayupe defecated in the rivers around and not near their houses.[12]

• Muisca
• Achagua, Tegua, Sutagao

• Díaz Moreno, Ingrid. 2012. Puerto Santander, cuna de la cultura guayupe: Patrimonialización y formación del Estado en el departemento del Meta - Puerto Santander, crib of the Guayupe culture: heritage and formation of the State in the Meta Department. Tabula Rasa 17. 171-193. Accessed 2016-07-08.
• Mácha, Přemysl, and José Eloy Gómez Pellón. 2014. Masks of Identity: Representing and Performing Otherness in Latin America, 1-185. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Accessed 2016-07-08.
• Onofrio, Jan. 1995. Dictionary of Indian Tribes of the Americas, 1-1047. American Indian Publishers. Accessed 2016-07-08.
• Ruiz Churión, Jairo. 2010. Guayupes. Accessed 2016-07-08.
• Fray Pedro Aguado. Recopilación Historial, Parte 2, Vol. III. Bogotá 1957.
• Hutten, Philipp von, and Eberhard Schmitt. 1999. Das Gold der Neuen Welt die Papiere des Welser-Konquistadors und Generalkapitäns von Venezuela Philipp von Hutten 1534 - 1541. ISBN 978-3-87061-862-9 OCLC 254379651

• Moreno Romero, Marisol, and Ricardo Riaño Cardenas. 1998. La cultura guayupe: presencia prehispánica en los llanos del Meta - The Guayupe culture: prehispanic presence in the plains of Meta, 1-102. Alcaldía Mayor de Villavivencio. Accessed 2016-07-08.