ARCHIVO Y SEMÁNTICA: ETNOHISTORIA DE LOS GUAJES DEL PIEDEMONTE SUBANDINO AMAZÓNICO COLOMBIANO

Abstract

The article deals with the history of an Amazonian indigenous group of less than 2500 inhabitants: the Coreguajes. The Colombian Amazon region comprises 56 demographically reduced indigenous peoples. Although a greater population coverage is an important variable, the research centered on a small society and established connections between it and other equally reduced populations, in order to analyze them as cultural complexes from a perspective that can be extended to comparative and interdisciplinary studies. Thus far, Colombian studies, particularly ethnographic ones, have been limited to the analysis of cases, which leads to specific interpretations that isolate the cases form the idea of a larger Amazonian world. This tradition prevents the establishment of networks and reinforces the idea of atomized groups that function individually and not as components of greater sets. Therefore, we suggest that using the notion of ethnolinguistic groups paves the way for larger scale ethno historical studies.