The Jivaroan peoples are the indigenous peoples in the headwaters of the Marañon River and its tributaries, in northern Peru and eastern Ecuador. The tribes speak the Chicham languages.
Their traditional way of life relies on gardening, and on hunting with blowguns and darts poisoned with curare. Complex spiritual beliefs are built around both of these activities. Jivaroan culture also features headhunting raids and ayahuasca ceremonies.
In the 16th century, Jivaroan warriors stopped the expansion of the Inca Empire into the Amazon basin, and destroyed settlements of Spanish conquistadors.
Etymology
The word Jivaro is likely a corruption of xivar, a word that means people in the Shuar Chicham language. During the Spanish colonial period, "Jivaros" were viewed as the antithesis of civilized. The word Jíbaro thus entered the Spanish language; in Ecuador it is highly pejorative and signifies "savage"; outside of Ecuador, especially in Mexico and Jíbaro in Puerto Rico, it has come to mean "countryside people who farm the land in a traditional way".
Groups
The principal groups are: Shuar Achuar Humabisa Aguaruna
Some have also named the following: Antipas Mayna
Additionally, the Shiwiar are a group of Achuar speakers living along the Corrientes River, next to Quechua speakers; many Shiwiar also speak this other, unrelated, language.
Religion
Beliefs and worldview
The Jivaroan worldview is built upon the idea that both animate and inanimate objects hold souls that cannot be seen by human eyes. These souls contain power, or karáram, that the Jivaroan people believe can be contained and harnessed within one's self. Michael Harner talks about these souls, called arutam:"A person is not born with an arutam soul. Such a soul must be acquired, and in certain traditional ways. The acquisition of this type of soul is considered to be so important to an adult male’s survival that a boy’s parents do not expect him to live past puberty without one. By repeatedly killing, one can continually accumulate power through the replacement of old arutam souls with new ones. This “trade-in” mechanism is an important feature because, when a person has had the same arutam soul for four or five years, it tends to leave its sleeping possessor to wander nightly through the forest. Sooner or later, while it is thus drifting through the trees, another Jivaro will “steal” it. Accordingly, it is highly desirable to obtain a new soul before the old one begins nocturnal wanderings. This felt need encourages the individual to participate in a killing expedition every few years."
Killing becomes a vital part of the Jivaro culture. Men are only marriageable after becoming hunters within their communities. The more one kills, the more power one has, granting one immunity of death. Violence is a huge part of Jivaroan culture in respect to this type of soul belief. Harner talks about the main systems of belief within the Jivaroan communities: “Jivaro souls beliefs constitute one of four major autonomous systems of verbalized thought so far noted in their culture. The other three are the systems of crop fairy (nungui) beliefs, and kinship system. Since belief in one system is not explicitly based upon belief in another, an adequate understanding of Jivaro soul beliefs can be achieved without recourse to the beliefs regarding nunui, witchcraft, or kinship."