Urarina

For the language, see Urarina language.
Urarina shaman, 1988

The Urarina are an indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon Basin (Loreto) who inhabit the valleys of the Chambira, Urituyacu, and Corrientes Rivers.[1] According to both archaeological and historical sources, they have resided in the Chambira Basin of contemporary northeastern Peru for centuries.[2] The Urarina refer to themselves as Kachá (lit. "person"), while ethnologists know them by the ethnonym Urarina.

The local vernacular term for the Urarina is Shimaku,[3] which is considered by the Urarina to be pejorative, as it is a Quechua term meaning "unreliable".[4] The ethnonym "Urarina" may be from Quechua--uray meaning below, and rina referring to runa, or people. Urarina is rendered in Quechua as uray-runa or people from below or down stream people.[5]

  1. ^ Dean, Bartholomew 2009 Urarina Society, Cosmology, and History in Peruvian Amazonia, Gainesville: University Press of Florida ISBN 978-0-8130-3378-5 [1]
  2. ^ (in Spanish) Myers, Thomas P. and Bartholomew Dean “Cerámica prehispánica del río Chambira, Loreto.” Amazonía peruana, 1999 Lima, Published by the Centro Amazónico de Antropología y Aplicacíon Práctica. 13(26):255-288
  3. ^ (in Spanish) Spanish wiki entry for Shimaku
  4. ^ Payne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 13. ISBN 9780521588058.
  5. ^ For more information, see Paz Soldan 1877:964; Espinoza Galarza 1979:305). Native inhabitants of the Chambira Basin have also been called various names, including: Itukales; Ytucalis, Singacuchuscas; Cingacuchuscas; Aracuies; Aracuyes; Chimacus; and Chambiras (Grohs 1974:53 fn. 4; Velasco 1960: 267; Jouanen 1943, II: 471-2; Figueroa 1904: 163, 177)