Kampa people: characteristics, main occupations and lifestyle

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

Currently, there are many small peoples on Earth who are at a primitive level of development, lead a subsistence economy and have no desire to change anything in their lives. One of them is the Campa people, whose characteristics are a vivid example of life in unity with nature.

Who are the Kampas

Kampa are considered the most numerous people among the Indian tribes of South America. Their number is estimated differently - 50 or 70 thousand people. Most live in Peru on the banks of the rivers Tambo, Ucayali, Perena and Apurimac. A small part of the tribe lives in Brazil on the right tributary of the Amazon - the Zhurua River.

Assignment: "Characterize the people of the Campa" can be difficult, since the name "Campa" is now rare. It is considered outdated and sometimes even dismissive. More often, this tribe uses its own ethnonym - Ashaninka.

From time immemorial, the Ashanika live in the wilds of the Amazon. They contacted the Incas, met with the Spanish colonizersin the 17th century, French Catholic missionaries in the 19th century, drug dealers in the 20th century. But until now, the Indians continue to live the same life as their ancestors hundreds of years ago. The people of Kampa are frozen in their development.

Main activities

As with all archaic peoples, gathering, fishing and hunting play an important role in the life of the Ashaninka, the latter, however, is more of an additional source of food than the main one. Although the hunters are skillfully controlled with a bow and a spear.

The main occupation of this tribe, like many centuries ago, is slash-and-burn agriculture. Cassava, sweet potato, pepper, pumpkin, bananas are the main crops that the Campa people grow. A description of his occupations would be incomplete without mentioning various crafts.

Ashaninka are engaged in the manufacture of pottery, coarse fabrics from wood fibers or wild cotton and primitive tools, that is, everything necessary for the household. This is a very self-sufficient and independent of the benefits of civilization people.

Cultivation of coca bushes

But if you ask a resident of Peru: “Describe the Campa people”, then he will most likely remember not this, but the habit of chewing coca leaves. Indeed, the valley of the Apurimac River, where the Campas live, is recognized as the first in the world to grow coca. But the Indians themselves rarely cultivate it, but collect the leaves of wild plants and protest against the plantations, which are bred by drug dealers. Coca merchants, cutting down the forest and often waging real wars with each other,pose a danger to the people of the Campa.

Lifestyle

Ashaninka live in communities in small villages. Usually a married couple builds a round hut, and bachelors live separately. The communities are run by elders, there are also shamans, but although they are respected, they do not play a serious role in the leadership.

The Kampa people are a semi-nomadic tribe. The slashing nature of agriculture forces them to change their place of residence from time to time in order to allow the land to rest and the forest to recover naturally.

This is not a warlike tribe, but the Ashaninka are ready to defend their land and way of life. And often they have to fight with wild tribes, which the locals call "bravos". These so-called non-contact tribes sometimes greatly oppress the people of the Campa. Where the savages live is not exactly known, but it is suggested that outbursts of their aggression may be associated with massive deforestation. Ashanika elders even turned to the Brazilian government for help.

Drug traffickers and military operations during the internal conflict in Peru in 1980-2000 created no less problems for the indigenous peoples of the Amazon.

Religious beliefs

The religion of this tribe, according to official data, is Catholicism. But in fact, traditional old beliefs continue to occupy an important place in the minds of people, and shamans perform their rituals, as they did many centuries ago. Whom the people of Kampa do not worship. His beliefs includeprimitive animism, and the veneration of plant spirits, and elements of the Christian cult, and even fragments of the religious beliefs of the ancient Incas.

One of the objects of worship of the people of the Campa - liana Una de Gato - "cat's claw". It can reach thirty meters in length and lives for more than a dozen years. The Indians have long used the healing properties of the bark and especially the roots of this plant. Now there is a lot of talk about the use of extracts from the roots of this vine as an anticancer agent. And the Ashaninka believe that these creepers, like mothers, protect their children - the Indians.

Campa in the modern world

Despite the fact that this tribe continues to lead a predominantly traditional way of life, it does not avoid contact with more civilized peoples. Since the 20s of the last century, people from the tribes of the Amazon have been working as hired workers in logging, cattle breeding, rubber collection, etc. The Campa people are no exception. The characteristic that employers give to workers from the Ashaninka tribe is usually positive: they are hardworking, not afraid of difficulties, they know the jungle well and are well versed in plants, which can be very useful on agricultural plantations.

And since the end of the 20th century, the Campa have been actively involved in political life, mainly defending the idea of protecting the Amazonian forests from deforestation. The Amazonian Alliance, formed by tribes living in the foothills of the Andes, also includes the Ashaninka Indian community. There is the Campa people, or rather, their representatives, and in the interethnic association, which is working onprotecting the natural habitat of Amazon Indians.