Machiguenga people
The Machiguenga (also Matsigenka or Matsigenga [A 1] ) are a South African ethnic group of Arawak in the rain forest of Peru.
The settlements of the Machiguenga are located in the Peruvian provinces of Calca ( department of Cusco ), La Convención ( department of Cusco ) and Manu ( Department of Madre de Dios ), namely on the rivers Urubamba, Camisea, Picha, Manu, Timpia, Tigompinia, Kompiroshiato and Mishagua.
The language of the Machiguenga, which is spoken by about 10,000 people, is one of the Arawak languages, and is most closely related to the languages of the Nomatsiguenga and the Ashaninka.
The Machiguenga live from Brandrodungsbau, hunting and fishing. Their main crops are cassava ( yuca ), Sacha Papa ( a kind of tuber ), Pituca, sweet potato ( camote ), peanut, corn and bananas. In recent times, among other things, coffee and cocoa are grown for marketing.
Already since 1572, then by Martín García Loyola, several attempts over the centuries to evangelize the Machiguenga, but without success. During the rubber boom in the late 19th century, the de Machiguenga were exposed to massive slave hunters, and their number decreased significantly by massacres and introduced diseases such as smallpox and malaria. Since 1940, when it was believed that malaria was eradicated, there was an enhanced, state-sponsored colonization, especially by quechuastämmige settlers from the Andean highlands. This was reinforced completed by the 1958 road after Koribeni and a 1962 -built bridge.
Since 1980, the Machiguenga are threatened primarily by oil production.