“My family, this is my story, and this was our great land, yours and mine. How the whites took it from us, that’s a different story”.

 

ÁLVARO CAMACHO

La Esmeralda

 

La Esmeralda was the name of a settler’s farm that INCORA incorporated into the Caño Mochuelo structuring process. We arrived here in the 1970s and 1980s from Alto Vichada fleeing the violence and conflicts over the land, as all the indigenous peoples of the Orinoquia have experienced. Today, we continue to live here on the banks of the Aguaclara River. There are 278 people, organized in 58 families, from the Amorúa village of the Caño Mochuelo Reserve.

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Our language is part of the Guahibo linguistic family. It is very closely related to the language of other towns in the reserve, such as the Sikuani, Tsiripu, Waüpijiwi, Maibén-Masiware, and Yamalero. Other villages of our people are still found today in Vichada, in the communities of Conejo, Turpialito, Bachaco, Caño Mosquito, and Dagua.* Our people used to travel through a very extensive territory, entering the Venezuelan areas. In those areas the terms Hamarúa or Jamarúa are used instead of Sikuani.**

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* Arango, R., y Sánchez, E., Los  pueblos  indígenas  de  Colombia  en  el  umbral  del  nuevo  milenio (Bogotá: Departamento Nacional de Planeación de Colombia, 2006).

 

** Morey, R., y Metzger, O., “Ethnohistory of the Guahibo Indians of Colombia and Venezuela”, (México: 41 Congreso de Americanistas, 1974).