Hup People - The Role of The Uaupés River

The Role of The Uaupés River

The Uaupés river, where it is principally the Tukano who are present, is where most of the outside resources are found, in exchange for work. These are commercial relationships. For the Hupda, this is where the illnesses and curses (of society) come from. The behavior of a Hupda in this environment is, almost always, one of total submission to any and all order. In this environment, where the two apparently contrary tribes interact, age is irrelevant, the setting is defined and dialogue is short and decorous on all parts. It is rare for Hupda to go to Tukano villages without being invited or contracted for a job. The reverse is not true. The Tukano go to Hupda villages whenever they feel like it, sometimes simply for a walk or to collect things such as cured meat or fish. The relationships between the Hupda and a specific Tukano village are enduring if not permanent. It is an employment relationship and can be seen as a boss/employee relationship. These relationships can be individual or may include the whole hearth group. For this reason, the Hupda do not feel comfortable in the Tukano village and will not remain there any longer than they have to; they are also afraid of catching diseases. The Hupda perceive the land on the banks of the rivers as belonging to the Tukano and their existence is based around this assumption. The Hupda feel most at home and comfortable in the forests. It is where they feel safest from outside threats and find the resources to allow them to survive for long periods of time, without having to move to the banks of the river. In the clearings, where their houses are found, behavior is governed by a different set of rules. The clearing is the special place for ceremonies and socializing with other Hupda.

The Hupda share the Uaupés river basin with its other inhabitants, as a common environment, living a lifestyle differentiated from others, in its adaptive form, by ideological factors. These ideological factors are dictated by an interpretation of the world, based on a mythological corpus, that assures them a specific role in social and inter-ethnic relations in a hierarchical system. Thus to characterize them simply as hunters, gatherers, nomads, or semi-nomads to differentiate them from other tribes in the region is only relevant at the first level of analysis, where differences between tribes are established, possibly, based on their individual technical-economic systems. In this model are contained the inter-ethnic relations and the use of the land amongst the human resources necessary for the organization of the land and forest resources, the impact of human activities upon these resources and, most importantly, the maintenance of a balance between the various peoples sharing the region.