Four Tribes in South America

Tribes: There are hundreds, if not thousands of tribes in South America, and a huge portion of the population, up to 90%, can claim to have full or part native South American blood. However, for the sake of brevity, I will include only four tribes here: the Tehuelche, the Valdivians, the Incans and the Yanomami.

Meanings of Names: The name "Tehuelche" means "Fierce People" in the language of their ancient neighbors, the Mapuche. I don't know what they call or called themselves, or if they called themselves something apart from where they lived.... The "Valdivians" are so-called because they lived near the Ecuadorian City of Valdivia, which was named after the Spanish conquistador, Pedro de Valdivia.  What they called themselves, I do not know, but they're long gone now.... The term "Inca" means "ruler" or "lord" in ancient Quechua, the mother-tongue of the Andes.... And the term "Yanomami" means "People," as compared to ducks, cows or trees. They call themselves the "Yanomami," but it does depend largely on where they live.

Locations: The Tehuelche live in the pampas in what used to be called "Patagonia," but what is now large parts of Chile and Argentina, that long curvy part of South America before you get to Antarctica. They've been there since about 12,500 BC.... The Valdivian people lived in what is now known as the City of Valdivia in Ecuador, which is just south of Columbia, which is just south of Central America, from about 3800 BC to 1500 BC. They have since disappeared from history.... Even though Peru has been occupied for 11,000 years, the Incans only held power  from roughly 1300 AD until roughly 1600 AD....  And scientists think that the Yanomami have lived in the Amazonian rainforests of Southern Venezuela and Brazil since people first arrived in South America some 42,000 years ago, and that their lifestyle has not changed since.

Original or Current Languages: The Tehuelche speak Spanish, Tehuelche and Mapudungun, the languages of Patagonia.... Nobody knows what the Valdivians spoke, but since there are similarities between Valdivian pottery and Japanese pottery and culture, it's possible that they spoke some kind of Japanese dialect.... The Incans speak Quechua and other tribal languages, and the Yanomami speak Yanam, Sanuma, Yanomami and Yanomamo, all dialects of Yanomami.

Tribal Affiliations: The Tehuelche, for the most part, seemed to have gotten along with the other tribes of Pre-Columbian Patagonia, and they all seemed to have banded together to resist the Spanish conquistadores when they invaded South America. Nonetheless, they admitted defeat when the Argentine government occupied their lands. The Valdivians, too, seemed to have gotten along well with their neighbors, with whom they actively traded.

Traditional Enemies: The Incans, on the other hand, were a much more war-like tribe, and they tended to alienate their neighbors to the point that, when the Spaniards came to conquer Peru, many of the Inca neighbors allied themselves with the Spaniards instead of the Incans. And the Yanomami are also a war-like people, but their violence seems to be against their own women, other Yanomami tribes and the encroachment of modern life, meaning, anything that's happened since the Stone Age.

Traditional Styles of Housing: 

The Tehuelche are a nomadic people who lived on the Atlantic shoreline, in the mountains or on the pampas, which are the South American Plains, and their dwellings reflected their hunting-and-gathering lifestyle. Their native housing is reportedly rounded, made of a light wood frame draped in sown-together animal skins, with a large front door sheltered by a sort of awning, and were probably made and owned by the women.

The Valdivians, who lived sedentary lives on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, built their huts around a large central plaza in which were ceremonial pyramids, shrines and tombs. These huts were made of mud bricks and stone, with thatched roofs of palm fronds and other greenery, and had small terraced gardens for their vegetables and fruits.

Thanks to entire intact and remote mountainous cities like Machu Picchu and the Incans' relatively late place in history, we have a much better idea of what their houses looked like; they were rectangular buildings with tall pitched and thatched roofs and had tall rectangular windows. They were probably built and owned by the Incan men or the Incan government.

Each Yanomami mini-tribe lives in large oval multi-generational communal open-floor-plan hut made of poles and thatch, in the middle of which is a large clearing. Because these dwellings are flimsy and subject to the whims of Nature and bugs, they have to be rebuilt every 4-6 years.

Traditional Attire: 

Because it gets very cold in Patagonia, the Tehuelche wore and probably still wear thick clothing made of guanacos (a type of llama) or rhea (a type of ostrich) hide and fur, including boots, which made the Europeans think that their feet were extremely large. The clothing is made by the women.

Nothing has come down to us regarding Valdivian clothing styles, but judging from their clay representations of goddesses, the women had short ornate hairstyles or headdresses, large breasts, rounded bellies and distinctly Oriental features. They may have worn white cotton skirts, robes, or baggy trousers that may have been trimmed in red or black. The Valdivians did not engage in war so we have no representations of male attire.

The Incans wore alpaca, vicuna, or llama wool or cotton clothing, depending on where they lived. The men wore colorful tunics, breechcloths and cloaks and the women wore colorful long dresses with mantles and sashes.  Both men and women wore jewelry and sandals. The Emperor was allowed to wear the most colorful, feathered, and bejeweled attire and headdresses and the rest of his people were not. Their clothing styles are still very heavy and colorful. However, cloth production was a function of the government who hired the women to make them, and the Incan government allowed its citizens only two sets of clothes to be worn until they were too threadbare, at which time, the government would issue another set.

Because the Amazonian rainforest is very hot and muggy, the Yanomami traditionally dress in very little: a simple red loincloth will suffice for both genders (and is required of the young women once they reach puberty), coupled with short bowl-cut hair, light jewelry, decorative strings and bare feet. Modern life is catching up with them, and so many of them are wearing cotton shirts and shorts, and flip-flops. Patterned face and body painting is very common.

Traditional Foods:

The Tehuelche lived off the land, and so the men caught whatever could be obtained by a knife or a bola, which was a long leather strap with two leather balls at the end. This included guanacos and rheas, and probably birds, small South American raccoons, iguanas, tapirs, and deer. Those who lived on the coast probably ate their share of sea lions and sea otters. The women gathered whatever seasonal fruits that they could get in trade or gather from their respective environments: passion fruit, jaboticaba (which is a large sweet berry that grows directly on the trunks of the jaboticaba tree), cherimoya, pumpkins, melons, sweet potatoes, and guanabana, which is a prickly fruit that tastes like a combination of strawberries, coconut, pineapple and banana.

The Valdivians of Ecuador probably ate whatever grew in their cultivated gardens which were probably owned by the women, was nearby or could be traded with their neighbors: tomatoes, chilies, potatoes, amaranth from which they got quinoa, yuca (which is an entirely different plant than yucca), plantains, corn, onions, pumpkins, peanuts, bananas, passion fruit, naranjilla (which is like a cross between a rhubarb and lime), uvilla (a semi-sweet fruit), taxo (a banana-passionfruit) and tamarillo (a tree tomato fruit.)  The men probably were the ones responsible for catching shrimp, langostinos, shellfish, squid, eels, bonito, mullet, tortoises, iguanas, guinea pigs, deer and rabbits.

Because the scope of the Incan Empire encompassed large amounts of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia and Argentina, they had access to all of the foods eaten by the Tehuelche and the Valdivians, and then some. Their diet also included peccaries (wild pigs), guinea pigs, armadillos,  amaranth, seaweed, cacao, different kinds of beans, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, oca (a starchy root vegetable), avocados, pineapple, papaya, young llamas and vicunas, wild ducks, manta rays, small sharks, frogs, dogs, bears, ocelots, jaguars, depending on their position in Incan society. They also regularly drank "chicha" which is a kind of fermented corn beer.  The women preserved much of their food for later use and stored in convenient locations throughout their empire.

The Yanomami practice hunting, fishing, some limited agriculture and gathering. They eat bananas, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, mangoes, papaya, manioc, nuts, shellfish, insect larva, fish, honey, plantains, grubs, termites, frogs, land crabs, caterpillars, armadillos, deer, tapir, monkey, boar, palm fruit, jaguars, snakes, and they also grow and chew tobacco. However, so little meat is eaten by the Yanomami that they tend to be protein-deficient.

Position of Women: 

Tehuelche society was a hunting-and-gathering society, so the men hunted and the women gathered, cooked, took care of their dogs and children, and may have owned their own huts, as did their Northern counterparts. The women also took care of the animal skins by tanning them, painting patterns on them with red, yellow, black and blue pigments and then sewing them into clothing or hut-material.

Valdivian culture died out so long ago that it would be impossible to precisely say what the position of women was, but they did have goddesses, and that usually reflects a fair amount of respect for women, fertility and child-bearing. Women were also probably the ones who planted and tended their gardens and fruit trees, sewed the clothes and took care of the children while the men fished, hunted and perhaps tended the cotton fields. Valdivian women were also the first people in the Americas to make pottery. Since they tended toward peace and trade, it is also possible that the movers and shakers of Valdivian culture were women, as were the healers and the shamans.

Incan Society was very government-controlled, regulated and stratified, but men and women held equal but complimentary positions in it.  Women were the cooks, the weavers, the childcare-providers and the homemakers while the men did the hunting and went to war, and both were considered essential for survival. Women were also divided into groups according to social class and looks. At age ten, the richer and prettier girls were separated from the poorer and plainer girls and sent off to become the "Chosen Women."  This meant that they were earmarked to become priestesses for the Sun God, given in marriage to the Emperor or the aristocracy and then were given government administrative jobs, or were sacrificed to the gods. The poorer and plainer girls of the village were left to learn domestic skills, work for the government as weavers, and married whomever was chosen for them.  At lest in Incan Society, nobody died an old maid.

If the Incans were somewhat hard on their women, the Yanomami are far worse. Beatings with blunt or sharp instruments is common, as is branding, in order to keep the women docile and obedient. Although women are the basket-weavers, the pack-mules, the clothing-makers, the cooks, the gardeners, the fisher-folk, the hunters of insects and small game, do all of the gathering, provide 80% of the Yanomami diet and do everything that they can to keep the peace, the men seem to rule their households with an iron fist. Women are usually married off to their uncles at an early age, are not allowed to be healers, shamans or chiefs, are not allowed to take hallucinogenic drugs, and may have to share their husbands with several other of their wives. The good news is that when the Yanomami women do manage to survive to old age, and the normal life expectancy for Yanomami women is a mere twenty-five years, they are accorded a tremendous amount of respect.

Tribal Courtship:

I couldn't find any information on the courtship patterns of the Tehuelche or the Valdivians.  However, among the Incans, if a young man were interested in a young woman, he would approach her father and make an offering of goods or services, and based on that offer, the potential bride's father would accept or decline. If a marriage was to take place, the wedding was comprised of a simple exchange of gifts, a feast, and the groom would offer his bride a sandal to indicate that he was willing to take care of her for the rest of her life. (Gives new meaning to the old "Cinderella" story.)  If that failed, then once a year, all of the unmarried 20 year-old men of the village and all of the unmarried 16 year-old women of the village were lined up and the head of the village would play matchmaker by choosing which girl would marry which guy. If two young men wanted to marry the same girl, they would present their arguments to the chieftain who would then decide. Marriages in the Yanomami tribes were also arranged, usually by male relatives, for the purposes of alliances.  Child-brides, some as young as five, were betrothed to their uncles, and would go live with them and assume their wifely duties as soon as they hit puberty. 

Interesting Tidbits:  The Tehuelche men were among the tallest in the world, well over six-foot tall, at a time when the average European man was about five foot six.

The ancestors of the Valdivians may have migrated around the Pacific Rim from Japan to Ecuador during a 2500-year period of global warming. Japanese culture during the Early and Middle Jomon Period (5000 BC to 2500 BC and 2500 BC to 1500 BC respectively) coincides neatly with the culture of the Valdivians of the same time period, including the development of pottery, which the Japanese women may have brought with them to Ecuador.

For as government-controlled as the Incans were, no law-abiding person in their empire ever went hungry, naked, unemployed or homeless. However, God help you if you broke any of their laws because punishment was swift and brutal. Needless to say, the crime rate in the Incan Empire was very low.

The Yanomami eat bugs in order to supplement their diet. According to reports, insect larva, when fried, take on the taste of the oil that they are fried in, but otherwise taste like nothing; grubs taste like bone marrow, and reportedly like lobster when sautéed; termites taste like pineapple when raw and like vegetables when cooked, and lemon ants taste like lemons. The Yanomami also practice endo-cannibalism in which they mix the ashes of their cremated dead with plantain juice and then drink this concoction in order for the dead person's spirit to continue in the living.

Traditional Religions:  Animism, polytheism, shamanism, and, more recently, Catholicism.

Tribal Slavery: The Tehuelche and the Incans had slaves, many of the Yanomami were enslaved and their lands confiscated by other people, and we don't know about the Valdivians.

Current Populations: There are currently about 10,600 Tehuelche in South America. There are no more Valdivians or, strictly speaking, Incans.  And there are approximately 35,000 Yanomami.

Current Sources of Tribal Revenue: The Tehuelche seem to make their money off of agro-tourism and sheep.  The Valdivians and the Incans are no longer factors in today's economy, and the Yanomami make baskets which are sold to companies that distribute the profits to organizations to help save the Yanomami from extinction.

Famous Tehuelche, Valdivians, Incans and Yanomami: No one that I have heard of, except for Kuzco, the fictional Incan Emperor in "The Emperor's New Groove."