page_title: Aguaruna people
section_title: Hunting, gathering and agriculture
hierarchical_section_title: Aguaruna people / Customs / Hunting, gathering and agriculture
context_page_description: The Aguaruna are an indigenous people of the Peruvian jungle. They live primarily on the Marañón River in northern Peru near the border with Ecuador and several of the Marañón's tributaries, the rivers Santiago, Nieva, Cenepa, Numpatakay and Chiriaco. Currently, they possess titled community lands in four of Peru's regions: Amazonas, Cajamarca, Loreto, and San Martín. A significant Awajún population also lives in the Alto Mayo river basin in the Department of San Martín. According to Peru's 1993 Census the Aguaruna numbered approximately 5,000. World Census data for 2000 lists their population at just over 8,000.
  The Awajún resisted efforts to incorporate them into the Inca and Spanish empires. Their reputation for fierceness and the difficult terrain in which they live prevented them from being incorporated into Peruvian national society until the late 1950s—and later still in some parts of their territory.
context_section_description: Major species of animals that are hunted by the Aguaruna include the sajino, the huangana, the Brazilian tapir (sachavaca), the little red brocket, the ocelot and the otorongo (jaguar). Species which are less commonly hunted include the majaz, the ronsoco, the achuni, the añuje, the carachupa, the otter, diverse classes of monkeys and birds.
  The animals that they hunt not only provide meat; the skin, feathers, teeth and bones are also used. Hunting therefore has a double purpose: for dietary needs and also for making handicrafts, medicines and items used in witchcraft. Traditionally, the tribe hunted with a spear perfected with pijuayo (a palm tree of very hard wood) and the blowpipe. At present the spear has been almost completely displaced by the pellet shotgun but they also continue using the blowpipe.
  They gather the wild fruit of some palm trees, like the uvilla some shrubs, and buds of palm trees, as well as stems, bark, and resins. They extract leche caspi and gather the honey of wild bees, edible worms (suris), beetles, medicinal plants and lianas. They use everything that they gather either for food, crafts, traditional medicine, in witchcraft or as fuel, adhering to an ancestral pattern of self-sufficiency. The Awajún are known among naturalists for their sophisticated knowledge of rainforest flora and fauna, which has been the focus of extensive studies by ethnobotanists and ethnozoologists.
  As agricultural instruments, they use the traditional wái (a stick with a sharp end, made from the wood of the pijuayo palm tree), along with the axe, the machete and the shovel.
caption: B. gasipaes fruits
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