l, from December to April; a second rainy season called Iwa from April to May; and a long second dry season from May to September.

The Wayuu, the indigenous people of northern Colombia and Venezuela, have a saying molded by the centuries of hardship they have endured: It is only from strong sunlight and harsh rains, that a seed can sprout. Dubbed the land of contrasts by its inhabitants, La Guajira, a state in northeastern Colombia, boasts large expanses of desert alongside breathtaking dune-lined coasts. But it has earned a reputation as a region left behind in the dust: a lack of sufficient food, water, and access to health services, along with high poverty rates, complicated by a humanitarian crisis in neighboring Venezuela, pervasive government corruption and mismanagement, and climate change, have contributed to high levels of malnutrition in La Guajira, especially among rural indigenous communities. In this context, the Covid-19 pandemic not only poses another threat to the health of an already struggling population, but also has economic impacts that may deepen food insecurity and increase challenges in accessing water, healthcare, and education.

Deep in the La Guajira desert near the border of Colombia and Venezuela, you’ll find the indigenous tribe of the Wayuu people. Having migrated from the Amazon rainforest and Antillies in 150 AD, the Wayuu people have a long history of culture and tradition. More recently, however, both the Colombian and Venezuelan governments have exercised rights taking away from the Wayuu people’s freedoms and resources, even though they don’t fall under Colombian and Venezuelan jurisdiction as they have their own form of government. Not only do they courageously face struggles with governments, but many of their old economic activities have also declined drastically due to geographic hardships and commercialization. Visit A Brief History of Colombia's Wayuu Tribe to learn more about their history. One of the Wayuu's major source of economic activity is the making and trading of their beautiful mochila Wayuu bags. Each of these pieces of art is created with a sustainable single cotton thread and takes an artisan up to two weeks to complete one single bag (depending on pattern complexity and size of the bag). Only the women are taught this skill, oftentimes from a mother or grandmother. They begin learning how to crochet when they are only 7 years old and are limited to learning simple techniques. It is when they begin their first menstrual cycle that the young women pass through the ritual of physical puberty, in which they are confined for 3-5 days. While in confinement, the mother or person that taught them how to crochet initially will finish passing on all the knowledge and information related to the art of crochet.

Known as the “people of the sun, sand and wind,” the Wayúu have lived in the semi-arid, Wild West landscape of La Guajira peninsula, where the desert meets the Caribbean Sea at the northernmost point of South America, for centuries. Fiercely territorial and wisely learning how to use firearms and ride horses, they are among few ethnic groups in Latin America to have successfully resisted European colonization. They continue to live on their ancestral lands following their own complex and autonomous social, political and economic rules. At present, they are Colombia’s largest indigenous group, with estimates of more than 250,000 people divided into some 30 matriarchal clans who live in traditional rancherias – small, isolated communities made up of several houses – between Colombia and Venezuela (the Wayúu are transnational and don’t believe in borders).

This indigenous people are located in La Guajira in northern Colombia, and they are also present in the state of Venezuela in Zulia. The Wayuu tribe represent 20% of the national indigenous population, 48% of the population of La Guajira and 8% of the population. On the history of the Wayúu people, the information sources available prior to the Colony are little more than the Spanish chronicles, which report that they had an organizational structure based on clans, with high degrees of population mobility, and with an extended practice of hunting and fishing. All these characteristics that are maintained in different degrees today. Within their worldview, the Wayúu point out that the first Wayúu and their clans all arose from Wotkasainru, a land in Alta Guajira. It was Maleiwa, central figure of his mythical universe, who made them and who also made the irons to mark each clan and distinguish them: one for the Uliana, another for the Jayaliyu, the Uraliyú, the Ipuana, the Jusayú, the Epieyú, the Sapuana, Jinnú, among others.

The Wayuu indigenous people of La Guajira, at the northern tip of Colombia, have gone through major social and ecological changes over the past three decades that have happened more quickly than their ability to adapt to them. During the past four years, I have been traveling regularly to La Guajira to document the adversity faced by the Wayuu, and how they overcome it, through intimate portraits inside people’s homes. Maricela Epiayu was just 22 years old when we first met. She died a few months later in a state of severe malnutrition, leaving behind a 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. They are orphans now. Heider David was 8 when I met him in 2016. He was unable to speak or stand, and lived his entire life in a hammock. I received a phone call from a friend from La Guajira with news that Heider died sometime between February and March of this year.

Wayuu (Wayuu: Wayuunaiki [waˈjuːnaiki]), or Guajiro, is a major Arawakan language spoken by 400,000 indigenous Wayuu people in northwestern Venezuela and northeastern Colombia on the Guajira Peninsula and surrounding Lake Maracaibo. There were an estimated 300,000 speakers of Wayuunaiki in Venezuela in 2012 and another 120,000 in Colombia in 2008, approximately half the ethnic population of 400,000 in Venezuela (2011 census) and 400,000 in Colombia (2018 census). Smith (1995) reports that a mixed Wayuu—Spanish language is replacing Wayuunaiki in both countries. However, Campbell (1997) could find no information on this. The two main dialects are Wüinpümüin and Wopumüin, spoken in the northeast and southwest of the peninsula, respectively. These dialects are mutually intelligible, as they are minimally distinct. The extinct Guanebucan language may actually have been a dialect of Wayuunaiki. The main difference between Wüinpümüin and Wopümüin is that Wüinpümüin uses jia as the 3rd person feminine pronoun, and jaya for the second person plural, while Wopümüin uses shia as the 3rd person feminine, and jia as the second person plural. There are minor vocabulary differences, but the main one is only related to the pronouns, and their respective prefixes.

The Wayuu are known as the people of the sun, sand, and wind. They are located in the arid Guajira Peninsula in northern Colombia and northwest Venezuela. The Wayúu language is part of the Arawak family and is called Wayuunaiki. The Wayuu had never been subjugated by the Spanish. The two groups were in a more or less permanent state of war. There had been rebellions in 1701 (when they destroyed a Capuchin mission), 1727 (when more than 2,000 Indians attacked the Spanish), 1741, 1757, 1761 and 1768. In 1718 Governor Soto de Herrera called them “barbarians, horse thieves, worthy of death, without God, without law and without a king.” In more recent times, the Wayúu have faced tremendous discrimination and exclusion, particularly in Colombia. For instance, Wayúu (Guajiro) lands on the border with Venezuela have been granted to mining interests without regard for the Wayuu. The Colombian constitution recognizes the right of the indigenous to manage the resources found on their territories, however, the government allows private concessions to extract salt on Wayúu land; while the Wayúu themselves have been denied the right to do the same.

The Wayuu people live in a very remote and unique part of Colombia. The landscape will mesmerize you with its deep yellow deserts that spill over the azure Caribbean Sea. That´s why they are known as the people of the sun, sand, and wind. Spending time with indigenous people will open your eyes to different ways of life and teaches you a lot about the world, the modern and ancient world alike.

The Wayuu people are characterized by being a community organized by families.
Each family has a surname and this surname is taken from the mother and not from the father as is customary in other societies.
They have their language, however, younger generations are bilingual. They also speak Spanish, so if you are keen to visit them, and you speak Spanish it will be easier for you to learn about their culture and to connect better with them.
Their music is tied to their economy and social life. They sing to their cattle, the animals, the environment. Also, they use music for meetings and celebrations, as well as mourning rituals during funerals.
They are known most for the mochila Wayuu or Wayuu Bag.

In Wayúu culture, the dance of the ‘Yonna‘ is an ancestral ritual that is celebrated during important moments for the Wayúu community: when crops are harvested, when a harvest is abundant, to thank the Maleiwa (the creator) for something positive in the community and to end the period of confinement after a girl’s first menstruation. This dance involves a woman trying to step on the feet of a man that she is chasing as community members play music on a drum. As the dance of the ‘yonna‘ represents fertility for the Wayúu community, it is also carried out before a woman gets married, in order to ensure that she will be fertile and able to produce children.

The Meaning Behind The Sacred Wayuu Ritual of “El Encierro”

10 Things To Know About The Wayuu People

The Wayuu (also Wayu, Wayúu, Guajiro, Wahiro) are an Amerindian ethnic group of the Guajira Peninsula in northernmost part of Colombia and northwest Venezuela. The Wayuu language is part of the Maipuran (Arawak) language family. The Wayúu inhabit the arid Guajira Peninsula straddling the Venezuela-Colombia border, on the Caribbean Sea coast. Two major rivers flow through this mostly harsh environment: the Rancheria River in Colombia and the El Limón River in Venezuela representing the main source of water, along with artificial ponds designed to hold rain water during the rain season. Although the Wayuu were never subjugated by the Spanish, the two groups were in a more or less permanent state of war. There were rebellions in 1701 (when they destroyed a Capuchin mission), 1727 (when more than 2,000 natives attacked the Spanish), 1741, 1757, 1761 and 1768. In 1718, Governor Soto de Herrera called them “barbarians, horse thieves, worthy of death, without God, without law and without a king”. Of all the Indigenous peoples in the territory of Colombia, they were unique in having learned the use of firearms and horses.

Wayuu Culture and Traditional Weaving

The Wayuu amerindians are descendants of the Arawak who most likely emerged from the Amazon. Different Arawak groups spread over the Caribbean Sea (e.g. the Tainos of Cuba), the Guianas, and parts of the Amazon until Bolivia and Brasil. Around 900AD several Arawak groups arrived at the Guajira peninsula. The descendants of the Arawak share a common root of their languages. The Wayuu society uses a matrilinear hierarchy to determine who is part of a clan. All family members that are relatives via their mother’s branch are considered part of the same casta (clan). Each clan is identified by a symbol and an animal. For example, the symbol is used to mark animals. The entire Guajira peninsula is split-up into territories. A territory belongs to one clan and usually provides enough resources for the families that live there. Members of the same clan are often referred to as “primo” (cousin), even if they are not biological cousins.

Wayuu/Guajiro Myths, Legends, and Stories

Guajiro Mythological Figures

Maleiwa

(also spelled Mareiwa)

The creator god of Guajiro mythology, who made humans and taught them how to live.

Juyá

(also spelled Juya)

The Guajiro god of rain and hunting.

Pulowi

(also spelled Püloui)

Juya’s wife (or in some Guajiro stories, his ex-wife). Pulowi is a dangerous earth goddess.

Although colonialism forced indigenous people to adopt western religions, many communities maintain elements of their pre-columbian beliefs that reflect the magic of their universe. Such is the case of the Wayúu community, who although many practice elements of catholicism due to Spanish colonization in the 16th century, also still believe in the power of nature, ancestral spirits and deities. In Wayúu culture, the dance of the ‘Yonna‘ is an ancestral ritual that is celebrated during important moments for the Wayúu community: when crops are harvested, when a harvest is abundant, to thank the Maleiwa (the creator) for something positive in the community and to end the period of confinement after a girl’s first menstruation. This dance involves a woman trying to step on the feet of a man that she is chasing as community members play music on a drum.

Wayúu originally lived on the La Guajira peninsula. Their traditional subsistence culture was interrupted by Spanish colonization as early as the 16th century when they transitioned to an economy based largely on the raising of livestock.
In the 19th century, Wayúu began moving from the peninsula to work on sugar cane farms. This emigration increased with the development of Venezuela’s oil economy. In 1944, the government relocated several hundred Wayúu to the neighbourhood of Zaruma in Maracaibo. Although Wayuú have traditionally sustained themselves through pastoral activities as well as agriculture and fishing, they are becoming increasingly dependent on commercial activities that threaten Wayuú culture. Jieyuú, or the Network of Wayuú Indigenous Women, was founded in order to address issues facing Wayuú women as well as to re-affirm Wayuú culture more systematically.

“It was beautiful here,” said Mariella. “There were crops, flowers, animals. There was life.” Mariella is an indigenous Wayuu from the community of Wasimo in the dusty desert of Colombia’s northernmost department of La Guajira. She lives in a one-bedroom shack with her husband and five children, and on this day was seeking respite from the blistering midday heat inside a rickety wooden shelter in the village’s open communal area. Outside, a few goats chewed on scrub. “Now, there is nothing. We can barely survive. The river is dirty, and it is making us sick,” she said.

The country’s largest indigenous group is facing a fight to survive as high child death rates plague the community. The survival of the Wayuu, the largest indigenous community in Colombia, is under threat. Thousands of children have died and more lives are in danger as a result of the exploitation of land and misallocated water resources. In 2011, the Cercado Dam was built by the government with the intention of providing water to nine municipalities. But, the dam drained the Rancheria River, the Wayuu people’s only nearby source of water. Now, the Wayuu must walk for more than three hours to wells that are often polluted with bacteria and salt, causing severe diarrhoea.

“We are the most forgotten region of Colombia” says José Ipuana, a 75-year-old Wayúu elder, who remembers always having lived “in need”. To reach the region we are in, in the northernmost part of La Guajira, a desert in the northeast of the country on the border with Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea, we needed a jeep prepared to cross dunes and dry forests through remote tracks and to navigate impossibly steep slopes. The Wayúu are the largest ethnic group in the country. There is no register to say exactly how many there are, as some live in Venezuela (they don’t believe in borders, the land they walk on is their country), but there are over 250,000 people divided into some 20 clans.

The Wayuu indigenous people of La Guajira, at the northern tip of Colombia, have gone through major social and ecological changes over the past three decades that have happened more quickly than their ability to adapt to them. Drilling operations, daily explosions, and the high demand for water from one of the world’s largest open-pit coal mines have increasingly pushed the Wayuu away from their ancestral territories, accelerated desertification, and reduced access to water. More than 270,000 Wayuu live in La Guajira, organized in 23 clans. However, tracking their population as well as their deaths is nearly impossible. Due to the lack of an official census, most of the Wayuu communities don’t keep an official count of births or deaths. That means that, without official figures of deaths related to malnutrition and coal dust pollution, it is difficult for NGOs and journalists to draw international attention to the humanitarian crisis.

Wayuu (Wayuu: Wayuunaiki [waˈjuːnaiki]), or Guajiro, is a major Arawakan language spoken by 305,000 indigenous Wayuu people in northwestern Venezuela and northeastern Colombia on the Guajira Peninsula. There are 200,000 speakers of Wayuu in Venezuela and 120,000 in Colombia.[citation needed] Smith (1995) reports that a mixed Guajiro–Spanish language is replacing Wayuu in both countries.[full citation needed] However, Campbell (1997) could find no information on this. The two main dialects are Wüinpümüin and Wopumüin, spoken in the northeast and southwest of the peninsula, respectively. These dialects are mutually intelligible, as they are minimally distinct. The extinct Guanebucan language may actually have been a dialect of Wayuu.

Colombia’s largest indigenous group are the Guajira Desert-dwelling Wayuu people. Over 150,000 Wayuu live in the harsh northern deserts on the Venezuelan border, and they have suffered terribly as a people from the droughts that have ravaged the region, combined with decades of state neglect. Many Wayuu can, understandably, be wary of outsiders, but you can learn more about their truly unique culture on a visit to a rancheria, a typical Wayuu home, many of which have become tourist hotels. The best of the lot is Rancheria Utta, where you can learn about traditional dance, dress, and the culture of making the iconic Wayuu bags.

The Wayuu customs and traditions are quite numerous, among which they have the welcoming on behalf of the Cacique, the lucid arrival of the Majayura, the Wayúu heritage, their mourning and exhumation of human remains and the Piachi. Art and knitting also form part of their customs. They are a symbol of creativity, intelligence and wisdom for the Wayuu community, therefore, the labor of knitting is a hereditary practice passed on among many generations. The women learn how to make handbags (known as Susus in Wayúunaiki) during puberty, in a stage of their lives known as “Blanqueo.” During this period, women can only be near their female relatives who are responsible for explaining all of the functions and the social behavior of the Wayuu women.

There are 5 main ancestral traditions that are very important for the Wayuu culture and considered crucial for their identity: the “Majaauyuu,” a celebration of female adulthood; the sacred “Yoona” dance; the community’s “palebreo”; large & close-knit families; and the making & trading of their Wayuu mochila bags. The “Majaauyuu” celebration of adulthood of women during their first period. They are confined for up to 1,000 days and have to undergo some sacred practices during this time to prepare them for their life as an adult woman. During this time, mom’s pass on to their daughters the knowledge and skills they need to become a Wayuu women. (including crocheting)

For the Wayúu people, when they are in a state of sleep known as ‘alapüjawaa’, their soul will wander in order to search for the meaning of life. But they must be careful because if the soul wanders for too long, this can cause illness and it is thought that if a person in their sleep wanders past the realm of illness, they will enter the realm of death. This will cause their soul to forever wander, unable to get back to the universe of the living. The Wayúu people distinguish material things from things that possess ‘energy of life’. According to their mythology, not only do humans possess ‘energy of life’ but plants and animals as well. This means that they also possess the energy of death, and must be respected due to the power they hold to influence the health of other living beings around them.