THE  U'WA  INDIGENOUS  GROUP

The U'wa are a people belonging to the Chibcha language family. As a result of the colonization process, the U'wa, Tunebos misnamed, are discovered in the early sixteenth century by the sides of the current Tame (Arauca) in a town called San Jose missionaries of Patute where they created a "Reduction Center of Tunebo ", as they called it. Later conquerors, missionaries and adventurers vied treasures and indigenous lands that originally possessed. But by creating safeguards by the crown, yea crearceles benefited at least two guards that covered large zomas of what is now Casanare, Boyaca and Santanderes, but over the years racking and progress colonizing these territories were lost almost entirely

In the early twentieth century the U'wa were again hit by the missionaries who in a further attempt to reduce them to civilization created the Mission Santa Librada. Mission in the 1980s led to the U'wa to be cornered in the steeper areas of the region in their land not to exceed 20 hectares, a fact that forced them to organize and enter the state to require them return of their land, which have been taking place gradually and today the U'wa have projects which aims to create unique shelter with approximately 210,000 hectares

However, some U'wa territory despite having graduates that protect them as guards or reservations, even today they are still pressured by peasant colonization effect, since this is for example the case of the receipt of Chapparral - high in Arauca who apart from not having any title are being continually pressed into its territory by colonization materera acting from making at least 35 years by the same happens in Boyaca areas National park Nature Cocuy, where many farmers still occupy these areas make farming practices

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCALITATION OF U'WA

Currently the U'wa are located in the region of the Eastern Cordillera in jurisdiction of the departments of Boyaca, Santander, Norte de Santander, Arauca and Casanare area, spread over 12 municipalities and 28 communities which occupied the most remote areas, territories ranging to 4000 meters above sea level, in the nearby sierra Nevada del Cocuy.

The region extends south from the aftermath of the Sierra Nevada cocuy to piedmont plains Casanare and Arauca. North to the valley of Pamplona. The current population settlement is located on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy, the Cabildo Mayor U'wa and other entities.

The phrase ma is relevant to the U'wa: "Our area is the heart of the world through the veins run feed the universe, if destroyed bleeds the world"

SOCIOCULTURAL CHARACTERISTICAS OF THE U'WA

Regarding the physical characteristics of the U'wa, defined as short people, with a range between 1.50 to 1.65 meters for men, and for women the range was 1.40 to 1.45 meters. They are sturdily built, black hair and lasio, slanted dark eyes, his car is wide, flat nose and high cheekbones.

Like the majority of indigenous people living in our country, the U'wa make use of the bow, arrows, machetes and spears, utulizandolos as tools for hunting and fishing, activities which get forest animals, alguanas birds and fish classes. They develop agriculture is intended for ustento, especially the corn, plantains and cassava. Among the strategies observed U'wa territorial domain, manifested trvez of facts such as the practices of itinerant agriculture is represented according to the diversity of climates that owns the region as such.

Factors that have managed to maintain the land as a site threatened by social changes in public policy that occur in this region.

U'wa each family has its own small plots where they grow a while and then stop erastrojar to that after a while the owner might receive the fruits vulva. The property on crops and suckers is inherited and preserved the right of these.

For many years much but the U'wa are characterized by the use of its production system, or type in a few words multiestrata greatly promotes the extension and the variety of climates in terrains that are executed by the exchange of products, thus losing in some areas the scope colonizer that generated losses ancestral territories and likewise due to the strong influence of the market economy that has come to break the framework of the production system and traditional marketing for them

ECONOMY

Its economy is based on barter. They are primarily farmers, also have fishing, hunting and gathering, and throughout the annual cycle, three-story dwelling and exploit thermal. In each season and being in specific residential, sing their different myths.

SOCIETY

The U'wa are divided into matrilineal clans. The Sierra Nevada del Cocuy is distributed among different clans, interrelated by marriage and kinship relations, so that each clan is divided into halves, who marry the neighboring clan of each half. Marriages reproduce the ancestors, so that each person seeks to marry the group where their ancestors were married and strives for their children to be the rebirth of the generation of their grandparents, and once to the person themselves reborn in the generation of grandchildren. The territory of each clan and their order of radial neighborhoods around the Sierra del Cocuy, is thus an essential element of marriage order, social, spiritual and cosmic.

Each clan is one of the Teba, eight posts supporting the house of the world. Kerkaza, which is sung myths teba synonymous, are sites of ceremonial and astronomical observation, where standing stones that mark the territory of the clans and carry out exchanges of products between them. Each clan moves during the year within their territory of the highlands to the lowlands and vice versa, not only looking for the crops of the different thermal floors, in different seasons, but also for cosmological reasons. So Kubaruwa clan that is associated with the underworld, should move away from the sun, which is associated with the world above.

Each clan is ruled by werjayás (sages) and also has its Kerekas (doctors). The councils organized when Colombian law required or favored its operation so that the communities have legal representation, recognize the authority of the werjayás and require its license to operate.

LANGUAGE

The U'wa cuwa (Language of the people) or Uw'ajka (Voice of the People) belongs to the Chibcha linguistic family, magdalénico within the group, along with the Muisca muyskkubun and languages ​​of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Kogui, Damana, Ijka and Kankuamo).
Add 14 consonant phonemes: the voiced stops b, r, voiceless t, k, kw, (glottal stop ʔ) nasals m, n; fricatives s, sh (palatalized), h (aspirated) and j semivolcales , w and w oral nasal. Also five vowel phonemes: a, e, i, o, u. The accent is contrastativo and recorded two tones, one ascending and descending

Information taken and interpreted:  working copies of Politics