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CHAPTER 12
ARCHAEOLOGY AND IDENTITY: THE
CASE OF THE GUAMBIANOS
Luis Guillermo Vasco
Translated from the Spanish by Cristóbal Gnecco
The Guambianos are indigenous peoples who dwell in the highlands
of the Cordillera Central in southwestern Colombia. They call themselves
Namuy Misak, “our people,” or speakers of the Wam language,
“our language,” initially classified as Chibcha but currently unclassified.
Spanish conquest and domination fractured Guambiano society in
several parcialidades, a division that still lingers in the communities of
Guambía, Quizgó, Totoro, Ambaló, La María, San Vicente, and others
of smaller size. In this chapter I will only refer to Guambía. For their
subsistence they depend almost exclusively on agricultural production,
both for local consumption and for the markets: potato, onion, ulluco (a
highland tuber), lima beans, corn, garlic, and wheat, plus domestic animals
such as guinea pigs, chicken, horses, pigs, sheep, and cattle. They
buy foodstuffs, cloth, and other consumer goods in the local markets. A
few Guambianos work as teachers, government clerks, carpenters, shoemakers,
or have transportation vehicles. Some old production processes
are still retained, especially those regarding cloth making. Women weave
wool on four-log vertical looms of pre-Columbian origin, making their
skirt-like anacos and the ponchos used by their men. Smaller, forked
looms are used for weaving chumbes,1
with which anacos are tied to the
waist and children are secured when carried on the back. A few men still
make rounded hats, tambalkuari, made with a long band woven with
vegetal fiber.
Guambiano territory, measuring 20,000 ha, is recognized by
Colombian law as a resguardo,2
communal land that cannot be sold
This chapter was originally published as “Arqueología e identidad: el caso guambiano” in Arqueología
en América Latina hoy, edited by Gustavo Politis, pp. 176–191 (Fondo de Promoción de la Cultura,
Bogotá, 1992). Translated and reprinted by permission of the publisher.
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or given away and is allotted by the cabildo3
to the members of the
community. A large part of their best land, especially that suitable for
corn and wheat, had been taken away by landlords gradually since
colonial times and converted to cattle farming. The workforce was
recruited among Guambianos themselves through sharecropping—in
“exchange” for small plots and poor housing, they had to perform free
work for the landlords a number of days every month. Sharecroppers
were outside communal life and beyond the authority of the cabildo.
A severe land scarcity determined the current settlement pattern. Most
people cluster in a few narrow valleys along the main rivers (Piendamó,
Cacique, Michambe, and Juanambú), although many have trabajaderos
(work places) in the highlands further up or farther away from their
dwellings, where they stay for variable periods devoted to agriculture.
Cold, rain, and strong winds are good reasons the Guambianos have
for avoiding steeper hills or mountain ridges. Land scarcity, the need
to diversify agricultural products, and the influence of the values of the
national society have resulted in the division of extant communal lands
in minute plots; very little land is allotted to each family and it is normally
located in several places, both inside and outside the resguardo.
Thus, many Guambianos were forced to emigrate, but conserve social
ties with those left in the resguardos; they are still considered part of
the community and participate in exchange networks of goods, work,
and marriage.
Despite the long-time strong pressure from landlords, politicians
(basically from the two traditional Colombian parties, Liberals and
Conservative), priests, and white teachers, Guambianos preserve an
identity based on their own thought, language, beliefs, cloth, family
organization, communal works, kinship system, authority, and territory;
however, these aspects and their own identity have been diversely
affected, shattered, and weakened as a result of domination. Since 1980,
the almost 17,000 members of Guambiano society started a fight for
“recuperating everything,” from authority and territory to language,
education, thought, history, and autonomy. In this fight the need to
rediscover and strengthen their identity plays a central role.
As victims of negation and deculturation for almost 500 years, many
things have been lost, others are “hidden” or only remain in the memory
of the elders, while the younger people decry them, ashamed. But now
the leaders and many members of the community are willing to uncover
those things, retrace the steps of the forebears, and become themselves
again. Only so, they reason, will they be able to resolve the complex
and difficult current problems without recurring to outside people and
without compromising their identity. But, how to proceed? Let the
Guambianos speak for themselves:4
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“In the old times, before Columbus, we Guambianos had everything to
live: our territory, our authority, our economy, our organization, our customs,
our thoughts, everything our own.”
“When the whites came many changes happened and are still happening;
those changes were leaving Guambiano society as if empty, not really
empty but silent.”
“The invader cut the tree, our tree, and left a single trunk. And we
Guambianos ask how the rest was.”
“In 1980 we started to recover our own things: our cabildo and our lands.
And the question about how was the rest of the tree was became important
because we now want to recover everything, our whole life.”
“We want to know how are the roots and the branches to let it be know
to the cabildo, to the people, to the kids. We must follow the steps of the
forebears.”
“Archaeology must excavate from the trunk downward, looking for the
roots. We did archaeology; we are currently doing it. And we have found
some things. We have come to know something. And we have gained some
clues.”
“In order to follow those clues, in order to interpret what we are finding,
we found it necessary to talk to the elders, because in their heads rests
the knowledge of Guambiano history and our own thought is preserved.
We did studies of oral tradition.” (Script of the House and Museum of
Guambiano Culture)
Thus, Guambianos want archaeology to uncover the objects of the
forebears, their material remains, their traces. In doing this job they have
been discovering that things do not speak by themselves, that the objects
recovered during excavation are mute by themselves, and that it is necessary
to make them speak so they can utter the words. In this regard
two discourses are heard: one is that of archaeologists and ethnohistorians,
which Guambianos take in consideration but which does not satisfy
them; the other one is that of the elders, who talk about what they know
but which is not enough in the current conditions. Thus, it was necessary
to find the words jointly, confronting both discourses: “We had to
confront the stories (of the elders) with the histories that come from the
papers.”
The Guambianos summoned archaeologists Martha Urdaneta and
Sofía Botero, with whom they shared their problems. Guambianos know
by oral tradition that they belong there, that these lands have been their
own forever although they were invaded for centuries by white landlords.
But whites despise these arguments and maintain that the Guambianos
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were brought from Peru and Ecuador by Spanish conquistadors as
yanaconas, “service Indians.” To face the white’s word, Guambianos
want archaeology, also a white’s word and thus authority and power, to
show with white’s arguments their continuity in these lands “well before
Columbus.”
In order to live now and to recover their identity they need to
find roots, history, memories, and the words of the past for walking
along them toward the future, following the steps of the ancestors. In
Guambiano thought the past is ahead and the future behind. Thus, the
history that is being currently lived needs to travel the road opened by
the forebears with their steps, the traces they left; only so will it be a true
Guambiano history. Many of these things are “hidden,” and those that
are remembered or remain have no arguments of authority any longer
before many members of Guambiano society, greatly influenced by
teachers, priests, and other agents of Colombian society. The hidden has
to be uncovered, excavated, and presented with arguments of authority
and power in order to allow recovery, to allow the Guambianos to walk
again “following the thoughts and steps of the Guambiano taitas.”5
At the beginning of the archaeological collaborative research between
scholars and the community, the cabildo appointed 15 Guambianos to
“accompany” (linchap) us, so three of them could work every day; but
dozens of men, women, and especially children have participated, coming
to the roads to give us bags with sherds from all over the resguardo
or telling stories about the “steps of the ancestors.” We have discussed
with the cabildo when and where to dig and how to preserve the sites
from agricultural activities while archaeological research lasts. The
cabildo has obtained from land holders the permissions needed to carry
out excavations, some of them in the middle of planted fields.
Numerous terraces are found throughout the resguardo, most of them
likely for dwellings. Two main types can be defined: (1) isolated and
placed at the bottom of hills and on top of small elevations in flat lands
(according to Guambianos this type is the most recent and may belong
to the houses of sharecroppers and commoners), and (2) clustered and
located on high hills and along mountain ridges above 3000 m. More
than 350 terraces of this type have been found and seem to be the oldest
since they do not accord to the Guambiano settlement pattern, as
“nobody would live that up high because the wind would tear off the
roofs of the houses.”
The ridges of some mountains are cut by large parallel ditches, called
“snake trails” by Guambianos. James Ford (1944) found similar ditches
to the north, in Jambaló, and thought they were made for defensive
purposes; yet, the very nature of these traces renders that explanation
unlikely.
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Few tombs, both isolated and clustered, have been excavated so far
in order to avoid possible suspicion by commoners about easy gain and
because Guambianos consider that bones and burial goods are dangerous
and can cause disease and even death upon entering in contact with
them. Many say that those remains do not belong to Guambianos but
to pishau, about whom there is no agreement whether they are their
ancestors or not (an elder, for instance, thinks that the pishau were kallimachik,
ancient Nasa.)6
Participation of Guambianos in the research group has posed methodological
and operational problems. Their solution demands confronting
their points of view and those of archaeology, their way of doing
things and that of archaeology; yet, they are also a source of enrichment
on how to plan objectives, ask the pertinent questions, and carry out the
survey, excavation, laboratory work, and interpretation. During the two
field seasons completed so far, there have been obvious difficulties with
the Guambianos “accompanying” excavations because “the levelings of
the ancients have too much force and can make us sick.” But once in
the task, we all decide how to proceed. For instance, during excavation
“the basic horizontal control was done just by 1 x 1 m units, because
doing such a control inside the units themselves was not popular among
Guambianos,” who argued that materials roll down the slope, roots and
worms bring together what was formerly separated, digging tools separate
what was formerly together, and, at the end, everything is mixed up.
What is horizontal control needed for, then? Thus “it was not possible
to avoid that, often, little mountains of sherds were created inside the
units.”
Discussions about stratigraphic control were and still are endless
What is the meaning of 30 cm of archaeological material on house
floors? continuous occupation of people who did not sweep? several
occupations? if so, how to define the limit between them? what happens
if the house was expanded, remodeled, or torn down to be rebuilt in the
same spot? When work stops due to these discussions we resort to the
elders and traditional wise men to bring the work back and keep going
ahead. For instance, the moropik think that “the large butterflies forced
people to abandon the terraces... The butterfly was the spirit of the dead
and with that spirit (tror) the medicine man said that no one could live
there and the place had to be abandoned... because the house did not
burn but rotted. [It collapsed and] this increased the deposit 10 cm”; this
is a more plausible hypothesis than that of people not sweeping, burying
themselves in their own dirt.
At the beginning, the decision about when to stop an excavation was
hard to make. Sometimes it was necessary to decide, somewhat arbitrarily,
to stop at a certain depth after levels containing material ­culture.
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At some point we established that there was no cultural material in
the brown yellowish stratum (the D stratum of an “ideal” profile) nor
below it; we called excavations to a halt when we found such a stratum,
although if doubts remained we dug around to make sure.
What should be done when community members come to “accompany”
for the first time? Some times the entire excavation area was
flooded by people willing to participate in the dig, so we had to introduce
certain order, explanations, and orientations, about which even the
Guambiano members of the team were not convinced. But, we are dealing
with them themselves, with their own history.
During the first season Guambiano specialists in house building and
wood differentiated between holes made by larvae, those resulting from
the burial of umbilical cords (normally made near the hearth), and possible
postholes. When the latter was identified “the work was closed
for the Guambianos”; one of them said, “Now this has to start having
meaning,” an expression of Guambiano vision conveying that everything
begins in the house and, within this, in the kitchen. Even the
territory develops in concentric circles with the house at its center; thus,
it is an expansion of the house as much as the community is an expansion
of the domestic group. The Guambianos say that their territory,
the nupirau, is a large house where a single and large family dwells, the
Guambiano family. When a house floor was identified, it was a starting
point to unfolding the knowledge of the totality. In the lab the dialogue
is continuous because, among other things, according to the purpose
the Guambianos attribute to the work we do, “the labor of sorting
out ceramic material is thought of as a medium and not as an end... It
is a matter of defining criteria for a classification that helps to reflect
about socioeconomic organization, technology, relationships with other
­people, etc.”
That is why “the idea is not to classify just for the sake of classification
but to search for pottery elements that can reflect central aspects
of the society whose remains, seen through factors external to pottery
itself, can start speaking about the live systems behind classifications.”
Archaeological categories, based on paste, decoration, tempers, and
forms are confronted with those of the Guambianos, preexistent in the
memories of the elders and basically based on function, with form and
size playing a secondary role: pots for cooking during the mingas,7
pots
for domestic cooking, pots for carrying and storing water, pots for preparing
medicines, pots for fermenting the chicha, dishes for eating, skillets
for roasting corn tortillas, and the like.
For the Guambianos paste differences, central to most classifications,
mean that the clay comes from various sources, generally not rich and
so prone to exhaustion, and, therefore, a change of sources within the
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same area. Paste differences can also mean provenience from several
sources with different clays, all in the same temporal plane. The same
behavior could be indicative of changes in temporal succession, preferred
materials for certain pots, differences between potters, or trade.
From the beginning the Guambianos argued that the most elaborate and
decorated pottery belonged to the ancients and the less elaborate to the
most recent inhabitants; these criteria can also be found among other
Colombian native societies, such as the Embera-Chami of the Garrapatas
River in the Cauca Valley, and was found to hold true in Guambía as
the research went on. In the general analysis done by the Guambianos,
however, “time seems to dissolve because the material was placed in a
single temporal plane,” just as it happens in their historical thought,
in which time is compressed until becoming “flat.” Archaeology has to
reestablish, using its sequences and dates, the temporal depth necessary
to face the arguments of the whites.
A central issue for the Guambiano members of the research team,
both during excavation and the analysis of the cultural material, was
the idea that the remains we were dealing with were their own, were
“traces of the old Guambianos.” This represents a rupture with the previously
held idea—widely shared by the Guambianos and popularized
by the whites as a mechanism for severing their historical continuity,
depriving them of their past and the consciousness surrounding it—that
the remains belong to pijaos or pishau, which were strange and enemy
people. Thus, the development of the research under this idea created the
bases for reestablishing the continuity of Guambiano history.
But, what to do when using the results to achieve the expectations
Guambianos have regarding archaeology? The date obtained in the first
excavation, AD 1620 ± 50 years, affirmed the presence of Guambianos
during that time in Santiago, one of the former farms recovered some
years ago, a presence testified by Spanish chroniclers and by archive
documents found through ethnohistorical research, especially the visit by
Tomás López (see Calero 1997:62–64). Besides, the beginning of the work
allowed us to define whatever “Guambiano” there was in the pottery.
According to the Guambianos, the paste comes from five different
sources: (1) a paste with white dots, (2) a paste with red dots, (3) a paste
with quartz, (4) a black paste with mica, and (5) a paste with a lot of
mica. Pinpointing the sources appeared, then, as a must; this process is
just beginning. But based on traditional archaeological criteria such as
paste (color, hardness, texture, porosity, surface color, finishing, manufacture
technique, decoration), the pottery recovered during the first season
(9,098 sherds) was organized in seven basic groups. The second field
season forced us to add a new group and to make small modifications in
the definition of the initial groups.
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Group 1 contains 70.7% of the material and Group 3 contains 19.5%;
these groups are similar and their differences may be due to clay sources,
firing, or use. This fact points to the hypothesis that they were produced
and used by the same people, and that the pottery in other groups belong
to other people and was “imported.” The Guambianos sorted out pottery
function according to sherd thickness, size, and curvature in the
following manner:
1.	 Single function, such as flat cayanas (of three kinds: for tortillas, for roasting
corn, and for frying), large bowls for mingas, medicinal pots, water-carrying
pots, and pots for fermenting corn beer.
2.	Multiple functions, such as large-size pots for cooking during mingas,
medium-size pots for domestic use, small size for cooking for two or three
people, and extra small size for the use of one person, and bowls for eating
(medium, small, and extra small).
3.	 Other objects, such as bases for supporting pots over the fire, figurines, and
“candlesticks.”
This classification, however, leaves out most of the pottery, particularly
small fragments. From the point of view of traditional archaeological
classification, Guambiano pottery does not present radical
discontinuities, except in form and decoration, through which to follow
a developmental sequence established by dated sites; on the contrary,
it is markedly homogenous. Thus, the classification just presented was
adjusted to include seven formal categories using both the criteria of
archaeologists and those of the Guambianos, although function was not
worked out enough because it was considered that it was “too premature”
to do it:
1.	Globular or semi-globular pots of rounded or bell-shaped base and everted
rims, some of which have traces of red paint as well as incised and imprinted
decoration. This group accounts for 51.8% of the material.
2.	Pots similar to the former but with everted rims. This difference has been
established because, according to the Guambianos, these pots are smaller and
handled by the rim. Some have imprinted decoration toward the rim. This
group accounts for 5.1% of all the pottery.
3.	Globular or sub-globular pots with neck and straight or semi-straight rim.
About half of them have imprinted, painted, or incised decoration. This
group accounts for 11.2% of the pottery.
4.	 Narrow-mouth pots (n = 7). Three of these have imprinted decoration toward
the rim.
5.	 Bowls with straight-everted rims. Some have painted, printed, and/or incised
and incised-applied decoration. This group accounts for 18.8% of the
material.
6.	 Bowls with straight-inverted rim. Some have painted or imprinted decoration.
This group accounts for 6% of the material.
7.	 One fragment of an everted rim bowl.
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There are also 41 pot bases (most of them bell-shaped; others are
leg-shaped), circular, flat, or conical spindle whirls, rollers, handles, and
a few figurines. Fragments belonging to pots account for 68.9% of the
sample and bowl fragments 24.9%.
The oldest pottery is similar to that of the Clásico Regional (Duque
1963) or lsnos (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1975) from San Agustín, a nearby
region. Some sherds decorated with imprints and incisions resemble the
“incised-pointed A” type defined by Julio César Cubillos (1959) in the
Morro de Tulcán, in Popayán, while the imprinted sherds are similar to
the “deep-incised” type defined by Cubillos for the Morro de Tulcán,
Pubenza, and Tinajas phase (1984). The more recent material has traits in
common with pottery found by Cháves and Puerta (1985) in Tierradentro.
Further research has given depth to the human occupation of
Guambiano territory, taking it back to several centuries before the
Spanish conquest in La Campana and Ñimbe, above an altitude 3,200
m. Those evidences date to before the Christian era, although it is still
not possible from archaologucal evidence to affirm if this oldest occupation
was Guambiano; yet oral tradition has it that way. In this form the
sense of “we belong here” has been confirmed and is strongly supported
by Guambianos; even more, the Derecho Mayor8
has been endorsed
from the point of view of the whites and has become the base for the
fight to recover the territories they claim as being legitimate Americans,
the first inhabitants of these lands.
But, what to do with archaeologically derived materials and data in
order to make them speak to the community? “We also found that the
members of the community keep materials of times past: archaeological,
from burials and excavations, and ethnographic, used by the elders and
even currently by some people. They were eager to donate these traces
to the cabildo.”
“Thus, the idea of this museum arose out of the necessity to preserve
the results of our work and for them to speak to the community.”
“But we do not want a museum like the ones the white people have
in the cities— mute museums that are good only to show the works of
the tribes—because in the hands of the whites the things of the Indians
cannot speak; they are silent.”
“On the contrary, in our own hands these objects talk because they
are not separated from their people and history. At first glance they look
mute but upon discussing they talk a lot; even a tiny thing has a lot reasons
to speak up.”
“We want to know the past, not just for the sake of knowledge but
for tracing the road ahead.”
“In the time of the ancients and during the time of the chiefdoms there
was a word, a very important one: ‘very pretty sunset, very pretty dawn.’
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That was the word. It indicated to all of us the management, the unity,
the community.”
“In the fourth generation the custom of parents advising their children
was terminated. The word we have spoken became silent.”
“With the fifth generation our things are dimming, our thinking is
terminating. In the sixth generation things are even worse. Some have
produced eight generations and in them everything has been finished.
The unity of the people is over.”
“That is why this museum must talk, must lift up this silence, must
address the governor, the body of the cabildo Guambiano, the people,
and the children, must transmit to the people what is to be done tomorrow
and bring to all veredas9
the words of the ancients.”
“With the museum we want to show that all the pottery and all the
traces found in our territory are our own and not of other people, that
the pishau are our ancestors and not strange people. Thus we were
born right here, in these lands and waters; we have not been brought
from elsewhere, neither are we venideros10
from other worlds. This is
our home.”
“We also want to show that the Guambiano people has traveled a
long road, and that during that time these hearths were used, as much as
these beds, these pots, these things that are in the roots.”
“And we want the museum to be the base for recovering our own
education. The ancients were able to resist outrages because they had
their own education; that is the basis of the community.”
“Because we strive for the right, we want to create a country of laws
based on our beliefs; not for creating laws between Guambianos but in
order that our rights are recognized. Such is the purpose of our work.”
“To teach our children, to establish an organization, to maintain a
multiplication.”
“Our own education started in the house, the family, and from there it
was amplified to the global. From the kitchen (nakchak), with the family
reunited around the hearth, flows the management of a community. And
from there another thread starts: the respect for love. It is passed on to
the new life and to multiplication, entering the living room (wallikato)
and the pishiya (a small room, separated from the house, where the valuables
are kept).”
“This museum is a house from where to nurture the cabildo and the
people.”
“During the time of the chiefdoms this land was global, it was a territory,
it was the house of the Namuy Misak, our people.”
“The house is the family itself; it gives life and management, and
it also multiplies itself until reaching a territory. From there flows the
whole unity of its people.”
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“That is why we want the museum to be a house that gives life with
its kitchen, its room, and its pishiya.”
“Nak is the fire; pem is for cooking many things, not just meals. Chak
is the place of the fire, is the work of the organism, is the function of
how to live.”
“The wallikato contains many things in the global sense of the
community.”
“The pishiya is for storing the valuables that cannot get lost and that
must be kept; it also keeps an eye on the behavior of fiancés in order to
give advice.”
“This museum is not only for showing things. The objects, once on
displayed, look silent. To make them speak we have to find their words
with the community elders, we have to investigate our past. When we
recover the words these things will speak out and will be silent no longer.
In this way teachings could be delivered.”
In order to “find the words,” Guambianos began researching oral
tradition with elders and traditional wise men. I was invited by the
cabildo to “accompany” this research and to work with the community’s
History Committee; they expected that my word as anthropologist,
together with that of the elders, would produce new words, based on
tradition but adequate for the new living conditions. The ethnographic,
archaeological, and ethnohistorical words must “accompany” those of
the community to talk to the people, to recover the voice, and to break
the silence. Thus, it is spoken about the kitchen, the heart of the house,
and the society:
“In the kitchen lies the fire, like a mother to us because it gives us
meals and heat. It is the cradle of the youngsters who live with their
parents before finding a mate.”
“From it arises the management of the community. From it the thread
of respect for love is taken. That is why we say that our laws come from
the kitchen.”
“There, around the hearth, sitting on their wood benches, the elders
talk and in their voices the wisdom and knowledge of the ancients walk.
Through their advice the children learn to behave; there the Guambianos
are made.”
“Likewise, just to make a comparison, a pot for cooking in the house
stores many things, so many that one can get tired mentioning them.”
“So, when her father-in-law arrives the daughter-in-law must serve
him first, then serve her mother-in-law, then her husband, then her
brother-in-law, and then the others. But not as it pleases her: she must
not spill on the ground, neither throw the kitchen ware, nor serve in
the same plate. She must serve and mix things properly, not just water
or little water, not too much to some and too little to others. This is
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the advice of respect and equality; this is the advice that comes from
women.”
“The large pot used for mingas tells us how much to serve to each
one so there will be enough for everybody. And the woman knew how to
distribute because she had the dream and her hand is healed. In only two
veredas are there women capable of distributing food during mingas. If
they die, whom shall we ask to come distribute food?”
“And the advise given to the men—how to love their families, how to
receive meals from their wives without forgetting to say dius pay unkua
(God thanks you). Today men receive without saying a word and then
leave.”
“There in the museum, the children sitting on their little benches
around the hearth, in the nakchak. The things will give new voice to the
words of the ancients, and the silence will be over.”
“This is the way of this museum. Because in order to teach all this it
is not necessary to read, write, sing, or pray; the only thing needed is to
see the people, to be recognized as Guambianos, and to fight for unity”
(Script of the House and Museum of Guambiano Culture).
In the old house of one of the recovered farms the Guambianos built
a museum, which reproduces a traditional dwelling; the purpose was to
erect a house in the Guambiano way, with kitchen, rooms, and pishiya.
The museum is visited by schoolchildren, youngsters, and elders. There
they hear the word and listen to the objects speak through the voice of
the elders who know, who have investigated. The visitors are reached
by the voice of the forebears, who point to the road that must be followed
in order to live. From this place, from this house, the forebears
expand their voice to the community. In veredas, schools, mingas, and
the cabildo, daily activities are being shaped by these voices, although
with difficulty and effort. And from that point of departure, with the
bases provided by the museum and the continuing works, the other
Guambianos are contributing to retrieve the voices of the once-forgotten
ancestors.
Notes
  1.	 Translator’s note: chumbe is a colorful band made of wool.
 2.	Translator’s note: resguardo is equivalent to “reservation,” although it has precise
connotations, both in colonial and republican terms; that is why I use the Spanish
word instead of its English equivalent.
  3.	 A political-administrative corporation, the most important communal authority; it is
renewed every year and is headed by a governor elected annually by all Guambianos
older than 10 years of age.
  4.	 Unless noted, all citations are taken from Urdaneta (1985, 1987, 1988), from where
the archaeological information also derives.
Indigenous Peoples and Archaeology in Latin America
  
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249
  5.	 Translator’s note: taita is a title reserved for wise men, especially those with political
authority.
  6.	 Translator’s note: Nasa is the vernacular name of a neighboring group, once known as
Paeces, enemies of the Guambianos until recent times.
  7.	 Translator’s note: minga is a communal gathering for carrying out, basically, public
works for the benefit of the community as a whole.
  8.	 Translator’s note: Derecho Mayor is the name given by Guambianos to their own legal
system.
 9.	Translator’s note: vereda designates clusters of dwellings, normally separated from
each other. The word is used to single out relatively discrete groups in an otherwise
homogenous settlement pattern.
10.	Translator’s note: venidero is a Spanish word that means someone who has recently
arrived from abroad. It usually conveys a negative meaning, because it implies lack of
roots and recent arrival, as compared to other people living in the area well before.
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