Numbering probably around 22,000, the Saraguros are an ethnically distinctive (see discussion, below) native people of South America whose "traditional" homeland for the last few hundred years has been centered in the temperate mid-altitude (1800-2800 meters) Andean highlands of southern Ecuador. Though they now form a single ethnic group, their ancestry is probably mixed. Many claim that Saraguros are descended from mitimaes (populations transferred by the Incas) from southern Peru or Bolivia. Archaeological, toponymic, patronymic and documentary evidence also indicate ancestry from Cañari and other highland ethnic groups of what is now Ecuador.

Whatever their origins, Saraguros have long controlled most of the land resources in their home territory. Although in the earliest years of Spanish occupation Saraguros are said to have ambushed and killed both Spaniards and Indian collaborators of the Spaniards, this action was not likely to have been sufficient to protect their land in the long run. Rather, according to documentary evidence, this control was due largely to the importance of their forced labor service (mita) in managing an important tambo (way station, inn) from colonial times to the 1940s when the first motor road reached the area. In legal documents Saraguros argued, apparently successfully, that in order to render tribute to the state and provide support for the tambo (food, shelter, guide service, pack and riding stock, forage), they must keep their lands.

Thirty-five years ago (1962), when we first lived in the area as Peace Corps volunteers, almost all Saraguros were independent, relatively self-sufficient, agro-pastoralists. Most Saraguros had enough privately held land, in widely scattered parcels, to be able to provide most of their food needs (maize, potatoes, beans, squash, oca, melloco, etc.). Saraguro agriculture was primarily dependent on rainfall rather than irrigation; fields were plowed with teams of bulls. Scattered private holdings, sometimes supplemented by communal land in cloud forest and páramo areas, also provided relative self-sufficiency in terms of clothing (much of it made from wool sheared from their own herds of sheep); fuel (firewood harvested from their own forests); and houses (including timbers--only roof tiles generally had to be purchased). And the majority had access to sufficient land to support their main entry into the market economy: cattle. In addition to cattle and sheep, Saraguros raised guinea pigs, chickens and guard dogs; many also raised a few pigs, and horses or mules.

In order to have enough land to support their market and subsistence needs, and to provide each child--female as well as male--with a good inheritance, many Saraguros began to extend their rural landholdings beyond the Saraguro region, especially by colonizing the tropical rain forests of the valley of the Río Yacuambi, in the upper Amazon basin (the "Oriente"), about a hundred years ago. This area was in the traditional territory of the Shuar (known to Saraguros and others as "Jívaros," and stereotyped by many of these others as savage headhunting denizens of remote jungles).

A few (mostly land-poor) Saraguros supplemented their agro-pastoral incomes in 1962 by selling or bartering (mainly to other Saraguros) textiles, baskets, mats, and pottery they manufactured, by offering their services as curandero/as (curers), and (usually only sporadically, when debts or other monetary needs arose) by employment as unskilled or semi-skilled laborers.

Saraguro economic life in 1962 was centered around the nuclear family, within which there was considerable gender-equality. (For the views [in Spanish] of two Saraguro women on gender equality see Tene and Vacacela ). Wives and husbands brought more or less equal wealth into the family, mainly through advances in inheritance. Sexual division of labor was generally rather flexible. Boys and girls were raised to be autonomous (able to make their own decisions), responsible and productive. These features facilitated the nuclear-family-centered management of widely scattered resources: a fourteen year old daughter could be caring for the family cattle herd in the mountain pastures, alone; her father could be alone clearing new land in the Oriente, doing all his own cooking and washing; her mother could be at the main family home, caring for younger children, one of whom might be assigned the care of the family's herd of sheep. Though independent in many ways, the nuclear family was deeply embedded in obligation networks of bilaterally traced kindred, ritual kin, neighbors and friends, with whom a wide variety of mutual assistance was shared.

Although for social purposes kindred were bilaterally traced, in 1962 many Saraguros had a biological concept of parallel descent: men were biological descendants of male ancestors only; women of female ancestors. Also, church records indicate that in the first six decades of this century nearly 20% of marriages were between first-cousins, mostly of the FZS=MBD (so-called "matrilateral cross-cousin") variety. Marriage between first-cousins, and belief in biological parallel descent, is now rare in Saraguro.

Thirty-five years ago, only a few Saraguros had as many as three years of schooling. Those who wished to finish primary grades had to attend schools in the town of Saraguro, the "cabecera cantonal" (county seat), inhabited by about 1500 non-indigenous people (blanco/mestizos). No Saraguros lived in town at that time. In these schools they were subject to a degree of abuse and humiliation on the part of both teachers and non-indigenous students. Saraguros were not permitted entry into local high-schools in the early 1960s.

In 1962 Saraguro communities were strongly integrated on an informal level, through patterns of family ties, reciprocity and obligation networks, redistributive activities, and informal social controls such as gossip. A rich, extensive fiesta system (in which women, as well as men, served independently as sponsors) provided a more formal framework for some of these features. Formal political organization, however, was non-existent or weak.

Access to western medicine was limited in 1962. Several Saraguro women were trained as auxiliary nurses, a development agency doctor was sometimes in the area, and a Protestant mission provided medical care (much against the wishes and preaching of local Catholic authorities). Infant mortality was high.

By the early 1970s Ecuador began to cash in on the benefits of a new source of wealth--petroleum. Although much of this wealth was wasted in military spending, corruption and poor planning, and although inhabitants of oil-producing territories suffered dispossession and pollution of their lands, many parts of Ecuador (including the Saraguro area) did experience some apparent benefits. For example, there was an explosion of infrastructural development: networks of highways, canals, and power systems were built; schools, clinics and hospitals were constructed and staffed. In addition, Ecuadorian educational and occupational structures began to be more open than before to people such as the Saraguros who retained distinctive ethnic identities.

As a consequence of these and other changes in Ecuadorian society, and of Saraguro ability to take advantage of them, Saraguro society has been transformed in many ways.

Today (1997) Saraguros are carpenters and shoe makers, nuns, doctors, dentists, nurses, drug-store owners, veterinarians, lawyers, musicians, elected officials at the canton and national levels, government bureaucrats, directors of regional NGO programs, shop owners, muleteers, gold-camp laborers, construction laborers, maids, owners of body repair shops, mechanics, welders, leaders of pan-indigenous movements, primary and high school teachers and directors of schools. A number of Saraguros have now visited or lived in the United States, as university students, as Andean musicians, and as observers and communicators about indigenous rights in the Americas. Yet at least to some extent most Saraguros are still engaged in agro-pastoral activities in the highlands. And cattle thieves, indigenous and non-indigenous, are still a major concern in the area. Saraguros have continued to extend the frontier of their agro-pastoral activities far into the tropical forest--in some cases (unlike most modern Ecuadorian frontier colonizers) hours beyond the reach of the nearest roads.

Some Saraguros participate moderately in the consumer society; a few now own cars, pick-ups, trucks, chain-saws or computers. More own motorcycles. And even more own stereo systems, TVs and VCRs, or cameras. Most have electricity and piped water in their homes and in several communities residents have flush toilets connected with septic systems.

Stronger formal community organizations have been developed. Effective political organizations (e.g. CIOIS, affiliated with CONAIE [La Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador], and FIIS, which is not)--sometimes in conflict, sometimes collaborating), oriented toward the protection of Saraguro rights and the promotion of other Saraguro interests, have emerged in the last two decades. Saraguros now run candidates for regional and national offices, sometimes successfully. Thus Dr. Luis Alberto Macas, a Saraguro with a degree in law, was for a number of years the leader of CONAIE (Ecuador's major national indigenous rights organization), was the winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize (an international award) and, most recently, was elected to the Ecuadorian senate.

Not only are the Saraguros of the 1990s participating much more widely in the national educational system, but they are also attempting to devise local school systems and programs that suit their interests and needs more effectively. More than 100 Saraguros are now primary and high school teachers and directors.

It is clear that in wages, in access to a wider range of occupations, in access to political power, in access to medical care (and reduction in infant mortality) and in access to education and to travel, and in general, in enhancement of their rights as native people in Ecuador, Saraguros have made many gains in the last 35 years.

But new problems have emerged. Some now worry about the negative effects of television on children. Some are concerned about rising rates of child-birth to unwed mothers. Cattle rustling is a major threat to the economies of some families. People whose economies are still based mainly on agro-pastoralism fear that they may not succeed in leaving their children a good inheritance--and their children, now likely to be in the educational system to and even through high school levels, are no longer so available to participate in strengthening that which would make a good inheritance possible: the household economy. Some high-school aged young people now run away from home--mainly to cities such as Cuenca and Quito. There are worries about the Ecuadorian economy, about efforts to privatize government-provided services such as medical care, and about reductions of government funding of many other state services. There are concerns about overpopulation, about the reduction of local forest cover (although forest destruction has been slowed by the widespread use of cheap propane gas for most cooking), and about the overall health of the environment. Many fear that their native language, Quichua, is being lost. And many worry about the future of Saraguro ethnic identity.

In the Andean world, ethnic identity is not fixed at birth. In Saraguro it has been, and is, possible for individuals to transculturate into another ethnic group by changing some of the "boundary markers" such as hair style, and clothing--without leaving the area. But up to the present most Saraguros have maintained their distinctive ethnic identity.

Thirty-five years ago there was little ambiguity in Saraguro ethnic identity. Saraguros all spoke at least some Quichua as well as Spanish, both men and women wore their hair in long, single braids, both men and women wore distinctive clothing based on black-dyed, home-spun and home-woven wool (particularly an accordion pleated skirt for women, knee length pants for men), and women wore locally designed bead necklaces. Virtually all maintained homes, plots of land, and ties of obligation, fiesta participation, and kinship in traditional Saraguro highland communities, even though some spent most of their time in their Oriente landholdings. All were Catholics. Other than a handful of auxiliary nurses who worked in the highland communities and who were married to agro-pastoralists, virtually no Saraguros had full-time occupations outside of agro-pastoralism. Thus in terms of limited educational levels, language, hair-style, clothing style, ties to traditional land and communities, religion, and occupation, the Saraguros were relatively homogeneous.

Much of this has changed or begun to change. Some Saraguros have entered the post-modern world in which consciousness of the fuzzy, changing boundaries of ethnic identity has become a preoccupation. Is it appropriate to dance to the music of a "disco-mobil" or taped international Latin music at a Saraguro wedding or a non-religious community fiesta? If music is a part of ethnic identity, how much can traditional forms, techniques and instruments be modified, in part to make it more appealing to outsiders, without destroying its "ethnic" character? Can a Saraguro be a Protestant (as a number now are) and still maintain a strong ethnic identity? Can one withdraw from the networks of mutual, reciprocal obligation? Can one establish a permanent home and profession in a city and not lose one's ethnicity? Does identity depend on conflict with another group, or is contrast enough? Can a man wear long pants or a woman pants or unpleated skirts and be a Saraguro? Can either maintain their hair in other than a long single braid (or ponytail)? Or is identity more internal than external? If internal, must one have a Saraguro/Andean cosmovision? Must one know Quichua to have a Saraguro cosmovision? What is this cosmovision business, anyway? Is it an essentialistic invention of anthropologists and folklorists? Is it a coherent whole? Or fragments of an ancient Andean world-view largely replaced by a Euro-Catholic vision of what it is to be human in a world created by a single powerful God whose interests are temporally threatened by human sin or suceptability to satanic forces? And who decides all this? Each individual? Anthropologists? The state? The community? And who cares?

So far, at least, most Saraguros seem to care. They are hanging on, retaining their own distinctive (though changing) ethnic identity for the ride into the next millennium. So far the majority--whether agro-pastoralists, teachers, doctors, or laborers; Catholics, Protestants, unbelievers, or searchers for "traditional" religious roots; bilinguals or monolinguals; residents in Quito or Saraguro, or in the remotest parts of the upper Amazon basin or in small towns in the US--seem to find some comfort, some pleasure, some feeling of who they are as human beings in the context of their own ethnically identified community, in its kinship patterns, in its ritual relationships, in its bonds of mutual obligation, and in its shared heritage.

We thank Silvia Gonzalez Medina and Salvador Quishpe Lozano for their thoughtful comments on this page.

For additional written information about Saraguro see the BIBLIOGRAFÍA link.