Los Achuar de la Amazonía Peruana
During the 1950s, timber, animal hides, meat from game animals, salt fish, barbasco, vegetables and domestic animals were regularly traded in ports along the Pastaza, Huasaga and Huitoyacu rivers. Trade in these products was overshadowed by the increase in demand for timber during the 1970s and petroleum in the 1980s. During those years, the Achuar enjoyed relative economic prosperity because they received pay for their labor. But the depredation of resources of the forest, fish and game animals, and the introduction of epidemic and endemic diseases that were initially attributed to witchcraft by their enemies, led to a number of inter-ethnic disputes. In the mid 1980s, 20 new native communities settled along the Pastaza, Huasaga, Huitoyacu, Manchari, Situche and Anasu rivers. This concentration of the population gave people access to educational and health care services, legal mechanisms for obtaining title to their lands and forestry concessions, and access to Peru’s civil registry system for obtaining identity documents.
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