Ashenika

The Ashenika are an Arawak-speaking people of Peru's central jungle, close kin of the Asháninka with whom they share the Selva Central. Their communities lie mainly in the Ucayali and Pasco departments, including the Gran Pajonal plateau. Their language, Ashéninka, belongs to the Campa branch of the Arawak family and forms one end of the Ashéninka-Asháninka dialect continuum.

Before the colonial period they kept trade networks with the peoples of the highlands. Franciscan friars first entered their territory in 1635, baptising villagers and introducing iron tools, but missionary interference and epidemics provoked repeated revolts.

The great uprising led by Juan Santos Atahualpa in 1742 drove the friars from the Gran Pajonal and restored the Ashenika's control over their own lands for generations.