Guayupe

The Guayupe were Arawak-speaking people of the Meta piedmont in eastern Colombia, where the llanos meet the Eastern Ranges of the Andes. Their territory ran from the Upía to the mountain slopes; at the Spanish conquest they may have numbered over a quarter of a million.

They farmed cassava, eaten as casabe, and lived in palisaded villages with houses around a central square and sun-oriented temple. Caciques led an otherwise egalitarian society; when a chief died his body was cremated and his successor drank the ashes in chicha. They worshipped the Sun and Moon as husband and wife, with coca and tobacco rituals.

The Guayupe fought the conquistadors hard: in 1534 they wiped out ninety men of Alonso de Herrera's expedition on the Guaviare, and a German-led entrada of 1535 to 1538 fought through against bows and tapir-hide shields. Colonial settlement broke up their communities.