Takana

The Tacana are an indigenous people of the Bolivian Amazon, whose villages cluster in the La Paz foothills and along the Beni, Madre de Dios and Orthon rivers. They give their name to the Tacanan language family, which also includes the Ese Ejja and Cavineño.

Inca expansion into the lowlands first made contact with them on the Beni, and Franciscan friars entered their country around 1680; after 1731 the friars built missions that settled the Tacana into parish life.

Descent runs through the father's line, and families live by farming rice, maize and cassava, together with hunting, fishing and gathering. Their traditional religion is led by shamans who hold ceremonies in hidden forest houses and centres on the creator god Caquiahuaca and the Edutsi, spirit masters of earthly things who appear as hummingbirds.