Sihni

The Sihni are the Itonama of the Bolivian Amazon, who live in the seasonally flooded savannas of the Beni lowlands along the Itonomas River. Their language, sihnipadara, meaning our language, is an isolate with no proven relatives.

They lived by slash-and-burn farming, fishing and hunting in small communities led by village councils, and honoured a high god called Dijnamu. In 1704 the missionary Lorenzo Legarda counted twenty-six Itonama communities of some six thousand people. Mission towns such as Magdalena then gathered them into Christian parish life.