The Kichwa-Lamista or Lamistas are an indigenous people of Peru. They live in the city of Lamas and its associated agricultural communities in the San Martin Region, especially in the Province of Lamas. They speak the Lamas Quechua language, a Northern Quechua language related to the Kichwa language, and have a traditional culture which combines elements of Amazonian, Andean and European origin. The Peruvian government designates all speakers of Kichwa resident in San Martin Department as "Lamistas", but they themselves differentiate between the people of Lamas, Sisa and the Huallaga River.
The ethnogenesis of the Kichwa-Lamistas postdates the conquest of the region by the Spanish, when groups belonging to various Amazonian ethnicities were forcibly settled around the city of Lamas. These groups adopted the Quechua language and largely abandoned their original ethnic identities, although pre-conquest tribal differences would affect the development of a system of lineages among the Lamistas.
The centre of the Kichwa-Lamista culture is the Lamas suburb of Wayku, the nucleus from which the ethnic group migrated to other locations. The Kichwa-Lamistas largely practice Catholicism, alongside indigenous shamanic practices, and their most important celebration is the feast of Santa Rosa Raymi in Lamas.
Name
The name Kichwa-Lamista derives from the element Kichwa, which is the name given to the Quechuan language spoken in Amazonia, and lamista, a Spanish adjective referring to the city of Lamas. The spellings Quechua-Lamista and Kichua-Lamista also exist, with the group themselves preferring spellings which employ k. Writing in 2020, Françoise Barbira Freedman states that the group's preferred endonym is Keshwa Lamas.
The Peruvian government uses the term Lamista to refer to all the Kichwa-speaking population of San Martín Province, but they themselves differentiate between inhabitants of Lamas and those of Sisa and the lower Huallaga River.
Lamistas formerly referred to themselves as Lamas Runa, meaning "People of Lamas", or Jakwash (sometimes spelled Llakwash). Jakwash survives as a term used only in esoteric shamanic contexts. The origin of the name Lamas is obscure, but Pedro Weiss suggested it was likely invented by the Spanish to refer to some detail of the indigenous inhabitants' lifestyle or environment.
Language
The Kichwa-Lamistas speak a Quechuan language which they call Kichwa. Since the 1975 officialisation of Quechua in Peru, Lamas/San Martin Quechua has been one of six regional standard Quechua varieties.
It is likely that the Lamistas acquired Kichwa during the colonial period, and that it was used as a lingua franca between the various ethnicities present in the reductions of Lamas. Quechua was the working language of the Jesuit and Franciscan missions of the region, however, their Quechua was of a simplified and rudimentary nature, and this differs significantly from the grammatical and lexical complexity of Kichwa. Anahí Chaparro suggests that this makes a simple origin in missionary Quechua unlikely.
In the 1940s, Weiss observed that Lamistas refused to learn Spanish, requiring Whites and Mestizos who wished to trade with them to learn Kichwa. In 1975, the Lamistas all spoke "a little Spanish", however, the main language of the community remained Kichwa. Calderon Pacheco, writing in 2000, observed that younger Lamistas spoke Spanish well and that language formed part of a dichotomy held by the Kichwa-Lamista between "savagery" (selvajismo) and "civilisation", with Kichwa associated with the former and Spanish with the latter.
Classification of Kichwa
There is no agreement among linguists on the affiliation of Lamista Kichwa within the Quechuan language family, although it is often grouped with Quijos-Quichua as part of an Amazonian Quechua group. Parker grouped it with Kichwa spoken in Ecuador, Northern Peru and Colombia, as well as the Quechua of Cajamarca and the variety spoken in Chachapoyas. Torero classified it as part of the QIIB group, closely related to Ecuadorean Quechua but more distant from all other varieties. Cerrón- Palomino largely agreed with Torero, but added Chachapoyas to group QIIB. A 2023 study based on phylogenetic methods split Central Quechua from a single northern and southern group, which was then split into Northern Quechua (Equador, Columbia and Loreto, Peru), Southern Quechua (Ayacucho, Cuzco, Bolivia) and grouped Lamista and Chachapoyas Quechua as a third independent branch.
Origins The Lamistas believe themselves to be descended from groups of Chanka and Pokra people, who fled from the Inca conquest of their homeland in the central Andes during the 15th century. This tradition is supported by the existence in Lamas of a neighbourhood named Ankohuallo, which carries the name of a Chanka chief defeated by Tupac Yupanqui. However, there is no mention of any association between Lamas and Ankohuallo in the 17th century Chronicles of Céspedes Prieto or in the Jesuit chronicles relating to the region, and several different destinations for the Chanka's flight are mentioned in historical records.
An alternative view, held by modern scholars studying this group, is that the Lamistas originated as a fusion of Amazonian indigenous peoples resident in the reduction of Lamas. After the foundation of the city of Lamas in 1656, six indigenous populations were settled in its vicinity by the Spanish: the Tabalosos, Lamas, Amasifuynes, Cascabosoas, Juamuncos and Payananzos. These groups were later joined by Munichis and Suchichis. In this model, the spread of the Kichwa language originates not in Andean immigration, but in the use of Quechua as a lingua franca by Spanish missionaries. Studies on the blood groups of Lamistas, as well as genetic evidence, indicate that the population is largely of Amazonian origin, supporting this model. Despite this, the beliefs and material culture of the Lamistas are clearly related to those found in the Andean region. This Andean element was likely strengthened by immigration into the territory of highland Quechuas during the post-independence period. Françoise Barbira-Freedman describes them as "a mixed aggregate of forest and Andean people who became constituted as a distinctive ethnic minority".
History
The conquest of Lamas The first contact with the Spanish in the region occurred with expeditions from Moyobamba and Chachapoyas in the late 1530s. However, for the next century these contacts were sporadic, and it was not until 1653–1656, that the region was brought under Spanish control by expeditions led by Martin de la Riva Herrera, Corregidor of Cajamarca and Chachapoyas.
Riva's first expedition of 1653 had as its goal the "pacification" of the Mayo and lower Huallaga rivers, and its subsequent use as a staging post to the territory of the Jivaroans, where he believed gold was to be found. During this expedition he met with groups of indigenous people representing six ethnicities (the "six nations of lamas", see above) and received their submission without violence. He founded two settlements on opposite sides of the river Mayo, in the vicinity of present-day Lamas, and left two indigenous caciques, Ojanasta and Majuama, in charge of the settlements. This would facilitate their integration into Colonial society and make possible the collection of tribute in the form of goods and forced labour. During this expedition, Riva made plans to found a city on the hill which is next to the site of present-day Lamas, which he would call San José de Lamas.
The following year, Riva received word that the Indians had burned their settlements and retreated to the forest. Riva returned to the region with an army of 200 men, capturing and publicly hanging Manama and a Suchichi chief in May 1654. He fortified San José de Lamas, and, using it as a base, captured and hanged Ojanasta in November 1654. This marked the conquest of the Tabalosos, Lamas, Amasifuynes, Cascabosoas, Juamuncos and Payananzos, along with some groups of their Suchichi and Munichi allies; and their forced settlement in pueblos de indios under Spanish control.
The colonial period: 1656-1826
In 1656, the town of Lamas (officially Ciudad del Triunfo de la Santa Cruz de los Motilones y Lamas) was founded. The conquered indigenous population were forcibly distributed into three villages surrounding the new settlement, which was itself reserved for Spaniards and Criollos, creating the reduction of Lamas. The Indians were designated separated neighbourhoods, known as castas, according to their tribal origins, situated around the new Spanish fort. The indigenous population was split into encomiendas, which were granted to 25 Spanish citizens of Lamas. This imposed an obligation to provide the encomendero with labour and tribute, which in Lamas was typically in the form of cotton, as no other valuable products were cultivated. This system created a situation in which the population of Lamas was in constant debt to the Spanish townspeople, and therefore in a subservient position, a feature of the local economy which persisted into the late 20th century. The encomienda system also required the native population to be indoctrinated into the Catholic faith and prohibited them from leaving the area of the city without permission from the encomendero.
Following their integration into the Spanish system of government, the indigenous population was subject to both European and Andean influence. They were obliged to adopt Andean modes of dress, specifically the cotton clothing which was described as "according to the fashion of the Inca" and the use of a belt called a "chumpi" which became much more complex in its decoration than the original Andean design. They also adopted European cotton-weaving techniques, producing cloth which was distributed by missionaries in zones which lacked a textile industry. The religious instruction of the local population was conducted in Quechua, the Lingua Franca of the Peruvian Amazon used by the Franciscan and Jesuit friars active in the area. According to Francoise Scazzocchio, it is likely that the multi-ethnic population of Lamas adopted Quechua for inter-group communication at this time, and then quickly abandoned their native languages, as occurred in the nearby reductions of Lagunas and Yurimaguas.
During the colonial period, Lamas was at the frontier of the Jesuit missions of Maynas, which extended north as far as modern-day Ecuador, and the Franciscan missions on the Huallaga River. The Jesuit missions were a refuge for indigenous people wanting to escape the exploitative conditions imposed by the Criollos, who frequently conducted hunting expeditions to recapture fugitive Indians. During this period, there were rebellions of the indigenous population around Lamas, which were put down by the Spanish. The Lamistas played an important military role during this period, acting both as paddlers and soldiers in Spanish expeditions against other ethnic groups.
Contact with the Spanish led to a huge death toll due to epidemics and the violence involved in the "pacification" of the natives. During the period between the conquest of Lamas and 1750, Jesuit writers estimated that the indigenous population of the region around Lamas had fallen by four fifths. Further epidemics in the mid-to-late 18th century, along with the expulsion of the Jesuits and Portuguese slave raids, led to the near depopulation of the region.