The Siona people (also known as Sioni, Pioje, or Pioche-Sioni) are an Indigenous ethnic group living near the border between Ecuador and Colombia, along three rivers: the Aguarico River, Cuyabeno River and Putumayo River. The Siona live in Sucumbios Province in Ecuador, mainly in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve and in the Department of Putumayo along the Putumayo River. They have a population of approximately 400 people living within dispersed communities.“Who We Are: Siona Nation.” Amazon Frontlines. The Siona call themselves Gãtiya Bãĩ, “People of the Wild Cane River,” referring to the Putumayo River.Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 43.
History Siona people descended from the so-called Encabellados (the Spaniards came up with the name describing their habit of taking good care of their long hair).Chantre y Herrera, J. (1901). Historia de las Misiones de la Compañía de Jesús en el Marañón español–1637-1767. Madrid: Imprenta de Avrial. The records of contact go back as early as 1599 when the Jesuit missionary first visited the Encabellados. Since then and well into the 18th century, the Jesuit missionary activity had increased as they were trying to convert Encabellados into Catholicism and unite them into reductions.Vickers, W. T. (1976). Cultural Adaptation to Amazonian Habitats: The Siona-Secoya of Eastern Ecuador. (Phd Thesis), University of Florida. The reductions turned out to be unsuccessful, and eventually, the Jesuits were expelled from the Americas.Vickers, W. T. (2003). The Modern Political Transformation of the Secoya. In N. E. J. Whitten (Ed.), Millennial Ecuador: Critical Essays on Cultural Transformations and Social Dynamics (pp. 46- 74). Iowa City: University of Iowa Press Siona people refer to themselves as bai, meaning "people" and refer to their language as baicoca which means "the language of the people."Bruil, M. (2014). Clause-typing and evidentiality in Ecuadorian Siona. (Thesis) Utrecht: LOT.
The limited contact between the Siona and the Spanish-speaking world did not last very long and was drastically increased after the rubber boom in the late 19th century. In 1955, a missionary couple, Maria and Orville Johnson of the Summer Institute of Linguistics arrived in Sucumbíos. This led to more contact between the Spanish and the Siona. The Johnsons developed a writing system for Siona based on Spanish orthography, which is to this day used by the Siona people of Ecuador. After the oil companies arrived in 1967, the contact reached a critical state.Bruil, M. (2014) Clause-typing and evidentiality in Ecuadorian Siona. (Doctoral dissertation, Leiden University). LOT.
Language
Siona is part of the Western Tucanoan language family.
Organization Social systems The Siona people live in dispersed villages near bodies of water (rivers & streams),Vickers, William T. “From Opportunism to Nascent Conservation: The Case of the Siona-Secoya.” Human Nature, 1994, p. 310. made up of extended households (up to 20 families).Wasserstrom, Robert. “Surviving the Rubber Boom: Cofán and Siona Society in the Colombia-Ecuador Borderlands (1875-1955).” American Society for Ethnohistory, 2014, p. 536. Generally, each family has their own home, although it is not unheard of for young couples to live with the husband’s family.Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 84. Homes are often constructed on stilts (a style influenced by colonial presence), and in more recent times utilize tin roofs and nails rather than traditional vines and palm leaf roofs.Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 60. They are traditionally seminomadic, with communities moving every 10–15 years.Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 74.
Communities are led by shamans or headmen, two roles which became one (cacique caracas or shaman chiefs) post-colonial contact.Esther Jean Langdon, “The Revitalization of Yajé Shamanism among the Siona: Strategies of Survival in Historical Context.” Anthropology of Consciousness, 2016. In the 1960s, the Colombian government’s Division of Indian Affairs División de Asuntos Indígenas (Division of Indian Affairs) put in place a governing system for all Indigenous groups in Colombia, establishing that they must have a governor and secretary.Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 110. These roles have somewhat replaced the leadership that shamans used to fill, since the last cacique caraca, Arsenio Yaiguaje, died in 1960.Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 168. Today, this shift in governance has led to more young Siona leadership, rather than the tradition of elders leading, because governors are legitimized by an outside force and don’t have to earn community validity.Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 112. This has been the source of some conflict within the Siona community.
The Siona people are organized politically through the National Organization of Seona Indigenous People of Ecuador (ONISE), whose president as of July 1996 was William Criollo.
Centuries ago, the Siona people lived communally,Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 85. and although this practice has evolved under colonial influence, remnants of this communal mindset still govern Siona life. An example of this is the minga: when someone needs help with a manual labor project, they enlist the help of friends and family. In return, they provide chicha (a fermented beverage) for the workers, and the project is a social event that ends in a party.Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 80-81. Mingas can revolve around individual projects or can work towards public goods, such as a path for children to get to school easily. Community and mutual aid are built into the Siona social structure. This is also present in food distribution, where when someone catches a big animal, they share it with their extended family. The practice of yajé is similarly communally minded.
The Siona people live in the same general area as the Secoya people, sharing mutually intelligible languages and often intermarrying. They are sometimes considered one Indigenous group. This mixing of Indigenous groups is one method of survivance in consolidated power and culture that has been carried out by many Indigenous groups all over the world.
Practices of farming and hunting A diverse subsistence economy is employed by the Siona people, including slash-and-burn agriculture, fishing, gardening and hunting as well as imported foods (72).
The core vegetables that make up the Siona diet are manioc (a root vegetable, also known as cassava) and plantain (70), which are cultivated on small farms. Families also often have gardens around the house, cultivating flowers, tobacco, cotton, or fruit trees.Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 61. Staple foods are chucula (plantain drink), cassava (manioc flatbread), chicha (fermented drink made of manioc and plantain), and manioc flour.Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 70. Popular fruits are pineapple, sugarcane, papaya, guayaba, and tree grape. Diets have changed because of colonial influence, and non-Indigenous imported foods have also become staples, including rice, noodles, and chicken,Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 72. and a preference for sugary beverages like guarapo instead of the traditional chicha.
In hunting, Siona people prioritize large animals including ungulates (tapir, peccaries), primates (woolly monkeys, howler monkeys) and large birds (curassow, guans).Vickers, William T. “From Opportunism to Nascent Conservation: The Case of the Siona-Secoya.” Human Nature, 1994, p. 315. Traditional tools include the blow gun, spear and traps, although in recent decades, the shotgun has dominated as an efficient manner of hunting.Vickers, William T. “From Opportunism to Nascent Conservation: The Case of the Siona-Secoya.” Human Nature, 1994, p. 319. Siona people hunt and forage within large territories, consisting of hundreds of square kilometers. Hunting is generally done by the men, although because of modernization, men are hunting less because of an increased reliance on imported foods and external structures of work (and not necessarily because of lack of game).Vickers, William T. “From Opportunism to Nascent Conservation: The Case of the Siona-Secoya.” Human Nature, 1994, p. 330.
Religious practices Worldview The following is a description of the Siona worldview, as compiled through conversations with six Siona elders.Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 115-122. The Siona see the world as divided into five realms, described as looking like cassava griddles, with sequentially smaller sizes. The bottom-most realm is “inside the earth” followed by four “heavens,” the first of which is the earth that is readily perceived. Natural things (trees, clay, animals) are associated with beings and forces in other realms (counterparts), and the realms affect each other interdependently. Other realms and communication with the beings in them can be accessed through yajé ceremonies. These communications and interactions often involve transformations, as there is a fluidity of being between realms (for example, in yajé ceremonies, participants sometimes transform into animals).
Shamanism Shamans serve both as spiritual leaders, and in recent decades, as political leaders as well, becoming known as cacique curacas (“shaman chiefs”).Esther Jean Langdon, “The Revitalization of Yajé Shamanism among the Siona: Strategies of Survival in Historical Context.” Anthropology of Consciousness, 2016, p. 184. The shaman has many duties in Siona life, including administering punishment for poor behavior, facilitating marriages, and distributing food. One of their most significant roles is serving as guides for yajé ceremonies. They are the providers and protectors of their communities.Langdon, Esther Jean. “Cosmopolitics among the Siona: Shamanism, Medicine, and Family on the Putumayo River.” Universidad del Cauca, 2017, p. 107.