Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0118/01182.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 39KB | 653 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01182}
$Pretitle{252}
$Title{Ecuador
Chapter 4A.   Ethnic Groups and Languages}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Thomas E. Weil}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{indians
groups
indian
family
social
sierra
group
white
spanish
indigenous}
$Date{1973}
$Log{}
Country:     Ecuador
Book:        Ecuador, A Country Study
Author:      Thomas E. Weil
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1973

Chapter 4A.   Ethnic Groups and Languages

     The population of Ecuador stems largely from two basic elements-the South
American Indian and white, chiefly of Hispanic descent. Some elements of both
remain unmixed, but 500 years of contact between the two have resulted in
physical admixture displayed in varying degrees by many people in the country.
A third racial element, the African Negro, was introduced by the Spaniards
during the sixteenth century and has since mingled to an extent with both
whites and Indians.

     The blurring of racial distinctions has impeded investigation of the
peoples' racial heritage. Estimates of the proportions of the various racial
elements have often been widely disparate and inconclusive. In 1972 the
estimated population of the country was over 6 million. Indians and mestizos
constituted the large majority, each having roughly 40 to 45 percent; followed
by whites, 10 to 15 percent; and Negro or mulattoes, 5 to 10 percent.

     The government does not refer to race in its census, listing instead the
number of Indian-language speakers. This listing has tacit racial implications
but does not account for distinctions between Negroes and whites, both of whom
are Spanish speaking. In addition, there are many Indians for whom Spanish is
the first, if not the exclusive, language.

     Social relations reflect the importance given to certain characteristics,
including physical appearance, costume, language, community membership, and
self-identification, that are associated with any given racial or ethnic
group. Because of racial mixing, physical appearance alone seldom serves as
the major criterion for determining ethnic identity, and language and general
life-style assume greater significance.

     The correlation of race and socially defined ethnic identity seems to
hold true among particularly dark-skinned Negroes, who are felt to constitute
an ethnic group almost entirely on the basis of physical traits. Their
culture, including language and religion, is predominantly Hispanic with
Indian overtones. The other principal ethnic terms in general usage-white,
mestizo, and Indian-have social and cultural meaning and no longer reflect
only biological characteristics (see ch. 5).

     The small group of whites occupies the top of the country's social
hierarchy. They place considerable emphasis on the purity of their Spanish
ancestry, whether or not it can be proven. Below the white elite but merging
with it are mestizos, persons assumed to be of mixed white-Indian descent.
Because of their shared cultural background persons socially defined as white
constitute a single group, although there are differences among them
reflecting regional and class variations, especially between those of Quito
and Guayaquil. They are the dominant group in national society but share many
aspects of culture with mestizos, who, like the whites, speak Spanish,
participate in the national economy, and have similar clothing styles and many
of the same values. Within the white group, the mode is set by those with
evident white racial traits, although there is in fact a wide range of racial
backgrounds. High rank in the socioeconomic structure and an urban European
life-style tend to be more important than ethnic appearance in determining the
boundaries of this group.

     The white elite is concentrated in the cities. In the smaller towns and
rural areas mestizos generally occupy the higher social positions that would
otherwise be held by whites. Although mestizos are assumed to be of mixed
Indian-white heritage, a person of definite Indian background may gradually
become part of the mestizo group by abandoning his distinctively Indian
life-style. He must leave the Indian village, learn Spanish, find wage
employment in a city or town, and thereby make the transition from Indian to
mestizo status.

     The term Indian covers a broad range of cultural variation and social
identity. One authority has counted almost 700 separate Indian groups, many
markedly different. Unlike the Hispanic segments-white, mestizo and, to a
lesser extent, Negro-the mass of Indians do not acknowledge a broad ethnic
unity. Loyalty and identity are focused on a tribal, communal, or regional
group.

     The government has grouped the Indians together for purposes of
legislation and government aid. Its disregard for cultural differences, which
set them apart from the national society and also from one another, has often
thwarted attempts to implement social and economic reforms. Most programs
aimed at effecting change have been directed at the Indian more as a depressed
social segment than as a distinct people with divergent languages and
life-styles.

     The most pronounced differences in Indian cultures are tied to the
country's broad geographic variations. The Indians of the Sierra, the Costa,
and the Oriente each exhibit marked cultural distinctions. Numbering between
1.5 million and 2 million, the Indians of the Andean highlands, the Sierra,
are by far the largest of the three groups. They have had continuous contact
with Hispanic society and have assumed many Hispanic cultural elements as
their own. This assimilation has imposed a degree of similarity but has not
erased the cultural variety exhibited by the numerous Sierra groups. In the
Oriente the cultural contrast between whites and Indians is the most
pronounced. The 80,000 indigenous inhabitants of the jungle region have been
less directly affected by the dominant Hispanic society and retain their
tribal identity. In the Costa 300,000 Indians, including those who have
migrated from the Sierra, are in various stages of assimilation, and only
small, mostly isolated groups retain a more traditional way of life. Their
living conditions are similar to those of the non-Indian subsistence farmers
in the same region.

     The Negro population is noticeably concentrated in the coastal region,
particularly in Esmeraldas Province. They retain few recognizable vestiges of
their African heritage and, generally, they tend to be culturally similar to
other members of the lower social strata. They speak Spanish, profess
Catholicism, and live mainly by subsistence farming and manual labor.

     Spanish is the official national language and is spoken by the great
majority of the people. Many Indians and mestizos who list Spanish as their
first language are bilingual and speak Quechua as well, and there is a large
minority that speaks Quechua either exclusively or as their first language. In
the Oriente, although Spanish is being introduced, the indigenous languages
are still most widely spoken.

The Sierra

     Within the intermontane basins of the Ecuadorian Sierra, relatively
advanced cultures developed in pre-Columbian times. The Monjashuaico ruins in
the province of Azuay are possibly the earliest remains in highland Ecuador
of the first farmers and are dated at around 1000 B.C. Cultural influences
from Colombia and possibly from Central America are more apparent throughout
the Sierra than those from Peru before the Inca period. The Ecuadorian peoples
did not develop the high level of technical competence and political
organization characteristic of their neighbors to the south.

     The Andes provided the indigenous peoples with fertile valleys in which
to farm. Each valley was a relatively well defined and defensible area yet was
not isolated from contacts with other highland valleys and the lowlands. The
various groups developed as similar but separate societies, remaining
independent of each other until the Incas began their conquest shortly afte