Canelo

▪ people

      South American Indian people that traditionally lived along the upper Pastaza, Bobonaza, and Napo rivers on the eastern slopes of the Ecuadorian Andes. The original language and culture of the Canelo are poorly documented, because the Canelo were among the first Amazonian Indians to embrace Christianity. When they were first settled in a Dominican mission in 1581, the Canelo gave up their native language for Quechua, the Indian language familiar to the missionaries, and dropped many of their old ways in favour of the customs of the Spanish.

      Traditionally, the Canelo were slash-and-burn farmers who grew sweet cassava, corn (maize), and beans. In post-Columbian times, they began growing bananas and plantains for their own consumption and cultivating bitter cassava, which they processed into farinha and traded with the Spanish. The Canelo fished with spears, harpoons, and fishnets made of cotton and palm fibre; and they hunted birds, monkeys, and small mammals with blowguns, spears, nets, traps, and poison.

      In the early 21st century, the majority of Canelo were assimilated into the mestizo farming population of the Andes.

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