Inhabitants of Manu National Park

In the Manu National Park there are about 70,000 Quechua speaking inhabitants. They live in 30 rural communities distributed in the whole Cultural Zone, from the high Andean zone adjacent the Province of Paucartambo to the low jungle around Boca Manu.

In the Manu river and Alto Madre de Dios River basins there are also native human groups. The Machiguenga tribe, which is the best known, was reported by Ferrero (1967) to have a total population of 5,000 people, and by Varese (1972) 12,000. Very little is known about the Amahuaca and Yaminahua tribe and their numbers are relatively small. Varese (1972) recorded some 4,000 Amahuaca along the Curanga, Inuya and Sepanua rivers, and 2,000 Yaminahua along the Carija Basin and Piedra Rivers. However, the management plan (La Molina, 1986) suggests that only 300-500 natives of different tribes live in the park.
So far, the park authorities got in touch just with Machiguengas and Yoras. Some of these people live a slow process of westernization and are approaching modern society, education and communication. The other tribes like Mashco Piros have not come into contact with civilization. The natives are part of the Park's natural balance and are allowed to continue their activities like fishing and hunting, as long as they do not endanger this balance.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

The forest Indians are nomadic. They have a very peculiar way of life possibly established millennia ago, with ancestral customs and beliefs. They live in wooden houses with palm tree leaf roofs. They weave cotton and make pottery. They hunt with arrows, spears, blowguns and stone axes along river banks and lakes and inside the forest and they fish and collect turtle eggs (Jungius, 1976). They cultivate goods such as manihot, uncucha, maize, papaya, pineapple and banana. Shifting cultivation is the basic agricultural practice. In this system, a patch of primary forest or an abandoned field is cleared, burned and used for one to three years for cultivation. The field is then abandoned for at least five years for the soil to recover and a new one is opened up. As it is easier to clear secondary growth on abandoned fields than to clear the primary forest, the Indians prefer to re-use old fields.