The Candoshi is one of the last indigenous tribes who conserve themselves almost intact in the middle of one of the most beautiful forests and less touched by the civilization in the planet. They are close of the Peru-Ecuador border. To arrive there, it is necessary to sail by different rivers approximately 6 days, is necessary to furrow one of the most dangerous rivers of the Peruvian forest, the Pastaza river, is necessary to cross one of the most great and beautiful lakes of Peru, the Rimachi lake, and is necessary to have, in addition to much value, some arms for protection because the Candoshi people has become one of the most violent tribes of the Peruvian forest.
Although by the survival of the tribe they have had to fight continuous battles with near tribes and although the violence of their race it is in their genes - the Jìvaros tribe, famous for to reduce the heads of their enemies, it is come from the same sanguineous trunk - the Candoshi was pacific. The history of its last 90 years is the reason of its violence. According to official information, in the last 10 years, more than 200 "civilized" people have died or disappeared in Candoshi territory and although it exists conversations with the government on the matter, still it exists violent confrontations with "civilized" people who are found fishing, hunting or cutting trees in their territory.
When we speak about the Candoshi, like of any other indigenous tribe or old 
civilization, we must remember that although they do not have the education that "civilized" people have, the antiquity of their culture and their cultural identity anyway confers an education different from ours but it is education. This without touching the most important point: that they are people like us. The few that we have had a permission of their autorities, but mainly, sufficient value to enter its territory, with the simple observation we have been able to notice that the education does not depend exclusively on wonderful advances technological or massive mass media, it is may depend of a millenarian system of moral principles - principles that we took innate each one of us and that have been, in the best one of case distorted them by our individual and collective 
circumstances. When living in the nature they are same nature, of thousand years living in comunión with the forests have taught the importance to them of the balance in the consumption of the resources, have taught to them to cause the regeneration of the consumed thing. To put an example, in the lakes that are within their territory, the Candoshi seeds and raises one of the most exotic fish and on the way to extinction of the amazonian forest, the Paiche. Its growth is so slow and difficult, and its meat so is appraised that they have rationed their fishing to an adult unit by family to the year, (an adult unit gets to measure up to 3 meters).
It is sad but more and more "civilized" people get in the nights at her lakes to fishing their Paiches (in the city it is can get to cost up to us $20 the kilogram). This is one of the reasons of their aggressiveness. They simply defend what it is belongs to them, they defend what will be the sustenance of its family.
Nevertheless, the original reason of their violence is a little older, is a little sadder, is a little more shameful.
Everything began approximately about 50 or 60 years ago, when the first missionaries (catholic, evangelical... that does not important matter) arrived at their territory. The history that has left great scars us, although with slight variations, is even repeated today and as it happened in the past the imposition of a new belief implies the eradication of the previous one and therefore the lost one of cultural identity. Like all the great mechanisms of domination, the change does not happen immediately, the work is systematic. In this case, the main axis consists of the obtaining of the confidence of the community, easy to obtain through the magical mechanisms that we have and that they never have seen. A simple electrical lamp, a mirror, a radius to battery, caramels, our way to dress, our own customs and until our language are wonderful things for them.
Unlike the past in which the salvation speech was tax through the massacre and the extermination - impossible to make in the present time due to international the public opinion (thanks to God for this) - the following step is the disrepute of the old traditions. It was that soon the medic of the Tribe, the one who through the sacred plants or the stars said to the correct time for seedtime, the fishing, for the love or the war, was represented like the representative of the devil, the same demon. Just a short time later, whenever a boy became ill, whenever a old people died, whenever the unpredictable course of the river took a cultive, was the Chaman that was sight with distrust, with rage and anger.
Soon, hated by their own brothers, by their own children, as if they was criminals, hated by people to who they cured, 8 families of chamanes with parents, children and grandsons, preferred a new life in the solitude from the forest to the pain of to see hatred in the eyes of their brothers. As if a masterful plan existed, as if everything had been calculated, the climax of the events, the fact that marked the outcome of history, it happened a day in which one of the missionaries arrived at the tribe with influenza. Just a short time later, 80% of children, old people died - they do not have defenses against ours "civilized" diseases.
One night, left to their luck by who took the death to their forests, fled with the weight in the conscience. One night in which the sadness broke the soul of the tribe, with the alcohol burning their noble hearts, the surviving men, armed with arrows, lances, stones and woods, they exterminated to the 8 families of chamanes. 8 complete families, old people and young people, wimen and man with all their things were massacreed and burned in the dark of the night and with them all the knowledge of thousand of years transmitted of generation to generation.
The tribe was lost of many years - they was confused. The missionaries who knew the truth of the things did not return. There was no the wise person who cured the snakes attacks. The time of sowing, the fishing time, the war time or the peace time, was unknown because nobody could read stars or listen to the sacred plants.
Nobody knows when they understood the mistaken, nobody knows as they discovered the truth, the pain and the confusion showed them the truth of the magical things of "civilized" people and later, as it happens in all conquest, the vultures, the plunderers those who live of the misfortune and the death arrived to take, their fish, their animals, their trees. But the Candoshi tribe, brothers of the jíbaros tribes - the hunters of human heads, brothers of the of the Achuar tribes, the soldiers of the water, they transformed their pain into fury, they painted of black colour their faces and they declared the war to the "civilized" people.
From "Travel´s Chronicles" - 2001- FGP
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At the present time, some special children of the Candoshi tribe, are studding the knowledge of the plants and the stars with Chamans of neighboring tribes.
At the present time, although it exists pacts of peace with the Peruvian government, it is impossible to go into the Candoshi territory without a special permission of their authorities. The police in the Candoshi tribe does not exist, all law it is distributed by the political authority of the community - the Apu. The government, with the help of the international community has signed a treaty for the construction of the first small schools and first aid posts in strategic places like part of the campaign of "civilization" of indigenous communities.
The personages of this history are fiction. All similarity to the reality is pure coincidence.
Felipe.
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