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Amazonas is a region in northern Peru. It is bordered by Ecuador on the north and west, the Cajamarca Region on the west, the La Libertad Region on the south and the Loreto and San Martín regions on the east. Its capital is the city of Chachapoyas.

Geography

**Valle del Marañón** (Marañón Valley) between Chachapoyas and Celendin, Peru

The Amazonas department consists of regions covered by rainforests and mountain ranges. The rainforest zone predominates (72.93%) and it extends to the north over its oriental slope, up to the border with Ecuador in the summits of the Cordillera del Cóndor. The mountain range zone is located in the southern provinces of the Amazonas department and it only includes 27.07% of its whole territorial surface.

One of the factors that help to give big importance to its geography is not only that the big valleys and plains of its rainforest zone are the closest to the Pacific Ocean, but also its connections with the routes of the coast are the lowest. This is because they use the Paso de Porculla (the mountain pass of Porculla) that is located at 2,144 m. This is the lowest pass of the whole Peruvian Andes to arrive to the Pan-American road system.

The vast and deep valle del Marañón (Marañon's valley), which constitutes one of the most important morphologic features of the department.

The valle del Marañón crosses a big part of its territory and expands itself from south to north. It reaches its biggest largeness in the zone of Bagua. It narrows when it crosses the Cordillera Oriental (the Oriental mountain range) in its most violent route towards the east, towards the lowest part of the Amazon. It crosses those wonderful natural porches called pongos, Quechua word that means doors.

The valle del Utcubamba (Utcubamba's valley), which is the real axis of the Amazonas department, is located between 5º and 6º of south latitude and 78º and 79º of west longitude. It is longitudinally developed up to the Marañon river, in which it flowed at 400 m.

This zone is the principal center of production and human groups location. It is developed in four very pronounced sectors:

Vertiente del Marañon (Marañon's spring), that has important quebradas (Seca, Bocana, Copallín Nuevo and Choloque).
Valle Medio (the middle valley) that has eleven quebradas in its both borders.
Valle Alto (the high valley) that has seven quebradas. The most important one is Magunchal.
Planicie de Bagua (the Bagua's plain), wavy and picturesque, that is located at 550 m. In some places, it mounts up to 900 m., for example in the inhabited point called La Peca.

The principal tributaries of the Utcubamba are the Chiriaco, the Nieva, the Santiago (that is born in Ecuador) and the Cenepa, that is born in the north zone of the Cordillera del Cóndor. The Cenepa River receives in its trip numerous tributaries like the Comaina. It flowed in the Marañon river, located near Orellana (province of Condorcanqui).

Olmos-Marañon Route

The **aguarunas** in the Amazonas department, Perú.

The Olmos-Marañon highway, also called Transcontinental road, tries to join the marine zone of the Pacific coast with a navigable point of the Marañon river – the Sarameriza. This place is located further down the pongo de Manseriche. From this place, it is possible to carry out the navigation for major tonnage boats until they reach the Amazon River and the Atlantic coast.

This highway has an indisputable importance not only from a strategic point of view but also for being a fully commercial penetration route.

After many years of studies, this route was chosen. It was proved that this route really was the shortest and it also used the Paso de Porculla, which is the lowest of the Andes.

The most considerable landscape is constituted by the important Cordillera del Cóndor. It is located at the North-East of the Amazonas department and its heights are up to 1 500 m. The Cordillera del Cóndor serves as a natural and legal boundary, according to the Rio de Janeiro protocol signed with the Republic of Ecuador in 1942. Up to this moment, Ecuador refused systematically to place the corresponding milestones ordered by the guarantors countries of the protocol.

All this extensive north area, from the left side margin of the Marañon River, virtually represents a big gap because there aren't any highways of access. Rivers are the only means of transport for tribes like the aguarunas and the huambisas.

The Cordillera del Cóndor is located in the district of El Cenepa, in the province of Condorcanqui. It covers a southeast - northeast direction, extending itself towards the south with the branches of Cenepa, Shamatak, Sierra Gallinera and Paku-Yaku.

The importance of the northern territories of the Amazonas department is not only because it's strategic but also because noteworthy auriferous and petroleum possibilities have been detected in this zone.

Some other important places inside this route are:

Paso de Porculla
The Natural Porches
Pongo de Manseriche: "The one who frightens"

Route to Huallaga Central: The plain of Bagua

The Utcubamba valley, that is born in the high jalcas of Chachapoyas and that runs from southeast to northwest to mix with the waters of the Marañón river, forms the immense plain of Bagua. This plain has a of warm climate, which temperature can reach a maximum of 40ºC, being the minimum one 21ºC.

Like in the whole high jungle region of Peru –head of mountain-, its water regimen is irregular and sometimes without rains.

Some of the important places inside this route are:

The Aguarunas

Their real origin of the is Aguaruna people is still a mystery. In accordance with the racial characteristics of the majority, some anthropologists suppose that they went down the Andes centuries ago and adapted themselves to the geographical conditions of the region. Others believe that they are emigrants of Central America who came either by the coast or through rivers. They established themselves in a zone much wider than the one they occupy now. Apparently this zone also included the actual Jaén. It is also said that they had the influence of cultural groups that were immigrant from the islands of Melanesia.

They always had the reputation of being brave warriors, standing out for their skills in war. Physically there are differences between the aguarunas and other inhabitants from the Peruvian rainforest. Their average height is taller – especially between men – and their physical constitution denotes strength.

The Aguarunas handle a traditional ideological and material culture, and they communicate each other in their own language. For this reason, there is a book called the Vocabulario aguaruna del Amazonas (Aguaruna's Vocabulary of the Amazon) written by Mildred L. Larson and published by SIL International in 1966. The Aguarunas are located in the geographical area of the Marañón river, that is to say on the banks of the Marañón river and of its tributaries, the rivers Santiago, Nieva, Cenepa, Numpatakay and Chiriaco.

The Aguarunas' families, either monogamous or polygamous, are placed in dispersed form, grouped in extensive families or forming major magnitude towns.

Examples of the last case constitute the towns of Yutupiza on the Santiago river and Japaime on the Nieva.

In the cases in which exist a pattern of nucleate population, these towns, called in their native language yáakat, are not provided with streets, neither footpaths, nor squares, being constituted by housings of traditional construction. These houses are distributed in a kind of asymmetric form and the tendency is usually to be placed in a linear form along the river.

Another typical aspect of the Aguarunas consists in the fact that they have traditionally worked as a seminomadic population, due to the poverty of the agricultural soil and the extremely elementary agrarian traditional technology, which brings as a consequence the depletion of the ground in a short period of two or three years.

Inside their major hunting activities, the native obtain pieces of sajino, huangana, Brazilian Tapir (sachavaca), Little Red Brocket, ocelot and otorongo (jaguar). As minor hunting, they obtain majaz, ronsoco, achuni, añuje, carachupa, otter, diverse classes of monkeys and other animals. They also hunt birds.

Traditionally they used a spear perfected with pijuayo (palm tree of very hard wood) and the blowpipe for hunting. At present the spear has been almost completely displaced by the shotgun of pellets but they keep on using the blowpipe.

From the hunting pieces, they use the meat, the leather, the skins, the feathers, the teeth and the bones. That is to say, with a double purpose: nutritive and, also, handmade, medicinal and a witchcraft purpose.

They gather wild fruits of some palm trees, like the uvilla and some shrubs. Also buds of palm trees, stems, barks and resins. They extract the leche caspi and gather the honey of wild bees, eatable worms (suris) and coleopterous. Finally, medicinal plants and lianas. They use everything gathered in feeding, in some crafts, in traditional medicine, in witchcraft and as fuel, inside an ancestral pattern of self-sufficiency.

As agricultural instruments, they use the traditional tacarpo (stick with sharp top, made of wood from the palm tree called pijuayo); together with the axe, the machete and the shovel.

The principal crafts are masculine activities like the ropemaking, the basketry, the construction of canoes, the textile; feminine activities like the ceramics and the making of necklaces made of seeds, of insects' small wings and beads. The males make crowns of exquisite feathers as well as cotton ribbons in whose ends they places feathers and human hair. These adornments are kept in cartridges of bamboo.

Between the Aguarunas, there is the traditional institution of mutual help known in their language as ipáámu, which works principally in the construction of young couples' housing, in the cleanliness of the small farms and, with less frequency, in sowing the yuca and peanut.

The Jíbaros

It is impossible to speak about the Peruvian rainforest and its different tribes, without mentioning the one that most attracts the civilized world's attention by its peculiarity of reducing their victims' heads, the tribe of the Jíbaros. Most of them do not practise this ancient custom anymore. But even now, it is still said that there are people who practise it, in the deepest part of the north, impenetrable rainforest.

The Jíbaros split themselves into several different tribes who are declared enemies between them who, although they fear each other, do not waste the opportunity to destroyed themselves with such a big cruelty.

An innate quality of the Jíbaros is that of hiding from the other tribes and also hiding their movements to try to cheat the others. For this reason people affirm that Jíbaros rarely pass two times by the same place.

In their appearance, Jíbaros do not differ much from the other natives, although they don't have many tattos and they are not lovers of the adornments that characterize the other tribes. The adornment they use the most is the toucan's feather, which is a demonstration of their ability in the use of the blowpipe, since it is very difficult to hunt this class of birds.

Another typical occupation of the Jíbaros is the textile. Although women are the ones who spin, men are the ones who weave the clothes they use as garments.

But what distinguished them from the other tribes was their hobby to cut their enemies' heads and make them extraordinarily tiny, by means of a procedure that has been investigated by specialists.

Today such practice is almost extinguished. With the exception of the tribes of the aucas. They think it is a pride to have the biggest number of tiny heads, which they usually wear like necklaces in their holidays.

History

The archaeological centers lost in the rainforest emerge as a testimony of presence of humans in the area since remote times. Most of the Pre-Hispanic cultures that became prosperous in the area are still a mystery due to the lack of research. The Kuélap's Fortress is the most representative monument of this age. It is a huge construction of military architecture which shows the high level of civilization achieved by the people of this region. The Chachapoyas culture developed during the Inca age and represented a strong opposition to the conquest by repealing the first Inca attempts to incorporate region to their empire.

The region's capital, Chachapoyas, was founded in 1538 by Alonso de Alvarado. During the same year, its first church was built and later, the Santa Ana, San Lázaro and Señor de Burgos churches were built. In April 1821, the city's inhabitants expelled the Spaniards and ignored their authority, following the steps taken by the San Martín liberating army.

The area of the Amazonas Region was strongly linked to the independence thoughts and actions. The cleric Toribio Rodríguez de Mendoza was its most outstanding representative, encouraging the patriots of this era and signing the National Act of Independence.

The Cordillera del Condor, located in this region, was the scenery of the war between Peru and Ecuador in 1981.

The Conquest

The natives of the region received in a jubilant and cordial way to the first Spanish who came into Amazonas. They knew about their arrival in Peru by the news that they had received from Cajamarca.

In this city it had been said to Francisco Pizarro that Chachapoyas was an excellent agricultural region which settlers possessed a lot of gold and silver. The big conqueror did not lose time and formed immediately an expedition of 20 men, putting the distinguished captain Alonso de Alvarado in charge of it, with an express indication: founding a Christian city.

The chroniclers say that, when the Spanish arrived to the region, the Chachapoyas people did big parties in their honor and they gave them many wealths willingly, also numerous samples of appreciation, including showing some interest to become Christians.

Pizarro decided to send a second expedition, this time with instructions to take possession of the zone, delivering Alvarado a provision so he would be able to found the city of San Juan de la Frontera de los Chachapoyas.

But this time Pizarro's envoy met the bellicose resistance of a curaca called Huamán, whom they had to defeat before coming to their destination, where they founded the mentioned city on September 5, 1538.

Alvarado had chosen a place called Jalca, which apparently did not have the demanded conditions. This was the reason why the location of the flaming city was changed several times.

According to the papers of the epoch, the last time that a change was made was in 1544, but it is unknown when the city was established in its current place.

The same day of Chachapoyas' foundation, the members of the first cabildo were elected, turning out to be designated the councillors Gómez de Alvarado, Alonso de Chávez, Gonzalo de Trujillo, Gonzalo de Guzmán, Luis Valera (father of the chronicler Blas Valera), Pedro Romero, Bernardino de Anaya and Francisco de Fuentes.

According to the Spanish custom, the distribution of the city was made by means of rectilinear design streets.

The Colony

A few years after its foundation, the prosperity of the region began to demonstrate itself in magnificent constructions in the city of Chachapoyas, with big courts, wide lounges and architectural characteristics adapted to the zone.

The colonial aspect of Chachapoyas stays almost intact until now, and it is one of the most attractive characteristics of this old city.

A refined religious feeling was one of the characteristics that distinguished the settlers of this department during the colony. In the same year of the foundation of Chachapoyas, the first church was built. Its first priest was Hernando Gutiérrez Palacios. Later the churches of Santa Ana, San Lázaro and Señor de Burgos were built.

Three religious convents were also established: San Francisco, La Merced and that of the betlehemitas. The majority of the persons who settled in Chachapoyas from the time of its foundation were people with nobility, but poor. They were living in a modest and worthily way and they devoted themselves to agriculture and mining. Many settlers achieved a loose economic position, keeping, nevertheless, the austerity of the customs that was one of the highlight points of Chachapoyas' social life.

With time the settlers were spreading to other zones of the region, such as Luya, city that was established in 1569 by the governor Lope García de Castro, ratified later in its administrative organization by the viceroy Francisco de Toledo.

There it bloomed an agriculture of varied production and the upbringing of dairy, sheep and equine cattle.

In one of his pastoral visits, Saint Toribio de Mogrovejo visited the principal populations of this department in this epoch.

The Independence

In an active and enthusiastic way, the inhabitants of Chachapoyas incorporated themselves to the cause of freedom. In April 1821, helping the action of San Martin's liberating army, they ignored the Spanish authorities, exiling the subdelegate Francisco Baquedano and the bishop of Maynas Hipólito Sánchez, who were fighting openly against the independence.

Between the patriots that were born in Amazonas, history remembers:

Facing this act of rebellion, the military chief of Moyobamba, colonel José Matos, organized an army of 600 men, who met the patriots on June 6, 1821 in Higos Urco pampa.

The organization and discipline of the Spanish could not do anything in front of the heroism of the patriots who without training, military knowledge or discipline, faced the realistas determined to give their lives in defense of the proclaimed freedom.

The woman from Amazonas is represented in this battle by Matea Rimachi that has gone on to posterity as the heroine of Higos Urco.

Between the important men that Amazonas gave to Peru in this decisive epoch for nationality, figures Toribio Rodríguez de Mendoza, the professor, politician, philosopher and jurist who formed a generation of patriots.

Rodríguez of Mendoza signed the record of national independence in Lima. He was the rector of the Convictorio de San Carlos, member of the Sociedad Amantes del País (Lovers of the Country Society), founder and collaborator of the newspaper Mercurio Peruano, deputy of the Spanish Parliament and congressman of the first Constituent Congress, in which the majority of its members were his disciples.

The Republic

The department of Amazonas was created by a law issued by the government of the marshal Agustín Gamarra, promulgated on November 21, 1832. The initiative belonged to two illustrious children of Chachapoyas: Modesto de la Vega and José Braulio de Camporredondo. Camporredondo was in charge of the presidency of the republic, in absence of the marshall Gamarra.

The same law was containing a series of norms to promote the economic development of the new department including exonerations of rights in its commerce with Ecuador or Brazil. In accordance with this law, the regions of Pataz, Chachapoyas and Maynas will stay inside the limits of the Amazonas Region.

Salaverry tried to annul uselessly the creation of this department that, later, according to diverse demarcating dispositions was diminishing in its area. Most of its territory was dismembered in 1866, when the department of Loreto was created.

The creation of its current provinces was realized in the following dates:

On February 12, 1821, Chachapoyas.
On February 5, 1861, Luya.
On December 26, 1870, Bongará.
On October 31, 1932, Rodríguez de Mendoza.
On September 1, 1941, Bagua.
On May 18, 1984, Condorcanqui.
On May 30, 1984, Utcubamba.

The colonial splendour of Chachapoyas, almost a complete city, was disappearing during the Republic because it had been imposed in the country new means of transport that were turning it in a cloistered and outlying city from the rest of the country.

Chachapoyas remained this way during more than one century in the Republic. Without highways of access, the route had to be done on horse, in long and painful caravans from the coast, or by the rivers from the region of the east. Such situation continue until 1960, date in which the highway arrived to Chachapoyas, although it had been already preceded by air transport.

Later, during the last government of the doctor Manuel Prado, there was constructed and inaugurated the highway that joins Chachapoyas with the big route of penetration Olmos-Marañon. With this, Amazonas was put in direct communication with Lima and the rest of the Republic.

Political division

The region is divided into 7 provinces (provincias, singular: provincia), which are composed of 83 districts (distritos, singular: distrito). Its capital is the Province of Chachapoyas.

Provinces

The provinces and their capitals are:

PROVINCE	CAPITAL	DISTRICT
Bagua	Bagua	5
Bongará	Jumbilla	12
Chachapoyas	Chachapoyas	21
Condorcanqui	Sta. María de Nieva	3
Luya	Lamud	23
Rodríguez de Mendoza	Mendoza	12
Utcubamba	Bagua Grande	7

The Amazonas' Ancestors

The department of Amazonas possesses a great past that is still precariously evaluated and spread. On its borders, there are fabulous archaeological testimonies like Cuélap, the most extensive monument of the Peruvian ancestral past. Cuélap was the main city of the Chachapoyas in the times of their cultural climax.

The Chachapoyas

When the Spanish arrived in Peru in the 16th century, the Chachapoyas were one of the many nations that were part of the Inca Empire". Their incorporation to the Inca Empire had not been easy, due to the sprouts of resistance that the chachapoyas offered repeatedly to the Inca's troops.

The chronicler Pedro Cieza de León offers some picturesque notes about the chachapoyas:

"They are the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen in Indies, and their wives were so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserved to be the Incas' wives and to also be taken to the Sun Temple (...) The women and their husbands always dressed in woolen clothes and in their heads they wear their llautos, which are a sign they wear to be known everywhere."

Cieza adds that, after their annexation to the Inca Empire, they adopted the customs imposed by the people from the department of Cuzco.

The meaning of the word chachapoyas is unknown. If it is a Quechua voice, perhaps it might come from sacha-p-collas, that could be the equivalent of "colla people who live in the woods" (sacha = wild p = of the colla = nation in which aimara is spoken).

The Chachapoyas' territory was very extensive. It included the triangular space that is shaped by the confluence of the Marañón River and Utcubamba River in the zone of Bagua, up to the basin of the Abiseo river. In this place are the chachapoyas' ruins of Pajatén. This territory included even more to the south, up to the Chontayacu river. In this way it exceeded, in a southern direction, the limits of the current department of Amazonas. But the center of the Chachapoyas culture was the basin of the Utcubamba river.

Not only the defined architectural style known as chachapoyas testify the above mentioned, but also the historical news. For this reason, Garcilazo de la Vega records that the chachapoyas' territory was so extensive that,

"We could easily call it a kingdom because it has more than fifty leagues long per twenty leagues wide, without counting the way up to Muyupampa, thirty leagues long more (...)"

(The league was a measurement that covered about 5 kilometers.)

The area of the Chachapoyas corresponds to a region that, being part of a mountain range because of its land, was characterized for being covered by dense tropical woods. Talking in general terms, it was named as Amazonian Andes, in replacement of the old and vague word "mountain region".

As fast as the population was growing, the forests of the Amazonian Andes were felled in order to extend the agrarian border. This act caused that the tropical scenery was diminishing and instead, a place marked by its dryness was outcropping, due to the soil erosion that supervenes when these soils remain unprotected from its ancient green mantle. Nowadays, the Amazonian Andes resemble the barren scenery of the Andean moorlands.

The Amazonian Andes are constituted by the oriental flank of the Andes, covered originally by a dense Amazon vegetation. It spread from the cordillera spurs until reaching surprising altitudes where the forests have not been felled, in certain cases exceeding the 3 500 m.

Culturally focused, the Amazonian Andes only included between 2 and 3 thousand meters of altitude. This means that they are limited to the altitude occupied by the Chachapoyas. This is certified by the location of their numerous architectural remains.

Times previous to the Inca Empire

The Amazonas Region has a millennial history. There are some testimonies exhibited on rocky walls dated from the most remote times. Such is the case of the rock paintings of Chiñuña-Yamón and Limones-Calpón in the province of Utcubamba. A part of these haughty pictorial samples was made by people that had a hunting economy. These people perhaps left their trace 6 or 7 thousand years ago. At the times in which the formation of Peruvian civilization was consolidated, it appeared a type of ceramics mainly identified in Bagua.

From the Chachapoyas culture, there are innumerable architectural remains, such as Cuélap, Congón (place that was re-baptized by the name of Vilaya), Olán, Purunllacta (place that was re-baptized by the name of Monte Peruvia), Pajatén, etc. All these expressions of architecture show a model that allows to identify them like if they are related to each other. What has not been established yet is the age of these architectural remains, neither which one would be the most ancient and which one the last in the cultural development of the chachapoyas.

Main cultural testimonies

File:Kuelapruins2.jpg.jpg

Remains of ancient buildings in Kuelap.

Some of the archaeological testimonies that talk about the cultural splendour reached by the Chachapoyas in pre-Inca times are fantastic. These principally refer to two forms of grave and one wall painting.

These are some of the most important cultural testimonies that are found in the Amazonas Region:

Folklore

The folklore of Amazonas is not as varied as in other departments of Peru.

The profusion of dances, songs and clothing is not seen in here, like in Puno or Cuzco. Its folklore is nourished from legends and stories in which mystery and inexplicable things are always present. Towns, lagoons, hills, religious images, always have an origin that violates in an invariable way the rules of logic or biology.

For example, if you ask people about the lagoon of Cochaconga, they will say that it is enchanted. They say it has the "form of a neck" and that with the smallest noise provoked by an animal or the scream of a person, there will be a tremendous thunderstorm in which an enormous monster will appear in the shape of cow. This monster will become mad with the strangers. That's why, whoever passes by this remote place, does it with maximum precautions for not altering the local silence.

To give accommodation to travelers is an elementary norm of good behaviour with people. To deny it can provoke the most tremendous evil on the selfish person. An irrefutable evidence is the marsh of Mono Muerto (Dead Monkey's marsh), in the district of Huambo (Rodríguez de Mendoza). A dramatic story that people tell, with more or less details, but with the same respect.

A very rich man was living in his house. The marsh was a part of his estate, in which he was happy and lacking of nothing, until the day a traveler asked him for home and he denied it to him. A witch doctor of the surroundings, who found out about the attitude of the wealthy neighbor, entrusted that all the curses fell on him. All his goods disappeared and his grounds became a stinking marsh.

Mysterious power are also assumed to the four lagoons of Puquio, in which there are monsters that influence the crops, as well as to the lagoon of Santa Barbara, which disappears before the view of the walkers and it is destined to initiate the end of the world with the overflow of its waters.

Next to the city of Chachapoyas there is a hill called Piscohuañuna, in the way towards the forest. This name means "where birds die", because the mountain kills all the birds that approach it.

People attribute pernicious influences to certain animals like the mochuelo that "freezes the soul", or "quien-quien", that makes fun of the travelers in the roads; or the cricket, which singing in certain circumstances, like when it has sound of bells, presages big evil.

People have big respect to the antique remains. They firmly believe that there will be terrifying punishments for those who violate the graves of the "agüelos" (mummies).

Most of the population of the department of Amazonas is indigenous and mestizo, being notable the people' quantity, in some cases entire communities, in which the Spanish type predominates. Since the time of the Incas, there are legends about the existence of white people in these places. There are also versions gathered by chroniclers in which they assure that women were chosen here for the Inca, precisely because they were white.

Dances

Some of the dances most representative of the Department of Amazonas are:

The Chumaichada
Huanca (dance)
The Danzantes de Levanto (Levanto's Dancers)
Carnaval en Amazonas (Carnival in Amazonas)

Religious festivities

Religiousness is an outstanding note in the most of these towns and they demonstrate it through the enthusiasm and withdrawal that they put into these celebrations. But, faithful to their tradition, their religious believes are mixed with fantastic apparitions and there is almost always a cave in them.

There are three Virgins who are famous:

Virgen de Belén (Virgin of Bethlehem) in Chachapoyas.
Virgen de Sonche (Virgin of Sonche)
Virgen de Levanto (Virgin of Levanto)

Well, there is no one who does not believe the story that said that the three Virgins were found in a cave to which a young shepherd was mysteriously attracted. And when the Virgin of Levanto goes to Chachapoyas "her sisters" go to the outer parts of the town for "receiving her".

The venerated image of Santa Lucía (Saint Lucy) was also found by a girl in a cave. Cristo de Bagazán (Christ of Bagazán), who is venerated in Rioja, was also found by a stockbreeder who was looking for a lost ox. Near Almirante, he heard a voice that was calling him by his name from the interior of a cave, in which he found a Christ image that told him: "take me".

In days of long drought, Cristo de la Contradicción (the Christ of Contradiction) disappears from the chapel of the cemetery of Chachapoyas and he is "discovered" when it begins to rain, beginning then big celebrations up to the time of taking him to his place again.

Corpus Christi, Holy Week, the Assumption, Dia de los Difuntos (Day of the death), and Christmas are classic dates in the calendar of this department. In Christmas Days there are groups of little shepherds that walk around the streets singing and dancing in front of the cribs. With the same splendour, the patronal feasts are celebrated in all the towns.

One of the most well-known and traditional celebrations is known as:

Los pastorcillos de Navidad (Christmas's little shepherds)

Typical dishes

Some of the most well-known and delicious typical dishes of this region are the following:

Tamalitos
Cazuela
Carne arrollada (rolled beef)
Purtumute
Humitas de choclo (sweet tamale made of corn)
Chipasmute
Plátanos rellenos (stuffed bananas)

Economy

Rice is the most important cultivation in this region.

This department includes inter-Andean and forest regions. It has a strong forestal and hydro energetics potential. The province of Bagua, because of geographical factors, has an incipient development based on cultivations like rice, coffee, cacao, fruit trees and livestock.

The department of Amazonas presents three well-defined geographical fields:

The district of El Cenepa (province of Condorcanqui) that has a climate of humid tropical forest
The province of Bagua, which has a climate of dry tropical forest; and
The other provinces with a typical formation of very humid low mountainous forest, humid subtropical forest and dry low mountainous forest.

The provinces of Bongará, Luya and Chachapoyas present a very hilly geographical configuration, that gives them mountain range characteristics.

Amazonas has an eminently agrarian economy. In its extensive territory, it concentrates valuable natural resources: agricultural, mining and energy.

The department has excellent and favorable conditions in both: climate and pastures availability for the agricultural-livestock development.

The information about structure of the agricultural surface, size of the agricultural units, main cultivations and cattle population is taken from what was recorded in the III National Agricultural Census 1994 (III CENAGRO), made by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática (INEI) (National Institute of Statistics and Informatics).

The department of Amazonas has 48,173 agricultural units (UA) with 981,175 ha. 99.9% of the UA have lands and 0.1% do not have them. This 0.1% are exclusively dedicated to the breeding of animals.

Structure of the Agricultural Surface

AGRICULTURAL STRUCTURE	SURFACE (ha)^*
a. Total	975,034
b. Agricultural surface	159,934
- Farming lands	71,595
- Permanent cultivations	69,579
- Associate cultivations	18,760
c. Non agricultural surface	815,100
- Natural grasslands	212,371
- Scrublands and forests	538,032
- Other types of lands	64,697

^* It only considers the surface of the agricultural units that have worked lands.

From the total of agricultural lands (975,034 ha), only 16,4% includes the agricultural area and 83,6% includes the non-agricultural area.

Size of the Agricultural units and principal cultivations

MAIN VARIABLES	AGRICULTURAL UNIT^*	SURFACE (ha)
a. Main transitory cultivations	34,363	69,794
- Rice	4,294	12,942
- Dry yellow maize	9,634	12,508
- Yucca	11,186	10,896
- Banana	8,058	8,448
- Sugarcane for producing alcohol	5,702	4,156
- Soft corn	3,376	4,112
b. Main permanent cultivations	18,610	29,865
- Coffee	12,232	19,819
- Cacao	2,282	3,121
- (soft) Sharp lemon	351	409
- Coca	290	254
- Aguaje	235	253

^* It only considers the surface of the agricultural units that have worked lands.

Agricultural units with 50,0 and more ha only represent 4.4% of the whole department, but concentrate 61.8% of the agricultural surface.

Rice is the main transitory cultivation of the department. It brings together 18.5% of the agricultural surface with transitory cultivations (12,942 ha). Dry yellow maize with 12,508 ha (17.9%) is the second important one.

Coffee concentrates 66.4% of the agricultural surface with permanent cultivations (19,819 ha), followed by the cacao with 3,121 ha (10,5%).

Livestock population according to its Species

LIVESTOCK SPECIES	AGRICULTURAL UNIT	QUANTITY OF ANIMALS
Cattle	21,857	139,267
Sheep	5,476	27,180
Pigs	14,573	34,421
South American Camelids (alpaca, llama and guanaco)	29	282

Cattle is the most important one in the department. It is raised in 21,857 AU (Agricultural units) with a population of 139,267 head of cattle. Pigs are the second one with 34,421 head, distributed in 14,573 AU.

Climate, Rates and Distance information

Weather	Warm, with very well defined rainy and dry seasons.
Temperature	Annual average 14.5° C
Road network	1,600 km
Illiteracy rate	20%
Child mortality rate	52 per thousand
Distances	From Chachapoyas to Lima 1,191 km From Chachapoyas to Moyobamba 193 km From Chachapoyas to Cajamarca 335 km

Culture

Institutions that are linked with the Amazon Region

There are several institutions that are linked with the Amazon region in Peru and that help with the development of it. Between the principal institutions, we have:

Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva (AIDESEP) - Interethnic Association for the Rainforest Development
Centro Amazónico de Antropología y Aplicación Práctica (CAAAP) - Amazon Center of Anthropology and Practical Application
Instituto Lingüístico de Verano - Linguistic Summer Institute

Important Figures

The department of Amazonas has been the cradle of important figures, whose life and works have reverberated in the National history of Peru. Some of these famous people are:

External links

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