Hands Around the World

Indian Cultures from Around the World

Huitoto Indians

The Huitoto (we-toe-toe), also spelled Witoto, Indians live deep in the Peruvian Amazon along the Ampiyacu River which is a tributary of the Amazon. Historically enemies with the Bora (Bore-uh) Indians, they have in recent times become close allies with adjoining villages and frequent intermarriage. They are artistically talented tribes, making masks, dolls, rattles, and blowguns. Many of their crafts are made of bark cloth decorated with vegetable dyes. The bark cloth is made of the inner bark of a fig tree and is beaten until it is paper or cloth like. From the bark cloth they make their clothing which consists of a short skirt for both men and women in the Huitoto. The Huitoto women traditionally go bare breasted. Many now wear Western clothing, using the traditional dress for ceremony only. The Bora tribe dresses similarly, but the women wear a dress of bark cloth as opposed to just a skirt. Both sexes in both tribes wear necklaces, feathers and sometimes white body paint or red body paint made of onoto or urucu which is a pod that crushes to a reddish paste.

For some pictures, click on the blue-bordered thumbnail for a full-size picture,

then click the top-left BACK button to return.

Photos property of Hands Around the World.