Otavalo Quichua

expand_more Description

The Otavalo Quichua are the Quichua-speaking people traditionally settled within the cantons of Otavalo and Cotacachi, Imabura province, Ecuador. An economy based on subsistence agriculture and external trade since prehistory, and on industrial-scale weaving during the colonial period (revived by worldwide wool shortages during World War II) has in recent decades, through the combination of trade and textiles, stimulated a diaspora of Otavalo Quichua to urban areas both within Ecuador and internationally. A fundamentally egalitarian society of small landholders is becoming divided along class lines not only by occupation (i.e. subsistence farmers versus textile producers and merchants) but increasingly according to wealth. Nevertheless, the persistent cultural identity most prominently asserted by the distinctive native costume, is continuously reinforced and renegotiated through a virtually nonstop cycle of festival events ranging from the spiritual to the secular that has a centripetal effect of global reach thanks to modern means of rapid communication and travel.

Identifier

Region

• South America

Subregion

• Central Andes

Subsistence Type

• horticulturalists

Countries

• Ecuador