The Tariana or Taliaseri are an indigenous people of the Vaupés or Uaupés River in the Amazon region of Brazil and Colombia. Starting in the 19th century missionaries tried to persuade them to abandon their traditional beliefs and practices, with some level of success. The government made efforts to convert them to a "colony" system in exchange for health, education and economic benefits starting in the 1980s. They are now relatively autonomous within several indigenous territories.
Languages
The Tariana language belongs to the Arawakan linguistic family. The Tariana language, closely related to the Baniwa language, is only spoken by individuals from sibs of low rank. The reason given by the Tariana is that once they settled along the Uaupés the men of most families married Wanano and Tucano women, and their children grew up speaking their mothers' tongues. Almost all Tariana can speak Tucano, the lingua franca of the Uaupés. In 1996 there were no speakers of the Tariana language in Colombia and just 100 in Brazil.
Location
As of 2010 DAI/AMTB reported a population of 1,914 in Brazil and 205 in Colombia. As of 2014 Siasi/Sesai reported that there were 2,684 Tariana in Amazonas. Indigenous territories in Brazil with Tariana populations include the Alto Rio Negro, Médio Rio Negro I, Médio Rio Negro II, Balaio and Cué-Cué/Marabitanas. In Colombia there are Tariana people on the Vaupés River and the lower Papurí River.
The largest numbers of Tariana live along the middle and upper reaches of the Uaupés River. The largest concentration is that of the communities in and around the village of Iauaretê, with an estimated population of about 1,300 Tariana in 2004. These include the old neighborhoods of São Miguel, Don Bosco, Santa Maria and São Pedro in the village, Campo Alto below Iauaretê on the Uaupés, Itaiaçu and Miriti above Iauaretê on the Uaupés, and Japurá, Aracapá and Sabiá on the right bank of the Papurí River near its mouth.
There are communities of Tucano, Arapaso and Pira-Tapuia between this main Tariana concentration and two other concentrations, that of Santa Rosa and Periquito further upstream on the Uaupés, and that of Ipanoré, Urubuquara, Piu-Pinu and Nova Esperança further downstream. There are also unknown numbers of Tariana living in other communities or urban centers of the Rio Negro such as the towns of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Santa Isabel and Barcelos.
Traditions
The Tariana are traditionally patrilineal, exogamous and patrilocal. That is, lineage is traced in the line of the father, they marry women from different ethnic groups, and the wife comes to live in the husband's community. Women of the Tariana may marry men of the Tucano or Piratapuyo groups. There is an inherited status in the social hierarchy, including leaders, specialists in dances and ornaments, shamans and serfs.
The ethnic groups of the Uaupés River accept the Tariana's view of themselves as "bipó diroá masí" (children of the blood of the thunder). Tariana tradition says they originated around the Uapuí waterfall on the upper Aiari River, a tributary of the Içana River from which the upper Uaupés can be reached by land. The mythology describes various places where they halted, and where the hierarchy was established between the ancestors of the different sibs of the exogamic "Tariana ethnicity". Shards of Tariana ceramics found in Jurupari date back 600 years.
History
Early European contacts
Franciscan missionaries on the Uaupés River found large numbers of Tariana in the town of Ipanoré. The upper Rio Negro region was devastated by smallpox in 1740 and then by measles in 1749 and 1763. The Indians of the region were exploited by the regatões (traders), who forced them to work without pay. In the mid-19th century the governor of the newly formed Province of Amazonas initiated a program of "civilization and catechization" of the Indians in the upper Rio Negro valley. A Capuchin baptized 700 Indians and built chapels in 24 villages on the Uaupés and Içana rivers.
Helped by five Tucano and Tariana chiefs the Capuchins established ten settlements on the riverside, and used force and the promise of tools to induce the Indians to move to them and work for the government. Some were taken to work in Manaus, and children were placed in orphanages. In 1857 a military force attacked several Tariana villages. Prophetic movements in the second half of the 19th century promised to liquidate the debts of the people and absolve their sins. Three Franciscan missionaries were expelled by the Tariana in 1883 after they exhibited a mask of Jurupari on the church pulpit, which women were not allowed to see since it was used in male initiation rites.