Yuqui - Settlements

The Yuqui were true foragers and as such moved frequently over a large home range. According to their own accounts, prior to contact individual bands of thirty to fifty individuals hunted and gathered on a continual basis. The Yuqui commonly moved their camps daily. If a particular resource were present in abundance, a campsite was used for a maximum of three to five days. Both the need to exploit forest resources and a fear of attack by Bolivian woodsmen kept the group moving constantly. Since the Yuqui built no structures, their camp consisted of a tight circle of fiber hammocks strung to available trees. In order to reduce the dispersement of the group, the Yuqui frequently tied their hammocks in tiers up a single pair of trees. Nuclear families had separate cooking fires. Men kept their bows and arrows at arm's length in bundles stacked against trees. Each hammock was occupied by a man, woman, and their youngest child if still an infant. In times of cold or rain, the Yuqui broke off palm fronds to form a crude tipi as a cover for the hammock. By the mid-twentieth century, it is likely that Yuqui bands had been reduced to only four or five in number, their existence known mostly as a result of colonist sightings. Three of these bands are now permanently settled at the mission station on the Río Chimore. Since there have been no new sightings of forest Yuqui for several years now, it may be assumed that the remainder succumbed to disease or attack.