Kayamas Shuar Community

Kayamas, a small Shuar community of 55 inhabitants. Located in the parish of Bomboiza, 15 minutes south of the canton of Gualaquiza, Morona Santiago. To boost its social and economic development, this town has also opted for community tourism, like other towns in eastern Ecuador.

In order to promote their culture, the Shuar ethnic group resorts, in addition to gastronomy, music and dance, to the realization of the clean shamanic. In Kayamás this offer exists, which consists of a way to recover the health, by means of own rituals of the Amazonia. They aim to balance the body's energies. For the Kayamás Shuar it is about cleaning the bad energies, getting in touch with Mother Nature and discharging the electromagnetism of the technologies of the modern world. The shamanic cleanings eliminate negative thoughts, balance the body with the mind and spirit, achieving the well-being of the person.

The Shuar are also the people of the sacred waterfalls. Kayamas is not the exception. He treasures his Arutam waterfall. There the ancestral rite of initiation, consecration, transmission of power and lineage is carried out. The waterfall allows the encounter with the Father Giver of the life and with the individuality of the person. The means are the power plants and the sacred tobacco. The grandparents give a spiritual name, awaken consciousness, purify the being and restore health.

Another tourist activity of Kayamas, which promotes and spreads the Shuar culture, are the handicrafts. Its inhabitants make changuinas, a traditional basket used mainly for transporting food, made from vegetable fibers provided by the jungle. Necklaces for men and women made from seeds are in great demand by tourists. Authentic vegetable jewels, woven with mullets.

Kayamas was created in the late 1970s by 12 people who wanted a better education for their children. The community was legalized in the Federation of Shuar Centers of Sucua. The community tourism would have emerged with the very creation of the community, getting stronger in the last years.