The Cariachil People

More than 250 years ago, there existed the Chimila, pre-Columbian ethnic group associated linguistically with the Chibchas. Located in the south of La Guajira, in the territories of the Serranía del Perijá and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. From this settlement emerged the Cariachil ethnic group, which, like other ethnic groups, suffered at the hands of European colonialists, disappearing its ethnonym from historical records in the final eras of Spanish domination

Being the Cariachil considered for years an extinct community, currently there are only remaining populations, mainly in El Molino. it is estimated that of the more than eight thousand inhabitants of the municipality, almost four hundred are identified as members ethnic people Cariachil, divided into 75 families cores. Over the last years they have been recognized as an indigenous group by the national government, forming an association for its members in 2006. They were inscribed into the National List of Indigenous Communities by the Interior Ministry in 2018, process that allows them to preserve its cultural mores, giving them the right to form its own cabildo administered by a cacique-governor.

Sources:

2010) “Cariachiles: Hope in a Handful of Land”, undergraduate work presented by Ana Gutiérrez Cuellar at the Pontifical Javeriana Universit

(2017) “Cariachil, the unknown indigenous people of La Guajira”, article published in El Heraldo

(2018) “Cariachil people from El Molino are officially recognized by the government”, article published in La Guajira Hoy