Tsáchila

Tsáchila man, guiding a forest walk near Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas

The Tsáchila tribe of Ecuador live in the canton of Santo Domingo in the province of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas. The men of the tribe are notable for shaving the sides of their heads and shaping the remaining hair into cap-like form with a mixture of grease which is dyed bright red with achiote seeds. The reason they wear their hear this way is because after many many of their tribe and neighboring tribes were perishing from Smallpox disease, they asked Spirit to guide them to a cure via ceremony and prayer. They were guided to the Achiote plant , whose inside seed is the shape that they wear their hair in after dying it with the seed's red color. They covered themselves completely in the red dye and after 3-4 days people stopped dying. They are forever grateful to this plant for curing them and saving their entire community from extinction via the Smallpox disease.

They speak the Tsafiki or Tsáchila language of the Barbacoan linguistic family. The men wear horizontally striped dark navy/black and white skirts, and the women wear brightly colored horizontally striped skirts.

Their common name “Colorado” (meaning colored) was given to them because when they were discovered by the Spanish they were covering their entire bodies in the red dye of the seeds, as the cure and prevention of Smallpox, and the Spaniards thought that that was their true color- Red.

The main city of the area is known as Santo Domingo de los Colorados in tribute to these people.

External links

• Profile from CODENPE