Andoque are an indigenous people of Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

. They live along the Aduche tributary of the Japurá River

Japurá River

The Japurá River or Caquetá River is a river about long rising as the Caquetá River in the Andes in the Southwest of Colombia. It flows southeast into Brazil, where it is called the Japurá. The Japurá enters the Amazon River through a network of channels...

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Language and culture

The Andoque language

Andoque language

The Andoque language is an aboriginal language spoken by a few hundred Andoque in Northern South America, and is in decline.In 2000, there were 610 speakers in the area of the Anduche River, downstream from Aracuara, Amazonas, Colombia; 50 were monolinguals. The language is no longer spoken in...

 is an language isolate

Language isolate

A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...

and is extinct in Peru. The culture values "sacred plants" and a ritual called "Yuruparí." The "Yuruparí" ritual concerns their transcendent vision of cosmology.

Mythology

The various bee-species originated from the nasal bone of Heron-of-the-Center when he was consumed by fire while wearing a jaguar-skin. Tapirs of various colors originated from "the star people, who are bees and wasps", when they ate the body of a honey-drinking old man, who "fell into a trap" which had been dug by his own son.