The land of the ‘great lord Aparia’ and his descendants: on the Omagua/Kambeba in the margins of History

Abstract

With an estimated population of tens of thousands of people, the Omagua/Kambeba were probably the largest Amazonian indigenous people in the early to mid-sixteenth century, when they were first recorded. The famous land of the ‘great lord Aparia,’ their main ‘province,’ was located in the central Amazon. Archaeological remains have been found from which it is possible to identify the other two zones of influence of the Omagua: the upper Napo and, especially, the center of the lesser Aparia, of the ‘lord called Irimara,’ in the same river, at the confluence with the Curaray. However, no conclusive evidence is known to date that can establish the location of the capital, or main focus of expansion, of the Omagua/ Kambeba culture. Drawing on archaeological ethnohistorical, and ethnographic evidence, including contemporary claims, this paper seeks to validate the hypothesis that the capital or main area of influence of the ‘main lord’ Aparia was in what is now the Brazilian town of São Paulo de Olivença and its surroundings region.