COTOCOLLAO CULTURE: CHARACTERISTICS, CEREMONIES AND LOCATION - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The Cotocollao culture was a pre-Columbian indigenous people that lived in what is now the Quito Valley, in Ecuador. They were the first inhabitants of the mountains of the country, settling there approximately 3,500 years ago and disappearing in 500 BC. C.

The archaeological remains left by this culture were found for the first time in 1974 by several archeology students and their professor Óscar Efrén. The studies began in 1976, financed by the Museum of the Central Bank of Ecuador.

Cotocollao ceramic figures.

The inhabitants of the Cotocollao culture were sedentary, and lived mainly from agriculture. Due to the relative ease of the living conditions it had, it was a culture of artists. They were mainly dedicated to ceramics, creating pieces of very high quality for the time.

It is estimated that the cotocollao culture developed primitive trade routes that allowed it to interact with other aboriginal ethnic groups, although the exchange and the cultural influence that could result from this are not considerable compared to other aboriginal relationships in America at that time.

Location of the Cotocollao culture

This culture lived in the northeastern part of the Pichincha volcano, more than 2,000 meters above sea level. This location allowed them to control various resources and, also, to be an obligatory path in the communication routes for the exchange of the products of the area.

Like other pre-Columbian civilizations, the Cotocollao culture had to face a series of adverse natural and earthly conditions that they had to overcome for an effective domestication of the land and guarantee the livelihood of society.

Cotocollao was a territory that had strong ties with Quito long before its incorporation as an urban sector.

It was a rural area with easy access by road, with flat grasslands and very productive land, reasons that made the region become a valued area by the settlers of the time, who demanded donations of land from the king and permission to exploit the hand of indigenous work as part of their payment for having "conquered" the land.

Society and food

The Cotocollao culture was made up mainly of farmers. Their main source of food was corn, quinoa and beans, taking advantage of the great fertility of the valleys of the volcano where they were based.

To supplement their diet, they hunted some animals, such as deer, rabbits, and certain types of birds. The environment in which they lived allowed them to lead a relatively simple life for the time: they had a pleasant climate, constant temperatures throughout the year, two lagoons from which they extracted fresh water, and the soil was very fertile.

Due to these characteristics of its environment, the Cotocollao culture stood out for its artistic side and for its peaceful trade with other populations. Thanks to the exchange of goods, they began to use cotton to make clothing.

Art

On the other hand, this culture stands out for the great skill shown by its inhabitants when working with ceramics. With it, they made utensils both for domestic use and for religious acts.

The decoration of these containers is considered of very good quality and advanced for the time, mainly due to the innovative techniques used to work the ceramics.

On the other hand, the Cotocollao culture was also the only one to use polished stone as a working tool within all the pre-Columbian cultures of Ecuador.

Lifestyle

Due to the pleasant living conditions offered by the valley of the Pichincha volcano, the inhabitants of the Cotocollao culture did not have to worry too much about building resistant buildings. For this reason, very few remains of its buildings have survived to this day.

Today we know that their houses were built with biodegradable materials, such as wood and straw, so it was very difficult for researchers to find evidence of their characteristics.

The remains that have been found are located in the north of Quito, and occupy approximately one square kilometer; These are mostly the holes made for the posts that supported the houses, since they were made in volcanic soil.

On the other hand, many remains of llama and alpaca bones have also been found in these populations; but scientists are not sure if they were domesticated animals by the inhabitants of this culture, or if on the contrary they were wild animals that they hunted for food.

Relations with other cultures

During the time when the Cotocollao culture was established on the slopes of the Pichincha volcano, what would later be known as the “formative period” in Peru took place. At this historical moment, various cultures in the country began to settle more permanently and to trade with each other.

The cultures with which the Cotocollao was most closely related were the Machalilla and the Chorrera. This relationship is explained above all by the presence of another culture, the Yumbos, which had a settlement at an intermediate point between the other three.

This privileged point allowed the Cotocallao culture to exchange various types of products with other populations on the coast. The Yumbos, who served as intermediaries, were a peaceful culture: no remains of wars or weapons have been found in their settlements.

Due to its great development, this culture created a great network of roads, known as the Yumbo Travesías, which united all the inhabitants of the area. Some of these roads are still used today, and allowed the expansion of the Cotocollao culture.

Unfortunately, all the populations that had settled in this area became extinct after the eruption of the Pululahua volcano, including the Cotocollao culture. This eruption took place about 2,500 years ago, when the last remains of its settlements date.

It is believed that the survivors of the Cotocollao culture migrated in search of a new refuge and more fertile lands, thus putting an end to their technological and artistic advances.

Religious beliefs

Observing the archaeological remains left by the Cotocollao culture, we can know that its inhabitants had also developed certain beliefs about the afterlife. This can be observed in the appearance of small cemeteries between the groups of houses; which seems to indicate a certain belief about life after death.

The cemeteries of the Cotocollao culture are mainly of two types. In the oldest, the graves were individual, and the corpses were buried completely covered by corn husks.

On the other hand, in the most current ones, the dead rested in common graves; the corpses were laid out haphazardly, apparently without any particular pattern.

Ceremonies

The groups that occupied the Cotocollao area and the rivers and mountain ranges surrounding Quito were called “yumbos”.

Every year the Yumbada de Cotocollao Festival is celebrated: a custom that brings together the Catholic tradition of Corpus Christi and the summer solstice every June 21, an event of the year that is especially important for the culture of the Yumbo people.

This festival has undergone many changes, since the now organizers of this traditional ritual do not have sufficient knowledge of how it was developed and in honor of what it was carried out.

The long history of Cotocollao as a pre-Columbian bartering center is what attracts the attention of Yumbada scholars who want to understand the meaning and origins of the dance and support what is emphasized by today's participants, when they say that the Yumbada most legitimate and ancestral belongs to Cotocollao.

It seems that La Fiesta de la Yumbada has created controversy between traditionalists and those who celebrate in the most modern ways, the truth is that, according to Kingman, this transformed ancient ritual serves to explain the situation of the modern indigenous Quito.

In 2005, a resident of the neighborhood commented that the Yumbos of the comparsa have nothing to do with the Yumbos as an ancient ethnic group from the northwest of Pichincha. He considers it to be an invention of the Quichua to imitate other groups.

Current participants and leaders strongly oppose this lie, claiming that the dance represents a true relationship with their ancestral roots.

Cotocollao today

Although the original members of the Cotocollao culture inhabited the region for approximately a millennium, the following generations, although they maintained a certain roots in their past, began to be influenced by other emerging societies.

In current Ecuador, an attempt has been made to recover the essence of these aborigines and their traditions. When the Agrarian Reform arrived in 1963, at least 85% of the indigenous population of Cotocollao worked under various types of servitude for the parish haciendas, according to Borchart de Moreno in his book Los Yumbos.

The Cotocollao region today is considered an urban area that maintains some of its most important archaeological sites as a vestige of the civilization that once inhabited the same lands, as well as the material preservation of its practices and its creations, maintaining the value funerary who stood out in his practices.

At present, and after the discovery of the archaeological remains (the first of which were found in 1976), most of the remains are in a museum created with the name of the culture.

Regarding the land previously occupied by Cotocollao, today it is divided into 5 main neighborhoods: 25 de Mayo, Central Cotocollao, Divino Niño, Jarrín and La Delicia.

References

1. Carvalho-Neto, P. d. (1964). Dictionary of Ecuadorian folklore. Quito: House of Ecuadorian Culture.
2. Luciano, SO (2004). The Original Societies of Ecuador. Quito: Librea.
3. Moreno, B. d. (nineteen eighty one). The Yumbos. Quito.
4. Drafting Quito. (June 29, 2014). The Yumbada de Cotocollao is an ancestral dance that lasts over time. The Telegraph.
5. Reyes, O. (1934). General history of Ecuador. Quito: Andean.
6. Salomon, F. (1997). Los Yumbos, Niguas and Tsatchila. Quito: Abya-Yala Editions.