The Wayuu and the Salt of Manaure
“At the northernmost tip of Colombia and South America, the Guajira peninsula juts into the Caribbean Sea like a finger. This hot cactus-studded desert, which sees very little rain, is populated by a tough but easygoing people—the Waiuu Indians. The Spanish conquistadors who reached Colombia’s Guajira peninsula in the sixteenth century reported that those Indians traded the salt they extracted from the sea for the gold produced by tribes of the land’s interior. Knowing the conquistadors’ obsession with the precious metal, they probably ended that trade brutally upon discovering it. However, at Manaure, a dusty village, the Waiuu today are still producing salt. And as everywhere in the developing world where I have watched salt manually produced, it’s hard work here too, though much less so than in the Sahara and Ethiopia. It also brings the Waiuu little money. For a few generations the salt flats have also been exploited industrially by a government company, which buys the Waiuu salt. Manaure fills 65% of Colombia’s salt needs. Thanks to a scorching sun, a dry and windy climate, and natural lagoons, Manaure was always a perfect place for that activity. Though some miners work there all year, most of them do so only during the more productive three summer months. The rest of the time the Waiuu fish or herd goats. They live in mud houses as well as in flattened cactus huts. And they sleep in hammocks, many of them beautifully woven by women and wide enough to accommodate couples. As in many other parts of the developing world, the Waiuu spend much time getting water from distant wells as well as firewood. At least they did so between 1974 and 1987, when I visited them three times. Much has changed there now.” - Victor Englebert
