Matsigenka_

The Matsigenka people, whose language belongs to the Arawak linguistic family, have used this name because, in their original language, Matsigenka can be translated as ‘human beings’. This name is said to have become widespread among the mestizo population after the Dominican missionaries published the magazine Misiones Dominicas del Perú in 1918.

The Matsigenka are scattered in the southeast of the Peruvian Amazon basin, in the departments of Cusco and Madre de Dios. They live along the banks of the Upper and Lower Urubamba, Camisea, Picha, Timpía and Manu rivers and their tributaries.