Currently there are two important sub-groups of this culture, also separated by their geopolitical context, the Uros of Bolivia: where the communities of Muratos, Chipaya and Irohito are distinguished; and the Uros of Peru, who live on the floating islands on Titicaca, approximately 6 km from the city of Puno, capital of the province and district of Puno. It is these last towns that, in my opinion, have managed to form a city of water with its archipelago of floating islands.

Even though they had incursions and agricultural and livestock control on land, after the arrival of the Spanish conquerors, the Uros established themselves as lake settlers, with an economy and subsistence based on fishing, bird hunting and egg collection, thus such as the cut and weaving of the reeds, a fundamental element that formed the link between land and water and allowed them to build their homes, boats and islands.

The population known by the name of Uros, they call themselves “Kostuña” which means “the lake town”. Apparently the name of Uros corresponded to an insult from the neighboring Aymara peoples, due to the custom of the lakesiders to go fishing and sail at night: under the protection of their most important deities: the moon and “Qutamama” goddess of the lake, both as feminine personifications of a nature that protects them.

Alfonsina Barionuevo, in her inquiries about the Uros, tells us that a long time ago, the ancient millennial legends tell that the Uros populated the Collas swamps. They were survivors of races destroyed by cataclysms that preceded modern man. According to them they belong to the first humanity, created by the gods and identifying themselves as the beings of the lake.

The Uros – Chipaya are perhaps the oldest race on the American continent, absorbed by the Aymara.
These original towns spoke several languages, of which only the Chipaya language survives, which is spoken in the community that bears the same name on the Coipasa salt flat in Bolivia. The Peruvian Uros, studied here, achieved the cultural syncretism that Posnanski describes, adopting Aymara and Spanish as their mother tongues.

In 1998, geneticist José Sandoval – himself an Aymara born in a community on the southern shore of Lake Titicaca – collected 28 samples among the Uros. In addition, he also collected samples from one Aymara and two Quechua island communities of Lake Titicaca. Analyses were performed in collaboration with medical geneticist Ricardo Fujita, of the Universidad San Martin de Porres in Lima. They focused on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is integrally transmitted from a mother to her children and therefore makes it possible to identify the most remote ancestor on the maternal side. Over the course of research, the samples collected among the Uros were resignified in important ways. Drawing on the aforementioned equivalence between language and ethnic belonging that is frequently made in the Andes, Sandoval initially chose to focus on the inhabitants of the floating islands as ‘Aymara isolates’.

However, the awareness of the intense debate surrounding the Uros’ identity together with the differential component found in the analysis of their mtDNA led him and Fujita to redefine these samples as Uros. It is with this label that they were featured in the resulting publications.These publications established genetic continuity between the Uros of the Bay of Puno and the ancient Urus in the following way. Among Amerindian populations of South America, there are four main haplogroups – or sets of individuals that share genetic ancestry markers indicating a common ancestor: A, B, C and D12 (Schurr, 2004). Genetic analyses revealed that the samples of the three Quechua and Aymara communities collected by Sandoval could be almost entirely placed within haplogroup B. In contrast, the Uros were the only ones with a significant proportion – 18 percent – of haplogroup A2.

After establishing this difference from surrounding populations, the next step was to trace it to a distinct origin. While in genetic research, haplogroup B is mainly associated with the Pacific coast, haplogroups A, C and D are predominantly found in the Amazon region. The vast majority of Aymaras and Quechuas have haplogroup B, suggesting they are descendents of populations that originally reached the Andes from the Pacific coast. In contrast, haplogroup A2 is almost entirely absent among Andean populations. For Fujita, Sandoval and their colleagues, the presence of this haplogroup among the Uros would indicate a remote Amazonian origin. They corroborated this hypothesis by referring to linguistic studies and research with blood groups, which also suggest a differentiated peopling of the Andes, with the first population movement coming from the Amazon region and a distant kinship between the Urus and the Amazonian Arawak population . These considerations led the geneticists to the conclusion that ‘the inhabitants of the Uros islands still conserve an important Uru genetic component … contradicting the idea of their extinction’. In a subsequent publication, they affirm that the results of their research ‘could suggest greater antiquity’ of the Uros in comparison to Aymaras and Quechuas.

In 2007, Fujita and Sandoval began to collaborate with the Genographic Project, with Fujita becoming the project’s national coordinator for Peru. The Genographic Project – an initiative of the National Geographic Society and coordinated by geneticist Spencer Wells – started in 2005, with a large-scale effort to collect samples from indigenous populations across the world, with the objective to map ancient patterns of human migration.

Its methodology includes mtDNA and Y-chromosome analysis, which serve to reveal, respectively, the direct maternal and paternal lineages of sampled populations. The Uros were among the first populations in Peru sampled by the project. The project’s coordinator for South America, Fabrício Santos, acknowledged the Uros’ identity claims from the outset, while establishing an explicit distinction between genetic ancestry and the domains of culture and ethnic identity.

Analyses of their samples revealed the existence of ‘private alleles’ among the Uros, as well as lineages of a distinctly Amazonian origin in both mtDNA and the Y chromosome.

According to the geneticists, this would suggest that the Uros indeed have partial Uru ancestry, thus corroborating the idea of genetic continuity. However, while the geneticists tried to keep ethnic identity and genetic ancestry separate, the Uros were precisely interested in establishing articulations between the two.

The scientific name of the cattail was subject to change: Scirpus totora, Scirpus titikakensis, Scirpus califomicus. In the year 1980 two different scientific names appeared simultaneously; the study carried out in Bolivia, suggests the name of Schoenoplectus tatora instead, the study carried out in Peru, mentions the genus Scirpus with two species: Scirpus totora and Scirpus sp.

In the Uros, life revolves around water and the reed plant as both are decisive for subsisting and living in the lake. The reed in particular has different uses such as the following mentioned:

FOOD:

• The tender shoots of TOTORA can be consumed as a vegetable, since they have a high content of iodine, calcium, fluorine and chlorophyll.
• This plant, mainly in its tender and juvenile state, is used as forage for feeding cattle, sheep and even camelids and horses; pigs directly take advantage of the rhizomes when there are areas of reeds exposed in times of drought. This aquatic vegetation is considered as the basis for feeding cattle in the riverside area. The reed, provides breeding and feeding sites for fish and amphibians, is the habitat of a great diversity of migratory and resident birds (reproduction, nesting, refuge).

 MEDICINAL:

• Serves as an astringent to control diarrhea.
• It is also used to fight fever.
• Totora ashes are used as an antiseptic. This aids in faster wound healing.

HANDICRAFTS:

• The mature totora is dried in the sun to be used as a raw material in handicrafts such as: ornaments, mats, chairs, furniture, mats, handbags, baskets, hats and mattresses “quesanas”. The most outstanding artisans come from the Uros and from the Chimú community.

 BUILDING:

• With the Totora, houses and boats are built, such as totora boats and kayaks. On April 28, 1947, a raft with six men and a parrot set sail from Callao in Peru with the aim of reaching Polynesia. The patron was Thor Heyerdahl, who was 33 years old at the time, his idea was that the Pacific archipelagos had not been populated only by Westerners, but also by indigenous people from South America. Among other indications, Heyerdahl pointed to the legend of Kon-Tiki Viracocha, a native indigenous chief who had sailed in a large wooden boat from Peru to where the sun sets in the west.
• The most incredible thing is that the famous Uros Islands are not there naturally, but artificially built by the hand of Man. In other words, a large part of their time is spent overlapping layers of cattails on each island, even building new islands.
• It is said that the Inca Cápac Yupanqui ordered the construction of a large TOTORA bridge over the Desaguadero river, which allowed the transit of his troops.

 FARMING:

• Totora ashes serve as compost.

To build a floating island, we went to the heart of the Titicaca national reserve to look for small or large blocks of floating totora roots, since only these types of roots can be cut and moved to the desired point, they are also the only ones that can be used to assemble large reed blocks, some of the blocks are approximately 15 centimeters and others are up to 1.50 centimeters thick, these blocks are later joined by stakes and ropes, forming larger blocks. The number of Kilhi pieces for the construction of the islands will depend on the number of families that will inhabit them.

When the pieces are in the river, the anchoring of the blocks begins. The anchors are configured from eucalyptus trunks of about 3 m., Which are tied to the blocks by ropes made of straw or “keswa”, reinforced and sunk with stones.

When the blocks are in a stable position, they are covered with long layers of dry cattail in the cross position, covering the entire surface, until reaching a level of 1.30 m thick. This totora layer covering, added to the 1.5 m kilhi, make up a 2.80 m final floor thickness. For its better conservation, the inhabitants have a constant work of covering with reed beds every one or two months, in order to avoid the disintegration of the islands, since every year the islands sink approximately between 50 and 70 cm.

When finishing the final layer of the soil of the islands, we proceed with the construction of the houses or chukllas. For this process, we place an extra piece of kilhi and totora on the ground, which serves as a base or top 45 cm thick, in order to counteract humidity. Each house has a single room and is structured based on wooden frames and cane fabrics. The kitchen is exterior to prevent fires and the bathrooms are located on an island independent from that of the houses.

However, the houses have a duration of about five years. The Islands for their part, have a life of between 30 or 40 years approximately, after this time, the Kilhi will rot with the water and the construction of a new island will begin.