Institutions
The U'wa organize their political life in a collection of institutions known to the outside world as the U'wa Traditional Authorities. This body is made up of Werjayás (wise elders) and Karekas (medicine people) from each of the U'wa clans. The system of Cabildos mandated by the Colombian state includes and upper and lower council or Cabildo Mayor and Cabildo Menor, as well as the positions of President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Public Prosecutor and Speaker. Berito KuwarU'wa has served as president in recent years.
The U'wa have affiliated with the Guahibo people in the Association of Cabildos and Traditional Indigenous Authorities of the Department of Arauca (ASCATIDAR), officially founded in June 2003 to promote the local autonomy of the department's Indian peoples. The Association's president is Dario Tulivila, a Guahibo leader.
Read more about this topic: U'wa People
Famous quotes containing the word institutions:
“Good government cannot be found on the bargain-counter. We have seen samples of bargain-counter government in the past when low tax rates were secured by increasing the bonded debt for current expenses or refusing to keep our institutions up to the standard in repairs, extensions, equipment, and accommodations. I refuse, and the Republican Party refuses, to endorse that method of sham and shoddy economy.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Our institutions have a potent digestion, and may in time convert and assimilate to good all elements thrown in, however originally alien.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“This, our respectable daily life, on which the man of common sense, the Englishman of the world, stands so squarely, and on which our institutions are founded, is in fact the veriest illusion, and will vanish like the baseless fabric of a vision; but that faint glimmer of reality which sometimes illuminates the darkness of daylight for all men, reveals something more solid and enduring than adamant, which is in fact the cornerstone of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)