Bora people

The Bora are an Indigenous tribe of the Peruvian, Colombian, and Brazilian Amazon, located between the Napo, Putumayo and Caqueta rivers.

Ethnography
The Bora speak a Witotan language and comprise approximately 2,000 people.

In the last forty years, the Bora have become a largely settled people living mostly in permanent forest settlements.

The animist Bora worldview makes no distinction between the physical and spiritual worlds, and spirits are considered to be present throughout the world.

Bora families practice exogamy.

The Bora have an elaborate knowledge of the plant life of the surrounding rainforest. Like other indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon, such as the Urarina, plants, especially trees, hold a complex and important interest for the Bora.

Bows and arrows are the main weapons of the Bora culture used in person to person conflict.

The Bora have guarded their lands from both indigenous foes and outsider colonials. Around the time of the 20th century, the rubber boom and Putumayo genocide had a devastating impact on the Boras, which suffered enslavement, physical abuse, and other detriments to their population. An unknown number of Bora people fled across the Caqueta River during this time period. Hundreds of Boras were enslaved at rubber stations belonging to Julio César Arana's rubber company, specifically the stations of Entre Rios, La Sabana, Santa Catalina and Abisinia.

The Bora tribe's ancestral lands are currently threatened by illegal logging practices. The Bora have no indigenous reserves.