Guane

Guane's church. Photo by Lorraine Caputo

By Lorraine Caputo

Atop a narrow mesa above the Río Suárez lived the Guane people since long before the Spaniards’ arrival. It was to here, Guane pueblo, that all surviving Guane were relocated in the 17th century. This entire hamlet, from its fossils to its tapia pisada architecture, is a museum. On the main square is a statue of the last Guane cacique, Guanenta. On the south side is an attractive stone church; on the east side of the plaza is the Museo de Paleontología y Arqueología, containing over 10,000 fossils of fish, ammonites, shells and petrified wood, as well as an indigenous mummy, ceramics and religious art (some from the Quiteña School).

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