A population of around 109,000 people from the 6 Amazonian provinces speak the Kichwa language (Napo: 46213 people; Orellana: 29987 people; Pastaza: 17211 people; Sucumbíos: 13210 people; Zamora Chinchipe: 1528 people;and Morona Santiago: 810 people. INEC Census, 2010). Most of these people are bilingual, using Kichwa and Spanish.

Several researchers (Whitten, 1989; Muratorio, 1998; Oberem, 1980) point out the past existence of two Amazonian Kichwa cultures: the Canelos Kichwas and the Quijos Kichwas.

According to Norman Whitten, the Canelos Kichwas lived within the area ranging from the city of Puyo, on the Sigüin cordillera, to the head waters of the Bobonaza river, as well as within the area starting between the Bobonaza and Curaray rivers and reaching deep into the Peruvian territory. The Canelos Quichuas refer to themselves as Runa (people / indigenous people), and to their language as Runa Shimi (human language). Whitten (1976a) sees in the Canelos Kichwas a mixture of the Achuar and Záparo groups, having become an extended culture of these Kichwa speakers (Whitten 1989: 23).

The Quijos Kichwas, according to Whitten, are located between the Quijos valley and the Archidona valley. There is very little trace of their original language and its name is unknown to the current indigenous languages (Whitten 1989: 24). According to Oberem, the Quijos have gradually moved east, forced to leave their wooden areas when displaced, enslaved, or devastated by illnesses (Oberem 1971). The contemporaneous native dwellers found around the city of Tena, and probably those who live close to the upper tributaries of the Napo river, such as the Ansuj and the Jatun Yacu, represent the contemporaneous Quijos Kichwas, and they also call themselves Runa (Whitten 1989: 24).

Blanca Muratorio highlights that “in the ethno-historic literature, all the indigenous groups from the Tena-Archidona sector, as well as all those who live within the Avila, Loreto, and San José de Payamino areas are being called “Quijos-Quechua” (…) due to their likely link with the Quijos ethnic group, nowadays extinct. This denomination, which has no real signification for these indigenous people who always called themselves Napo Runas, has been used mainly to distinguish the Napo Quechua groups from the Canelo Quechua groups who live in the current Pastaza province (…).All these groups speak the Quechuan language of western Ecuador, which has been classified by Carolyn Orr and Betsy Wrisley (1965:iii) into three main dialects: “Bobonaza”, spoken along the Puyo and Bobonaza rivers; “Tena”, spoken upstream of the Napo river, around Tena, Arajuno and Ahuano; and “Limoncocha”, spoken by people from the lower and middle parts of the Napo river. According to this classification, all the indigenous people from the Tena-Archidona sector speak the Tena dialect but with subtle differences among each subgroup. Accordingly, the Panos are proud to differentiate their own form of speech (regarding vocabulary and intonation) from the Archidona groups whom they call “Archirunas”, while all those who speak the Tena dialect, according to Irvine (1987:52), are called “Archirunas” by other Quechua speakers” (Muratorio 1998: 71).

José Miguel Goldáraz, a Capuchin missioner, relates in his book “Aprendamos Kichwa: Gramática y vocabulario napeño” (2010) that in the Kichwa language there exist some clearly differentiated dialects but argues that the “napeña”(found around the Napo river)variation is the main one. It is “…the unique communication language for around 60,000 Kichwa speakers located along the basins of the rivers Napo, Curaray, Pastaza, Tigre, Putumayu, Aguarico, San Miguel, Coca, Payamino as well as the remote Madre de Dios, until where the Santarosino, Avila and Loreto kichwa groups have been pushed by the rubber whirl. Linguistically speaking, this important nation extends itself from the head waters of the Ecuadorian rivers until Mazan, Iquitos and the upper part of the Amazon river” (Goldáraz 2010: 12).

Goldaráz means that despite not being the original language of the Naporunas, the Kichwa language has been “nativized” and has acquired new spatial and linguistic characteristics (Goldáraz 2010: 13).

The Kichwa language is currently undergoing rapid changes and losses due to the imposition of new rules on bilingual intercultural education, migrations, and contact with the occidental world, among other socioeconomic and cultural reasons.

Bibliography:
Muratorio, Blanca (1987). Rucuyaya Alonso y la historia social y económica del Alto Napo: 1850-1950 (The Life and Times of Grandfather Alonso: Culture and History in the Upper Amazon: 1850-1950). Quito: Abya – Yala.
Oberem, Udo (1980). Los Quijos: Historia de la Transculturación de un grupo indígena en el Oriente Ecuatoriano. PendonerosCollection, No.16.Otavalo Institute of Anthropology /Gallocapitán Editorial.
Whitten, Norman Jr. (1978). Amazonian Ecuador: An ethnic interface in ecological, social, and ideological perspectives. N. Whitten Jr. (Ed.), The Other Side of Development in Amazonian Ecuador, 3rd Edition (1989 – pp.13-60). Quito: Abya-Yala Editions.
Mújica, Camilo (2010). Aprendamos Kichwa: Gramática y vocabulario napeño. José Miguel Goldaráz; Edition: Alejandro Labaka/Cicame Fund. (original work published in 1967)