Cayambe (city)
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Cayambe is an agricultural service town (pop. approx. 120,000) nearest the Cayambe volcano. While the town is mainly peopled by mestizos, the surrounding rural population is primarily comprised of descendants of the pre-Incan Kayambi indigenous people who are mainly involved in subsistence agriculture, dairying and lumber procurement. The Kayambi were resistant to Inca expansion and were only definitively conquered by Huayna Capac after a bloody 20-year war, shortly before the first Spanish conquerors arrived in the region in the 16th century. The Quichua indigenous language, sometimes also spelled Kichwa, a dialect of Quechua, survives in some of the hamlets today, while in others Quichua has given way to Spanish.
The area hosts numerous flower plantations destined for the overseas cut-flower market, whose toxic inputs and unsafe practices have damaged the local environment and created health problems among the workers.
The town of Cayambe is the seat of the Cayambe canton.
