Wikipedia
Totora may refer to the following:
- Šimonora (plant), a South American plant
- Totora (plant), a South American plant
- Totora, Cochabamba, a town in Bolivia
- Totora District, in Amazonas, Peru
Totora (Schoenoplectus californicus subsp. tatora) is a subspecies of the giant bulrush sedge. It is found in South America - notably on Lake Titicaca, the middle coast of Perú and on Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean. The genus Schoenoplectus is closely related to Scirpus and sometimes included therein.
The people of the mid-coast region of Perú have used totora to build their caballitos de totora, small rowed and straddled fishing vessels, for at least 3,000 years. The Uru people, an indigenous people predating the Inca civilization, live on Lake Titicaca upon floating islands fashioned from this plant. The Uru people also use the totora plant to make boats (balsas) of the bundled dried plant reeds.
The Rapanui people of Easter island used totora reeds – locally known as nga'atu – for thatching and to make pora (swimming aids). These are used for recreation, and were formerly employed by hopu (clan champions) to reach offshore Motu Nui in the tangata manu (bird-man) competition. How the plant arrived on the island is not clear; Thor Heyerdahl argued that it had been brought by prehistoric Peruvians but it is at least as likely to have been brought by birds. Recent work indicates that totora has been growing on Easter Island for at least 30,000 years, which is well before humans arrived on the island.
Usage examples of "totora".
Suriqui Island, in a small village close to the lakeshore, I found two elderly Indians making a boat from bundled totora rushes.
The reason was that the totora vessels of Suriqui were virtually identical, both in the method of construction and in finished appearance, to the beautiful craft fashioned from papyrus reeds in which the Pharaohs had sailed the Nile thousands of years previously.
Each carried a huge bundle of totora reeds, which grew in the marshy crater lakes.
Legends of both the island and the continent can be interpreted to suggest that this was the case, and the presence of cultivated South American plants such as the sweet potato, the bottle gourd, the manioc, and the totora reeds from which they made their boats confirms that some contact occurred.
Each carried a huge bundle of totora reeds, which grew in the marshy crater lakes.