The Wayúu or Guajiros are among the few Latin American ethnic groups that have been able to avoid European acculturation over the centuries. They speak Wayunaiki.

They inhabit the Guajira, a region that is located between the Venezuelan and Colombian territory. This region is the epicenter of people migrating towards urban centers; a movement that has created a drastic and very defined misery. According to UNICEF, the Guajira ranks second among the poorest places in Latin America after Haiti.

Wayúu families are organized by clans and unlike most societies, the Wayúu family is matrilineal, that is, Wayúu children bear their mother's last name.

Wayúu women are the center of the family. Their presence in the household symbolizes respect and unity. Wayúu mothers are responsible for teaching their culture and beliefs to their children. They stay home raising the kids and teaching them their tradition and customs while men go out hunting.

Men teach the boys all the masculine tasks, like pasturing, hunting, fishing and building their houses. Nevertheless, the responsibility of educating the children does not fall on the father but on the maternal family, more specifically on the maternal uncle, which children inherit upon his death.

For the Wayúu people, knowing how to weave is a symbol of creativity, intelligence and wisdom, a practice that is past on from one generation to the next.

Guajira women learn how to make bags (called Susu in the Wayunaiki language) during puberty, in a stage the Wayúu people refer to as “Blanqueo”. During this time, Guajira women can only be around their female relatives who teach them all the duties and social behavior of a Wayúu woman.

For the most part, the designs are patterns of geometrical shapes. Each bag is made by one woman; therefore each design is one of a kind. Weaving these bags is arduous work. It takes a Guajira woman about 20 eight-hour-days to complete just one bag.

WayÚu women produce objects such as pots and casseroles to be used at home, using clay made of white sandstone. These pots are used to drain the grease from the millstone. Mythology is very important to the Wayuu, and is reflected in the images that are painted on locally produced crafts, whose forms and colors represent community beliefs.