Before Spanish conquest, this was not one people but many. The Dominican friars who arrived after the conquest founded what they called the Doctrine of Santo Domingo de Gonzanama over a landscape that already held eleven distinct confederations: Colambos, Colcas, Purunumas, Sacapalcas, Changaiminas, Lanzacas, Quilangas, Nambocolas, Anganumas, Luginumas, Chalangas. The names survive as parish boundaries, as hill crests, as old divisions that Spanish administration tried to fold into one doctrine. On February 17, 1822, the residents of Gonzanama wrote their own Declaration of Independence - not waiting for the wars further north to sweep through, not waiting for permission. They were still a rural parish of the canton of Loja until September 27, 1943, when President Carlos Arroyo del Rio's Decree Number 928 made them a canton proper, publicly proclaimed three days later.

Gonzanama's name, according to another tradition, means "break of hills" - an appropriate description for a town tucked into the Andes where one ridge drops and the next rises. Altitude: about 2,045 meters. Area: 681.9 square kilometers. To the north lies Catamayo, to the south Quilanga, to the east Catamayo and Loja, to the west Paltas and Calvas. The provincial capital Loja sits 81 kilometers away through mountain roads. The climate is classified as subtropical highland (Koppen Cwb), which in practice means cool mornings, warm afternoons, and a year split between a wet season with frequent storms and a drier one. Temperatures hover around 18 degrees Celsius, rarely higher than 22 or lower than 11. The principal church of the town was toppled by an earthquake during the twentieth century, rebuilt since; seismic tremors in these southern Andes are routine, the price of living where tectonic plates grind.

Of the roughly 12,247 people the canton counts (2022 census), only a small fraction live in the town center. The rest spread across the surrounding countryside, working small farms that produce tomatoes, sugar cane, timber, and cattle. Pine is the dominant tree. The canton's population accounts for 3.7 percent of Loja Province, growing by about 1.3 percent a year, and nearly half its residents are under twenty. Education rates sit low: 67.4 percent of the canton's population has only preschool or primary schooling, 9.7 percent have none at all. Spanish is the local language, though the surrounding toponyms - Sacapalca, Changaimina, Purunuma - still carry the Indigenous roots. Hand craftsmanship exists but is modest. What the canton has in abundance is oral tradition, and one legend above all.

On top of Cerro Columbo, locals say, there was once a lake. Around the lake grew gardens of colorful flowers, and floating on the water was a gold pan with a bull's head above it. Every year at festival time, the flowers would be brushed by the bull's horns. Gold grains would sprout from the right horn, silver grains from the left, and these would be distributed among the Anamae people. The legend has Maya, Tolteca, Inca, or Palca origin depending on who tells it. Cerro Columbo is real - a 3,097-meter viewpoint still popular with eco-tourists - though the lake is gone and the gold pan was always metaphor. Two other natural attractions draw visitors: the river pool at Lansaca, three kilometers from town on the road to Cariamanga, and La Banda, a sulphur spring whose waters are said to have medicinal properties. In a parish of Sacapalca, a pyramid-shaped petroglyph shows the sun carved on both sides, representing the god worshipped by the Palta people.

The biggest celebration of the year is the Fiesta del Senor del Buen Suceso on March 19, honoring an icon that draws Catholics from as far as northern Peru. The festival is marked by castillos de castillos - elaborate paper castles loaded with fireworks that are burned at night while native music plays and a traditional vaca loca or "crazy cow" figure runs through the crowd. The Fiesta del Sagrado Corazon de Jesus follows on the first Sunday of July. July 16 brings the Virgen del Carmen, the Virgin of Colca. August 20 is the Fiesta de San Jose. At most of these celebrations, a parish queen is selected; at some, a symbolic mother is chosen. The mayor, an engineer by training, serves five years. Buses run to Loja and Cariamanga. Dimantina - a mix of fresh milk and alcohol - is offered at the bigger festivals. And the Senor del Buen Suceso is carried in procession, marking the continuing life of a town named for a chieftain who died centuries ago.