I don't know much honestly, I know of them because of some friends living in Peru.
You can look up Uru (or Uro) people.
Basically it was their take on the castle and moat.
The islands are made of some sort of cane, and have to be maintained regularly, it's very labor intensive.
It's one of the many cultures there that are at a crossroads, since they have to choose a way between their traditional lifestyle and the comfort of modernity. Knowing that tourism can bring them an order of magnitude more money that what they can make locally, at the risk of becoming actors, maybe.