Venezuelan Indian

Piaroa kids snack on tarantulas in the jungle

2011-02-10T08:18:00.000-04:30

This cute little clip from the BBC's new Human Planet series follows a group of young Piaroa children from Venezuela's Amazonas State as they hunt for spiders to snack on.

These are no ordinary spiders, but the largest spider of all, the fearsome Goliath tarantula (Theraphosa blondi) which can give a nasty nip with its venomous fangs and also protects itself with irritating urticated hairs that it flicks off its abdomen when threatened with attack.

The effect is similar to horse-hair itching powder on the skin, but if breathed into the throat it can cause serious respiratory problems.

The clip was first shown on British TV on 3 February 2011.

Speak like a native - Pemon and Warao basics

2010-12-15T17:28:00.009-04:30

A group of young Pemon porters take a rest on the way down from Mount Roraima.

For many travellers to Venezuela the biggest worry language-wise is getting a grasp on enough Spanish phrases to book hotels and buses, order drinks and make friends. But what do you do in the areas of Venezuela where Spanish is not the natural first language of the people who live there?
If you're heading for Canaima to see Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world, or climbing the Lost World tepui of Roraima your guides and boatmen will be from the local indigenous people, the Pemon.
If you visit the Orinoco Delta you'll be fishing for piranhas with men from the Warao tribe or buying baskets and handicrafts from Warao women.
These distinct indigenous cultures deserve our respect. They are after all the original inhabitants of the continent, surviving in these lands for thousands of years before the arrival of Columbus and preserving their language and culture today against all the odds.
From my experience, there is no better way to raise a smile and show respect for Pemon and Warao culture than to learn a few words of the local language. A simple "hello" might not seem like much but you'll soon discover how eager the indigenous people you meet will be to teach you new words and phrases and show you off to their friends and family.
To help visitors learn a few basic words I've created a short glossary to try out on your travels. You won't find anything like this anywhere else on the internet so print it out and take it with you.

Pemon Language Basics
Greeting
Hello, how are you? - waküperö
Good - wakü
Bad - awarö
Taking leave
Goodbye - airö
Expressions
Thanks - waküpe-küruman
I like - waküpeman
Friend - upetoy
House - tapüy (as in flat-topped mountain, also spelled tepuy, tepui)
Numbers
1. Taükin
2. Saküne
3. Seurawöne
4. Sakorörö
5. Taükin - yenna
6. Pona taükin
7. Pona saküne
8. Pona seurawöne
9. Pona sakorörö
10. Saküne yenna

Warao Language Basics
Greeting
How are you? How's things - Katuketi?
Possible replies
Good - Yakera
Very good - Yakera guito
Ok - Yakera sabuka
Bad - Asida
Taking leave
Goodbye - Omi
Numbers
1. Isaka
2. Manamo
3. Dijanamo
4. Orabakaya
5. Mojabasi
6. Mojomatana isaka
7. Mojomatana manamo
8. Mojomatana dijamo
9. Mojomatana orabakaya
10. Mojoreko
20. warao isaka (a Warao has ten fingers and ten toes so one Warao = 20)

Warao women sell moriche fibre baskets and wood carvings of local animals from a palafito (house on stilts) in the Orinoco Delta.

UK explorer learns survival skills from Venezuela's Pemon

2010-10-12T13:54:00.003-04:30

Famous UK explorer Ray Mears travels into the Venezuelan jungle to learn some survival skills from the Yekuana and Pemon Indians for a BBC documentary series on bushcraft.

You can find the full documentaries on Youtube but here is my favourite episode, when Ray meets Venezuelan snake expert and naturalist Jesus Rivas and we learn a little more about some of the smaller inhabitants of the rainforest.

Yekuana Games Central to Beliefs - Documentary

2010-08-11T16:01:00.002-04:30

This short film produced by Venezuelan videographer Angel Rizo and Francesca Staasch and directed by Enrique Blein Gerstl documents the life and beliefs of the Yekuana people of the Venezuelan rainforest as expressed through their games.

The filmmakers travelled to Santa Maria del Erebato in the Yekuana heartland to discover the games the Yekuana play to express mythic concepts and train the boys in hunting skills.

The narrator describes how the Yekuana, also known as Maquiritare, believe that the jaguar must only ever be killed in self-defence as he was once a man.

The myth states that a lazy man who refused to take part in the heavy labours of his village was cast out and forced to fend for himself, eventually turning to cannibalism, eating his own to survive.

They also believe that powerful shamans can take on the form of a jaguar to kill their enemies, which is very similar to the Pemon's belief in Canaima, an evil spirit that can bring death and often takes jaguar form.

On the trail of painted ladies in Amazonas

2010-03-13T11:52:00.014-04:30

Sometimes it takes so long to get your hands on a coveted object that you can end up with something that only vaguely resembles the treasured thing you originally set your heart on.

That is what happened to me recently, when I finally got my hands on a Hiwi ceramic figurine (below) after 10 years of fruitless searching.

The Hiwi are an indigenous people who live along the Orinoco River and its tributaries near Puerto Ayacucho, where one bank of the mighty river is in Venezuela and the other in Colombia.

They also inhabit the savannahs along Colombia's Meta and Vichada rivers and some groups are found in Venezuela's Apure, Guarico and Bolivar states. There are nearly 15,000 Hiwi in Venezuela and more than twice that in Colombia.

In Spanish their tribal name is rendered as Jivi, or Guajibo (sometimes spelled Guahibo) and they speak a language which was once thought to be Arawakan but is now classed as Independent.

The Hiwi are noted for their skill at making necklaces and decorated baskets and they produce sought-after hammocks from moriche palm (known as "chinchorro" in Venezuela).

But I've always been fascinated by the ceramics, especially the effigy vessels of male and female Hiwi covered in symbolically-important markings.

Few contemporary Venezuelan tribal groups produce elaborate ceramics, so when I chanced upon a slim booklet about Hiwi pottery traditions by a ceramicist called Alfredo Almeida I was intrigued.

Almeida's book was on sale at the past-its-glory-and-a-bit-dusty-but-still-fascinating Monsenor Enzo Ceccarrelli Ethnological Museum in Puerto Ayucucho, the capital of Amazonas State.

As I studied a display of Hiwi ceramics from the museum's collection I was able to compare the originals with Almeida's illustrations of male effigy vessels, which he called "Jivitonuu" and female effigy vessels which he called "Jivitovaa".

It was clear the female figurines in the museum all had the geometrical markings of squares within squares, which Almeida said corresponded to "Ikuli Itanee", the tortoise, used specifically as a design in face painting by Hiwi women.

Almeida had done his research into Hiwi pottery in the 1970s in a tribal community called la Reforma.

Along the way he had met Guillermo Guevara Kukubi who explained that "the history of Hiwi pottery goes back to the very origin and appearance of the first guajibo on Planet Earth.

"As the Jivi have taught us we come from inside the Earth, from a place called Unianato, a place located 5 kilometres west of the Atures rapids on the left side of the Orinoco, today Colombian territory," explained Guevara.

"Each Jivi man who came out of the Earth carried with him an earthenware jar to drink water from. But more than an earthenware jar for practical use, it was also a model for the creation of the varied forms of Jivi pottery that we have today," he wrote.

Guevara says the figures and designs were introduced by Kuvai, or Kuwai, the Hiwi culture hero, who first created the Shaman's prayers and the symbolic designs emerged from them and were passed on to the Hiwi so they could remember the stories of creation and the sacred prayers.

Pressed for time I missed the chance to buy myself some figurines from the Hiwi vendors in the market outside the museum but vowed I would return.

Twenty years later, when I finally got the chance to visit the market again after a tremendous river trip to Cerro Autana, the figurines on sale had changed almost completely. No longer did they have a slight glaze to the pottery or dark designs painted on the surface.

Time had moved on and the Hiwi figurines seemed to have lost touch with their mythical past. They looked slick and slightly generic, objects made to sell to tourists rather than meaningful expressions of Hiwi culture.

I bought one of the figurines anyway, at least to have something to take home.

But the question remains. Are there communities of Hiwi in Venezuela or Colombia still making traditional figurines?

My search is not over yet.

Warao Myth 2: The Origin of Stars

2010-02-10T07:51:00.025-04:30

This myth from the Warao people of the Orinoco Delta appears in a book by the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss called "The Raw and The Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology", a sometimes head-scratchingly intense attempt to tease abstract meanings out of indigenous myths from across the Americas and show the psychological patterns underlying them.

Levi-Strauss, who died aged 100 in October 2009, was an inspired thinker who tried to deconstruct indigenous mythology to try and answer fundamental questions about human thought and motivation and the differences between the "raw" elements of nature and the "cooked" elements of human culture.

Although sometimes baffling in places, my dog-eared copy of "The Raw and the Cooked" has been a constant companion on my travels into the jungle regions of Venezuela ever since I bought it in the British Museum bookshop in 1989.

Frustratingly, most of the Venezuelan myths Levi-Strauss refers to in the book are only presented in summary form but this Warao myth is published in its entirety.

The Origin of the Stars

Once upon a time there were two brothers, the elder of whom was a celebrated hunter. Each day he went farther afield in search of game, with the result that finally he came to creek he had never seen before. He climbed into a tree standing at its edge so as to watch for the animals that came to drink. Suddenly he saw a woman wading through the water toward him and he thought her behaviour very curious. Each time she put her hand into the creek she brought out two fish, and each time she ate one of them and put the other into her basket.

She was a very big woman, a supernatural being. On her head she was wearing a calabash, which she occasionally took off and threw into the water in such a way as to make it spin like a top. When she did this, she would stop to watch it, and afterwards she would walk on again.

The hunter spent the night up the tree and returned to the village the next day. He told the story to his young brother, who begged to go with him in order to see "such a woman who can catch so many fish and can eat them as well."

"No", was the reply,, "because you are always laughing at everything and you might laugh at her."

But the young man promised to keep a straight face, and the elder brother allowed himself to be persuaded.

When they reached the stream, the elder brother climbed into his tree, which stood a little way back from the edge; the younger one insisted on taking up his position in a better-placed tree, so as to miss nothing, and he sat on a branch overhanging the water. The woman soon arrived and began behaving as before.

When she reached the spot directly beneath the young brother, she noticed the reflection of his shadow in the water. She tried to catch hold of it, and when she failed, kept on trying.

She put her hand in quickly, first to this side and then that, but of course she did not succeed, and what with all her queer gesticulations and funny capers she made so ridiculous an appearance that the brother up above could not resist laughing at her vain attempts to seize the substance of the shadow. He laughed and laughed and could not stop laughing.

Thereupon, the woman looked up and spied the two brothers. Furious at having been laughed at, she launched an attack with poisonous ants (Eciton species [New World army ants]); they bit and stung the boy so badly that to escape from them, he had to throw himself into the water, where the woman caught him and ate him.

Afterwards, she captured the other brother and put him in her well-secured basket. On returning to her hut, she put the basket down and forbade her two daughters to touch it.

But as soon as her back was turned, her daughters lost no time in opening it. They were delighted with the hero's physical appearance and his talents as a hunter. Both of them, indeed, feel in love with him, and the younger one hid him in her hammock.

When the time came for the ogress to kill and eat her prisoner, the daughters confessed to their misdeeds. The mother agreed to spare her unexpected son-in-law, on condition that he go fishing on her behalf. But however big the catch he brought back, the ogress would devour it all, apart from two fish. Eventually, the hero was so worn out that he fell ill.

The younger daughter, who was by now his wife, agreed to run away with him. One day he told his mother-in-law that he had left his catch in his canoe, and that she should go and fetch it (a fisherman was not supposed to carry the fish himself, since this would spoil his luck). However, he had arranged for a an alligator to be under the canoe, and the ogress was devoured.

The elder daughter, discovered the murder, sharpened her knife and pursued the culprit.

When she was about to catch up with him, he ordered his wife to climb a tree, and followed after her. But he was not quick enough to prevent his sister-in-law cutting off one of his legs.

The detached member sprang to life and became the mother of birds (Tinamus species).

You can still see, in the night sky, the hero's wife (the Pleiades); lower down, the hero himself (the Hyades) and lower still, his severed leg - Orion's belt.

Angel Falls or Kerepakupai-Meru?

2009-12-22T05:59:00.015-04:30

Since coming to power in Venezuela in 1999, President Hugo Chavez has renamed the country, the currency and the mountain that separates the capital city from the Caribbean sea. Now he's turned his attention to the country's most famous landmark Angel Falls, or Salto Angel in Spanish, which at 979 metres (3,212 feet) is the highest waterfall in the world, Venezuela's greatest natural treasure and a top tourism destination.

The falls are currently named after the US aviator and adventurer Jimmie Angel, who first saw the record-breaking natural wonder from the cockpit of his plane in 1933 while searching for a river of gold.

Speaking on his weekly radio and TV programme "Hello, President", Mr Chavez said: "How can we accept this idea that the falls were discovered by a guy who came from the United States in a plane?"

"If we do that, that would be like accepting that nobody was living here," he added, suggesting that from now on Angel Falls should be renamed to show respect to the Pemon Indians who inhabit the remote Gran Sabana region in the south of Venezuela, and who were there centuries before the US bush pilot saw the falls.

The waterfall gushes forth from an enormous heart-shaped mesa mountain, which already has an indigenous Pemon name: Auyan-tepui, or Aiyan-tepuy, which means "Devil Mountain", according to Father Cesareo Armellada's "Diccionario Pemon".

Following his first flypast of the falls in 1933, Jimmie Angel attempted a landing on Auyan-tepui in 1937 but his Flamingo monoplane "El Rio Caroni" sank into soft ground.

The crash left Jimmie, his wife Marie (shown left with Jimmie) and the Venezuelans Gustavo Heny and Miguel Delgado stranded atop the isolated mountain. They had limited supplies and had to trek to safety through unexplored terrain.

It took Angel and his party 11 exhausting days to make their way down to the Pemon village of Kamarata.

As news of their adventure spread across the globe, Jimmie Angel's name became inextricably linked with the waterfall, which was named Angel Falls in honour of his exploits.

The "Rio Caroni" was eventually taken down from the top of Auyan-tepui by the Venezuelan Air Force in the 1970s and now stands outside Ciudad Bolivar airport, where modern-day tourists start their trips to Canaima Camp, the starting point for river trips to Angel Falls and flyovers in small planes.

Angel died aged 57 of injuries sustained in a plane accident in Panama in 1956.

In July 1960, in line with his wishes, Jimmie Angel's ashes were scattered over the falls by his two sons.

President Chavez acknowledged that Angel "was the first one to see it from a plane", but insisted it should have an indigenous name.

"That is ours, and was a long time before Angel ever got there... how many millions of indigenous eyes saw it, and prayed to it?" he added.

Referring at first to Churun-Meru, the Pemon name for a smaller waterfall that cascades from the Auyan-tepui mountain, Mr Chavez was subsequently corrected by his daughter Maria, who passed him a note stating the correct Pemon name for the falls is Kerepakupai-Meru, meaning "waterfall of the deepest place".

"Nobody should speak of Angel Falls any more," said the president.

However, there could be a challenge to the new name. While some Pemon refer to the waterfall as Kerepakupai-Meru, it is referred to in older reports as Parekupa-Meru, from the Pemon words kupa meaning "deep water", pare meaning "more", and meru meaning "waterfall".

The Venezuelan president's call for a name change comes at a moment of increasing interest in the world's highest waterfall. It featured as "Paradise Falls" in the Pixar/Disney movie "Up" and has made it into the final 28 candidates of a global internet campaign to find the New Seven Wonders of Nature.

By Russell Maddicks

Report on Jimmie Angel and the "discovery" of Angel Falls

Auyan-tepui, Angel Falls and Pemon myths

Angel Falls competing to be one of the 7 Wonders of Nature

Video clip of Angel Falls from David Attenborough's BBC series "Planet Earth"

Pixar's movie "Up" explores Venezuela's Lost World of Roraima, Angel Falls

Spectacular video clip of oldest base Jumper to leap from the top of Angel Falls

View of the falls from a pool below the "Mirador", where in the dry season visitors can bathe in the waters of Salto Angel. (All photos are the property of Russell Maddicks)

Watunna - An Orinoco Creation Cycle

2009-12-04T12:39:00.006-04:30

One of the finest books ever published on South American indigenous myths, "Watunna", by French-born geologist Marc de Civrieux contains the epic history and creation myths of the So'to (also known as Makiritare, Maquiritare, Dekuana and Yekuana) - a rainforest people of the Upper Caura and nothern bank of the Orinoco rivers.

Civrieux's comprehensive overview of So'to myth was the culmination of nearly 30 years of travel and study among Venezuela's indigenous groups.

Watunna first came out in Spanish in 1970 to great acclaim, although it was 10 years until the US anthropologist David Guss, from Tufts University, published an English version, expanded to include Civrieux's retelling of the "Medatia" myth cycle, which recounts the origins of shamanism.

"Watunna" presents myths explaining the discovery of fire, the origins of evil on Earth, of the night, of sexuality and food, and the story of the first rain, which gave birth to the rivers.

The following is an extract from "Watunna: An Orinoco Myth Cycle"

Seruhe Ianadi
There was Kahuña, the Sky Place. The Kahuhana lived there, just like now. They're good, wise people. And they were in the beginning too. They never died.

There was no sickness, no evil, no war. The whole world was Sky. No one worked. No one looked for food. Food was always there, ready.

There were no animals, no demons, no clouds, no winds. There was just light.

In the highest Sky was Wanadi, just like now. He gave his light to the people, to the Kahuhana.

He lit everything down to the very bottom, down to Nono, the Earth. Because of that light, the people were always happy. They had life. They couldn't die.

There was no separation between Sky and Earth. Sky had no door like it does now. There was no night, like now. Wanadi is like a sun that never sets. It was always day. The Earth was like a part of the Sky.

The Kahuhana had many houses and villages in Kahuña and they were all filled with light. No one lived on the Earth. There was no one there, nothing, just the Earth and nothing else.

Wanadi said: "I want to make people down there."

He sent his messenger, a damodede. He was born here to make houses and good people, like in the Sky Place.

That damodede was Wanadi's spirit. He was the Earth's first Wanadi, made by the other Wanadi who lives in Kahuña. That other Wanadi never came down to the Earth. The one that came was the other's spirit.

Later on, two more damodede came here. They were other forms of Wanadi's spirit.

The first Wanadi to come was called Seruhe Ianadi, the Wise. When he came, he brought knowledge, tobacco, the maraca, and the wiriki. He smoked and he sang and he made the old people.

That was a long time before us, the people of today.

When that spirit was born, he cut his navel-cord and buried the placenta. He didn't know. Now the worms got into the placenta and they started to eat it. The placenta rotted.

As it rotted, it gave birth to a man, a human creature, ugly and evil and all covered with hair like an animal.

It was Kahu.

He has different names. They call him Kahushawa and Odosha too. This man was very evil.

He was jealous of Wanadi. He wanted to be master of the Earth. Because of him, we suffer now. There's hunger, sickness and war. He's the father of all the Odoshankomo. Now, because of him, we die.

When that old Wanadi's placenta rotted, Odosha sprang out of the Earth like a spear.

He said: "This Earth is mine. Now there's going to be war. I'm going to chase Wanadi out of here."

He misled those people who had just been born. He taught them to kill. There was a man fishing. He had lots of fish. Odosha told them: "If you kill him, you'll have lots of fish."

They killed him. Odosha was happy. Then the people were turned into animals as punishment.

Because of Odosha, Seruhe lanadi couldn't do anything on Earth. He went back to the Sky and left the old people as animals with Odosha.

He didn't leave any of Wanadi's people on the Earth though. That was the end of the first people.

The birth of Kahu on that old Earth is a sign to us, the people of today. When a baby is born, we should never bury the placenta. The worms get it. It rots.

Another Odosha will come again, like in the beginning to hurt the baby, to kill it.

Like what happened when Kahu fought against Wanadi for control of the Earth. When a baby is born, we put the placenta in a nest of white ants. It's safe there. The worms can't get it.

That was the story of the old people. That's all.

To purchase "Watunna: An Orinoco Creation Cycle" click here:

Seven Yanomami die in suspected swine flu outbreak

2009-11-05T09:56:00.011-04:30

Seven Yanomami Indians living on the border between Venezuela and Brazil have died from an outbreak of the Type A H1NI "swine flu" virus in the last three weeks, according to reports from Venezuelan sources and the UK-based NGO Survival International.

Raidan Bernade, a Venezuelan doctor based in La Esmeralda on the Orinoco, said that a 35-year-old Yanomami woman was confirmed to have died from swine flu but it was not possible to confirm that the six babies who died - the oldest just 1-year-old - had died of the illness.

Some 1,000 Yanomami are reported to have contracted the virus and Yamilet Mirabal, the government's deputy minister of indigenous affairs for the region, has confirmed that suspected cases of swine flu had been detected in the jungle villages of Mavaca, Platanal and Hatakoa and that medical teams had been dispatched to treat the sick.

Bernade, meanwhile, told news agencies that: "everything is under control" and that many of the flu cases the indigenous Yanomami are suffering from are down to a seasonal flu.

The UK-based indigenous rights group Survival International has called on the governments of Venezuela and Brazil to take urgent action to protect the 32,000 Yanomami who live in the isolated border area, where there is little access to medical care.

"The situation is critical. Both governments must take immediate action to halt the epidemic and radically improve the health care to the Yanomami. If they do not, we could once more see hundreds of Yanomami dying of treatable diseases," said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International.

"This would be utterly devastating for this isolated tribe, whose population has only just recovered from the epidemics which decimated their population 20 years ago," he added, referring to malaria outbreaks in the 1980s and 1990s introduced by wildcat gold miners known as garimpeiros.

The Yanomami, who are linguistically and culturally related to the Sanema, are the largest relatively isolated tribe in the Amazon rainforest and due to their isolation have very little resistance to introduced diseases such as flu.

Click here to read Yanomami Myth 1: The Origin of Fire

Click here to read Yanomami Myth 2: The Origin of Endo-Cannibalism

Video of Sanema Shaman Ritual with Bruce Parry

The Dolphin People: Novel set in Venezuelan jungle

2009-07-11T11:52:00.006-04:30

A small plane crashes deep in the Venezuelan jungle. A family fleeing the post-WWII nightmare of occupied Germany is captured by a warlike tribe living far from civilization who think they are magical river dolphins in human form. Can they keep up the pretence? Or will they be discovered and cast out or even killed?

To read more about Torsten Krol's debut novel "The Dolphin People" click here:

Kariña Myth 2: Kaputa and the Great Flood

2009-04-04T12:59:00.010-04:30

This Kariña myth recounts the arrival on Earth of the creator god Kaputa, who comes to warn his people that a great flood is coming. Many similarities have been drawn between this story and the Biblical flood story of Noah and the Ark. The idea of all the animals entering the great canoe in pairs and the seeds of all the plants also being stored is very similar.

Whether it is an adaptation of the biblical story passed on to the Kariña by missionaries and adapted by them, or an original Kariña myth is almost impossible to say, although the annual flooding of the major rivers in Venezuela during the rainy season has given rise to many myths. The text is taken from Father Cesareo de Armellada´s book: "Literaturas Indigenas de Venezuela" (Monte Avila Editores, 1991).

The Great Canoe

One day Kaputa came to the land of the Kariñas to tell them that the world was going to be flooded and nobody would survive unless they quickly built a great canoe and got in.

- My children, a great rain is going to fall. It will rain for many nights and many days.

But out of all the Indians only four couples were afraid; the rest didn't believe him.

- My children, help me to build a canoe we can all get in before the rains swell the rivers. That way we won't drown.

- What do you mean everything's going to be flooded? That just couldn't happen, they said, unconvinced.

- I am Kaputa, the father and creator of the Kariña. I don't want my children to die

- You're not Kaputa, the Indians said, except for the four couples who began to build a great canoe.

When they had finished they began to put different animals inside in pairs, and a seed for each plant.

Then the day turned to night as the sky darkened and it began to rain for months without stopping.

The rivers broke their banks and flooded the land. The water rose so high that it covered the highest trees.

When the flooding began everybody wanted to get into the great canoe but Kaputa said:

- You thought I wasn't kaputa! You didn't want to build the canoe! Well, now you will drown.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Kariña Myth 1: The Twins and the Origin of Yuca

Maria Lionza - indigenous myth or folk legend?

2008-08-15T13:53:00.009-04:30

This is just one version of the many myths that have been linked to Maria Lionza, the cult figure from Yaracuy State who is venerated throughout Venezuela.

With so little known about the origins of the cult it is impossible to know if Maria Lionza was a real historical figure or if the legends refer to an Indian girl from one of the historical tribes that inhabited the area around Chivacoa, where the sacred mountain of Sorte is located.

What is clear is that adherents of the cult, who refer to her simply as "La Reina" ("The Queen"), have continuously added stories and attributes to this local folk figure to increase her importance and power.

Adding to the confusion is the iconography of Maria Lionza. In some images she is shown as a Virgin Mary figure, others depict a European-looking lady with green eyes, an elegant dress and a crown.

The most famous image of her is the statue by Alejandro Colina which was placed on the Francisco Fajardo Freeway in Caracas in 1953 by the dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez. It shows a muscular indigenous woman sitting astride a tapir and holding aloft a female pelvis.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s the cult became more widespread as people from the countryside moved to Caracas and other big cities. It was also a time when writers and artists were looking back to Venezuela's indigenous past in response to a spate of archaeological finds from the late 1930s and there was a conscious attempt to link "La Reina" to this rediscovered past.

Yara, or Maria Lionza as she was known afterwards, was an indigenous princess. She was the daughter of Yaracuy, the chief of the Nivar tribe, the granddaughter of Chief Chilua and the great-granddaughter of Chief Yare, all great warriors and leaders.

The birth of Maria Lionza must have occurred around the year 1535 in the state that today is named after her father.

The shaman of the village had predicted before Yara was born that if a girl was born with strange, watery-green eyes, she would have to sacrificed and offered to the Master of the Waters, the Great Anaconda, because if not it would lead to the ruin and extinction of the Nivar tribe.

However, her father was unable to sacrifice her and so he hid the little girl in a mountain cave, with 22 warriors to watch over her and stop her from leaving.

She was also forbidden from looking at her image reflected in water.

But one day, her guards were mysteriously put to sleep and the beautiful young girl left the cave and walked to a lagoon, where she looked into the water and saw her reflection for the first time.

Captivated by her own image, she was unable to move, but her presence awakened the Master of the Waters, the Great Anaconda, who emerged from the depths, fell in love with the girl, and drew closer to take her away.

When she resisted its advances the anaconda swallowed the girl, but immediately he began to swell up, forcing the water out of the lagoon, flooding the village and drowning the tribe.

Finally, the anaconda burst and Maria Lionza was set free, becoming the owner of the lagoon, the river and the waters, the protecter of the fish and later of all the plants and animals.

Translated from various sources by Russell Maddicks

Piaroa Myth 1: Buoka and Wajari, the first men

2008-03-11T16:38:00.014-04:30

There are about 15,000 Wotuja - better known as Piaroa - living in the Orinoco-Ventuari region of Venezuela's Amazonas and Bolivar states. Their most sacred monument is the dramatic, tabletop mountain known in Spanish as Cerro Autana, a popular destination for adventure tourists. While the majority of Piaroa now wear western clothing and are increasingly part of the cash economy they still hold on to traditional beliefs, including this important myth about the origin of the world and the creation of the first people by the brothers Buoka and Wajari. This myth is taken from Luis Boglar's "Cuentos y Mitos de Los Piaroa" (Montalban, 1977) and appears in "Mitos de Creacion de la Cuenca del Orinoco" (FUNDEF, 1993).

Everything was dark. There was no sun. There was no water. There was no sky. There were no mountains. There were no people. Wajari, the creator of all the elements, the animals and the people had not yet been born.

Suddenly, Buoka appeared next to a beautiful tree that he named Kareru. This tree produced the juice of knowledge.

Enemey Ofoda, a spirit, told Buoka to drink the juice from this tree. Buoka drank it and had visions of what he could do.

Kareru is the first tree. It is the grandfather tree and the father tree. The father of the white-lipped peccaries was born from this tree, as were the fathers of the collared peccaries and the armadillos.

Buoka drank the juice from the tree and he had visions. In these visions he travelled down underground to the sacred places of the white-lipped peccary spirits, the armadillo spirits, and the spirits of the other rainforest animals.

He saw all the animal spirits that live deep underground and he heard the voices of the white-lipped peccaries' musical instruments.

He had these visions after just one sip of the Kareru juice. He also saw images of the other musical instruments and he saw behind the waterfalls. His eyes crossed the sky in his vision and he saw the spirits of the mountains. He saw the birth of the great father of the waters, the Orinoco River, and its exit into the sea. He also saw the mountain of Paria, the Sipapo River and the Upper Cuao. He also saw the sacred places of the mountain animals.

The Kareru tree reproduces the voices of the father of the white-lipped peccaries and the fathers of the collared peccaries and the armadillos. Inside, it also has the voice of the grandfather and the cry of the mountain bear.

The second time that Buoka drank the juice of the Kareru tree, he saw his brother in a vision and he thought he would make it real so his brother would become the great chief of the world.

So Buoka pulled the vision from his right eye. From his right eye Wajari was born. Buoka thought that Wajari's eyes should be clear, like the eyes of a tapir, but Wajari came into the world blind. Nevertheless, Wajari was wise and before being born he had seen and visited many parts of the Earth.

He spoke to Buoka, his creator, like this: "Brother, how can you live without water, earth and sun?"

Then Wajari created water for the whole world. Afterwards, he said to his brother: "With the visions that the Kareru juice gives you and with my thoughts, let's start working to create the natural elements and everything the Piaroa need to live."

So between the two of them they made the sun and the stars, the soil and the waterfalls. Buoka also had visions about the organization of the family, about wives, sons, and grandchildren.

The two brothers said that everything they were creating was necessary for the other indigenous peoples that appeared in Buoka's visions, such as the Baniwa, the Waika and the Yabarana.

Then Wajari created the sun on the earth. He cleaned it, he blew on it and he lifted it up to the sky. But at first the sun's light could not be seen.

Wajari thought the sun must have lost its way. He decided to travel to the sacred sites in the mountains to see if he could find it.

Finally, he found it. He took it in his hands and made such a giant leap that he managed to reach the sky and made the sun burn fiercely.

When Wajari jumped with the sun in his hands there was a clap of thunder. It was the voice of the white-lipped peccary.

Wajari lifted the sun even higher and its rays reached every part of the world and all could see it.

Buoka, who had created the moon, wanted to do the same as his brother. He took the moon in his hands and jumped but he couldn't jump as high as Wajari and he struck the sky and the moon bashed him in the face. So he placed it under the sky and did not make it burn as Wajari had done with the sun.

When Buoka returned to the earth he said that his thoughts were no longer so powerful and he said he did not have any masks for the collared peccaries. And that he would also need the power to stop the Piaroa suffering from illnesses.

Meanwhile, Wajari asked Ku-upa, the lighting - his celestial companion when he rose into the sky - for help in creating people.

Ku-upa agreed to help and Wajari sat in the sky on a bolt of lightning as he fashioned the first people.

While the lightning flashed and its voice, the thunder, rumbled through the heavens, Wajari created all the different parts of the first people, their skin, bones and eyes.

And depending on the part he was creating the thunder was soft or booming.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Warao Myth 1: The Owner of the Sun

2008-02-25T13:01:00.020-04:30

The Warao of Delta Amacuro State have made their homes in the hundreds of distributaries called caños that make up the Orinoco delta and adapted to life in a watery world that changes with the rise and fall of the tides.

Their palafito houses rise up from the river mud on stilts and their name, Warao, means "boat people". Most travel and nearly all trade is done in the curiara canoes that the Warao hollow from a single giant tree trunk and it is said that Warao babies learn to paddle before they learn to walk.

There are over 36,000 Warao in Delta Amacuro, Monagas and Sucre states, according to the 2001 census, and they speak an independent language that was once thought to be linked to Yanomami.

They have a complex tradition of myths, healing rituals and music that survives to this day and Warao women are noted for their excellent weaving skills and the baskets and hammocks they weave from moriche palm fibres.

This myth, which relates how Ya, the Sun, and Guaniku, the Moon, came to light up the sky, is taken from Maria Manuela de Cora's book "Kuai-Mare: Mitos Aborigenes de Venezuela" (1957, Editorial Oceanida).

Long ago, at the beginning of everything, the sun did not light up the rivers or warm the conuco gardens, because a man who lived in the land up above, towards the East, had locked up Ya, the Sun, in a large bag and did not let him rise up over the clouds.

A Warao who lived in one of the branches of the Orinoco discovered the way in which Ya was hidden and decided to send his oldest daughter to the east to see if she could make the man release the sun.

The girl had to walk for a long time through the jungle and had a hard job clearing a path through the forest and crossing the steep riverbanks before she finally arrived at the distant place where the owner of the Sun lived.

When she arrived in front of him she said: "My father wants you to release the Sun from the hiding place you're keeping him in and to put him on the sea above (the sky) so he can shine his light on everybody.

The owner of the Sun pretended not to understand the girl's words, he looked at her warmly and finding her pretty wanted to take her for his wife.

She did not want to give in to his desires but the man rudely forced her to accept him and then sent her away, taking no notice of her father's request.

When the girl got home to the village she told her father everything that had happened and how the owner of the Sun had laughed at his request.

The father, undeterred by this, decided to send his second daughter, to see if she would have more luck than her sister.

The Warao's second daughter also had to cross the jungle and walk a long way, although she took less time than her sister to arrive at the house of the owner of the Sun, who she asked to release Ya and let him pass freely through the clouds.

But the man also ignored the girl's request and made her his wife like the other one, because she was also pretty and had awoken his desire.

Afterwards, he said: "Off you go now to the land below and don't come back and bother me."

Instead of obeying these cruel words as her sister had done, she relied angrily: "How dare you speak to me like that? Are you not going to release the Sun?"

And while she spoke to him, she looked around anxiously to see if she could discover the place where Ya was hidden, until she spied a strange and very large bag tied to the wooden posts of the wall and stared at it intently, suspecting that this was it.

Seeing that the girl was looking at the bag, the man said quickly: "careful! Don't even think about touching that!"

By the tone of his voice the Warao girl knew for sure that the Sun was hidden there and ignoring the man's threats she leapt towards the bag in a single bound and ripped it open with a swipe of her hand.

The bright face of Ya, the Sun, appeared immediately, orange and dazzling, and began to diffuse its heat and the light of its rays over the clouds of the sea above and over the hills and woods of the Earth. Its light reached to the very bottom of the rivers and the realm of the spirits who live beneath the water.

Seeing that his secret had been discovered and he could not contain the power of Ya again, the man pushed it towards the East and hung the ripped bag in the West, which was lit up by the rays of the Sun and became the Moon.

The girl ran home to her hut to tell her father how she had managed to free the Sun from its hiding place.

The Warao was very happy and did nothing more than contemplate the beauty of Ya, shining from the sea above. But when less than half a joyakaba (tide) had passed the Sun disappeared behind the hills, leaving the rivers lit only by the reflection of Guaniku, the moon.

The Warao said to his daughter: "Go again to the East and wait for the Sun to start his trip over the clouds. Just as he is starting out, carefully tie a tortoise behind him, so he travels more slowly.

The girl did what her father had told her and managed to hook Guaku, the tortoise, to the Sun's tail, stopping Ya from racing too much with its slow pace and so making sure the Earth was illuminated for the period of joyakaba and joajua (the tides).

Since then it has done just this every day and it only hides away at night, disappearing little by little over the waters of the rivers to sleep and refresh itself by drinking, because if it didn't it would die of the heat given off by its rays.

Meanwhile, Guaniku follows Ya's path, reflecting the light of the Sun from the West.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Kariña Myth 1: The Twins and the Origin of Yuca

2008-02-22T16:18:00.017-04:30

The Kariña, or True Caribs as they are sometimes called, were once spread throughout the Orinoco and the Caribbean and are still found in Surinam and French Guiana. The main concentration in Venezuela is now in the Mesa de Guanipa in Anzoategui State, but there are smaller communities in Monagas, Sucre and Bolivar states.

Many Kariña live and work in the cities of Ciudad Bolivar and Caracas but return home for tribal traditions such as the Akaatompo dances, which are celebrated every year from 1-3 November. The Akaatompo is like the Mexican Day of the Dead, a time when dead ancestors (añaatos) come to visit the living and speak to family members via mediums. It is also a time for communal dances, such as the Maremare.

This myth recounts the birth of the hero twins, the death of their mother and the origin of yuca and other plant foods. It is taken from Father Cesareo de Armellada´s book: "Literaturas Indigenas de Venezuela" (Monte Avila Editores, 1991).

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Long ago the Sun slept with the Moon and she became pregnant.
So the Sun invited her to give birth in his house.

"How do I get to your house?" the Moon asked him.

He said:
"At the first crossroads along the path that leads to the mountains you must take the path where you find a macaw feather. Further on you will find a feather from the Yuis bird and my house is close by. But you must be very careful. If you take the wrong path you will arrive at the house of Tarunmio, the old cannibal-woman!"

When the day came, the Moon set out to give birth in the Sun's house. More concerned than the mother were the children inside her belly. They bothered her ceaselessly. During the trek they kept saying:
"Look at those pretty flowers mother."
"Look at those ripe fruits."

On one of these occasions the Moon fell over and annoyed by the cheek of her babies she banged her belly to punish them.

They weren't born yet and they were already a nuisance.

When she arrived at the crossroads the Moon could not remember the sign that had been agreed. Frightened, she asked her babies, but they were angry and did not answer.

As might be expected she took the wrong road and ended up at the house of the old cannibal woman Tarunmio, who was cooking when she arrived.

The Moon was tired and hungry and asked if she could stay the night. Tarunmio didn't need to be asked twice. She offered her food, water and a room and then helped her to lie down.

In the middle of the night Tarunmio killed the Moon. She took out the twin babies and then she ate her.

From that night on the only mother the boys knew was the old woman.

In a few days they grew and became strong, because the blood of the gods ran through their veins.

The boys became great hunters. Every day they brought home from the jungle guan birds, agoutis and opossums that the old woman cooked in the night, giving the boys nothing.

The cannibal woman only gave them a white bread that tasted like cassava (flat manioc-flour cakes).

The boys, tired of the same food, asked themselves where the old woman got the cassava from if she didn't grow yuca (manioc). So they decided to watch how she did it.

From an enormous toad the old woman extracted a heavy milk that she threw on the hot flat circular cooking plate (budare) and from which she made the sipiipa (cassava cakes).

Afterwards, she spoke to the toad:

"The day will come when I shall stop getting milk from you for these two. Sometime soon I shall eat them."

Realizing that the old woman was not their mother, but a Tarunmio, the twins decided to kill her.

Also, after returning from hunting guans one day they heard two of the birds who were still alive speaking:

"Those two who hunted us are the sons of the moon...," said one of the birds, before recounting the whole story of what had happened to their mother.

The next afternoon, the twins told the old woman that they were going to burn the ground to prepare it for planting, but to obtain a good harvest they needed her to shout out her chants on top of a platform of sticks they would build.

After two days the ground was cleared and on on the third day the platform of sticks was ready.

When the old woman started to sing the twins set fire to the wood underneath her. The old woman had no time to escape because the flames burnt her up like a dry twig...

That was the origin of the indigenous people's first attempt at sowing, and from where all the fruits and root vegetables first came: ocumo, mapuey, ñame and many others.

Humboldt: Story of Guajibo mother's sacrifice

2008-02-19T17:55:00.016-04:30

In 1800 the German explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt - one of the first foreign scientists allowed to travel in Spanish America - arrived in what is now Amazonas State. The entries in his diary cover everything from plant life to local politics, but he was also a keen observer of the indigenous people he met on his travels. One entry describes his feelings on learning of a Guajibo woman's vain attempts to stay with her children after they were captured and taken to a Catholic mission. It is a chilling account of the cruelty inflicted upon the indigenous tribes of Venezuela by so-called "civilized" people. The Guajibo still live along both sides of the border with Colombia, but now prefer to be called Jivi or Hiwi.

April 30th. We continued upstream on the Atabapo for 5 miles, then instead of following this river to its source, where it is called the Atacavi, we entered the Temi River.

Before we reached its confluence, a granitic eminence on the western bank, near the mouth of the Guasacavi, fixed our attention: it is called Piedra de la Guahiba (Rock of the Guahiba woman), or the Piedra de la Madre (Mother's Rock.) We inquired the cause of so singular a denomination.

Father Zea could not satisfy our curiosity; but some weeks after, another missionary, one of the predecessors of that ecclesiastic, whom we found settled at San Fernando as president of the missions, related to us an event which excited in our minds the most painful feelings.

If, in these solitary scenes, man scarcely leaves behind him any trace of his existence, it is doubly humiliating for a European to see perpetuated by so imperishable a monument of nature as a rock, the remembrance of the moral degradation of our species, and the contrast between the virtue of a savage, and the barbarism of civilized man!

In 1797 the missionary of San Fernando had led his Indians to the banks of the Rio Guaviare, on one of those hostile incursions which are prohibited alike by religion and the Spanish laws. They found in an Indian hut a Guahiba woman with her three children (two of whom were still infants), occupied in preparing the flour of cassava.

Resistance was impossible; the father was gone to fish, and the mother tried in vain to flee with her children. Scarcely had she reached the savannah when she was seized by the Indians of the mission, who hunt human beings, like the Whites and the Negroes in Africa.

The mother and her children were bound, and dragged to the bank of the river. The monk, seated in his boat, waited the issue of an expedition of which he shared not the danger. Had the mother made too violent a resistance the Indians would have killed her, for everything is permitted for the sake of the conquest of souls (la conquista espirituel), and it is particularly desirable to capture children, who may be treated in the Mission as poitos, or slaves of the Christians.

The prisoners were carried to San Fernando, in the hope that the mother would be unable to find her way back to her home by land. Separated from her other children who had accompanied their father on the day in which she had been carried off, the unhappy woman showed signs of the deepest despair.

She attempted to take back to her home the children who had been seized by the missionary; and she fled with them repeatedly from the village of San Fernando. But the Indians never failed to recapture her; and the missionary, after having caused her to be mercilessly beaten, took the cruel resolution of separating the mother from the two children who had been carried off with her.

She was conveyed alone to the missions of the Rio Negro, going up the Atabapo. Slightly bound, she was seated at the bow of the boat, ignorant of the fate that awaited her; but she judged by the direction of the sun, that she was removing farther and farther from her hut and her native country.

She succeeded in breaking her bonds, threw herself into the water, and swam to the left bank of the Atabapo. The current carried her to a shelf of rock, which bears her name to this day. She landed and took shelter in the woods, but the president of the missions ordered the Indians to row to the shore, and follow the traces of the Guahiba.

In the evening she was brought back. Stretched upon the rock (la Piedra de la Madre) a cruel punishment was inflicted on her with those straps of manatee leather, which serve for whips in that country, and with which the alcaldes are always furnished.
This unhappy woman, her hands tied behind her back with strong stalks of mavacure, was then dragged to the mission of Javita.

She was there thrown into one of the caravanserais, called las Casas del Rey. It was the rainy season, and the night was profoundly dark.

Forests till then believed to be impenetrable separated the mission of Javita from that of San Fernando, which was twenty-five leagues distant in a straight line. No other route is known than that by the rivers; no man ever attempted to go by land from one village to another. But such difficulties could not deter a mother, separated from her children.

The Guahiba was carelessly guarded in the caravanserai. Her arms being wounded, the Indians of Javita had loosened her bonds, unknown to the missionary and the alcaldes. Having succeeded by the help of her teeth in breaking them entirely, she disappeared during the night; and at the fourth sunrise was seen at the mission of San Fernando, hovering around the hut where her children were confined.

"What that woman performed," added the missionary, who gave us this sad narrative, "the most robust Indian would not have ventured to undertake!" She traversed the woods at a season when the sky is constantly covered with clouds, and the sun during whole days appears but for a few minutes. Did the course of the waters direct her way? The inundations of the rivers forced her to go far from the banks of the main stream, through the midst of woods where the movement of the water is almost imperceptible.

How often must she have been stopped by the thorny lianas, that form a network around the trunks they entwine! How often must she have swum across the rivulets that run into the Atabapo!

This unfortunate woman was asked how she had sustained herself during four days. She said that, exhausted with fatigue, she could find no other nourishment than those great black ants called vachacos, which climb the trees in long bands, to suspend on them their resinous nests.

We pressed the missionary to tell us whether the Guahiba had peacefully enjoyed the happiness of remaining with her children; and if any repentance had followed this excess of cruelty. He would not satisfy our curiosity; but at our return from the Rio Negro we learned that the Indian mother was again separated from her children, and sent to one of the missions of the Upper Orinoco.

There she died, refusing all kind of nourishment, as savages frequently do in great calamities.

Such is the remembrance annexed to this fatal rock, the Piedra de la Madre.

In this relation of my travels I feel no desire to dwell on pictures of individual suffering- evils which are frequent wherever there are masters and slaves, civilized Europeans living with people in a state of barbarism, and priests exercising the plenitude of arbitrary power over men ignorant and without defence.

In describing the countries through which I passed, I generally confine myself to pointing out what is imperfect, or fatal to humanity, in their civil
or religious institutions.

If I have dwelt longer on the Rock of the Guahiba, it was to record an affecting instance of maternal tenderness in a race of people so long calumniated; and because I thought some benefit might accrue from publishing a fact, which I had from the monks of San Francisco, and which proves how much the system of the missions calls for the care of the legislator.

To see Humboldt's book "Personal Narrative: Of a Journey to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent" click here:

To see Daniel Kehlmann's "factitious" account of Humboldt's travels "Measuring the World" click here:

Sanema: Video of Shaman Ritual with Bruce Parry

2008-01-27T03:52:00.003-04:30

When British TV adventurer Bruce Parry visited a Sanema village in Venezuela for his BBC documentary series Tribe he found a people living between two worlds: the traditional world of the shamans, ebene snuff and hekura spirits, and the encroaching modern world with its medicines, metal cooking pots and machetes.

The Sanema are one of the four branches of the Yanoama language group, which includes their more famous cousins the Yanomami.

Cast in a subservient position to the dominant Ye'kwana people of the Caura River basin, the Sanema no longer live the nomadic lifestyle of the past and now face shortages of traditional hunting foods as the jungle is depleted of game.

Parry jumps into Sanema life with both feet, becoming an apprentice to a visiting shaman called Sosa who tells him that when shamans are in a trance after taking the hallucinogenic snuff they can see the Sanema spirits called hekura or hekula.
The hekura, Sosa says "are tiny beings, two centimetres or so high, which occupy all animate and inanimate things, from trees and streams to animals and humans."

"A powerful shaman can invite particular hekura to occupy him. The spirits crawl in through your feet or arsehole and up into your chest cavity, then hack away at the foliage which they believe to be there. They then string up a hammock between your ribs and start to sing. This is the song you hear coming out of the mouths of the shaman."

Parry finally tries the hallucinogenic ebene snuff, known as sakona to the Sanema and yopo to the Yanomami. Made from virola bark and other plant extracts, it is a powerful drug.

"At first I felt very light-headed and soon I became dizzy," writes Parry in the book of the series, "Tribe: Adventures in a Changing World" (Michael Joseph Ltd, 2007).

"The other shamans danced around me, chanting, and I began to have crazy visions. the shamans became holograms, as if a 3D image of each had been imposed on top of their existing forms. I could see straight through them and these new auras."

Click here to read Sanema Myth on Origin of Fire

Click here to read Yanomami Myth 2: The Origin of Endo-Cannibalism

Click here to read Yanomami vs. Sanema in Venezuela

To see Bruce Parry's fascinating book of the TV series "Tribe: Adventures in a Changing World" click here:

To get the complete DVD Box Set of the BBC TV series, including Bruce Parry's stay with the Sanema of Venezuela, click here:

Wayuu Myth 4: The Origin of Fire

2008-01-25T12:43:00.000-04:30

This myth about the origin of fire is taken from Jose Enrique Finol's book "Mito y Cultura Guajira" (Universidad de Zulia, 1984). It not only relates how the brave and resourceful Junuunay stole fire from the cave of the creator god Maleiwa, but also the origin of the firefly, the scarab beetle and the sikiyu bird. It also signals the best kinds of wood to rub together to make a fire. So if you're ever stuck without a fire in the cold desert night of the Guajira Peninsula, seek out the caujaro tree and get rubbing.

In the beginning people did not have fire. They were imperfect creatures who ate things raw: meat, vegetables, roots and wild fruit. No vegetables were cooked in the fire. They ate no prepared foods. Meat was not smoked, or roasted, it was dried. They hung it in the sun and ate it dry.

Those first people, because of their imperfection, shared their sad fate with the animals. Some lived in tree trunks, some in caves, some in holes; others had huts to shelter in; but they lived without fire to warm them or give them light to stave off the fear that comes in the dead of night.

Maleiwa (the Wayuu creator god) was the only one who possessed fire. He had some burning stones that he jealously guarded in a grotto far from the reach of people. Maleiwa didn't want to give fire to people because they lacked judgement. Instead of making good use of it they could use it in bad ways to set fire to the undergrowth, burn living creatures and hasten calamities. That's why he kept it from them.

But one day, when Maleiwa was standing next to the fire (Octorojoshi) warming his body, a young man named Junuunay came towards him, stiff with cold.

Maleiwa on seeing him was greatly angered.

- What have you come for, trespasser? Don't you know that all access to this place is prohibited? Perhaps you have come to disturb my peace and try my patience?

Junuunay replied, pleadingly:

- No venerable grandfather. I have only come to stand next to you and warm my body. Have mercy on me. I did not mean to offend you. Shelter me from this cold that freezes me, that pricks my skin and works into my bones. As soon as I am warm I will leave.

Junuunay hid his intentions as he said this. The bold young man employed a host of cunning tricks to convince Maleiwa. He made his teeth chatter, he made his pores prick up as if he had goose pimples, he shivered like a machorro lizard and he rubbed his hands together until, finally, Maleiwa felt pity for him and agreed.

But the Great Father didn't take his eyes off him, because he had his doubts about the honesty of this stranger, who inspired admiration rather than disdain.

Both of them began to rub their hands together and warm up their bodies. The flames of that fire were intensely beautiful, giving off a glow that could be seen from afar like the golden glow of the stars, like the skemeche aitu'u, like the burning embers of heaven.

Junuunay's courage grew and tried to speak to Maleiwa in order to distract him, but Maleiwa stayed quiet and took no notice of the stranger's words.

However, a sudden gust of wind made Maleiwa turn his head round and look back to discover the source of the small noise. It sounded as if tiny, cautious steps were passing through the dead leaves.

Junuunay took advantage of this momentary slip by Maleiwa, grabbed two burning embers from the fire and quickly snuck them into a small bag he carried concealed under his arm.

With that he fled, sneaking out into the undergrowth that surrounded the grotto.

The Great Maleiwa, realizing that a robbery had taken place and he had been made a fool of, set off after Junuunay to punish him.

Maleiwa said:

- He tricked me, that rascal. I'm going to punish him, I'll torture him with a life of filth. I'll make him live in a pigsty, in a dungheap, pushing around balls of dung...

And saying that he ran after the thief.

Junuunay made a desparate dash to get away but his steps were so slow and short that he could barely make any headway.

Caught in this difficult predicament he again employed his slippery ability to save himself.

He called on a young hunter called Kenaa to help him, and quickly passed him one of the burning coals to hide.

Kenaa took the precious burning jewel and ran away without being seen. In the sun he was hidden from Maleiwa's view, but he was always discovered at night, when he had to try and hide the light of the burning ember among the trees and bushes.

To punish him, Maleiwa turned him into the firefly, who in the dark winter nights emits a flickering light as he flies by.

Junuunay in desperation found Jimut, the grasshopper and said to him:

- My friend, Maleiwa is chasing me because I have stolen fire from him to give it to the people. Take this last burning ember, flee with it and hide it in a safe place, because whoever possesses this jewel will be the most fortunate person of all, wise and great.

Saying this, Jimut took the burning coal and quickly hid it inside a branch from the Cuajaro tree, then he moved it into an olive tree, and then to a branch from another tree; and so it was spread and multiplied everywhere.

People discovered it later through a child called Serumaa. This child, as he played its games and jumped around the scrub, showed people the wood in which Jimut had deposited fire.

That child could not speak, he only knew how to say: Skii... Skii... Skiii... Fire... Fire... Fire...

People then rushed to find the fire but they couldn't find it and didn't know how to get it. They checked all the trees, the branches and the trunks but could find nothing.

Then they saw Jimut drilling a hole in a branch, and following his example, they drilled and rubbed with their hands two sticks from the Caujaro tree and at the tip a flame appeared, lighting up the heart of the countryside and filling the people's spirits with happiness.

Since that time they have made use of fire. Now people are no longer afraid and no longer have to suffer the harshness of the cold night.

Maleiwa turned the young boy Serumaa into the little bird that jumps from branch to branch crying Ski... Ski... Ski, it's song.

Since then, Serumaa has been called Sikiyuu.

This happened after Maleiwa turned Junuunay into a scarab beetle and condemned him to live in filth for stealing fire.

Since then the scarab beetle has lived off and fed from excrement. And in punishment for his audacity marked on his body are the marks of his theft, that is, the bright marks that the scarabs carry on their legs.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Wayuu Myth 1: The Way of the Dead Indians

Wayuu Myth 2: Pulowi and the Jewels

Wayuu Myth 3: Kasipoluin the Rainbow

Video of the Wayuu People and Their Native Land

Wayuu Myth 3: Kasipoluin the Rainbow

2008-01-02T16:42:00.001-04:30

Another myth taken from Michel Perrin's book "El Camino de Los Indios Muertos" explains the origin of Kasipoluin, the rainbow, and the connection between Kasipoluin and Juya, the rain.

Without Kasipoluin, the rainbow, it would rain without cease,
but the rainbow came to tell Juya, the rain, to stop.
He comes to disperse the rains.
The rainbow comes out at the same time as Juya,
to tell him to stop:
"Don't rain any more, Juya," he tells him.

They say that the Rainbow is the tongue of a snake,
that lives in the Earth, like a root.
What comes out of its mouth, appearing like a smoke, is three-pronged:
green or blue, yellow and red.
But the snake itself is unique,
having the same colours as the rainbow.

I know a child, who was running and
arrived at the place where a rainbow was coming out.
He saw a coiled up snake.
Frightened, he ran away immediately.
He did not try and get closer.
But he clearly saw a rainbow emerge from the snake.

The Guajiros say that,
snakes are the enemies of Juya.
And Juya is the enemy of snakes.
He strikes them with his lighting bolts when he sees them.
It is his fault that the largest ones are dead.

Some people say that the rainbow always comes from the boa, Sarulu.
Others say that it can come from any snake,
or an iguana or the caiman, Maliwa.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Wayuu Myth 1: The Way of the Dead Indians

Wayuu Myth 2: Pulowi and the Jewels

Wayuu Myth 4: The Origin of Fire

Video of the Wayuu People and Their Native Land

Wayuu Myth 2: Pulowi and the Jewels

2007-12-31T13:18:00.001-04:30

Wayuu Myth 2: Pulowi of the Land and Pulowi of the Sea

This myth taken from Michel Perrin's book "El Camino de Los Indios Muertos" tells the tale of two of Juya's wives, Pulowi of the Land and Pulowi of the Sea, who are fierce nature goddesses. Juya, a hunter who controls the rain, was married to Pulowi but later left her for Mma, who gave birth to plants. That is why the spurned Pulowi is so dangerous to people today and can turn those who look upon her to stone, or seduce them in the form of a beautiful woman and then devour them. The jewels that the troupial is sent to steal are tu'uma, made from red jasper or coral. Tu'uma are considered so precious by the Wayuu that they can form part of the "bride price", which is paid by the groom's parents to the bride's parents. Some tu'uma necklaces are considered equal in value to several dozen cattle. Alijuna are outsiders, non-Indians.

The Pulowi from the bottom of the sea
And the Pulowi that lives on land
are the wives of Juya.

The Pulowi from the bottom of the sea is richer.
Her "cattle",
are the turtles, the fish
and all the other food in the sea.
She owns a great deal of tu'uma
and jewels of every kind.

The Pulowi of the Land is poor.
Her "cattle",
are just the deer, the roe deer, the foxes,
and some other animals.

One day, she decided to steal a bag of tu'uma
from Pulowi of the Sea.

"Why don't you send me,"
said the Si'a bird, the troupial.
"Do you have supernatural powers
to try and bring me the jewels?"

"Yes, I am pulashi (magically powerful),"
replied the small Si'a bird to Pulowi of the Land.
"Well go then!"
"And return with the best jewels!"
"I will say you are pulashi
only when you have brought from Pulowi of the Sea,
the best bag of jewels."

The Si'a bird travelled very far,
to the seashore.
Then he went to the home of Pulowi of the Sea,
a very big house,
where her children also lived,
her daughters, the daughters of Juya.

"Hey Guajiro!"
"I've never see you before! Where are you from?"
"What are you after,
Indian who comes from far away from here?"
Pulowi asked him.
"I like to explore the world,
and I want to meet you."

"So you came to stay here?"
"Hang a hammock for this Guajiro!"
Pulowi said to her daughters, the daughters of Juya.

Pulowi of the Sea was very rich.
Her house was very big, very tall.
She had a great number of cattle,
turtles, fish and all sorts of sea birds.

Si'a stayed with her.
A hammock was put up for him
in which he could sleep.

The third day, at dawn,
while everybody was asleep
he flew up above the bags of jewels,
which were suspended very high, under the roof of the house.
He examined them.

One of them was small
but it contained the best jewels.
"This is the one I shall take,"
he said to himself.

When he came down,
he took the form of a Guajiro again
and stretched out in his hammock.

The next night,
he was the only one who did not go to bed late.
Finally, everybody went to sleep.
The old ones were sleeping and snoring.
Pulowi was sleeping.

Si'a was watching the susu
- the woven bags that contained the jewels -
"Where is the fastening for this one?"
"Is it tied to the other one?"
he asked himself.
He went to undo the small bag,
the bag that was secured at both corners.
He put it on his back,
and fled.

He went to deliver it to Pulowi of the Land,
who is also Juya's wife.

When Pulowi of the Sea woke up,
she looked up at her bag of jewels.
The bags weren't there any more!
They had been brought down to the ground.
The smallest, the most precious, had disappeared...

Pulowi could not see the Guajiro any more.
She went to check his hammock.
It was empty.
"Oh, help me," she cried.
"That man has left with my small woven bag!"

Pulowi's children woke up.
"Weren't you with him?"
she asked them.
"Yes, but he seemed asleep."
"I didn't notice anything..."
"What are we going to do?" said Pulowi.
"The bag is very far now,"
said the daughters.

Pulowi jumped into the sea after the Guajiro.
"Ou! Ouuuuuuuuuu! Ou! Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuu...!"
She always does that when she is robbed.
Pulowi was foaming at the mouth, following him.
But he was far away already.
The sea could not reach him now.

Si'a was now close to Pulowi of the Land.
"So have you brought them?" she asked when he arrived.
"Take this bag!"
"You'll find the best she had!"
replied the Si'a bird.
"Let me see!" said Pulowi.

From the bag of jewels she took out the tu'uma
and many necklaces, kakuuna and korolo...
She passed each one to her bag.

Pulowi gave the bag that had served as a wrapping
back to the Si'a bird.
"Take it!"
"Make yourself a hammock from this bag from a far away land,"
she told him.
From that time,
the Si'a bird has had a very good hammock of woven straw.

Do you know the nest of this bird Alijuna?
Have you seen the house of the Si'a bird?
When it's hanging down it looks like a woven bag
whose bottom has come untied.
We call it a chirana.
It was given to the bird by Pulowi.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Wayuu Myth 1: The Way of the Dead Indians

Wayuu Myth 3: Kasipoluin the Rainbow

Wayuu Myth 4: The Origin of Fire

Video of the Wayuu People and Their native Land

Wayuu Video: The people and their native land

2007-12-24T09:15:00.001-04:30

The Wayuu are the largest single native group in Venezuela and live on both sides of the border with Colombia. Their ancestral home in the Guajira Peninsula is a harsh land of hot sun and baking deserts and they live from herding goats and sheep, fishing, hunting and the weaving of colourful hammocks and bags, called susu. They refuse to recognize the border which separates the two countries and are also famed for their smuggling activities. The women paint their faces to protect them from the sun and wear brightly-coloured mantas, baggy dresses which reach to the floor.

Wayuu Myth 1: The Way of the Dead Indians

Wayuu Myth 2: Pulowi and the Jewels

Wayuu Myth 3: Kasipoluin the Rainbow

Wayuu Myth 4: The Origin of Fire

Wayuu: The Way of The Dead Indians

2007-12-23T14:47:00.000-04:30

Wayuu Myth 1: The Soul and Death

The Arawak-speaking Wayuu who live around Maracaibo in Venezuela and both sides of the border with Colombia in the Guajira Peninsula are also known as Guajiros. They are the largest indigenous group in Venezuela and have preserved a rich tradition of myth and legend as well as their own shamanic traditions and burial practices. This myth about the nature of the soul and the cause of death was collected by Michel Perrin in 1969 and is taken from his 1976 book: "El Camino de Los Indios Muertos". I have kept the sentence structure of the original.

Each one of us is joined to a soul.
It is like a small piece of white cotton, like a puff of smoke.
But nobody can see it.

Our soul follows us everywhere we go,
like our shadow.
- Some say that our shadow is the form of the soul,
and call the soul the shadow -.
Our soul does not leave us except during sleep,
or when we are sick,
or when we have been hit by the arrows of Wanulu (god of illness and death).

Everything that happens in our dreams
is what happens to our soul.
If a Guajiro dreams that they are outside
close to a well, in a house...,
or if they see birds,
that means that their soul has left their heart,
coming out through their mouth,
to fly there.
But their heart continues to beat.

Nevertheless, it is our soul that makes us die.
A man who dreams that he dies never wakes up again.
His soul has left him forever.
Someone who dreams that a knife has been plunged into his chest,
is still alive.
But his soul is now badly injured.
The sickness is there.
Death is close.

When a Guajiro gets sick,
their soul is like a prisoner,
in the place of dreams.
That is where the shaman's spirit
can find it and bring it back to the sick one.
But if he cannot find it,
if it is hidden away,
if it is somewhere inside,
the Guajiro dies.
His soul has passed along the path,
the path of the dead Indians:
the Milky Way.

It travels towards the sea,
to enter the house where the sisters,
the mothers, the maternal uncles, the brothers are...

And the last words are said by the dying man:
- I am going now, I am going,
going to die.
I am going and will never return...
But his soul has already gone and will never return.
It will have taken its saddle.
It will have taken its belongings, its hammocks...
It will have gone to its land,
to Jepira, the land of the Yoluja (the spirits of dead Wayuu)...
When they die, Guajiros become Yoluja.
They go to Jepira via the Milky Way,
the way of the dead Indians,
there they find their houses.

The souls of the dead return to the earth
in our dreams.
Our souls meet them
when we dream about the dead.
Here, sometimes, you can see their ghosts.
They are the Yoluja,
the ghosts of the dead come back to earth.

On our death, however, we do not lose our soul.
Only our bones do we lose.
Our bones and our skin.
Our soul goes, that's all.
What goes is our shadow,
like our silhouette, blurry, imprecise...

But we die twice.
Once here,
and again in Jepira...

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Wayuu Myth 2: Pulowi and the Jewels

Wayuu Myth 3: Kasipoluin the Rainbow

Wayuu Myth 4: The Origin of Fire

Video of the Wayuu People and Their native Land

Timote-Cuica: Caribay and the Five White Eagles of Merida

2007-11-25T19:50:00.000-04:00

Timote-Cuica Myth 1: Caribay and the Five White Eagles

This myth from Merida is taken from Maria Manuela de Cora's book "Kuai-Mare: Mitos Aborigenes de Venezuela" but was originally collected by the noted Merida historian and writer Don Tulio Febres Cordero (1860-1938). The Timote-Cuica were a pre-Colombian collection of loosely-linked Chibcha-speaking chiefdoms living in an area that encompasses the current Andean states of Merida, Trujillo and Tachira. Their chief God was Ches, the Supreme Being, but they also worshipped Zuhe, the Sun, and Chia, the Moon, and venerated the mountain peaks and lakes. This myth tells the tale of Caribay, wind spirit of the high paramos, and the origin of Merida's five highest peaks - Bolivar (5007m), Humboldt/Bonpland (4942m), La Concha (4922m), El Toro (4775m) and El Leon (4743m).

High among the rocky crags of the Andes mountains, with their jagged peaks and hills, the Mirripuyes Indians lived a hard life, fighting frequent wars with their neighbours. In their vegetable plots, they grew corn, yucca, ocumo and different fruits. They hunted the abundant rabbits and deer in the forest and the birds that soared in the clear mountain sky.

One of the fierce Indian chiefs had a daughter, Caribay. She was so beautiful that people from the tribe thought she must be the daughter of Zuhe, the Sun, and Chia, the moon, because her eyes and her skin were so bright that they seemed to be made of pure light.

Caribay liked to wear necklaces of bone or painted clay and adorn her hair with coloured feathers.

One day, she was on the bank of a river looking for shiny flat stones to decorate her cotton shawl when she saw five gigantic condors fly past, their white plumage shining like silver in the sun.

Caribay had never seen birds like these before. Straight away, she felt a desire to adorn herself with their feathers and she began to run after the shadows they cast on the ground, hoping they would tire of flying before she tired of chasing them.

So she ran from hill to hill, jumping over ravines and the streams formed by the meltwater that blocked her path, until, overcome with fatigue she reached one of the highest summits of the mountain, a place bare of any vegetation, where the silence made her feel she was in the presence of Ches (the Supreme Being of the Timote-Cuica tribes).

When the birds got there they stopped for moment and then began to fly higher until they disappeared from view.

Caribay stopped. She was surprised at how far she had run. From the peak where she was standing she could see on one side, far away, the wide savannah at the foot of the mountain, and on the other side the great Laguna de Coquivacoa, in which the mountains of the sierra were reflected as if they rose up from the lake itself.

Above her head the mist which guards the realm of Ches was closing in as night began to fall.

Caribay felt cold and was afraid. She began to cry, calling on Zuhe, the Sun, to help her. But her cries bounced off the rocky crags until they turned into a terrifying whistle that echoed through the mountains. The Sun, however, unheeding of her pleas, began to set behind the Andes.

"Will you help me Chia!" said the girl, turning to the Moon.

As the wind dropped, Caribay´s words could be clearly heard. Chia, the Moon, appeared. Her radiance blocked out the light from the stars and lit up the sky, suddenly highlighting the five white eagles, which began to fly towards the Earth.

Filled with joy, Caribay began to sing a slow, rhythmic chant - like flute music - as the eagles descended lower and lower, until they touched down on the high Andean mountains close to the girl, cleaving to the rocks with their claws, each one on a different peak.

There they remained, motionless, their faces pointing north and their wings extended to form the white mountain peaks that stand out even in the dead of night.

"Now I can pluck some of their feathers," Caribay said to herself, and ran with new energy towards the birds, holding out her arms to reach them.

But when she touched their hard feathers, she stopped, afraid, and fled - giving out a long cry, because the condors had turned to ice and stone in their positions.

On hearing the young girl's cry, which resounded around the peaks like the echo of a great wind, Chia hid herself in the clouds and the five eagles awoke and furiously beat their wings, their white feathers falling down in a flurry of snowflakes that covered the mountains completely.

Caribay was lost that night among the peaks and became the spirit of the Andes. The eagles - still and silent in their high perches - became the five enormous mountain peaks that make up Merida's high sierra, perpetually covered in snow.

Nowadays, when Caribay, the spirit of the mountains, gives out her shrill lament - which is the howl of the storm - the eagles once again awake and shake off their feathers as falling snow and all the mountain peaks once again become white, in the heavy snow storms.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Yanomami: The Origin of Eating the Dead

2007-08-19T17:54:00.000-04:00

Yanomami Myth 2: The Origin of Eating the Dead

This myth comes from the book "Literaturas Indigenas de Venezuela" (Monte Avila, 1975), an anthology of myths from many Venezuelan indigenous groups collected by Father Cesareo de Armellada. It explains the origin of the Yanomami practice of endocannibalism, consuming the ashes of their dead in a plantain soup. This is a unique practice among tribal peoples today, but endocannibalism was once widespread among Panoan-speakers in South America and was only banned among Aboriginal groups in Australia in the 1960s. The photo comes from a trip I made to La Esmeralda and the Yanomami community of El Cejal.

Poreími was a talented, generous Yanomami with a magnificent intelligence. He is the one who gave the Indians stone axe blades. All the stone axe blades that are found at ancient sites are from Poreími.

At that time, there was a terrible scarcity of food in the world and the Yanomami had to eat meat raw, as they did not possess fire yet.
At that time, Poreími went to the jungle and built a magnificent house to live in with his wife Poreímiyoma.

One day some Indians came to visit them, and as a gift, they left different kinds of plantains, including a very large variety called "pareamu". That is what the one they were presented with is called.

Later, Poreími received another visit from Wayaromi, who as a present left "wabu", a fruit that is eaten when better foods are in short supply. As 'wabu" is poisonous in its natural state, Wayaromiriwa (the spirit of Wayaromi) showed Poreími how it should be prepared, cutting it into small slices with a tortoise shell.

Then Wayaromi turned himself into a bird.

Later, some other Yanomami arrived at Poreími's house. Not with presents this time, but with... empty stomachs.

They brought with them a frightful hunger. Poreími, moved by their plight, gave them abundant food to eat and on saying goodbye gave them several kinds of plantains, urging them to plant many, especially the "pareamu". He also gave them the "wabu".

The vistors then returned to their village. In their gardens they planted many plantains, harvested them in great quantities and since then have not suffered hunger any more.

Grateful for the precious presents they had received they sent a delegation to pass on their thanks to Poreími.

Arriving at his house they found him very upset: his son had died.

At that time the Yanomami used to bury their dead.

Poreími told his guests how he had carried out his son's funeral: he had burnt the body, collected the bones, ground them to ash and eaten the ashes in a soup of "pareamu" plantains.

When he said goodbye, he urged them to do the same with their own dead.

Since then, the Yanomami no longer bury the dead but burn them and consume their ashes mixed with plantain soup.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Click here to read Yanomami Myth 1: The Origin of Fire

Video of Sanema Shaman Ritual with Bruce Parry

Click here to return to Venezuelan Indian main page

Pemon: The Great Flood and Creation of Roraima

2007-08-14T13:49:00.001-04:00

Pemon Myth 3: The Great Flood and the Creation of Roraima

This myth continues the story of Makunaima and his brothers after they find a magical tree in the jungle which has all the fruits and crops in the world growing from its branches. It recounts the cause of the great flood, the origin of fish and the creation of Mount Roraima. The text is taken from Maria Manuela de Cora's book "Kuai-Mare: Mitos Aborigenes de Venezuela" (1957, Editorial Oceanida). It was originally collected by the German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg during his 1911-1912 expedition to the Pemon villages near Roraima.

Not many moons had passed since Makunaima and his brothers had first eaten the fruit from the magic tree Wazacá when Ma'nápe came up with the idea of cutting it down, and just like that he told the others.

But Akuli (agouti), who was very intelligent, told him:
- How can you think such a thing? The Wazacá provides us with its fruits and all of us can eat from it. If you chop it down not only will we all lose out, but it will create a huge flood as well.

Ma'nápe listened to everything, thinking he would ignore it, because he was very stubborn, and then he went to the corner where he kept his enormous axe, hefted it on to his shoulder and walked across the valley and into the jungle towards the tree of life.

Akuli followed behind to see if he could avert the flood. And walking one behind the other they soon arrived at that far place, draped in shadows and heavy with perfume, where the Wazacá tree raised its leafy bulk over the roof of the forest and and high above it.

Ma'nápe approached the tree with determination and tested his axe against its impenetrable bark. The axe bounced off the wood without leaving the tiniest sign it had even grazed it.

So Ma'nápe had another go at the Wazacá but this time he intoned in a powerful voice that reverberated through the whole forest:
- Mazapa-yeg, élupa-yeg, makupa-yeg.

With this spell he invoked the mazapa, mamao and cariaca trees, which have very soft wood, to see if the wood of the Wazacá would soften.

No sooner had he said the magic words when the wood of the Wazacá tree became soft and Ma'nápe's axe bit deep into the trunk and started to cut deeper and deeper.

Akuli, meanwhile, became very afraid and begged Ma'nápe again not to try and cut the tree down; but seeing that Ma'nápe was not listening to him, he began frantically collecting bees wax and fruit husks to try and fill the gashes opening up in the tree trunk and see if he could avert the flood that way.

But Ma'nápe continued even faster in his destruction of the tree of life, with his invocations of soft-wood trees.

He named them all - one by one - and then finally he said:
- Palulu-yeg.

The trunk went really soft and the axe went so far into the Wazacá tree that it opened an enormous gash that left it held together only by a sliver at one end, because with those words Ma'nápe had invoked the wood of the papaya tree, which is extremely soft.

Meanwhile, all the brothers had arrived at the spot where Ma'nápe and Akuli were fighting to achieve their contrary wishes. Just at the moment when it looked like Ma'nápe was going to get his wish, there was a furious shout that was heard above all the sounds of the jungle:
- Waina-yeg!

It was Anzikilán, who had run all the way to save the tree of life.
And with his spell, the Wazacá tree suddenly became very hard again because Anzikilán had invoked the wood of the Waina tree, which grows in the highest mountains and whose trunk is as hard as the rocks that form the Euteurimá Waterfall.

The axe was stopped, it could not advance further, but Ma'nápe, blinded by his obsession and without giving up, shouted out again with all his strength:
- Elupa-yeg, palulu-yeg!

And the tree of life, which had its trunk opened up like a huge, deep cavern, was rapidly torn asunder and crashed to the earth, its wide branches thrown out to the winds; its high crown laden with fruit, shaking, its powerful roots, creaking.

In its fall, the Wazacá tree threw up stones and mud, plants, bushes and lianas, and pushed over the trees Élu'yeg and Yaluwazáluima'yeg, forming the mountains called by those names today.

And from its immense trunk, roots and branches was formed the great mountain Roraima, which rises like a giant from the savannah and silently watches as time, suns, moons and people pass by.

The crown of the Wazacá tree, heavy with its fruits, rolled down to the northern side of the mountain, and that is why there are so many plantain trees over there that nobody planted. They are eaten by the evil Mawari spirits, who have their houses on Mount Roraima and other mountains close by.

If the crown of the tree had fallen towards the south, it would be the Arekuna (Pemon) who could enjoy its fruits.

The noise of the Wazacá tree's fall - which reached the furthest corner of the forest and the savannah like a great sigh - had not yet subsided when a huge spout of water shot out of the trunk and began to flood everything, rapidly sweeping past Makunaima and his brothers and battering them with bright drops of water, as sharp as arrows.

The foaming water carried with it thousands of fish and the brothers watched them and tried to catch them but the current was too strong.

The largest fish disappeared immediately from view, leaving only the small ones lagging behind, so that neither Makunaima or the others could catch the ones they most wanted.

And so it was as Akuli had predicted in those far off times: the Earth and men experienced the great flood.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Pemon Myth 1: The Legend of Makunaima
Pemon Myth 2: The Tree of Life
Auyan-tepui, Angel Falls and Pemon myths
Canaima: Pemon Spirit of Death

Click here to return to Venezuelan Indian main page

Pemon: The Tree of Life

2007-08-06T17:37:00.001-04:00

Pemon Myth 2: The Tree of Life

This creation myth describes a time when the ancestors of the Pemon suffered from great hunger and how the agouti, then a man, discovered a magical tree in the jungle which was laden down with all the fruits and vegetables in the world. The translation is taken from Maria Manuela de Cora's book "Kuai-Mare: Mitos Aborigenes de Venezuela" (1957, Editorial Oceanida). The photograph of three Pemon men with blowpipes is taken from Theodor Koch-Grunberg's 1917 book "Vom Roroima Zum Orinoco".

Many moons ago, the great Caroni valley was called Uek-tá, which means land of the mountains. That was because in the vast plains watered by the rivers Yuruaní, Tiriká and Aichá, arose the mountains Iru-tepui, Aparmán, Apakará, Chimaté and Auyan-tepui, the motionless spirits of the plains that Wei, the Sun, would hide himself behind every night, and from where the breezes came which rustled the Moriche palms that dotted the savannah.

At the edge of the valley was the jungle, closed off by gigantic trees covered with lianas and reverberating with animal sounds. The jungle was far away, but the brown immensity of the plains made it appear closer.

In this land of mountains lived five brothers: Makunaima, who was big and bad, Zigué, which means chigger; Wacalambé, a whirlwind; Anzikilán, a partridge; and Ma'nápe, which means melon seed.

In that far off time there were no conucos (gardens), because people did not know how to grow things and had not learnt to hunt or fish yet. The five brothers were always very hungry and could find no way to sate their hunger.

Close to where they lived, resided a man called Akuli (an agouti). Later on he became a rodent and that is how we know him today.

Back then Akuli was very light and ran all over the place, sometimes passing through the thick vegetation bordering the savannah to enter the jungle.

One day Akuli ventured quite far into the jungle when he saw a huge tree he had never noticed before. It was the marvellous Wazacá tree, which produced several kinds of plantains as well as papaya, cashew, maize and many other fruits and vegetables.

Akuli was filled with awe looking at that tree. It was so big he couldn't see all of its trunk in one look.

He had a taste of all the delicious fruits and vegetables and - in a very happy mood - he marked the place where it grew so he could always find it when he wanted to.

So, every day, as the the valleys of the Aichá and the Kuaná were lit up by the sun, Akuli went off into the jungle, found his marvellous tree and ate the fruit until he could eat no more. The he went home, telling nobody about what he had found.

But one day, Makunaima noticed how well Akuli looked and suspected that something had to be making him so fat.

So he waited until night time, when Akuli returned from one of his forays and slyly said to him:
- Why don't we turn in, brother-in-law? We should do it now as the wind is bringing the breeze from the Moriche palms.
Akuli thought it was a good idea and fell straight into a deep sleep. Makunaima carefully opened his mouth so as not to wake him and saw that he had a bit of fruit stuck between his teeth; a small piece of Wazacá plantain - a long, delicious and magnificent plantain.
Akuli was so fast asleep he didn't notice anything.

At the end of the night as Wei rose again over the mountains, Makunaima called Kali (Guianan squirrel), who was also a man at that time, and told him to follow Akuli and not to let him out of his sight until he discovered where Akuli was getting the fruit.

So Kali went with Akuli into the heart of the forest, pretending not to spy on him, and every now and then he asked him:
- What tree is this? What's this other one called?

But Akuli didn't answer him, and even when they passed in front of the tree with all the fruits - which many parrots and macaws were feasting on - he did not stop as usual, and so Kali never learnt where it was.

Makunaima was furious when he learned of Kali's failure and decided to send his brother Ma'nápe the next day, believing that he was smarter and would discover Akuli's secret.

Ma'nápe agreed to acompany the other two and together they entered the jungle. They went quite far, passing many bushes and trees, but Akuli did not stop at any of them.

At last they stopped in front of the Zaú tree, whose fruit has a very nasty taste, and to play a trick on Ma'nápe, Akuli said to him:
- You can stay here and collect the fruit from this tree. We are going to continue on to see if we can find another one.

Without replying, Ma'nápe stayed where Akuli told him to.
Meanwhile Akuli and his companion carried on walking and eventually arrived at the place where the Wazacá tree stood.

Akuli stopped there and and said:
- This is the tree that has all the different fruits. Look how many there are on the floor. Why don't you eat them?

But Kali said:
- It looks to me like the ones up there are better. I'm going to go up and get some.
- There are also lots of wasps up there and they will sting you, said Akuli, better not to climb up.

But Kali was very stubborn and he climbed as best he could up the enormous trunk until he reached the first branches, bent under the weight of the fruit, which cast shadows on the ground like giant condors with hundreds of heads.

Just as Kali reached out for a large plantain, one of the best fruits, he felt a terrible buzzing around him as a cloud of wasps swarmed all over him and stung him on the eyelids.
Kali fell to the ground dazed and in pain. He said to Kali:
- Oh, friend, that stuff about the bees was right, and for not listening to you look what's happened to me!

And that is why Kali has had swollen eye-lids ever since.

When Makunaima saw Kali with his eyes all swollen he thought something odd must have happened.

He was also angry with Ma'nápe for stupidly staying where they had told him and for not discovering anything. So he said:
- Tomorrow, after sunrise, you will go with them; but when they get ahead of you hide yourself on side of the trail and find out where they are hiding the plantains. Then you can eat them anytime you want as well.

Ma'nápe did as his brother had told him and protected by the branches of a macanillo tree, waited for the other two to return. But Akuli suspected something was up that day and hid the fruits further away, in a more isolated spot than usual.

So when they approached the place where Ma'nápe was lying in wait for them, they were not carrying any fruit in their baskets or their hands, and there was no sign they had eaten anything - not even in their mouths.

Several times Ma'nápe tried the same ruse, but he was always outsmarted by Akuli and Kali, and many suns passed without him finding anything.
Then Makunaima said to him:
- Don't hang back on the path. You have to follow them wherever they go. That's the only way you can catch them out.

Ma'nápe agreed and next time they entered the jungle when they got to the spot where they used to leave him, he said to Akuli:
- This time I shall come with you further.

Akuli tried all his tricks to shake off Ma'nápe, but seeing that he couldn't do it he led him to the tree and showed him all the fruits.

There it was. The world tree.

Thicker and taller than any other tree, it was like a great mountain in the middle of the jungle. The knots in its bark were like rocky gorges embedded in the trunk. So lush was its vegetation that the sunlight stopped when Wei passed over the top of its high canopy.

In the halflight that pentetrated past its branches, wasps, parrots, macaws and many other birds fought over the delicious fruits, which gave off a fragrant aroma and never ran out.

Ma'nápe was struck dumb as he tried to take it all in and then he turned to the others and said angrily:
- How could you come here every day and fill your bellies without telling anybody?
- Don't be angry, said Akuli apologetically. We only wanted to play a trick on you.

But Ma'nápe wasn't listening. He was too busy nibbling away at the fruits that were on the floor and the ones he could reach from the lowest branches.

When he was full he made basket of palm fibres so he could take some to his brother.
- Mind the wasps, Akuli warned, seeing him climb up the tree.

But Ma'nápe said that they would not sting him, and so it was. The wasps let him pick the fruit without attacking him.

When the basket was full, Ma'nápe marched happily back to the valley and told Makunaima everything that had happened and all about the strange tree that produced every kind of fruit.

And Makunaima was happy and the brothers ate and ate until they were full.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Pemon Myth 1: The Legend of Makunaima
Pemon Myth 3: The Great Flood and the Creation of Roraima
Auyan-tepui, Angel Falls and Pemon myths
Canaima: Pemon Spirit of Death

Click here to return to Venezuelan Indian main page

Auyan-tepui gives birth to Angel Falls

2007-08-05T17:36:00.003-04:00

Incredible footage of Angel Falls cascading from the top of Auyan-tepui from David Attenborough's BBC series "Planet Earth".

Video game of Pixar movie "Up" takes gamers on adventure trip to Angel Falls, Gran Sabana region

Spectacular video clip of oldest base Jumper to leap from the top of Angel Falls

The True Story of Jimmie Angel and the Discovery of Angel Falls

Auyan-tepui, Angel Falls and Pemon Myths

2007-08-05T12:47:00.008-04:00

For the Pemon Indians of Venezuela's Gran Sabana region the imposing tepuis - the taple-top mountains which rise dramatically out of the jungle and the savannah - are believed to be the abodes of gods or spirits. The whole landscape, in fact, is represented in their myths and legends, with mountains, waterfalls, rivers and rocks all serving as reminders of the origins of their world and the culture heroes who brought it into being.

Tepui, the name the Pemon give to these mountains, literally means "house of the spirits" or "house of the gods".

Auyan-tepui, or Aiyan-tepuy, from which Angel Falls cascades 979m into the record books, means "Devil Mountain", according to Father Cesareo Armellada's "Diccionario Pemon".

Parekupa-meru, the Pemon name for Angel Falls, comes from the Pemon words kupa meaning "deep water", pare meaning "more", and meru meaning "waterfall". Together they could be translated as "waterfall of very deep water".

Kerepakupai meru is another Pemon name for the falls, recorded more recently, which translates from Pemon as "waterfall of the deepest place".

Roraima is the highest of the tepui's and the most easily climbed. Its name comes from two Pemon words: roroi meaning "blue-green" and ma meaning "great" or "powerful". The pemon also refer to Roraima as "The Mother of all Waters", because it feeds into three major river systems: The Orinoco in Venezuela, the Essequibo in Guyana and the Amazon River in Brazil.

Kukenan, the mountain next to Roraima, is better known to the Pemon as Matawi-tepui, meaning the "the house of the dead". The Pemon believe that the spirits of the dead reside there. The name Kukenan refers to the river which flows from the summit.

Wei-tepui comes from Wei, the Pemon sun god.

From the beach at Canaima camp the three tepuis you can see, from left to right are Nonoy-tepui, meaning "Buzzard Mountain", Kuravaina-tepui, meaning "Deer Mountain", and Topochi-tepui, meaning "Blowpipe Mountain".

One myth says that the deep holes in the top of the tepuis are the cooking pots of Mawarí, the god of rain and thunder.

For the Pemon, the world falls into two camps. The world of the Kamarakoto, the Arekuna and the Taurepan - as the different Pemon groups are known - and that of the Te-pon-kén, the foreigners, the outsiders, the Creoles and tourists who visit their land.
By Russell Maddicks

Pemon Myth 1: The Legend of Makunaima
Pemon Myth 2: The Tree of Life
Pemon Myth 3: The Great Flood and the Creation of Roraima
Canaima: Pemon Spirit of Death
Video of Angel Falls
Return to Venezuelan Indian main page

Canaima: Pemon Spirit of Death

2007-08-03T20:43:00.000-04:00

For most people who visit Venezuela, the name Canaima conjures up images of jungle tours, boat trips in dugout canoes up the Rio Carrao and visits to the base camp below Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world.

But for the Pemon Indians of the Gran Sabana, Canaima is nothing less than the evil spirit which lurks in wait for them in the dense forest, the poisonous snake in the underbrush, the sharp branch that catches them in the eye.

According to Venezuelan writer Jose Berti, the Pemon, "like most pre-Colombian tribes don't believe in a natural death; and in order to explain their eternal disappearance from this world, they have created a symbolic character, Canaima, who pursues them without rest and who in the end defeats and kills them."

Canaima, the Indians say, can take the form of a jaguar in the forest, or a spirit who passes through their huts at night. Every mishap that ends in cuts and bruises is laid at his door.

"If an Indian suffers from pneumonia, they say that Canaima has blown on his chest, if he has a stomach ache, it is put down to the evil work of Canaima, so that Canaima, or Death, is his implacable and eternal enemy," he adds.

I experienced the Pemon fear of Canaima first hand a number of years ago when I was working in Canaima camp as a tour guide. I had started working there with the idea that I would spend all my time leading tour groups to Angel Falls and the tepuis but my first weeks were spent at the small airstrip fighting the other guides for the few tourists who arrived in air taxis from Ciudad Bolivar.

One morning, the drowsy stupor of the airstrip was broken by shouts that something was happening down at the lagoon.

It seems that an American tourist had gone for a swim in the cold, tea-red waters of the lagoon and had never come back. He was with a young Venezuelan woman and her child and when they lost sight of him they had called the National Guard and the staff at the beach bar to help them look, but nobody could find any trace of him.

She said he was a strong swimmer and had insisted on swimming beyond the area marked out near the beach with small bouys and out towards the Hacha Falls.

Later, somebody said a reward had been offered for anybody who found him. It was feared he had drowned but the National Guard needed proof.

Next day, the rumours of a reward had spread all over the camp. People came down from the base camps to help in the search. As the day wore on it seemed the reward changed with whoever you asked until it reached several thousand dollars, a small fortune for most people marooned out here in the middle of the jungle.

Soon, nearly all the Indians had launched their wooden curiaras (canoes) and fashioned long branches and poles so they could probe the bottom of the lagoon and find the unfortunate US tourist. Some even brought out old diving masks, useless in the dark waters, and dived in again and again to feel with their hands along the deep, murky bottom.

It seemed like everybody had come out to try their luck that day and the day after.

But it was only after they'd all given up, on the third day, that the body was found- just floating on the surface. Again I was at the small airstrip when the word came and we all rushed down to the small church in the camp to see what they'd found.

The Pemon Indians from the village next door had already arrived and were holding cloths or their T-shirts over their mouths and noses so as not to be infected by any vapours from the corpse.

The body had set rigid and the man, who was at least six foot, looked like a large action figure, his legs caught in the action of kicking out against the eddies and swirling currents that had dragged him down. He must have been head first down in the water because his shoulders were enormous and pink, puffed up like a superhero. His face was contorted with the effort of saving his skin. The fish had nibbled away at his ears.

But the strangest thing was his ankle. The Indians were all pointing to some marks on his ankle, like the puncture marks a snake might make, only it would have to be a mighty large snake to make those kind of marks.

"Anaconda bite", one young Indian said. I'd seen small anacondas in the lagoon and on the beach but never anything that could hold a grown man under the water like that.

Like, where's Jennifer Lopez when you need her?

But the older Pemon were shaking their heads: "Canaima", an old man said in a sort of whisper, as if it was a word you shouldn't say out loud. "It was the Canaima who took him down to its lair in the calm waters behind the falls."

And that was it. Case closed. All anybody could talk about was the Canaima. And nobody went swimming, at least for a week, until the tourists started to arrive en masse and we were all too busy to think about the strange case of the big, scary snake in the lagoon.

I guess I'll never know what caused those marks on the dead man's ankles, but for a moment, standing in that church with most of the Pemon village crowded in around me, the idea that he had been drowned by a malignant spirit taking the form of a giant anaconda seemed to make perfect sense.

Russell Maddicks

Pemon Myth 1: The Legend of Makunaima
Pemon Myth 2: The Tree of Life
Pemon Myth 3: The Great Flood and the Creation of Roraima
Auyan-tepui, Angel Falls and Pemon myths

Return to Venezuelan Indian main page

Pemon: The Legend of Makunaima

2007-07-30T14:59:00.000-04:00

Pemon Myth 1: The Legend of Makunaima

This creation myth describes how the first Pemon, the Sun, found a wife after meeting a water-creature known as Tuenkaron. The text is taken from "Tauron Panton" a book of myths collected by Father Cesareo de Armellada and published in 1989. The photographs are taken from the 1917 edition of German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg's book "Vom Roroima Zum Orinoco", which - unbelievably - has never been translated into English.

A long time ago Wei, the Sun, was an Indian who spent his time clearing and burning the mountain to make a conuco (jungle garden) to plant ocumo (Xanthosoma sagittifolium, a tuber eaten like cassava).

The Sun ate only ocumo. His face shone brightly.

One day, after work, he went to drink water and bathe himself in a stream. As he got closer he noticed a ripple across a pool of water as if somebody had submerged themselves. And he thought to himself, what could that be?

The next day he returned to the pool, but more quietly this time, and saw a small woman with very long hair that reached down to her feet. She was bathing herself and playing and beating the water with her hair.

When she noticed the Sun was coming she went down into the depths of the pool. But the Sun managed to grab hold of her hair.

"Not me, not me" shouted the creature, who was called Tuenkaron.
And she added: "I will send you a woman to be your companion and wife."

So the Sun released Tuenkaron's hair and let her go.

The next day, the Sun was cleaning his conuco and gathering trees to set fire to them when he saw a white woman that Tuenkaron had sent to him.

"Have you cleared the conuco yet?" asked the woman.

"Not yet. I've only just cleared this this bit you can see and made a few piles," the Sun answered.

"Pull out those ocumos that I roasted from the embers, so we can eat," the Sun said to the woman.

The woman took them from the embers and and said: "Here they are." And they ate them.

Then the Sun said to the woman: "Set fire to the wood I gathered". And she set fire to the piles with a split stick and dry shells.

When she had started a fire she said "it's done".

"Go and fetch water now", said the sun, so the woman went to the stream with her camaza (gourd) and bent down to collect water.

But while she was filling the camaza the ends of her fingers began to go soft and then her arms and then her whole body.

And she ended up in a heap, like a pile of clay.

Because the woman was made of white mud.

As the woman did not return, the Sun went to look for her. When he got to the stream, he found the water in the pool was the colour of mud; it was the woman who had muddied the water as she had dissolved.

The Sun was upset and said: "This is what Tuenkaron sends me, a woman who can't even collect water".

After that he went upstream to to drink water that wasn't muddied. And as it was already getting dark, the Sun went to sleep in his house.

When he awoke the next day, the Sun went back to his conuco to continue clearing it.

While he was working, at midday, just as he was going to eat, Tuenkaron sent another woman who was black, like somebody from that race.

"Have you cleared the conuco yet", the woman asked the Sun.

"Yes and no", he answered, "I've only cleared this little bit you can see."

Then he said: "Go and fetch some water so we can eat together."

The woman went to the stream, fetched water and they ate the ocumo together. After eating the Sun went back to work and said to the woman: "While I carry on making piles, you set fire to the piles I've already made."

The woman took a split stick to start a fire. She knelt down with some embers and blew on them to start a flame but the fire heated up her face and from there she started melting: her arms and then her whole body, until she ended up in a heap like a pile of wild wax.

Because she was made from wax.

The Sun turned round several times to see if she was starting a fire but as he never saw smoke rise from any of the piles he went to see what the woman was doing. And he said to himself: "But I told her to set fire to the piles".

What a surprise he had when he got closer and found the woman melted and turned into a pile of wax.

So the Sun went to the stream and said: "How bad and tricky is Tuenkaron . Well, now I'm going dry up this stream, I'm going to dry up all the water".

But Tuenkaron, without letting herself be seen said: "No don't do that, wait and I'll send you a woman."

But that night the Sun's heart was not calm. That night he went to bed angry.

The next day, the Sun woke up and, as usual, went to work in his conuco. And there leaning over her work was another woman with red skin (like sandstone) and a cooking pot in her hand.

The woman, coming forward, asked him: "Have you cleared the conuco yet?"

But the Sun didn't answer, as if he hadn't heard. He was on his guard after the last deceptions.

"Why don't you answer me?" the woman asked him.

"Because you're all fakes, you all dissolve or melt," the Sun said.

"If it's like that, I'm going back to Tuenkaron," said the woman.

"Well", said the Sun, "let me test you," and he sent her to start a fire, and she did, without melting. And he sent her to fetch water, and she fetched it without dissolving.

Then he sent her to cook ocumo in the pot and the Sun watched as she put it on some rocks and how she made the fire. The Sun watched carefully all her skills and customs.

When it started to get dark the woman said to the Sun: "I came to go back".

"Well, make me dinner and you can go back," answered the Sun.

And when she had done it the woman said: "I'm going, I'm going to come back tomorrow early".

"Yes, come back tomorrow", said the Sun.

The next day, the Sun went to work earlier than usual. The woman also came early.
Again the Sun put the woman to the test: he sent her to fetch water, he sent her to make fire, he sent her to cook food. And seeing that she did not go soft, or melt, or crack he started to like her and he fell for her.

In the afternoon they went to bathe together stream and the Sun saw very well that the woman was of a reddish hue; like the bits of fiery stone that are usually found in the riverbeds. She was not white and she was not black.

The Sun said to the woman: "Let's go to my house". But the woman said; "I didn't tell Tuenkaron."

"So what," answered the Sun.

"There is no way I can do that," said the woman.

"Well, come very early to prepare my food," said the Sun.

"Okay, and I shall also tell Tuenkaron, so I can stay with you," she said.

And sure enough, the next day the woman came very early, she cooked the food, she roasted the ocumo, dug up cassava roots, grated them and made cassava bread. That day she stayed the night and slept with the Sun and since then they have always lived together.

And they had several children, and these were the Makunaima.

Some Indians say the name of the mother was Aromadapuén. And the names of the children were: Meriwarek, the first-born; then Chiwadapuén, a daughter; Arawadapuén, the second daughter; and Arukadarí, the youngest, who is very often called Chiké.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Pemon Myth 2: The Tree of Life
Pemon Myth 3: The Great Flood and the Creation of Roraima
Auyan-tepui, Angel Falls and Pemon myths
Canaima: Pemon Spirit of Death

Click here to return to Venezuelan Indian main page

Ethnic groups in Venezuela - 2001 Census

2006-03-12T10:47:00.003-04:00

Ethnic group - Linguistic Family - State - Population
Akawayo - Carib - Bolivar State - 811
(Kapon)
Añu - Arawak - Zulia State - 17,440
(Paraujano)
Arawako - Arawak - Bolivar State/Delta Amacuro - 159
(Arhuaco, Lokono)
Baniva - Arawak - Amazonas State - 2,408
Baré - Arahuaca - Amazonas State - 2,815
Bari - Chibcha - Zulia State - 2,200
Eñepa - Carib - Bolivar State - 4,269
(Panare)
Jivi - Independent - Amazonas State/Apure State - 14,751
(Jiwi, Hiwi, Guajibo, Guahibo, Skuani in Colombia)
Jodi - Independent - Amazonas State/Bolivar State - 767
(Hoti)
Kariña - Carib - Anzoategui/Bolivar/Monagas/Sucre - 16,679
Kuiva - Independent - Amazonas State/Apure State - 454
Mako - Independent - Amazonas State - 1,130
Ñengatu - Arawak - Amazonas State - 1,294
(Yeral)
Pemon - Carib - Bolivar State - 27,270
(Pemong, Arecuna, Aricuna, Jaricuna, Kamarakoto, Camaracoto, Taurepan, Taulipang)
Piapoko - Arahuaca - Amazonas State - 1,939
(Piapoco, Tsase, Tsaase, Dzase, Dzaze)
Puinave - Arawak - Amazonas State - 1,307
Pumé - Independent - Apure State - 7,904
(Yaruro)
Sanema - Independent - Amazonas State/Bolivar State - 3,035
(Yanomamo)
Saliva - Independent - Amazonas State - 265
Sape - Independent - Bolivar State - 25
Uruak - Independent - Bolivar State - 29
(Arutari, Arutani)
Wanai - Independent - Amazonas State/Bolivar State - 365
(Mapoyo)
Warao - Independent - Delta Amacuro/Monagas/Sucre - 36,027
(Guarauno, Guarao, Warrau)
Warekena - Arahuaco - Amazonas - 513
(Guarekena)
Wayuu - Arawak - Zulia/Merida - 293,777
(Guajiro, Goajiro)
Wotuja - Saliva - Amazonas/Bolivar State - 14,494
(Piaroa)
Yabarana - Independent - Amazonas State - 292
(Yavarana)
Yanomami - Independent - Amazonas State - 15,000
(Guaica, Waika, Guajaribo)
Yekuana - Carib - Amazonas State/Bolivar State - 6,523
(Ye'cuana, Maquiritare, Makiritare, Dekuana, Maiongong, So'to)
Yukpa - Carib - Zulia State - 10,424
(Yup´ka, Yupe, Yupa, Yuko, Yucpa, "Motilones mansos")

No longer considered living languages:

Chaima - Carib - Monagas/Sucre/Anzoategui
Cumanagoto - Carib - Monagas/Sucre

Confused with Yukpa or now living on Colombian side of the border:

Japreria - Carib - Zulia State

For ethnic groups not covered by the 2001 census I have used figures from the book "Situacion de las Lenguas Indigenas" by Esteban Emilio Mosonyi (Caracas, 2003, Casa Nacional de las Letras, Andres Bello).

Russell Maddicks

Yanomami-Sanema

2006-03-07T21:44:00.000-04:00

The Yanomami

The Yanomami are easily the best-known of Venezuela's indigenous peoples. But not for the best of reasons. A series of National Geographic articles describing them as Stone Age savages or isolated survivors of a prehistoric age have only perpetuated stereotypes about the group. The main person responsible for this depiction of the Yanomami as warlike and primitive is anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, whose book "The Fierce People", perhaps the most succesful anthropological book ever published, focuses on warfare between different groups.
Yanomami groups are found in Venezuela and Brazil and appear under a host of different names in the literature: Yanomami, Yanomame, Yanomam, Yanam, Ninam, Guaika, Waika, Guaharibo, Guajaribo, Sanuma, Tsanuma, Sanema, Samatari, Samatali, Xamatari, Chirichano and Shirishano.

Yanomami vs. Sanema

Some people classify the Sanema and Yanomami in separate linguistic groups, but generally they are lumped together as Yanoama speakers, an independent group not linked to the main Arawak, or Carib language families found in the region.
There are four branches to the Yanoama language family: the Yanomami, who make up over half the population, the Yanomam, who represent about a quarter, the Sanema, who represent just under a quarter, and the Yanam (or Ninam), who are the smallest group.
In Venezuela, the Yanomami are mainly found in the Orinoco basin and the Sanema in the Caura River basin. The Yanomam live mostly in Brazil and the Yanam are divided into communities living on both sides of the border.

Russell Maddicks

Click here to read Sanema Myth on Origin of Fire

Click here to read Yanomami Myth 2: The Origin of Endo-Cannibalism

Video of Sanema Shaman Ritual with Bruce Parry

Yanomami-Sanema: The Origin of Fire

2006-03-07T12:27:00.000-04:00

Yanomami Myth 1: The Origin of Fire

This Sanema myth is taken from a report by Daniel de Barandiaran which appeared in the Venezuelan journal Antropologica in January 1968 and was republished in "Mitos de Creacion de la Cuenca del Orinoco" (FUNDEF, 1993).

Long, long ago, Iwarame, the caiman, was a person like all the other animals. All the animals could speak.
There were Sanema-Yanomami Indians as well back then but the people ate their food raw because they did not have the secret of fire.

Iwarame, the caiman, was the only one who had fire. Iwarame, who was also known as Iwa, spent the whole day in the water hunting but he prepared his food in the cave where he slept.
All the other animals knew that Iwarame had fire. They also knew that everything he ate was roasted and when he roasted his food it smelled fantastic.
The other animals thought that Iwarame was the the most powerful of all the animals because he ate his food cooked.
When Iwarame opened his mouth you could see the fire, so the Sanema Indians and many of the animals brought meat to place in front of Iwarame's cave so that when he opened his mouth it would be cooked.
Usually the Indians and the animals could only take away a little of this food as Iwarame would eat a large part of the food that they placed outside his cave and then he would sleep.
When he was asleep he would close his mouth and nobody could see the fire.
When he awoke he would go hunting and would bring back different prey, animals and fish. He would bring it back home and when he wanted to eat it he would open his mouth and that would set light to the wood and over the fire he would roast everything he ate, meat or fish, but only at night and then he would close his mouth so nobody could steal the fire.
One day a young Sanema hunter, who was out hunting with his father, got lost in the jungle and arrived, by chance, at Iwarame's cave. Iwarame was asleep.
As soon as the boy realised he was in the home of the "owner of fire" he was really scared. He looked all over for some cooked food or a burning log but he couldn't find anything except a burnt leaf, which, shaking with fear he took with him as he left the cave.
In the jungle he found his father and he showed him the burnt leaf.
- Father, he said, I found this burnt leaf.
- Where did you find it?
- In the house of Iwarame, the caiman
- Did you find fire?
- No, nor any roast meat. He keeps the fire inside his mouth.
His father thought long and hard about it: How are we going to steal the fire from Iwarame?
His father continued to think of a way to steal the fire from that terrible caiman and one day he organized a big party for all the Sanema and all the animals.
It was going to be a fun party with eating and drinking and it had to be immediately after sunset. Iwarame was invited and he left his house to come to the party.
All the Indians and all the animals had been told they had to make jokes, do tricks and anything else that would make them laugh.
So, they were all falling about laughing. All except Iwarame. He didn't laugh. He kept his big mouth tightly shut.
All the animals showed off their skills, especially the birds, who did swoops and turns in the air.

Jashimo, the purple gallinule (Porphyrio martinica) danced around and jumped from side to side, lifting its tail and shooting out streams of excrement as it cried: Plo, plo, plo.
All the guests fell on the floor laughing and some held their bellies they were laughing so much.
But Iwarame did not even smile. And he did not open his mouth.
Then Hiima, the dog, dancing and doing turns, did a massive shit and threw it at the other animals who were dancing and they all laughed again.
But Iwarame was as serious as before.
Finally, Jiomonikoshwan, the clever green-tailed jacamar, its belly as red as fire, began a very exotic dance and lifted its tail and showed its arse to all the other dancers. When it passed in front of Iwa, it lifted its tail, stuck its arse in his face and then sent a fine stream of shit into his face. This did make Iwa laugh and he let out a thunderous chuckle: ha, ha ha...
The fire then started to leap out of his mouth in bursts of flame, making a "flum, flum" sound.
Immediately, Maipomue, who is a hummingbird with a very long double tail. flew quickly and shot into Iwa's mouth like a bolt of lightning, grabbed the ball of fire in his beak and then flew over the heads of the guests, taking the ball of fire to the heart of the Puloi tree.
Iwa's wife, called Blajeyoma, ran over to the Puloi tree and urinated on the roots of the tree to put out the flame but as it was in the heart of the tree she couldn't.
When the fire came out of the caiman's jaws his tongue shrank and now it's small.
Since then, Iwa the caiman, ashamed by his defeat has left his cave and gone to live in the water. That's where he lives now, sharing his territory with Lalakilpara, the great water snake, who is the true master of the water.
From that time on, the Sanema and the Yanomami go to find fire in the heart of the sacred tree, Puloi, because that is where Maipomue left it.

Translated by Russell Maddicks

Click here to read Yanomami Myth 2: The Origin of Eating the Dead

Video of Sanema Shaman Ritual with Bruce Parry

Click here to return to Venezuelan Indian main page

This Blog

2006-03-06T17:21:00.000-04:00

What's it all about?

I lived in Venezuela from 1989 to 2001 and it's an experience I shall never forget, especially trips to the Gran Sabana, the Rio Caura and the Orinoco.
One day, if I win the lottery or get a decent job offer I shall go back there permanently. In the meantime, I try and go back every year to keep up with what's happening.
This Blog is my attempt to put together all the threads from my investigations into the myths and legends of Venezuela's Indigenous peoples.
I also want to cover all the latest news stories about Venezuelan Indians, all the books that deal with the subject and any important features that I come across.
I also hope to publish stories from sources in Spanish that have never been translated into English before.
As much as a diary of my progress towards a published book I want this to be a place where others interested in Venezuela and its indigenous peoples can come together and swap stories and photos of their travels.
So get in touch and let me know how I'm doing.

Russell Maddicks