Speak like a native - Pemon and Warao basics

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.

Pemon: The Great Flood and Creation of Roraima

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

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Auyan-tepui, Angel Falls and Pemon Myths

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

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

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

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