Warao
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Warao are an indigenous people inhabiting eastern Venezuela and western Guyana. Alternate common spellings of Warao are Waroa, Guarauno, Guarao, and Warrau. The term Warao translates as "the boat people", styling after the Warao's lifelong and intimate connection to water. Most of the approximately 18,000 Warao tribesmen inhabit Venezuela's Orinoco delta region, with smaller numbers in neighboring Guyana and Suriname. They speak an agglutinative language, also called Warao. See the Timucuan-Warao proposal
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[edit] Lifestyle
On the wide Orinoco River and its fertile delta composed of islands and marshes, Warao people inhabit thatched-roof huts (lacking walls) built upon stilts (for protection against floods). The huts each possess a clay cooking pit or oven located in the center, with sleeping hammocks encircling it. The Warao use the distinctive bongo, a hollowed-out wooden canoe, as their means of transportation, as other modes (walking, et cetera) are hampered by the hundreds of streams, rivulets, marshes, and high waters created by the Orinoco. Thus, Warao babies, toddlers, and small children are famed for their ability to hold tight to their mother's neck as well as to paddle — learning these often before they walk.
[edit] First contact with Europeans
The Warao of eastern Venezuela's Orinoco first had contact with Europeans when, soon after Christopher Columbus came upon Orinoco river delta, Alonso de Ojeda decided to navigate the river upstream. There, in the delta, Ojeda saw the distinctively stilted Warao huts, balanced over the water. Ojeda likened the sight to Venice, with its famous canals below and buildings above; Ojeda thus dubbed the land Venezuela — literally meaning "Little Venice".
[edit] Tribal origins
The Warao are, according to their own reports, descended from an adventurous heavenly figure — the primordial hunter. This man originally dwelt in a sky world which had men, but was completely devoid of animals — except birds. Hunting these heavenly birds, the founding man used his bow and arrow to strike a bird in mid-air. The bird fell from the sky and eventually hit the heavenly floor. The birds burst through the floor and proceeded through the clouds and towards terrestrial land (Earth) below. The hunter went to the hole in the floor made by the bird and looked through. He saw lush and fertile land (Venezuela) and resolved to descend to it to partake of its pleasures — beauty, abundant game, fruits, et cetera. The hunter thus took a long rope of heavenly cotton, tied it to a tree, and threw it through the hole and lowered himself through the clouds to what is now Venezuela, forsaking his sky world.
