Mythologies of the Warao Tribe

The Warao are an Indigenous Amerindian people inhabiting northeastern Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname. Alternate common spellings of Warao are Waroa, Guarauno, Guarao, and Warrau. The term Warao translates as "the boat people", after the Warao's lifelong and intimate connection to the water. Most Warao inhabit Venezuela's Orinoco Delta region, with smaller numbers in neighbouring Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname. With a population of 49,271 people in Venezuela during the 2011 census, they were the second largest Indigenous group after the Wayuu people. They speak an agglutinative language, Warao. Warao use canoes as their main form of transportation. Other modes, such as walking, are hampered by the hundreds of streams, rivulets, marshes, and high waters by the Orinoco River. Warao babies, toddlers, and small children are famed for their ability to hold tight to their mothers' necks, as well as to paddle. They often learn to swim before they learn to walk. The Warao use two types of canoes. Bongos, which carry up to 5 people, are built in an arduous process that starts with the search for large trees. When an old bongo is no longer usable, a consensus is reached by the leaders of each household on which tree is best. At the start of the dry season, they find the tree and kill it. At the end of the dry season, they return to cut it down. It is then hollowed out and flattened with fire and stone tools traded from the mountains (or local shell tools). Traditionally, the work of making the larger canoes by the young men is done with instructions from the elder female of the household, handed down by her daughters to their husbands. The other type of canoe is small, seating only three people, and is used for daily travel to and from food sources.

Warao, nomadic South American Indians speaking a language of the Macro-Chibchan group and, in modern times, inhabiting the swampy Orinoco River delta in Venezuela and areas eastward to the Pomeroon River of Guyana. Some Warao also live in Suriname. The tribe was estimated to number about 20,000 in the late 20th century. The Warao subsist mainly by fishing, hunting, and gathering wild plants, though the cultivation of plantains, sugarcane, watermelons, cassava, and chili peppers is commonly practiced in the drier regions. The undomesticated Mauritia palm is particularly important: its sap provides a fermented drink; its pith is made into bread; the fruit is eaten; and the fibre is fashioned into hammocks and clothing. Villages are composed of a few lean-tos and beehive-shaped thatch huts, and in excessively swampy areas the village may be erected over a platform of logs covered with clay. The Warao share numerous cultural traits with other South American tribes. They resemble other river agriculturists in their village life and a social structure based on kinship; yet they also have unique and complex social classes of chiefs, priests, shamans, magicians, and labourers associated with the temples. Similarly, although their puberty rites, death rituals, and shamanistic cures are similar to those of other tropical forest Indians, the Warao also have priests, temples, and idols, and they worship a supreme creator god. Their priestly ceremonials and complex social classes are common to developed agricultural chiefdoms of the Caribbean area but are rarely found among hunting and gathering nomads. Most authorities believe that the Warao once lived to the north or west as an agricultural chiefdom but, on being pushed into the delta region, were unable to maintain their original culture except for a few residual elements such as the temple cult. Others believe that the Warao may have borrowed congenial features from more developed agricultural neighbours in a gradual cultural accumulation. In any case, the unique features of Warao society are not derived from their present simple economy.

Long before the European conquest of the Americas, the Warao Indigenous people, originally from the Orinoco Delta in what is today northeastern Venezuela, lived off nature, supporting themselves by fishing and farming. In recent years, however, they have suffered, like all Venezuelans, the direct impacts of the economic crisis caused by oil price uncertainty and the U.S. embargo. Hit by poverty and hunger, thousands of Warao have emigrated to Brazil in search of refuge and better living conditions. Many have found themselves in Belém, capital of the Brazilian state of Pará, in the delta of that other mighty South American river: the Amazon. Johnny Riva, 41, is among the Warao who made the move. He used to live in Tucupita, a city located on the Orinoco River, with his wife, Mariluz Mariano, and their three children, along with brothers, uncles and father. The whole family crossed the border into Brazil’s Roraima state, reaching Belém after a journey of some 3,600 kilometers (2,200 miles). They’re among the approximately 6,800 Warao refugees now living in Brazil, according to the UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency. “Our biggest challenges were health care, food and fuel for our canoe,” Riva says. “We were fishers and we made a living by selling the fish. But it became very hard because we’d take the fish to the city to sell, but people no longer had money to buy it. That’s when we decided to leave because we couldn’t take it anymore.” Now Riva and his family live in Outeiro, a district of northern Belém, in an urban settlement facing Guajará Bay, where housing conditions are poor. They don’t know how to fish in the local waters, and their only canoe was stolen. “A rabeta [motorized canoe] was donated to us, but we didn’t have enough money for diesel,” he says.

The Warao indigenous people inhabit the states of Bolívar, Monagas, Sucre and Delta Amacuro in the eastern part of Venezuela. The majority of them lives on the banks of the Orinoco River in the Delta Amacuro. This tribe, which is currently estimated to number about 50000, is the second-largest indigenous group in Venezuela, after the Wayuu. ‘Warao’ is a name made up of two words: ‘Wa’ that comes from curiara, which means boat or canoe (this group’s main form of transportation) and ‘Rao’ meaning people or owners, hence the meaning of the word ‘Warao’, ‘owners or people of the curiaras’. The Warao have lived for centuries on the Orinoco Delta. According to Warao mythology, in pre-cultural times the Warao lived in the sky, where a young archer ‘s shot went wide one day. While searching for his arrow, the archer, whose name was ‘Jara Yakera’ (Good Arm), found a hole and looked through. He saw lush and fertile land (Earth) and descending by a rope to the earth, he discovered an abundance of food. On his return he informed the Warao of his extraordinary find. The other Warao immediately decided to descend to Earth and live there, forsaking their sky world. The Warao of the Orinoco Delta refer to Kanobo (‘great father’) as the author of life and their protector, and ‘Kanobo arima’ is the name of the Wisidatu, a spiritual guide and the intermediary between Kanobo and the members of the community. Festivals are celebrated in honour of Kanobo by this indigenous group; during these ceremonies offerings such as yuruma (aru) and wina are made to the god and Jabisanuka and Najanamu (sacred dances) are performed in order to maintain good relations with the god and to be saved from diseases. Kanobo communicates through dreams with the Kanobo arima. The ‘yuruma‘ offered to Kanobo is prepared only by those women who already went through menopause, since the Warao believe that women experiencing menstruation may contaminate the yuruma and makes it impure. When the yuruma is ready, the Wisidatu puts it into a container which is placed under the altar dedicated to Kanobo.

Currently Warao is the second largest ethnic group in Venezuela behind the Wayú with an estimated population of 40.000 individuals. Although in the 60s there were several events that could have led to the extinction of this tribe, such as the salinization of the waters and the acidification of the soils, which caused a reduction in fishing, have known how to adapt to new environmental conditions, although these events caused a massive exodus to the big cities. The Warao are of rather medium build, robust and beardless. As they live in constant contact with water, the issue of clothing is not important to them and they usually only use a small piece of cloth that they pass between their legs and drop in front of them as an apron. Instead the women dress up with feathers, curagua fibers and bracelets both on the wrists with on the legs. According to the latest data from the Venezuelan National Census, which correspond to the year 2001, there are currently some 36.000 registered waraos. Of this total, some 28.000 declare themselves Warao-speakers while 3000 use Spanish as the only form of communication. The Warao language used mainly by this tribe and by many Creoles from Venezuela. Its main source of food, being established in the Orinoco Delta is they fish for morocoto and guabina, but they also hunt small rodents like limpet and acure, although they also have honey and wild fruit plantations. In dry spells, crabs are their main source of food. The moriche is the main source of food for the Warao, which once extracted from the interior of the tree, through a rather laborious process, is used for the yuruma cake. But it is not only used for food, but also the trunk of this tree is used for the manufacture of handicrafts and as a complement for the construction, either of walls, ceilings, bridges ... Another use of the moriche is the well-known fishing harpoons like nahalda. Ure, a tuber rich in starch over time It has been replacing the moriche starch since it can be harvested throughout the year, which has been transforming the diet of the Waraos.