Indigenous people in Venezuela, Amerindians or Native Venezuelans, form about 2% of the total population of Venezuela, although many Venezuelans share some indigenous ancestry. Indigenous people are concentrated in the Southern Amazon rainforest state of Amazonas, where they make up nearly 50% of the population and in the Andes of the western state of Zulia. The most numerous indigenous people, at about 200,000, is the Venezuelan part of the Wayuu (or Guajiro) people who primarily live in Zulia between Lake Maracaibo and the Colombian border. Another 100,000 or so indigenous people live in the sparsely populated southeastern states of Amazonas, Bolívar and Delta Amacuro. There are at least 26 indigenous groups in Venezuela, including the Ya̧nomamö, Pemon, Warao people, Baniwa people, Kali’na people, Motilone Barí, Ye’kuana and Yaruro.
Venezuela’s Center for Cultural Diversity
The Yanomami, also spelled Yąnomamö or Yanomama, are a group of approximately 35,000 indigenous people who live in some 200–250 villages in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil.
Indigenous people in Venezuela, Amerindians or Native Venezuelans, form about 2% of the total population of Venezuela, although many Venezuelans share some indigenous ancestry. Indigenous people are concentrated in the Southern Amazon rainforest state of Amazonas, where they make up nearly 50% of the population[1] and in the Andes of the western state of Zulia. The most numerous indigenous people, at about 200,000, is the Venezuelan part of the Wayuu (or Guajiro) people who primarily live in Zulia between Lake Maracaibo and the Colombian border. Another 100,000 or so indigenous people live in the sparsely populated southeastern states of Amazonas, Bolívar and Delta Amacuro.
There are at least 26 indigenous groups in Venezuela, including the Wayuu (413,000), Warao people (36,000), Ya̧nomamö (35,000),Kali’na (34,000), Pemon (30,000), Anu͂ (21,000), Huottüja (15,000), Motilone Barí, Ye’kuana and Yaruro.
It is not known how many people lived in Venezuela before the Spanish Conquest; it may have been around a million people and in addition to today’s peoples included groups such as the Auaké, Caquetio, Mariche, Pemon, Piaroa and Timoto-cuicas. The number was much reduced after the Conquest, mainly through the spread of new diseases from Europe. There were two main north-south axes of pre-Columbian population, producing maize in the west and manioc in the east. Large parts of the Llanos plains were cultivated through a combination of slash and burn and permanent settled agriculture. The indigenous peoples of Venezuela had already encountered crude oils and asphalts that seeped up through the ground to the surface. Known to the locals as mene, the thick, black liquid was primarily used for medicinal purposes, as an illumination source and for the caulking of canoes. A palafito in the Orinoco Delta
Spain’s colonization of mainland Venezuela started in 1522, establishing its first permanent South American settlement in the present-day city of Cumaná. The name “Venezuela” is said to derive from palafito villages on Lake Maracaibo reminding Amerigo Vespucci of Venice (hence “Venezuela” or “little Venice”). Indian caciques (leaders) such as Guaicaipuro (circa 1530–1568) and Tamanaco (died 1573) attempted to resist Spanish incursions, but the newcomers ultimately subdued them. Historians agree that the founder of Caracas, Diego de Losada, ultimately put Tamanaco to death. Some of the resisting tribes or the leaders are commemorated in place names, including Caracas, Chacao and Los Teques. The early colonial settlements focussed on the northern coast, but in the mid-eighteenth century the Spanish pushed further inland along the Orinoco River. Here the Ye’kuana (then known as the Makiritare) organised serious resistance in 1775 and 1776. Under Spanish colonization, several religious orders established mission stations. The Jesuits withdrew in the 1760s, while the Capuchins found their missions of strategic significance in the War of Independence and in 1817 were brutally taken over by the forces of Simon Bolivar. For the remainder of the nineteenth century governments did little for indigenous peoples and they were pushed away from the country’s agricultural centre to the periphery. Mucuchí women, who were part of the greater Timoto–Cuica people.
In 1913, during a rubber boom, Colonel Tomas Funes seized control of Amazonas’s San Fernando de Atabapo, killing over 100 settlers. In the following nine years in which Funes controlled the town, Funes destroyed dozens of Ye’kuana villages and killed several thousand Ye’kuana.
In October 1999, Pemon destroyed a number of electricity pylons constructed to carry electricity from the Guri Dam to Brazil. The Pemon argued that cheap electricity would encourage further development by mining companies. The $110 million project was completed in 2001.
Hunger, despair drive indigenous groups to leave Venezuela
When indigenous community leader Eligio Tejerina’s youngest child fell sick with pneumonia, her condition was aggravated by severe shortages roiling their native Venezuela.
“Since they were out of medicine, she could not receive proper treatment,” says the 33-year-old Warao community leader. “My seven month old daughter died.”
His surviving five children were already weakened and distressed by hunger. No longer able to find food in the local market, their only option was to leave.
“We decided to come to Brazil because our children were starving. They used to cry from hunger. They were having only one meal a day, at night. Just a little portion.”
“We decided to come to Brazil because our children were starving. They used to cry from hunger.”
Widespread food and medicine shortages, skyrocketing inflation, political unrest and violence are causing hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to abandon their homeland and seek refuge abroad.
As the situation worsens at home, a growing number of indigenous people like Tejerina and his family are among those trekking across the nation’s borders in need of humanitarian assistance and protection in neighbouring Brazil and Colombia.
Hundreds of tribal members have trekked south over the border to Brazil in recent months. More than 750 Venezuelan indigenous people now live in hammocks and tents at the Pintolandia shelter in Boa Vista, among them 36-year-old artisan Baudilio Centeno from Tamacuro.
“We found ourselves in a situation of total deprivation in Venezuela,” says Centeno. Too often finding no food in the market, he brought his family of eight to Brazil, where he scrapes by making baskets and selling aluminum cans to recycle at R$3 (US$0.81) per kilo.
The community’s plight is shared by Venezuela’s most numerous indigenous group, the 270,000 strong Wayúu, whose traditional lands straddle the border with Colombia. As conditions worsen in Venezuela, many arrive dehydrated, malnourished and with just the clothes they are wearing, with reports of near starvation conditions. Others describe medical clinics without power in Venezuela, and school bus services impacted by shortages, causing their children to miss out on their education.
“We struggled to find transport so that my daughter could go to school,” says Kary Gomez, 55, who is among Wayúu who crossed to Colombia’s La Guajira department.
“They have difficulties to access basic services due to lack of documentation.”
In addition to the Warao and Wayúu, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is aware of at least two other groups, the Barí and Yukpa, who have also sought urgent assistance abroad, where they face additional challenges because some speak no other language than their own.
“Compelled to leave Venezuela, the Wayúu, Warao, Barí and Yukpa, amongst others, have difficulties to access basic services due to lack of documentation,” said Johanna Reina, UNHCR’s senior protection assistant in Colombia.
“They face challenges in loss of identity, including language, and a dramatic deterioration of their organizational structures,” she added.
Most abandoning Venezuela for Brazil and Colombia need urgent assistance with documentation, shelter, food and health care, and UNHCR is working with the respective governments and partner organizations to meet these needs.
Earlier this week a federal judge in Brazil’s Roraima border state suspended the admission of Venezuelans to the country and briefly closed the border, although the ruling was overturned by the country’s Supreme Court on Monday night.
A UNHCR team remained on the border and continued to monitor the situation during the brief closure yesterday. They reported that some 210 Venezuelans were not able to finalize immigration procedures but were not deported. No pushbacks took place.
Through its field office in Riohacha, the capital of Colombia’s La Guajira department, UNHCR is also working closely with local authorities and partners to provide education for Wayúu children. At Maimajasay school, around 200 Wayúu children find a safe learning environment that nurtures and encourages indigenous traditions, with many classes taught in their mother tongue, Wayúunaiki.
Similar efforts have been made in Brazil, where Warao children receive basic classes in their language at the shelter in Boa Vista.
“We still don’t know what will happen in Venezuela. What matters is that we’re doing well here.”
“We usually get together to tell stories and traditional tales,” says Tejerino.
There are at least 26 indigenous groups in Venezuela. As the situation there continues to unravel, more assistance is needed to help those uprooted from their lands, who see no prospect of return any time soon.
“We still don’t know what will happen in Venezuela. What matters is that we’re doing well here,” says Centeno, who is unclear if and when his family will be able to return home. “Our children can eat and we feel safe.”
Indigenous Peoples Literature 