Ayamanes

The Ayamanes, or Ayomanes, were the Indigenous people of the Carora region in what is now Lara state, western Venezuela, holding the valley of the Tocuyo River and bordering the Jirajara and Caquetío peoples; their Ayomán tongue was one of the few documented languages of the Jirajaran family.

Their first European encounter came on 9 September 1530, when the German conquistador Nicolaus Federmann of the Welser concession marched up the Tocuyo in search of the wealthy district of Carohana, reached its main village on 7 October 1530 and received gifts of gold from its cacique.

A later smallpox epidemic left so few Ayamanes that the survivors intermarried with their Jirajara neighbours. When Bishop Mariano Martí visited Siquisique in 1776 he still found the village of San Miguel de los Ayamanes, one of the last communities keeping the old name alive.