Cumanagoto

The Cumanagoto were a Cariban people of the Caribbean coast of eastern Venezuela, around the gulf of Cumaná and valleys that became the province of Nueva Andalucía. They farmed maize, manioc and sweet potatoes, kept coca trees, hunted and gathered; they lived in palisaded villages with polygynous chiefs. Like other coastal peoples they worshipped the sun and moon and held the frog lord of waters, keeping frogs as pets but whipping them when rain failed.

Resistance drew Spanish campaigns into the Tuy valleys in 1579 and 1580. Between 1633 and 1654 the Catalan Joan Orpí built his New Catalonia, or Province of the Cumanagotos, on their lands before it merged into Nueva Andalucía in 1654.

Tribal organization broke in the seventeenth century, though a remnant kept its identity: by 1822 only about twenty-six were counted west of Cumaná, their descendants absorbed into the mixed population of Anzoátegui and Sucre.