Tatuy

The Tatuy, also called the Muku, were an Indigenous people of the Venezuelan Andes who held the plateau above the Chama River where Mérida later stood; their settlement was known as Tatuí. Their name means the most ancient, and from it came taita, the word for father or grandfather, expressing their claimed seniority among the region's peoples.

They belonged to the Timoto–Cuica family of the Mérida highlands and farmed mountain valleys with terraces and irrigation like their Timote and Cuica neighbours.

On 9 October 1558 the conquistador Juan Rodríguez Suárez entered their country on his expedition to the Sierra Nevada de Mérida and founded the Spanish city on their plateau. Colonial rule broke up and resettled their communities for labour and religious control, and their language and beliefs gave way under the new towns and parishes.