Warao

The Warao, whose name means the boat people, are the riverine inhabitants of the Orinoco Delta in eastern Venezuela. Their tradition holds that they were driven into its channels and marshes as refugees from more warlike tribes.

They travelled by dugout canoe between stilted houses raised above the floodwaters, fishing, catching crabs and harvesting the moriche palm; their isolated language belongs to no known family.

Columbus sighted the delta coast in 1498 and Alonso de Ojeda explored the river mouth in 1499; the stilt villages he saw helped inspire the name Venezuela, or little Venice. The wetlands long shielded the Warao from conquest. Their first mission was founded in 1682, but repeated Spanish and English attempts to settle them in towns during the eighteenth century pushed many toward Suriname.