Jirajaran

The Jirajaran group lived in western Venezuela, in the regions of Falcón and Lara, and their languages are now extinct. The Jirajara lived around the site of Coro and at Siquisique, Baragua and Sanare, and some moved south of Barquisimeto toward the mountains of Trujillo.

In 1529 the German explorer Ambrosio Alfinger mentioned them as neighbors of the Caquetío. In 1553 enslaved Africans and Jirajara working the gold mines of San Felipe de Buría rose in revolt. From about 1624 they blocked Spanish settlement of the gold province of Nirgua until a governor's army defeated them. Siquisique was founded around 1685, and its census of 1776 still showed an Indigenous majority.