Warao

The Warao, whose name means the boat people, live in the Orinoco Delta of northeastern Venezuela, where hundreds of streams and marshes make the canoe the main way to travel. Their houses stood on stilts above the water, and their food came mostly from the delta: fish, crabs in season, and the moriche palm, with some basic horticulture by about 1500.

Soon after Columbus reached the Orinoco delta, Alonso de Ojeda sailed up the river and saw the stilted Warao huts. Their resemblance to the water-houses of Sinamaica is said to have given Venezuela, little Venice, its name.