Lyon, Popanz & Forester

    Venezuela - People, Tepuis, Sabana & Rain Forests
     Background

    People

    Venezuela is a nation of imigrants, much like the United States. Boris, our pilot was from Yugoslovia, We stayed at a camp run by a German and vistied with an Austrian painter. All interesting characters, but we came to spend time with the Indians. 

    The 1990 U.S. Census identified 0.8% of the population of the United States as American Indian, Eskimo or Aleut. Lonely Planet says there are 24 identified goups of Indians in Venezuela, about 200,000 people, or one percent of the population. 

    Ethnologue is a catalogue of more than 6,700 languages spoken in 228 countries. The Venezuela pages identify 30 Indian languages that have at least 100 people who speak them. They show the following information for the tribes we visited: 
     
     

    Tribe - Population
    In Venezuela
    Other
    Panre
    1,200
    -
    Pemon
    5,000
    1,000
    Piaroa
    12,000
    -
    Yanomamo
    13,000
    2,000
    Hoti or Yuwana
    1,000
    -
    TOTAL
    32,200
    3,000

    Most of the tribes have several names depending on language including a Spanish name and one or more native names. Here are the names listed in Ethnologue

    Panare (Panari, Abira, Eye) 
    Pemon (Pemong) 
    Piaroa (Kuakua, Guagua, Quaqua) 
    Yanomamö (Yanomame, Yanomami, Guaica, Guaharibo, Guajaribo) 
    Yuwana (Yoana, Yuana, Waruwaru, Chicano, Chikano, Joti, Hoti) 
     

    Definitions

    rain forest
    a tropical woodland with an annual rainfall of at least 100 inches (254 centimeters) and marked by lofty broad-leaved evergreen trees forming a continuous canopy -- called also tropical rain forest 

    sa·van·na
    Variant(s): sabana,  sa·van·nah 
    a tropical or subtropical grassland containing scattered trees and drought-resistant undergrowth 

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    Ya Koo, Campamento Ecologico, C.A., Xiomara y Manfred Frischeisen; yakoo@telcel.net.ve, Telefax: (088) 95.13.32, Sta Elena de Uairen, Via Sampay, Estatdo Bolivar, Venezuela back to text

    Raul Arias, Raul Helicopters, Telefax Hangar: (088) 951157, Santa Elena de Uairen - Estatdo Bolivar, Venezuela back to text


    Related Sites

    Guayana and the Gran Sabana A good tour of the area by the company that has Kaminski Air Safari's information on their Web site. 

    Canaima National Park, Descriptions of Natural World Heritage Properties 

    One Jimmy Angel Story: The most famous of these tepuis is the Auyan-tepui, from which plummets the world’s highest waterfall - Angel Falls (979 meters, 3211 feet). The fall is more than twice as high as the Empire State Building and three times higher than the Eiffel Tower. It was 1935, when a stranger offered Jimmy Angel $5000 to fly him to an uncharted mountaintop in southern Venezuela, and the Missouri-born bush pilot, down on his luck, jumped at the chance. He flew his  mysterious passenger set up camp by a stream. In three days, they found 75 pounds of gold. Returning to Caracas, Mr. Angel lost contact with his passenger. Trying to return, but without his  treasure guide, he fruitlessly scoured vast wilderness for the golden stream. One day he crash landed on top of an 2400 meters (7872 feet) high mountain, the Auyan-tepui. Two weeks later the exhausted adventurer emerged on foot, bearing with him knowledge of a secret the local Pemón  Indians had guarded for centuries: Churún Merú, the highest waterfall in the world. 

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    Angostura, the "narrows" is the historic name for Ciudad Bolivar, the city where Bolivar set up his military headquarters for the final stages of the war for independence in Venezuela. A Prussian doctor living in Angostura in 1824 invented the bitters that bear that name, although production moved to Trinidad in 1875. (Our bottle at home shows the company is in Toronto Canada.) 
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    Updated February 2, 1998 
    URL http://www.lpf.com/source/venezuela/background.html