Pemon
The Pemon or Pemón (Pemong) are indigenous people living in areas of Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana.[3] They are also known as Arecuna, Aricuna Jaricuna, Kamarakoto, and Taurepang.[2]
![]() Pemon girl, Venezuela | |
Total population | |
---|---|
approx. 30,148 in Venezuela,[1] Unknown[2] | |
Regions with significant populations | |
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Languages | |
Pemon, Spanish | |
Religion | |
traditional tribal religion, Roman Catholicism[2] |
People
The Pemon are part of the larger Cariban language family, and include six groups including the Arekuna, Ingarikó, Kamarakoto, Tualipang, Mapoyo and Macushi/Makushi (Macuxi or Makuxi in Brazil). While ethnographic data on these groups are scant, Iris Myers produced one of the most detailed accounts of the Makushi[4] in the 1940s, and her work is heavily relied upon for comparisons between historical and contemporary Makushi life.[5]
The Pemon were first encountered by westerners in the 18th century and converted by missionaries to Christianity.[3] Their society is based on trade and considered egalitarian and decentralized, and in Venezuela, funding from petrodollars have helped fund community projects, and ecotourism opportunities are also being developed.[3] In Venezuela, Pemon live in the Gran Sabana grassland plateau dotted with tabletop mountains where the Angel Falls, the world's highest waterfall, plunges from Auyantepui in Canaima National Park.[3]
The Makuxi, who are also Pemon speakers, are found in Brazil and Guyana in areas close to the Venezuelan border.
Language
Arekuna, or Pemon (in Spanish: Pemón), is a Cariban language spoken mainly in Venezuela, specifically in the Gran Sabana region of Bolívar State. According to the 2001 census there were 15,094 Pemon speakers in Venezuela.
Myths
![](../I/Three_Pemon_Men.JPG.webp)
The Pemon have a very rich mythic tradition which is merged into their present Christian faiths. Pemon mythology includes gods residing in the grassland area's table-top mountains called tepui.[3] The mountains are off-limits to the living, as they are also home to ancestor spirits called mawari.[3] The first non-native person to seriously study Pemon myths and language was the German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg, who visited Roraima in 1912.
Important myths describe the origins of the sun and moon, the creation of the tepui mountains – which dramatically rise from the savannahs of the Gran Sabana — and the activities of the creator hero Makunaima and his brothers.
"Kueka" stone controversy
In 1999, Wolfgang Kraker von Schwarzenfeld arranged the transport of a red stone boulder, weighing about 35 metric tons, from Venezuela's Canaima National Park to Berlin Tiergarten for his "global stone" project. Since that time, a dispute had been ongoing of the Pemon trying to get the stone back, involving German and Venezuelan authorities and embassies.[6][7][8]
On 16 April 2020, the Kueka stone was finally returned to Venezuela.[9]
See also
References
- "XIV Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda, 2011". Instituto Nacional de Estadística(INE).
- "Pemon: Introduction, Location." Every Culture. (retrieved 30 June 2011)
- See pp.112,113 and 178 of Venezuela: the Pemon, in Condé Nast Traveler, December 2008.
- Myers, Iris (1993). "The Makushi of the Guiana-Brazilian Frontier in 1944: A Study of Culture Contact". Antropologica. 90: 3–99.
- Schacht, Ryan (2013). "Cassava and the Makushi: A Shared History of Resiliency and Transformation". Food and Identity in the Caribbean: 15–29.
- Spiegel online, 10 July 2011: The Kueka Stone – A Venezuelan Indigenous Group Battles Berlin
- Universidad del Zulia & FundaCine, 2007: Etapontok Ro Etomo (La lucha continúa) (Spanish)
- Berliner Zeitung, 9 August 2000: Indios wollen "göttlichen Stein" zurück haben (German, "Indigenous people want to get back sacred stone")
- "Sacred Venezuelan stone back home after hiatus in Berlin". AP NEWS. 17 April 2020. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
Further reading
- Theodor Koch-Grunberg 1917 – "Vom Roraima Zum Orinoco" ("From Roraima to the Orinoco")
- David John Thomas 1982 – "Order Without Government: The Society of the Pemon Indians of Venezuela" (University of Illinois Press)