Kapé Kapé, a Venezuelan indigenous research and advocacy organization, has conducted a thorough study of the health needs of the Piaroa and the results, announced last week, are grim. Perhaps the most surprising finding, as described in a Venezuelan news report, is that the illegal mining activities that are rampant… Continue reading…
Since the Piaroa believed that the sun plus Wahari, one of their mythic figures, were born at the Atures Rapids of the Orinoco River, it isn’t surprising that their ancestors carved large petroglyphs there. A news report last week described the setting and the scientific work by archaeologists to photograph… Continue reading…
Coltan mining, a scourge in the Northeastern D.R.Congo that has affected the Mbuti people, has more recently been dividing and threatening the Piaroa of Venezuela. A lengthy news story published last week by a group called the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) discussed the recent history of coltan… Continue reading…
The Museum of Sciences in Caracas announced the acquisition of a new warime mask of the Piaroa people, according to a press release dated August 10. Issued by the Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Cultura of Venezuela, the news story indicated that the Imé warime mask will be located… Continue reading…
The Museum of Sciences in Caracas announced the acquisition of a new warime mask of the Piaroa people, according to a press release dated August 10. Issued by the Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Cultura of Venezuela, the news story indicated that the Imé warime mask will be located… Continue reading…
On Friday May 12, at 8:00 o’clock in the evening, Freddy Menare, a prominent Piaroa leader, was assassinated in Puerto Ayacucho, the capital city of Venezuela’s Amazonas state. The as-yet unidentified gunmen shot the 48-year old man in the back while he walked along Orinoco Avenue, a busy commercial street… Continue reading…
The Piaroa not only eat giant spiders that they find in the forests of southern Venezuela, they use them for their shamanic purposes. A European TV channel that specializes in culture and arts programing, the Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne (ARTE), sent a crew to Venezuela in order to… Continue reading…
On June 13th, the news media in Venezuela reported that violence had occurred in a Piaroa community: the famously peaceful people had burned a local post of the National Guard. The news reports provided somewhat conflicting details, but the basic ingredients of the story were consistent. El Universal, a major… Continue reading…
Gregori, a grandson of the elderly shaman José Antonio Bolívar, tells the reporter, in the words of Google’s translation, “yopo is our diamond and we are here to share the highlights.” The Piaroa man adds that his grandfather can use his drugs as medicines to cure diseases, to cause pregnancies,… Continue reading…
A Piaroa village put on a play this past Saturday evening, October 3, about their legend of the way the gods created humanity and the cassava gardens that they cultivate. The actors in the production were members of the village of Paria Grande, located in the municipality of Atures in… Continue reading…