The Pemon are an Amerindian tribe living in areas of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana[1], and the term also refers to their language. Pemon (in Spanish: Pemón) is a Cariban language spoken mainly in Venezuela, specifically in the Gran Sabana region of Bolivar State. Other names used in the literature to describe Pemon speakers are: Pemong, Arecuna, Aricuna, Jaricuna, Kamarakoto, Camaracoto, Taurepan, Taulipang, Makuxi, Macuxi, Macushi. According to the 2001 census there were 15,094 Pemon speakers in Venezuela.
The Pemon were first encountered by westerners in the 18th century and encouraged to convert to Christianity.[2] 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 Canaima National Park. [4]
The Makuxi, who are also Pemon speakers, are found in Brazil and Guyana in areas close to the Venezuelan border.
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Myths
The Pemon have a very rich mythic tradition which continues to this day, despite the conversion of many Pemon to Catholicism or Protestant religions spread by missionaries.
Pemon mythology includes gods residing in the grassland area's table-top mountains called tepui.[5] The mountains are off-limits to the living as they are also home to Ancestor spirits are called "mawari". [6]
The first 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.
See also
Notes
Sources
- Venezuela: the Pemon pages 112,113 and 178 December 2008 Conde and Nast Traveler
- 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)
External links
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