History of The Indigenous Peoples of The Sixteenth Century Province of Caracas Venezuela

Colonial Latin American Review
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccla20
History of the indigenous peoples of the sixteenth-

century province of Caracas, Venezuela
Andrzej T. Antczak, Horacio Biord Castillo, Pedro Rivas & María Magdalena
Antczak
To cite this article: Andrzej T. Antczak, Horacio Biord Castillo, Pedro Rivas & María
Magdalena Antczak (2020) History of the indigenous peoples of the sixteenth-century
province of Caracas, Venezuela, Colonial Latin American Review, 29:4, 518-553, DOI:
10.1080/10609164.2020.1831310
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10609164.2020.1831310
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa

UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group
Published online: 07 Dec 2020.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 4530
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Citing articles: 1 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ccla20
COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN REVIEW
2020, VOL. 29, NO. 4, 518–553
https://doi.org/10.1080/10609164.2020.1831310
History of the indigenous peoples of the sixteenth-century

province of Caracas, Venezuela
Andrzej T. Antczaka, Horacio Biord Castillob, Pedro Rivasc and
María Magdalena Antczakd
a
Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, and Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and
Caribbean Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands; bCentro de Antropología, Instituto Venezolano de
Investigaciones Científicas, Caracas, Venezuela; cInstituto Caribe de Antropología y Sociología, Fundación La
Salle de Ciencias Naturales, Caracas, Venezuela; dRoyal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and
Caribbean Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands
Indigenous peoples forged their lives in present-day north-central Venezuela across mil-
lennia until confronted by Spanish conquerors in the early sixteenth century. Some his-
torical trajectories were then abruptly disrupted whilst others were profoundly
transformed. Using the direct historical approach, various scholars have assumed that
the material signatures of the late pre-colonial archaeological cultures relate directly to
the indigenous groups recorded for this region in the early colonial documents
(Acosta Saignes 1954; Antczak 1999; Antczak and Antczak 2006; Antczak, Haviser
et al. 2018; Biord Castillo 1992; 2001; 2005; 2006; 2016; Marcano 1971 [1889–1891];
Rivas 1994; 2002; Sanoja and Vargas 1974; 1999; 2002). However, the validity of societal
reconstructions across the colonial divide based on the direct historical approach falls
into doubt when adequate archaeological evidence is unavailable to support, contradict
or complement such reconstructions (A. T. Antczak and Antczak 2015; Antczak, Urbani
et al. 2017; Antczak, Antczak et al. 2018).
Archaeological evidence of early interactions between indigenous peoples and Spanish
conquerors in north-central Venezuela is fragmentary. The presence of European cer-
amics apparently associated stratigraphically with pottery related to late pre-colonial
styles suggests some such interactions in certain sites (Cruxent and Rouse 1958).
There are also some surface findings of indigenous and non-indigenous materials in
sites proximate to localities reported in early colonial documents. Some of these localities
were allotments of village tribute and labor (encomiendas), and others were settlements
(pueblos de doctrina) where Spanish-European colonists subjected indigenous peoples to
religious indoctrination (Biord Castillo 2006; Rivas 2002; Bencomo 1993; Ganteaume
2012; Sanoja and Vargas 2002). Moreover, only in very few areas of north-central Vene-
zuela have the documentary and the late pre-colonial and early colonial archaeological
records been combined. This has been done, for example, within the area of influence
of the modern city of Caracas (Sanoja and Vargas 2002) and in some rural peripheral
CONTACT Andrzej T. Antczak a.t.antczak@arch.leidenuniv.nl

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN REVIEW 519
areas in neighboring Vargas State (Rivas 2000; 2001; 2002). Yet the potential for further
diachronic interdisciplinary research exists in even these sites.
The aim of this paper is to shed light on the indigenous lives in early sixteenth-century
north-central Venezuela from an interdisciplinary perspective. The results will provide a
backdrop for further historical archaeological research into fully colonial social realities,
as well as invigorate investigation into ethnogenetic transformations that might have
resulted from the European irruption. We use, as the main documentary source about
early colonial times in the region, the Relación de Nuestra Señora de Caraballeda y San-
tiago de León written by Juan de Pimentel in 1578 (1964).1 Pimentel was the governor
and captain general of the Province of Venezuela between 1576 and 1583 and the first
to take up residence in recently conquered Caracas. He wrote the Relación as a series
of responses to a questionnaire sent by King Philip II of Spain.2 Its aim was to ascertain
the potentialities and limitations of this part of the Crown’s overseas territories (Arellano
Moreno 1964). To meet this requirement, Pimentel not only set in motion a series of
inquisitive administrative measures but personally visited some of the indigenous settle-
ments in the province. We also draw on data both contemporaneous with and antecedent
to Pimentel’s document, e.g. from Barbudo 1964 [1570–1575], Agreda 1964 [1581], and
Aguado 1987 [1581]. Finally, we make use of later work, e.g. a chronicle by Oviedo y
Baños (1982 [1723]) called Historia de la Conquista y Población de la Provincia de
Venezuela.
The wealth and diversity of ethnohistorical data contained in Pimentel’s document has
previously been the object of studies published in Spanish (Oramas 1940; Dupouy 1945;
Nectario María 1979; Rivas 1994; Biord Castillo 2001). Biord Castillo (2001; 2003), fol-
lowing the proposal of Bermejo de Capdevila (1967), compared Pimentel’s ethnohistoric
content (1964 [1578]) to Oviedo y Baños’s (1982) writings and concluded that the latter
had to have utilized a manuscript originally prepared by a soldier and poet known as
Fernán Ulloa. Ulloa’s manuscript was requested by the town council of Caracas in
1593. Unknown today, it could have contained detailed information about the indigen-
ous population of this region, plausibly collected by Ulloa from his own observations and
compiled with the support of the still-living Spanish conquerors of the Province of
Caracas. We also use Biord Castillo’s (2007b) distinction between ethnohistory and
history, according to which ethnohistory is a methodology governing how ethnohistori-
cal data are extracted in specific ways from historical documentary sources. Further,
instead of referring to the ethnohistory of a region, we refer to the history or ethnic
history of its inhabitants.3 Rivas (1994; 2002) also summarized information provided
by Pimentel, incorporating data obtained from other written sources dating from the six-
teenth century through the Republican period. He confirmed the historical continuity of
some communities mentioned in the Relación until well into the twentieth century when
biological and cultural miscegenation virtually erased their sense of indigenous identity.
Antczak (1999) also thoroughly researched the above-mentioned documentary sources
while searching for early historical correspondence to the late pre-colonial archaeological
evidence recovered in this region. He realized that with the passing of the colonial cen-
turies, some of the ethnographic traits of the indigenous peoples were lost or trans-
formed, making it increasingly difficult to assess the continuation of the pre-colonial
cultural heritage.
520 A. T. ANTCZAK ET AL.
All the above-mentioned scholars arrived at the conclusion that what distinguishes the
Relación from other sources of its time is that it likely constitutes a kind of ‘real’ picture of
the traditional indigenous way of life when the conquerors invaded the Province of
Caracas. Therefore, we critically analyze this source in the context of its documentary
counterparts as well as current linguistics and archaeology in order to evaluate its
validity.4
The Province of the Caracas and its conquest

The Province of the Caracas covered the coastal range of north-central Venezuela during
the early sixteenth century. It stretched between Cabo Codera (current Miranda State)
and the Unare River in the east to the port village of Borburata (current Carabobo
State) in the west (Barbudo 1964). To the north, it embraced the islands of Las Aves,
Los Roques and La Orchila as well as La Tortuga Island. To the south, it included the
Cordillera de la Costa mountain range as well as the valleys of Lake Valencia and the
Caracas and Tuy Rivers, in addition to the central section of the Sierra del Interior
(Pimentel 1964) (Figures 1 and 2).
The borders of the province were not well defined in any legal or administrative
terms.5 Instead they delimited the cultural and linguistic unity of its indigenous inhabi-
tants (Biord Castillo 2001; 2005). This spatiality also reflected the continued opposition
of the local peoples to the Spanish colonial penetration which after Columbus’s third
voyage in 1498 had begun in the northeastern (the island of Cubagua) and northwestern
(the cities of Coro, El Tocuyo, and Barquisimeto) regions of today’s Venezuela (Antczak
et al., forthcoming). This territorial unit, based on the human geography of the time, was
subsumed into a larger administrative unit, the Province of Venezuela.6 The Province of
Caracas was largely inhabited by the Caraca Indians (Barbudo 1964; Pimentel 1964;
Agreda 1964; Oviedo y Baños 1982).7 However, it also comprised other indigenous
groups who resisted Spanish colonization. The term Caraca tends to disappear as an
ethnic denominator in the late sixteenth century (Biord Castillo 2005). In some
Figure 1. The coast of present-day Venezuela depicted on the map of Juan de La Cosa dated to 1500
(Museo Naval de Madrid, MNM 00257).
Figure 2. Spatial demarcation of the Provincia de Venezuela in 1528 and of the Provincia de los
Caracas in ca. 1578 (drawn by Konrad T. Antczak and Oliver Antczak).
seventeenth-century documents, nevertheless, this name seems to identify a specific indi-

genous group settled around the town of Naiguatá in current Vargas State (Rivas 1994).
In this paper, we refer to all north-central Venezuela indigenous peoples following the
conceptualization of ‘aborigines’ in this region (Biord Castillo 2001; 2005; 2016).
The northeastern coast of today’s Venezuela had been explored by the Spanish after
Columbus’s voyage in 1498 (Columbus 1988 [1498]; Perera 2000, 184–85). The first
descriptions of the north-central area were produced a year later during the explorations
of Alonso de Ojeda, Amerigo Vespucci and Pedro Alonso ‘Niño.’ Based on these surveys,
Juan de la Cosa produced the first map of the coast of Tierra Firme which included the
littoral section of the north-central region in 1500 (Figure 1). This coastline extends
approximately between Costa Pareja and Puerto Flechado and includes the villages of
Cauchieto, Turma (possibly Tarma), and the Curiana of Pedro Alonso ‘Niño’ in
current Vargas State (Rivas 1994).8 This region was inhabited by an allegedly numerous
indigenous population but was uninhabited by Spanish colonists during the first decades
of the sixteenth century.
The Europeans focused on the pearl fishery on Cubagua Island and on the capture of
indigenous slaves, which was organized by armadas (formally authorized armed parties)
from Cubagua, Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico (Arellano Moreno 1950; Otte 1977; Vila
1991). Other colonial mechanisms included rescate or enforced bartering aimed at
obtaining food and gold from the indigenous people, as well as entradas or incursions
into and conquest of new territories fueled by the fabled Province of the Meta and,
later, the myth of El Dorado (Morón 1977; Perera 2000). During some rescates, the
Spanish in Cubagua received information about the indigenous peoples in the north-
central region, about the existence of Lake Valencia or Laguna de Tacarigua, and
about local goods of commercial interest such as gold and textiles (Rivas 1994). All
these colonial procedures had a destructive impact on the indigenous peoples’ traditional
ways of life, mobility and exchange.
In 1555, Francisco Fajardo, a mestizo Guaiquerí–Spaniard, assisted by other Guai-
querí9 from Margarita Island who were led by his mother cacica (chief) Isabel, attempted
to colonize the coast of the Province of Caracas and finally penetrated the Caracas Valley
in 1560 (Oviedo y Baños 1982). Fajardo’s mother had kinship ties with several indigenous
leaders settled on the central coast of current Vargas State as well as on its western border
with current Aragua State (Puerto Maya) and gave her son proficiency in the Guaiquerí
language (Biord Castillo 2005; Rivas 1994, 248–49; 2002, 110–12) (see below the section
Some linguistic considerations).10 These kinship and language skills favored Fajardo’s first
efforts, which nevertheless failed to consolidate the colonial enclaves he founded given
the reluctance of some local indigenous leaders. Friction occurred in the Valle del Pane-
cillo, the first coastal site in Vargas State where Fajardo arrived during his earliest colo-
nization attempts (Altez 2002, 25–28; Rivas 2002, 132).11 The two enclaves he founded in
1560, i.e. the settlement of El Collado de Caraballeda on the coast and the Hato de
San Francisco in the Valley of Caracas, also disappeared quickly. Indigenous peoples
living in neighboring areas attacked Fajardo’s settlements and remained hostile to
outside encroachment (Cruxent 1971; Ganteaume 2006; Nectario María 1979).
In 1567, the conqueror Diego de Losada entered the Valley of Caracas from the west
and founded the city of Santiago de León de Caracas (Nectario María 1979, 111–29). The
confederated indigenous peoples of the region under the chief Guaicaipuro commenced
their last and unsuccessful offensive against the conquerors at the beginning of 1568.12 By
1578, the date of Pimentel’s Relación, the region was largely conquered. The process of
assigning the north-central natives to the Spanish (repartimiento), converting them to
Christianity, settling them in encomiendas or mandated reserves (assisted by Franciscan
padres doctrineros) and, later, in missions (reducción), had begun across the entire pro-
vince (Biord Castillo 2001; Rivas 1994). These measures provided the Spanish colonists
with an initial labor force, knowledge of local natural resources, and communication
routes which were soon utilized in the establishment of haciendas, country estates and
some short-lived mining production centers.13 The Capuchins went into action on the
eastern border of the province in the region of Barlovento,14 near the area of influence
of the Province of Nueva Andalucía. Their enterprises were ephemeral given the reluc-
tance of the Tomuza, the natives of this region, who resisted colonial control.15 The
initiatives of Franciscan missionaries acting further east beyond the Unare River were
more successful (Ruiz Blanco 1965 [1690]; Tauste 1888 [1680]).
Demography
Pimentel reported in 1578 that of 7,000 to 8,000 indigenes in the province, approximately
4,000 lived close to the towns of Caracas (inland) and Caraballeda (on the coast). Oviedo
y Baños (1982, 2:397) reported that in 1568, the confederated forces under the chief Guai-
caipuro reached as many as 14,000 indigenous warriors. The real number must have been
much smaller inasmuch as only about 10,000 inhabitants in all the province were
reported for that time by López de Velazco (1964 [1574]). Oviedo y Baños probably exag-
gerated the number of indigenous warriors to magnify the victory of the considerably less
numerous Spaniards. Overestimation of indigenous forces, common in the
documentation of that time, formed part of a strategy to garner more merit and thus
better remuneration from the Crown in the form of land, positions in public adminis-
tration, and number of allocated indigenous peoples under the rule of encomiendas.
As shown in Tables 1 and 2, the indigenous population of the province was reduced by
half to three-quarters over an average of roughly 30 years. This is consistent with other
estimates of the time (Rivas 1994, 183). Pimentel, supposed defender of the indigenous
peoples (Nectario María 1979, 226), was nonetheless reluctant to recognize the aggres-
sions of the colonizers. He attributed the marked drop in population to the effects of epi-
demic diseases such as smallpox (variola major), measles (rubeola), diarrhoea, catarrh
and flu, in addition to warfare versus the Spaniards and to pre-conquest internal
clashes. He emphasized that, after the city of Caracas was established, smallpox and
measles eliminated fully one-third of the local indigenous population (Pimentel 1964).
The smallpox epidemics reported in 1580–1581 and 1587–1590 in vast areas of northern
South America together wiped out 90% of the indigenous population (Oviedo y Baños
1982; Morey 1979, 82; Hern 1994).
Some linguistic considerations

Cariban languages were spoken along the northeastern coasts of South America between
the Península de Paria in the east and the central Venezuelan coast in the west in an
almost continuous territory (Figure 3)16 in the mid-sixteenth century. Durbin (1985)
named the littoral peoples Coastal Caribs17 and classified them into a northern branch
of Cariban languages that had purportedly migrated from their homeland in the
Guiana land mass.
The borders of the region occupied by the northern coastal Cariban speakers were, to
the east, the Orinoco River Delta, occupied by the ancestors of the present-day Warao
Indians whose non-Cariban language remains to be classified. To the west, the valley
of the river Yaracuy (but not the mountainous lands of this region) was occupied by
the Arawakan-speaking Caquetío (Arvelo and Oliver 1999; Rivas 1989, 1:xvii). To the
south, the area was settled by the Guamo or Guamontey, another group of uncertain lin-
guistic affiliation, some members of which were moved during the colonial period to
encomiendas in the mountains of Yaracuy State (Rivas 1989, 1:xvii; 1997).18 Distribution
of Cariban languages in present-day Venezuela and Colombia suggests a movement of
Cariban speakers from the eastern and central Venezuelan coast through the plains
into the Lake Maracaibo area, then north into the Sierra de Perijá, south through the
foothills of these mountains, and to the Magdalena River (Durbin 1977, 30; 1985, 346,
349). These linguistic reconstructions are significant for creating and evaluating
Table 1. Estimates for the indigenous population of the Province of Caracas 1567–1589.
Year 15671 Year 1589 Reference2
25,000 6,000 Francisco Infante
20,000 4,000 (12,0003) Juan Pérez de Valenzuela and Gabriel de Ávila
8,000–10,000 4,000–5,000 Juan Fernández de León
1
This date corresponds to the beginning of Diego de Losada’s conquest of the Caracas Valley (Nectario María 1979: 84–
85); 2data compiled by Nectario María (1979, 89–90) from declarations made by the companions of Diego de Losada on
3 January 1589; 3this estimate was given by the second of the informants.
Table 2. Estimates for the indigenous population of the Province of Caracas 1571–1607 (Biord Castillo
1995, 125).
Years Estimated population Reference
1571–1574 10,000–12,000 Juan López de Velazco 1964 [1574]
1578 7,000–8,000 Juan de Pimentel 1964 [1578]
1607 2,600 Diego Villanueva y Gibaja 1964 [1607]
Figure 3. Spatial distribution of the regional segments or ‘blocks’ of the ‘natives of north-central Vene-
zuela,’ considered as a macro-ethnic grouping or as a subgroup of the northern Cariban speakers. The
abbreviated form NNCV used in this figure refers to the north-central indigenous peoples according to
the explanation provided in the main text (drawn by Konrad T. Antczak and Oliver Antczak).
interdisciplinary models of pre-colonial settlement in the region. Archaeology, thus far,

seems to confirm them (Antczak, Urbani et al. 2017; Arvelo and Wagner 1984; Rivas
1994; 2002; Sanoja 1969; Tarble 1985; Zucchi 1985).
However, it is still a matter of controversy whether all the natives of north-central
Venezuela spoke a Coastal Cariban language (Loukotka 1968; Acosta Saignes 1946) or
a Coastal Cariban dialect (Durbin 1985; Migliazza 1985; Biord Castillo 1995). This
issue is crucial for our understanding of the role of the indigenous groups in the
initial processes of European colonization. Marc de Civrieux (1980, 40), drawing from
the ethnohistoric sources, observed that the central (Cumanagoto) and eastern
(Chaima) coastal Cariban speakers called themselves Choto (people, human beings)
and spoke dialects of the same language (named Chotomaimú), permitting them to
communicate with each other (Butt Colson and Heinen 1983–1984, 8; Butt Colson 1983–
1984). Their western neighbors, such as the Caraca, Teque, and Meregoto (north-central
indigenous peoples) would also have been considered as Choto and would also have
spoken a dialect of Chotomaimú. If, as de Civrieux suggests, the suffix -goto in the
Cariban languages means ‘the inhabitant of, or dweller of’ (thus Cumanagoto can be
read as the inhabitant of Cumaná), then the term Meregoto (or Esmeregoto) seems to
fit well into this structure (de Civrieux 1980, 37).19 This root is also present in the com-
position of other ethnonyms, anthroponyms and toponyms in the area (Rivas 2002, 111).
Moreover, the name of the Toromayna or Toromayma indigenous group from the Valley
of Caracas containing a final element -aima or -ima is clearly of Cariban origin (e.g.,
Adelaar and Muysken 2004, 114–15). The Toromayma peoples mentioned by Pimentel
(1964) were proceeding from an ancestral land they called Toromayma and were newco-
mers to the north-central Venezuela region. Toromayma is reminiscent of another eth-
nonym of the area, indicated in seventeenth-century documentation, where Tarama or
Tarma was the name given to the Caraca who inhabited the mountainous area west of
current Vargas State. This name still survives as a place name. It identifies a location
of encomienda settlement and, later, resguardo in which indigenous peoples were con-
centrated from the beginning of the seventeenth century (Rivas 1994). If Tarama is
indeed related to Toromaima, the Relación of Pimentel may suggest a regional shift
from the west to the Valley of Caracas or on to the eastern coast of Vargas State (the
city of Caraballeda) where Pimentel lived (Rivas 1994).
Data supporting the conclusion that inhabitants of the north-central region were
Cariban speakers are drawn from two other sources: ethnohistoric information
affirming mutual intelligibility with other contemporary colonial period idioms, and
modern lexical comparisons with present-day Cariban languages. Two missionaries con-
stitute the source of the ethnohistoric data. The first was Fray Francisco de Tauste (1888),
a Franciscan, who attended missions among the Chaima and learned their language.
Tauste found that he could make himself understood, albeit with some difficulty, with
the Caraca from the city of Valencia (west of Caracas). The second was the Jesuit mis-
sionary Felipe Salvador Gilij (1965 [1782]), who, in 1782, commented that he had had
a similar experience. Gilij lived at the La Encamarada mission located on the southern
bank of the Middle Orinoco River between 1749 and 1767 and learned the Tamanaco
language spoken there (Biord Castillo 1985, 84; Pache et al. 2017). This, as noted by
Durbin (1985) and Mattéi-Müller and Henley (1990), was closely linked to coastal-north-
ern Cariban languages. Gilij had to leave the country after the expulsion of the Jesuits in
1767. Before embarking for Italy, however, he spent a few months in La Guaira on the
central Venezuelan coast. He noted there that the Caraca ‘language’ spoken by a
native boy from La Guaira was closely related to the Tamanaco language (Biord Castillo
1995, 162). This observation seems to confirm the existence of a relatively close genea-
logical connection between the Caraca language and Tamanaco.
More evidence for the classification of Caraca as a Cariban language comes from the
lexical comparisons performed by Juan Ernesto Montenegro (1983), Rivas (1994), and
Biord Castillo (2001; 2005). Based on Pimentel’s Relación, Biord Castillo and Rivas com-
piled a list of words possibly affiliated with the Caraca language and compared them with
their counterparts in extinct Chaima, Cumanagoto and Tamanaco, as well as with some
living Cariban languages such as Mapoyo/Wánai, Yabarana, E’ñepá, Kari’ña, Pemón and
Yukpa. They found regular sound correspondences between the supposed Caraca-
affiliated terms and those from different Cariban languages. This supports the inclusion
of the Caraca language in the Cariban language family and reinforces the previous
classifications (Durbin 1985; Loukotka 1968; Migliazza 1985; Oliver 1989; see also Mon-
tenegro 1983). Some linguistic data related to Caraca ethnonyms and regional toponymy
may need further elaboration.20 Nonetheless, for the purposes of our discussion, we
group the Caraca language alongside Chaima and Cumanagoto either as members of
the Coastal (following Durbin 1985 and Villalón 1987) or the Northern Carib (Mattéi-
Müller and Henley 1990) ensemble.
Pimentel’s Relación (1964, 113) also enumerated the Guaiquerí among the indigenous
groups that inhabited the Province of Caracas. This points to cultural or linguistic affinity
or both between the Guaiquerí of Margarita Island and the people from the coast of
north-central Venezuela. During the sixteenth century, the chiefs Charaima and Nai-
guatá on the central coast (and perhaps their villagers) can be considered direct relatives
of the Guaiquerí, or at least of the Hispano-Guaiquerí leader Francisco Fajardo (Antczak
1999; Ayala Lafée-Wilbert et al. 2017, 347–51; Rivas 1994; 2002, 132). The question as to
whether Guaiquerí was related to the Caraca language cannot be answered without ana-
lyses of additional ethnolinguistic data (Acosta Saignes 1954, 222–25). Studies carried out
by Montenegro (1983) and Ayala Lafée (1994–1996; Ayala Lafée-Wilbert et al. 2017, 347–
51) established several lexical parallels (possible cognates) between Guaiquerí and other
languages of the coastal Caribs such as extinct Chaima and Cumanagoto as well as sur-
viving Caraca.
Stating that ‘the language of all this province and nation […] is only one and in general
caraca’ Pimentel (1964, 119) provided further confirmation of the unity and intelligibility of
the languages or dialects spoken by the indigenous peoples of the Province of Caracas. He
mentioned a certain linguistic variance within the province by saying that ‘certain [Caraca]
nations differ from each other in certain things, as Castilla and Montañas, Galicia and Por-
tugal, and lastly they can understand each other’ (Pimentel 1964, 119). This observation is
similar to Father Tauste’s century-older comment cited above (1888) about his experiences
with the natives from the city of Valencia (see also Vásquez de Espinoza 1948 [1628]; Henley
1985). Based on this context, Biord Castillo (1995, 129, 132; 2005) and Rivas (1994)
suggested that the indigenous peoples of the province would have pertained to one
ethnic group divided into sub-groups speaking different dialects of the same language. In
addition to geographical separation, contact with non-Cariban speakers may have tended
to differentiate the Cariban dialects spoken in the area. For example, the non-Cariban
languages in question may have been Arawakan languages, spoken by the late pre-colonial
makers of Ocumaroid pottery (Antczak 1999; Antczak, Urbani et al. 2017; Rivas 1994). The
language of these communities could have constituted a substrate providing distinctive
elements to the Cariban of the northern central coastal area and could have resulted in a
local dialect. At the least, those elements may have figured in the everyday lexicon as well
as in geographical and people’s names (Rivas 1994; 2001).21
Who were the indigenous peoples of north-central Venezuela?

The linguistic topics discussed above may be summed up by Gilij’s (1965, 204) comment
closely relating the Tamanaco of the Middle Orinoco to the Caraca of the central coast.
He also noted small differences in the ‘same language’ spoken on the coast from Paria to
Caracas. Such differences do not seem to have prevented mutual understanding amongst
the indigenous peoples (Henley 1985, 154). Therefore, we may further ask: who were the
indigenous peoples of north-central Venezuela in sociocultural terms? To succinctly
reply, we follow Biord Castillo (1995), who compared two documentary sources: a
primary (Pimentel 1964) and a secondary (Oviedo y Baños 1982) to weigh the content
of the latter.22 Following the model of ethnohistorically and ethnographically known
Cariban societies as proposed by Morales Méndez and Arvelo-Jiménez (1981), the
social formation of the Northern Caribs would have featured several subgroups speaking,
in turn, dialectal variants of the same language (Chotomaimú or ‘language of the people,’
following de Civrieux 1980, 38). These subgroups would be the Cumanagotos, the
Chaimas, the Guaiqueríes, and the indigenous peoples of north-central Venezuela.
Each of these four subgroups would have had regional components; it’s possible to
speak in some detail of two of the subgroups. The Cumanagotos likely featured four
or five as proposed by de Civrieux (1980). The north-central indigenous peoples pre-
sented seven (Biord Castillo 2005): (1) Meregotos in the Valleys of Aragua; (2) Tarmas
on the Caribbean coast; (3) Teques in the central mountain range; (4) Mariches in the
eastern cordillera; (5) Guarenas in the central inland valleys; (6) Tomuzas in the Barlo-
vento coastal area; and (7) Quiriquires in the depression of the plains (Depresión llanera).
These regional components would have been characterized by closely interrelated vil-
lages. Rivas (1994) includes the Caraca in this list although restricted to the surroundings
of the coastal town of Naiguatá (Vargas state). Other indigenous peoples, including the
Arbacos from the central mountains and the so-called ‘crazy Indians’ from an undeter-
mined location, might have been non-Cariban communities, perhaps originally Arawa-
kan speakers progressively displaced and finally assimilated by north-central indigenous
peoples.23
Settlement pattern
Pimentel (1964) observed that the villages in the north-central region were dispersed
among the hills and ravines of the valleys and highlands of the interior and scattered
on the slopes of the Cordillera de la Costa towards the Caribbean coast. This dispersed
settlement pattern is distinctive of many lowland indigenous groups practicing slash-
and-burn rotation horticulture (Balée 1989; Erickson 2003; Oliver 2008). Pimentel
described the villages as being small in size and composed of from three to six houses.
This pattern of nucleated rather than single communal house village structure is consist-
ently described for many ‘nations’ of the Caraca,24 both inland and in the littoral zone.
However, some collateral documentary sources describe round dwellings used by certain
coastal communities (Rivas 1994, 177), perhaps analogous to the large multi-family chur-
uata hut of the Ye’kuana Cariban speakers from southern Venezuela (el ëttë in Baran-
diarán 1979). Sanoja and Vargas (2002) have examined archaeological remains of
indigenous housing structures from the sixteenth century in Caracas.
The average number of indigenous villagers in north-central Venezuela may be esti-
mated by taking note of modern-day Carib communities in Guyana which feature a
mean of 30 and rarely exceed 50 (Rivière 1995, 198). Considering the ongoing warfare
between the autochthons and the Spanish in the former region in the late sixteenth
century, it seems probable that villages maintained a certain population below which they
became too vulnerable to attack. Pimentel (1964) seemed to suggest that small villages
(barrios) inhabited by both kin relatives and non-kin co-residents clustered to form
larger units (poblaciones or pueblos), separated by larger distances. Biord Castillo
(1995, 185) considers barrios sections or parts of a single village which he calls a
pueblo. The larger social-political units (poblaciones or pueblos) were located at intervals
of 2.7, 5.5, 11 and 17 kilometers from each other (Biord Castillo 1995, 202; Rivas 1994,
187). Temporary huts were also constructed close to the cultivated fields. Generally, this
spatial organization fits well into the model of Carib social structure (Biord Castillo 1995,
187; 2005).
Pimentel (1964) considered the villages ephemeral. They were not geometrically
arranged and the houses were made of perishable materials instead of stones and
bricks. The notion of civilization was inseparably linked in Pimentel’s mind (as in
many of his contemporary Spanish writers’ mentalities) with the ability to build Euro-
pean-like cities (Fernández-Armesto 1987, 235). Regardless, his data permit us to infer
that the indigenous peoples were semi-sedentary groups whose mobility patterns were
associated with seasonally driven shifts in the location of their cultivated fields. The
settlements of modern Guiana Caribs have an average duration of about six years due
to exhaustion of food and raw materials in the vicinity, infested thatches, or misfortune
(e.g. the death of the village leader) (Rivière 1995). Population mobility between settle-
ments and the nucleation of settlements as a defensive response to warfare (Redmond
1994) also likely underscored the nature of their perceived ephemerality. It can be
inferred from Pimentel’s Relación that temporary campsites of the coastal groups were
also scattered on the islands of Las Aves, Los Roques, La Orchila and La Tortuga
(Antczak and Antczak 1999; 2005; 2006; M. M. Antczak and Antczak 2015; Antczak,
Antczak et al. 2017; Herrera Malatesta 2011; Rivas 1994).
Subsistence economy
The indigenous peoples in the interior valleys of the Caracas and Tuy Rivers were slash-
and-burn horticulturists. According to Pimentel (1964), their staple crops were maize
(Zea mays L.), bitter manioc (Manihot esculenta C.) and sweet potato (Ipomoea
batatas) (Biord Castillo 2001; 2005; Rivas 1994). Their ability to produce manioc flour
cakes (cassava) was exploited to supply food destined for the agricultural production
units adjacent to the encomiendas (Rivas 1994). Other cultigens such as peanuts
(Arachis hypogaea) and beans were of secondary importance. Pimentel stated that
such fruit trees as the avocado (Persea americana), guava (Psidium sp.), mamone
(Talisia hexaphylla), soursop (Annona muricata), mammee apple (Mammea americana)
and anone (Annona sp.) were purposefully harvested and, perhaps, cultivated (Pimentel
1964, 129–30). Other ethnohistoric sources confirm the cultivation of fruit trees by other
Cariban speakers to the east (Caulín 1966 [1779], 1:42–53; de Civrieux 1980, 155). The
indigenous peoples also cultivated bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), cotton (Gossypium
sp.) and tobacco (Nicotiana sp.) as well as a regional variant of coca (Erythroxylum sp.
[Rivas 1994, 161–62]). Coca leaf with a high content of alkaloids served as a stimulant.
Many indigenous peoples valued coca leaves; it comprised an important item of trade
for Cariban-speaking societies. The leaf was dried and ground into powder, mixed
with pulverized burnt shells and chewed by all adult members of Cariban-speaking
groups along the Venezuelan coast (López de Gómara 1979 [1552], 295; Pimentel
1964, 131). De Civrieux (1980, 166–68) reported that the Cumanagoto imported coca
from the north-central part of Venezuela—principally from the Tomuza, the eastern
neighbors of the central indigenous peoples. One of the few indigenous species of Ery-
throxylum currently reported for north-central Venezuela could have been the one the
Tomuza cultivated and bartered (Pittier 1926, 255). Cultivated fields were located close
to riverbanks, their entrances protected by buried and poisoned sharp points. Although
the indigenes did not store their foodstuffs, they preserved manioc flour in the form of
casabe cakes (Pimentel 1964, 126). If fish or molluscs were bartered from the coast to
the interior, they were probably salted and sun-dried or smoked (Antczak and
Antczak 2006). The Cariban-speaking Cumanagoto to the east smoked maize kernels,
which preserved this important staple for a year (de Civrieux 1980, 156). The indigenes
prepared a beverage of great value in their diet called yare from the boiled poisonous
juice of the bitter manioc. They also drank fermented maize or manioc beverages
called masato (Pimentel 1964, 126).
As with most indigenous peoples in the South American lowlands, hunting and fishing
accounted for the most protein in the north-central indigenous peoples’ diets (see Gross
1975; Roosevelt 1991). They hunted a wide range of Neotropical mammals with bows and
arrows (Dupouy 1946; Laffoon et al. 2016). Subsistence activities also included the gath-
ering of wild fruits, medicinal plants, vegetal fibers, honey, wax and natural colorings
(Rivas 1994, 171–74). Coastal groups captured marine fish, lobsters and turtles while col-
lecting molluscs as well as salt from natural salt pans located on the coast and offshore
islands (Antczak and Antczak 2005; 2006; Rivas 1994, 177, 180, 189).
Material culture25
The material culture of the north-central indigenous peoples shares many features with
other Cariban-speaking groups to the east, principally the Cumanagoto (de Civrieux
1980). However, certain differences must have existed between inland settlements and
those on the Caribbean littoral due to the different habitats and subsistence economies.
For example, the inhabitants of the coast engaged in fishing using canoes and fishing
gear; they also collected salt. Pimentel’s Relación provides a very rich database regarding
the material culture of the north-central indigenous peoples which will be thoroughly
cited in this section.
The women wore the guayuco, a short cotton skirt, and adorned themselves with neck-
laces made of beads (see Guzzo Falci et al. 2017a and 2017b). Sometimes they used gold
pendants and bracelets. Their legs were tied in different places with colored bands to
modify them for aesthetic purposes. Both women and men wore tied colored cotton arm-
bands and painted their bodies. These adornments and modifications would also have
been markers of social status, age and group membership. The men wore no clothes.
They used penis sheaths made from the mature and dry fruit of a bottle gourd (Lagenaria
siceraria). Chiefs might hang gold anthropo- or zoomorphic figurines around their necks
and use golden bracelets. The coastal chiefs Sacama and Niscoto offered Fajardo gold
pendants (Oviedo y Baños 1982). These objects, named aguilillas (little eagles) by the
Spaniards, were made of alloyed gold, silver and copper (guanín). They were often
mentioned as booty or the result of barter between the Spanish and the indigenous
peoples of the Venezuelan coast (Antczak et al. 2015). Guanín objects were probably
obtained through down-the-line exchange with coastal communities in the northwestern
region of modern-day Venezuela and northeastern Colombia. Locally available gold
could have been bartered westwards with other communities which further elaborated
it. Alternatively, it might have been worked locally (Rivas 1994, 190, 478). In warfare
and on ritual occasions, chiefs and prominent warriors wore feather headdresses and
animal skins. They used masks and engraved wooden animal figures during feasts.
Their weapons included hardwood clubs called macanas; these were often engraved
and painted. Another common weapon was the bow with poison-tipped arrows. They
wove cotton materials and hammocks as well as a variety of cotton threads and ropes.
They also manufactured a wide range of fiber cordage. Pimentel mentions a special
type of basket called cataure used by women for all portable possessions. Each cataure
was interred with its owner when she died.
Although Pimentel mentions spoons, water containers and penis sheaths made of bottle
gourd, the indigenous peoples probably produced a much wider range of utensils from this
versatile fruit. These utensils must have been omnipresent in indigenous settlements and
houses. Except for a small olla or pot used for storing the substance for poisoning arrow
tips, Pimentel does not mention other ceramic vessels. Nevertheless, such vessels must
have existed, complementing the ceramic griddles employed for baking manioc cakes.
Some sources report that communities located on the north-central coast bartered for
decorated pottery which struck them as especially attractive. Further into the colonial
period, at haciendas located near sites with encomiendas, indigenous peoples produced
ceramic molds for papelón (unrefined whole sugar cane; Rivas 1994, 176).
Indigenes used yellow, gold, purple, black and red mineral dyes as well as vegetable
colorings. The last two hues were used to paint the human body. Body paint was some-
times applied over a previously administered base of resin called orcay ymara. This resin
was obtained from the carapita tree (Carapa guianensis). There are still a few modern
localities called Carapita around Lake Valencia (Botello 1990, 36). In battle, the indigen-
ous peoples here under study used various musical and signaling instruments including
drums and aerophones such as shell trumpets (caracoles [almost certainly made of
Lobatus gigas shell]). They also employed fotutos, long cane flutes like those used by
Cariban speakers from the Middle Orinoco River (Gilij 1965, 2:228–29; Carrocera
1968, 3:438). Apart from the use of wood in residential structures, collateral sources
allude to dugout canoes (Rivas 1994).
Sociopolitical organization
The indigenous peoples of north-central Venezuela lived in small multi-house villages
populated by closely related extended families and probably a certain number of non-
consanguineous co-residents (see Heinen 1983–1984 for a pertinent example of
Ye’kuana households). Exceptionally, villages would have been larger (Pimentel 1964,
118). These bigger villages, contrary to those of other Cariban speakers (Dreyfus
1983–1984, 43), were probably led by skillful aggrandisers, not renowned war chiefs
(Rivière 1995, 191; Hayden 1995). The village of Guaicaipuro, the main war chief of
all indigenous peoples confederated against the Spanish invaders, was clearly not a big
village (Nectario María 1979, 135; Oviedo y Baños 1982).
The data suggest that clusters of small kin-related villages formed major territorial
units and were interconnected by strong social and ideological linkages as well as by a
common dialect. Since indigenous peoples used kin relations to structure their sociopo-
litical organization, both economic inter-household and, probably, inter-communal links
were arranged into chains of reciprocity derived from such relations. Such was the case in
other Cariban-speaking societies (e.g. Butt Colson and Heinen 1983–1984). This type of
social organization could explain the initial success of Francisco Fajardo’s expeditions.
His family ties extended to several indigenous leaders of the Central Coast (Montenegro
1983; Rivas 1994; 2002).26 Whether these larger political units encompassed hetero-
geneous ethnic groups is not possible to determine based on the available historical
data (Biord Castillo 2001; 2005).
Indigenous peoples of north-central Venezuela could have participated in the greater
Cariban-speaking network of mutual interdependence via barter, marriage, ceremonial
cooperation, war alliances and shamanic services exchange (see Villalón 1983–1984 for
an example of E’ñapa [Panare] regional interactions). Moreover, Cariban political inte-
gration can even be tracked on an inter-regional scale through links of diverse nature and
intensity. Biord Castillo (2001; 2005) suggested that the sociopolitical structure of these
groups (inferable from Pimentel and Oviedo y Baños) was very similar to the social struc-
ture model proposed by Morales Méndez and Arvelo Jiménez (1981) for Cariban-speak-
ing societies in the inter-ethnic system of the Orinoco River Basin and its contiguous
areas (Arvelo-Jiménez and Biord Castillo 1994; Biord Castillo 1985; 2006; Biord Castillo
and Arvelo 2007; Gassón 2007; Heinen and García-Castro 2000; Tiapa 2007). He further
argued that the groups on the eastern and central Venezuelan coasts could also have been
integrated into such a system (Biord Castillo 1985, 180). However, not only Cariban
speakers participated in these interregional spheres of interaction (Dreyfus 1983–
1984). Rivas (1994, 189–90) reported that goods were exchanged between north-
central indigenous peoples and other communities located to the west who had access
to certain types of worked gold and decorated pottery (possibly including polychrome)
most probably obtained through the intermediary Arawakan-speaking Caquetío from
modern-day Falcón State.
Brizuela (1957 [1655]) stated that Cariban speakers from the eastern coast (the Cuma-
nagoto and their neighbors) ‘have a communication and trade […] with these from the
inland that live toward the plains [llanos] and that these [inhabitants of the llanos have
communication] with the Caribs and the other nations that live on the Orinoco River’ (de
Civrieux 1980, 166–72). But alliances shifted frequently. As a result, Cariban speakers
often confronted each other in battle (Da Prato Perelli 1981).
In an alternative interpretation influenced by archaeological data other than those
related to specific ethnohistorical evidence, Vargas (1990) suggested that the links of
interdependence between communities along with the subordination of different
groups under one leadership in the sixteenth century may reflect the existence of pre-His-
panic chiefdoms or lordships. However, this type of sociopolitical organization appears
to be rare among Cariban-speaking groups (except perhaps for some northeastern coastal
communities, e.g. the Palenques) in the context of the colonial penetration. It suggests a
new reorganization that largely emerged as a response to European aggression; it does
not necessarily support the continuation of an existing pre-Hispanic system. Using

lexical evidence contained in sources collateral to the Relación, we may argue,
however, that relations of production under conditions of servitude (improperly called
‘slavery’ by Europeans) existed among the north-central indigenous peoples. These
relations were like those reported during the colonial period among the Kari’ña, and
more recently including up to the present among the Ye’kuana and Pemón. They
involve the recruitment of other ethnic groups for use as manpower in horticulture
and other subsistence activities. Such persons were denominated macos or itotos
(Rivas 1994; 1997; 2001). Also, at least in some sectors of the north-central area,
primary and secondary community leaders appear to have coexisted. This is a form of
social organization reminiscent of other Cariban-speaking groups in the Guyana
region (Rivas 1994, 208–9). Likewise, at least one anthroponym that includes the tiau
root has been recorded. It corresponds to the figure of a regional leader in an area
where pre-existing Arawakan speakers could have been assimilated. This root in the
western part of the country was applied to cacical leaders (Rivas 1994, 254). All in all,
this more hierarchical form of social organization could have evinced some of the
peculiarities that led Vargas (1990) to propose the existence of a particular social stratifi-
cation. Unfortunately, given the fragmented nature of the written documentation, it is
impossible to know how widespread this form of economic and social organization
became.
The small residential unit or household (sensu Wilk 1991) was the basic arena for pro-
duction and consumption as well as for a wide range of activities, not all of which were
strictly economic. Each household had its headman. Every village had its own leader
whose kin relatives are termed in collateral sources as periamo (Biord Castillo 2004;
2005; Rivas 1994). This term of Cariban origin is cognate with words from the
Chaima and Cumanagoto languages which were translated into Spanish as pariente (rela-
tive) (Rivas 1994, 203, 246). The prestige of a leader stemmed mainly from the horticul-
tural productivity of his household. However, as with other Caribs, village leaders’
oratorical abilities, knowledge of the ancestral tradition, and skills in the management
of rituals and social relationships probably surpassed those of the other headmen (de Civ-
rieux 1980, 141 for the Cumanagoto). As has been reported about other Cariban speak-
ers, a shaman (piache) closely assisted the village leader. The leader’s power was limited
by the existence of councils composed of village elders.
In peacetime a leader’s mandate did not extend beyond his own village (Biord Castillo
1995, 207), but one chief could assume the command of a confederation of warriors
forming wide intercommunal or regional alliances in times of conflict. Such a confedera-
tion meant a sudden and radical change in social structure. For example, the rise of Guai-
caipuro as the main chief of the confederated north-central indigenous peoples in 1568
occurred when the Spaniards threatened the survival of all the inhabitants of the region.
However, even in such exceptional conditions, Guaicaipuro’s authority was not absolute;
instead it depended on his power of verbal persuasion (Biord Castillo 1995, 208). War
councils of several chiefs to discuss military strategy were associated with intensive sha-
manistic ritual activities (Oviedo y Baños 1982).
The indigenous peoples of north-central Venezuela could attain social status in three
different ways. Pimentel (1964) placed the shaman at the top of the ladder. The shaman as
a ‘man of power’ and a ‘man of prestige’ (Dreyfus 1983–1984, 46) could amass influence
transcending communal and even regional borders (de Civrieux 1980, 141; Reichel-
Dolmatoff 1986, 136). Old women could, exceptionally, be shamans as well among the
north-central indigenous peoples (Oviedo y Baños 1982, 541). The emphasis on their
age may relate to the fact these indigenous groups believed that menstruation negatively
affected some ceremonial practices and even the production of certain materials such as
poisons (Rivas 1994, 177–78). Below the shaman came the village (a group of kin-related
households) leader. He had to be a ‘good farmer and [the person] who organized many
borracheras [drunken bashes] and had many women, daughters, and sons and daughters-
in-law […] from these comes any good [kin] relation, and they obey him as their highest-
ranking relative’ (Pimentel 1964, 125).
The sources provide no data regarding inherited leader status. However, Cariban
speakers from the eastern coast of Venezuela used to inherit this status even though
lineage could be overridden by other requirements (de Civrieux 1980, 144). Sons suc-
ceeded their fathers when the community agreed. Another means of achieving social
status was demonstrating exceptional bravery. Special rites were performed for those
warriors who killed enemies in battle. These warriors were ranked as a function of
such achievements. They received a new name after each slain foe as well as a number
of feathered headdresses (Pimentel 1964, 125).
The above data suggest that a dual system of leadership existed among the north-
central indigenous peoples. In peacetime, a community leader was that figure among
the household headmen who most generously redistributed a major quantity of wealth
such as foodstuffs and beverages. In wartime, the most highly ranked military chief cen-
tralized authority in his own hands. This chief and higher-ranked warriors were easily
recognized by the gold ornaments, animal skins, feather headdresses and probably
specific and unmistakable body paintings inherent to their status. The specific sociopo-
litical mechanisms involved in the processes of centralization and decentralization of
authority remain unknown (see Oliver 1989, 290–94, for similar processes among the
Caquetío).
Rivas (1994) and Biord Castillo (2001), based on Pimentel’s and Oviedo y Baños’s
data, concluded that the north-central indigenous peoples operated not hierarchical
but egalitarian societies. They considered that stratification could have resulted
from the occasional rise of political or economic interests.27 The examples of
cooperation and liberal communitarianism of labor among the indigenous peoples
described by Pimentel, as well as among the Cumanagoto (de Civrieux 1980, 150–
52), tend to confirm a rather widespread egalitarianism on the part of sixteenth-
century Coastal Caribs. Other scholars have revealed quasi-egalitarian social relations
among other historic Cariban-speaking societies (Butt Colson and Heinen 1983–
1984). However, both Pimentel’s and Oviedo y Baños’s chronicles contain some
specific data suggesting that certain indigenous groups of north-central Venezuela
can be considered transegalitarian rather than truly egalitarian societies (Antczak
1999; Hayden 1995; Feinman 1995).
Notion of certain socioeconomic inequalities among the north-central indigenous
peoples may derive from Pimentel’s description of their mortuary practices. He distin-
guished different mortuary rituals for deceased shamans and ‘well- [kin] related’ indi-
viduals (Rivas 1994, 206; 2002, 129–30). Pimentel did not refer directly to the funerals
of leaders, but these ‘well-related’ individuals likely were the village leaders. Their social
position may have roughly resembled the Melanesian Big Man institution (Sahlins
1963). Dreyfus (1983–1984) suggested the Big Man leadership type for the Kaliña
and Kalinango Cariban speakers. The same notion was taken up by Oliver (1989) for
the Barquisimeto Caquetíos and, perhaps, for the Caquetíos from the Coro area.
However, the use of this notion has been questioned by historians (Ramos Pérez
1978) and contested by Caribbean archaeologists (Boomert 2000; see also Whitehead
1988). Biord Castillo (2001, 134) considers that north-central indigenous peoples’
social organization corresponds more to the primus inter pares or first-among-equals
model. This means there was no coercive power in the hands of dominant chiefs or
institutions. Morales Méndez and Arvelo-Jiménez (1981) maintain that prominent
individuals among the Cariban-speaking Pemones, Ye’kuanas and Kari’ñas may have
been the war chiefs ( jefes guerreros) or elders rather than the Big Men figures. In any
case, a qualitative investigation of this trans-Pacific resemblance, with all due
caution against stereotyping (Oliver 1989, 291), necessitates deeper levels of analysis
in future research.
Pimentel also noted that the north-central indigenous peoples recognized the insti-
tutions of marriage and divorce while practicing polygamy. A man could have as many
women as he could sustain; however, ‘if the husband is not a good farmer,’ it was easy
for a wife to leave him (Pimentel 1964, 124). If the husband was producing fewer food-
stuffs than others, he could not attract and sustain enough women to have numerous
offspring; in consequence, he could not come to control a large household. Therefore,
the social prestige of the village leader and of his household, as well as the number of
the latter’s members, were directly tied to the household’s productivity. Men aimed to
acquire many family dependents, especially sons and daughters-in law. Rivière (1983–
1984, 357) has stressed the role of marriage in both the economy and the continuity of
power through alliance structures in Cariban-speaking societies. Becoming affiliated
with the household of one of these affluent and ‘well-related’ men could have been
the aspiration of those in other households. These aspiring individuals, consequently,
would have been buttressing the practice of family-arranged marriages. In the process
they were enhancing socioeconomic inequality between households because over time
only a small number of wealthy and high-status households would come to exist (see
Arnold 1995, 97; Blanton 1995). Pimentel (1964) seems to suggest that certain house-
hold headmen might have been able to manage their family members (whose obedi-
ence they could count on) so successfully that they were able to amass production
surpluses. These in turn enabled them to give status-enhancing feasts or borracheras
that were purportedly meant to attract yet more dependent sons and daughters-in-law
to strengthen alliances and raise the social status of the ‘well-related men’ within and
beyond the community (Dreyfus 1983–1984, 43–44). However, the limited amount of
evidence constrains further analysis of possible socioeconomic inequality among the
north-central indigenous peoples, especially among their inland groups. Given the
constraint posed by ethnohistoric data, it is reasonable to conclude that indigenous
leaders maintained their authority and alliances not through retaining economic
wealth but instead through redistributing it back to the community during communal
feasts (Oliver 1989, 291). This was a strategy tending to equalize social position rather
than generate hierarchies (sensu Weiner 1992) which depend on inalienable
possessions. Such strategies require further investigation (see Mills 2004; Antczak and
Antczak 2017).
Warfare
Somewhat concealed in the Relación is the inter-group animosity and warfare. Pimentel
(1964, 118) attributed the fall in the indigenous population of north-central Venezuela to
not only the effects of the European conquest, but also ‘the weariness [desasosiego] of
their past wars.’ The warlike character of the north-central indigenous peoples might
not have been restricted only to Cariban speakers (Arvelo 1995; Oliver 1989; Rivas
1989; Redmond 1994). De Civrieux (1980, 172; see Chagnon 1968) suggested that
fighting among the southerly Yanomamö groups can be viewed as the last vestige of a
widespread pattern of pre-colonial warfare in Venezuela.
The poisoned sharp stakes buried at the entrances of cultivated fields (denominated
potuco) were intended for humans as well as crop-damaging animals. The same stakes
were placed on certain roads or tracks and near houses (Pimentel 1964, 125). Oviedo
y Baños (1982, 2:446) mentioned that during the area’s conquest in 1568, Diego de
Losada found a series of villages (pueblos) he called Estaqueros featuring a ‘great quantity
of poisoned stakes and spines which were sprinkled in the tracks [of this area].’28 If cul-
tivated fields were equally or even better protected against humans than the villages, then
presumably the prime reason for inter-group warfare was access to the best horticultural
areas. Oliver (1989, 292) reported warfare due to pressure of this kind among the Caque-
tío around Barquisimeto. However, the protection of villages and fields could have inten-
sified in early colonial times as a measure against the Spanish intruders (traders, raiders
and slavers). Depending on a variety of circumstances, the armadas de rescate sometimes
raided indigenous communities, sometimes pillaged them, and sometimes bartered with
them—frequently with an intimidating show of force.
Oviedo y Baños (1982, 2:547) provided another possible explanation for the warlike
character of the north-central indigenous peoples. He held that fierce Cariban-speaking
raiders (Kalinago/Kaliña from the Lesser Antilles) periodically assaulted these peoples in
search of slaves (Da Prato Perelli 1981; Dreyfus 1983–1984; de Civrieux 1976). The
north-central indigenous peoples are portrayed in this account as people victimized by
the ‘cannibals’ attacking them from the east and northeast, although this may have
occurred at the onset of the colonial period only. It is impossible to infer only from
the ethnohistoric data whether the coastal indigenous groups were themselves engaged
in raiding expeditions.
Historic Cariban-speaking societies were observed implementing the strategy of mar-
riage alliances between various villages. This committed the parties to mutual assistance
in wartime (de Civrieux 1980, 173). The political importance of marriage was character-
istic not only of Cariban-speaking societies. As Oliver (1989, 281) and Ramos Pérez
(1978) noted, ethnohistoric sources show that Manaure, who was a supreme authority
of the Arawakan Caquetío chiefdom in present-day Falcón State to the west of the
north-central territories, was married to ‘daughters of the Caribs.’ This was in order to
gain prestige and influence beyond his own ethnic and political boundaries, as well as
to procure allies to support him when war threatened (Rivas 1989, 2:398–400).
A critical reading of the historical documents is pivotal here. A case in point is Biord
Castillo’s (2001, 168) observation that the marked differences between the major empha-
sis on indigenous bellicosity posited by Oviedo y Baños, as compared to Pimentel’s pre-
vious much milder characterization, could well be due to the fact that the two treated
widely separate time frames. Attention to context could well account for the apparent
contradiction.
Exchange
Despite some data related to the network of indigenous ‘markets’ (Biord Castillo 2005;
2006; Biord Castillo and Arvelo 2007; Rivas 1994), we know little about exchange con-
ducted by the north-central indigenous peoples. Golden pendants in the form of birds
probably reached the area from northeast Colombia (Antczak et al. 2015). Although
Pimentel did not mention local manufacture of these objects, there is some lexical topo-
nymic data that seem to indicate the indigenous population knew of veins of gold situ-
ated close to their communities, especially in the mountains to the southwest of the
Valley of Caracas (Rivas 1994). These corporal adornments may be considered indicators
of social status or wealth inequalities or both among families within the same community
and among individuals within the same household. Pearls were exchanged for gold or
guanín objects in addition to pottery at certain sites along the coast during barter fairs
(Rivas 1994). In early colonial times, north-central indigenous peoples used gold
objects for exchange with Spanish explorers. Other imported items would have been
medicinal plants, rare colorful feathers (Antczak, Antczak et al. 2017), and the poison
for arrows known as curare (see de Civrieux 1980, 210–11). Biord Castillo (1995, 89)
and de Civrieux (1980) demonstrated that hammocks would have been the most valuable
exchange items produced in the north-central region for export beyond its regional
boundaries. Other exports could have included cotton material and blankets, baskets,
maize, casaba (manioc cakes), honey, black wax and natural colorants. Coca (Erythrox-
ylum sp.) leaves may have been bartered to the eastern groups (de Civrieux 1980). Long-
distance exchange has been documented among the ethnographically known Cariban
speakers of southern Venezuela (Coppens 1971).
The data suggest the regular exchange of goods between the inhabitants of two sharply
different ecological systems: the Caribbean coast and the interior mountains and valleys.
Marine products such as salt, fish, and oil extracted from marine turtles were exchanged
for vegetables and fruits from the interior. Pimentel (1964, 119) wrote that ‘these [inhabi-
tants] from the interior go with the edible goods to the sea [shore] to […] exchange the
salt and the fish for what they bring [with them].’ Exchange between the coast and inland
inhabitants has been documented for almost the whole of the Venezuelan maritime coast
from Lake Maracaibo (Sanoja 1969) to the farthest eastern shore (de Civrieux 1980).
Remarkably, up to three or more tons of sun-dried or salted (or both) Lobatus gigas
meat was brought yearly to the north-central Venezuelan mainland from the oceanic
islands of the Los Roques Archipelago for at least three centuries before the Spanish con-
quest (Antczak and Antczak 2006).
The above-mentioned examples do not permit a clear temporal-spatial distinction
between the exchange of alienable objects among indigenous peoples in a state of recipro-
cal independence, and gift exchange of inalienable objects between individuals
submerged in reciprocal dependence. Therefore, we cannot draw a distinction between

quantitative and qualitative relationships (sensu Gregory 1982). We can only hypothesize
that certain individuals and higher-status households could develop and maintain wide
regional contacts while others bartered locally. We can further hypothesize that by
restricting the circulation of prestigious and inalienable goods (e.g. certain guanín adorn-
ments and pottery figurines), high-status households or individuals (e.g. leaders) could
emerge. Yet the contrary could also have been true: the keeping of some of these ‘cosmo-
logically authenticated’ goods (Weiner 1992) could have been used to defeat hierarchy
(Mills 2004). Future research can further disclose the role of north-central Venezuela
as an entrepôt in the far-flung interregional system of exchange in northeastern South
America and the insular Caribbean (Antczak and Antczak 2006; 2017; Hofman et al.
2008).
Shamanism and feasting

Pimentel provides unique information about ideational aspects of indigenous north-
central Venezuela soon after the Spanish conquest. Although the Relación is strongly
tainted by the premises of Europocentric Catholicism, it provides an exceptionally
detailed description of shamanic practices as well as the social position of the shaman
within indigenous society. It also offers a picture of the ceremonial interaction among
humans, other-than-human entities, and objects which—although painted by the thick
brush of the Western ‘painter’—results in a vibrant portrait, one suitable for further
elaborations.
The north-central indigenous peoples had no sanctuaries, specific houses or places
dedicated to the adoration of supernatural beings. Nonetheless, Pimentel alludes to the
association of specific spirits with certain natural places and phenomena. For example,
he saw the indigenous peoples as pagan wrongdoers who worshipped demons.29
Coastal and northern Cariban speakers associated the fox with a certain category of
spirits; this is borne out in the toponymy and anthroponymy of their words denoting
fox. Catholics identified these spirits as satanic (Rivas 1994; 2002, 112). Only a few
shamans or piaches were known in the whole of north-central Venezuela region
during the sixteenth century. They inspired a level of respect and reverence among the
commoners.30 Pimentel provides a detailed description of the transformation process
and practices attributed to piaches. Candidates began their apprenticeship at 14 or 15
years of age. During their training, each apprentice was enclosed in an especially furn-
ished room inside the hut of a piache. He could not talk to anyone. He could leave the
house to do his chores but always had to return to the room of seclusion. The seclusion
lasted for 20 or 30 days and was coupled with near-fasting. Solely a daily vase of maçato, a
fermented beverage made of maize, sweet potatoes and cassava, was permitted him. From
time to time during the night, the piache could enter the room of the apprentice and they
would sing together. Pimentel remarks that they sang ‘with vanity and presumption’ in a
guttural tone (cantando de papo), and that it was almost impossible for commoners to
understand what they were saying. In fact, the piache was explaining to the disciple
the words he used to invoke the spirit. The disciple ended his period of seclusion and
fasting very thin.
Once the seclusion was over, a great ytanera feast was convoked with the participation
of many invitees from neighboring settlements. The parameters were common to all
north-central indigenous peoples’ feasts presided over by the piaches. Days before,
large quantities of maçato were prepared. Invitees drank this beverage until they fell to
the ground. Those from neighboring settlements came in groups anointed with a
certain genre of resin called orcay and mara similar to turpentine. A vegetal paint was
then applied on top of this ointment or directly onto the skin. This paint was a kind
of bermellón (a reddish dye) called bariqueça31 made of leaves and tree bark. The invitees
also wore masks. Pimentel sarcastically remarks that those wearing the most ‘horrible’
masks were considered the most gallant. Some participants brought figuras del diablo,
or devil-figures as Pimentel described them. Unfortunately, he did not describe these
spirit-figures. They were likely wood carvings adorned with bark, fiber, feathers, and
paint, and could have shared some material characteristics with the bird and other
animal figures that were also brought by the invitees. These latter images were fashioned
from wood and colorful threads of cotton and fiber. They were affixed to wooden clubs or
sticks to help the humans imitate the suggested animals.
Pimentel goes on to describe the vivid choreography of the ceremonial part of the
feast. The masked participants, their bodies painted, held colorful depictions of spirits,
birds and animals as they entered the hosting house of the piache. The performance
which ensued involved imitation of the most characteristic behaviours of the depicted
animals. In addition, in Pimentel’s words, they staged some ‘other simple inventions.’
These semi-improvised acts creatively intertwined dancing, singing, and the strumming
of musical instruments producing a vibrant, colorful, and richly multisensorial
experience.
The pivotal part of the ceremony, however, belonged to the piache. He likely sat on a
wooden bench surrounded by the crowd. Then he began to speak unintelligibly with,
according to Pimentel, ‘vanity and presumption.’ This monologue was a necessary
prelude to the state of visajes or ecstasy. The audience understood that the piache was
calling the spirit. When he began to tremble, all knew that the spirit had entered him.
Then the participants gave him the offerings they had brought. These were largely
diverse kinds of food that the donors presumably understood were going to the spirit,
not the piache. Possessed by the spirit, the piache talked to the participants ‘as a
person that came from far away.’ Those present understood that it was the spirit who
was speaking, not the piache. Thus, the participants began to ask for various favors
such as rain and a good harvest. They begged not to be killed or fall sick. Pimentel
noted that the replies of the spirit-infused piache were generally ambiguous, open to
interpretation. Different spirits had proper names; sites where they dwelled also had
names. Some were water and maize spirits. Others represented diverse diseases and ail-
ments such as calenturas (fevers) or camaras (diarrhoea) of which many indigenous
peoples were dying. Pimentel believed that some held piaches in low esteem and even
laughed at them, considering this ceremonialism no more than an empty tradition inher-
ited from their ancestors. He bluntly concluded that some feasters were less attracted by
the shamanic séances than by their flawed and dishonest inclinations to overindulge in
food and beverage.
Apart from invoking the spirits, the piaches also acted as hechiceros (sorcerers or
medicine-men) and herbolarios (knowers of herbs and medicinal plants). These
occupations brought them additional respect and fear. During a healing session they
would blow and puff at the afflicted person, rubbing their hands on the place where
the patient reported pain, which they would also treat with herbs. In addition, they
would suck at the place of the pain, spitting out the saliva afterwards, arguing they
had removed the sickness. One of the plants specified as having medicinal properties
and enjoying high esteem among the natives was tobacco. The indigenous smoked it
through the mouth and ground and inhaled it through the nose to cure fever and
wounds. Pimentel complained that the Spanish did not yet know how to use it well. In
some cases, when the patient died, the family would beat or even kill the shaman if,
with the help of the spirit, he had not fled beforehand. Alternatively, the family might
take back the presents they had given the shaman.
The piaches invoked the spirits at night yet maintained they arrived in a visible
manner. The entrances to a hut being closed, they argued the spirit entered through
openings in the roof. The shamans would be the first to talk to the spirit, alone; then vil-
lagers could enter and ask the spirit for favors. Pimentel held that the indigenous peoples
feared spirits for their power to bestow either health or death. If people ate their harvests
without holding a feast and giving offerings to the spirit, they might die. The spirits were
considered responsible for death, especially when it arrived suddenly. Pimentel stated
that this was known to occur when indigenous peoples had failed to convidarle, that
is, to entreat the spirit to join them in the feast.
Coastal versus inland societies

Pimentel (1964, 136) noted that ‘the natives [on the Caribbean coast] go there [to the Los
Roques, Las Aves and La Orchila offshore islands] during the months of fair weather for
salt and for the turtles to eat them and to make oil from them.’ Navigation to and exploi-
tation of resources located on the offshore islands demanded, plausibly, inter-household
cooperation. Though pertinent ethnohistorical data are very scanty, Antczak and
Antczak (1999; 2006; 2017) hypothesized that certain self-sufficient households aggre-
gated around the leader of the most successful such to more efficiently control and
exploit highly productive marine resources, as well as to take advantage of the high
demand for these resources by interior societies. There are no data referring to the exist-
ence of communal or individual rights over the resources on the central coast. However,
such a reference does exist for the north-central indigenous Cariban-speaking neighbors
to the east. Encroachment on hunting and fishing spots was a common reason for the
outbreak of war among the Palenque on the Unare River (Castellanos 1962 [1589]).
According to Antczak (1999), the household groups would, through time, be manipu-
lated by a leader into more surplus-oriented units which controlled (1) information
about the location of fishing grounds, mollusc beds and salt pans, as well as navigational
knowledge through the open sea; (2) the production of seagoing canoes enabling access
to these distant resources; and (3) exploitation processes including the bioecological
knowledge and skills necessary for the procurement and processing of the resources, pro-
duction and operation of fishing-related gear and the ability to manage specialized work
groups. Furthermore, the kin-related household groups could have become ranked in
importance and prestige relative to one another (see Arnold 1995, 97). Finally, they
would have clustered into larger kin-related corporate groups under a main leader.
Nevertheless, as we have mentioned before, archaeological grounding for the existence of

this type of social organization in pre-colonial north-central Venezuela is thus far
lacking.
Corporate control of subsistence resources could have evolved only on the maritime
coast. The resources of the interior hills and valleys would have remained under the
control of relatively autonomous extended families. The coastal societies based their
economies on the appropriation of resources from both the marine (fishing and gather-
ing) and the terrestrial (hunting and gathering) environments, as well as on the slash-
and-burn horticulture practiced in the valleys or on the slopes of the Cordillera. Pimentel
(1964) clearly indicates that the inhabitants of the interior went to the coast (in search of
marine products); but this, apparently, did not happen in reverse. Consequently, there
could well have existed certain differences in social organization, power, and perhaps
wealth between the indigenous groups of the Caribbean coast and the interior.
According to Pimentel, the north-central indigenous peoples were still visiting and
exploiting the natural resources of the offshore islands in the early decades of the Euro-
pean conquest. However, archaeologists have thus far not found any European artifacts at
indigenous sites on the islands. This may indicate an early colonial interruption of a long
indigenous seagoing tradition that goes back to ca. AD 1000 (Antczak and Antczak 2006;
2008). Because it is from the offshore islands that we do indeed possess systematically
recovered archaeological data, further research is necessary on the central coast in
order to determine if Pimentel’s information could refer to a rather ‘recent’ episode of
island resource exploitation, quite disconnected from the older established pre-colonial
activities performed by the Cariban-speaking peoples (Valencioid) and their non-
Cariban allies (Ocumaroid) (Antczak and Antczak 2006).32 In any event, towards the
second half of the sixteenth century under the encomienda regime, the Spanish colonists
exploited indigenous peoples and their knowledge of marine resources and mountain
paths to exchange fish and, perhaps, salt between coastal colonial enclaves and those
located inland (Rivas 1994, 500–1). The processes of forced transfer of indigenous
peoples in the wake of armed uprisings affected the ethnic composition of some localities
(Rivas 2002, 144). Remarkably, indigenes’ efforts to defend the remnants of their ances-
tral territories survived into the nineteenth century in Aragua (Morales Méndez 1994;
Ganteaume 2012) and even into the mid-twentieth century in the coastal state of
Vargas (Rivas 1994, 518–28). However, all these processes were minimally recorded
especially in the Lake Valencia region (Castillo Lara 1977; 2002) and early colonial
sites have barely been investigated by archaeologists.
Biord Castillo (2007a) proposed an altitudinal distinction in the north-central region:
lowlands (below 1000 masl) and highlands (above 1000 masl). Most indigenous villages
would have been situated in the lowlands, ensuring flatter terrain for horticulture, favor-
able climatic conditions for tropical cultivators and abundant sources of water with
animal life thriving around rivers, lakes and lagoons. In contrast, the highlands would
have been reserved for the seasonally oriented activities of hunting and gathering and
for some ceremonial uses (see Laffoon et al. 2016). Archaeological evidence supports
this proposal as most reported archaeological sites are in the lowland area. In the
Ávila mountain range dividing the inland valleys of Caracas and Guarenas-Guatire
from the Caribbean coast, archaeological remains suggest possible offerings deposited
over 1000 meters of altitude (for example, in the so-called Platos del Diablo [Biord
Castillo 2007a; Antczak and Antczak 2006; Antczak, Urbani et al. 2017]). In some late
precolonial archaeological sites, there are signatures of indigenous peoples taking advan-
tage of flat areas in the mountains. These flat areas served as sediment collectors amid the
slopes. They also featured more humus, suitable for agriculture, and places where indi-
genous peoples could accumulate water in artificial wells and lagoons. Such reservoirs
were reused in colonial times as drinking troughs for goats (Cruxent 1946; Dupouy
and Cruxent 1946, 128; Rivas 1994, 180). In general, the approach to these two areas,
highlands and lowlands, coincides with and reinforces what Biord Castillo called
‘refuge regions’ as well as his research into settlement patterns (Biord Castillo 2005;
2007a). A third, additional area includes the oceanic islands of Los Roques and La
Orchila (Antczak and Antczak 1999; 2006).
Final remarks and future research

Thanks to a novel blend of disciplinary approaches, we have learned that the north-
central Venezuelan region has a rich and varied pre-colonial archaeological record.
However, our understanding of what happened in this region declines drastically near
the time of European conquest. The Europeans had largely either enslaved or decimated
the local peoples by the mid-sixteenth century, but some had taken refuge. The lack of
documentary data regarding the indigenous inhabitants on the shores of Lake Valencia
is remarkable even though pre-colonial archaeological data are considerable for this
region. Exceptional early colonial documents, such as Pimentel’s Relación of 1578, can
serve as the basis of our understanding of native indigenous peoples and their cultures.
Nonetheless, they must be critically approached and embedded in interdisciplinary
investigations. Therefore, future scholarly efforts should feature the following multiscalar
objectives: (1) relation of the above-discussed ethnohistory of the indigenous groups
inhabiting areas close to the Caracas Valley and in the littoral Vargas State to data
linked to the Lake Valencia Basin and the adjacent northwestern coast; (2) critical articu-
lation of ethnohistorical data with the archaeological record; (3) revelation of the fate of
regional indigenous populations up to the present day in the different areas of this exten-
sive territory; and (4) integration of diachronic historical-archaeological reconstructions
into the wider macroregional perspective of northeastern South America, the insular
Caribbean, and beyond.
This research may contribute to extending comparative analyses of potentially diverse
forms of indigenous hierarchy, sociocultural complexity and animism east, south to
Amazonia, and west to the northwestern shoulder of South America as recently suggested
by Ernst Halbmayer (2018). It may also stimulate the study of sociopolitical linkages
between several Carib islands of the Lesser Antilles and the South American mainland
coast. Scholars have demonstrated that from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries
—especially on the continent—linguistic, ethnic, and political boundaries were never
permanent (Dreyfus 1983–1984; Da Prato Perelli 1981; de Civrieux 1980). Therefore, his-
toric Cariban speakers ought not be viewed as a mosaic of atomized and individualistic
groups but rather as peoples united by wide and diverse levels of integration.33 The reper-
cussions of this permeability on the stability (and instability) of the early colonial
enclaves of today’s Venezuela are still barely understood. Further research should also
shed light on how these interconnections related to specific political alliances and
kinship relations between the indigenous peoples of north-central Venezuela and the
Guaiquerí on Margarita Island (Ayala Lafée 1994–1996; Ayala Lafée-Wilbert and
Wilbert 2011). These studies pose challenges for integrative analyses and the construc-
tion of wider interregional narratives, especially when data for interdisciplinary research
are of unequal quality and quantity. The use of modern technologies may only partly
mitigate this problem due to the incommensurability of the data available. Nevertheless,
the comparative analysis of certain such data may illuminate hidden assumptions on the
part of the analyst and therefore, in the end, prove interpretively productive (sensu
Handler 2009). Moreover, the integration of methods in which ‘equivocations are no
longer recognized as errors but as tools for translation’ (Vilaça 2013, 177; Viveiros de
Castro 2004) may be considered the test of whether principles of an ontological nature
are applicable (Harris and Cipolla 2017).
The privileged position of Venezuela as the country in which the largest diversity of
Carib groups has been documented—many of which show vibrant historical continuity
across centuries—opens an additional and unique possibility: that of assessing the appli-
cability of modern ethnographic analogies in the interpretation of ethnohistoric data.
Such assessments could inspire archaeological research which might bridge, always
with a critical eye, the pre-colonial past, colonial transformations and republican antece-
dents. This bridging can take us beyond the grand narratives, based on rather uncritically
applied direct historical approaches, which are currently in vogue. It should enable us to
better approach the problems still haunting the colonial history of north-central
Venezuela.
Notes
1. Abbreviated to Relación hereafter. The last copy of this document is conserved in the
Archivo General de Indias (Sección Patronato, legajo 294, Nr 12). Its ethnohistorical
value was discussed by Dupouy 1945, Morón 1977, Nectario María 1979, Biord Castillo
1992, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2016, Rivas 1994, 2002, Antczak and Antczak 2006, and Antczak
1999.
2. It constituted one of a series of provincial documents called relaciones filipenses due to its
association with the Spanish monarch (Felipe II).
3. We agree with Bushnell (2009, 191) and Norton (2017, 21) that the histories of Spanish colo-
nists cannot be left solely to historians, detached from the ethnohistory of the indigenous
peoples.
4. Pimentel was a well-read European of his time who was almost certainly acquainted with
some of the earlier sources related to the lands in which he had taken up residence (Nectario
María 1979). A few similarities of form and content are evident between Pimentel’s narrative
and that of Italian historian Pedro Mártir de Anglería, whose Décadas del Nuevo Mundo was
published nearly 50 years earlier in 1530. Especially striking are parallels in the descriptions
of north-eastern Venezuela: how invitees entered the house of a host of a feast, how a
shaman’s apprentices were trained, and how a shaman’s trance proceeded (Mártir de
Anglería 1988, e.g. 74, 79, 83). Perhaps in his zeal to best fulfill the king’s command, Pimen-
tel wanted not only to provide first-hand data that he had collected. Could he also have taken
care information he provided did not contradict that previously supplied by other renowned
writers? Without here placing in doubt the veracity of Pimentel’s accounts, we urge further
diachronic comparative analyses of ethnohistoric sources and their articulation with the
archaeological record. Such investigations may provide new insights into the structural
unity or disunity of Cariban speakers and their interrelation with non-Cariban speakers
during pre-colonial and early colonial times.
5. After the sixteenth century, some religious orders (e.g. Observant Franciscans and Capu-
chins) while referring to the Province of Caracas were alluding to the city of Caracas and
not to the natives who gave it that name. Nevertheless, they extended the province’s bound-
aries further east to the Unare River, south to the north bank of the Orinoco River, and west
to the Apure River. These borders were vaguely delimited, which generated conflicts of jur-
isdiction with the neighboring Province of Barinas and with the Vice-royalty of Santa Fé de
Bogotá (administratively attended by the Dominicans and the Jesuits).
6. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Province of Venezuela was fixed approxi-
mately between the Province of Maracapana to the east and the Gulf of Venezuela to the
west in what is currently the border area with Colombia (Arellano Moreno 1950, 13–22).
The Welser did not penetrate towards the eastern end of that territory but rather westwards
into the area of influence of the newly founded city of Coro, as well as into the Lake Ma-
racaibo basin and the Colombian-Venezuelan plains. According to Ramos Pérez (1978),
these areas were the most interesting to the Welsers pursuing greater riches and an alterna-
tive route to the Pacific Ocean (Cey 1994; Federmann 1986). Towards the east, recognition
and foundation of the Villa de Borburata occurred in 1541 and 1548, respectively, and the
existence of the Lake Valencia (Laguna de Tacarigua) became known.
7. The name caraca corresponds to a certain type of bledos, supposedly weedy plants pertain-
ing to the family Amaranthaceae that were abundant in north-central Venezuelan coastal
dry land (Pimentel 1964, 332).
8. This Curiana should not be confused with two other homonymous sixteenth-century
localities in the northwest and northeast of the country, the more prominent being situated
in the vicinity of the town of Coro in the Province of Venezuela.
9. The Guaiquerí were the indigenous peoples inhabiting Margarita, the nearby Tierra Firme,
and perhaps also part of the Island of Trinidad (Ayala Lafée-Wilbert and Wilbert 2011;
Ayala Lafée-Wilbert et al. 2017, 61–62; Boomert 2016; McCorkle 1952).
10. It is not known whether these links reflect close ties of exchange between the Caraca and
Guaiquerí prior to European colonization or are the result of the forcible transfer of
north-central indigenous peoples as slaves to Margarita and Cubagua islands as part of
the early Spanish armadas de rescate. Moreover, it could be that the language (or language
variant) that was taught to Francisco Fajardo was the caraca spoken by cacica Isabel’s rela-
tives who lived on the northern coast.
11. Fajardo’s presence generated antagonisms between the principal local indigenous leaders,
Guaimacuare and Paisana, in the Valley of Panecillo (situated close to the current settlement
of La Sabana, in Vargas State; see Ayala Lafée-Wilbert et al. 2017, 159). One documentary
source indicates that Fajardo’s mother, who accompanied him on one of his voyages, died of
poisoning by indigenous factions opposing Spanish colonization (Altez 2002, 28).
12. Indigenous responses to European aggressions are unreservedly recognized by the authors.
However, these are mentioned only briefly here in the context of the colonial dimension of
sociocultural interactions.
13. Hacienda and fundo are the Spanish names given to production units with emphasis on agri-
culture or livestock, respectively.
14. The Barlovento coastal region is in the eastern part of Miranda State.
15. These Capuchin missions were only established on the eastern edge of the territory among a
subgroup of the north-central indigenous peoples called Tomuzas (Carrocera 1968, vol. 1).
On the archaeology and colonial history of this region, see Nieves 1979; 1991.
16. E.g. Loukotka 1968; de Civrieux 1980; Durbin 1985; Migliazza 1985; Oliver 1989; 1990.
There existed certain enclaves of Cariban-speaking communities in the mountainous
areas of northwestern Venezuela (Yaracuy and Falcón States), as well as to the south and
west of Lake Maracaibo, whose origin and relationship with those from the central region
have not yet been clarified (Rivas 1989, 1:39–43, 55–57, 72–81, 140, 169–170, 2:378–85).
17. Durbin (1985) kept the name proposed by Acosta Saignes (1946), which originally referred
to a broader concept of cultural area.
18. Noble (1965) proposed linking them to the Arawakan speakers although this language is
considered as too difficult to classify (see Oliver 1989; Migliazza and Campbell 1988).
19. Because a group has a Cariban ethnonym does not necessarily mean they speak a Cariban
language. The ethnonym Garífuna is Cariban, for example, yet these people speak an Ara-
wakan language; and the Huitoto of Colombia do not speak a Cariban language although
this ethnonym is of Cariban origin (personal communication, Matthias Pache 2018).
20. For instance the element -goto or -koto present in ethnonyms, toponyms and anthropo-
nyms, as well as elements such as -pano, -pata, and -kuao (Rivas 1994, 230, 244, 250, 394,
433–36).
21. The name macua given by Arawakan speakers to indigenous persons in condition of sub-
ordination may be equivalent to the word itoto used by Cariban speakers. Both words are
registered in early colonial documents referring to various sites in the north-central terri-
tories. There are also possible borrowings from the Arawakan language noted in several
place names in the same region, i.e., the states of Aragua, Carabobo and Miranda (Rivas
1994; 1997; 2001).
22. Additionally, Biord Castillo (2001) researched primary archival sources of Fray Froilán de
Río Negro, known as the Collection of Río Negro from the Archive of the National
Academy of History in Caracas. This includes 64 volumes of transfers from the Archivo
General de Indias in Sevilla. Biord Castillo (2005) has also refined previous approaches
and conclusively proposed the hypothetical existence of a social formation, perhaps equiv-
alent to an ethnic group of indigenous people, which for descriptive purposes would be
denominated as Northern Caribs. This formation would not only speak a language of
Cariban linguistic affiliation but coincide roughly with what Acosta Saignes (1946) called
Caribes de la Costa and with what de Civrieux (1980) called Caribanos. However, note
that Biord’s concept is broader than the other two.
23. Rivas (1994; 1997; 2001) proposes identifying both ethnonyms with two denominations
given to the best-known ethnic group of that filiation (the Lokono or Aruakos), as well as
to certain place names and anthroponyms of Arawakan regional classification. This hypoth-
esis was previously formulated by Oramas (1946; 1948; 1952) and was later underestimated
for lack of supportive evidence. However, according to Rivas, it must be considered again.
This is so especially in light of the existence of late pre-colonial pottery of Valencioid (and
Ocumaroid) production in the extreme west of Vargas State and on the coasts of Aragua
State (Rivas 1994; 1997; 2001); that is, approximately north of the Arbaco territory.
24. Oviedo y Baños 1982, vol. 2, for the Teques 522, 518; for the Mariches 410; see also 446, 448
for other indigenous ‘nations.’
25. In this section, material culture is used in the ‘traditional’ sense which may be overly static,
instrumental and hylomorphic, imposing mind over matter. It is, however, clear to the
authors that the physical objects of material culture are in fact things—things are not
simply crafted by people, but people are also relationally crafted by things (see, for
example, Antczak and Beaudry 2019).
26. To the west of the north-central territories, in the mountains of the Yaracuy and Falcón
States, the Jirajara was a group of indigenous communities of unclear linguistic classifi-
cation. Although some of them were possibly Cariban speakers, they were articulated socio-
politically with other ethnic groups, such as the Caquetío (Arawakan speakers) and the
Coyón or Goyón (considered as speakers of an unclassified language) (Rivas 1989, 1:142,
151, 204–5).
27. It was not convenient for the Spanish settlers to recognize the existence of large sociopoli-
tical units because this reduced the number of opportunities for the distribution of indigen-
ous peoples under the encomienda figure. According to the legislation of that time,
members of the same community or sociopolitical unit should not be separated into
different encomiendas (Rivas 1994).
28. Poisoned stakes and palenques should not be conflated as these are different phenomena
(palenques were reported among the Carib-speaking Palenques of the Unare River region
to the east [Acosta Saignes 1946, 31; Navarrete Sánchez 2000]).
29. Pimentel uses the terms ‘demon’ or ‘evil’ interchangeably; the term ‘spirit’ will be used
hereafter.
30. Piache meant wise men or alfaqui, an expert in Islamic jurisprudence, according to Pimentel.
This word survives in the regional toponymy and is cognate with equivalents reported in other
Cariban languages such as Tamanaco, for example piachi (Rivas 1994). Again, this may
suggest certain cultural homogeneity between coastal groups and relatives located inland.
31. This term, well-documented in north-central Venezuela, is probably of Arawak origin and
may be considered additional evidence of coexistence and exchange between the Caraca (a
group of north-central indigenes) and Arawakan speakers such as the historically known
Caquetío (Rivas 1994).
32. Some sources mention the exchange of pearls for other goods on the north-central coast
although no supralocal sources of pearls are specified. This may suggest that some pearl-
oyster beds may have existed in the central coastal region and that some ecological trans-
formations might have taken place there in early colonial times. For example, mangrove veg-
etation disappeared in some areas due to health measures (fear of malarial fevers) imposed
by the Spanish-mestizo authorities (Rivas 1994).
33. See Biord Castillo (1995); Biord Castillo and Arvelo (2007); Boomert (1986); Butt Colson
(1983–1984); Dreyfus (1983–1984); Henley et al. (1982); Heinen and García-Castro
(2000); Villalón (1983–1984).
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge valuable insights to this paper provided by Matthias Pache and Dan Bailey.
Andrzej and Marlena Antczak acknowledge that this research has received funding from the
European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme
(FP7/2007–2013), ERC Grant agreement No. 319209, and from CaribTRAILS, an NWO
Spinoza project, both under the direction of Prof. dr. C.L. Hofman.
Biographical notes
Andrzej T. Antczak is Associate Professor in Caribbean Archaeology in the Faculty of Archaeol-
ogy, Leiden University, and Senior Researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast
Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV-KNAW) in Leiden. He also serves as curator at the
Unidad de Estudios Arqueológicos, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela.
Horacio Biord Castillo is a researcher at the Laboratory of Ethnohistory and Orality of the Center
of Anthropology, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, in Caracas, and teaches at
the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. His research interests are ethnohistory, ethnicity and
sociolinguistics.
Pedro J. Rivas G. is the Director of the Caribbean Institute of Anthropology and Sociology, La Salle
Foundation of Natural Sciences, in Caracas. He is an anthropologist interested in archaeology, eth-
nohistory, anthropolinguistics and interdisciplinary and intercultural studies applied to the devel-
opment of Amerindian and mestizo communities.
María Magdalena Antczak is Senior Researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast
Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV-KNAW) in Leiden, and Guest Lecturer at the Faculty of
Archaeology, Leiden University. She is the director of the Unidad de Estudios Arqueológicos, Uni-
versidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela.
Works cited
Acosta Saignes, Miguel. 1946. Los caribes de la costa venezolana. Cuadernos Americanos 2: 173–84.
———. 1954. Estudios de la etnología antigua de Venezuela. Caracas: Universidad Central de

Venezuela.
Adelaar, Willem F. H., and Pieter Muysken, eds. 2004. The languages of the Andes. Cambridge
language surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Agreda, Pedro de. 1964. Relación de la Provincia de Venezuela, hecha por el Obispo de Coro, año
1581. In Relaciones geográficas de Venezuela, compiled by Antonio Arellano Moreno, 221–31.
Caracas: Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia.
Aguado, Fray, Pedro de. 1987. Fray Pedro de Aguado: recopilación histórica de Venezuela [1581].
Caracas: Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de Historia.
Altez, Yadira. 2002. Una historia construida por interpretación de documentos. In Arqueología e
historia colonial de la parroquia Caruao, edited by Yadira Altez and Pedro Rivas, 23–85.
Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.
Antczak, Andrzej T. 1999. Late prehistoric economy and society of the islands off the coast of
Venezuela: a contextual interpretation of the non-ceramic evidence. PhD diss., University
College London.
Antczak, Andrzej T., and María Magdalena Antczak. 1999. La esfera de interacción valencioide. In
El arte prehispánico de Venezuela, edited by Miguel Arroyo, Lourdes Blanco and Erika Wagner,
136–54. Caracas: Fundación Galería de Arte Nacional.
———. 2005. Pre-Hispanic fishery of the queen conch, Strombus gigas, on the islands off the coast
of Venezuela. In Caribbean marine biodiversity: the known and unknown, edited by Patricia
Miloslavich and Eduardo Klein, 213–43. Lancaster, PA: DEStech Publications Inc.
———. 2015. Revisiting the early 16th-century town of Nueva Cádiz de Cubagua, Venezuela. Paper
presented at the First EAA-SAA Joint Meeting Connecting Continents, Curaçao. [Unpublished]
Antczak, Andrzej T., María Magdalena Antczak, and Oliver Antczak. Forthcoming.‘Good Indian,’
‘Bad Indian’: historical archaeology of the early colonial creation and transformation of indigen-
ous identities in the southeastern Caribbean. In Venezuelan historical archaeology: current per-
spectives on contact, colonialism, and independence, edited by Konrad A. Antczak. Leiden:
Sidestone Press.
Antczak, Andrzej T., María Magdalena Antczak, Oliver Antczak, and Luis Lemoine Buffet. 2018.
Rancherías: historical archaeology of early colonial campsites on Margarita and Coche Islands,
Venezuela. In Material encounters and indigenous transformations in the early colonial
Americas, edited by Floris Keehnen and Corinne L. Hofman, 146–74. Leiden: Brill Academic
Publishers.
Antczak, Andrzej. T., María Magdalena Antczak, and Miguel Lentino. 2017. Avian remains from
late precolonial Amerindian sites on islands of the Venezuelan Caribbean. Environmental
Archaeology. DOI: 10.1080/14614103.2017.1402980.
Antczak, Andrzej T., María Magdalena Antczak, Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, and Andrej Sýkora.
2015. Rethinking guanín: the role of northern Venezuela in circulation and valuation of indi-
genous metal objects in the Circum-Caribbean macroregion. Paper presented at the 26th
Congress International Association for Caribbean Archaeology, Sint Maarten. [Unpublished]
Antczak, Andrzej T., Jay B. Haviser, Menno L. P. Hoogland, Arie Boomert, Raymond A. C. F.
Dijkhoff, Harold J. Kelly, María Magdalena Antczak, and Corinne. L. Hofman. 2018. Early hor-
ticulturalists of the Southern Caribbean. In The archaeology of Caribbean and Circum-
Caribbean farmers, edited by Basil Reid, 113–46. Abingdon: Routledge.
Antczak, Andrzej. T., Bernardo Urbani, and María Magdalena Antczak. 2017. Re-thinking the
migration of Cariban-speakers from the Middle Orinoco River to north-central Venezuela
(AD 800). Journal of World Prehistory 30 (2): 131–75.
Antczak, Konrad A., and Mary C. Beaudry. 2019. Assemblages of practice: a conceptual framework
for exploring human-thing relations in archaeology. Archaeological Dialogues 26 (2): 87–110.
Antczak, María Magdalena, and Andrzej T. Antczak. 2006. Los ídolos de las Islas Prometidas:
arqueología prehispánica del Archipiélago de Los Roques. Caracas: Editorial Equinoccio.
———. 2008. Between food and symbol: the role of marine molluscs in the late pre-Hispanic north-
central Venezuela. In Early human impact on megamolluscs, edited by Andrzej T. Antczak and
Roberto Cipriani, 231–45. Oxford: Archaeopress, British Archaeological Reports.
———. 2015. Late precolonial and early colonial archaeology of the Las Aves Archipelagos,
Venezuela. Contributions in New World Archaeology 8: 7–43.
———. 2017. Making beings: Amerindian figurines in the Caribbean. In The Oxford handbook of
figurines, edited by Tim Insoll, 195–220. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Arellano Moreno, Antonio. 1950. Fuentes para la historia económica de Venezuela (siglo XVI).
Caracas: Tercera Conferencia Interamericana de Agricultura.
———. 1964. Estudio preliminar. In Relaciones geográficas de Venezuela, edited by Antonio
Arellano Moreno, ix–li. Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia.
Arnold, Jeanne E. 1995. Social inequality, marginalization, and economic process. In Foundations
of social inequality, edited by T. Douglas Price and Gary M. Feinman, 87–104. New York:
Plenum Press.
Arvelo, Lilian M. 1995. The evolution of prehispanic complex social systems in the Quibor Valley,
northwestern Venezuela. PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh.
Arvelo, Lilian M., and José R. Oliver. 1999. El noroccidente de Venezuela. In El arte prehispánico
de Venezuela, edited by Miguel Arroyo, Lourdes Blanco and Erika Wagner, 120–35. Caracas:
Fundación Galería del Arte Nacional.
Arvelo, Lilian M., and Erika Wagner. 1984. Relaciones estilísticas cerámicas del Noroeste de
Suramérica con las Antillas. In Relaciones prehispánicas de Venezuela, edited by Erika
Wagner, 51–67. Caracas: Fondo Editorial Acta Científica Venezolana.
Arvelo-Jiménez, Nelly, and Horacio Biord Castillo. 1994. The impact of conquest on contempor-
ary indigenous peoples of the Guiana Shield. The system of Orinoco regional interdependence.
In Amazonian Indians: from prehistory to the present. Anthropological perspectives, edited by
Anna Roosevelt, 59–79. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Ayala Lafée, Cecilia. 1994–1996. La etnohistoria prehispánica Guaiquerí. Antropológica 82: 5–127.
Ayala Lafée-Wilbert, Cecilia, and Werner Wilbert. 2011. Memoria histórica de los resguardos
guayqueríes: propiedad y territorialidad yradicional. Caracas: Ediciones IVIC.
Ayala Lafée-Wilbert, Cecilia, Pedro Rivas Gómez, and Werner Wilbert. 2017. Caballeros del mar.
Los Guaiquerí, un pueblo con historia. Caracas: Academia de la Historia del Estado Nueva
Esparta.
Balée, William A. 1989. The culture of Amazonian forests. Advances in Economic Botany 7: 1–21.
Barandiarán, Daniel de. 1979. Introducción a la cosmovisión de los indios Ye’kuana-Makiritare.
Caracas: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello.
Barbudo, Antonio. 1964. Memoria de Antonio Barbudo sobre los territorios costaneros e islas
desde Aruacas hasta la Ramada en Santa Marta [1570–1575]. In Relaciones geográficas de
Venezuela, edited by Antonio Arellano Moreno, 88–94. Caracas: Academia Nacional de la
Historia.
Bencomo, César. 1993. Clases sociales en la colonia. B.A. thesis. Caracas: Universidad Central de
Venezuela.
Bermejo de Capdevila, María Teresa. 1967. Análisis de documentos para el estudio de la fundación
de Caracas. Caracas: Concejo Municipal del Distrito Federal.
Biord Castillo, Horacio. 1985. El contexto multilingüe del sistema de interdependencia regional del
Orinoco. Antropológica 63–64: 83–103.
———. 1992. Organización social y resistencia a la conquista europea. Los casos teque y cumana-
goto. Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia 297: 51–68.
———. 1995. Una ponderación etnohistórica de la obra de Oviedo y Baños: los aborígenes de la
región centro-norte de Venezuela (1550–1600). M.A. thesis. Caracas: Universidad Católica
Andrés Bello.
———. 2001. Los aborígenes de la región centro-norte de Venezuela (1550–1600); una ponderación
etnográfica de la obra de José Oviedo y Baños. Caracas: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello.
———. 2003. El soldado-poeta Ulloa y los aborígenes de la región centro-norte de Venezuela: un
cronista oculto en Oviedo y Baños. Actual 54: 201–11.
———. 2004. El término ‘periamo’ en fuentes históricas de la Provincia de Venezuela (siglo XVI).
Paper presented at XXIII Encuentro Nacional de Docentes e Investigadores de la Lingüística,
Turmero, Venezuela. [Unpublished]
———. 2005. Niebla en las sierras: los aborígenes de la región centro-norte de Venezuela. 1550–1625.
Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia.
———. 2006. Sistemas interétnicos regionales: el Orinoco y la costa noreste de la actual Venezuela
en los siglos XVI, XVII y XVIII. In Diálogos culturales. Historia, educación, lengua, religión,
interculturalidad, edited by Niria Suárez, 85–120. Mérida: Universidad de los Andes.
———. 2007a. Patrón de asentamiento aborigen y ocupación del espacio en la Cordillera de la
Costa, Venezuela (1550–1600). Antropológica 107–8: 115–40.
———. 2007b. Ethnohistory: answers for so many questions? An epistemological reflection on eth-
nohistory. Logi 11: 11–28.
———. 2016. Inserción colonial temprana y transfiguración étnica: los aborígenes de la región
centro-norte de Venezuela (1560–1625). Tiempo y Espacio 66: 191–216.
Biord Castillo, Horacio, and Lilian Arvelo. 2007. Conexiones interétnicas entre el Orinoco y el Mar
Caribe en el siglo XVI: la región centro-norte de Venezuela. In Lecturas antropológicas de
Venezuela, edited by Lino Meneses Pacheco, Gladys Gordones Rojas, and Jacqueline Clarac
de Briceño, 239–45. Mérida: Universidad de los Andes.
Blanton, Richard E. 1995. The cultural foundations of inequality in households. In Foundations of
social inequality, edited by T. Douglas Price and Gary M. Feinman, 105–28. New York: Plenum
Press.
Boomert, Arie. 1986. The Cayo complex of St. Vincent: ethnohistorical and archaeological aspects
of the Island Carib problem. Antropológica 66: 3–68.
———. 2000. Trinidad, Tobago and the Lower Orinoco interaction sphere: an archaeological/ethno-
historical study. Alkmaar: Cairi Publications.
———. 2016. The indigenous peoples of Trinidad and Tobago: from the first settlers until today.
Leiden: Sidestone Press.
Botello, Oldman. 1990. Toponimia indígena de Aragua. Maracay: Publicaciones del Consejo del
Municipio Girardot.
Brizuela, Pedro de. 1957. Informe de don Pedro de Brizuela, gobernador de Cumaná, sobre la
Provincia de la Nueva Barcelona [1655]. Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia 40
(160): 412–25.
Bushnell, Amy Turner. 2009. Indigenous America and the limits of the Atlantic world, 1493–1825.
In Atlantic history: a critical appraisal, edited by Philip D. Morgan and Jack Greene, 191–221.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Butt Colson, Audrey. 1983–1984. The spatial component in the political structure of the Carib
speakers of the Guiana Highlands: Kapón and Pemón. Antropológica 59–62: 73–125.
Butt Colson, Audrey, and Dieter Heinen, eds. 1983–1984. Themes in political organization: the
Caribs and their neighbours. Monographic issue of Antropológica 59–62.
Carrocera, Buenaventura de. 1968. Misión de los Capuchinos en los Llanos de Caracas. 3 vols.
Caracas: Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de Historia.
Castellanos, Juan de. 1962. Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias [1589]. Caracas: Biblioteca de la
Academia Nacional de la Historia.
Castillo Lara, L. Guillermo. 1977. Materiales para la historia provincial de Aragua. Caracas:
Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia.
———. 2002. Nortemar Aragüeño: las querencias de azul y oro, noticias coloniales de Choroní,
Chuao y Zepe. Caracas: Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia.
Caulín, Antonio. 1966. Historia de la Nueva Andalucía [1779]. Caracas: Biblioteca de la Academia
Nacional de la Historia.
Cey, Galeotto. 1994. Viaje y descripción de las Indias 1539–1553. Caracas: Fundación Banco
Venezolano de Crédito.
Chagnon, Napoleon A. 1968. Yanomamö: the fierce eople. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Coppens, Walter. 1971. Las relaciones comerciales de los Ye’kuana del Caura-Paragua.
Antropológica 30: 28–59.
Columbus, Christopher. 1988. La historia del viaje que el Almirante Don Cristóbal Colón hizo la
tercera vez que vino a las Indias cuando descubrió la Tierra Firme, como lo envió a los Reyes
desde la Isla Española [1498]. In Cronistas y primitivos historiadores de Tierra Firme, edited by
Horacio J. Becco, 1:27–45. Caracas: Fundación de Promoción Cultural de Venezuela.
Cruxent, José María. 1946. Reconocimiento arqueológico de los Saltos de Tacagua, Distrito
Federal, Venezuela. Acta Venezolana 1 (4): 393–408.
———. 1971. La ruta de Losada. Caracas: Gobernación del Distrito Federal.
Cruxent, José María, and Irving Rouse. 1958. Arqueología cronológica de Venezuela. Caracas:
Ernesto Armitano Editor.
Da Prato Perelli, Antoinette. 1981. Relations existant au début de la colonisation espagnole entre
les populations caribes des Petites Antilles et celles du Vénézuéla. Paper presented at the 9th
International Congress for the Study of the Pre-columbian Cultures of the Lesser Antilles,
Santo Domingo. [Unpublished]
de Civrieux, Marc. 1976. Los Caribes y la conquista de la Guyana Española (etnohistoria kari’ña).
Caracas: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello.
———. 1980. Los Cumanagoto y sus vecinos. In Los aborígenes de Venezuela, edited by Audrey Butt
Colson, 1:27–241. Caracas: Fundación La Salle de Ciencias Naturales.
Dreyfus, Simone. 1983–1984. Historical and political anthropological inter-connections: the meta-
linguistic indigenous polity of the ‘Carib’ Islands and mainland coast from the 16th to the 18th
century. Antropológica 59–62: 39–57.
Dupouy, Walter. 1945. Aporte etnográfico de la ‘Relación geográfica y descripción de la Provincia
de Caracas y gobernación de Venezuela, 1572.’ Acta Venezolana 1 (2): 170–85.
———. 1946. La fauna de la Provincia de Venezuela según las relaciones geográficas del siglo XVI.
Memoria de la Sociedad de Ciencias Naturales La Salle 6 (15): 45–55.
Dupouy, Walter, and José María Cruxent. 1946. Reconocimiento arqueológico de El Topo de
Tacagua, Distrito Federal, Venezuela. Memoria de la Sociedad de Ciencias Naturales La Salle
6 (16): 121–52.
Durbin, Marshall. 1977. A survey of the Carib language family. In Carib speaking Indians, edited
by Ellen B. Basso, 23–38. Tucson: University of Arizona.
———. 1985. A survey of the Carib language family. In South American Indian languages; retrospect
and prospect, edited by Harriet E. Manelis Klein and Louise R. Stark, 325–71. Austin: University
of Texas Press.
Erickson, Clark. 2003. Historical ecology and future explorations. In Amazonian Dark Earths:
origin, properties, management, edited by Johannes Lehmann, Dirse C. Kern, Brund Glaser,
and William I. Woods, 455–500. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Federmann, Nicolás. 1986. Viaje a las Indias del Mar Océano. Caracas: Editorial Arte.
Feinman, Gary M. 1995. The emergence of inequality: a focus on strategies and processes. In
Foundations of social inequality, edited by T. Douglas Price and Gary M. Feinman, 255–75.
New York: Plenum Press.
Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. 1987. Before Columbus: exploration and colonization from the
Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229–1492. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Gassón, Rafael A. 2007. El SIRO Revisitado: ¿20 años no han sido nada? In Lecturas antropológicas
de Venezuela, edited by L. Meneses Pacheco, G. Gordones, and J. Clarac de Briceño, 171–79.
Mérida: Editorial Venezolana.
Gilij, Felipe, Salvador J. 1965. Ensayo de historia americana [1782]. Caracas: Biblioteca de la
Academia Nacional de la Historia.
Ganteaume, Juan. 2006. La jornada de Caracas 1567–1568: cronología e historia crítica. Caracas:
Fundación Editorial El Perro y la Rana.
———. 2012. Valle de Paya desde el s. XVI al XX: títulos, inventarios, testamentos y particiones.
Caracas: LibrosEnRed.
Gregory, Christopher A. 1982. Gifts and commodities. London: Academic Press.
Gross, David R. 1975. Protein capture and cultural development in the Amazon Basin. American
Anthropologist 77 (1): 526–49.
Guzzo Falci, Catarina, Annelou van Gijn, Andrzej, T. Antczak, and María Magdalena Antczak.
2017a. Re-contextualizing bodily adornments from North-Central Venezuela (AD 900–1500):
the Alfredo Jahn collection at the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin. Baessler-Archiv 64: 87–112.
Guzzo Falci, Catarina, Annelou van Gijn, María Magdalena Antczak, Andrzej T. Antczak, and
Corinne L. Hofman. 2017b. Challenges for microwear analysis of figurative shell ornaments
from precolonial Venezuela. Journal of Archaeological Science (Reports) 11: 115–30.
Halbmayer, Ernst. 2018. Amerindian sociocosmologies of Northwestern South America: some
reflections on the dead, metamorphosis, and religious specialists. The Journal of Latin
American and Caribbean Anthropology. DOI: 10.1111/jlca.12381.
Handler, Richard. 2009. The uses of incommensurability in anthropology. New Literary History 40
(3): 627–47.
Harris, Oliver J. T., and Craig N. Cipolla. 2017. Archaeological theory in the new millennium: intro-
ducing current perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge.
Hayden, Brian. 1995. Pathways to power: principles for creating socioeconomic inequalities. In
Foundations of social inequality, edited by T. Douglas Price and Gary M. Feinman, 15–86.
New York: Plenum Press.
Heinen, Dieter H. 1983–1984. Traditional social structure and culture change among the Ye’kuana
Indians of the Upper Erebato, Venezuela. Antropológica 59–62: 263–97.
Heinen, Dieter H., and Álvaro García-Castro. 2000. The multiethnic network of the Lower
Orinoco in early colonial times. Ethnohistory 47 (3–4): 361–79.
Henley, Paul. 1985. Reconstructing Chaima and Cumanagoto kinship categories: an exercise in
‘tracking down ethnohistorical connections.’ Antropológica 63–64: 151–97.
Henley, Paul, Marie-Claude Mattéi-Müller, and Marcus Colchester. 1982. Comentarios: languages
of the Orinoco-Amazon watershed: some comments on Migliazza’s classification. Antropológica
57: 79–95.
Herrera Malatesta, Eduardo. 2011. Una reevaluación de la Serie Valencioide. Antropológica 55
(115–16): 71–100.
Hern, Warren M. 1994. Health and demography of native Amazonians: historical perspective and
current status. In Amazon Indians from prehistory to the present; anthropological perspective,
edited by Anna Roosevelt, 123–51. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Hofman, Corinne L., Alistair J. Bright, Menno L. P. Hoogland, and William F. Keegan. 2008.
Attractive ideas, desirable goods: examining the Late Ceramic Age relationships between
Greater and Lesser Antillean societies. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 3 (1):
17–34.
Laffoon, Jason, Till Sonnemann, María Magdalena Antczak, and Andrzej T. Antczak. 2016.
Sourcing non-native mammal remains from Dos Mosquises Island, Venezuela: new multiple
isotope evidence. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. DOI 10.1007/s12520-016-
0453-6.
López de Gómara, Francisco. 1979. Historia general de las Indias [1552]. Caracas: Biblioteca
Ayacucho.
López de Velazco, Juan. 1964. Chorografía de la gobernación de Venezuela y Nueva Andalucía,
1571–1574. In Documentos para la historia económica de Venezuela, edited by Antonio
Arellano Moreno, 315–27. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.
Loukotka, Cestimir. 1968. Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: Latin
American Center, University of California.
Marcano, Gaspar. 1971. Etnografía precolombina de Venezuela [1889–1891]. Caracas: Universidad
Central de Venezuela.
Mártir de Anglería, Pedro. 1988. Décadas del Nuevo Mundo [1530]. In Cronistas y primitivos his-
toriadores de Tierra Firme, edited by Horacio J. Becco, 1:49–84. Caracas: Fundación de
Promoción Cultural de Venezuela.
Mattéi-Müller, Marie-Claude, and Paul Henley. 1990. Los Tamanaku: su lengua, su vida. San
Cristóbal, Venezuela: Universidad Católica del Táchira.
McCorkle, Thomas. 1952. The history of the Guaiquerí; an approach to the anthropology of
Northeastern Venezuela. Berkeley: The Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers 6.
Migliazza, Ernesto. 1985. Languages of the Orinoco-Amazon region: current status. In South
American Indian languages; retrospect and prospect, edited by Harriet E. Manelis Klein and
Louisa R. Stark, 17–140. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Migliazza, Ernesto, and Lyle Campbell. 1988. Panorama general de las lenguas indígenas en
América. Caracas: Historia General de América.
Mills, Barbara. 2004. The establishment and defeat of hierarchy: inalienable possessions and the
history of collective prestige structures in the Pueblo Southwest. American Anthropologist
106 (2): 238–51.
Montenegro, Juan E. 1983. Caracas y guayqueríes: razas caribes. Caracas: Ediciones del Concejo
Municipal del Distrito Federal.
Morales Méndez, Filadelfo. 1994. Sangre en los conucos: reconstrucción etnohistórica de los
indígenas de Turmero. Caracas: Fondo Editorial Tropykos.
Morales Méndez, Filadelfo, and Nelly Arvelo-Jiménez. 1981. Hacia un modelo de estructura social
Caribe. América Indígena 41 (4): 603–26.
Morey, Robert V. 1979. A joyful harvest of souls: disease and destruction of the Llanos Indians.
Antropológica 52: 77–108.
Morón, Guillermo. 1977. Historia de la Provincia de Venezuela. Caracas: Consejo Municipal del
Distrito Federal.
Navarrete Sánchez, Rodrigo. 2000. Behind the palisades: Sociopolitical recomposition of native
societies in the Unare Depression, the Eastern Venezuela Llanos (sixteenth to eighteenth cen-
turies). Ethnohistory 47 (3–4): 535–59.
Nectario María, Hno. 1979. Historia de la conquista y fundación de Caracas. Caracas: Gráficas La
Bodoniana.
Nieves, Fulvia. 1979. Población prehispánica de la región de Cúpira; sector oriental de la Ensenada
de Higuerote (Venezuela). Economía y Ciencias Sociales 4: 89–98.
———. 1991. Cúpira, su pasado y su presente. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.
Noble, Gladwyn K. 1965. Proto-Arawakan and its descendants. Monographic issue of the
International Journal of American Linguistics 31: 3.
Norton, Marcy. 2017. Subaltern technologies and early modernity in the Atlantic World. Colonial
Latin American Review 26 (1): 18–38 http://doi.org/10.1080/10609164.2017.1287322.
Oliver, José R. 1989. The archaeological, linguistic and ethnohistorical evidence for the expansion
of Arawakan into Northwestern Venezuela and Northeastern Colombia. PhD. diss. Champaign,
University of Illinois.
———. 1990. Reflexiones sobre el posible origen del Wayú (Guajiro). In La Guajira: de la memoria
al porvenir; una visión antropológica, edited by Gerardo Ardila C., 83–135. Bogotá: Universidad
Nacional de Colombia.
———. 2008. The archaeology of agriculture in ancient Amazonia. In The handbook of South
American archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman and William H. Isbell, 185–216.
New York: Springer Media.
Oramas, Luis R. 1940. Culturas primitivas de Venezuela. Revista Cultura Venezolana 2 (18): 46–63.
———. 1946. Los Aruacos. Memoria de la Sociedad de Ciencias Naturales La Salle 6 (15): 19–22.
———. 1948. Los Caribes invasores de territorio autóctono Aruaco. Memoria de la Sociedad de
Ciencias Naturales La Salle 7 (20): 201–4.
———. 1952. Los Aruacos pobladores de Los Teques. Revista del Estado Miranda 4: 24–27.
Otte, Enrique. 1977. Las perlas del Caribe: Nueva Cádiz de Cubagua. Caracas: Fundación John
Boulton.
Oviedo y Baños, José de. 1982. Historia de la conquista y población de la Provincia de Venezuela
[1723]. 2 vols. Caracas: Ediciones Fundación CADAFE.
Pache, Matthias, Arjan Mossel, and Willem F. H. Adelaar. 2017. Language contact and change in
the Americas: the model of Filippo Salvatore Gilij. In Language contact and change in
Mesoamerica and beyond, edited by Karen Dakin, Claudia Parodi, and Natalie Operstein,
355–83. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Perera, Miguel A. 2000. Oro y hambre, Guyana siglo XVI: ecología cultural y antropología histórica
de un malentendido 1498–1597. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.
Pimentel, Juan de. 1964. Relación de Nuestra Señora de Caraballeda y Santiago de León [1578]. In
Relaciones geográficas de Venezuela, compiled by Antonio Arellano Moreno, 11–140. Caracas:
Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia.
Pittier, Henry. 1926. Manual de las plantas usuales de Venezuela. Caracas: Litografía del Comercio.
Ramos Pérez, D. 1978. La fundación de Venezuela: Ampíes y Coro, una singularidad histórica.
Valladolid, Spain; Coro, Venezuela: Junta Pro-Celebración de los 450 años de la Fundación
de Coro.
Redmond, Elsa M. 1994. External warfare and the internal politics of Northern South American
tribes and chiefdoms. In Factional competition and political development in the New World,
edited by Elizabeth M. Brumfiel and John W. Fox, 44–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 1986. Arqueología de Colombia; un texto introductorio. Bogotá:
Fundabotánica.
Rivas, Pedro. 1989. Etnohistoria de los grupos indígenas del sistema montañoso del noroccidente
de Venezuela: etnohistoria y arqueología del sitio arqueológico Cueva Coy Coy de Uria, Sierra
de San Luis. 2 vols. B.A. thesis. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.
———. 1994. Aproximación a la historia indígena del litoral central. M.A. thesis. Caracas:
Universidad José María Vargas.
———. 1997. ¿Asauter, itoto?: Haciendas y resguardos en el antiguo territorio Caraca 1750–1850.
Paper presented at the XLVII Convención Anual de AsoVAC. Valencia, Simposio ‘Hacienda y
hacendados en la transición del antiguo régimen a la República,’ Valencia, Universidad de
Carabobo. [Unpublished]
———. 2000. Aproximación a la arqueología afrovenezolana. Boletín Museo Arqueológico de
Quíbor 7: 83–98.
———. 2001. Arqueología de los procesos de etnogénesis y ocupación territorial en la región nor-
central de Venezuela. In La arqueología venezolana en el nuevo milenio, edited by Lino Meneses
and Gladys Gordones, 211–73. Mérida: Universidad de Los Andes.
———. 2002. La historia tangible. In Arqueología e historia colonial de la parroquia Caruao, edited
by de Yadira Altéz and Pedro Rivas, 87–181. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.
Rivière, Pierre. 1983–1984. Aspects of Carib political economy. Antropológica 59–62: 349–59.
———. 1995. Houses, places and people: community and continuity in Guyana. In About the house;
Lévi-Strauss and beyond, edited by Janet Carsten and Stephen Hugh-Jones, 189–205.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roosevelt, Curtenius, Anna. 1991. Moundbuilders of the Amazon: geophysical archaeology on
Marajó Island, Brazil. San Diego: Academic Press.
Ruiz Blanco, Matías P. 1965. Conversión de Píritu [1690]. Caracas: Biblioteca Nacional de la
Historia.
Sahlins, Marshall D. 1963. Poor man, rich man, big-man, chief: political types in Melanesia and
Polynesia. Comparative Studies in Sociology and History 5: 285–303.
Sanoja, Mario. 1969. La fase Zancudo. Investigaciones arqueológicas en el Lago de Maracaibo.
Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.
Sanoja, Mario, and Iraida Vargas Arenas. 1974. Antiguas formaciones y modos de producción vene-
zolanos : notas para el estudio de los procesos de integración de la sociedad venezolana 12.000
A.C.–1.900 D.C. Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores.
———. 1999. Orígenes de Venezuela: regiones geohistóricas aborígenes hasta 1500 d.c. Caracas:
Comisión Presidencial V Centenario de Venezuela.
———. 2002. El agua y el poder: Caracas y la formación del estado colonial caraqueño: 1567–1700.
Caracas: Banco Central de Venezuela.
Tarble, Kay. 1985. Un nuevo modelo de expansión Caribe para la época prehispánica.
Antropológica 63–64: 45–81.
Tauste, Francisco de. 1888. Arte vocabulario de la lengua de los Chaymas, Cumanagotos, Cores y
Paria y otros diversos de la Provincia de Cumaná o Nueva Andalucía [1680]. In Algunas obras
raras sobre la lengua Cumanagota, edited by Julio Platzmann, vol. 1. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.
Tiapa, Francisco. 2007. Los sistemas interétnicos del Oriente de Venezuela y el Bajo Orinoco
durante la época colonial (1498–1810). In Lecturas antropológicas de Venezuela, edited by
Lino Meneses, Gladys Gordones, and Jacqueline Clarac, 231–38. Mérida: Universidad de los
Andes.
Vargas Arenas, Iraida. 1990. Arqueología, ciencia y sociedad. Caracas: Editorial Abre Brecha.
Vásquez de Espinoza, Antonio. 1948. Compendio y descripción de las Indias Occidentales [1628].
Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
Vila, Pablo. 1991. Visiones geohistóricas de Venezuela. Caracas: Fundación de Promoción Cultural
de Venezuela.
Vilaça, Aparecida. 2013. Communicating through difference. HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory
3 (1): 174–78.
Villalón, Maria Eugenia. 1983–1984. Network organization in E’ñapa society: a first approxi-
mation. Antropológica 59–62: 57–73.
———. 1987. Una clasificación tridimensional de lenguas Caribes. Antropológica 68: 23–47.
Villanueva y Gibaja, Diego. 1964. Relación geográfica hecha por Diego Villanueva y Gibaja de la
gobernación de Venezuela, los corregimientos de La Grita y de Tunja, y la gobernación de los
Mussos. Año de 1607. In Relaciones geográficas de Venezuela, compiled by Antonio Arellano
Moreno, 285–301. Caracas: Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 2004. Perspectival anthropology and the method of controlled
equivocation. Tipití 2 (1): 1–22.
Weiner, Annette B. 1992. Inalienable possessions. The paradox of keeping while giving. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Wilk, Richard R. 1991. Household ecology; economic change and domestic life among the Kekchi
Maya in Belize. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Whitehead, Neil L. 1988. Lords of the Tiger Spirit: a history of the Caribs in colonial Venezuela and
Guyana, 1498–1820. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
Zucchi, Alberta. 1985. Evidencias arqueológicas sobre grupos de posible lengua Caribe.
Antropológica 63–64: 23–44.

History of The Indigenous Peoples of The Sixteenth Century Province of Caracas Venezuela

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

History of The Indigenous Peoples of The Sixteenth Century Province of Caracas Venezuela

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Colonial Latin American Review

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccla20

History of the indigenous peoples of the sixteenth-

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10609164.2020.1831310

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa

Published online: 07 Dec 2020.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 4530

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 1 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

History of the indigenous peoples of the sixteenth-century

CONTACT Andrzej T. Antczak a.t.antczak@arch.leidenuniv.nl

The Province of the Caracas and its conquest

seventeenth-century documents, nevertheless, this name seems to identify a speciﬁc indi-

Some linguistic considerations

interdisciplinary models of pre-colonial settlement in the region. Archaeology, thus far,

Who were the indigenous peoples of north-central Venezuela?

not necessarily support the continuation of an existing pre-Hispanic system. Using

submerged in reciprocal dependence. Therefore, we cannot draw a distinction between

Shamanism and feasting

Coastal versus inland societies

Nevertheless, as we have mentioned before, archaeological grounding for the existence of

Final remarks and future research

———. 1954. Estudios de la etnología antigua de Venezuela. Caracas: Universidad Central de

You might also like