His latest visits have made him sad |

His latest visits have made him sad

Text:

Johanna Osorio

Illustrations:

Walther Sorg

Deciderio Cepeda got his respect for nature from the Warao Indigenous people, to which he belongs, just as he got his woodworking skills from his father. At the age of twelve, he decided to put both to the service of his community, until he could not anymore because of the surrounding context. Yet, he does not lose hope that one day he will be able to do it again.

There were no Warao here in the beginning.
No Warao had been born to our entire land.
All the Warao, our ancestors, were right there, up above.
Our Grandpa was right there, up above.
So, the Warao lived right there, up above. There were no Warao here.

Manifestaciones religiosas de los waraos, Antonio Vaquero.

“Brother Tree, I come to ask your permission.”

Deciderio Cepeda performs the ritual exactly as his father —who was also a woodworker and a dugout maker—, taught him when he was twelve: first, he talks to the tree; only then can he proceed to cut the wood he needs to repair the stilt houses they call palafitos.

Over the years, he and his brothers mastered the craft and started using chainsaws. By the time he was 18, they all knew how to make wooden boards, which they used to replace the houses’ palm walls. One day, a neighbor of theirs approached them: “I would also like to have a house like this made for me.” And they helped him. Shortly after that, another neighbor came with a similar request, and then many others. If they could afford to pay them something for their work, fine, but if not, they would fix their stilt houses anyway because, in the end, that is what the Warao do: they support each other’s families.

“The Warao need to know how to build their own houses,” adds Deciderio, now a grown man.

Palafitos are gable roof houses built to stand above the river’s water. They are covered with leaves of temiche palm trees, and their manaca wood floors are always above the highest tide.

But in the middle delta, where Deciderio lived, houses were made differently because the tide there is dry for six months or so every year. Deciderio’s house was made of interwoven sticks and mud, or bahareque, as it was on dry land.

Now, at the start of the rainy season, when the tides were high, they would drive sticks into the ground to hang their hammocks, sort of a stilt house inside their house, or a bunk bed, where they lived safely during the high-tide months. And when the water level receded at the start of the low-tide season, they would take the structure down and repair the wall segments that had been under water for months.

Every six months, every year, for years and years.

Until he got married.

His wife lived in Nabasanuka, in the lower delta, and he had to travel from his caño to hers, but he moved in with her eventually. Since high and low tides in the lower delta occur twelve hours apart, the palafitos, which are built on manaca poles, are always above the highest tidal level and need frequent repair. He had more to do in Nabasanuka.

Soon, his work in other communities would allow him to provide for his family, and he single-handedly improved the quality of life of his people and gave others a possibility to stay, because many began to leave.

It is said that before Columbus came to America, Delta Amacuro was inhabited by Indigenous peoples such as the Aramaya, the Arawak, the Caribe, the Pariagoto, and the Panacayo, who lived in the upper delta, and the Tiuitiua or Tiguitique, the Mariusa, and the Warao, who lived in the delta itself.

Much later on, in 1925, Capuchin missionaries arrived in their lands. When the outbreak of malaria and tuberculosis hit their people, the missionaries offered them help. Some, like the Warao, accepted it; but some did not, and those who did not, of which there were many, died and gradually disappeared. Only the Warao, the second largest Indigenous people in the country, survived.

They fished, sowed, and wove, and lived in their palafitos. They would light a tiny fire under their hammocks to keep themselves warm and drive the mosquitoes away. Of course, when it rained, the palafitos got wet, the fire died, and there was no more heat or mosquito repellent.

But one day in 1966, the state-owned Corporación Venezolana de Guayana, in order to clear stretches of productive land to feed the Guayana region, built a 26-mile levee-like wall that changed the course of the river banks and closed the Manamo channel. In addition to triggering poverty and migration, the wall also altered the natural habitat of the Warao, changed their traditional way of life, destroyed the mangroves, and allowed the intrusion of seawater into the freshwater system.

The river was a floating carpet of dead fish. Many Warao ate those fish and died. Due to the influx of seawater, the ones that remained had to row for at least two hours to find the fresh water that once surrounded them. Those conditions forced a group of Warao to migrate to the city of Tucupita. That was the first wave.

And the city was far, far away, hours away by boat.

Later on, in the 1990s, when they were hit by diseases such as cholera, malaria, and measles, some other left. That was the second wave.

After that, the reasons to migrate kept adding to the list.

The COVID-19 epidemic and the humanitarian emergency facing the country were behind the most recent one.

The Warao always leave to avoid being overtaken by the spirits of death.

Some left the caños and moved elsewhere, but others decided to leave the country. In 2021, there were 6.5 million Venezuelan Indigenous persons displaced in Brasil, 66 percent of whom were Warao, which is at least 11 percent of the entire Warao population in Venezuela.

They leave looking for a better life, but they have neither found jobs nor better living conditions. That is what his acquaintances tell him.

More than a third of the Warao people still live in the lower delta channels, but not Deciderio. He moved from the caños to Tucupita. He had no other choice. His children went to high school in Tucupita, a four-hour ride by boat from where they lived. Given that it was not possible for them to make the round trip every single school day, they stayed with some relatives in the city. Inevitably, he decided that they had to move so they could be together.

Things were different when Deciderio was a kid. In Araguaimujo, which is the name of the channel in the middle delta he called home, the school was less than a mile by foot from his place, and he did not have to worry about the high-tide season, for the water level rose precisely when the school was closed for vacations and he was home anyway.

But life has changed a lot for the Warao.

They used to feed themselves exclusively from the fish they caught and from whatever they grew in their conucos. Once a month, they hopped into their curiaras and headed for Tucupita or Barrancas to buy salt to preserve their fish, as well as soap and other products. Now, they eat a different kind of food.

Traveling to their old caños has also gotten more complicated. It takes them six hours to get there and, now that they ride in motor boats, at least 400 liters of gasoline, which they pay one dollar for two liters; that is at least 200 dollars per trip, which they do not have. And you have to add the money for the engine lubricant.

That, and the fact that in the caños there are no grocery stores, or any kind of store, for that matter, has made some merchants go to where the Warao are to sell them their goods or trade whatever they offer in exchange for fish and vegetables. But it does not happen frequently. And not all of them are in a position to buy or exchange stuff. That explains the high rates of malnutrition among their people. Additionally, their feeble bodies are less capable of fighting diseases such as tuberculosis, diarrhea, and malaria, caused by contamination from mining in the south.

Deciderio has only been back a couple of times since 2018.

His latest visits have made him sad. The schools are in ruins. The abandoned houses look anything like the ones he used to repair and paint in colors. His palafito is still standing because a cousin of his and his family live there, but many are deserted. When he now sees his Warao people living in the city in hovels with plastic or cardboard roofs, he cannot help but think of the past.

When a Warao family first arrives in Tucupita, they are welcomed and provided support during the transition, but their life is not the same.

Deciderio wishes he could pass the ancestral knowledge he has unto the youngest Warao and talk to them about the spirits that inhabit all living things on earth, just as he and his siblings were taught.

He wishes he could apply the wood treatments that are now available to repair palafitos and make them more resistant.

He wishes he could help his Indigenous brothers to reclaim the caños that were taken from them.

But, for now, it doesn’t seem possible.

Versión en español

His latest visits have made him sad

There were no Warao here in the beginning.
No Warao had been born to our entire land.
All the Warao, our ancestors, were right there, up above.
Our Grandpa was right there, up above.
So, the Warao lived right there, up above. There were no Warao here.

Manifestaciones religiosas de los waraos, Antonio Vaquero.

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Versión en español

His latest visits have made him sad

There were no Warao here in the beginning. No Warao had been born to our entire land. All the Warao, our ancestors, were right there, up above. Our Grandpa was right there, up above. So, the Warao lived right there, up above. There were no Warao here.

Manifestaciones religiosas de los waraos, Antonio Vaquero.

Otras historias

Dirección general:

Edición y coordinación general:

Asistente editorial:

Textos e investigación:

Traducción:

Producción audiovisual:

Edición visual:

Edición audiovisual:

Edición sonora:

Ilustraciones e infografías:

Fotografías:

Equipo de comunicaciones:

Diseño:

There were no Warao here in the beginning.
No Warao had been born to our entire land.
All the Warao, our ancestors, were right there, up above.
Our Grandpa was right there, up above.
So, the Warao lived right there, up above. There were no Warao here.