peoples of the amazon - overview

The Wai-Wai (also written Waiwai or Wai Wai) are a Carib-speaking ethnic group of Guyana and northern Brazil. They are part of the Amerindian population that make up part of South America and are an indigenous group. Their society consists of different lowland forest peoples who have maintained much of their cultural identity except for Christianity which was introduced to them in the late 1950s

The Amerindian population of Guyana is approximately 31,000. The tribes consisting of nine major ethnic groups, including the Akawaios, Arawaks, Arekunas, Caribs, Makushis, Patamonas, Wapishanas, Warraus and the Wai-Wais are mainly found in the hinterland or the interior region.

The Wai-Wais are the smallest tribe in Guyana with a population of only about 170. There is only one Wai-Wai community in Guyana, which is in the most southern region of the country known as Konashen. 

The explorer, Sir Robert Schomburgk, may have been the first non-Indian to have contact with the Wai-Wai in December 1837. He found one village on a tributary of the Essequibo river, along with two others on the Mapuera River in Brazil. 

During the early 20th century, some of the Wai-Wai in Brazil moved further north. It is speculated that this is because of the influenza epidemic that nearly exterminated the Taruma tribe. 

From 1933 to 1938, the Wai-Wai people moved deeper in Guyana's interior to avoid the outsiders working with the Boundary Commission.

The Yanomami are the largest relatively isolated tribe in South America. They live in the rainforests and mountains of northern Brazil and southern Venezuela.

Like most tribes on the continent, they probably migrated across the Bering Straits between Asia and America some 15,000 years ago, making their way slowly down to South America. Today their total population stands at around 38,000.

At over 9.6 million hectares, the Yanomami territory in Brazil is twice the size of Switzerland. In Venezuela, the Yanomami live in the 8.2 million-hectare Alto Orinoco – Casiquiare Biosphere Reserve. Together, these areas form the largest forested indigenous territory in the world.

The Yanomami first came into sustained contact with outsiders in the 1940s when the Brazilian government sent teams to delimit the frontier with Venezuela.