WARAO RELIGION. The Orinoco Delta, a landscape of swamps, islands, and waterways, is the territory of the Warao. Located between the modern republics of Venezuela, Guyana, and Surinam, the Warao today number approximately sixteen thousand. Heirs to a seven-thousand-year tradition of fishing adaptation, some twenty dialectal subgroups of Warao have been identified (Kirchoff, 1948, p. 869). Warao formerly was considered a linguistic isolate; recent research however indicates certain vocabulary correspondences with the Chibchan languages of northwestern South America (Wilbert, 1970, p. 22). Cultural and dialectical differences exist among the various Warao groups, but they are linked by a system of common beliefs.

Information on Warao religion is derived from three major areas: traditional narrative, cosmology, and shamanism.

Traditional Narrative

Traditional narrative is clearly cosmogenic in nature in that it recounts the origin of the plants, animals, and spirits that occupy the Warao universe. It also relates the feats of culture...