The monuments 
of our Past 
are our Country  
Cultural Heritage 

All Venezuelans 
have to be
 active participants
 in the protection 
and conservation 
of our 
Cultural Heritage.

Four were the natives groups that lived in the Falcon Region by the time of the discovery, The Caquetíos, the Jirarajaras, the Ayamanes and the Ajaguas. According to the Ballesteros Bishop, the district of the City of Coro was inhabited for fourteen or fifteen thousand Indians. Los "Jirajaras"  occupied the mountains to the South of Coro.

The "Jirajaras", as the Ayaman and the Ajaguas (not shown in the map),  didn't understand the caquetío  dialect. However, all of them belonged to the great family Nuarhaca. 

The most numerous by the time of the arrival of the Spaniards were the Caquetíos. The Caquetíos, on the other hand, emigrated towards Aruba after frequent and constants attacks from the Indian Caribbean, reason for which many places in Aruba have caquetios names.

Most of the references indicate that the Caquetíos lived in ranches or cabins, made of stakes and lianas, covered with branches and straws. This indicates that the Caquetíos conceived  and manufactured their own houses, similar to thosethat  are still observed in the rural parts of Venezuela. 

The caquetíos lived in villages and for the construction of their houses, they used mainly  materials that found in their living environment like palms, lianas, trunks of trees and leaves. Some of these cabins didn't have any wall. They were constructions of piles and toothpicks with roofs of braided palm. The roofs of braided palm facilitated and blocked the heat of the sun during the dry season and durong the rain season, the leaves closed of such a form that protected them from the rain. The only disadvantage was that the roofs had to be changed very often.

Graziano Gasparini (Colonial Temples from Venezuela, page 19) found a relation between the enviroment where the aborigines lived and the structural systems and the technics used to gather the material used in the construction. The houses differ from each other in order to adapt to the customs of the tribes, but the constructive result of the interior is found  in all the constructions excluding  the Andean region. The sticks of the houses were tied by  fibers or "lianas," and the roof were covered with palm leaves or with straws. Our aborigines solved the problems using stone, sand, sticks, lianas, and straw for their houses."

John Hemming points out that when Federmann arrived from Coro to Barquisimeto , described the houses of the Caquetíos in this region as admirable. "The houses were built beside each other, in line, near their cultivated fields or near the rivers" from which they obtained the necessary resources for their feeding and subsistence. Some of the villages measured until a mile, with one or two streets and up to 8 families could live in each cabin."

Today, don't exist houses like those built  by that times, but some of the houses from indigenous remote communities, where traditions have remained unchanged for centuries,  have a very similar design to the early ones.

Petroglifos,  are signs recorded in stone, that were used with frequency during prehispanic times, The word petroglifo means "recorded stone." The most common colors used in the petroglifos were  black, white and several tonalities of ocher.

The theories of some Anthropologists indicate that the recordings in these petroglifos correspond to religious beliefs, while others argue that they  are some kind of artistic expression. For our caquetíos petroglifos were used basicly as a titles of property to mark the land cultivated. 

But the indigenous painting, was not only conferred to the petroglifos, there were also found in caves in form of painting. You could find a sample of painting  done  by the Arawak, from which the caquetios were descendent in the following link:

http://www.visitaruba.com/facts/general/history.htm

For their creations in pottery and ceramic, our aborigines, used the material offered by  the nature, they used mud, and in the case of the Caquetíos, for their concentration near coastal zones, they also used snails as ornaments and utensils. In order to prepare their food and make ferment their drinks of corn, the Caquetíos,  manufactured of clay, pots, pitchers and other utensils. 

The ceramic of the Caquetíos was not only use with purpose of the used as utensils  but also with  ceremonial purposes. 

Gladys Nomland (mentioned by Alfred Kiddler in Archaeology of  Northwestern Venezuela. p.78), refers that the Ceramic in the area of Falcon, specificly in Coro, classified according  color and decoration, was mainly utensils of brown refined color. On the other hand, In Hato Viejo and La Maravilla (near Urumaco), other of the studied places, most of the utensils, were in red color coming in several varieties: red in terracota, red and black on white, red in cinnamon. In Hato Viejo the utensils found were in brown color on cream.

In explorations carried out in Hato Viejo, (located to the north of Urumaco, near the coast), La Maravilla (to the northwest of Urumaco), and in Coro, to the northwest, toward the area of the dunes, were found materials of potteries, ceramic, urns, and engines built with stone and snails. (Archaeology of Northwestern Venezuela, Alfred Kiddler, p. 20).

Tribes in Venezuela

Reference: Historical Dictionary of Venezuela. By: Rudolph and Rudolph. Latin America Dictionaries No. 3. The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Second Edition. 1996. P. 352.

REFERENCES

Historical Dictionary of Venezuela. By: Rudolph and Rudolph.
Latin America Dictionaries No. 3.
The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Second Edition. 1996. P. 352.

Archaeology of Northwestern Venezuela. Author:
Alfred Kiddler. Kraus Reprint Co. New York. II Edition. 1949.

The Search for El Dorado. Author: John Hemming.
E.P. Dutton. New York. First Edition. 1979

Travelling in Venezuela. Author: John Wilcock.
Hippocrene Books, New York, N.Y. Fist Edition. 1979