Ye'kuana language
Ye'kuana (), also known as Maquiritari, Dekwana, Ye'kwana, Ye'cuana, Yekuana, Cunuana, Kunuhana, De'cuana, De’kwana Carib, Pawana, Maquiritai, Maquiritare, Maiongong, or Soto is the language of the Ye'kuana people of Venezuela and Brazil. It is a Cariban language. It is spoken by approximately 5,900 people (c. 2001) around the border of northwestern Brazilian state of Roraima and Venezuela – the majority (about 5,500) in Venezuela. At the time of the 2001 Venezuelan census, there were at 6,523 Ye’kuana living in Venezuela. Given the unequal distribution of the Ye’kuana across two South American countries, Ethnologue lists two different vitality ratings for Ye’kuana: in Venezuela it is listed as Vigorous (6a), while in Brazil it is classified Moribund (8a) on the Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS). History In Brazil, the Ye’kuana are believed to have settled on the lands they now occupy more than a century ago, coming from the larger population centres in Venezuela. Traditional mythology and oral history, however, tells that the lands around the Auari and Uraricoera rivers have long been travelled by the Ye’kuana. During the 18th century, there was a lot of missionary activity in Ye'kuana territory, during which they were forced into constructing forts for the Spanish, and coerced into converting to Catholicism. A rebellion was organised against the Spanish in 1776. The 20th century brought a new wave of exploitation in the form of the colonists looking to capitalise on the discovery of rubber. Whole villages were forced into labour, driven in chain gangs to the rubber camps. Later, another wave of missionaries arrived around the early 1960s. The Brazilian Ye'kuana decided not to live in the missions established on that side of the border, because the missionaries’ attention in Brazil was focused on the Sanumá and not on them. They were also more reluctant to convert, having seen their Venezuelan cousins convert and become (from the Brazilian Ye'kuana perspective) culturally weaker as a result, giving up key elements of their traditional ways of life. On the Venezuelan side of the border, this wave of missionaries brought the establishment of health services, schools, and access to local markets, also creating several relatively large communities centred around the missions. In 1980, a married Canadian missionary couple came to live among the Ye’kuana for a while, but they did not like their way of life, and there were disagreements between them and the Ye’kuana, and they left. After this, the Brazilian Ye’kuana decided that they did not want religion, but they did want a school, seeing the benefits that that infrastructure had provided indigenous communities in Venezuela. They got one, after negotiating with the leader of the Evangelical Mission of Amazônas. So began a process of becoming sedentary, wherein the Ye’kuana all moved closer together, and established semi-regular schedules (including that certain times of day for children were set aside for school). This establishment of solid permanent contact also led to more far-reaching mobilisation and contact with other indigenous communities and the state of Roraima. The Ye’kuana became