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Concept
Casiquiare canal
Summary
The Casiquiare river (kasiˈkjaɾe) is a distributary of the upper Orinoco flowing southward into the Rio Negro, in Venezuela, South America. As such, it forms a unique natural canal between the Orinoco and Amazon river systems. It is the world's largest river of the kind that links two major river systems, a so-called bifurcation. The area forms a water divide, more dramatically at regional flood stage.
The name Casiquiare, first used in that form by Manuel Román, likely derives from the Ye'kuana language name of the river, Kashishiwadi.
The first to discover and describe it was Cristóbal Diatristán de Acuña in 1639.
In 1744 a Jesuit priest named Manuel Román, while ascending the Orinoco River in the region of La Esmeralda, met some Portuguese slave-traders from the settlements on the Rio Negro. The Portuguese insisted they were not in Spanish territory but on a tributary of the Amazon; they invited Román back with them to prove their claim. He accompanied them on their return, by way of the Casiquiare canal, and afterwards retraced his route to the Orinoco. Along the way, he made first contact with the Ye'kuana people, whom he enlisted to help in his journey. Charles Marie de La Condamine, seven months later, was able to give to the Académie française an account of Father Román's voyage, and thus confirm the existence of this waterway, first reported by Father Acuña in 1639.
Little credence was given to Román's statement until it was verified, in 1756, by the Spanish Boundary-line Commission of José Yturriaga and Solano. In 1800 German scientist Alexander von Humboldt and French botanist Aimé Bonpland explored the river. During a 1924–25 expedition, Alexander H. Rice Jr. of Harvard University traveled up the Orinoco, traversed the Casiquiare canal, and descended the Rio Negro to the Amazon at Manaus. It was the first expedition to use aerial photography and shortwave radio for mapping of the region. In 1968 the Casiquiare was navigated by an SRN6 hovercraft during a National Geographic expedition.
Official source
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