Caquetio

Caquetio, Caiquetio, or Caiquetia are natives of northwestern Venezuela, living along the shores of Lake Maracaibo at the time of the Spanish conquest. They moved inland to avoid enslavement by the Spaniards, while their numbers were drastically affected by colonial warfare, as were their neighbours, the Quiriquire and the Jirajara. The Caquetíos were also present in Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire when these islands were first colonized by Alonso de Ojeda in 1499. The occupants of this region were known as Caquetíos by the Spaniards and their language (Caquetío) belongs to the Arawakan family of languages. The Caquetío and the Jirajara spoke the same language, and their cultures were quite similar. The Arawakan or Caquetío language is termed a "ghost" language because virtually no trace of it survives. Only the name remains, saved in 17th-century texts. When the Spanish arrived in Aruba around 1500 they found the Caiquetio in Aruba, living much as they did in the Stone Age. The Caiquetio had probably migrated to Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire in canoes made from hollowed out logs they used for fishing. Such crossings from the Paraguana peninsula in Venezuela, across the 17 miles (27 km) of open sea to Aruba, would be possible in the canoes the Caiquetio of Venezuela built. "This nation is very large, but lives in many areas separated from each other," so the summary of the 16th century chronicler Juan de Castellanos. The Caquetío settled not only in the coastal region in the west of what is now Venezuela, but in at least two other regions: the valley of Barquisimeto in the state of Lara and in what is now Colombia's Llanos Orientales. In the fertile valley of Barquisimeto, according to Nikolaus Federmann, the first conquistador to enter their land, there were 23 large settlements and they could muster 30,000 warriors. According to concurring reports of the chroniclers Juan de Castellanos and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, they inhabited the savannas from the Rio Apure in the north to beyond the Rio Casanare in the south.