Warao Foodways

Warao

Indigenous

⚠ A DELTA PEOPLE AND A PALM FOOD SYSTEM. The WARAO — the name is generally glossed as "boat people" — live in the Orinoco delta in houses on stilts over the water, and are among the oldest continuously resident peoples in the region. The MORICHE PALM (Mauritia flexuosa) is the centre of the documented food system: YURUMA, the starch extracted from the felled trunk’s pith; the fruit; the palm heart; and the larvae harvested from the rotting trunk, which are a documented staple protein. Beside it: fish, crab, ocumo chino, plantain and the conuco. ⚠ WARAO COMMUNITIES HAVE MIGRATED IN LARGE NUMBERS TO BRAZIL AND GUYANA during the crisis, which is a food-system event.