#Piaroan

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For the Piaroa Indians, the original inhabitants of the area, Autana is a sacred mountain (Wahari-Kuawai in the Piaroan language). It is Kuaimayojo, the stump of ‘the sacred tree of the fruits of the world’. Piaroan mythology tells how ‘-the tree-top went as high as the infinite, and its branches were full of fruits which fell and gave life to the Amazon’. One day Wahari (a God) and his nephew Ruayei, which had been transformed into a lapa (Cuniculus paca), cut down the tree to get all the fruits at once.

Image : Cerro Autana, Venezuela