Wai-wai people

The Wai-wai (also written Waiwai or Wai Wai) are an ethnic group of Guyana and northern Brazil.

The Wai-wai in Guyana live in the far south of the country, near the headwaters of the Essequibo River. There are approximately 200 Wai-wai in Guyana and 2000 in Brazil. In Brazil, they mostly reside in Terra Indígena Wai-wai, Terra Indígena Trombetas-Mapuera and Terra Indígena Nhamundá-Mapuera.

The Umana Yana in Georgetown, Guyana, takes its name from the Wai-Wai for "meeting place".

Religion

The yaskomo of the Waiwai, also called a medicine man or shaman in literature, is believed to be able to perform a soul flight. The soul flight can serve several functions:

• healing
• flying to the sky to consult cosmological beings (the moon or the brother of the moon) to get a name for a new-born baby
• flying to the cave of peccaries' mountains to ask the father of peccaries for abundance of game
• flying deep down in a river, to achieve the help of other beings.

Thus, a yaskomo is believed to be able to reach sky, earth, water, in short, every element.

References

• Fock, Niels (1963). Waiwai. Religion and society of an Amazonian tribe. Nationalmuseets skrifter, Etnografisk Række (Ethnographical series), VIII. Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark. 

External links

• "Mongabay.com Guyana — Geography". http://www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/guyana/SOCIETY.htm. 
• "Native American Indian Cultures — the Wai Wai Indians". http://indian-cultures.com/Cultures/wai.html. 
• "General table of the Indigenous peoples in Brazil". http://www.socioambiental.org/pib/english/whwhhow/table.asp. 
• Wai Wai language dictionary online from IDS (select simple or advanced browsing)