Photo Essay Photo Essay

Photographer: Unspecified Photographer

A traditioanl way of life: Amerindians

A classic palm-thatched home (“churuata”) of a Piaroa Amerindian family in the Rio Manapiare valley. It takes thousands of individual palm leaves to construct such as roof, which can last a decade. Inhabitants make temporary shelters using palm fronds over a frame of tree saplings tied with aerial roots of Heteropsis aroids as rope. The Venezuelan Guayana is home to more than 30 different indigenous ethnic groups.