Arekuna

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An Indigenous people of the Gran Sabana region in southeastern Venezuela, belonging to the wider Pemon group of the Carib-speaking peoples
2. A group of Indigenous Venezuelans living in the highlands of the Guiana region, traditionally part of the larger Pemon community
3. The name of a Pemon-speaking Indigenous community in southeastern Venezuela whose members have long lived in the Gran Sabana plateau

Etymology: Arekuna is the name of a Cariban-speaking people of the Gran Sabana, a highland savanna region straddling southeastern Venezuela, western Guyana, and northern Brazil. They belong to the wider Pemón group, whose languages are part of the Cariban family, and they live among the tepuis, the flat-topped sandstone mountains that rise abruptly from the grasslands. The name is an ethnonym, a label for a people, rather than an ordinary English word. Its meaning in the Pemón languages is not well documented, so any etymology beyond that would be speculation. In outside writing it has been applied both to the people and to the dialect they speak, so readers may see it used in either sense.