Akawaio

The Akawaio are a Cariban-speaking people of the upper Mazaruni, Cuyuni and neighboring river basins in western Guyana, with smaller communities across the borders in Brazilian Roraima and eastern Venezuela. Together with the Patamona and Ingarikó they form the Kapon, a name they use for themselves; their dialects remain mutually intelligible across the group.

Villages live from shifting cultivation of bitter cassava, fishing, hunting and, increasingly, small-scale mining and wage work. The Akawaio are historically notable as the cradle of Hallelujah, a prophetic religion born in the nineteenth century that recast Christian teaching in Kapon ritual and language; it is still practiced and is recognized as an Indigenous church in Guyana.

Contemporary Akawaio politics revolve around land: communities of the upper Mazaruni have fought decades-long legal battles for title to their traditional territory, confronted hydroelectric proposals, and live with the disruption and river pollution brought by gold and diamond mining. The village of Isseneru won a sizable, though reduced, land title in 2007, and a landmark Guyanese court case over mining on titled land bears its name.