Patamona

The Patamona are a Kapon people of the Pakaraima Mountains in west-central Guyana, with a small number of relatives across the border in Brazilian Roraima. They speak a dialect of Kapóng, a Cariban language shared with the Akawaio and Ingarikó, and live in highland villages such as Paramakatoi, Kato, Kurukabaru, Chenapau and Micobie, near the headwaters of the Potaro and Ireng rivers.

Mountain farmers above all, the Patamona grow bitter cassava, yams and sweet potatoes on steep swidden plots, fish the upland rivers, and historically traded pottery and other goods with neighboring Carib peoples. Kaieteur Falls, one of the world's great waterfalls, lies in their traditional country and figures prominently in their oral tradition; shamanic and animist practice persists alongside Christianity and the Kapon Hallelujah religion.

Contact with Europeans came late, in the nineteenth century, and the high villages remain reachable mainly by air or long trails. Today Patamona communities work through Guyana's village-council system on land titling, schooling and health services, while balancing subsistence farming with mining-related wage work and debates over tourism around Kaieteur National Park.