Ethnoecology, Resource Use, Conservation And Development In A ...

Guyana. Such accounts as I was given can date back no more than four or five
generations, and it seems that migration has been an ongoing process. At present,
movement is mainly to the west, as economic factors encourage migration from the
Rupununi to the adjacent Brazilian state of Roraima.
Riviere suggests that the major impetus behind the initial eastward movement
may have been a series of unsuccessful attempts on the part of the Portuguese to
settle Amerindians of the Rio Negro basin in permanent settlements known as
'descimentos', towards the end of the 18th century (Riviere 1963: 127-8). Chernela
(1998: 316-321) describes the forced resettlement of people of various tribes
resident in the Uapes river system to the mission fort at Sao Gabriel de Cachoeira in
the years following its establishment in 1761. Although she does not mention the
Wapishana by name, the timing and location implies that they would have been
among the victims of this policy. This is also consistent with Riviere's suggested
dating of the migration, although the earliest indications in the colonial records of a
Wapishana presence in Essequibo predate this.
A colonial despatch dating from 1753 blames Wapishana people for the murder
of three colonists on a trading expedition up the Essequibo, and indicates that the
colonial authorities were aware of their presence prior to this date. Notably, the
wording indicates a Wapishana presence as far east as the Essequibo River itself at
this time (Harris and de Villiers 1911: 302-3). The same despatch makes reference to
ongoing hostilities between Wapishana, Makushi and Caribs, which were apparently
protracted as there is a later report of warfare between Wapishana and Makushi on
the Rupununi in 1765 (Harris and de Villiers 1911: 485-6). However, by the time of
Schomburgk's visit several decades later, the two tribes were reported to be co-
existing peacefully in the north savannahs, living in at least one mixed village and
intermarrying (Schomburgk 1923: 229, 308)
Riviere (1966) builds upon these observations in a reinterpretation of
archaeological data reported by Evans and Meggers (1960), whose analysis he
considers to have been misled by the use of ethnographic data of dubious accuracy.
Evans and Meggers suggested that Makushi settlement extended over both north and
south savannahs prior to the Wapishana immigration, but that they were driven north
by the newcomers. This scenario appears to have become accepted as standard in
the historical literature (e.g., Thompson 1987: 195-197). Riviere, however, contends
that the initial Wapishana incursion was to the north savannahs, where after an initial
period of warfare the two tribes intermingled for a period prior to a further and final
Wapishana relocation to the south savannahs (Riviere 1966: 309). Several reports