The Hodï or Jotï (from the Hodï word for "people") are a small group of

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

who live in the

Amazon rainforest The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. ...

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. The last census held in Venezuela, in 2011, registered 982 individuals identifying as Hodï; a 2016 estimate accounted a population of around 1200. They speak the

Hodï language The Hodï (Jodï, Jotí, Hoti) language, also known as Yuwana (Yoana), Waruwaru, or Chikano (Chicano), is a small unclassified language spoken by the Hodï people of Venezuela. Very little is known of it; its several hundred speakers are monolin ...

and are closely related to the

Piaroa people The Piaroa people, known among themselves as the ''Huottüja'' or ''De'aruhua'', are a pre-Columbian South American indigenous ethnic group of the middle Orinoco Basin in present-day Colombia and Venezuela, living in an area larger than Belgium, ...

, although linguistic connections between the two people groups have not reached consensus among scholars. They are also known by a number of exonyms as the Hoti, Chicano, Shikana, Yuana, Waruwarú, or Rua. The Hodï were one of the last indigenous peoples to make contact with non-indigenous settlers in Venezuela. Their presence in the Sierra de Maigualida area, between the Amazonas and Bolívar states, was first attested by European sources in 1913 through accounts from

Ye'kuana The Ye'kuana, also called Ye'kwana, Ye'Kuana, Yekuana, Yequana, Yecuana, Dekuana, Maquiritare, Makiritare, So'to or Maiongong, are a Cariban-speaking tropical rain-forest tribe who live in the Caura River and Orinoco River regions of Venezuela ...

people, who referred to the Hodï as ''Waruwadu''. The Hodï are primarily

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

s who follow seasonal nomadic patterns. The two largest settlements populated by Hodï have been established by Christian missionaries: San José de Kayamá (established by Catholic missionaries) and Caño Iguana (established by Evangelical missionaries). Some of the main crops in Hodï agriculture are

plantain Plantain may refer to: Plants and fruits * Cooking banana, banana cultivars in the genus ''Musa'' whose fruits are generally used in cooking ** True plantains, a group of cultivars of the genus ''Musa'' * ''Plantaginaceae'', a family of flowerin ...

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

cassava ''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively ...

, yam and

sweet potato The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the Convolvulus, bindweed or morning glory family (biology), family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a r ...

, among others. Overall, the Hodï grow over 67 plant species, of which 36 are used for food, 20 for ritualistic or medicinal purposes, and 11 for constructing artifacts.

References

Bibliography

* * * Indigenous peoples of the Amazon Indigenous peoples of the Guianas Indigenous peoples in Venezuela Uncontacted peoples {{SouthAm-ethno-group-stub