Wanapan or Arapahtë pata is a Tiriyó village in the

Sipaliwini District Sipaliwini is the largest district of Suriname, located in the south. Sipaliwini is the only district that does not have a regional capital, as it is directly administered by the national government in Paramaribo. History Sipaliwini was created i ...

Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...

. It was established at the bottom of the

Wonotobo Falls The Wonotobo Falls (Dutch: ''Wonotobovallen'') are a series of waterfalls in the Courantyne River in Sipaliwini District, Suriname near the border with Guyana. The waterfalls are not navigable. A pre-Columbian petroglyph site is located near the ...

in 1998 by captain Arapahtë.

Name

Wanapan is the Tiriyó-language name for ''

Clusia ''Clusia'' is the type genus of the plant family Clusiaceae. Comprising 300-400 species, it is native to the tropics of the Americas. The genus is named by Carl Linnaeus in honor of the botanist Carolus Clusius. The closest relatives of ''Clus ...

'' plants, which are found abundantly in the area. Arapahtë is the name of the captain of the village.

History

Since the arrival of missionaries to the Surinamese interior in the 1950s, the Tiriyó have increasingly moved to larger population centres close to airfields, such as Alalapadu and

Kwamalasamutu Kwamalasamutu, also Kwamalasamoetoe, is a Tiriyó Amerindian village in the Sipaliwini District of Suriname, and home to the granman (paramount chief) of the northern Trios. Kwamalasamutu is the biggest village of the Tiriyó tribe. History The ...

. While this facilitated the work of the missionaries and the Surinamese government, it also meant that soils and hunting areas were over-extracted. After Asongo Alalaparu was installed as

granman Granman (Ndyuka language: ''gaanman'') is the title of the paramount chief of a Maroon (people), Maroon nation in Suriname and French Guiana. The Ndyuka people, Ndyuka, Saramaka, Matawai people, Matawai, Aluku, Paramaccan people, Paramaka and Kwint ...

of the Tiriyó in 1997, he motivated his people to disperse again. Wanapan was subsequently founded in 1998 by captain Arapahtë. Partly as a result of the dispersal of the Tiriyó away from Kwamalasamutu, Tiriyó sub-identities that were thought to have disappeared re-emerged again. Hence, the inhabitants of Wanapan identify themselves as Aramayana or "bee people". Wanapan lies in a very isolated location in Suriname. The nearest school and clinic are located in

Apoera Apoera, also Apura, is a town in western Suriname. The village has a population of 777 people as of 2020. It is the final destination of the Southern East-West Link. north-west on the other side of the Courantyne River lies the Guyanese village ...

, which lies about one day travelling downstream by motorized canoe. In order to be able to send their children to school, the villagers of Wanapan founded the village of

Sandlanding Sandlanding is a Tiriyó village in the Sipaliwini District of Suriname. The village lies just south of Apoera, which is mainly inhabited by Arowaks. Most of the villagers originally came from Kwamalasamutu who had settled in Wanapan. Sandlan ...

close to Apoera.

Notes

References

* * * {{Surinamese District Sipaliwini Indigenous villages in Suriname Populated places in Sipaliwini District