Lokono

The Lokono or Arawak are an Arawak people native to northern coastal areas of South America. Today, approximately 10,000 Lokono live primarily along the coasts and rivers of Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guyana. They speak the Arawak language, the eponymous language of the Arawakan family.

Name

Historically, the group self-identified as "Arawak", which also became the usual name outsiders called them. In the 19th century, when Western scholars had established that the major population of the Caribbean during European contact (now known as the Taíno) were culturally and linguistically related to the South American Arawak, ethnologist Daniel Garrison Brinton proposed calling the Caribbean people "Island Arawak". Subsequent scholars shortened this convention to simply "Arawak", thereby causing confusion with the mainland people. In the 20th century, scholars such as Irving Rouse began using the older term Taíno for the Caribbean group to distinguish them from mainlanders. The mainland Arawak also call themselves "Lokono" (also spelled "Locono" and "Lokomo"); this has become more common in scholarly literature as well.