The Importance of Siblings and Children for the Barí of Venezuela and Colombia

My people, the Barí, have our homeland southwest of the Lago de Maracaibo, in the headwaters of the río Santa Ana in Venezuela, and on both sides of the border between Colombia and Venezuela, in the basin of the río Catatumbo. In this article, I first outline basic features of the traditional ways my Barí people have lived their lives, especially our way of forming and preserving local groups of people who live in longhouses dispersed within their particular territories. I then exemplify important aspects of these features of Barí culture with a history of one branch of my family, illustrating the importance of sibling ties and their significance for both residence and reproduction.