Karaudarnau (also Lumid Pau) is an indigenous village of Wapishana Amerindians in the

Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo Upper Takutu-Upper Esequibo (Region 9) is a Regions of Guyana, region of Guyana. It borders the region of Potaro-Siparuni to the north, the region of East Berbice-Corentyne to the east and Brazil to the south and west. It contains the town of Let ...

Region of

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

. It is located in the Rupununi savannah on the Rupununi River.

Name

The name Karaudarnau means "snake hill" in Wapishana and refers to a legend that a snake lives underneath the village. A big black rock in the centre of the village is claimed to be the head of the snake.

Overview

Karaudarnau has a school, a health post, a community centre, and two churches. As of 2017, education is bilingual in Wapishana and English. The community has close links to the Brazilian Wapishana community who live in the Jacamim Indigenous Territory. The village has no access to the telephone network or internet, Karaudarnau has been awarded a territory of . There is a 2am

curfew A curfew is an order that imposes certain regulations during specified hours. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to remain indoors during the evening and nighttime hours. Such an order is most often issued by public authorit ...

, and

liquor Liquor ( , sometimes hard liquor), spirits, distilled spirits, or spiritous liquor are alcoholic drinks produced by the distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar that have already gone through ethanol fermentation, alcoholic ferm ...

has been banned in the community. In 2018, the village was given access to clean drinking water by a joint exercise of the

Brazilian Army The Brazilian Army (; EB) is the branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces responsible, externally, for defending the country in eminently terrestrial operations and, internally, for guaranteeing law, order and the constitutional branches, subordina ...

and the

Guyana Defence Force The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) is the military of Guyana, established in 1965. It has military bases across the nation. The Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Force is always the incumbent President of Guyana. The branches include the Army, Air F ...

. In May 2020, during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

the community blocked access to the gold mine.

Transport

The nearest town is Lethem which is accessible by road. Karaudarnau can also be reached from the Lumid Pau Airport.

Economy

The economy of the village is based on livestock in particular

cattle ranching A ranch (from /Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of farm. These terms are most often applied to li ...

and pig farming, agriculture, and industrial-scale

gold mining Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from Alluvium, alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to mor ...

at the Marudi Mountain by Romanex Guyana Exploration.

References

{{Settlements in Guyana Populated places in Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo Indigenous villages in Guyana Wapishana