Tepuis
by Dominic Hamilton

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Tepuis, the table top mountains of the Guyana Highlands in eastern Venezuela are some of the oldest formations of the planet. They've witnessed every folly of Man and every wonder of Nature. Patchworked plains, eroded by the unforgiving rains and winds, paw at their skirts hundreds of feet beneath them, while mischievous mawariton spirits of the Pemon Indians' world, lurk amongst the clouds. On their craggy lunar surfaces, prehistoric plants cling to nooks and crannies where the wind's howl through silence and stones makes you feel humble and small.

Walls of a tepui echo down the valley, barricades of a forgotten revolution. A phalanx of rock, standing to attention, etched with white line waterfalls which rumble their roar into the blue-veiled distance. Gold-leaf fortress, above the realm of the eagle and the vulture, puncturing the steely grey horizon. Magnetic. Enough to leave you dumb for a day or two. Majestic. Inspiring every emotion from fear to anger at their silence.

Tell me what you've seen, tell me what you know, old man, or whatever you are, tell me please. You're not as simple as the scientists make out. Or maybe you have nothing, no secrets at all. No tricks up your sleeves. Nothing to declare, -- and it's just me, my head and I. You hide from my gaze, coat yourself in clouds, skulk beneath the mist and fog. If I could leave you a note and come back another day, I would. If you had a letterbox I'd post you a letter, or a postcard perhaps.

The Pemon have inhabited Wek ta, the land of the mountains, for about the last six hundred years. For them the tepuis are sacred places, mysteries to be revered. They house the mansions of the mawariton high up and out-of-reach. The king of the vultures, Anwona or Etito, also hides atop the highest tepuis, while Rato the water spirit crouches in the depths of the region's hundreds of rivers. The Pemon twist stories of natural events which in time become myths explaining a mountain's strange aspect; name tepuis after a story's protagonist; weave magic and reality into a seamless blend of narrative. Sororopan, the unfaithful wife, Putari, to recall the shape of ovens, Matawi, the place to die, Wei, the sun, Tukui-okiden, the humming bird's home. Tepuis are ever-present, timeless, unalterable, an allegory for the inevitability of death. They occupy the space between the earth-bound piasan shaman's powers and the sphere of the wiseman above.

Tell me old man, revolutionary fist, king, queen, giant, what this all means. Blown by the wind against your ancient angular shoulders, caught up in your mangled rock web, until I can't think of anything else but your form, your light, your tricks and your trade.

Although tepuis extend over the whole of the Guyana Highlands, they are most dramatic in the region known as the Gran Sabana in southeastern Venezuela. Until the 1930s, the Gran Sabana lingered as a map-maker's terra incognita, peopled by little more than the Pemon, zealous missionaries and tall tales of gold by the bucket. Not more than a decade has passed since the asphalt road running the east of the region was completed, and much of the region lies within Canaima National Park, protecting it from the damage wrought by miners, loggers and government mega-projects elsewhere in the Venezuelan Guayana.

Every year now I've come back and each time closer I get. How long I wonder till you tell me the rules of this strange foreign game. And yet I don't want to spoil it, the suspense. Old man, give me a clue. Something to hold on to. Pin my youthful hopes to. All this can't be coincidence. All the papers, the books, the maps and all, my photos and writings and trying to explain, my concern, my interest, my love and my life.

From the heights of Auyan-tepui, the world's tallest waterfall, Angel Falls vaults a free-fall kilometre into space, sixteen times the height of Niagara, the Pemon's Karepa-Kupai-Meru. Angel Falls is just one of the Gran Sabana's scores of cataracts and falls which spawn the great watercourses of the Amazon and the Orinoco basins. Rainfall in the region can reach as much as four metres a year, which, combined with nutrient-poor and largely sandy soil, leaves most plant-systems fragile and highly susceptible to intervention.

Marshlands and savanna vegetation has inexorably replaced what were montane cloudforests, brimming with life and all its colours, smells and sounds. The burnt-out husks of once-tall trees haunt the landscape like charred cenotaphs, while fire-resistant palms sway their valiant crowns over the plains. In the dry months of February and March, plumes of blue smoke erupt throughout the Sabana, relentlessly eating into the fragile, michorisa-reliant forests, until they retreat into a river valley's protective clutches.

Yes, there are the people, the friends and the fires, and there are mirror-like lakes, palm-peppered plains, waterfalls and forest pools, bird songs and monkey howls. Everything to distract me from you and your presence. But you won't have it.

Each time I leave, you call me back.

Tepuis contintue to withhold some secrets from science, harbouring hundreds of isolated species -- islands in time caught up in the clouds. Atop their quartzite summits, labyrinths, galleries, caves and crevasses, waterpools and icy rivers take you back to the dawn of time. Temperatures drop, clouds close-in, the wind and the rain beat down. Then sudden sunshine again, and everything sparkles and blinds.

Exploration of tepui summits is still a rare and risky business. Only three of the Gran Sabana's mountains are accessible by foot. The bushpilot Jimmy Angel, who confirmed the existence of the colossal waterfall which bares his name, was lucky to escape with his life. He crashed on Auyan-tepui's cratered surface and managed to make it down by foot, abandoning his plane. Many other pilots haven't been so lucky. Only last year a teenager was lost and his body never found on top of Matawi-tepui (Kukenan). A French skydiver lost his life near Angel Falls two years ago.

Sometimes I tire of thinking of you, of playing your game, and I want out.

Like the Pemon before them, more-recent settlers of the region are just as awe-struck, reverential and mystical about tepuis. Although damage to the summits of Roraima and Matawi has increased dramatically with the mushrooming of tourism and may well force their closure, many of the local tour operators, veterans to the Sabana, are in fact, a pretty mystico-spiritual bunch. The Gran Sabana's largest town, Santa Elena de Uairén, boasts the most places of worship per head of nearly any town in South America. UFOlogy there is a news item, rather than a conversation stop-gap. One tour guide, author of the only guidebooks dedicated to the region in Spanish, has also published a map peppered with icons depicting 'sightings', 'landings', 'strange humanoid sighting', and 'weird lights'. There are stories of abductions, multiple landings, bizarre weather conditions : the lot. One story recounts the events which led up to an ancient people's retreat inside the tepuis. And you can't fault the stories of little green men, afterall, the mountains' outline make for the most Spielbergesque landing site you could possibly encounter.

The Pemon describe mawariton (also imawariton) as tall, pale, shadowy anthromorphic spirits. There are stories of meetings and conversations with them or similar beings. The Pemon's stories actively mix with the more modern, criollo theories of X-Files and millenarian-philes -- and so the Pemon's beliefs and narratives change with new ways of seeing and recounting. Despite whatever you believe or disbelieve, the Gran Sabana undoubtedly causes tepuitis, an unhealthy disease caused by even-brief exposure to the mountains, and whose only known cure is renewed exposure.

But just then you'll give me something, a full moon or a sunset, a sign all this has a reason. And then, like the forests at your feet and the green-swathed savannas, I kneel supplicant. I bow and breathe in and I smile.

The author lives in Venezuela. He previously wrote the article, Venezuela's Gran Sabana, which appeared in the November 1996 South America issue of El Planeta Platica. Other articles in Planeta include Colors of Chichicastenango and Belize Leads the Way. Dominic is currently working on a guidebook for the region. Contact Dominic via email at 104637.1251@compuserve.com and check out his web page at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dominichamilton

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