{{short description|Indigenous people in northern South America}} {{For|the language|Lokono language}} {{Distinguish|Lokomo|Logomo}} {{Infobox ethnic group | group = Lokono | native_name = Lokono | image = | image_caption = | population = 10,000<ref name=Olson211>{{cite book |last= Olson |first=James Stewart |date=1991 |title=The Indians of Central and South America: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=175c4xOpLtYC&q=Locono |publisher= Greenwood |page= 211 |isbn= 0313263876 |access-date=June 16, 2014}}</ref> | region1 = {{flag|Venezuela}} | pop1 = | ref1 = | region2 = {{flag|Guyana}} | pop2 = | ref2 = | region3 = {{flag|Suriname}} | pop3 = | ref3 = | region4 = {{flag|French Guiana|local}} | languages = Lokono | religions = Indigenous religion | related_groups = Taino | related = <ref name=uwi/><br>Garifuna<ref name=uwi/><br>Yamaye | footnotes = | native_name_lang = | regions = Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, French Guiana }} The '''Lokono''' or '''Arawak''' are an Indigenous peoples from the northern coastal regions of South America. Today, approximately 10,000 Lokono live primarily along the coasts and rivers of Guyana, with smaller numbers in Venezuela, Suriname, and French Guiana.<ref name=dice>{{cite web |url=https://dice.missouri.edu/assets/docs/awarak/Lokono.pdf |title=Lokono |website=DICE Missouri |access-date= 5 September 2025 |archive-date=27 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240627172130/https://dice.missouri.edu/assets/docs/awarak/Lokono.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>
They speak the Lokono language,<ref name=dice/> the eponymous language of the Arawakan language family, as well as various Creole languages, and English.<ref>{{Cite book|title=State-of-the-Art in the Development of the Lokono Language|last=Rybka, Konrad|date=June 2015|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|oclc=919313664}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ethnologue.com/country/sr/languages|title=Suriname|website=Ethnologue|access-date=2019-06-02}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world|author1=Brown, E. K. |author2=Ogilvie, Sarah |date=2009|publisher=Elsevier|isbn=9780080877747|oclc=264358379}}</ref>
==Name== thumb|The Lokono Artists Group The name ''Lokono'' comes from the Lokono words ''loko'' meaning "people" and ''no'', a suffix that makes a noun plural.<ref name=uwi>{{cite web |title=Arawak |url=http://www.caribbeanlanguages.org.jm/node/179 |website=Caribbean Indigenous and Endangered Languages |publisher=UNESCO in collaboration with the Jamaican Language Unit, University of the West Indies |access-date=5 September 2025 |location=Mona, Jamaica |date=2007}}</ref> They are also called Arawak.<ref name=uwi/>
In 1989, John P. Bennett (Lokono) wrote that the word ''Arawak'' was not originally a Lokono word but was adopted by them.<ref name=bennet>{{cite journal |last1=Bennett |first1=John Peter |title=An Arawak-English Dictionary |journal=Archaeology and Anthropology |date=1989 |volume=6 |issue=1, 2 |url=https://tiboko.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Arawak-English-Dictionary.pdf |publisher=Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology |location=Georgetown, Guyana}}</ref>
In the 19th century, when Western scholars had established that the major Indigenous population of the Caribbean during European contact (now known as the [Taíno] were culturally and linguistically related to the South American Lokono-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.<ref name=Olson29/>
The Tokono are also called Arawak-Taíno.<ref name="minority">{{cite web |title=Indigenous peoples in Guyana |url=https://minorityrights.org/communities/indigenous-peoples-3/ |website=Minority Rights Group |access-date=6 September 2025 |date=2023}}</ref>
In the 20th century, scholars such as Irving Rouse began using the older term Taíno for the Caribbean peoples to distinguish them from mainlanders. The mainland Arawak call themselves "Lokono" (also spelled "Locono" and "Lokomo"); this has become more common in scholarly literature since the late 20th century.<ref name=Olson29>{{cite book |last=Olson |first=James Stewart |date=1991 |title=The Indians of Central and South America: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=175c4xOpLtYC&q=Locono |publisher= Greenwood |page=29 |isbn=0313263876 |access-date=June 16, 2014}}</ref><ref name=Rouse5>{{cite book |last=Rouse |first=Irving |date= 1992 |title= The Tainos |url= https://archive.org/details/tainosrisedeclin00rous |url-access= registration |quote= Island Carib. |publisher= Yale University Press |page= [https://archive.org/details/tainosrisedeclin00rous/page/5 5] |isbn= 0300051816 |access-date= June 16, 2014}}</ref>
==History== The Arawakan languages may have developed in the Orinoco River Valley, and subsequently spread widely as speakers migrated, becoming the region's most extensive language family by the time of European contact.<ref name=Hill14>{{cite book |last1= Hill |first1= Jonathan David|last2= Santos-Granero |first2= Fernando |date= 2002 |title= Comparative Arawakan Histories: Rethinking Language Family and Culture Area in Amazonia |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=qb4LoGZnf-8C&q=Lokono&pg=PA41 |publisher= University of Illinois Press|pages= 1–4|isbn= 0252073843 |access-date= June 16, 2014 }}</ref> The group that identified as the Arawak or Lokono settled the coastal and river valley areas of what is now Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Barbados and parts of the island of Trinidad.<ref name=Rouse5/><ref name=Olson29/><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.caribbeanlifenews.com/stories/2018/10/2018-10-05-ga-barbados-arawak-village-cl.html|title=An Arawak Village for Barbados|website=Caribbean Life|date=2 October 2018|access-date=2019-06-02|archive-date=2019-06-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190602131540/https://www.caribbeanlifenews.com/stories/2018/10/2018-10-05-ga-barbados-arawak-village-cl.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.totallybarbados.com/articles/about-barbados/history/before-1492/ |title=1492 and Before: Amerindians in Barbados |website=Totally Barbados |access-date=2019-06-02 |archive-date=2023-05-28| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230528134418/https://www.totallybarbados.com/articles/about-barbados/history/before-1492/|url-status=live}}</ref>
While the Spanish rapidly colonized the Caribbean islands, the Lokono and other mainland peoples resisted colonization for a much longer period. The Spanish were unable to subdue them throughout the 16th century. However, with increased encroachment from other European powers in the early 17th century, the Lokono allied with Spain against the neighboring Kalina (Caribs), who had allied with the English and Dutch.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hill |first1=Jonathan David |last2= Santos-Granero |first2= Fernando |date= 2002 |title= Comparative Arawakan Histories: Rethinking Language Family and Culture Area in Amazonia |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=qb4LoGZnf-8C&q=Lokono&pg=PA41 |publisher= University of Illinois Press|pages= 39–42 |isbn= 0252073843 |access-date= June 16, 2014 }}</ref> Subsequently, the Lokono engaged in trading relationships with the Europeans, an arrangement that led to prosperity. However, economic and social changes in the region in the early 19th century, including the end of the plantation economy, adversely affected the Lokono, and their population began to decline.<ref name=Olson211/>
In the 20th century, the Lokono supplemented their traditional agricultural economy by selling fish and lumber and through migrant labor. Their population has begun to rise again. Approximately 10,000 Lokono are living in Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, as well as thousands of others with Lokono ancestry.<ref name=Olson211/>
== Guyana == The Lokono are one of three Amerindian peoples living in coastal Guyana. The other two are the Kalihna and Warau.<ref name=minority/> Historically, they had matrilineal, agrarian societies.<ref name=minority/> In the 18th century, Dutch colonists hired them as fishermen and salt miners, but they were not enslaved.<ref name=minority/> In the 19th century, Lokono people worked under the English colonists.<ref name=minority/> Lokono have often intermarried with Afro-Guyanese people, and their children are accepted as being Amerind. By the 20th century, many of them assimilated in part to the Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese cultures;<ref name=minority/> however, they have taken efforts to keep their Lokono language alive in their communities. In 1989, John Peter Bennet (Arawak) wrote an ''An Arawak-English Dictionary''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bennett |first1=John Peter |title=An Arawak-English Dictionary |journal=Archaeology and Anthropology |date=1989 |volume=6 |issue=1, 2 |url=https://tiboko.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Arawak-English-Dictionary.pdf |publisher=Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology |location=Georgetown, Guyana}}</ref> In the 20th century, schools have implemented a 10-month language programme for Lokono children.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Outridge |first1=Michael |title=Preserving the Lokono language |url=https://guyanachronicle.com/2019/09/08/preserving-the-lokono-language/ |access-date=6 September 2025 |work=Guyana Chronicle |date=8 September 2019}}</ref>
=== Barbados === In 1627, English colonists convinced a Lokono family to move to Barbados to help with farming.<ref name="rybka97">{{cite journal |last1=Rybka |first1=Konrad |title=Reconstructing Lokono Contributions to Science: The Life Work of Johannes Karwafodi |journal=New West Indian Guide |date=2022 |volume=97 |issue=1–2 |page=73 |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/nwig/97/1-2/article-p53_3.xml |access-date=6 September 2025}}</ref>
== Suriname == Johannes Karwafodi (Lokono, 1878–after 1940) was an important botanist and researcher in Suriname.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rybka |first1=Konrad |title=Reconstructing Lokono Contributions to Science: The Life Work of Johannes Karwafodi |journal=New West Indian Guide |date=2022 |volume=97 |issue=1–2 |pages=55, 57 |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/nwig/97/1-2/article-p53_3.xml |access-date=6 September 2025}}</ref>
== Religion == Lokono have their own Indigenous religion. They respected spirits found in nature. Spiritual healers could communicate with these spirits, cure people, and offer advice.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Journal of Caribbean History Volumes 17-19 |date=1982 |publisher=Caribbean Universities Press |location=St. Lawrence, Barbados |page=138 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Journal_of_Caribbean_History/5UUYAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=Lokono%20religion |access-date=6 September 2025}}</ref>
In the 18th century, Jeptha (Lokono), aided by two boys, translated the Bible and German hymns into Lokono.<ref name="rybka97"/>
== Notable Lokono people == * Oswald Hussein, a Lokono sculptor who incorporates "rituals, spirits and animals held sacred by his culture" into his art.<ref>{{cite web|last=Twedell|first=Louise|title=Sculptor's trip shaped by fate|url=http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/indepth/features/949725.sculptors_trip_shaped_by_fate/|work=This Is London|accessdate=8 September 2012|date=3 October 2006}}</ref> * John Peter Bennett (1914–2011), a Lokono linguist and Anglican priest from Guyana
==References== {{reflist}} {{Ethnic groups in Venezuela}} {{Ethnic groups in Guyana}} {{Ethnic groups in Suriname}} {{Ethnic groups in French Guiana}} {{Authority control}}
Category:Indigenous peoples in French Guiana Category:Indigenous peoples in Guyana Category:Indigenous peoples in Suriname Category:Indigenous peoples of the Guianas Category:Indigenous peoples in Venezuela Category:Lokono