Waʼikhana
indigenous people of Colombia and Brazil
The Pira-tapuya, or variations like Pira-Tapuia, Piratapuyo, etc., or Tapuya (Tucano: Wa’îkɨ̃hɨ) for short, are an Indigenous people of the Amazon regions. They live along the Vaupés River in Colombia and in the state of Amazonas, Brazil.
Languages
The Pira-tapuya call themselves Waíkana.
They speak the Piratapuyo language, one of the Eastern Tucanoan languages.
Other ethnic groups in the region also speak Eastern Tucanoan languages apart from the Tariana people, who originally spoke an Arawakan language.
The lingua franca of the region is the Tucano language, which has around 20,000 speakers.
Locations
The Pira-tapuya live along the banks of the Vaupés River and its tributaries such as the Tiquié, Papurí and Querari rivers.
The 1,375 kilometres (854 mi) Uaupés River rises in Colombia and flows for 845 kilometres (525 mi) to the border with Brazil.
For over 188 kilometres (117 mi) it forms the border between Colombia and Brazil, then for 342 kilometres (213 mi) flows through Brazil to the point where it joins the Rio Negro.
The main settlements are the town of Mitú, capital of the Vaupés Department in Colombia, and Iaraueté, seat of a district in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira.
The public source identifies “Waʼikhana” as indigenous people of Colombia and Brazil. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Waʼikhana, indigenous and people.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Waʼikhana”, the useful work is to connect “indigenous people of Colombia and Brazil” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1091121. Authority coordinates are 0.737, -69.468. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Waʼikhana” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.