‘Sharing’ Mt. Roraima’s unique geology and allure

Nov 24, 2019 Countryman, News

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By Dennis Nichols

To whom does Mount Roraima belong?
During my school days, we sang with unquestionable zeal, “Born in the land of the mighty Roraima…” It was ours! It came as a shock to later discover that we shared this ‘national’ icon with Venezuela and Brazil. And even later, the knowledge that our touted Pakaraimas were likewise communal, and our rainforest inseparable from the Amazon’s.

Nations and governments claim, quarrel and fight over land as if they have made and shaped it. Historically, people settled and developed unclaimed lands, and in doing so, made use of natural phenomena like rivers, lakes, and mountains; even oceans and deserts, to establish boundaries. It seemed the proper and practical thing to do. But since nature cares nothing for human deliberations, landforms in their own esteem remain the property and patrimony of Mother Earth.
Geologically, the Pakaraima Mountain Range, of which Roraima is a defining image, is said to be billions of years old, and forms a natural divide between the Amazon Basin and the Orinoco Valley to the north. Thus, despite the political divisions of countries and nations, its prominence was as a South American landform.
Prior to the arrival of Columbus, land was more or less a shared heritage among the indigenous Mesoamerican peoples who populated the area many thousands of years ago. We, in Guyana, also had our share, although our Lokono/Arawak and Carib populations were more likely than not latecomers to this region.
It is no surprise that South America’s mighty Amazon and the Orinoco, one of its longer rivers, are inextricably interwoven with the headwaters of Guyana’s Essequibo River, which is the largest between those two giants. We are rightly, and proudly, an integral part of Amazonia.
These river basins collectively drain almost 7,000,000 square kilometres of the continent, covering thousands of smaller interlinked rivers, lakes, creeks, streams, and several ecosystems. The Pakaraimas and Mount Roraima are included in this huge tropical rainforest biome, as evidenced by the region’s unique and unmistakable flora and fauna (Incidentally, Brazil’s national animal, like Guyana’s, is the jaguar).
As borders are established, political boundaries often follow physical ones. They are generally respected by consensus, treaties, international agreements, and the like. Roraima is one such physical division, and despite Venezuela’s claim to Essequibo, it is still the enduring tri-point marker for three nations, although most of it lies in that country’s Canaima National Park.
The rest of this article concerns Roraima’s majesty and mystery. And if any bias creeps in, as Guyanese you’ll understand why.
There are mountains, and there are mountains. Mt. Everest has its superlatives like other iconic peaks, from Africa’s Kilimanjaro to Japan’s Fuji and Greece’s Olympus. Jagged, towering snow-covered peaks like the Matterhorn have their distinctive allure, and volcanic domes, like Kilauea, bespeak nature’s awe. But there is one that in its ancient, primordial grandeur, surpasses the rest, in my opinion of course.
Roraima is a massive, table-top monolith, primarily sandstone; a tepui, in the native tongue of the Pemon, the indigenous people who live in Venezuela’s Gran Sabana where a section of it is located. Approximately nine miles in length, it is over 9000 ft. high, with its summit covering some 12 square miles. Falling away from its rugged summit are sheer vertical cliffs up to 1300 metres high, down which several waterfalls plunge.
Part of the Guiana Shield, Roraima is one of the oldest mountains on Earth, with geologists estimating its age at about two billion years. (At just 60 million years, Everest is a toddler by comparison.) Roraima also stands out as the highest mountain in the Pakaraima chain which stretches some 400 miles east to west, occupying regions in northern Brazil and eastern Venezuela. Its greatest mass however, is in Guyana.
Myth and mystery surround Roraima. From the days of Sir Walter Raleigh searching for fabled El Dorado, prospective explorers and curious visitors have heard it referred to as ‘house of the gods’ particularly the great spirit Makonaima. Many folk tales told about the area and its inhabitants – Kaieteur Falls, the Akawaio, Macushi, Patamona, and Carib peoples – are inseparable from the legends of Roraima and Makonaima.
Roraima’s mystique is compounded by its resemblance to, of all things, an island. The similarity is not that far-fetched, as in photographs taken from a certain angle, it looks like nothing more, or less, than an island floating surreally on a sea of clouds.
In indigenous folklore, it is said to be the stump of a great tree that once bore all fruits and crops. After it was felled, according to legend, a great flood was unleashed, no doubt the mythical origin of the torrential waters that flow from its summit in cascading waterfalls due to the perennial rainfall there.
Some indigenous people perceive the summit as being off limit to humans, and still view it with awe-inspired reverence. However, Roraima has been scaled several times; the first, according to historical records, by Sir Everard im Thurn, a former British Guiana Museum Curator and Stipendary Magistrate, who did so in 1884.
According to one source, some researchers suggest Roraima may not be a mountain at all, but an artificial formation. Others claim that the mountain and surrounding areas have experienced an unusual number of UFO sightings, while a few persons who actually scaled it, reported strange sensations including altered states of consciousness, feelings of reverie, eroticism, and bizarre dreams. Its mysticism has been compared to Stonehenge and the Bermuda triangle.
It has even been portrayed as a ‘lost world’ a la Jurassic Park, and is believed to have inspired the setting in the fictional novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, where prehistoric creatures survived on a remote flat-topped mountain.
Roraima’s reality may, however, be less mystical than some imagine, but still strikingly primordial. Being long isolated from human intrusion, and practically insulated from below by its wreath of clouds, there is something breathtaking about its singularity. Its angular contours and surface, seemingly bereft of life and open to the elemental heavens, lend to it an aura of otherworldliness that is evident even from lifeless photographs.
But naturalists and scientists who have visited Roraima and other tepuis, describe each as a ‘biodiversity hotspot’ due to the large number of species occurring there, many of which are new to science and said to be unique to the Pakaraimas. Roraima’s flora and fauna include pitcher plants, (Heliamphora) bellflowers, (Campanula) the Rapatea Heather, and the Roraima Bush Toad. (Oreophrynella quelchii)
Mount Roraima and the Pakaraimas are indeed ours, but also Venezuela’s, Brazil’s, and the world’s. They were bequeathed to us by Providence, and we humans divvied up the ‘spoils’ so to speak. Nationalistic fervour has its place and time. Land ownership and management by government has practical merit, but as suggested earlier, nature cares little for man’s presumption.
So, when again you hear, or sing the words, “Born in the land of the mighty Roraima” don’t become too jingoistic. Remember, Venezuela and Brazil have as much right to that enigmatic monolith as we do, and their hearts are as proud as ours.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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