Coquivacoa
Coquivacoa or Coquibacoa is an indigenous name for an area in north-west Venezuela - either the Gulf of Venezuela (as used by Colombian President Alfonso López Michelsen in 1974) or Lake Maracaibo (as others argue[1][2]) or possibly the wider region. It may also be the name of an indigenous people itself, in particular the people fought by Ambrosius Ehinger before his 1529 establishment of Maracaibo; the name "Maracaibo" may derive from a Coquivacoa chieftain killed by Ehinger. This people may be related to (or even identical to) the Wayuu or the Caquetio people.
![](../I/m/Guajirapeninsula1.png)
The Spanish conquistador Alonso de Ojeda had been appointed Governor of Coquibacoa in 1502, a position that only lasted a few months. He had applied the term Coquibacoa to the Guajira Peninsula, which Ojeda erroneously thought was an island.
Legacy
A parish in Maracaibo is named Coquivacoa. Gran Coquivacoa is a Gaita Zuliana group founded in 1968. There is a regional television station named Coquivacoa Televisión. Singer Alí Primera wrote a song called Coquivacoa.
There is a city named Chivacoa in Yaracuy state, founded by Caquetio people.
References
- (in Spanish) Graziano Gasparini (1976), Templos coloniales de Venezuela, E. Armitano
- Miguel Angel Burelli Rivas said that the term had never been applied to the Gulf of Venezuela and actually referred to Lake Maracaibo - (in Spanish) Leandro Area, Elke de Stockhausen (2001), El Golfo de Venezuela, Instituto de Estudios Políticos, Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas, Universidad Central de Venezuela, p128