Kaieteur Falls

Upriver from the falls, the Potaro Plateau stretches out to the distant escarpment of the Pakaraima Mountains. The Potaro River empties into the Essequibo River which is the 34th longest river in South America and the longest river in Guyana.

History and discovery

Long known about by Indigenous nations in the area, the falls were noticed by Europeans in 1870 by a party led by Charles Barrington Brown, a British geologist appointed as a government surveyor to the colony of British Guiana. Brown and his partner James Sawkins had arrived in Georgetown in 1867; they worked both together and independently, which resulted in Brown discovering the falls alone. He did not have time to investigate Kaieteur Falls closely, so he returned one year later to make comprehensive measurements. Brown's book Canoe and Camp life in British Guiana was published in 1876. Two years later, in 1878, he published Fifteen Thousand Miles on the Amazon and its tributaries.

According to a Patamona Indian legend, Kaieteur Falls was named for Kuik'tuwuk old man or man, a Toshao (chief) who sacrificed himself. Makonaima is a god for Patomana people so by paddling over the falls to save his people. Another legend though was told to Brown by indigenous people on the night of discovery of the falls. Thus, the fall was named "Kaieteur"(kuik-man, tu'wuk -large place, falls means e'me'lú which means "old-man-fall").