Caquetio, Caiquetio, or Caiquetia, are natives of northwestern Venezuela, living along the shores of Lake Maracaibo at the time of the Spanish conquest.
They move inland to avoid enslavement by the Spaniards but are eventually destroyed as are their neighbors, the Quiriquire and the Jirajara.
The Caquetíos are also present in Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire when these islandsare first discovered by Alonso de Ojeda in 1499.
The occupants of this region are known as Caquetíos by the Spaniards and their language (Caquetío) belongs to the Arawakan family of languages.
The Caquetío and the Jirajara speak the same language, and their cultures are quite similar.
The Arawakan or Caquetío language is termed a "ghost" language because virtually no trace of it survives.
Only the name remains, saved in seventeenth-century texts.
