A fire of unknown origin this afternoon gutted the Umana Yana at Kingston.
Reports are that the giant benab was seen on fire just around 3:30pm and within minutes the thatched structure, which was made of leaves, was gutted.
The benab was originally built by more than 60 Wai Wais in 1972 to facilitate the first Non-Aligned Movement meeting. The construction took some 80 days and cost about $26,000.
In 2010, the structure was refurbished by 39 Amerindians of the Wai Wai tribe at a cost of $16m and included the team painstakingly affixing over 500,000 troolie palm leaves, held together by vines gathered from the remote St Cuthbert’s Mission.
The name, Umana Yana, is of Amerindian origin and means the meeting place.
