Wayuu Match

Whilst playing around with Gedmatch, we came across some more recent kits for Wayuu peoples of South America. Since they appear to have been in contact or at least interacted with the Taino (or the ancestors of the Taino) based on linguistic evidence, we have always wondered if any Wayuu would match Caribbean peoples with indigenous ancestry genetically. Well, we seem to have encountered one we share 6.1 cM of DNA with on a segment of our second chromosome. Assigned to "Indigenous Puerto Rico" by Ancestry, this seems to suggest the indigenous component of Puerto Rican ancestry is similar to the genetics of the Wayuu and other Arawakan speakers of this part of South America. In order to confirm our findings, however, one must thoroughly check the segment and see if any other matches can be found there for indigenous segments in Puerto Ricans and Wayuu. Of course, one must also consider the large-scale slave trade of indigenous captives from the circum-Caribbean into the Caribbean by the Spanish during the 1500s. From the limited tools of Gedmatch, the shared segment appears to be "Amerindian" if one trusts admixture chromosome painting tools. However, there is only one Wayuu sample we share at least 6 cM of DNA with.