An Interesting Culture
The name Embera means people. Collectively they are known as
the Chocó and belong to two major groups: the Embera, of upper Atrato and San Jaun Rivers, and the Wuanana of the lower San Juan River..
The Darien Jungle is the second largest rainforest area in the world (after the Amazon)
and 20,000 Embera live in small groups in the Darien. The jungle serves as a
buffer zone between Panama and Columbia. There are no roads in the wild
desolate area. There is a 54-mile
stretch called the Darien Gap of the Pan-American Highway that is impassable.
Cars have to be shipped.
Some Embera live in the Canal Zone
and can do so as long as they do not hunt or cut down trees. Originally the
tribe was hunter-gatherers, but today they live on jungle fruits, heart of
palm, and tubular plants such as yucca and fishing.
The Chocó, or Embera people live in
small villages of 5 to 20 houses along the banks of the rivers throughout river
watersheds in the Darien Province of Panama. There are generally three
villages, about a half day's walk apart, on each tributary that branches off
from the main river system. The villages are built on a small rise, set
approximately 100 feet in from the river. To avoid wild animals such as peccary
and jaguar from inhabiting the homes, houses are built on posts 6-8-feet above
ground and are 20– 50 feet apart. The raised floor also gives protection from
flooding and allows for cooling of the hut. There are no walls on the palm fond
thatched roof huts. The joinery is done with bejuco vines.
Baskets, pots, bows and arrows,
mosquito nets, clothing and other items hang from the beams. They sleep on the
floor. The floor is made of split black palm trunks or cana blanca (white
cane), and has a kitchen built on a three foot square clay platform that forms
a fire base for cooking. A sloped log with deep notches for a ladder provides
access to the hut. The notches are faced down at night.
The jungle is partly cleared around
each village and replaced by banana and plantain plantations, a commercial crop
for them that provides cash for their
outboard motors, mosquito nets etc. The hills leading down to the river are usually
hard packed reddish clay. Dugout canoes
are pulled up on the riverbanks
The land is community
owned and community farmed. Everyone in the village pitches in to work at
harvest time. The tribe farms and both men and women work in the fields. Women
carry corn and grain, but the men carry the firewood.
If one hunter gets a
larger animal, such as a peccary, or a tapir everybody shares the meat. These
Indians live separately in the jungle. These people are very individualistic
and totally apolitical. You deal with them one on one. The Embrea use a flute
and a drum to keep beat for their simple dances.
Small in stature, their skin is a
pretty bronze. Health care primarily is provided by trained Shamans. The men
wear nothing but a minimal loin cloth. The women wear bright sarongs wrapped at
the waist as a skirt. Women generally do not cover their torsos, but wear multi
strands of seed beads and wear long straight black hair. The children go naked
until puberty, and no one wears shoes.
They paint their bodies with a dye
made from the fruit of the black palm tree. The black dye is thought to repel
insects. On special occasions, using this same dye, they print intricate
geometric patterns all over their bodies, using wood blocks carved from balsa
wood. The paint fades in a few days and is known as the two-week tattoo. The women also wear silver necklaces and earrings
on special occasions; many of the necklaces are made from old silver coins. A
hole is punched in the coin and a silver
chain run through it. Many of the coins on these necklaces date to the 19th
century and are passed down from mother to daughter.
Women weave baskets from
leaf strands of the black palm. The tightly woven watertight baskets are called
canastas.
The men do some rather
good wood carvings from rosewood, known locally as cocobolo. They also carve
small figures and animals from the vegetable ivory nut known as tagua. Until 1936 many buttons were made
from this nut. The nut is about the size of a small plum, hard, and rather
difficult to carve. When polished they certainly look like ivory.
Embera dances reflect their spiritual connection to
nature.
The Embrea people use matrilineal
descent, practice polygamy and live in family units. They have their own form
of government and live by their own unwritten rules avoiding the Panamanian
Police or any other branch of the Panamanian or Colombian government. Not
assimilated into Panamanian or Colombian society, the Embera people do not hold
any civic positions and have no members who have become part of the Guardia
Nacional in Panama. They do not intermarry with Panamanians and Colombians.
