Embera Wounaan Tribesman Returns from Fishing in Panama

by Venetia Featherstone-Witty

Title

Embera Wounaan Tribesman Returns from Fishing in Panama

Artist

Venetia Featherstone-Witty

Medium

Photograph - Photographs

Description

The Embera Wounaan are a semi-nomadic indigenous people in Panama, living in the province of Darien at the shores of the Chucunaque, Sambu, Tuira Rivers and its waterways. The Embera-Wounaan were formerly and widely known by the name Choco, and they speak the Embera and Wounaan languages, part of the Chocoan language family.The name Embera means "people". Collectively they are known as the Choco and belong to two major groups: the Embira, of upper Atrato and San Juan rivers, and the Wuanana of the lower San Juan River. The Embira are also known as the Atrato, Bedea, Cholo, Darien, Dariena, Ebera, Embera, Emberak, Emperia, and Panama Embera people. The Waunana are also known as the Chanco, Chocama, Noanama, Noenama, Nonama, Wounaan, or Wound Meu people. A third group of Choco are called the Cato, who are also called the Embena, Epera, Eyabida, or Katio people.The Choco, or Embera, people live in small villages of 5 to 20 houses along the banks of the rivers throughout the Chucunaque/Tuira/Balsas River watersheds in the Darien Province of Panama. There are generally three villages on each tributary that branches off from the main river system. Each village is about a half day's walk apart. The villages are built on a small rise, set approximately 100 feet in from the river. The houses of the village are set about 20 to 50 feet apart atop the rise on posts, with no walls, but tall thatched roofs. Around each village, the jungle is partly cleared and replaced by banana and plantain plantations, a commercial crop for the Embera, who sell them to get cash for their outboard motors, mosquito nets, and the like. The hills leading down to the river from the villages are usually hard packed reddish clay. There are sometimes large boulders being played on by naked children. Dugout canoes are usually seen pulled up on the riverbanks.

Their houses are raised off the ground about eight feet. The houses stand on large posts set in the ground, and have thatched roof made from palm fronds. All the joinery is with bejuco vines. There are no walls. Hanging from the supporting posts and beams are hammocks, baskets, pots, bows and arrows, mosquito nets, clothing and other items. The floor is made of split black palm trunks or cana blanca (white cane), and have a kitchen built on a clay platform about three feet square; on top of this base they build a fire, supporting cooking pots over the fire with a tripod of sturdy sticks. The houses are accessed from the ground via a sloped log with deep notches for a ladder. They sometimes turn the notches face down at night if some animal is trying to climb into the house while they sleep.The Choco people use matrilineal descent, practice polygamy and live in family units. The cacique, or chief, of the Choco lived in the largest village and capital of the Choco Nation, named Union Choco. The city is on the banks of the Rio Tuira.

The Choco have their own form of government and live by their own set of unwritten rules. They avoid relying on the Panamanian Police (Guardia Nacional) or any other branch of the Panamanian or Colombian governments. 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. Health care is primarily provided by trained shamans.
The Choco are not known for intermarrying with Panamanians and Colombians.
The land is community owned and community farmed. Everyone in the village pitches in to work at harvest time. If one hunter gets a larger animal, such as a (peccary) or a tapir (macho de monte), everybody in the village shares the meat.
FEATURED 7/19/15 in "Country Landscapes"
FEATURED 7/21/15 in "One A Day Waiting Room Art"
FEATURED 7/30/15 in "Spanish Theme Artwork"
FEATURED 9/6/15 in "New FAA Uploads"
FEATURED 10/12/15 in "Central America"

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July 14th, 2015

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