When we ask our guests who travel on our Between Two Seas cruise in Costa Rica and Panama, to name their most memorable experience, the overwhelming response is their experience visiting the Embera village in the Darien Jungle of Panama. We have a long involvement with this particular village and even support them through our Our Bear Cares program. So, when I saw this video by our friends over at Turnhere, I was thrilled. The timing of this video is serendipitous as our staff writer, Gail Manahan just finished up a background piece on the tribe. I hope you enjoy the video and Gail's article.
The Emberá people reside in the Darien Jungle beside rivers, and along the coast. They are thought to have migrated here from northern Ecuador and southern Colombia in the mid-1800s. Their population in Panama today is estimated to be around 15,000. The Emberá thrive by practicing subsistence agriculture, hunting, fishing and raising poultry. They also create, on a small scale, plantations to grow commercial crops such as plantains, bananas, rice, and maize.
With the encroachment of the Pan-American highway, Latinos and missionaries, these indigenous people are working to maintain their culture and traditions, to preserve their language and values and to find economic ideas to supplement their meager incomes.
Emberá homes are built on stilts up to 10 feet off the ground, with wooden floors. The stilts protect them from insects on the ground and flooding during the rainy season. People get into their homes using a log in which they have carved steps. Typical houses are composed of two rooms, the largest with hammocks, for sleeping, and the other room for their fire pit and living space. One or two sides are closed and the rest of the house is left open to take advantage of the breezes that cool the house and keep insects from congregating in them.
Schools in most of the villages have been built by the government and their concrete structures are an interesting contrast to the thatched roofs and the more organize feel of the Emberá houses.
The jaguar fruit is very important to the Emberá. It is an inedible fruit that’s pulp is used for making an indelible body paint that lasts up to 12 days. The paint is used for all their celebrations and each design has its own meaning, with age groups and genders assigned specific designs or patterns.
The Emberá produce really fine dugout canoes (piraguas) with very shallow bottoms that can be used even during the dry season when the rivers are low. The Panama Canal Authority employs Emberá craftsmen to make their canoes, which are used by Canal officials to reach the higher parts of the Canal’s watershed. The Emberá power their canoes with paddles, but the Canal officials have motorized their piraguas
Before they were introduced to guns the Emberá were experts at using the blowgun. They dipped the tips of their darts into lethal toxins from poison tree frogs and bullet ants. The Emberá’s lifestyle requires them to be very tough, but when you meet them, their smiles are genuine and warm and their children are friendly and fun-loving.
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