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Panama's Kuna Indians Find a Bit of Heaven
| Article
# : |
10234 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1986 |
2,420 Words |
| Author
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Victor Block
A travel writer for a quarter-century, Victor Block writes
the
Times Traveler column for the Washington Times. His work is
syndicated by Copley News Service and Travel Press
International. A guidebook author, he has contributed to
Travel & Leisure, the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and
many other publications. He is a member of the Society of
American Travel Writers and the Travel Journalists Guild. |
As I wandered through narrow dirt passageways that ran between thatched-roof huts, amid curious glances of the diminutive inhabitants of the tiny islands, it was easy to imagine myself transported back in time to pre-Columbian days. When the first explorers sighted the New World, when Panama was discovered in 1501 and capture for the Spanish crown, the San Blas Archipelago - a string of some 365 palm-fringed islands dotting the blue green waters of the Caribbean Sea -was already occupied by the Kuna Indians. Those early discoverers came upon a setting very much like that which greeted me.
Most present-day visitors arrive by way of a white-knuckle descent in a small prop plane, landing on a bumpy runway, the length of an aircraft carrier. Once on the ground, they enter a time warp that is all time more dramatic because of its proximity to the modern world. For while the San Blas Islands lie within sight of Panama's mainland, only about a thirty-minute flight from teeming Panama City, the Kunas remained isolated for centuries. Only in recent years have the approximately 24,000 Indians edged toward the mainstream of today's life, doing so in sometimes quaint ways that have left their strong traditions and colorful culture largely undisturbed.
Here I spotted a young Indian boy sporting a Kansas City Royals baseball cap. There, I heard the clatter of a portable radio; the Kunas have no electricity. On occasion, a smattering of Spanish emerges from the Indian dialect. I saw several teenage girls wearing jeans beneath their brightly colored molas - the unique reverse applique blouses that the Kuna women have transformed from a highly prized native handicraft into an art form.
The exact ancestry of the Kunas remains uncertain. One theory is that they are direct descendants of the Carib Indians, who lived in isolated jungle villages along Panama's coastline. The Mongoloid features of the bronze-colored Kunas have led some anthropologists to speculate about an Asian connection. Another mystery is their small stature, said to be second only to that of the African Pygmies.
Whatever the background of the archipelago's inhabitants, anyone who visits the San Blas Islands is in for a new kind of experience, For example, those who stay overnight at one of the very rustic hotels -not the Hotel Anai ("friend"), which has indoor plumbing and other amenities -must make do with thatch-roofed, sand-floored sleeping and dinning huts, washtub bathing facilities, and outhouses perched over the sea at the ends of the rickety piers.
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