|
Panama Indians
According to the 1980 census, Panama's indigenous population
numbered slightly over 93,000, or 5 percent of the total population
(see
table 4, Appendix A). Censuses showed Indians to be a
declining proportion of the total population; they had accounted
for nearly 6 percent of all Panamanians in 1960. The figures were
only a rough estimate of the numbers of Indians in Panama, however.
Precise numbers and even the exact status of several smaller tribes
were uncertain, in part because many Indians were in the process of
assimilation. Language, although the most certain means of
identifying a person as an Indian, was by itself an unreliable
guide. There were small groups of people who spoke only Spanish and
yet preserved other indigenous practices and were considered
Indians by their neighbors. The Guaymí, for example, showed little
concern about linguistic purity and had adopted a wide variety of
words of Spanish origin; nonetheless, they assiduously preserved
indigenous religious belief and practice. By contrast, the far more
acculturated Térraba would not use foreign words, even for
nonindigenous items.
The Indian population was concentrated in the more remote
regions of the country, and for most tribes, isolation was a
critical element in their cultural survival. The Guaymí, numbering
roughly 50,000 to 55,000, or slightly more than half of the Indian
population, inhabited the remote regions of northwest Panama. The
Cuna (also referred to as the Kuna) were concentrated mainly along
the Caribbean coast east of Colón; their population was
approximately 30,000, about one-third of all Indians.
In addition, there were a number of smaller groups scattered in
the remote mountains of western Panama and the interior of Darién.
The Chocó (or Embera) occupied the southeastern portion of Darién
along the border with Colombia. Most were bilingual in Spanish and
Chocó, and they reportedly had intermarried extensively with
Colombian blacks. They appeared to be in a state of advanced
acculturation.
The Bribri were a small section of the Talamanca tribe of Costa
Rica. They had substantial contact with outsiders. Many were
employed on banana plantations in Costa Rica, and Protestant
missionaries were active among them, having made significant
numbers of converts.
The Bókatá lived in eastern Bocas del Toro along the Río
Calovébora. Linguistically, Bókatá speech was similar to Guaymí,
but the two languages were not mutually intelligible. The tribe had
not been as exposed to outsiders as had the Guaymí. In the late
1970s, there were virtually no roads through Bókatá territory; by
the mid-1980s, there was a small dirt road passable only in dry
weather.
The Térraba were another small tribe, living in the environs of
the Río Teribe. In the twentieth century, the tribe suffered major
population swings. It was decimated by recurrent tuberculosis
epidemics between 1910 and 1930, but population expanded rapidly
with the availability of better medical care after the 1950s.
Contact with outsiders also increased. A Seventh Day Adventist
mission was active in the tribe for years, and there was
substantial acculturation with the dominant mestizo culture. By the
late 1980s, the Térraba had abandoned most of their native crafts
production, and their knowledge of the region's natural history was
declining. They even looted their ancestral burial mounds for gold
to sell. They refused employment on nearby banana plantations until
the early 1970s, when a flood swept away most of the alluvial soil
they had farmed. The Guaymí attempted to include the Térraba in
Guaymí territory, but the Térraba stoutly resisted these efforts.
All of the tribes were under the jurisdiction of both the
provincial and national governments. The Indigenous Policy Section
of the Ministry of Government and Justice bore primary
responsibility for coordinating programs that affected Indians,
serving as a liaison between the tribes and the national
government. There were a number of special administrative
arrangements made for those districts in which Indians constituted
the majority of the population. The 1972 Constitution required the
government to establish reserves (comarcas) for indigenous
tribes, but the extent to which this mandate had been implemented
varied. By the mid-1980s, the Cuna were established in the Comarca
de San Blas and the Chocó had government approval for official
recognition of their own comarca in Darién. The Guaymí and
the government continued negotiations about the extent of Guaymí
territory. The Guaymí contended that government proposals would
leave about half the tribe outside the boundaries of the reserve.
Indian education has frequently been under the de facto control
of missionaries. The national government made a late entry into the
field, but by the late 1970s there were nearly 200 Indian schools
with nearly 15,000 students. Nevertheless, illiteracy among Indians
over 10 years of age was almost 80 percent, in comparison with less
than 20 percent in the population at large.
Data as of December 1987
|
