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Panama Guaymí
The Guaymí Indians were concentrated in the more remote regions
of Bocas del Toro, Chiriquí, and Veraguas. Because their territory
was divided by the Cordillera Central, the Guaymí resided in two
sections that were climatically and ecologically distinct. On the
Pacific side, small hamlets were scattered throughout the more
remote regions of Chiriquí and Veraguas; on the Atlantic side, the
people remained in riverine and coastal environments.
Contact was recorded between outsiders and Guaymí in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Spanish colonial policy tried
to group the Indians into settlements (reducciones)
controlled by missionaries. This policy enjoyed only limited
success in the area of modern Panama. Although some Indians
converted to Christianity and gradually merged with the surrounding
rural mestizo populace, most simply retreated to more remote
territories.
Roman Catholic missionaries had sporadic contact with the
Guaymí after the colonial era. Protestant missionaries--mostly
Methodists and Seventh- Day Adventists--were active on the fringes
of Guaymí territory on the Atlantic side, beginning in the early
twentieth century. The Guaymí were impressed by missionaries
because most missionaries, unlike mestizos, did not try to take
advantage of them in economic dealings.
Present-day contact was most intense in Veraguas, where the
mestizo farmers were expanding into previously remote lands at a
rapid rate. Guaymí in Bocas del Toro and Chiriquí were less
affected. The entry of these outsiders effectively partitioned
Guaymí lands. There was a rise in the proportion of tribal members
bilingual in Spanish and Guaymí, substantial numbers of whom
eventually abandoned Guaymí and disclaimed their Indian identity.
Government schools, especially along the Atlantic portion of
Guaymí territory, attracted Indian settlements. Many parents were
anxious for their children to attend at least primary school. They
arranged for their children to board as servants with Antillean
black families living in town, so that the children could attend
classes. The outcome was a substantial number of Guaymí young
adults who were trilingual in Guaymí, Spanish, and English.
Guaymí subsistence relied on crop raising, small-scale
livestock production, hunting, and fishing. In contrast to the
slash-and-burn agriculture practiced by the majority mestizo
population, Guaymí agriculture was more similar to the type of
exploitation practiced in the pre-Columbian era. It placed less
reliance on machete and match, and more emphasis on the gradual
selective clearing and weeding of plots at the seedling stage of
crop growth. The Guaymí burned some trees (that did not have to be
felled), but generally left more vegetation to decay. This strategy
did not subject the fragile tropical soils to the intense leaching
that often follows clear cutting and burning of the tropical
forest. The Guaymí agricultural system relied upon an intimate and
detailed knowledge of the forest flora. The Guaymí marked seasons
not as much by changes in temperature and precipitation as by
differences in plants. They noted the times of the year by
observing when various plants matured. As an agricultural system it
was highly diversified, and the wide range of crop varieties
planted conferred resistance to the diverse pests that afflict more
specialized farming systems. As an example, Guaymí banana trees
produced fruit for sale during all the years that blight had
essentially shut down the commercial banana plantations in the
region.
Like much of rural Panama, Guaymí territories were subjected to
considerable pressure. The length of time land was left fallow
decreased. In addition, there were few stands of even well-
established secondary forest, let alone untouched tropical forest.
In the more intensively used regions, cultivators noted the
proliferation of the short, coarse grasses that are the bane of
traditional slash-and-burn agricultural systems
(see Rural Society
, this ch.).
The decline in stands of virgin and secondary forest led to a
decrease in wildlife, which affected the Guaymí diet. Domestic
livestock grew in importance as a source of protein because larger
animals, such as tapir, deer, and peccary, once plentiful, were
available only occasionally. Smaller livestock, such as poultry,
was extremely vulnerable to disease and predation. Pigs and cattle
were raised, but they were among the most consistently saleable
products available; as a result, the Guaymí had to choose between
protein and cash income. Overall, the diet was quite starchy, with
bananas, manioc, and yams the main food items.
Wildlife was adversely affected by modern hunting techniques,
also. Traditional hunting and fishing techniques had a minimal
impact on the species involved. However, the small-caliber rifles,
flashlights, and underwater gear used by Guaymí in the modern era
were far more destructive.
The link of most Guaymí to the market economy was similar to
that of many poorer rural mestizos. The Indians bought such items
as clothing, cooking utensils, axes, blankets, alcohol, sewing
machines, wristwatches, and radios. They earned the money for these
purchases through period wage labor and the sale of livestock,
crops, and crafts (the most unpredictable source of income).
Most Guaymí young men had some experience as wage laborers,
although their opportunities were usually limited and uncertain.
Some acquired permanent or semipermanent jobs. A few managed to get
skilled employment as mechanics or overseers. Fewer still became
teachers. The principal employers for Guaymí were the surrounding
banana plantations and cattle ranches. Because government policy
after the 1950s limited the hiring of foreign laborers on the
plantations, Guaymí formed a major part of the banana plantation
work force. A number of Indian families settled in towns to work on
the plantations. Nonetheless, the wages Guaymí earned proved
illusory since most, if not all, of their earnings were spent on
living expenses while away from home.
The Guaymí link to the national economy not only provided cash
for the purchase of a variety of consumer goods but also acted as
a safety valve, relieving the pressure on land. Their dependence on
this link was evident during the 1960s, when the Guaymí endured a
real hardship because of a decline in demand for labor on banana
plantations.
Settlement patterns among the Guaymí were intimately linked to
kinship and social organization. Hamlets, each typically
representing a single extended family, were scattered throughout
the territory. There were no larger settlements of any permanence
serving as trading or ceremonial centers. A few mestizo towns on
the fringes of Guaymí territory served as trading posts.
Each hamlet was ideally composed of a group of consanguineally
related males, their wives, and their unmarried children.
Nevertheless, this general rule glossed over residence patterns of
considerable fluidity and complexity. At least at some points in an
individual's life, he or she resided in a three-generation
household. Households, however, took many forms, including nuclear
families; polygynous households; groups of brothers, their wives,
and unmarried children; a couple, their unmarried children, and
married sons and their wives and children; or a mother, her married
sons, and their wives and children.
A hamlet defined an individual's social identity, and access to
land and livelihood was gained through residence in a specific
hamlet. Typically, a person's closest kin resided there. The wide
variety of family forms represented in hamlets reflected the
diverse ways individual Guaymí used the ties of kinship to gain
access to land. Depending on the availability of plots, an
individual couple might live with the husband's family (the ideal),
the wife's kin, the husband's mother (if his parents did not live
together), the husband's mother's kin, or his father's mother's
kin.
Guaymí had pronounced notions about which tasks were
appropriately male or female; but men would build fires, cook, and
care for children if necessary and women would, as the occasion
demanded, weed and chop firewood. Women were never supposed to
clear forest, herd cattle, or hunt. Nonetheless, a measure of
expediency dictated who actually performed the required duties.
Because most men migrated to look for employment, a significant
segment of the agricultural work force was absent for lengthy
periods of time. Consequently, women assumed a larger share of the
farmwork during those absences. Their own male kinsmen helped with
the heavier tasks. Children began assisting their parents at
approximately eight years of age. By the time a girl was fourteen
to fifteen years old and a boy seventeen to eighteen, they were
expected to do the work of an adult.
Sharing of food and labor was an important form of exchange
among kin. If a hamlet needed food, a woman or child would be sent
to solicit food from relatives. Kin also formed a common labor pool
for virtually all agricultural work. Guaymí did not hire each other
as wage laborers. Non-kin assisted each other only for specific
festive or communal works. Within the hamlet, all able-bodied
family members were expected to contribute labor. Kin from
different hamlets exchanged labor on a day-by-day basis.
Individuals were careful not to incur too many obligations so as
not to compromise their own household's agricultural production.
Those who received assistance were obliged to provide food, meat,
and chicha (a kind of beer) for all the workers. Moreover,
there was supposed to be enough food to send a bit home with each
worker.
Marriage was the primary means by which Guaymí created social
ties to other (non-kin) Guaymí. The ramifications of marriage
exchanges extended far beyond the couple concerned. The selection
of a spouse was the choice of an allied group and reflected broader
concerns such as access to land and wealth, resolution of
longstanding disputes, or acquisition of an ally in a previously
nonaligned party.
Fathers usually arranged marriages for children. An agreement
was marked by a visit of the groom and his parents to the home of
the prospective bride and her family. The marriage itself was fixed
through a series of visits between the two households involved. No
formal ceremony marked the event. Ideally, marriage arrangements
were to be balanced exchanges between two kin groups.
Initially the young couple resided with the bride's parents
because a son-in-law owed his parents-in-law labor. Thus, a bride
usually did not leave her natal hamlet for at least a year. For the
husband, persuading his wife to leave her family and join his was
a major, and often insurmountable, hurdle. If the marriage
conformed to the ideal of a balanced exchange, however, a husband's
task was considerably easier in that his wife had to join him or
her brother would not receive a wife.
Young men in groups without daughters to exchange in marriage
were at a disadvantage. Although they could (and did) ask for wives
without giving a sister in return, the fathers of the brides gained
significantly. A son-in-law whose family did not provide a bride to
his wife's family faced longer labor obligations to his in-laws and
uncertainty about when, or if, his wife would join him and his
family.
A minority of all marriages were polygynous. Traditionally, a
man's ability to support more than one wife was testimony to his
wealth and prestige. Co-wives were often sisters. A man could marry
his wife's younger sister after he had established a household and
acquired sufficient resources to support two families. Wives lived
together until their sons matured and married. At that time, an
extended household would reconstitute itself around a woman and her
married sons and their wives and children. Younger wives in
polygynous marriages had a tendency to leave their husbands as they
aged. A reasonably successful Guaymí man might expect to begin his
married life in a monogamous union, have several wives as he grew
more wealthy, and finish his life again in a monogamous marriage.
In general, there were few external indications of differences
in wealth, and there was no formal ranking of status in Guaymí
society. Prestige accrued to the individual Guaymí male who was
able to demonstrate largesse in meeting his obligations to kin and
in-laws. A young man began to gain the respect of his in-laws by
providing them well with food and labor. He further demonstrated
his abilities by farming his own plots well enough to provide for
his family and those of his kin who visited.
An individual might also gain prestige through his ability to
settle differences. Historically, disputes between Guaymí were
settled at public meetings chaired by a person skilled in
arbitration. An individual's prestige was in proportion to his
ability to reach a consensus among the parties involved in the
dispute. In present-day Guaymí society, a government-appointed
representative decided the case. Guaymí gained prestige by
proposing settlements more acceptable to the disputants than those
of the government representative. As an individual's reputation
spread, other disputants sought him out to arbitrate. The entire
process emphasized the extent to which indigenous political
structures were acephalous and loosely organized. There were no
durable, well-organized, non-kin groups that functioned in the
political sphere; decision making was largely informal and
consensual.
In the 1980s, government plans to develop the Cerro Colorado
copper mine, along the Cordillera Central in eastern Chiriquí
Province, gave impetus to the efforts of some Guaymí to organize
politically. Most of the mining project as well as a planned slurry
pipeline, a highway, and the Changuinola I Hydroelectric Project
were in territory occupied by the Guaymí. Guaymí attended a number
of congresses to protect their claims to land and publicize their
misgivings about the projects. The Guaymí were concerned about the
government's apparent lack of interest in their plight, about the
impact on their lands, and their productivity, and about the effect
of dam construction on fishing and water supplies. Guaymí were also
worried that proposed cash indemnification payments for lands or
damages would be of little benefit to them in the long run. As of
late 1987, however, the matter had not been fully resolved.
Data as of December 1987
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