I sit cross-legged on the rough mahogany floor, 8 feet off the ground in the small, round, palm-thatched pole house.

From the Panamanian Rain Forest to Canyon Road: Wounaan Basket Makers Stitch to Survive

by Barbara Gerber

How do you stitch a forest? How do you stitch a home? How do you stitch together a life in which your culture is preserved, your children are educated, and your people live vibrantly together in the forest as they have for centuries, not as ghosts in an urban wilderness?

For the indigenous Wounaan tribe of Panama, you do it by creating baskets of such extraordinary quality that money from their sale in the United States will pay an international lawyer to argue your land claim in court, and you will come out of the courtroom with title to your ancestral lands. This is the Wounaan's plan, and with a little help from their friends, they will win their struggle.

And who are their friends? There's Michael Smith, who sells their baskets at his gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe and donates a portion of the proceeds to another friend, Native Future, a nonprofit organization based in Hawaii that works to protect marginalized indigenous cultures and the ecosystems in which they live. And then there's you, who are invited to meet the artisans and spokesperson for the tribe at the gallery from July 11 to July 21, and who, with any luck, will go home with a basket of astounding quality and craftsmanship.

Who and where are the Wounaan?

The Wounaan are a tribe of approximately 6,800 people who live in 18 small villages scattered throughout the eastern rainforests of Panama. Traditionally they are seminomadic forest dwellers who live in small groups of extended families, settling in clearings close to meandering rivers. The rivers flow out into the ocean through large, complex estuaries and extensive stands of mangrove. The surrounding mountains are covered in wet forests draped with dense moss and tangles of vegetation.

Living largely the same as their ancestors have for thousands of years, with little exception the Wounaan still live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the forest, and all the materials for their baskets and carvings come from the forest. Their language, although it contains some words borrowed from Spanish, is essentially the tongue of their ancestors.

Wounaan villages are extremely remote. To reach them from Panama City, one must travel by bus or car for several hours and then by small boat for about six hours. Verne Stanford, who works at Michael Smith Gallery, made the trip last year and wrote an essay about his experience. Describing the arduous river passage, which involved violently choppy water and incessant gasoline fumes from an outboard motor, Stanford writes, "I am nauseous, have large bruises on my forearms from the gunnels, I've chipped one tooth, and I'll find it painful to sit down for the next two days."

But it seems the journey was worth it. He describes observing a group of women as they stitch baskets: "I am in the village of Rio Hondo in the Panamanian jungle. . . . I sit cross-legged on the rough mahogany floor, 8 feet off the ground in the small, round, palm-thatched pole house. . . . Drifting through the damp air are the mixed sounds of chickens, wild birds, distant barking dogs and the continual chip, chip, chip of men with chisels on cocobolo or mahogany.  A bit of smoke wafts up from a nearly dead cooking log, carrying the heavier sweetness of banana, coconut and plantain."

Stitching baskets has become the predominant activity for many of the tribe's craftspeople. Women, and sometimes men, stitch for days, weeks, months, sometimes years on one basket. Stanford pauses to appreciate the focus, vision and devotion it takes to produce such work: "She stitches while I watch, and I am suddenly overwhelmed with a kind of privileged insight. I wonder how it is that some people are able to make this investment. What do the masters have in their internal clock that places the final piece up to the front of their consciences? What allows someone to pursue such a long-term goal?"

It seems survival is a powerful motivator.

The struggle

Although the Wounaan have historically been seminomadic, in the 1950s they began forming villages so their children could attend school. These new villages attracted the attention of the Panamanian government, and with some very positive results. In 1972, a new national constitution gave Panama's indigenous peoples the right to participate in the political system, and many tribes were granted legal rights to their lands. However, there was one problem: not all of the Wounaan's ancestral lands were included in the protected area, or comarca. 

At the same time, beginning in the 1970s, Panama began using U.S. funds to extend the Pan-American Highway, which until that point had stopped at an area of undeveloped forest between Panama City and the Panama-Columbia border. The extension of this highway not only altered the area's transportation system, which had previously been dependent upon rivers and tides, but also opened up new roads and a frontier for colonization. Landless peasants from Panama's western provinces began arriving in search of land, typically cutting down the forest to farm and raise cattle. These colonists have often wittingly or unwittingly crossed the boundaries of indigenous lands, which has resulted in land disputes, mistrust and even violence between the tribes and the newcomers.

At this time, at least 37 Wounaan and other native villages are located outside the legally protected comarcas, and thousands of indigenous people are embroiled in land disputes. This is where Native Future comes in: the organization is helping the Wounaan to resolve these disputes legally and peacefully by presenting historical evidence of land tenure to the Panamanian government. If they are successful, the tribe will get title to all of their ancestral lands, not just those protected in the original comarcas.

Native Future

Zach McNish, one of the founders and the executive director of Native Future, is devoted to this cause. McNish, 29, became acquainted with the Wounaan when he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama. He explains that as an outsider, it is often hard to know what is best for another culture. "In the Peace Corps, it is so hard to figure out what's the right thing to do when you're working with international cultures. You wonder, Am I imposing my will, or is this what they really want?"

But this doubt was not present for McNish in this case. "When I was working with the Wounaan, it was so clear that they just wanted their land," he asserts. "It's not worth working on anything - ecotourism, schools, clean water - if they don't have title to their land."

McNish also stresses how much he enjoys working on the Wounaan's behalf since his return to the United States. "They are a unique, open, warm and incredibly friendly people," he says. "I couldn't not help them."

Of course the Wounaan are motivated to protect the forest because they depend upon it for their way of life. But this ever-warming planet also benefits from it. "There are two issues," McNish continues, "one environmental, one cultural." When we recall that the Earth's tropical rainforests are the "lungs" of the planet, we realize that the Wounaan's struggles are our own.

It was after returning from the Peace Corps that McNish, along with longtime basket dealer Clive Kincaid and others, formed Native Future, which was incorporated in 2003. A tiny organization with an annual budget of only $25,000, Native Future is working to help the Wounaan and two other indigenous groups in Panama win the struggle for their lands.

To accomplish this, Native Future has launched three projects:

1. The Native Land Tenure Project helps three Wounaan communities obtain legal title to their traditional lands. Native Future helps the Wounaan pay for a Panamanian lawyer, who has successfully petitioned the government to temporarily halt deforestation in some areas. The lawyer is also trying to obtain title to the lands through the Panamanian judicial process. If this fails, the next step will be to file a claim with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
2. The Native Leadership Project supports tribal leaders in their efforts to gain recognition from the government. Native Future helps defray travel, meeting and communication expenses for the Wounaan leaders.
3. The Native Education Project provides scholarships and books to native students. The program also supports Leonides Quiroz, a tribal member who is working toward his university law degree.

So fine it feels like silk

Today it is their baskets and carvings that provide a link between the Wounaan and the outside world. However, it surprises many people to learn that they have not always stitched baskets such as these. Traditionally they created only utilitarian baskets to store everyday items.

"The Wounaan did not have a tradition of artful basketry," explains Michael Smith. "With 300 inches of rain a year, the baskets would have rotted." But they were encouraged to develop the art so they could generate enough income to finance their legal battles.

Smith, who for 14 years has been an antique-Indian-art dealer, is quick to point out the difference between the Wounaan's endeavor and the dynamic that is present with most of the world's struggling indigenous populations. "This art is not dying out," says Smith. "It is getting better. The baskets keep evolving in quality. Every time we get a shipment we think, No way. Do they really keep getting better each time? And they are."

All of the fibers in the baskets are gathered from a variety of forest palms. The Wounaan process them by hand and either bleach them in the sun or dye them with plant pigments or mud. One kind of palm is used to form the coils, while another is split to form a thread that is as strong as nylon. Around each coil they stitch, twisting the palm thread and plunging the needle through the fibers over and over again. The larger baskets are estimated to have upward of 1,200,000 stitches. Verne Stanford estimates that the finest baskets contain between 1,000 and 1,320 stitches per square inch. The result is a basket so fine and so tight that its surface feels like silk.

The baskets range in size from 2 to 28 inches in diameter. Prices for Michael Smith's current stock range from $50 to $7,000. (Smith remembers one basket, though, that sold for $13,000.) The baskets are decorated with designs derived from the Wounaan's traditional body painting or depict colorful local rainforest animals.

Many of the men create lifelike sculptures of rainforest animals using the hard dark wood of the cocobolo tree or the more easily carved white meat of the tagua nut. These are also available at Michael Smith Gallery.

Smith said yes

"I did not want these baskets, I did not look for these baskets, and I was going to say no to them," confesses Smith, recalling how Clive Kincaid had wandered into his gallery three years ago asking him to host a benefit for the Wounaan and their baskets. "But fortunately I said yes. . . . It's changed all of our lives."

Smith donates 10 percent of the sale of each basket to Native Future year-round. During the annual benefit, however, he donates 25 percent. Over the past two years the gallery has sold about 900 Wounaan baskets and has donated approximately $30,000 to the organization.

"Every single person who comes in here is taken by these baskets," Smith marvels. "They are the finest baskets being made in the world today, by these simple women in the middle of nowhere."

And why did he say yes? Smith muses, "I thought someday we might look back and say we saved a rainforest because we said yes to that show."

Meet the artists and spokesperson

The third annual Wounaan Basket Show and Benefit will be at Michael Smith Gallery, 526 Canyon Road, from July 11 through July 21. Two Wounaan master weavers, Francisca Garcia and Marcela Piraza, along with native law student Leonides Quiroz, will be at the gallery to talk about their challenges and the future of the Wounaan tribe.

"I would love for these women to know how people feel about their work," Smith says. "Some of these women are the best basket makers in the world."

Learn more about the Wounaan and their baskets at www.nativefuture.org and www.michaelsmithgallery.com.