Indigenous leaders from Panama visit Santa Fe to promote their cause

By JULIANA HENAO, The New Mexican, July 1, 2005

            Economic progress presents a challenge and a threat to most indigenous societies in Latin America.

            For the Wounaan tribe in Panama, the country's slow-growing prosperity over the last 10 years forced it off its lands and marginalized its culture.  New highways have plowed through the jungle, forcing the Wounaan to relocate closer to the sea.  The younger Wounaan members forget their native tongue because schools in Panama only teach in Spanish.  And profits made from cultivating certain plants in the jungle have forced the Wounaan relinquish their thousand-year-old territory to big business.

But now with the help of the non-profit organization, Native Future, based in Hawaii, and other activist groups, the tribe has slowly organized itself and now is protesting Panama's government.  The Wounaan are now also making their plight public and raising money for their political cause.

            Several tribe members will visit Santa Fe July 5-15 to talk about their struggle and raise money by selling their crafts and artwork at several galleries, hotels and restaurants in Santa Fe, including Michael Smith Gallery, where 50 percent of the profits will benefit the indigenous community.

            Amy O'Connor, director for Native Future, said the Wounaan tribe has struggled for centuries to keep its territory.  She said settlers to this day have made a tradition of invading the tribe's land and taking control of it.

            "The Wounaan who live in the small villages near the ocean are literally being pushed into the sea," O'Connor said.

            With the push to modernize surrounding them, the tribe is not only losing its land, but its culture, history, language and art are also at risk.

            Leo Quiróz, a tribe member and interpreter of woumeu, the tribe's mother tongue, to Spanish, said several laws in Panama's constitution are being ignored that recognize the tribe as an autonomous entity.

            "We are a thousand-year-old culture," Quiróz said.  "We were here before Panama existed as a country.  But our government has put our native language to the side.  In the schools, all of the teachers speak Spanish.  Our children now only talk in Spanish.  They return form the cities and they don't want to eat their traditional foods.  This is something that is not only happening in Panama but in all of Latin America."

            The Wounaan tribe numbers 8,000, but only three-fourths of them have escaped modernization and are still living like their ancestors, in the jungle in huts, in small family groups, semi-clad, with the men hunting with poison darts.

            Meanwhile, other tribal leaders have fought with the government to gain rights to their territories.

            "More than 60 years ago, the government dedicated and outlined a territory solely for indigenous people, but there was no documentation.  Now that territory is completely invalidated," Quiróz said in interview by phone from Panama City.

            In 1994, the National Pueblos Congress was formed, and according to Tonny Membora, its first president, the organization's purpose was to unite indigenous communities and help them communicate with government agencies about their social, cultural and political struggles.

            With this goal in hand, Native Future was created in 2004.  The organization helps give a voice to the tribe and has supported it financially in its struggle to recover its land.

            "We are docused in helping the Wounaan recover their lands," O'Connor said.  "We have given them financial support and this support has helped establish a central office with an interpreter (Quiróz), who is a liaison between the tribe, the government and the press."

            Clive Kincaid, president of Native Future, said the organization has helped the tribe organize and protest peacefully in Panama's capital.

            Native Future has also helped commercialize the tribe's crafts, which include hand-sewn baskets, and export them to Latin America and the United States.  The profits benefit the tribe's political cause.

            O'Connor said that in the future they would like to organize more exhibitions, like the one in Santa Fe throughout the country.

Browse our collection of Wounaan Indian baskets.