The Kuna people of Panama

During October 3-9, I will be traveling with a team from work to Panama to visit the Kuna people. We will be collecting stories and elaborating further than this video produced by the Travel Channel into how the Kuna language is being translated. We will have access for interviews (streambox, Skype, phone) while we are on the trip. If you’d like to speak with us live during our travels you may contact wycliffe@pinkstongroup.com to schedule an interview.

Kuna People Facts

(source: Wycliffe USA fact sheet)

The Kuna are an indigenous people group of Panama and Colombia that numbers approximately 100,000. There are two distinct dialects of Kuna. The Border Kuna live in villages on either side of the Colombia-Panama border. The traditional home of the San Blas Kuna is on Kuna Yala — coral atolls which hug Panama’s Caribbean coast. In addition, several hundred Kuna live in villages scattered throughout the mountain areas of eastern Panama and in Panama City. The Border Kuna New Testament was published in 1993. The San Blas Kuna New Testament was published in 1995.

Kuna women are famous in art circles around the world for their colorful, intricately handsewn, reverse appliquéd blouses called molas. The ensemble is further enhanced by colorful leg and arm beads, brightly colored red head scarves, and gold nose rings. The men wear typical western attire.

In traditional villages, houses are built of materials harvested from the jungle: cane for the walls and thatched roofs. Most Kuna work in agriculture, fishing and trading and have a diet of fish, plantains, rice and coconut. In island communities, houses are built on the coral atolls, but the fields are on the mainland. Dugout canoes provide a main means of transportation to and from the mainland where crops are tended and hunting for wild game is carried on.
Although some families or communities have boat motors, it is very common to see a man set off at dawn for a fishing trip using a hand-hewn paddle, and, if there is a breeze, aided on his journey by hand-made sail.

In addition to augmenting their income by selling coconuts to passing traders, Kuna women sell their molas to visitors and to Kuna cooperatives in Panama
City. The Kuna have used tourism as a way to provide extra income for their families. The Kuna refer to themselves as Dule. Although many of the younger people and the Kuna who live in the city have learned to communicate in Spanish, many Kuna, especially those living in Kuna Yala, are monolingual.

A main chief and his assistant chiefs preside over all of the islands, but each island also has its own chief who guides the affairs of the village and ensures that village laws are obeyed. The chiefs hold regular meetings, many of which are obligatory and often nightly, in the congreso (meeting house). It is at the congreso where the chiefs teach the people the traditions which have been passed down from generation to generation. It is also in the congreso where disciplinary action is taken against an offending villager and where village problems are discussed and resolved.

The Kuna people are allowed to vote in Panamanian elections and can also hold office. There is an extremely high rate of albinism among the Kuna due to a genetic anomaly.

SOURCES: Encarta, Ethnologue, Panama Information Guide, Maps of the World, Panama mola.

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Scott E. Toncray
Integrated Marketing Communications
T: (407) 375-2770
E: sToncray@gmail.com