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Panama - Early History

Estimates vary greatly of the number of Indians who inhabited the isthmus when the Spanish explorers arrived. By some accounts, the population was considerably greater than that of contemporary Panama. Some Panamanian historians have suggested that there might have been a population of 500,000 Indians from some 60 "tribes," but other researchers have concluded that the Cuna alone numbered some 750,000.

Besides the Cuna, who constituted by far the largest group in the area, two other major groups, the Guaymi and the Choco, have been identified by ethnologists. The Guaymi, of the highlands near the Costa Rican border, are believed to be related to Indians of the Nahuatlan and Mayan nations of Mexico and Central America. The Choco on the Pacific side of Darien Province appear to be related to the Chibcha of Colombia.

Although the Cuna, now found mostly in the Comarca de San Bias, an indigenous territory or reserve considered part of Colon Province for some official purposes, have been categorized as belonging to the Caribbean culture, their origin continues to be a subject of speculation. Various ethnologists have indicated the possibility of a linguistic connection between the name Cuna and certain Arawak and Carib tribal names. The possibility of cultural links with the Andean Indians has been postulated, and some scholars have noted linguistic and other affinities with the Chibcha. The implication in terms of settlement patterns is that the great valleys of Colombia, which trend toward the isthmus, determined migration in that direction.

Lines of affiliation have also been traced to the Cueva and Coiba tribes, although some anthropologists suggest that the Cuna might belong to a largely extinct linguistic group. Some Cuna believe themselves to be of Carib stock, while others trace their origin to creation by the god Olokkuppilele at Mount Tacarcuna, west of the mouth of the Rio Atrato in Colombia.

Among all three Indian groups — the Cuna, Guaymi, and Choco — land was communally owned and farmed. In addition to hunting and fishing, the Indians raised corn, cotton, cacao, various root crops and other vegetables, and fruits. They lived then — as many still do — in circular thatched huts and slept in hammocks. Villages specialized in producing certain goods, and traders moved among them along the rivers and coastal waters in dugout canoes.

The presence of coconut on the Pacific coast of Panama is attested by a number of historical documents scattered over a 23-year period, from 1516 to 1539, mostly attributable to the chronicles of Pedro Mártir de Anglería and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (Oviedo). The complete work of the latter (Amador de los Ríos, 1851) remained unpublished for three centuries. These testimonies were compiled with a number of shorter accounts in Patiño (1964, 2002 pp 241–270), which left no doubt about the presence of coconut in the Americas at the time of European contact.

The Panama Tall coconut tree is no doubt descended from cultivated populations. It must have been brought to the Americas, because the distance from the Philippines to Panama prevents unaided drifting. At the same time, it is clear that the tradition of coconut cultivation was not passed to the natives of Central America, maybe because those who brought it had little contact with them, because they did not stay long enough, or because they reached America in another region, possibly more to the south. A growing amount of evidence attests to the existence of ancient trans-Pacific travels from Polynesia to America and in the reverse direction.

Indians who valvied only the meat of pearl oysters could not understand the white man's joy at seeing the pearls, which they could not eat. The fact that Indians who inhabited the territory of the Isthmus of Panama were not interested in pearls and did not use them for adornment is confirmed by subsequent archaeological explorations, for pearls were not found in the graves, which, besides skeletons, contained large ntmbers of shark teeth and sting rays' spines. It is known, hov;ever, that together with various sea foods, including crawfish, pearl oysters were commonly eaten by the tribes inhabiting the eastern shore of the Gulf of Panama and the islands.

The legendary chiefdoms of Panama have loomed large in anthropological theories of political power within small-scale polities. First recorded by sixteenth-century Spanish conquistadores, Panamanian chiefs were noted for their keen, entrepreneurial interest in the acquisition and trade of exotic imports, particularly finely crafted gold ornaments. Despite pronounced anthropological interest in the early historical accounts of Spanish chroniclers, the physical "on-the-ground" reality of Panamanian chiefdoms, as well as their antiquity, has never been established-rendering this political form more apparent than real.

The Veraguas of the auriferous district named from them were specially noted for their taste and technical skill in the goldsmith's art. Throughout the western section of the Isthmus, between the Chiriqui Inlet and Panama Bay, occur numerous prehistoric huacas (graves or barrows), which have yielded an abundance of gold and other artistic objects that had been deposited with the dead.

The Indians were skillful potters, stonecutters, goldsmiths, and silversmiths. The ornaments they wore, including breastplates and earrings of beaten gold, reinforced the Spanish myth of El Dorado, the city of gold.