18 BULLETIN 134, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the Ulvan tribes, the Carib, Mosquito, Rama, and all the tribes of 

 Costa Rica (except the Orotina), and those of Panama, being con- 

 sidered as belonging ethnically to the southern continent." 



When it comes to determine the boundaries existing between the 

 Panamanian and northern South American material culture areas 

 the line is not so clearly drawn. In general the rule is that maize 

 culture and loom weaving as contrasted with loomless handicrafts 

 and manioc culture are the distinguishing factors; tribes belonging 

 to both groups being of South American extraction. 



In the report upon the survey of the Isthmus of Darien for an 

 interoceanic ship canal, Admiral, at that time Commander T. O. 

 Selfridge writes about the native Indian population : 



" The whole of the Isthmus of Darien, except a small portion of 

 the valley of the Tuyra, comprising the towns of Chipigana, 

 Pinogana, Yavisa, and Santa Maria, and a few scattering inhabit- 

 ants on the Bayamo (Chepo) near its mouth, is uninhabited except 

 by the San Bias or Darien (Cuna stock) Indians. It is on account 

 of their jealous exclusion of foreigners that so little is known of the 

 country. In 1719 the Catholic missionaries had succeeded in estab- 

 lishing a number of towns on the Atlantic coast and upon the rivers 

 liowing into the Gulf of San Miguel, but they were all destroyed by 

 the Indians. In 1790 a treaty of peace was made with the Indians 

 of Darien, in compliance with which the Spaniards abandoned all 

 their forts in that district, in which no white man has since settled. 

 They have the usual characteristics of the North American Indians, 

 being rarely met with over 5 feet 6 inches in height. They are a 

 muscular race, capable of great exertion, for which their life in 

 canoes, or the broken nature of their mountain homes, peculiarly 

 fit them. They are very peaceable in their natures, and I could 

 learn of no conflict between the villages, but yet independent and 

 resolute against foreigners. They inhabit the whole Atlantic coast 

 from San Bias to the Tarena, mouth of the Atrato, and in the in- 

 terior from the Sucubti to the upper parts of the Bayamo. There 

 is no head or chief of the whole tribe, as commonly reported; but 

 though the language and customs are similar, each village or tribe 

 has its headman, or chief, generally the oldest man of the tribe, to 

 whom all pay great deference." 



The term Darien Dariena or Tarena appears to have first been 

 applied to the Atrato River by the Indians of that region. The 

 first of the Conquistadores to enter the Gulf of Uraba or Darien 

 was Bastidas in 1501. The village of the cacique, Cemaco, was 

 located near by and it was here in the region which was later termed 

 Castilla del Ora by the Spanish that there occurred the first clash 

 of arms between the Indians and Spaniards under Enciso. Cemaco 

 with 500 of his Cuna (San Bias) warriors stood their ground 



