24 BULLETIN 134, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ment, he goes back to the home of his mother, and the bride is con- 

 sidered a widow. Her position now is not an enviable one, as she 

 will find it difficult to find another husband. The bride always has 

 her hair cut to a length of a few inches as a symbol of her new 

 position. 



Cuna of the interior. — The Mountain Indians, or Bravos, as styled 

 by the Spaniards, are more numerous than generally supposed. On 

 the Sucubti branch of the Chucunaque the Self ridge expedition found 

 three large villages, that could not have contained less than one 

 thousand inhabitants. The most warlike, as well as the least known, 

 and probably the most numerous, are the Chucunas (Cunas) and 

 Navagandis, in the center of the Isthmus. The interior, back of 

 San Bias coast, is uninhabited; neither are Indian settlements met 

 with until one ascends the Bayano some forty miles. 



Self ridge writes concerning the Darien Indian tribes : 



" The Coast Indians, from contact with foreigners, are very docile 

 and tractable, and by a conciliatory course I found no difficulty, after 

 becoming known, in obtaining guides and all the information they 

 possess of the interior; but they stand in awe of the Mountain 

 Indians, and would never accompany me into their territory. They 

 live principally upon fish, plantains, and bananas, with Indian corn 

 and a kind of cassava. Some sugar-cane is raised, the juice of which, 

 extracted in a rude way between two poles, upon one of which an 

 Indian jumps, they mix with cocoa for a beverage. 



" At one time, no doubt, the whole of the valleys of the Tuyra and 

 Chucunaque were inhabited by the Darien (Cuna) Indians, but they 

 have disappeared entirely from the former, excepting the Paya tribe, 

 on the river of that name. These Indians are less averse to strangers 

 than any I had met with previously, owing, no doubt, to their long 

 intercourse with the Spaniards, of whom, however, they are perfectly 

 independent, and with whom there are no signs of amalgamation. 

 They do not number more than 400. 



" On the Chucunaque there are now no villages of Indians below 

 the Sucubti River, which was visited by the expedition in 1870. 



" On the Atlantic slope near the Tarena mouth of the Atrato, we 

 have the villages of Arpeti, Cuti, and Tanela, all under the chief of 

 the latter. The Indians of these villages are as isolated as those of 

 the interior, and have all the latter's dislike to white men. They 

 have no dealings with Europeans; their towns are only approached 

 through small streams in the marshes of the Atrato, where one is 

 almost devoured by mosquitoes, and their only glimpse of the outer 

 world is when they visit Pisisi to trade for the few wants they may 

 require. These Indians were described by those of the expedition 

 who visited them as the finest that had been met with in Darien. 



