CULTUEE OF PEOPLE OF SOUTHEASTERN PANAMA 45 



also, heaping up these dried pieces across, and often putting some embers 

 underneath, to keep them from giving, or growing mushy. 



Along the lower Chucunaque are scattered huts on the river banks 

 surrounded by a small one-half acre clearing planted to plantains, 

 yuca, and occasionally hill rice. Tame chickens, turkeys, ducks, 

 and domestic pigs are found in all settlements in Darien, but there 

 are no horses. West of the Canal Zone, where the impenetrable 

 jungle gives way to a barren, semiarid district, the horse and donkey 

 are the constant companions of the Negro, Panamanians, and 

 Indians. 



The Choco subsist on rice, bananas, plantains, " waguppu " (Tule), 

 corn, and yuca. They are expert fishermen, diving into deep pools 

 and catching certain kinds of rock fish in their hands. 8 



Hammocks and stools. — Wafer found hammocks in general use, 

 and tells how after the evening meal the men hung up their ham- 

 mocks. This universal use of the hammock has changed into a 

 practice of employing both the hammock and stool or wooden 

 bench. Marsh relates how the grown men sit around the chief, who 

 is reclining in a hammock, listening and occasionally repeating por- 

 tions of the chief's song. These men occupy wooden benches ; in an 

 outer circle are stools occupied by women and children, the women 

 pursuing their continual sewing by the light of torches. At such 

 meetings the chief first admonishes the people to be good, not to lie 

 or steal. He then relates the news. 



The seats or stools collected by H. Pittier and by the Marsh- 

 Darien expedition from among the Choco of the Sambu River val- 

 ley and the Tule of the San Bias coast are uniform in outline and in 

 the manner in which the seat supports are attached. Children's 

 seats are uniformly not more than 6 inches in height and are so 

 carved as to resemble Chinese wooden pillow. One of these seats 

 (Cat. No. 327576, U.S.N.M.), " kana " (Tule), is 25.5 cm. (10 in.) 

 in length and 8.9 cm. (3.5 in.) high. It was carved with a machete 

 from a solid block of hardwood. The seat is concave in the form 

 of a semiellipse w T ith an outward flare of the lateral edges at its 

 center (pi. 4, No. 1). The supports are carved from the seat block 

 at the middle sector of its lateral edges, flaring longitudinally at 

 their base to the entire length of the seat. The surface is smooth and 

 polished by use. A floral decorative design consisting of incised 

 lines in parallel, converging at right angles and representing a tree, 

 is placed at the middle surface of a support. Another adjoining 

 floral design is more realistically carved. This seat is from the San 

 Bias coast. 



H. Pittier collected a similar seat (Cat. No. 272592, U.S.N.M.) 

 from the Choco of the Sambu River valley, south Darien, that is 



8 Smiths. Misc. Coll., vol. 77, No. 2, p. 80. 



