634 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
APPENDIX. 
In chronological order, the following brief notes concerning the aborigines 
are extracted from the accounts of the principal men who have made ex- 
peditions into Darien (the dates of their published work being given only) : 
WAFER, 1669. 
Wafer, who lived two years as hostage to the Cacique Lacenta, describes 
the Indians among whom he was as having a certain degree of civilization. They 
extracted gold from the mine in the Santo Espiritu Mountains, the chiefs wore 
iong white robes with diadems on their heads and lived in comfortable houses 
surrounded by a railed-in area, and whose tables were well supplied with 
fruits, the results of the chase, and fish from the streams. Wafer was well 
treated by the Indians whose territory is thought to be in the vicinity of the 
source of the Rio Sabanna. 
BoRLAND, 1779. 
Borland was a member of the Scotch colony which attempted to settle on the 
- shores of Caledonia Bay and to share in the reported wealth of the New World. 
He described the Indians of the vicinity as small, great swimmers, living 
always by the rivers or on the sea, and very clean of body and in the prepara- 
tion of their food, which consisted of dried fish, plaintain, and cassava, with 
a drink made from plantains. At first the Indians were very timid, then in a 
friendly way visited the colony, bringing fruits and fish to trade. It was not 
till the Spaniards attacked the settlement, inciting the natives to enmity, that 
the colonists had any serious difficulty with them. They used bows and arrows, 
and lived in houses without side walls, always sleeping in hammocks, with fires 
at night to ward off wild beasts and to keep from feeling the effects of the 
dampness. The men labored little, but hunted and fished. Men and women 
alike wore gold nose rings. 
Acosta, 1848. 
Acosta says that the Gulf of Darien Indians (and those of La Goajira), 
after 340 years have preserved much of their independence, primitive character 
and language, etc., as described by the early historians, still having their priest, 
medicine men, and seers, and painting their bodies. English firelock guns had 
already replaced in part, however, the bows and arrows, which they obtained 
in trade for tortoise shell and cocoa. During his stay among them he collected 
their words by which they counted up to eight; five were, “ pogua,” ‘“ pagua,” 
*“ quencheco,” “ auvege,’ and ‘“ cugule.” 
GISBORNE, 1853. 
Lionel Gisborne was an engineer sent out by an English syndicate to investi- 
gate conditions of Darien. He made an attempt to cross the Isthmus from 
Caledonia Bay to the Gulf of San Miguel, a region which he observes had been 
abandoned entirely to Indians since 1800. He speaks of a large settlement that 
was formerly composed of Spaniards and Indians on the Rio Sabanna (probably 
meaning the well-known one on the Chepo, as the marshy soil surrounding the 
greater part of the Savanna made it unlikely that a large number of Spaniards 
settled here and no other writers give any record of any such place). He 
observed that the San Blas and Mandinga Indians never allow any inspection 
