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National Geographic : 1912 Jul
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Photo by H. Pittier THE TREE-LIMBS ARE ALL STRIKINGLY GROWING IN ONE DIRECTION (P. 631) disappears, to give place to recks and grassy slopes. In clear weather the panorama from the summit is splendid: to the south, the vast expanse of the Pacific and the beau tiful lowlands of Chiriqui, all interlaced forests and savannas; to the north, a labyrinth of unexplored valleys, covered totally by virgin forest running down to the Caribbean Sea; westward, the Costa Rican mountains familiar to the writer; and to the east, many a lofty peak of no despicable prominence and virgin yet of any white man's footprints. In our as cent we had only glimpses of all this, as a thick fog was gathering at the time. From the top we had only a momentary vision of a far-looking silvery ribbon, the Rio Chiriqui Viejo, several thousand feet below us to the west. The return trip can be effected easily in one day. THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES OF PANAMA Our tramp through Panama now takes us to scenes quite different from those we have just described, among what is left of the aborigines of the country. In the years 1501 to 1503, when Rod rigo de Bastidas and Christopher Co lumbus visited the northern coast of the Isthmus, they found it densely popu lated. About ten years later Balboa met with identical conditions along the south- ern coast, and all subsequent reports of early explorers give evidences of the fact that the whole country was in possession of numerous clans, the names of many of which have been preserved. The two principal nations were the Guaymies, extending from the Chiriqui Volcano eastward to what is today the Canal Zone, and the Cuna-Cuna, on the opposite side of the Isthmus. West of the volcano, in the valleys of the Chiriqui Viejo, Changuena and Diquis rivers, and possibly a little farther east, along the Pacific Ocean, were the Dorasques, a warlike and more civilized race, to whom the beautiful pottery and the gold orna ments found in the ancient graves of Chiriqui are often attributed. As can be deduced from these relics, the Dorasques had trade relations with the Niquirans and Chorotegans, of Costa Rica, and through them felt in some degree the influence of the Nahuatl, in far-away Mexico. Today they have completely disappeared as a tribal entity. On the southeastern border of the present Republic of Panama dwelt the Chocoes, who are still numerous and ex tend from the Pacific coast northward to and even beyond the Atrato River. They formed a kind of buffer state be tween the Central and South American nations. In the course of my work I had the opportunity of spending many weeks among representatives of the three groups still in existence-that is to say, the Guaymies, the Cuna-Cuna, and the Chocoes. THE GUAYMIES Up in the forbidding mountains and valleys that form a background to the landscape for the traveler on the steam ers plying between Panama and David dwell the mass of the present Guay mies, about 5,000 in number, in their homes scattered through savannas and forests. From the time of the conquest to the beginning of the past century, they have been more or less under the influence of Catholic missionaries, but have since been left to go back to most of their ancient customs and ways of living. Among the few vestiges left of that transitory semi-civilized condition under 636
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