Thursday 17 January 2008

NY Times: Panama

Image © Tara Todras-Whitehall/NY Times-All Rights Reserved

The New York Times featured a short slideshow of photographs of the Kuna Indians. It appears that the San Blas islands have remained little-known by tourists for many years, but that it may not remain that way for long.

New York Times' The Kuna Indians of the San Blas Islands on Panama’s Caribbean coast still believe that each person has a good and a bad spirit, and that after death the good spirit needs help to get to heaven. They number about 35,000 and the majority live in the San Blas Islands, and on the mainland in the Madungandi reservation, while a small percentage live in the capital city, Panama.

The Kuna women wear wrap around skirts and hand-made blouses known as "molas", while the men wear traditional Kuna shirts. The women also paint their faces with a homemade rouge made from achiote seeds, and usually wear a nose ring and paint a line down their nose.

They grow plantains, bananas, and avocados, and other fruits, as well as corn, and tubers.

New York Times' San Blas Islands

More (and better) photographs of the Kuna Indians: Global Photographic

REI | De Las Flores

REI by Tewfic El-Sawy on on Exposure