The Village of Embera Quera

   

  In Panama there are 7 living Indian Cultures, one of which is the Embera Indians. Most of the tribes live deep in the jungles of Darien but now some have moved their villages to the banks of the Chagres River.

  The Embera are living in real villages and are committed to preserving a traditional lifestyle, values, & culture.

  Many of the villages do welcome in visitors now to provide money to the village & to share their culture with us.

   There are many tours now  of different villages but not all are Authentic villages some now are what is known as demonstration villages where people don't really live.  Not wanting to do a Demo village I did some research & picked Anne Gordon de Barrigón who is married to an Embera  man & has tours.  Everyone has said she is one of the best.

Unfortunately Anne was ill & could not take us but sent Daniel to be our guide. He was wonderful & told us all about the history of the Embera people along with information about what we would be experiencing.

  To get to there we needed  to travel along the river in a boteros which is a  dug out canoe. To speed thing up they now use motors on the boteros. 

 It was a beautiful trip, seeing many birds, monkey's & a sloth.

   The village we went to was the  Embera Quera  which means "Embera Perfume" in their native language.  It is Anne's husbands uncle, Atilano village. When you first arrive they are all there to greet us with traditional music.

  Atilano spends some time telling us about their lives & culture.

 We then took a walk with the medicine man, Miguel Flaco who showed  us many of the different plants uses for medicinal treatments. It was really very interesting. We even tried a leaf that numbs your mouth.

   We then had lunch which was a traditional meal fried plantains & fish. It was delicious. 

     After lunch the women danced some of there traditional dances. We then had a chance to all dance with them. 

I was very entertained watching George dance with the ladies.

I got a tattoo made with fruit juice dye. Thankfully it's only lasts 10 days. Its not a good look for me.

When it was time to leave to little boys come take you my the hand & lead you back to the canoe.

  The Embera people are a warm friendly group & it was an interesting experience. 

This is the mid wife for the tribe. She is 70 yrs old and has delivered many children both here at this village but mostly when they were living in the Darien.

All children now have to go to school.  Some go outside their village but here they have their own school room. One room all grades up to 6th. The teacher comes in each week and lives there while she teaches. At this time school is over until Feb. They are learning English.

   The girl in the above picture is hoping to attend high school next year.  10% of the cost of the tour is given to the Children's Education fund.

 The location of their village is very beautiful