Who are the Kuna people?
The Kuna people, also Cuna and Guna, refer to themselves as Dule or Tule, meaning "People "in Kuna language. The Gunas live mostly in the San Blas Islands, in north-east Panama, where they own three politically autonomous comarcas, sort of reservations, the Guna Yala , Madugandí and Wargandí.
What language do the Guaymi and Kuna people speak?
The Guaymi community uses the Buglere language whose dialects are Bokotá and Sananero. The Kuna language is heard among the Kuna people who inhabit Panama as well as Colombia. The language falls under the Chibchan language family. The Kuna community lives in the San Blas Islands of Panama.
Do they speak English in Kuna?
The new generation of Kuna all speak Spanish and some of them will be able to speak English with the tourist. But don’t get lost in these waters if you don’t speak Spanish or Kuna because you could be navigating like a chicken without a head.
What is the difference between Kuna and Embera?
The Kuna community lives in the San Blas Islands of Panama. The Embera language has 100,000 speakers in southeastern Panama and the northwestern part of Colombia. Embera is a Choco language, and it is divided into the southern and northern dialects.
What is Kuna known for?
The Kuna are an indigenous group known for their colorful colorful dress and for their intricately embroidered textiles called molas. The Kuna have a long history of resistance toward western influences. Many regard them as one of the most fiercely independent ethnic groups in the world.
What language do they speak in San Blas?
The Kuna dialect is widely used amongst the indigenous population of this autonomous region of Panama, the second most used language is Spanish. Interacting with the locals while on your sailing vacation can turn your vacations in the San Blas islands to an even more rewarding experience.
Where did the Kuna Indians come from?
Kuna, also spelled Cuna, Chibchan-speaking Indian people who once occupied the central region of what is now Panama and the neighbouring San Blas Islands and who still survive in marginal areas.
What island do the Kuna people live on?
San Blas Islands ofThe beloved San Blas Islands of Panama are home to the native people known as Kuna Indians. A small, tight-knit group of indigenous people, the community is only made up of around 300,000 in total, with 50,000 living on the 49 major islands of San Blas.
What is the Gunas traditional food?
While you're there, you'll get to learn about Guna culture, and try some of their distinct seafood-based cuisine, which typically consists of a fish and plantain soup called Tule Masi, or red-snapper (caught the same day) and coconut-flavored rice.
What is the name of land where the Kuna farm?
This is the island of El Porvenir, the administrative center of the San Blas Comarca, or Kuna Yala, the land of the Kuna.
What are some Kuna traditions?
The Kuna men wear traditional t-shirts and paints, while the women wear very colourful dresses and traditional Molas, reverse-appliqué designs on their chest. They also wear all over their arms and legs the traditional bracelets of multi colour beads called Winnis or Chaquiras in Spanish.
What does Kuna mean in Native American?
The Kuna people, also known as Guna or Cuna, are an indigenous people of Panama and Colombia. In the Kuna language, they call themselves Dule or Tule, meaning “person.” The distinctive feature of this ethnic group is the high rate of albinos among its members.
How did Kuna get its name?
Some say it is an Indian term for “end of trail” which for the citizens of Boise it was the end of the trail for people wanting to catch the train out of town. Kuna was the main stop along the railroad for the city of Boise until 1887 when the railroad finally built tracks into Boise.
Why is San Blas Islands famous?
The islands in Guna Yala are also known as the San Blas Islands, which are considered a top destination in Panama due to their well-protected natural beauty, as stewarded by the native Guna people.
Where can I visit the Kuna Indians?
The San Blas IslandsThe San Blas Islands are located in the Comarca de Kuna Yala and the nearly 400 islands archipelago is home to the Kuna Indians. This trip is a unlike any other. It gives you the chance to mingle with the Kuna on their coconut-covered islands, enjoy the beaches, learn about Kuna culture, and more.
What is a mola from Panama?
Molas are simple yoke-type blouses richly decorated by intricate needlework. Mola can mean the blouse that is daily wear for Guna (previously spelled Kuna or Cuna) women but most often refers to its front or back panel. They have been made for about a century.
How did San Blas get its name?
The name San Blas was actually given to the archipelago by the Panamanian government long ago because the region was located in and bordering the Golfo de San Blas, which borders the Caribbean Sea with large reefs and sandbanks.
Why did the name change from Kuna to Guna?
The area was formerly known as San Blas, and later as Kuna Yala, but the name was changed in October 2011 to "Guna Yala" when the Government of Panama accepted the claim of the people that "Guna" was a closer representation of the name in their mother tongue than "Kuna".
What is the Kuna name for the San Blas Islands?
Visiting San Blas Islands. The San Blas Islands are a group of over 350 islands located on the Caribbean off the eastern coast of Panama. With only about 50 of the islands inhabited, the area is also known as Kuna Yala after the indigenous people that have lived there for centuries.
Overview
The Kuna language (formerly Cuna, and in the language itself Guna), spoken by the Kuna people of Panama and Colombia, belongs to the Chibchan language family.
History
The Kuna were living in what is now Northern Colombia and the Darién Province of Panama at the time of the Spanish invasion, and only later began to move westward towards what is now Guna Yala due to a conflict with Spanish and other indigenous groups. Centuries before the conquest, the Kuna arrived in South America as part of a Chibchan migration moving east from Central America. At the time of the Spanish invasion, they were living in the region of Uraba and near th…
Phonemes
Kuna language recognizes four vowel phonemes and 17 consonantal phonemes.
Vowels may be short or long.
Most consonants may appear either as short (lax) or long (tense). The long consonants only appear in intervocalic position. However, they are not always a result of morpheme concatenation, and they often differ phonetically from the short analogue. For example, the long stop consonan…
Other phonological rules
The alveolar /s/ becomes the postalveolar [ʃ] after /n/ or /t/. Both long and short /k/ become [j] before another consonant.
Morphology
Kuna is an agglutinative language which contains words of up to about 9 morphemes, although words of two or three morphemes are more common. Most of the morphological complexity is found in the verb, which contains suffixes of tense and aspect, plurals, negatives, position (sitting, standing, etc.) and various adverbials. The verb is not marked for person.
Further reading
• Llerena Villalobos, Rito. (1987). Relación y determinación en el predicado de la lengua Kuna. Bogotá: CCELA – Universidad de los Andes. ISSN 0120-9507 (in Spanish)
• Alphonse Louis Pinart (1890). Vocabulario castellano-cuna. Ernest Leroux. pp. 3–. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
• Holmer, Nils Magnus (1952). Ethno-linguistic Cuna dictionary, with indices and references to A critical and comparative Cuna grammar (Etnologiska studier 14) and The grammatical s…
• Llerena Villalobos, Rito. (1987). Relación y determinación en el predicado de la lengua Kuna. Bogotá: CCELA – Universidad de los Andes. ISSN 0120-9507 (in Spanish)
• Alphonse Louis Pinart (1890). Vocabulario castellano-cuna. Ernest Leroux. pp. 3–. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
• Holmer, Nils Magnus (1952). Ethno-linguistic Cuna dictionary, with indices and references to A critical and comparative Cuna grammar (Etnologiska studier 14) and The grammatical sketch in Cuna chres…
External links
• Kuna phrasebook
• Vocabulario Castellano-Cuna: Compuesto por el Señor Don Alfonso L. Pinart
• Kuna language, Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America
• OLAC resources in and about the San Blas Kuna language