We would like to thank the Wounaan Cultural Team (Chenier Carpio Opúa, Doris Cheucarama Membache, hapk'ʌʌn Rito Ismare Peña, Dorindo Mémbora Peña, Chindío Peña Ismare, and Julie Velásquez Runk) and digital artist and painter Frankie Grin for developing this book.  We are grateful for the financial support from the Small Grants Program of the Global Environment Facility and the United Nations Development Program.  We also are thankful for the support from Marsha Kellogg and Native Future, Emily McGinn and the Digital Humanities Lab of the University of Georgia, Francisco Herrera for polishing the Spanish translation, Willow Older for polishing the English translation, and Liz Green for interpretation support.  We appreciate Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy's loving narration of the digital book.

No one may study the Wounaan language without the consent and authorization of the Wounaan National Congress (Wounaan Podpa Nʌm Pömaam), according to the Republic of Panama’s Law 37 of 2016 Which Establishes Indigenous Peoples Rights to Consultation and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent and Law 20 of 2000 The Special Regimen for Indigenous Collective Intellectual Property Rights.

Wounaan Cultural Team (Wounaan hãba p'itk'atarr k'ʌʌn) and Frankie Grin.

First edition: 2021

Foundation for the Development of Wounaan People (Fundación para el Desarrollo del Pueblo Wounaan) and Wounaan National Congress (Wounaan Podpa Nʌm Pömaam)

Ciudad de Panamá, República de Panamá

ISBN: 978-9962-8546-2-3

Text:   Wounaan hãba p'itk'atarr k'ʌʌn /Wounaan Cultural Team

            Chenier Carpio Opúa, Doris Cheucarama Membache, hapk'ʌʌn 

            Rito Ismare Peña, Dorindo Mémbora Peña, Chindío Peña Ismare, and Julie     

            Velásquez Runk

Illustrations:   Frankie Grin

Narration:   Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy

Flute music:   Hapk'ʌʌn Rito Ismare Peña

An Adventure of Wounaan Children and Many Birds

One day, a girl named Chibau and her brother K'õsi, went upriver in a small canoe to play and bathe.  They arrived at a big thatched roundhouse with a round, conical roof.   In that house lived a man named Justo with his wife Marta and their children.  Near the house, on the banks of the river, their children were bathing on the sandy river beach.  

Chibau and K'õsi became friends with them, and the friends played while their parents Justo and Marta were working in their fields.  To this day, it is common to see children playing with their friends while their parents are working.

green heron

Butorides virescens

Returning home, Chibau and K'õsi stopped by their relatives’ house, where there was a newborn baby.  The baby’s father, Höchör, was near the hearth, preparing to pass on a trait of the gray-cowled wood-rail to his new child.  In this tradition, which is called naveling, newborns are imbued with the admirable traits of plants, animals, and things.  Chibau and K'õsi often see gray-cowled wood-rails feeding along the river and running quickly.

Once the baby’s father finished preparing the bird, he took it to his wife Bëk'ör to do the naveling.   When Chibau and K'õsi saw this, Chibau asked Mr. Höchör “what are you doing with the baby?”   Then, Mr. Höchör responded: “Niece, I am naveling my baby so when it grows up it will be able to walk rapidly and run fast.”

gray-cowled wood-rail

Aramides cajaneus

Later on, Chibau and K'õsi went with their parents upriver.  As they were going upriver, they heard the song of the squirrel cuckoo. Upon hearing the bird song, the children asked their dad, “Dad, what does that song mean?”  Then their father explained it well to his children, “When it sings tris, tris, tris it means there is good news.  When it sings wihjẽer, tris, tris, wihjẽer it warns us that something bad can happen or it tells us that bad news is coming.

This is how the children learned that when the squirrel cuckoo sings it is transmitting a prediction or omen.  There are many other birds that tell us of things to come.

squirrel cuckoo

Piaya cayana

Chibau and K'õsi arrived upriver and got out near where their parents had planted.  They jumped onto the land and ran to their young corn plants.  When they arrived, they saw that blue-headed parrots were eating the corn.  The children hurriedly told their mother, “Mom, the birds are eating the corn!”  When she heard the news from her children, Chibau and K'õsi’s mother invited everyone to harvest the new corn.   

Having been invited, everyone went to pick the corn before the parrots put an end to the entire field.  The mother told her children, “Now you know, that the blue-headed parrots peck into ears of corn to eat the kernels.”

blue-headed parrot

Pionus menstruus

blue-headed parrot

Pionus menstruus

Now it was time to return to the community with their parents. While they were going downriver in their canoe, their father talked to his children.  He said, “Children, we know how to live with the birds around us.  Do not try to harm them.  Instead, we must care for them.  We Wounaan, are nothing without land; when we have our land in it we conserve our lives, our culture.  With land we also have our ceremony with the Creator and the prayer canoe, and we have our language.  It is for our land that our ancestors always have struggled. And that is why we still are struggling to protect our territory and within it the birds that are part of our cultural environment.

snowy egret

Egretta thula

When they returned in the afternoon, Chibau and K'õsi went downriver to walk around their community.  Once there, they heard the sound of the flute and saw how people were dancing the vulture dance.  Chibau and K'õsi admired the women dancing with much enthusiasm in the patio of the community’s cultural house.

As they watched, they asked the adults nearby, “Why do they dance the vulture dance?”  Someone responded, “Because we see how vultures fly in the air with their wings extended and we imitate them with the movements of our body and by forming long lines, crouching as if we were flying.  That is how the vulture dance came to be.  Men also dance the vulture dance.”

So, the children learned how the vulture dance originated.  They said that they, too, wanted to dance the way their ancestors had, to maintain the vulture dance and to show their cultural identity.  “It is important,” they thought, “that from here on out we do not lose the dances of our ancestors.”

black vulture

Coragyps atratus

Chibau y K'õsi and their older brothers and sisters went down to the river to bathe because they were very hot.  At the river while they were bathing, they saw a ringed kingfisher quickly fly upriver past them singing kreh, kreh, kreh.  K'osi asked, “Why does the ringed kingfisher fly upriver singing kreh, kreh, kreh?”  His sister explained, “When the ringed kingfisher quickly flies by singing kreh, kreh, kreh it means someone is coming to visit from the same direction it is flying.  That is why our ancestors said that people were coming from upriver or downriver in their canoe." 

That is how the children learned that the song of a ringed kingfisher is an omen that means that people will soon visit from whichever direction it is flying.

ringed kingfisher

Megaceryle torquata

K'õsi went to the river to fish and caught a few.   He took his time fishing and when he was returning, he thought, “I am going to share these fish with my friend and his family.”  With this idea in mind, he arrived at his friend’s house.  He found that his friend’s family did not have anything planned for dinner.  When K'õsi arrived with the fish, Mr. Chikau, one of the owners of the house, exclaimed: “How good it is to have such a kind friend, because of him we are going to have dinner!”  K'õsi revealed his good intention to his friend and gave him the fish to share.

The friend received the fish and gave it to Ms. Hãhãwiig, who told them “I will prepare this at once.”  The entire family enjoyed the fish that K'õsi had caught and shared, and they all went to bed well satisfied.

orange-chinned parakeet

Brotogeris jugularis