THE IDABAEZ: UNKNOWN INDIANS OF TE CROCO COAST John Howland Rowe In the summer of 1948 I had the opportunity to examine a printed copy of the often cited but seldom read Cor,:nica de la ejgosissima Prouincia de los Doze Ap6stoles by Diego d oba Salinas, published in Lima in T165l The book is a bibliographical rarity. The copy I consulted belonged to tbe Franciscan Colegio de Misiones in Popay&n and is now preserved in the Colonial Art Museum of the University of the Cauca, where it was made available to me through the courtesy of the Director of the Museum, Prof. Gregorio Hern ndez de Alba. C6rdoba Sal- inas' work is a rambling history of the Peruvian province of the Fran- ciscan order, and is one of the longest and dullest cr6nicas de convento ever written. Buried among its biographies of prelates, monks, and nuns, however, there are two detailed accounts of Franciscan missionary enterprise of great ethnographic interest, based on written reports furnished to the author by the missionaries themselves. One is a his- tory Qf the great Panatagua mission of the upper Huallaga River in Peru, and the other id a short account of the ephemeral Franciscan mission to the Idabaez Indians of the Choco coast effected in 1632-46. This s.econd item is especially important, since so far as I know it has never been cited in modern anthropological literature and the Ida- baez are entirely unknown to modern anthropology. The section of the Pacific coast of South America between the Gulf of Panama and Buenaventura, Colombia, has a well established rep-. utation as a hot, rainy, disease-ridden area offering few rewards to the explorer, and even today it is remarkably little known.l It was explored very superficially by Andagoya, Pizarro and Almagro in their search for Peru in the years 1522 to 1528 and then was deliberately by- passed by most later travellers. The Bishop of Lima, Francisco Solano, later sainted, was shipwrecked there about 1590 on a voyage from Pan- ama to Peru. He had the good fortune to reach land at a bay in 6.0201 north latitude which one of its more recent explorers has called "the finest natural harbor in Pacific Colombia"2, a deep, sheltered anchor- age with clean sandy beaches instead of the 8wamps and mangrove thick- ets so common elsewhere on this coast. A rescue party took the bishop off after a stay of some two months but the bay is still known as the Bahia de Solano in memory of the saint's adventure.3.- The place nams along the Choco coast have changed a number of times as a result of intermittent exploration. Few of the names given by Pizarro and Almagro were still in use in the seventeenth century and few of the seventeenth century ones remain on modern maps. The name of the Bahia de Solano is almost the only old name which has lasted and it serves as an important reference point for locating some of the more ephemeral ones. In the early seventeenth century the part of the coast centering 3li 'oh the Bahla de Solano was visited occasionally by traders from Panama who applied the general name of La Gorgona to the region. This Gor- gona on the mainland is quite distinct from the Island of Gorgona in about 3t north latitude. The name of the island is the older, going back to Pizarro's time; why the same name was applied to-a distant area on the mainland I have no idea. The traders also christened a few coasting landmarks on the mainland shore: En8enada de las Aguadas, Puerto Claro, and Lap Anegadas. These names still appear on some eighteenth century maps.4 The account of the Idabaez mission which Cordoba Salinas gives is based on three written reports which he collected from people connected with the mission, and on conversations with other Franciscans involved in the enterprise; the chronicler had never been to the Choco himself. The written documents which he cites are: 1) a description of La Gorgona and its natives by P. Fray Matias de San Francisco, which Cordoba Salinas reproducest verbatim (1:185-6) and which is translated below; 2) a re- port by Fr. Diego de San Marcos dealing with the destruction of the mission in 1646, of which our chronicler quotes some paragraphs (1:192); 3) an account sent at the chronicler's request by Fr. Esteban de Yriarte MazquirAn, "Padre Guardian de Panama Predicador, ; Vicario Provincial de Tierra Firme(l (:192). 7rdoba Salinas also had a chance to discuss the whole matter with P. Fr. Xinez de Due;nas, the originator of the pro- 3ect, who was living in the monastery at Lima while the chronicle was being written (1:184). The account is thus exceptionally well documented. The idea of establishing a mission in La Gorgona occurred first to P. Fr. Xinez de DueSas when he was Guardian of the Franciscans in Panama. A local trader named Francisco Martfn told him of a trip in which he - visited Las Aguadas to trade with the natives, who came to the beach in canoes. Fr. Xinez got permission from the Audiencia and the Bishop of Panama and sailed for La Gorgona with four Franciscans on March 6, 1632, anchoring six days later where Martin had met the Indians. Many Indians came out to meet the party in canoes, transported them to land in a friendly manner, and built them an arbor (ramada). No one in the party understood their language. The friars took possession of the land in the name of the king and in the presence of a scrivener, set up a big cross, said mass, and named the bay Solano. Then they reembarked and followed the coast for eight leagues to another bay which they named San Antonio. The beach there was covered with Indians armed with bows and arrows, as if on guard. The Spanish party landed anyway and was welcomed by the Indians, who again built an arbor for the visitors. Another mass was said there. Thence the expedition returned to Panama to report (1:183-4). A second expedition was immediately organized, and Fr. Xinez re~ turned to La Gorgona early in April with P. Fr. Geronimo de Figueroa and Fr. Matias de San Francisco. They were well received by the Indians and built a house and church at the Bay of San Antonio, where Fr. Xinez said the first mass on April 25, 1632, with a congregation of 400 Indians. 35 They naned the church La Purlsima Concepci6n de Nuestra Se"nora. Fr. Xinez then returned to Panama leaving his two companions in charge of the mission. His report was well received by the Audiencia, which voted a sum to buy a service for the church. The mission continued for twelve years with various Franciscans taking part. Cdrdoba Salinas mentions as especially industriqus workers Fr. Matias de San Francisco and Fr. Juan de San Antonio, both ot'whom learned the language. They came from near Seville in Spain and had labored previously in the Panataguas mission. Thi misstion followed the regular Franciscan pattern. The missionaries took along knives, fish- hooks, beads and other small objects to give the Indians; set up churches, organized schools, and tried to persuade the Indian's to settle in villages and submit to "civilized" government. About 1640 the mission had its greatest triumph. In a space of less than three months some 8,000 Indians came in from the territory within 30 leagues of the mission, and the friars settled them in four towns, in a circuit of,-two or three leagues, so that there would be room for their fields of maize and plan- tames. They had over 300 children in their school at that time (1:185-7). The Idabaez mission soon suffered the same fate as all the other tropical missions: epidemic disease, the ravages of which were made possible by the fatal policy of gathering the Indians into towns in a wet climate without sanitation. In the first big epidemic, two to three thousand Indians died, and In 1642 Fr. Matias died also. Fr. Juan was sick himself and returned to Panama to recover, leaving the mission unattended (1: 187-8). In 16414, Fr. Juan went back to restore the mission with Fr. Diego de San Marcos. On their arrival at Las Anegadas they found the settle- ment, which had had some 400 inhabitants, deserted. They were told that some neighboring Indians had raided the place and that the inhab- itants had moved for safety to the banks of the rivers Paria and Pobo' (these names have disapp.eared from modern maps) not far from the sea. The friars moved the church to the Paria River, where the mission continued for two years more until the Indians' patience was exhausted by another epidemic, this time of some respiratory infection (tos Z pechuguera). The Indians consulted their own medicine man (medico, Z curandero, a guien p amente llamamos hechizero) whose title was tubete in their language. He told them that the friars were responsible for the epidemics (as they certainly were, in a sense), and that Fr. Juan de San Antonio had the power to cormmand death to kill them. An unconverted warrior named Hijuoba, accordingly, approached Fr. Juan to ask him for some X,ishhooks and killed him with one blow of an axe on June 16, 1646. Then he killed four Christian Indians and burned the church and mission house. The bodies were thrown into the river. The avenging party then descended on Sen Antonio, where they killed two Spaniards, one an interpreter (evidently there were others besides friars at the mission). One was strangled with a cord and the other killed 36 by lance thrusts. Fr.. Diego fled into the forest where he hid for seven days; then he went over to the other settlement where he saw.the burned church and was sighted by the Indians, who pursued him to the beach. At the shore he was lucky enough to meet a boat-.which had just arrived from Panama bringing Fr. Francisco.Gonzalez to join the mission; the crew rescued Fr. Diego and they all returned to Panama. On learning of the revolt, the president of.the Audiencia, Don Juan de Vega Bazgn,. despatched two gunboats with Fr. Dlego and fifty Spaniards and Christian Indians to capture the rebels.. The punitive expedition put in at Puerto Claro and BabLa de Solano, killed four Indians, including Hijuoba, and captured 25 more who were taken back to Panam and jailed.,, Their fate is unknown but is not difficult to imagine (1:;.90-192). .So ended.the mission to La Gorgona. I know of no further record of Franciscan activity there, and the whole region relapses into ob- scurity. The.next missionary work in the Choco was organized by the Jesuits, working down from the Colombian mountains to convert the Chocd tribes of the Atrato and San Juan rivers in the late seventeenth century, and their operations do not seem to have reached the coast of La Gorgona. The Indians of La Gorgona are called Idabaez by C6rdoba Salinas, probably followi:ng Fr. Esteban de Yriarte; Fr. Matias de San Francisco calls them simply "Indians of La Gorgona", The latter, who was one of the two missionaries who learned their language, has left the follow~ ing sketch of their customs.which I translate in full from C6rdoba Salinas, 1: 185-186: "On this day, the 21st of October of the year 1636, the state of the reduction and conquest of the Indians commonly called 'of La Gorgona' is as follows. Because of unforeseen difficulties it has been possible to found only one town, between the banks of' a branch of a river and the sea, in which there is a church and three priests of the Order of our Father St. Francis. Fifty-two persons have been baptized. About 200 souls meet to learn the Doctrine and the Catechism, out of a desire to receive the water of baptism, "Nearly 500 persons come as friends to visit and talk to the friars., The number of Indians of different nations in the general area exceeds 20,000 in a stretch of 20 leagues and it is presumed that there are many more inland. "The quality of this people is as.remarkable as any known-in all the nations that have existed.. They have no king, chief, governor or captain whom they recognize as their superior*- They give obedience to no one. When sons and daughters are somewhat grown they have no respect for their parents but rather despise them, leaving them, forgetting them and refusing to obey them. They have no village, city or state. Their way of life is nomadic (a fuer de alarbes) in the open country and in 37 the hills, twenty or thirty together in thatched huts. They sleep and rest in hammocks, near open fires in hot country. "They have no God, idols or huacas (shrines), and have no use for ceremonies. They deny immortality and believe that everything ends with life. They drink, and hold drunken parties, but do not fall down, perhaps because their drink is less strong than wine or chicha. All of them go naked, men and women, and they bathe twice a day in the rivers and the sea. They eat the products of their hunting and fishing: monkeys, birds, turkeys, and fish from the sea, which they enter for fishing. They have an abundance of plantains, avocados, guavas, pacay, mamey, chili pepper and other fruits which are plentiful in the land, especially at certain seasons. They make slash and burn clearings to harvest the maize which they plant in their districts, as they choose, and from it they make their bread. The meat of birds or animals they smoke to make it last like dried mutton. They make presents and offer toasts to one another, but they will not come indoors, a matter about which they are very careful. "They have two or more wives apiece, and a man is considered more powerful, not if he is braver or nobler or richer but if he has more wives, children and relatives. They are very selfish, especially in their dealings with the Spaniards and missionaries, and they carry this selfishness to such an extreme that if they are given worldly possessions, even the choicest gifts, they will not give a plantain to their benefactor without profit and payment; indeed, the more one does for them the greater grows their ingrati- tude and selfishness. They have little determination, being rather cowards and lazy, and their occasional wars among themselves are rarely effectual as they have no commander and each man aspires to the position. Their usual weapons are arrows which they trim with deadly poison. Their language is easier than others, as the words end always in a vowel. They do not mine, weave, or make anything with their hands as the-rest of the world's peoples do; they are given over always to idleness, except as we have said when they make their clearings to sow maize in order to secure the year's food supply. They have no coin, exchange or business relations among themselves but are content to eat, swim, hunt and fish. "They are superstitious and obsessed with omens, believing obstinately in dreams and blaming their deaths and ill fortunes on the "blowers" (sopladores) as they call the Indian witch-men, because some serpent or bird spoke to them or appeared to them. When they die, the corpse is burned in a bonfire and they keep the bones and ashes so that the nearest relatives can drink them later' on. "The land is very rich in gold, and inland in certain places there are abundant supplies and very pure. It occurs in the rivers 38 and is extracted from the sands; the slaves that have been brought from that area tell many tales of it. "Because this people is all of this condition of life, and because up to now we have had no interpreter and the people are widely scattered and addicted to living in the bush, it has not been possible to do more, and the small settlement with its church and teaching the doctrine has wrung drops of blood from the friars." In attempting to place the Idabaez of the above account in the anthropological picture of northwestern South America, I have asked two questions. First, is any other tribe reported in the same area? And second, how similar is Idabaez culture to the previously known cultures of southern Panama and the Choc6? The answer to the first question appears to be that no other tribe is reported in the La Gorgona area before the nineteenth century and that modern travellers have assumed that the Indians seen there belonged to the Emper4 tribe. The Emper4 or "True Choco" are closely related linguistically and culturally to the Catio and Chamf of Antioquia and Caldas and to the Noanan or Nonama Choco of the lower San Juan drainage. All four groups speak languages of the Chocd family and are commonly referred to as "Choc6 Indians". Norden- skibld and Wass4n have studied the Empera6 in recent years and conclude that they are probably newcomers to the coast. Their canoes are adapted to river rather than coastal navigation and they have borrowed Spanish words to designate the whale, the dolphin and many marine fish. Their ancestors are reported occupying the Atrato River drainage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and they probably moved out to the coast as part of a dispersion resulting from the pressure of white and negro settlement along the Atrato, a dispersion which took Emperd groups up into southern Panama and down to the coast below Buenaventura. Nordenskiold found about 500 Empera on the Sambu River in southern Panama and about 1000 on the River Baudo Just south of the- Gorgona country. He did not visit the Bahia de Solano himself and assumed that whatever Indians were there were Empera also. Other visitors simply report "Indians" or "Choco Indians" and give no data by which they can be identified. The northwestern part of the Empera expansion has been into territory evacuated by the Cuna, a numerous tribe whose language is classified in the Chibcha family. The Cuna now inhabit central Darien and the Atlantic coast from the San Blas Islands to the Gulf of Uraba. Nordenskiold cites Empera traditions, the evidence of place names, and the seventeenth century travellers Dampier and Wafer to show that the Cuna formerly occupied the Pacific coast at least as far south as the River Jurado ("River of the Cunas" in Empera) on the Colombian side of the Colombia-Panama border. There is no evidence that the Cuna occupation ever extended to the area of Gorgona., however . 4 39 The predecessors of the Cuna on the Atlantic coast were probably the Cueva, a people known principally from a sixteenth century de- scrpition by Oviedo y Valdds. Lehmann and others have claimed that the Cueva were ancestral to the modern Cuna, but I am not impressed by the linguistic and cultural arguments advanced to support this theory. Cueva territory is too remote from La Gorgona for it to be likely that the latter was ever under Cueva occupation.6 In comparing Idabaez culture with the cultures of other peoples of the area, the comparison should be with contemporary cultures to be valid. Unfortunately, contemporary information on the Emper& and Cuna is fragmentary and scattered and, as we have already noted, the best account of the Cueva belongs to a period a hundred years earlier. A documented comparison must await further work with the sixteenth and seventeenth century histories, and I hope to be able to offer one at a future date. My superficial impression is that Idabaez culture differs from all neighboring ones in its greater lack of formality as well as in specific content. Certainly Idabaez culture is completely dist-inct from that of the sixteenth century Cueva and the modern Empera and Cuna. The Cueva, for example, had an elaborate class society and interred their dead. The Cuna use hammocks, but the EmperM sleep on platform beds which they build in excellent houses raised on piles. The Emper& also make good pottery and baskets. Their social organization is based on patrilineal clans, and they believe in two souls, both of which go on living after death. The Cuna have powerful chiefs, weave hammocks on looms, and have a system of picture writinfi by which they keep track of an extensive ceremonial literature.( Only one word of the Idabaez language is preserved: tubete, medicine man. The following words for medicine man occur in the languages of neighboring areas: Cuna nele (hechicero, adivino). P4rez Kantule, 1938, p. 667. Emperd haipana (curandero, brujo). Wassk4, 1935, p. 41; Rivet, 1943-4, p. 311. Cueva teguina (medico o maestro). Oviedo y Valdes, 1851-55, bk. 29, chap. 26, vol. 3, pp. 126, 127. Cayapa ml-rf-kti (magician). Barrett, ms., texts A and C. Colorado pone (Zauberer). Seler, 1902b, pp. 33, 36. Esmeraldas pula (brujo). Seler, 1902a, p. 60. 4o The last three languages are or were spoken in western Ecuador. None of the words listed resembles tubete and hence this word indicates nothing with regard to the affiliations of the Idabaez. Some archaeological work has been done in the old Gorgona area by Victor Oppenheim and the results are most interesting. He reports one large cemetery at Bahla de Solano and another nearby at Bah{a Utrfa. The graves in this area are dug two meters deep. Pottery and stone specimens were collected from the surface and have been described by Recasens; the pottery from Solano is coiled redware with sand temper and simple incised and punctate designs. The stone objects included a mano and several celts which had been shaped by flaking and then partly po ished. Celts from other Choco sites are usually polished all over. If the Idabaez drank the ashes and bones of their dead, the graves found can hardly be their work. Possibly these cemeteries belong to an EmperA population which succeeded the Idabaez. The pottery and unusual celts might belong to either culture; Fray Matias' statement that the Idabaez do not make anything with their hands should probably be taken with a grain of salt. The evidence to hand is scanty and largely negative, but it certainly suggests that the seventeenth centur.y population of the Choco coast in the Bahia de Solano area formed a cultural unit distinct from the modern Empera population and from all other known peoples of southern Panama and northwestern Colombia. It is quite possible that more information regarding the Idabaez could be-found among the Panama papers in Spanish archives, particularly in the records of Franciscan missions. In addition, it would be well worth while for someone to visit the area. The modern travellers who mention seeing Indians around Bahla de Solano have always assumed that they were Emperd but no one has made sure of it. The Idabaez may, of course, be extinct, but it is not impossible that a remnant of them might still be found in their ancient territory of La Gorgona. 41 FOOTNOTES 1. "...the Pacific coast of Darien, Colombia and northwestern Ecuador has for the most part always lain below the horizon of steamships. It is still the least known continental seacoast in the world." Murphy, 1941, p. 4. 2. Murphy, 1939a, p. 9-10. 3. Mendiburu, 1874-90, vol. 7, pp. 357-359; Otero, 1905, pp. 31- 32, 112. Most of this information probably goes back to Cordoba Salinas, 1630, a work which I have not seen. 4. C6rdoba Salinas, 1651., bk. 1, chaps. 30-31, pp. 1:183-193; Moreno y Escand6n, 1937. 5. Nordenskibid, 1928, pp. 302-303; Wassen, 1935, p. 168. These references cover both the-Emper& and the Cuna. See also Murphy, 1939b. 6. Oviedo y Vald6s, 1851-55, bk. 29, chaps, 26 28, 31, etc.; vol. 3. Lebmann, 1920, vol. 1, pp. 96-124. 7. The data ,on the Emperg and Cuna are taken from Nordenskio1d, 1928; those on the Cueva are from the chapters of Oviedo y Valdds cited in footnote 6. 8. Recasens and Oppenheim, 1944, pp. 352-3, 356-7, 375-8, 391-4, and plate Vlll. 42 BIBLIOGRAPHY Barrett, Samuel A. mS. Notes on the C language ( a r sketch). Typescript in the possession of S. A. Barrett. Cdrdoba Salinas, Diego de 1630. Vida, Virtudes X m 2roe del Nvevo Apostol del Pirv el venerable P. F. Francisco Solano, de la serafico Orden de los Menores de la Re ular Obserwancia, Patron de la Ciudad de los Reyes, C. ea yMetropli de los Reynos del Piru.... Geronymo de Contreras, Lima. 165l Cordnica de la Religiosissima Prouincia de los Doze H dstoles del Perti, de la orden de N. P. S. Francisco de la r observancia4 D en 8eislibros, con reliaci6 d a r ncia qnue de ella han salido dson sus hiJas... Jorge L pez de Herrera, Lima. Lehmann, Walter 1920. Zentral-Amerika. Tell 1. Die Sprachen Zentral-Amerikas in ihren Beziehungen zueinander towie zu Std-Amerika und Mexiko. D. Reimer, Berlin. 2vols. Mendiburu, Manuel de 1874-90. Diccionario historico-biogr& _ico del Perdi. Parte primera corresonde a la epoca de la dominaci6n es: oala. Varios publishers, Lima. 8 vole. Moreno y Escanddn, Francisco 19J7 "Plan geograf ico del Vireynato de Santafe de Bogota Nuevo Reyno de Granada.... Lo delineo D. Joseph Aparicio Morata ano de 1772. Fiel reproduccida del original elaborada-por el Instituto Geogrdfico Militar de Colombia a solicitud de la Academia de la Historia." Revista Geogrifica de Colombia, ano 2, no. 2, fold- map at end. Bogota. Murphy, Robert Cushman 1939a. "The Littoral of Pacific Colombia and Ecuador." Geo- graphical Review, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. * 33 New York. 1939b "Racial Succession in the Colombian Choc6." Geographical Review, vol. 29, no. 3 pp. 461-471. New York. 1941 "The Earliest Spanish Advances Southward from Panama Along the West Coast of South America." Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 3-28. Durham. Nordenskibld, Erland 1928. "Les Indiens de l'isthme de Panama." La Geograhie, vol. 50, nos. 5-6, pp. 299-319. Paris. 143 Otero, Josd Pacrfico 1905. Dos hdroes de la conquista. La Orden Franciscana en El Tucu ; en la Plata. Cabaut y Cia. - Editores, Buenos Aires Oviedo y Valdds, Gonzalo Fern4ndez de 1851-55 Historia gene natural de las Indias, islas y tierra- flirme del mar Oceano... ed. Jos6 Amador de los Rios. Imprenta de la Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid. 4 vole. Perez Kantule- Ruben 1938. "Short Cuna-Spanish Glossary" Edited by Henry Wass&n. Comparative Ethno ha Studies, no. 10, pp. 657-679. Goteborg. Recasens, Jose de, and Oppenhelm, Victor 1944, "An4lisis tipol6gico de materiales cer&micos y liticos, procedentes del Choc6." Revista del InstitutoEtnolo6gico Nacional, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 351EI 9 Rivet., Paul 1943-44. "La lengua Choc6', Revista del InstitL*D Etnol6gico Nacional, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 131-196; no. 2, pp. 297-349. Bogota. Seler, Eduard 1902a. "Die Sprache der Indianer von Esmeraldas." Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur amerikanischen Sprach- und Alter- thumskunde, vol. 17 pp.J49 3erlin. 1902b. "Die verwandten Sprachen der Cay4pa und der Colorados von Ecuador." Gesamnmelte Abhandlungen zur amerikanischen Sprach- und Alterthumskunde, vol. 1, pp. 1847Belin. Wassen, Henry 1935 "Notes on Southern Groups of Choco Indians in Colombia." Etoiska Studier, no. 1, pp. 35-182. Go*teborg.