Naso (people)

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Naso (also Teribe , Naso-Teribe , Tjer-di , Tiribi , Tirribi , Térraba , Terraba , Nortenyo or Quequexque ) is the name of an indigenous people in Central America .

The Naso are one of Panama's eight indigenous tribes. Your settlement area is in the northwest of Panama, especially in the west of the Bocas del Toro province , in an area of ​​approx. 1,300 km², which includes a large part of the basin of the Río Teribe and San San rivers . While SIL International gave the population of the Naso in Panama in 1996 as 3000, a census in 2000 showed a total of only 1853 Naso among Panama's population. Several hundred Naso still live in Costa Rica. It is one of the last American tribes that is still ruled by a monarch today. The Naso are threatened with extinction.

Politics and administration

The tribe is ruled by a king. According to tradition, the succession to the throne runs through the brother of the king and the eldest son of the late king. When a royal family is completely extinct, an election takes place in the main settlement of Sieyik on the Río Teribe to appoint a new king (or in some cases a new queen, as in the case of Rufina Santana ).

While the tribes in Panama have semi-autonomous self-government areas, so-called comarcas with their own executive powers, a draft for a 130,000 hectare comarca for the Panamanian Naso has been on hold for years.

history

The Naso used to populate the Caribbean coast near the port city of Almirante . The ancestors of the Naso met the privateer Henry Morgan , and Christopher Columbus reported about these "inhabitants of the Atlantic coast" with gold necklaces. After centuries of fighting with the Spaniards, the English and all the tribes of the region, they withdrew to the remote areas of the Talamanca Cordillera in the 19th century , from where they later moved to their current settlements along the great rivers.

In May 2008 the tribe deposed their king when he allowed a company to build the El Diquís hydropower plant for £ 25 million . The tribal assembly installed his uncle, Valentin Santana, as king. Police prevented outbreaks of violence when the king and his followers were banished.

Construction work on the Bonyic River began in 2004. The Colombian Empresas Publicas de Medellin cleared the jungle and built roads. The government that signed the contract with the old king does not recognize the new king.

List of kings

population

Around 2,343 inhabitants live in eleven settlements in the main settlement area:

  • On the Río Teribe: Bonyic, Kuikin, Santa Rosa, Sieyik, Sieyikin, Solón and Sori.
  • On San San: Drury, La Tigra, Loma Bandera and San San.
  • Settlements in other areas: Charagre and Yorkin.

According to estimates, around 1,000 members of this tribe and up to 300 others live in Costa Rica outside their area, especially in the city of Changuinola.

Culture

The Naso live from agriculture and fishing . In the fields and in the forest they harvest fruits such as bananas, pineapples, guanabana, goyaba, orange, jabo as well as plane trees, corn, rice, cocoa, pixbae and coffee. Among other things, the Saino, a South American wild boar species, the golden agouti, the paca and birds such as the trumpeter bird or the toucan are hunted. The many rivers also offer fish as a source of food.

The naso craft consists of making baskets and working wood into spears, dugout canoes and houses. Their houses are built on stilts to protect them from uninvited visitors from the forest at night. A narrow ladder leads into the wooden hut covered with woven palm leaves.

They speak Teribe and most of them also speak Spanish . Some profess Catholicism , but traditionally they worship Sbo as the supreme god and creator. They also worship the Río Teribe. The majority of the Naso live in wooden huts covered with leaves.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rory Carroll: Panama tribe exiles its king over power plant deal . In: The Guardian / International Section, May 23, 2008, p. 26.