The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-01-11
PANAMA|ANS AONGREL
IN RACE AND DEPRIVED
: lES IN CONDITION
"Csns falf" on the Isthnus in
So 1ty the Ninety-and-Nine
- in Mode of Living.
WEDLOCK NOT POPULAR
Marriage Relation Little Thought
of by Mixed Breeds of Colon
and Panama City.
TRAITS OF THE INDIANS
No White Man Permitted on San
Bias Coast at Night-The
Civilized 1 Per Cent.
WEDLOCK NOT POPULAI
TRAITS OF THE INDIANS

From the Journals Special Commissioner.
PANAMA, r. p, Dec. 23.-"The other
half in Panama is in reality the ninety
and-nine, and in the general domestic con-
ditions surrounding its living it is but few
degrees removed from savagery. OF the
other one in this particular equation it may
be said that it lives under domestic and
social conditions commonly found in those
countries where the glory of Spain is
memory centuries old. Far up in the west
ern portion of the new republics domain
there live some natives who claim to be the
descendants of those whom the Spaniards
found when they discovered and conquered
the country, and who seem to have re-
tanned the true native customs speech and
physical type. In that same section, not
ably in the Province of Chiriqui, as well as
Porto Bello and Nombre de Dios, to the
eastward of Colon, on the Caribbean coast,
there live to this day decaying remnants of
the old Spanish gentility. OF these it is
hardly worth while to speak. for they are
so shut off from the world. living such
row, stunted lives, that they WELD prac-
tically no influence. nor are they matter
of any public concern.
To the eastward of Nombre de Dios,
Darien gulf, are the haunts of the San Bias
Indians. a race of stockiiy- built, bullet
headed, shocky-haired aborigines, domi-
mated by peculiar ideas and marked by most
peculiar traits. These Indians trade little
with white men, and occasionally small
parties of them make their way into Colon.
bringing cocoanuts or tortoise shells for
barter: but the one great aim of their ex-
iStencp q keen
attain this end they have a hard-and-fast
rule under which their women are never
permitted communication with white men,
and to save their blood from pollution white
men are absolutely excluded from their
coast at nightfall. The going down of the
sun is signal for every white man who
happens to be on this coast to go aboard
ship or stand offshOre during the night in
his cayuca, 1t being stated upon excellent
forced, that no white man has ever slept
a night the land belonging to the San
Blass Indians.
RAISE BOYS FOR SERvITUDE.
This race recognizes no dominion save its
own, acknowledges no sovereignty except
that of it's own tribe; yet strange as are
their ways, and careful as they are to pre-
serve their blood from admixture with that
of whites. they realize and appreciate the
benefits of Anglo-Saxon association. Their
method of securing that association is. how
ever, most peculiar. From the days of their
infancy the youths of this tribe are taught
that some day or other a white man will
come to take them away and make servants
of them. The idea is drilled into these
youngsters until they come to accept it as
matter of course, and ii actually works out.
The white man visiting the isthmus anl
wishing to procure the services of a boy
into whom the idea of servitude has been
thoroughly drilled has only to communi-
| cate with these Indians. The answer will
| be the appearance at the place appointed of
such San Bias youth, accompanied by his
! father or one of the minor chiefs of the
| tribe. With very little parleying the lad
| will be handed over to the white man. the
| only covenant eXacted by the Indian being
| a pledge that the boy shall be clothed and
| fed and educated in the English tongue.
From that day forth the boy will be a
servant to his protege, faithful, Obedient, re-
spcctful and willing; but there comes time
when this relationship ends. Sometime or
| other the white man will note the disappear
| ance of the servant-the boy will have gone
| TO his destiny with his tribe, for, while the
youngsters are taught that white man will
| take them away they are taught, too, that
| when they reach the age of about eighteen
years they are to slip away from the white
| mans home and return to their native coast.
| This they do invariably working their way
| back to the isthmuS as common sailors and
| reioining the tribe. Their fate thereafter is
| CONTINUED ON PAGE s, COL. So