Evening star., 1937-10-24

saw that only one metal could be easily
nodded, hammered or fooled. Only one
metal never tarnished. They wanted
something they could use to create
ornaments and religious objects and
this yellow metal seemed better than
anything else. There was = white
metal, silver, which they had expert
mented with, but 1t tarnished, turned
almost black once 1t was put on shelf
or In a tomb. Their craftsmen pre-
ferred the untarnishing yellow metal.
When = Darien high chief died the
tribe made. out Of the yellow metal,
reproduction OF a life-size skeleton.
Gold skeleton and the chiefs body
were entombed together, but as last
ing contact with the departed man
each Of his relatives had miniature
Of the big skeleton, made also OF gold,
and wore it on all ceremonial occa-
sions, suspended from neck cord.
These small skeletons. or huacas, are to
be found In every Indian village. When
a man dies the huacas Of all his previ-
ously deceased relatives are buried
with him. Thus the graves Of Darien
are veritable gold mines. They con-
tain, also, gold urns, gold ceremonial
spear heads and personal jewelry In
great abundance when the inferred
body is that OF an important chief.
Religious Barrier.
But now that the Chakois know
what white men will be up to, no mat
ter under what name they seek to dis
guise their visits, no stranger has been
able to enter the deep Darien interior
for the last 10 years. We gained ac-
cess to two of their frontier villages,
their outposts, through which they
transact whatever business they want
to do with the white man or the out
side world, but We were not allowed to
60 farther. II we could have traded
bright cloth for all the gold we saw in
those first two villages We would not
have had to travel much farther any
where. We could have rested on our
profits for several years.
Their golden ornaments, however,
were not things which could be bought
They did not represent wealth to their
owners; they were bound to them by
religious beliefs. and tribal legends. A
man was not rich materially just be-
cause his house was full OF gold. He
still worked for food and primitive
comforts, worked just as hard as q
younger man who had only a few gold
huacas. To sell tribal ornaments for
personal profit Is not Chakois phil
osophy.
When Vasco Balboa crossed over the
mountains Of the Darien Isthmus in
1913 he had as an assistant one Fran
cisco Pizzaro. Balboa obtained great
booty from the Indians, but he thought
that his discovery from a Darien
mountain top, Of the Great South
Sea-" the Pacific. was enough to earn
him greater fortune from the Span
ish throne. He guessed wrong. All he
got from King Ferdinand was the
empty title Of admiral of the Pacific,
while his assistant Pizzaro pushed on
inland to win the greatest gold cache
the new world has ever known.
To Spain went ships loaded with
gold from Darien and Peru. But the
Darien Indians made new ornaments
to replace those lost. Today the Span
lard and the paler faced Norte Amer
icano. or White Man" Is indelibly
etched in their legends and memory as
a despoiler of their ancestral homes,
and they will have nothing more
do with strangers. Keep out! is their
command Visitors tn Panama City
may see many huacas and examples of
Darien gold craftsmanship, handed
down to modern families from ancient
Conquistador ancestors. but the in
terror of Darien today is closed terri
tory. No tourist and no explorer Is
allowed to enter the interior.
(CopyriTht, 1879