A visit to the Kuna Indian village that completely covers the tiny palm covered Achutupt Island, a cay in the San Blas Archipelago. The Spanish explorer Rodrigo de Bastidas first encountered the Kuna islands along the southern Caribbean coast of Panama in 1501. Columbus described the women as wearing embroidered mantels around their waists and being adorned with gold nose rings and beaded arm and leg bands. One hundred and fifty years later English privateers noted that the women painted their bodies with colorful figures of birds, beasts, and fish. Huguenot refugees who settled amongst the Kuna in 1700 introduced the Indians to cotton clothing and the women transferred their body painting designs to their new garments. These primitive ethnographic designs gradually evolved into the magnificent embroidered applique molas of today. The twentieth century has barely penetrated Kuna society. The shore of Achutupt was lined with small dugouts, and the dirt floored, palm-thatched reed houses were bare of any modern conveniences save the hammocks, which appeared to be the only type of furniture. The women, dressed in their colorful mola blouses and sarongs, waited for us outside their homes proudly selling all manner of molas, shells, beaded bracelets and carved gourds.
We capped off the day by snorkeling around the wreck of a small coastal tramp steamer and lounging on sparking white sandy beaches of Dog Island.
