day 5

making yarn from the cotton

squishing the plant and yarn together

final color from leave extract

weaving demonstration

traditional mask

painting devil mask 

Took a break from hiking today which I really needed; it was nice. We visited an indigenous tribe called the Boruca, they live in South-Pacific Costa Rica along the Talamanca Mountains 20 km from Panama. A Boruca family invited us into their home where we learned about their tribe’s history, traditions and crafts. It was surprising to hear her say that not a lot of locals know about their tribe and it seems to her that mainly visitors (like us) know of them. She said in the past the elders would be timid about showing people how to make their crafts but now that they teach the crafts in their schools they are more open to sharing it to keep tradition going. The Boruca’s own about 140 km squared of land which is protected for their use. But unlike in the US where water rights are important the idea of the concept seemed odd to her. She said that no one owns the water but everyone takes care of it because they all use it. Her tribe and my tribe (Yakama) have some of the same struggles such as partial loss of language and trying to keep their identity intact after the colonization of non-natives. They have something similar to my tribe’s tribal council; they have 7 people on a committee in charge of stuff like department of education etc.… But unlike my tribe where the enrolled members who aren’t part of the committee get to vote and make decisions their people cannot. They can have input but it’s only the committee who gets to decide. Although they are continuing their traditions they have changed up some of the practices such as housewife duties. The woman would usually have about 10 children and stay home and cook/clean. But now that with people in the tribe pursuing higher education they have less kids. Their crafts are self-sustaining it’s amazing. She made yarn out of cotton that they grew. Then she used different kinds of plants to mix the yarn with; she would wet the leaves and squish the yarn and leaf together. It blew my mind that she could have different colors of yarn with leaves that were just green! She also did a weaving demonstration which was bigger than I expected and looks complicated because if one of the sticks inserted (she calls the steering wheel) if it came out your whole thing would be ruined. We also seen a mask painting demonstration of a devil mask. Traditionally devil masks are used to scare off the Spanish conquerors. It was awesome to see another tribe fighting to preserve their identity and showing that a tribe cannot be defeated if its culture is still