Rainforest art is ever more popular

arts

Plate by Albertina Cajeres

Traditional art sells well this time of the year

photos by Susan Little

How do traditional people who are in some cases only a generation or two removed from the stone age, whose Chocoan languages include numbers that go up only as far as five, make a living in a global economy?

It helps if their baskets are increasingly the envy of weavers and collectors around the world.

The Embera and Wounaan, distinct but related indigenous nations whose members for the most part live in the Darien and whose ancestors hail from the Amazon Basin, are increasingly famous for their basketry and wood and tagua nut sculptures.

Here, and increasingly abroad, Embera and Wounaan art is fetching higher prices and becoming ever more popular as Christmas gifts. But there are also people who buy such work for utilitarian purposes --- there are many practical uses for reed baskets woven so tightly that they can hold water.

All of the works shown on this page are for sale. If you are interested, call Susan Little at (507) 223-4815 or contact her by email at susan@emberanation.com. To see some more items that are for sale, go to http://www.emberanation.com. Another good place to buy Embera and Wounaan artwork is at the bookstore and gift shop at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Tupper Center, at the site of the old Tivoli Hotel in Ancon.

Basket, shown above from the side and below from the bottom, Marian Zalaza

Bottom of a bowl by Julia Dagirama

Bowl by Diagonifzia Zarco

Basket by Anayansi

Purse with cat design by Nora Quinora

Purse with duck design by Zunilda Tocamo

Wood sculptures --- the human figures are separate from the trapiche --- by Juanita Berugate

Plate by Diagonifzia Zarco

This artwork depends on both ancient skills passed down through families and materials found in forests and wetlands