In spite of the severe measures of the Spaniards, they have never been thoroughly reduced, and still manifest an unconquerable love of freedom and a wild life. When first met they lived in small villages composed of communal houses, raised maize and cotton, working the latter into garments for the women, and possessed some gold, which they obtained from the mountain streams and by working auriferous veins. The men usually appeared naked and used poisoned arrows.

The Cuna language does not seem to be positively connected with any other stock, nor have dialects of it been discovered elsewhere. A number of verbal similarities have been pointed out with the Chibcha, and it has also a certain similarity to the Carib;[229] but with our present knowledge it would be hasty to class it along with any other.

The Changuina or Dorasque tribes of the Isthmus lived latterly on the River Puan, a branch of the Telorio, and are said to have numbered 5000 persons, though but a few miserable remnants are surviving. They are lighter in color than the Guaymis, with whom they were in a constant state of quarreling. In earlier times they were bold warriors, lived by hunting, and were less cultured than their neighbors; yet a remarkable megalithic monument in the pueblo of Meza is attributed to them.[230] At the period of the conquest they dwelt in the high Sierras back of the volcano of Chiriqui and extended to the northern coast near Chiriqui Lagoon, where the River Changuina-Aula (aula, in the Mosquito language, means river), still preserves their name. They were an independent warlike tribe, and gave the Spaniards much trouble. Finally, these broils led to their practical extinction. The last member of the Dorasque branch died in 1882, and few others remain.

CHANGUINA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

The Chocos were the first nation encountered in South America on passing beyond the territory of the Cunas. They occupied the eastern shore of the Gulf of Uraba, and much of the lower valley of the Atrato. Thence they extended westerly across the Sierra to the Pacific coast, which they probably occupied from the Gulf of San Miguel, in north latitude 8°, where some of them still live under the name of Sambos, down to the mouth of the San Juan River, about north latitude 4°, on the affluents of which stream are the Tados and Noanamas, speaking well-marked dialects of the tongue. To the east they reached the valley of the Cauca, in the province of Antioquia. The Tucuras, at the junction of the Sinu and the Rio Verde, are probably their easternmost branch.[231]

Anthropologically, they resemble the Cunas, having brachycephalic skulls, with large faces, but are rather taller and of darker color. Here the resemblance ceases, for they are widely dissimilar in language, in customs and in temperament. Instead of being warlike and quarrelsome, they are mild and peaceable; they lived less in villages and communal houses than in single isolated huts. Most of them are now Catholics and cultivate the soil. They have little energy and live miserably. At the time of the conquest they were a trafficking people, obtaining salt from the saline springs and gold from the quartz lodes, which they exchanged with the tribes of the interior. Some of them were skilful in working the metal, and fine specimens of their products have been obtained from their ancestral tombs.

CHOCO LINGUISTIC STOCK.