Guna people

Guna
A Guna woman wearing a mola[1] stands next to a clothes line in Guna Yala, Panama
Total population
about 50,000
Regions with significant populations
Panama, Colombia
Languages
Guna
Religion
traditional Guna religion, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
other Chibchan-speaking people, Miskito

The Guna (also spelled Kuna or Cuna) are an indigenous people of Panama and Colombia. Guna people live in three politically autonomous comarcas or autonomous reservations in Panama, and in a few small villages in Colombia. There are also communities of Guna people in Panama City, Colón, and other cities. Most Guna live on small islands off the coast of the comarca of Guna Yala known as the San Blas Islands. The other two Guna comarcas in Panama are Kuna de Madugandí and Kuna de Wargandí. They are Guna-speaking people who once occupied the central region of what is now Panama and the neighboring San Blas Islands and still survive in marginal areas.

In the Guna language, they call themselves Dule or Tule, meaning "people", and the name of the language is Dulegaya, literally "people-mouth".[2] The term was in the language itself spelled Kuna prior to a 2010 orthographic reform,[3] but the Congreso General de la Nación Gunadule since 2010 has promoted the spelling Guna.

  1. ^ Wetter, Renate (2009). "Mola History". PANAMA MOLA. Archived from the original on 16 September 2010. Retrieved 17 October 2010.
  2. ^ Erice, Jesus (1985), Diccionario de la Lengua Kuna, Impresora La Nacion (INAC)
  3. ^ "Lenguaje – ¿Guna, kuna o cuna?: James Howe" [Language – Guna, kuna or cuna?: James Howe]. La Prensa (in Spanish). 22 February 2014.

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