Continuing Research on Writing and Ritual Among the San Blas Cuna

FAIN: FT-12520-75

James Howe
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA 02139-4307)

To conduct anthropological research into two related aspects of the culture of the San Bias Cuna, an indigenous people of the Northeast coast of Panama. The focus of this study will be on (1) the impact of writing and literacy on Cuna social life over the course of the last 70 years, and (2) the relationship between religious ritual and symbolism and the public life of Cuna villages, particularly in terms of the religious rationalization of the social order, the place of learning in political careers, and the use of myth and metaphor as social commentary.