Cruising guides repeat that The Kuna culture is the most well preserved of any indigenous culture in The Americas.  Our view is not so hopeful.

During our days here, dozens of pleasant Kuna people have visited our boat, most with young children in tow, and many using the appeal of children to encourage either a purchase or donation ("so that we can pay for our children's schooling.")
This must be relatively new for a people that survived hundreds if not thousands of years on subsistence, on bananas, coconuts and fish.  The hardest working are up before dawn  diving for fish or filling water jugs from rivers.  But at some time in the last fifty years they either learned or were taught that their native clothing is salable to tourists.  (Could this have been a Peace Corps project?)  The early tourists here were likely to have been cruisers because a cruising yacht is the easiest way to see the area. No roads or convenient public transportation is available. 

Today, Kuna women are seen throughout Panama selling their crafts, and their homes and huts always have a mola ready to display and to sell should a tourist walk by.  Meanwhile, the youth are learning Spanish, and some, on their own, English.  And others, unfortunately, have learned to beg, to touch the heart with a story of impoverishment.  From these few, we are not asked to purchase an attractive product.  Instead, we are told that they need money for their children.

Two or three villages, such as Nargana, have begun to abandon traditional ways.  The power of The Sayla is weakening, electricity is available 24 hours, and computers are scheduled for the library.  While most women still use traditional clothing, many do not, and one well known Kuna salesperson, Lisa, arrives in slacks and blouse, with a portfolio of t shirts purchased in Panama City, then supposedly modified by her with Kuna designs.

During our visit, anchorages always had at least two yachts, and one or two had over 20, especially for a holiday like Thanksgiving.  We do not know how that adds up to the number of boats visiting annually,  but let's assume 1,000 per year.  These boats already have generated significant detritus, similar on every beach and island to what is seen in lakes and reservoirs at home.  We have not visited a single beach or island without old shoes, liquor bottles, pampers and plastic containers or bags.  Imagine, then, what life will be like in twenty years, when the youth want more, begging grows, and the number of yachts leaving junk is 4,000, or 6,000.  

These industrious people will survive, but not in the ways of their past.  As in all periods of history, visitors will engender change, but change without responsibility, because we  leave after our visits.  In our view, given enough time, the magnificent Kuna will become like Seminoles of Florida., a non existent culture falsely represented by roadside merchants selling cheap crafts.