Jeff Turner from the Wood Canyon ward shares this mission moment:
“I served my mission in Panama during 1981-1982. For the last four months, I lived among the Kuna Indians on the very remote islands of Nargana and Carti Tupili. The experience was unforgettable.
The Kuna are a tribe of American Indians that has remained pure due to very strict cultural practices. It is believed they once lived in the Amazon Basin, but migrated to the coast of Panama in the late 1400's to avoid contact with the Conquistadors. They came to inhabit some eighty islands of the San Blas Archipelago, which comprises approximately 360 islands. These remote islands are located on the coast west of the portion of Panama that is the Darien jungle, a tract of land so dense and inhospitable that, even now, it remains inpeneratable with no roads that transverse its length and uninhabited. For that reason, the Kuna remained untouched by Western culture until well after WWII.
The Kuna have a unique verbal dialect that, when I was there, was not written, as the people could not read or write. Three Silas (chiefs) were named on each of the eighty islands. The role of the chiefs was to gather the people on their island three nights a week and sing to them the stories of their people. Thus, the history of the Kuna's past was remembered through oral traditions. They kept these stories unchanged by always having two of the three chiefs at the gathering from different islands. If the song was altered even slightly, the portion was re-sung until it was presented word-for-word perfect. I witnessed a great many of these "songs." They sang of Iban, who went to the top of a tall mountain with all the kinds of animals until rain had destroyed all other life. They sang of the Garden, of the Creation, of Dakin, who deceived the first parents. My favorite was the song of Ibibali Pepeleli. The Sila (chief) said he doesn't always sing this song, only once a year:
"Ibaleli Pepeleli anciently was an old nele (prophet)
Pab Dumat (The Great Father) made the way in the sea
The sea was calm
Ibaleli Pepeleli sang to his people to teach them
The way was great
He saw the road, that it was good
He walked the road by the sea
A great shining tree was there at the end
Two of his children are ichiguagua (bad)
They don't want to walk the road by the sea
Ibaleli Pepeleli was showing his children the good way
Ibaleli Pepeleli fell into sleep
He dreamed
A spirit came and taught Ibaleli Pepeleli all things about Pab Dumat
In the dream it was told him not to stay where he lived because the people wanted to kill him
Ibaleli Pepeleli was to go to a different place
Pab Dumat would destroy the people of his home place
We (the ancient people) came to this place
The sea destroyed Ibaleli Pepeleli's old home
Snakes came
The people of the old land, many died
The old land became desolate
The people of Ibaleli Pepeleli remembered Pab Dumat and thus were saved
Ibaleli Pepeleli tells us two of his children were angry and wanted to hit their mother and father.
Two were nuegambi (good or kind) and walked the past with their father
I shall sing no more now
I end"
Of all of the songs that are sung, the one that is held most special recounts the coming of Ibiorgum, the son the of the Great Father, Pab Dumat. Descending from a high hill, Ibiorgum came among the people. His face and clothes glowed white above the glowing of the sun over the water. He wore a beard. When he smiled, the people felt joy. It is said that Ibiorgum taught the people how to live well and promised to come again. The Kuna also have a ritual in which a drink is passed through a curtain of dried leaves. Their chiefs say that this drink represents the blood of Ibiorgum, the son of the Great Father. They say that you must partake or you cannot live with the Great Father in the life to come. The ritual also incorporates elements of modern temple worship. The sila said, “We don't remember for how long, many many generations, but our fathers have always taught that Pab Dumat gave to us this land".
The first missionaries from our church arrived in 1979 on the island of Nargana. It had taken them nearly two days by boat and canoe to get there. As they arrived at the beach, a large crowd had gathered and the knelt in the sand before them. When the Elders inquired about the reception they received, they were told that the last Kuna nele, or prophet, had died some six months before. On his deathbed, the nele told his people that soon, men bearing the true history of their people would come wearing white shirts and what he described as ties. They had been waiting for those men. Many are now members of the church. They remain child-like and humble. President Kimball once said that they would one day stand as a witness of the Book of Mormon to all the world.”
