The Cunana Family — Emberá Muñeca Weavers
The Cunana Family
The only family weaving the Emberá muñeca
Deep in the Comarca of the Darién, in the village of Sambú, a mother and her daughter weave figures that almost no one else alive knows how to make. Rosamelia Cunana learned the muñeca from her mother, Señora de Cunana, and together they remain the only family still weaving them. The whole tradition survives in two pairs of hands.
Each figure takes roughly two months, working about eight hours a day. Strands of chunga and nahuala palm are split needle-fine, dyed with natural rainforest pigments. Achiote gives red, jagua and cocobolo give black, yuquilla gives yellow. Then they are stitched in unbroken coils, the same patient craft behind the Emberá masks and baskets we carry. Nothing is moulded or stuffed; the form is built entirely from the weave.
What the figures carry
The figures come as man and woman, and each carries meaning. The male figure is an expression of survival. He carries a spear, a bow, and an arrow, for the hunt and for the defense of the tribe. The female figure is the provider, known by the basket she carries for the vegetables, utensils, and goods of the household. Together they represent a life worked side by side, partners through every human endeavor.
Materials from the forest
Everything begins with the palm. The Cunanas cut young chunga and nahuala fronds, strip the spines, and shred the leaf into strands as fine as thread. That split fiber becomes the body of every figure. The strands are sun-dried, then simmered with pigments the forest gives up: achiote seed for red, jagua fruit and cocobolo wood for the deep blue-black of the body markings, yuquilla root for yellow. Only once the fiber is shredded, dyed, and dried does the coiling begin, strand over strand, by hand, until the figure stands on its own.
The black designs are a rendition of traditional Emberá body painting. The Emberá mark themselves with jagua, a deep blue-black dye, in patterns that run from the jaw and chin down the body, with triangles and rings banded along the arms and legs. The women wear the colorful wrapped skirt called a paruma.
Six at once, the rarest we have seen
These figures have not been available in over a year, and never six at once. This time the Cunanas wove three couples, six figures in all. There is no restocking and no way to reorder on demand: the next set is whenever the family finishes weaving again. When one finds its home, that figure is gone.
RFB buys directly from the weavers themselves and through their cooperative and tribal representatives, so each piece comes with its story intact.