This photographic series was created in the Darién region of eastern Panama, along the Río Sambú and its smaller tributary, the river of La Chunga. Here live the Emberá, an Indigenous people of the Chocó linguistic family, whose ancestors once occupied the vast rainforests stretching from Colombia’s Atrato basin to Panama’s Pacific lowlands. Over time, many followed the waterways northward, settling along the rivers that remain the lifeblood of their culture. The Emberá call themselves “the people” — a reminder that their identity is inseparable from the forest, the river, and the rhythm of nature.

Their stilted villages rise above the muddy riverbanks — worlds of water and wood. Life follows the rhythm of the river: fishing, small gardens of cassava and plantain, and baskets woven from dyed natural fibers. Bodies are painted with jagua— quimpara in Emberá — a fruit whose dark-blue pigment turns skin into living art. I followed a man into the forest as he gathered it, revealing how deeply the people remain connected to the jungle.

But this world is changing. Government programs have encouraged the abandonment of traditional dress, and among adolescents a new modesty has appeared — they now hesitate to bathe naked in the river. Some young people leave these remote villages in search of a more connected life, often facing hardship in urban neighborhoods marked by inequality and violence, such as El Chorrillo. Others stay, becoming defenders of their land and of the rainforest that sustains them.

This series offers only a glimpse, seen through the eyes of an outsider. It does not capture the full complexity of the Emberá people.