From Council to Legislature: Democracy, Parliamentarianism, and the San Blas Cuna

From Council to Legislature: Democracy, Parliamentarianism, and the San Blas Cuna

ALEXANDER MOORE University of Southern California

An exposition of the Cuna general congress’s procedures, compared to local congress’s and the Panamanian legislature k, discloses a tendency toward Western parliamentananism, a folk conflict model originating in England. Anihropologists have good models for conflict; political scientists have other models for consent. Panama’s assembly is shown to be a support structure rather than a demand one. Finally, recommendations are made for using formalization to safeguard indigenous democracy.

THE CUNA INDIANS OF PANAMA’S SAN BLAS DISTRICT have had great success in adapting their local institutions to tribal needs (Holloman 1969; Moore 1980a). They are justly proud of their tribal, or general, congress, which, in turn, when contrasted with its local and less formalized prototype - and with the Panamanian national legislature -poses questions about the nature of parliamentarianism and democracy in their relation to each other. Anthropologists have studied conciliar behavior (Richards and Kuper 1971) and oratory (Bloch 1975), but generally they have not studied legislatures or democracy.

San Blas District and its Cuna Indians are unusual in Latin America in that they con- stitute an autonomous tribal reserve, occupying some 240 lun of strategic Atlantic coastline. The fifty or so local Cuna communities are governed by local “gatherings” (Howe 1974) (Cuna onmakkeneka, konkreso; Spanish, congreso), congresses (Moore 1981b), or councils.

According to Audrey Richards, councils are an expression of the “institutionalized process of joint discussion, as distinct from informal arguments” (1971:l). A council is characterized by three criteria: rules of personnel (who may or may not participate); rules of place or location; and “a series of conventions,” which include formal openings, certain fixed seating arrangements, a given order of speaking among the participants, and perhaps special phraseology of speech (1 97 1 : 3).

The Westernization and formalization of conciliar behavior are of importance to applied anthropology. Richards (1971 :9-10) discusses the impact of British colonial administration on traditional African councils, which is similar to that of the Panamanian nation-state on the Cuna general congress. There are the same attempts to “streamline

ALEXANDER MOORE is Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Southern California, University Park, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0661.

Copyright 0 1984 by the American Anthropological Association 0002-7294/84/010028-15$2.00/1

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Moore] SAN BLAS CUNA 29

the procedure,” to define powers of councils at local and regional levels, to separate out judicial functions and give them to a magistrate.

SOME THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Although Chapple and Coon (1942) provided a behavioral model for representational democracy, most anthropologists since have concentrated on conflict theories. In contrast, the dominant model in American political science comes from general systems theory and sees politics as a continuous flow of activities through a locus or conversion center. On one side come inputs, on the other side flow outputs. David Easton (1959) isolated five basic political activities. Elsewhere he fit the activities into the flow chart (1953, 1965). The formulation of demands is the input. Legislation is the conversion process. Then, administration and adjudication are outputs. So, too, is the marshalling of support for the system, which also forms a feedback loop, since a regime strives to receive support in terms of positive inputs. Gabriel Almond (1960) has elaborated a rather more complicated version of the input-output model. For him, legislation is not a conversion but an output.

In political anthropology, conflict models date back to Evans-Pritchard’s “complemen- tary opposition” (1940). This concept was furthered by Barths study of the Swath Pathans (1959). Victor Turner formulated “social dramas” (1957). Conflict theory then blossomed in Swartz, Turner, and Tuden’s formalization of a temporal model of conflicts (1966). F. G. Bailey’s treatise in political anthropology (1969) is another conflict model in which contenders compete in the arena for prizes or simply “scores.’” Yet another version is the “disputing process” in the anthropology of law (Nader and Todd 1978:14-15).

WESTERN PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURES: A FOLK CONFLICT MODEL

In Western parliaments each item of business must take the form of a motion, made and seconded from the floor and then stated aloud by the chair. Each motion must either be accepted or rejected by means of a vote.

The either-or, yes or no form of parliamentary business, in which all matters put to debate must be either accepted or rejected by parliament, is, according to Herbert L. Spiro, the product of English history in which parliament was originally a “parley” among king, church, lords, and commoners. Much of its “talk’ decided trouble cases. In short, parliament acted principally as a court of law. In English common law tradition, every case must be defined in terms of a single issue or point of law. If there is no point of law in question, there is no case; the plaintiffs complaint is dismissed. Moreover, all court decisions are defined in terms of yes or no answers to the issue in question, guilty or not guilty. This same system came to govern parliamentary business (Spiro 1959:244-245).

This British system was exported to the Continent at the time of the French revolution. The Estates General had not met for so many years that the French wrote to Britain for guidance. Jeremy Bentham, the utilitarian radical, wrote back, and his reply, published as “Tactics of Legislative Assemblies,” was widely adopted as parliamentary procedure in Europe (Spiro 1959:240). Moreover, Bentham’s works, including those on parliamentary procedures, were published in a monthly review, El Espaiiol, and widely disseminated in Latin America between 1810 and 1814 on the eve of the independence struggles (Schwartz 1980:227). Panama’s legislature follows British procedures, as is discussed in this paper.

There is, however, at least one alternative form of parliamentary debate in Europe: Sweden has its own indigenous Scandinavian rule of debate. Here a motion on the floor may not be amended by a motion to amend. Rather, one can only move to adopt the motion in amended form. That motion is not debated as such at the time. Instead, the

30 AMERICAN A N T H R O P O L O G I S T [86, 1984

speaker submits the motion in question to vote in all its various forms by having a series of dual votes, proposal and counterproposal. The speaker takes the various amended versions and submits them to vote in what the speaker intuitively feels is their order of weakness in support, the weakest one first, paired with another weak one. After each voting, one proposal emerges triumphant and is then paired as “counterproposal” with the next one, and so on, round robin until one version emerges victorious. Apologists of the Swedish system maintain that this is an admirable instrument of compromise in a multiparty system that has come to be marked by ever widening areas of consensus (Rustow 1955:191-195; Andren 1961:lOS-112). Implicitly, the system is linked to the habit of forming coalition governments by parties that preserve their separate identities while cooperating with their near neighbors on the ideological spectrum.

Parliamentary debate, then, is structured according to a kind of “folk conflict theory” to govern conflict between two adversaries, the outcome being decided by majority vote.

To pursue the assertion that parliamentary debate is a folk conflict theory, consider the Swartz, Turner, and Tuden temporal model of political conflict (1966:31-38). The first stage is the mobilization of political capital, in which one leader builds up resources in preparation for a move against the opponent. The moves are often kept secret. Then comes the “showdown,” in which one party precipitates a crisis in which opposing resources are thrown into relief. The two contenders then enter a period of “crisis.” In parliaments this period corresponds to having an issue on the floor and under debate. In- deed, debate also corresponds to the next two phases in the Swartz-Turner-Tuden model: the appearance of “countervailing tendencies” arid the “deployment of redressive mechanisms.” The vote, perhaps, best corresponds to the latter phase. In any case, the aim of a vote is to achieve the end of the Swartz-Turner-Tuden model: “restoration of peace.”

In short, British-style parliamentary procedure, true to its origins in a court in common law, is very much an “adjustive or redressive mechanism” designed to deflect conflict from battlefield to parliament. Parliamentary debates and votes provide a clear means of granting victory to one side or the other. That is one reason they have flourished in two- party systems but not in one-party or multiparty systems.

THE CUNA LOCAL CONGRESS

Against these theoretical and substantive perspectives, then, this paper is an exercise in the comparative method. We examine the Cuna general congress at a midpoint on a Redfieldian continuum between the Cuna local congress and the Panamanian national assembly. When compared with the indigenous model, the tribal congress is clearly more formal and rational, but is less so than the Western legislature. However, the national assembly is not more democratic than either Cuna council.

Personnel

Conceptually, local congresses gather together the entire population of a community. Several nights a week women and children are called into the congress house to sit sur- rounded by the adult men as all listen to the chants of the chiefs. Other nights, the chiefs convoke talking gatherings, which usually call up adult men only.* Within the body of adult men there are three orders of serially ranked personnel.

First are chiefs (saila, pl. sailakanu), three to six in any given community. Traditional- ly, they are learned in the sacred chants that they alone perform. (Chiefs in three acculturated communities do not chant.) Ranked below the chiefs are interpreters or spokesmen (urkar, pl. arkarkana) in another serially ranked order from first to fifteenth or so. They interpret the chants and also form a body of aldermen. Below them is yet


another lineup of men ranked from first to last, constables (sualipe, pl. sualipkana). In addition, most communities have a set of committees in charge of public tasks.

Local Talking Congress Activities

Local business congresses meet to talk rather than to chant.’ Much of their talk is in- formative: residents returning from travels deliver a report; visitors state their business and tell of their travels; travel permits are granted to residents to leave the community. In addition, the congress takes up action items, or “paths” (ikar, pl. ikarkana), matters that require resolution.

There is no precedence in which the local congress takes up its business. Rather, matters follow the sense of timing of the first chief. Many action items are trouble cases, disputes between two parties, in which the congress, through the chiefs, acts as a court. Votes are not taken save very occasionally in three acculturated communities. Instead each matter is resolved by the sense of the meeting. When agreement cannot be attained on a particularly divisive issue, a community may fission.

THE PROCEDURES OF THE CUNA GENERAL CONGRESS

I and my research assistant, Cuna sociologist Eligio Alvarado, observed three Cuna general congresses in 1977 and 1978. Holloman observed one in 1967 and subjects it to a cursory and critical examination ( 1969:357-370).4 Conciliar behavior here is more formal and more complicated than that of a local congress. The sequence of events was similar in all three. We have thus isolated the procedural form of the general congress.

Scheduling. By tribal charter of 1945,5 the congress is to be held three times a year in sessions of no less than eight days. These rules are not observed. Some years there are only one or two congresses, and - I am told - they never least as long as eight days. The three we observed lasted only three days. The scheduling of a congress depends on political pressures rather than on any fixed dates or calendrical rites, as is often the case for tribal confederate councils.

Personnel. By tribal charter each local community is required to send a delegation; a few delegations will fail to arrive at any given congress, since travel conditions are not always favorable. By charter each delegation must include local chiefs and others elected by the local congress. Numbers are not specified. Not all local chiefs attend, but at least one from each community does, as well as one of his interpreters.

The tribal charter sets the number of high chiefs of the district at three and requires them to attend the general congress; the first high chief presides. In addition, there is an advance preparations committee, with some members drawn from the local community. (This resembles the local arrangements committee of an academic congress in the United States.) The preparations committee yields to a head table (Sp. mesa directiva) early in the congress. The head table consists of two secretaries, a correspondence secretary, a treasurer of the congress, and a bailiff whose task is to allow speakers to take the floor in the order recognized by the first high chief. In addition, there may be as many as three official interpreters in case Panamanian officials speak.

Location. Congresses are rotated among the more populous communities of San Bias, those able to feed and house some 225 or more delegates. The next host community volunteers for the honor toward the end of each congress.

Arrival and Checking In. On arrival, delegates report directly to the local congress house. Constables escort them to their assigned host households after their names have

32 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [86, 1984

been written on the roster. Later, delegates gather in small groups in the streets, often for intense lobbying .

Inaugurating a Congress. It is proper, but not necessary, to inaugurate a congress with a chant. That is, some chief may chant a welcome. The more potentially divisive the matters to be resolved, the more likely the chant. In any case, in the evening the delegates take seats as they find them. Lower-ranking delegates tend to sit together on back benches and ranking men sit on benches arranged around the open arena, where in sing- ing congresses the chief s hammocks hang.

Installation of the Head Table. The organizing committee’s chair must yield the floor to the first high chief who announces the personnel of the head table. At this point the members of the organizing committee leave the table and take seats in the room. The newly appointed officers of the head table stand, raise their right hands and are formally sworn in over a copy of the tribal charter held by the district judge, who administers a Western-style oath. They are joined at the high table by the high chiefs.

Reading of Correspondence and of the Agenda. A secretary then reads any letters ad- dressed to the general congress. Next, a secretary reads the agenda (Sp. temario), which has been handed him by the first high chief, who had delegated its assembly to influential educated persons. The list of action items may be debated from the floor.

The Reports of the High Chiefs and the Assembly RepTesentatiues. Next morning the congress resumes with a roll call. Then the high chiefs, in rank order, give reports (Cuna owisoe, Sp. informes) detailing their activities since the last general congress. The three official delegates to the national assembly may next give reports.

Action I t e m . The afternoon meeting takes up action items (Sp. temas, Cuna ikarkana) in the order set by the agenda. The first high chief recognizes speakers. A congress may not finish considering all items on the agenda, but “old business” is not carried over to the next congress.

As in the local congress, an item is discussed until consensus is reached, the “true path” is found. Formal votes are avoided, although the tribal charter-drafted with Panama- nian advice-declares that majority vote shall prevail. This is not the case. Rather, the sense of the meeting is understood when speakers stop addressing contrary opinions on an issue, or when a contrary opinion is angrily and massively shouted down. A good sign that consensus has been reached is a sudden rapid-fire repetition of a position by a number of speakers, all saying almost the same thing.

While debate starts on the new issue, the secretaries of the head table begin to draw up a resolution (Sp. resolucibn), writing it in Spanish to express the sense of the agreement just reached. It is tacitly understood that items on the agenda are to be taken up in order of importance. Once pressing issues have been resolved, delegates are impatient and less willing to hear lesser issues if it means staying beyond a third day.

Confirmation and Swearing in of Newly Appointed Village Chiefs. When the meeting tires of action items, in the evening of the session or in the morning of the third day, newly appointed village chiefs of whatever rank are asked center stage. The district judge administers a Western-style oath over a copy of the tribal charter. Then the new chiefs sit down front and are formally admonished by leading notables and orators.

Delivering Admonishments. Admonishments appear at several other points in a congress. The high chiefs may receive them after they have delivered their reports. Ad- monishments (Cuna unanaet, Sp. amonestar) are formal speech events (see Howe 1974: 123-126) in which a venerable person exhorts the person admonished to right con-


duct, frequently in rites of passage. Here admonishments seal the peace between erstwhile enemies who must sit together while orators one by one exhort them to uphold new agreements and become friends.

The Reports of Panamanian Government Officials and of Cuna Associations. After ex- hausting its “own” business, the congress listens dutifully to the reports of representatives of the Panamanian national bureaucracy. In one congress there were no action items, only reports. No less than ten officials gave reports (five of these were Cuna).

The Presentation and Approval of the Texts of Resolutions. Final business of a congress is to listen to the text of resolutions prepared by the secretaries of the high table, which are read in Spanish, interpreted, and often debated and amended before reaching their final form.

Adjournment. When there are no more reports or resolutions, the congress seems to end by tacit agreement; there is a stir to leave. However, the final moments may be embellished by a burst of farewell oratory as one speaker after another takes the floor to praise the work just accomplished.

THE PANAMANIAN NATIONAL LEGISLATURE

The Cuna general congress is clearly more formal and complex than its local prototype. More formal still is Panama’s national assembly (Asamblea Nacional de Representantes de Corregimientos), which embodies Western parliamentary procedures. It is, I believe, the living model toward which the Cuna tribal council inexorably moves. I have not observed the assembly, but instead I have carefully examined the statutes that define it (PanamP 1972, 1979a, b).

The assembly is composed of 505 delegates, one from each local electoral unit, the corregimiento. The legislative powers of this assembly are minimal, having to do with ratifying treaties, declaring war, and ratifying political divisions of the republic’s territory. Much more legislative power is lodged with the legislative council, a body composed of the legislative committee of the assembly, and the cabinet presided over by the president. The cabinet acting alone has great discretionary powers to issue decree-laws in any case, as it completely controls fiscal powers connected with taxation, the treasury, foreign debt, and expenditures.

In the system instituted by the constitution of 1972, the 505 representatives were the only directly elected officials in the republic. Constitutional amendments of 1978 provide that in the future the president and vice-president shall be popularly elected; theretofore they had been elected by the assembly. Until 1979 they had to share power with General Omar Torrijos, who had become chief executive after a military coup in 1969. Torrijos held the titles of Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and Head of Government Ueje de Gobierno).

The 505 representatives tend to come from the lower levels of the state bureaucracy. Cuna familiar with the assembly assured me that at least two-thirds of its members in 1977 were minor officials (including schoolteachers and the like). The national assembly meets for only one month of the year, starting in October. But all representatives are also ex-officio members of provincial coordinating councils (Concejos Provinciales de Coor- dinacibn) in their home provinces. These are presided over by the provincial governor and include one member, usually the chief, for each of the national ministries operating in the province.

At the next level “down” the administrative hierarchy, representatives are also members of municipal councils. In Panama, as in most Latin American countries, the municipzo is an administrative-territorial unit analogous to the Anglo-American county.


If there are not enough representatives in a municipio to fulfill the minimum of five council members, those on hand appoint others to their ranks. Mayors are named by the municipal council members from a slate of three candidates presented by the governor. Finally, representatives are required by law to belong to a consultative council in their home districts, the juntas comunales. Thus, assembly representatives are the only elected officials in a system that is otherwise thoroughly appointive. Members of the legislature, they are also members of councils at provincial, municipio, and local levels.

The inauguration of an assembly’s annual session is highly ritualized. The next day the business of the assembly begins. However, the constitution requires the vice-president of the republic and each cabinet minister to give the assembly a separate report on finances and development plans. Ail this occurs in a one-month session, Monday through Thurs- day from 2:OO p.m. to 6:OO p.m. and Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The closingses- sion is also ritualized.

In each new session the assembly appoints members to its 16 standing committees. In addition, each provincial delegation to the assembly elects one member to the legislative committee that, when meeting with the cabinet, forms the national legislative council. Four assembly committees oversee its internal operations, the rest are concerned with each ministerial sphere in the national administration. The glaring exception is defense; there is no committee whatever to consider the Panamanian military. These committees are required by law to meet at least oncd every two months throughout the year. Thus, they occupy the representatives during the 11 months the assembly is not in session.

The session is called to order by the president of the assembly who directs the secretary general to ascertain if there is a quorum, a simple majority of the members of the assembly. If there is a quorum, the session then must go to the reading of the minutes, their discussion and acceptance, and then the Order of the Day.

The latter is set forth in Article 130 of Chapter IV of the Standing Orders (Reglumento Interno) of the Assembly. My translation is as follows:

Article 130: The Order of the Day shall be fixed by the Committee of the Board of Directors Vunta Dz~ectzvu] in the following form: 1. Reading and discussion of the Minutes; 2. The correspondence that the Assembly ought to hear, telegrams, petitions and memorials of

whatever nature, all of which shall be placed in a section called “READING OF THE DOCUMENTS IN THE GENERAL SECRETARIATE;”

3. The elections which must be made by a vote of the Assembly; 4. The observations of the Executive Organ or its objections to any of the Projects agreed upon

by the Assembly; 5. The Projects which may be ready for debate. In the debate the norm to be followed is a

rigorous chronological order of presentation, for the lodging of each project in its correspond- ing section, taking account of the day and the hour in which it may be sent back or presented, all of which the Secretary General shall make the marginal notes of the case and shall also leave a declaration in the book which he should open to that effect; and

6. The announcements of committees which do not accompany any other project in law. [ Panam% 1979a:37-38]

If we compare this Order of the Day with the Order of Business set forth in North America’s Robert’s Rules of Order (1979), it is clear that Panamanian parliamentary procedure is derived from the same prototype.6

Says Robert (1979:261-262):

When no order of business has been adopted, the following is the order: 1) Reading the Minutes of the previous meeting (and their approval). 2) Reports of Boards and Standing Committees. 3) Reports of Special (Select) Committees.

Moore] SAN BLAS CUNA

4) Special Orders. 5) Unfinished Business and General Orders. 6) New Business.

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Special Orders are motions postponed to a specific time. General Orders are motions postponed to such time as they can be taken up, in chronological order. There is no equivalent in Panama’s assembly. All unfinished business is treated as Special Orders.

Moreover, the assembly does not discuss “new business” per se. Any project in law presented on the floor is referred without discussion to committee. A report back to the floor is required within three days, the item being placed on the agenda by the Junta Directiva.

THE CUNA GENERAL CONGRESS PROCEDURES AS ORDERS OF THE DAY

The Cuna local congress follows no set order; the Cuna General Congress does. It is clear that its sequence reflects, if loosely, the Order of the Day of Western parliaments. In fact, the written agenda read at the opening of a congress does more or less follow that order. There are no minutes to read, but there is the reading of the correspondence. Next, the reports of the high chiefs correspond to the “observations of the Executive Organ.” Debates come next in both bodies. Finally the reports of Panamanian officials and Cuna associations correspond to the “announcements of committees.” Even the opening chants correspond to the pledge to the flag and the general ceremonial of the opening day. The naming of the head table corresponds to the presessioii election of the Junta Directiuu of the assembly. However, the assembly does not subject its principals to admonishments. The swearing in of new chiefs does resemble the assembly’s installation of members of the legislative committee, as well as its role in the inauguration of the president of the republic.

DEMOCRACY AND PARLIAMENTARIANISM IN PANAMA

The 505 representatives to the assembly are an enoimous group of delegates for a national population of only 1,700,000. Before 1969, the Panamanian legislature had been many times smaller. Clearly such a large number represents a populist ideal. Still, between 1972 and 1978 there were very real limits to electoral democracy in Panama. Both president and vice-president were elected indirectly and, in any case, they had to share power with a self-appointed chief of government, General Torrijos. Officially, the armed forces had instituted a revolutionary process. At some unspecified date the military would retire from the process. In 1979 General Torrijos did indeed give up his title of Chief of Government - but not his title of Commander in Chief - and announced his repliegue (withdrawal). However, he did not give up his tacit position as final arbiter of public life before his death in a plane crash in 1981.

Not only did elected officials have no authority over the Panamanian military, the revolution also banned all traditional political parties. They continued to meet extraof- ficially, but were unable to field candidates for elections to the assembly. Consequently, the candidates who won election reflected a nonpartisan constituency that was responsive to the state bureaucracy, especially the provincial governors.

Although ideally the assembly is supposed to channel popular legislative initiative to the legislative council, mainly through its members sitting in their respective provincial planning councils, it was clear from discussions in the press that most legislation in Panama originates in the cabinet and the bureaucracy. The Ministry of Planning is especially influential in this process, since it drafts the budget. Cabinet ministers are often linked with sectorial interests groups, and they have represented a broad spectrum of political opinion.


So clear is the overall responsiveness of the regime to the civil service and the national guard, however, that Panama’s leading Marxist intellectual, Ricaurte Soler, labels it “Bonapartist,” meaning that it represents a triumph of statist-political forces over the class struggle. In his view, a statist society could follow a “Bismarckian” line and en- courage rapid industrialization, thus setting the stage for a genuine socialist revolution (Soler 1976:46-54).’

After the constitutional reforms of 1978, in part a reaction to the successful conclusion of the Carter-Torrijos treaties on the status of the Panama Canal, the regime legalized political parties and provided for the direct election of the president in the future. At the same time, however, the government organized an official political party that included most of the representatives elected previously. This party dominates the assembly today, but now it must listen in debates to the vocal opposition of several minority parties, some of which are represented on the legislative council as well. In this context the official party is “left-centrist.’’

Between 1969 and 1979 the Torrijos regime had a number of populist developmental goals. The regime launched massive economic development in agriculture, mining, hydroelectricity, port facilities, and tourism, investing heavily in these sectors through a combination of United States aid and foreign banking capital. The regime also invested heavily in education and public health. It wanted to cultivate a citizenry that was hygienic, well nourished, literate, and politically conscious. However, its image of citizen participation did not include active citizen opposition to its projects; quite the contrary. Although the regime encouraged citizen participation in advisory councils at local and electoral district levels, and although it cultivated the idea -disseminated in civic awareness seminars- that all these advisory councils should be conduits for citizen- initiated legislation and policy, in fact the great development projects of the regime were born in the bureaucracy and applied from the top down.

Thus, looking at the flow of political action in Torrijos’s Panama, it is clear that the assembly of 505 representatives was not so much a structure for inputs to express popular demands as it was a structure for outputs, in Easton’s terms, a “support” structure designed to mobilize the population and to co-opt popular leadership to the regime’s own ends.

Given this context, it is not surprising that eventually the regime and the Cuna general congress should clash. Panamanian officials tend to treat the Cuna general congress just as cabinet ministers treat their own assembly: as a place to deliver reports and com- municate administrative actions, not to deliberate on them. When the national tourist agency, IPAT, tried to incorporate San Blas into national development plans through a project to build a resort on the San Blas coast at a cost of millions of dollars (Moore 1980a:14), the project was presented to the Cuna general congress as a report, not an action item. When the agency actually tried to carry out feasibility studies in the area of the proposed resort, neither the local community nor the Cuna general congress would allow it, thus revoking the permit issued by the three high chiefs. The upshot was a tribal schism, for in response the congress decided to oust the three high chiefs and install three new ones. This action was not recognized by the national government. In the crisis the hotel project was shelved. Eventually the first of the congresses that I observed resolved the crisis by naming the three dissident chiefs as assistant chiefs alongside the three previous chiefs, giving the district six high chiefs. This is perfectly in keeping with Cuna usage, since local communities have from three to six chiefs in any case, and with Hispanic usage, too, since officials often have alternates (suplentes).

The San Blas Cuna were thus proving troublesome to the Torrijos regime precisely at the time it was attempting to orchestrate national consensus on its aggressive diplomatic campaign to renegotiate the status of the Panama Canal, gain control of it, and


eliminate the U.S. Canal Zone as a colonial enclave. This crusade united Panamanians as did no other issue. The single embarrassing exception was the San Blas Cuna. They had no quarrel with the attempt to regain the canal but were dissatisfied with the regime’s attempt to incorporate them into national life. The upshot was that San Blas was the only electoral district to reject the Carter-Torrijos treaties in the national referendum of Oc- tober 1977.

To resolve this embarrassment, the regime consented to an “extraordinary” general congress in November of 1977 simply to listen to native complaints. Torrijos was sched- uled to make a personal appearance to engage in a dialogue with the people (a device he often used with Panamanian peasants). Bad weather kept Torrijos’s plane in port, and he sent the vice-president of the republic in his stead. To orchestrate this session, the Cuna spent the entire night beforehand forging consensus on the agenda. Each “path’ was a complaint and a demand. They wanted the removal of the intendente in favor of a Cuna, the ouster of non-Cuna tourist operations in the district, guarantees for their mainland lands against encroachment of settlers along the Panamerican Highway, an in- vestigation of the customs agency at the frontier station with Colombia, a discussion of why the district would be divided into corregimientos and further lumped with the non- Indian frontier station of Puerto Obaldia, a complaint about the establishment of consultative councils apart from the native congresses, and the recognition of a native study group to look into these constitutional questions.

The native strategy was to reach agreement on each issue, appoint one spokesman to explain native discontent to the vice-president and his entourage, and thus expedite the presentation. In fact, a number of enthusiastic but unsanctioned orators rushed to the microphone to second each official spokesman. Consequently, they never finished the agenda in the time allotted. The vice-president of Panama simply did not have the stamina to listen endlessly. He left after one day of lengthy expositions. None of the matters presented was resolved, save the eventual replacement of the intendent with a Cuna candidate nominated by the congress. After this cathartic airing of discontent, the regime went back to business as usual with the San Blas Cuna. The next general congress some four months later did not carry over any old business; it was devoted entirely to hearing reports from the Panamanian bureaucracy. In short, the regime was treating the congress as it treated its own assembly, as a support structure not a demand structure.

CONTRASTING CUNA AND PANAMANIAN ATTITUDES TOWARD AUTHORITY

The difference in these two conciliar organs reflects deep differences in the civic culture of Cuna and Panamanians. The Cuna share power widely among adult men. I have shown (1981) that authority within the household is distributed among the household head and his adult sons-in-law. Cuna households are, ideally, extended and matrilocal. An adult man must live with his father-in-law and brothers-in-law. As a counterweight to this domestic order there are rank orders of chiefs, interpreters, and constables in the local congress house. Chiefs may be respected and influential, but they are never all-powerful (Howe 1978). If anything, Cuna authority figures are avuncular and plural.

It is widely recognized, in contrast, that authority in Hispanic culture is patriarchal. The basic metapor for power relations is that of patron-client. The image of authority is that of the godfather, intimately related to the prevalence of military caudillos in Latin American history. Such strong men traditionally do things for their clients who reciprocate with services and support. Authority figures are single, not plural; their sup-


port is dyadic.’ The Torrijos regime was in this tradition, and was further trying to dic- tate to the Panamanians, if not quite democracy, at least populism.

Huge, prominently displayed posters made this clear. An enormous photograph of Torrijos bore the quote: “iLo que yo quiero para. mis hzjos, tambien lo quiero para mi patria!” (“What I want for my children, I want for my country!”). The Cuna see subor- dinates not as children but as cooperating adult partners, just as the group of brothers-in- law must cooperate in horticultural labors under the direction of their father-in-law.

THE CUNA DILEMMA: SOME RECOMMENDATIONS T O RESOLVE IT

The dilemma the Cuna face is this: they shall be under increasing pressure to continue the formalization of their general congress. They themselves want to update and “civilize” native institutions while retaining their intrinsically Cuna character. In this case, however, they run the risk of converting their congress into a support structure rather than one for the articulation of demands and the resolution of issues internal to the district.

In general, the Cuna are well advised to continue to borrow the best from Western parliamentarianism while conserving Cuna interaction patterns and safeguardng their councils as representational sets. Thus, it is wise to acknowledge that formalization is in- evitable, but then to ride with the flow while controlling it.’

Specqic Recommendations

The general congress ought to strengthen its own position vis-i-vis both the local communities and the Panamanian government by adopting its own Standing Orders (Reglamento Interno). It ought further to amend the tribal charter and propose Panamanian legislation to give the general congress fiscal and police powers commen- surate with those of Panamanian municipal councils. This would give the general congress the power to enforce its own decisions upon recalcitrant communities. In short, it would complete a process of turning the tribal confederacy into a state in the Western sense - albeit an internal state or a “domestic dependent nation,” as Shepardson detailed for the Navajo (1 963).

Consider the adoption of Standing Orders with a standard Order of the Day. First, to read and keep minutes is to have a useful corporate memory. Second, the Panamanian assembly specifies procedures for discussion of executive reports as opposed to debate on action items. Some clear differentiation between reports and action items is desirable. It is also essential to have a mechanism to carry over old business from one session to the next. Thus, some specification of Special Orders and General Orders for old business is important.

The adoption of Standing Orders would allow the general congress to observe Western forms and conserve Cuna usage. I recommend that they keep their current custom of deciding all issues by consensus. Indeed, the tribal charter requires a majority vote, which the Cuna observe by claiming a unanimous vote. They do not, however, go through the mechanism of a show of hands, a roll call, or a casting of ballots. Unanimous votes are the rule in the communist bloc; they are probably very frequent in U.S. Indian tribal councils. Henry F. Dobyns (personal communication 1981) observes that the Papago tribal council, for example, always decides matters unanimously, with the secretary entering a vote in the record of 22-0. Sometimes the secretary asks for a show of hands, other times “nobody objects.”1°

The Cuna general congress is open to the charge of being unrepresentative and its decisions subject to manipulation (Holloman 1969:366-369) as long as its membership rule is as vague as it is now. The composition of any one congress may be weighted toward the


bloc of communities particularly interested in issues to be debated. They send the most numerous and vociferous delegations. In its Standing Orders, the general congress could fix the number of delegates per community, leaving their selection - as now - to the local congress. That way there could be a guaranteed minimum number of delegates to each community- for instance, two (perhaps one chief and one interpreter). Other delegates could be in proportion to the number of residents enumerated in the last census. Formal membership would give resolutions of the native congress more credibility in the eyes of the Panamanians.

Finally, the suggestion that the Cuna general congress be given the local powers and responsibilities inherent in Panamanian municipal councils would guarantee it an autonomy that is quite deeply rooted in Hispanic civic tradition. Municipal councils have power to levy taxes, fines, and fees. They are able to hire their own secretariat and to employ constables, who generally do not have the right to bear firearms. They can enforce their decisions in recalcitrant neighborhoods or hamlets within the municipal territory or county. The Cuna tribal government can currently do none of these things. Since the example is clearly understood by Panamanians, it is a model worth exploring. U.S. tribal Indian governments generally have ample fiscal and police powers.

CONCLUSIONS

Properly practiced, democracy embraces both refereed conflict and the construction of consent. Anthropologists lately have been proficient in plotting the paths of conflict; now it is time to pay more attention to models of consent. We have observed councils in action but have not stopped to ask in which direction the action flows.” We now exhort each other to play a creative role in policymaking, but we have not been explicitly concerned with the direction of the policy advice. Dorothy Willner (1980) advises us to do work with legislatures rather than with bureaus. Implicitly she is telling us to be concerned with the input side of political flow rather than with the output.

The increasing formalization of the Cuna general congress is in the direction of British- style parliamentarianism, itself a folk model for resolving conflict. The Cuna model of conciliar behavior is quite different. Each issue is a “path” along which one strives for harmony and consensus. The formal recommendation made above could strengthen the tribal government’s political and cultural autonomy. The paradox, of course, is that the Cuna civic tradition is more democratic than the Panamanian one. Although Pana- ma’s current constitution and regime are populist, they are also in fact authoritarian. Ironically, greater formalization of the tribal congress in this context could lead to its thorough co-optation by the national government. The result would be a support, rather than an input, structure. The future of San Blas governance shall ultimately be decided by the Cuna and the Panamanians. In the meantime we anthropologists can remind both parties that a tradition of lengthy deliberation and face-to-face democracy is a precious human heritage whose modernization deserves to be carefully crafted.

NOTES Acknowledgments. My field research in Panama from December 1976 to June 1978 was sup-

ported by National Science Foundation Grant # BNS76-11900, “Consensus as a Mechanism of Self- Government: A Case Study of the San Bias Cuna Indians.” This paper has evolved out of portions of three earlier papers read at scientific meetings (Moore 1980b, 1981a, 1982). I thank Conrad Arensberg, William Partridge, and Henry F. Dobyns for extensive comments on earlier versions. For help in gathering the material I a m indebted to my interpreter and field assistant, Samuel Mor- n s , to the late First High Chief of San Blas, Estanislao Lopez, and to my research assistant, Cuna sociologist Eligio Alvarado. Dr. Roderick Esquivel very kindly located and sent me from Panama copies of the Panamanian legislation cited here, and I thank him.

40 AMERICAN AN THR OPO L OGIS T [86, 1984

I have used Bailey’s scheme and explicated it in my Cultural Anthropology (1978:140-145). Joel Shener has explicated the chanting congress (Cuna namakke) as a speech event compared

with other Cuna chanted speech (1974). In the community he studied, the talking gathering takes place before the chanting with the entire local population in attendance.

The best description of local congresses is in Howe (1974:349-404). I have observed many such congresses, most in rather more acculturated communities than the one Howe studied, where the trend is toward more formalization and more use of writing, with letters, resolutions, and or- dinances of Spanish giving more importance to the literate younger men of a community.

Holloman faults the general congress implicitly for informality, susceptibility to manipulation, indecisiveness, and the inability to make its decisions stick. All these “faults” remain. In general, her observations accord with ours; if anything the congress was less formal in 1967.

La Carta Orgunzca, written at a general congress in 1945, unified the San Blas Cuna. Holloman appends an English translation (1969:490-495), and discusses its origin and development

In Spanish-speaking nations, as in Great Britain, there is no standard popular parliamentary manual. People refer to the Standing Orders of the national legislatures. ’ Torrijos’s regime may have been “Bonapartist” but structurally it was also corporatist. Its classic corporatist traits were the insistence on allowing elected officials only at the grass-roots, “natural” unit (and the attempt to decree such a unit in the corregimiento); the suppression (until 1978) of cross-cutting mechanisms of interest aggregation, that is, political parties, in favor of specially licensed and co-opted “vertical” ones, that is, syndicates and guilds; and the notion that these licensed “corporate groups” might initiate legislation. In sum, the Torrijos regime was the epitome of the “new corporatism” as spelled out by Pike and Stritch and their associates (1974).

* Michael Kenny’s brilliant essay (1960) demonstrates that patronage permeates Spanish life. I have discussed patron-client relations as the dominant educational mode in the life cycle of Guatemalan Ladinos (Moore 1973:95-120). Strickon and Greenfield (1972) have explored patron- client relationships as the dominant “structure and process” in all Latin America, including one article on international relations in this idiom (Gonzalez 1972: 179-210). Kern’s volume on caciquismo (1973) explores the patron’s position as the dominant authority figure, once again for all Latin America

I have sent a copy of this paper together with a letter in Spanish expanding on the recommendations that follow to my former research assistant, Cuna sociologist Eligio Alvarado, for considera- tion by the Cuna group studying tribal institutions.

lo F. G. Bailey has attempted a premature theory of decisions by consensus by attempting to relate them to elite, executive councils under pressure from external sources (1965). Certainly the North and South American Indian evidence suggests that consensus is not so neatly correlated with elite status and executive responsibilities. For me it would be more interesting to trace, if possible, the origins of majority rule and vote casting, which seem to be specifically European inventions.

A brilliant and autodidactic exception is Spencer’s (1971) study of a British town council. It is a detailed exposition of British legislative politics at the town level- which replicates the politics of parliament-and is also amply provided with flow charts. Spencer does not cite Easton et al. In- stead we learn in the preface that he “took an engineering degree at Cambridge before turning to anthropology” (Richards and Kuper 197 1 :vi).

(1969~337-339).

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From Council to Legislature: Democracy, Parliamentarianism, and the San Blas Cuna

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