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Writer's pictureDenis Sulay Perez Osorio

🌈Okama ("Camino que recorre el cuello")🍃

The clothing of the Emberá is particular, through the garments and particularly their accessories, they tell stories. With monkey teeth, bones and seeds they made necklaces, bracelets and appliqués, which were replaced with plastic or fiberglass beads and bright colors. 🌈

❤️There are accessories created for marriage, birth or burial. Children wear black and red necklaces and bracelets on the left leg for the evil eye, which must be blessed to take effect. Young people wear bracelets on the right arm if they are single and on the left arm if they are engaged.

Beads of different sizes and colors are combined to produce designs that represent concepts related to their beliefs and traditions.

Mothers have taught their daughters, from generation to generation, the techniques, the meaning of each color, signs and drawings, leaving a cultural legacy through weaving.


The most appreciated piece is the Okama, a necklace of high symbolic content and


exclusively for women💍.

Men wear the Otapa, a rectangular necklace.

Necklaces are crucial to the Embera-Chami culture, and they are worn from childhood. Each necklace has a meaning depending on color and pattern. OKAMA represents 🍃nature and the action of walking through it.




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