The Emberá are imbued with a deep respect for their rivers and forests, because they believe that everything in nature has a spirit. These communities skillfully weave baskets using chunga (black palm) leaves and carve cocobolo wood and tagua (ivory palm) seeds into statues and miniatures. 

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Except when in towns, the women do not cover their torsos, and wear long, straight black hair. The children go naked until puberty, and no one wears shoes. They paint their bodies with a dye made from the berry of a species of genip tree.