The door of the seas and key to the universe

This treatise, on of one the most hotly contested regions of Latin America, tells the story of indigenous peoples' relations to Europeans and how both the principal Indian group, the Kuna, and the Europeans were affected and altered by the contact. Drawing on manuscript sources from Scotland, England, and Spain, the author demonstrates how native social and political institutions were altered and how Europeans were forced to make indigenous people an integral part of their empires. The great strength of the book is its engagement with ethnohistorical approaches and the use of historical documentation to establish cultural dynamics and relationships. Gallup-Diaz is able to present the Kuna as active players in their own history, able to create new forms of leadership out of the process of contact, enabling them to survive.