Diane Snider Photos

El Valle de Ancon, an area in the Interior of Panama is home to many oddities - golden frogs and trees with square trunks! And home to the Guayami Indians, many of whom are still there though this particular photo was taken about 1950 as a color slide, printed eventually into a 4 x 6 color print, and in about 2004 run through my scanner and computer to produce what you see here. These Guayami Indians are grinding sugar cane in the old El Valle way where there was of course no modern machinery. The young girl holds the canes in the press. The men push that heavy log which turns the press that squeezes out the cane juice into a metal barrel below. The men walking continuously in a circle around the press are obviously the entire source of power in this operation but this was the only system known and available in the El Valle area at that time and I strongly suspect that it is still used in some place in the most rural parts of Panama.