We collaborate with craftsmen in various communities and ethnic groups, integrating their traditional techniques with new designs.
Wounaan
The Wounaan (also Waunana) live along the rainforest rivers of Colombia’s Chocó and Panama’s Darién, where they share the Emberá-Wounaan comarca. Speakers of the Woun Meu language, they practise fishing, small-scale horticulture, and careful forest stewardship. Wounaan artisans are celebrated for coiled baskets woven from werregue and chunga palm fibres, dyed with plant pigments into intricate geometric motifs, as well as cocobolo-wood and tagua-nut carvings that echo forest fauna. Basketry—primarily the work of women—provides vital income and keeps ancestral ecological knowledge alive.
The Sibundoy Valley sits about 2 100 m above sea level where the Andean cordillera tumbles toward the Amazon. Misty cloud forests ring fertile patch-work fields called chagras, while páramo wetlands feed crystal head-waters teeming with orchids, hummingbirds, and medicinal plants. This dramatic hinge between mountains and rainforest shapes every facet of Kamentsá life and design.
2. Bead selection
Tiny glass seed beads are chosen for colour harmony, then sorted by shade and size.
