tidal traps and holding ponds of the pacific coast of panama

By Richard Cooke, Francisco Herrera, and Stewart Redwood

Ancestral Connections & Geographic Extent Temporal Extent Biophysical Manipulations Target Species Ceremony & Stewardship Current Status

Semi-circular stone traps occur on almost every Pacific coast beach, reflecting the intensity of traditional human-marine interactions (Cooke et al., 2007; Martin and Cooke, 2015).  These archaeological features augment the abundant and taxonomically detailed zooarchaeological information about coastal fishing and invertebrate collection on the Pacific coast (see below).    

While it is clear that ancestral Indigenous populations built and tended these features, a complex social history, reflected in equally complex linguistic and archaeological records, makes it difficult to determine specific ethno-linguistic grouping.

Archaeological evidence demonstrates that the ancestral peoples of Panama lived on the coast since at least 6000 years ago.  However, there are currently no dates for the fish trap features. Dating these features would require excavating into the stone bases to search for remnant, datable wooden stakes.

The widespread examples of the traps and holding ponds from islands in the Pearl Island archipelago are assumed to be pre-Conquest because present-day Afro-descendant residents invariably comment that the “Indians [sic] made them.” Current archaeological knowledge identifies two phases of pre-Columbian occupation: 1) 6200-5600 cal yr BP (identified only on Pedro Gonzalez Island) and 2) 2300 cal yr BP to 1515 CE -- the year of violent Spanish invasion commanded by Gaspar Morales that led to rapid population decline. Some stone-walled traps appear to have been built when sea level was lower than today inferring some antiquity.

The stone fish traps were constructed parallel to the shore on almost every beach in a variety of settings.  They were formed by carrying rocks onto the soft sediment and placing them in semi-circular formation.  Based on historic accounts, these were likely foundations for wooden (perishable) superstructures to entrap fish. 

From 1990 – 1992, Richard Cooke and Gonzalo Tapia-Rodriguez recorded details about a wooden tidal trap placed near the port of Aguadulce, Cocle Province (Cooke and Tapia-Rodriguez 1994).  The trap was built and owned by 84-year-old Sr. Pablo Aguilar. The form of the trap was inspired by Sr. Aguilar’s work in the cattle pasture.   It was situated on the seaward end of a mangrove-fringed inlet, and had three components: 1) A roughly semicircular barrier that Sr. Aguilar nicknamed the “vaquero” (corral for cows), which was about 2 m high and extended ca 160 m southward from the edge of the supratidal mangrove fringe, and then rounded westwards to meet the approximate level of lowest tides in the inlet; 2) an outer chamber (Sr. Aguilar’s waiting room or “salon”), which made use of the barrier wall and an opposing free wall to funnel fish through a one meter opening into a V-shaped chamber; and 3) a heptagonal inner chamber that Sr. Aguilar called the chiquero) (literally, the pigsty), which had a 15 cm opening, and a small (0.6 x 0.6 m) door in the northern end to facilitate the use of a crude hand-net (chinchorro) for scooping out prey. The chinchorros were also useful for clearing the large numbers of jellyfish that would enter the chambers in the early dry season and, incidentally, are a favorite food of the green turtles (Chelonia mydas agassizi) that were occasionally found on the salon floor.

The walls of the trap were constructed with vertically and horizontally set poles covered with cord nets that Sr. Aguilar used to acquire from the Panama Bay commercial shrimping fleet. The poles, between 3 cm and 5 cm thick, were placed about 50 cm apart. The nets on the semicircular barrier used 5 cm mesh with a stretch diameter of 9 cm. Those on the walls of the salon and chiquero had a stretch diameter of 3 cm. Fish moving out of the inlet on the falling tide would blunder into the barrier walls and push their way into the two chambers. Most low tides fully exposed the chamber floors so that fish, crabs, shrimp and, at times, sea turtles, could be simply lifted off the muddy substrate. The highest low tides do not completely clear the trap, however, and chinchorros were used. Great care had to be taken because of small sting rays (Urotrygon spp.) that were difficult to spot in the murky water.

Other historic traps built in the vicinity of Garachiné, Darien also provide useful insights into the form of earlier traps.  Panamanian anthropologist Francisco Herrera befriended a fisher named Alejandro who drew a sketch of corrales (barrier traps) that were once used for fishing in Darien riverine marine outlets (see image of model based on the sketch). Like Sr. Aguilar, Alejandro’s description of the traps were inspired by life in the potrero (cattle pasture); however, the two traps differed in details. In Alejandro’s case, two longish cane- or pole-made and V-shaped walls channeled nektonic organisms towards a circular section divided into three sections. (This was structurally analogous to Sr. Aguilar’s chiquero but lacked a door for extracting catches). The principal and largest of the three compartments was named salón by Alejandro. In front of the salón came another section followed by a third at the entrance for which Herrera suggested the term antesala where the largest creatures like sharks and sea turtles got stuck. It prevented sharks from attacking and biting the fish in the main sections.

The rich zooachaeological record provides detailed information on pre-Columbian marine resource use, however, determining which foods were caught and managed in traps in the past requires understanding specifics of taxon behaviour and changes in social-ecological contexts through time.  These zooarchaeological data come from the Pacific coast of Panama and on Pedro Gonzalez Island in the Pearl Island Archipelago from ca 6000 BCE until Spanish conquest and settlement in the early sixteenth century CE.  Information about turtling is available, but less diverse than on the Caribbean. Estuaries, whose marine influence reached well inland, provided the largest proportion of animal foods consumed at villages located near this biotope, some of which measured 50 to 150 ha in extent.

Abundant salt from extensive natural salt pans encouraged the salting and sun-and-wind drying of a great diversity of smaller fish for transport inland (Carvajal 2010). This practice is still followed (Zohar and Cooke, 2019). It is archaeologically visible by the Monagrillo ceramic period (2500-1300 BCE) (Cooke 1995; Iizuka, 2017) and continued until Spanish conquest. At one 45 ha village located 13 km inland, 70% fish consumed ca. 500 CE were marine (Sitio Sierra, 300 BCE-500 CE) (Cooke and Ranere 1999). A 150 ha settlement near the Parita Bay coast -- Cerro Juan Diaz [LS-3]) – may have been provisioned by high rank pelagic species such as green jack (Carangidae: Caranx caballus), and Spanish mackerel (Scombridae: Scomberomorus sierra) by a satellite fishing village conveniently located near deep and clear water. Eighteen marine catfish species (Ariidae) are recorded in Panama Bay and were top food fish at many estuarine sites (Cooke and Jiménez, 2008).

Richard Cooke and Gonzalo Tapia-Rodriguez’s (1994) detailed information on the fish caught in Sr. Aguilar’s wooden mangrove trap in Cocle Province may serve as a proxy for understanding fish caught in more ancient times.  Cooke and Tapia-Rodriguez conducted their survey during the dry season (December 5th 1990 to April 26th 1991) and found the trap to be very productive. 

Cooke and Tapia-Rodriguez noted some fish were caught during every visit (best catch: 75.5 kg; poorest catch: 1.1 kg; mean: 19 kg). 28 families, 73 genera and 89 species of marine fish were collected on 21 trips to the corral during this period. The six most frequently caught species measured by their presence in collections comprised: tete catfish (Ariopsis seemanni), 18 catches), box sea catfish (Cathorops multiradiatus, 14 catches), Peruvian mojarra (Diapterus peruviana), 14 catches), gloomy sea catfish (Cathorops hypophthalmus, 13 catches), white mullet (Mugil curema, 13 catches), and the non-toxic spotted puffer (Guentheridia formosa, 13 catches). 92 % of fish caught measured < 300 mm. Several small species recorded move up and down the coast and in and out of estuaries and bays in large shoals and would have been prey for larger piscine predators that followed them into the trap. Two large yellowmouth corvinas (Cynoscion albus) were trapped along with 140 small longfin herrings (Opisthopterus dowii). Other predatory fish that weighed more than one kilogram included white snook (Centropomus viridis), Pacific dog snapper (Lutjanus novemfasciatus) and Panamanian croaker (Menticirrhus panamensis). One grouper (Epinephelus analogus) weighed over 20 kg.

It is not surprising that sea catfishes (Ariidae) were commonly taken in the trap. Twelve species were recorded. One species, the flap-nosed catfish (Sciades dowii), weighs up to 20 kg. Known in Cocle province as bagre gris it used to be smoked over traditional wood-burning stoves and was a favorite for soups and stews. Six specimens weighing over half a kilo, five more than one kilo, one more than two kilos and one more than three kilos fell into the trap during the time-period under consideration. The abundance of one catfish in the 1991-1992 samples (51% of all specimens) is particularly interesting from an ecological point of view. The gloomy catfish (Cathorops hypophthalmus) (“congo cabeciseco” in the regional Spanish) was represented by 1297 specimens, measuring 80 to 320 mm snout-vent length and with an average weight for the species of 184.5 g. This numerical domination strongly contrasts with the extreme rarity of this species in archaeozoological samples from Parita Bay notwithstanding its many readily identifiable osteological details (Cooke and Jiménez 2008). The gloomy catfish has double the number of gill-rakers as all other Pacific Cathorops species signaling filter- feeder ethology. The explanation Cooke and his colleagues favor is that the gloomy catfish responded efficiently to eutrophication generated by increased numbers of humans living in Pacific coastal situations since conquest by the Spanish in the 1520s.

In addition to fish, large shrimp (Penaeus spp.) and blue swimming crab (Callinectes spp.) were recorded. Thirty-two penaeid shrimps with a collective weight of 810 grams were found in Sr. Aguilar’s  trap as well as 56 blue swimming crabs with a total weight of 8.5 kilos. Sometimes the inner chamber (chiquero) was chock-a-block with jellyfish, which are a favorite food of green turtles (Chelonia mydas agassizi), which probably followed the rafts of jellyfish into the trap. Five were recorded in the 21 dry season 1991 samples, and an additional seven on other, non-collection days. All but one were measured, weighed, tagged and subsequently released.

Sr. Aguilar exploited the large numbers of smaller fish species and individuals from his trap, which he would salt, dry and sell cured at US$ 0.60/lb. (1990s prices). Turtle flesh, grouper, corvinas, and snook had high market values locally (US$ 0.8-1.50/lb).

A second set of detailed fisheries surveys conducted on two traps near the town of Veracruz in East Panama province, provides additional information on the trapping potential of these features (D'Croz et al. 1978). Unlike Sr. Aguilar’s trap, these two traps were located in a sandy area, with only limited mudflats and limited freshwater input. Both traps, constructed parallel to the shore, were rather shoddily constructed with mangrove poles covered with a mixture of netting and chicken wire (aperture sizes were not recorded; Rafael Rivera pers. comm. 1992).

Reflecting the different settings, these two traps had a notably different taxonomic and numerical composition than recorded in Sr. Aguilar’s trap in Cocle Province. Focusing only on “commercial fish”, D'Croz and colleagues (1978) summarized 13 collection trips to the two Veracruz corrales. The white threadfin or bobo (Polynemidae: Polydactylus approximans; n = 333, 41 % individuals) and the Pacific lookdown (Carangidae: Selene peruviana; n = 272, 34 %) were by far the two most abundant species.  The heaviest and most numerous large piscine predator was the striped jack (Carangidae: Gnathanodon speciosus), which was not recorded at Aguadulce. It is likely that it habitually shirks turbid estuarine waters. The Pacific lookdown (Carangidae: Selene peruviana) was numerically the second-ranked fish species in the two traps. In terms of biomass caught, the trap closer to the sea provided a significantly higher fish body mass (208 kg) than the coastward one (57 kg). Small-sized fish were dominant.  In the coastward trap, 75 % had standard lengths between 100 mm and 199 mm, and 23 % between 200 mm and 299 mm in the seaward trap.

Fish trapping in Panamanian Pacific and Caribbean rivers as proxies for prehistoric practice  in Pacific-side freshwater rivers

Copious numbers of fish remains at the Sitio Sierra 45 ha village site in Cocle province, located ca 13 km. inland from the active marine shore, were captured between about 500 and 700 CE (Cooke and Ranere 1999). About 70 percent were marine in origin and 30 percent primary freshwater species.  No archaeological or ethnographic data are available for fish traps in the Santa Maria River drainage where Sitio Sierra was located. However, in the Pacific sector of neighbouring Veraguas province, Aureliano Valencia of STRI recorded the use of the mashed tubers of a native yam (Dioscorea) to numb small fish in brooks and pools in recent times (personal information to Richard Cooke). Interested researchers may like to refer to the use by the tri-hybrid social group, known locally as the “Cholos de Cocle” (Arias 2001), of an odiferous leafy plant (Piper auritum) as a lure for freshwater sabalos (Characidae: Brycon guatemalensis) to induce them to enter vertical riverbank traps made of sticks in fast-flowing central Caribbean rivers

With the rapid destruction or enslavement of the ancestral Indigenous peoples of Panama’s Pacific coast and offshore islands, knowledge about marine stewardship was largely lost.  Cooke et al. (2015) suggest that some of the stone holding ponds in the traps on the Pearl Islands were used to keep turtles so they could be harvested when needed, such as during feasts and other ceremonial times.

In the case of the historic Garachiné traps, family members and neighbors could collect trapped creatures as long as they asked Alejandro for permission before harvesting.  In fact, this system was tantamount to an exchange of duties in the local community’s system of reciprocity.

Since the mid-1990s, fish traps like Sr. Aguilar’s in Aguadulce have been outlawed in this area of Panama because they were considered detrimental to commercial fish stocks.

In the Darien the banning of traditional fish traps led to a proliferation of motorized fishers working for large commercial enterprises.  However, commercial fishing had already expanded significantly by the end of the 1960’s and early 1970’s.  Today, commercial fishing has put significant pressure on local fisheries.

Although commercial fisheries expanded more than sixty years ago, many traditional fishers of have vivid memories of the days of the corrales. For instance, a woman commented in relation to the Garachiné traps that the rise of commercial fishing changed locals’ concepts of the ways fishing was done, by whom and for whom. She presciently remarked that nowadays young people constantly got into debt with the private companies, which exploited the catches commercially and sold or rented expensive equipment to them. Reciprocity has been supplanted by dependence while the dietary health of ordinary people has declined (pers. comm to F. Herrera).

References

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