They Kept Outsiders Away for 500 Years: That afternoon in Mordí, Kastaña asked if he could tell me a Guna myth. Thousands of years ago, he said, seven brothers and a sister were born in a river. A pair of women, each part frog, approached them and announced, “We are your mothers.” The siblings believed them and allowed them to be raised by them, until one day they came to a clear, tranquil river and saw their reflections for the first time.

“They had been deceived,” Kastaña said. “In fact, the frog women were their enemies.”