Music and dance serve several purposes in Kuna culture, including spirituality and religious preservation, rites of passage and other rituals, and medicinal healing. Music and dance are incorporated into most activities of the community, and each event or occasion has a specific song and dance. Kuna play music with panpipes, called gammu burwi, flutes, and rattles. Men play the wind instruments and women play the rattles. Kuna have not adopted African drums or Spanish string instruments; at the same time tamborito does not incorporate wind instruments of the indigenous. Below is an example of a Kuna song. This music is similar to Peruvian pan-flute music.
The traditional chants and songs are kept private to Kuna because they are sacred and preserved from foreigners. Few demonstrations of dance are presented to outsiders, but one performance is called the noga kope. It combines traditional steps as men play panpipes and women play the rattles. Unlike the European influences in tamborito, Kuna men and women are strictly separated in dance and little interaction is performed between the male and female dancers. Men perform in one line as the women dance in a line parallel to the men. While tamborito is a fluid exchange of movements in a circular pattern, Kuna dance noga kope by jumping from one foot to another in time with the down beat of the song while staying in a line formation.
The first video below is a demonstration of the song and dance to tourists on the San Blas islands.
This video appears to be a social gathering within the Kuna community not intended for tourist performance.
Tamborito de Panama 