Cabecar

The Cabécar, who call themselves Kabekwa, are a Chibchan people of the rain-soaked Talamanca mountains of eastern Costa Rica. They have lived there some three thousand years and, with the related Bribri, form the Talamanca branch of the Chibchan family; their elders derive the name Cabécar from kabé, quetzal, and ká, place.

Before the conquest they headed the strongest Atlantic-facing chiefdom, and Talamanca was the one chiefdom the Spanish never fully overcame, becoming a refuge for peoples fleeing their rule. Revolts followed: Cabécar leaders Guaycorá and Sumamará burned the Spanish town of Santiago de Talamanca in 1610, and in 1709 Comesala joined Pablo Presbere in the largest Indian rising of Costa Rica's colonial history.

In round conical-roofed houses, farming rotated clearings of maize, beans and cassava, the Cabécar kept their language and mountain autonomy intact through the rest of the colonial era.