Emberá

The Emberá, historically called the Chocó or Katío by the Spanish, are an indigenous people of the rainy Pacific lowlands of western Colombia, with related groups later settling eastern Panama and northwestern Ecuador. At the time of the conquest they held the upper and middle basins of the Atrato and San Juan rivers; colonial documents distinguish groups such as the Citará of the Atrato lowlands.

Their dialects, together with Wounaan, make up the Chocó language family, which has no proven link to any other South American family. In 1739 Spanish administration grouped the region into the Province of Chocó.

From the late eighteenth century Emberá migrants moved down the Atrato tributaries into the Darién, where their pressure pushed the Guna toward the Caribbean coast; the migrants established the riverine settlements of Panama.