Feature Writing

Pelt of a freshly killed jaguar drying in the sun, rural Panama. © Nathan Gray, Earth Train.

I didn’t actually see them killing the jaguar, but I could imagine them prying the teeth out of his still-warm skull, knowing that each tooth, threaded on a brown cloth thong would bring at least three dollars from a tourist on the Avenida de España in downtown Panama City where they are sold.

I had just come to Panama a few days earlier and was with one of my sons on the Avenida, the capital’s main street, with little time to shop before our return to the States, when I spied the small, chestnut brown Kuna Indian and his handicraft stand.

On display were Kuna arm bands, bracelets, earrings, and rings, all delicately woven from some kind of palm fiber on which geometrical patterns were created by contrasting horizontal and vertical windings of natural pale golden fiber and dark brown strands.

The table also held traditional molas—brightly colored multi-layered cloth, a labor-intensive appliqué—and jewelry carved from polished and stained fragments of coconut shells, as well as a collection of drilled animal teeth, each cleverly tied on a thong with slip knots to adjust the length to the wearer’s neck size.

I was checking the prices of the other ornaments—five dollars, four dollars, three fifty—when I inquired in my primitive Spanish about the teeth. The first one was a small, flat triangular ivory the size of a dime, with fine vertical fluting. The Kuna said it was from a great white shark. My thirteen-year-old son immediately perked up, and I knew that I had hit the souvenir hunter’s jackpot.

The next moment I was holding the two-and-a-half inch long, deeply grooved, slightly curved canine of a full-grown jaguar, top predator and natural lord of the Panamanian rain forest. The tooth was like a miniature tusk with a ridge on one side, its business end faintly mottled with a brown varnish. The Kuna had six of them.

At the time that I unexpectedly encountered these jaguar teeth, I thought only of my nine-year–old son, whom I had had to leave at home in California, and the excitement he would feel when I brought him a jaguar talisman, evocative of the great cat. The inert teeth were still somehow suffused with the powerful creature’s being and the rain forest’s magic. I didn’t think at that moment as the ecologist and professional environmental writer that I am, nor as the student of tropical deforestation that I had become in writing my last book.

Jaguar pelt in local resident’s cabin, central Panama. © Nathan Gray, Earth Train.

If I bought a few jaguar teeth, would the Kuna promptly head off into the rain forest to try to restock his inventory by exterminating another member of this hard-pressed species, now fighting desperately for survival over much of its range? Would Panamanian and U.S. officials consider buying a thong with a jaguar tooth to be trade in threatened and endangered species? If so, how would I bring the teeth past Panamanian authorities and through U.S. Customs when returning to the U.S.?

Did any of this go through my mind at the time? Absolutely not. I responded only to the tactile sense of this great tiger, albeit from the fragments of its dentition, and to the tourist’s natural excitement at finding a prized gift at a bargain basement price. Besides, my father’s hat was on: “Wow, Michael will really like one of these! It’s only five dollars. Should I get him a loose one, or one on a thong?” There was also that little glow of pious self-satisfaction at helping a local Kuna entrepreneur feed his family.

Fast Forward.

On leaving Panama, I had to decide what to do with my souvenirs. The Kuna bracelets and four jaguar teeth were a small tangled ball of nondescript, inexpensive looking handicrafts that easily fit in the palm of my hand. I stuck them in a small plastic bag inside my day pack, so the lot wouldn’t get crushed in my luggage.

Part of the jaguar’s historic range in the rain forest of the upper Rio Mamoni watershed, central Panama.© Nathan Gray, Earth Train.

No one asked me any questions or actually looked in my luggage as I left Panama, and the jaguar’s teeth didn’t set off any alarms, except in my head: Was I inadvertently taking the rain forest apart tooth by claw, helping obliterate the biodiversity for which Panama is famous? Would my dollars prompt an indigenous hunter to intensify his hunt for great cats?

I received a small U.S. Customs form from my airline. Uncle Sam wanted to know how much my cargo was worth, in dollars. I itemized, “Folk art.” “Indian handicrafts.” “$142 total.” No questions about rare or endangered species. I stood in line to pass through Customs. When my turn came, a beefy inspector called me over to his station and gave me a searing look. An awkward moment had arrived. I extended my papers.

All in one peremptory motion he took them, turned to the appropriate page, grabbed his seal, and without missing a beat, slammed his stamp of approval on my declaration. “Welcome to the United States,” he said with a smile, waving me through. Elusive as in his forest days, a sad phantom jaguar also slipped into the country.