This is a video of one Embera People of Panama performing a dance in their village in jungle in Panama.

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The Emberá also known in the historical literature as the Chocó or Katío Indians are an indigenous people of Panama and Colombia. In the Emberá language, the word ẽberá can be used to mean person, man, or indigenous person, depending on the context in which it is used. There are approximately 33,000 people living in Panama and 50,000 in Colombia who identify as Emberá.

The Emberá language is not a single language but a group of mutuallyintelligible languages spoken throughout Panamá and Colombia. Along with Wounmeu, they are the only extant members of the Chocó language family and not known to be related to any other language family of Central or South America, although in the past relationships have been proposed with the Carib, Arawak, and Chibchan language families.

An established Emberá alphabet has been officially recognized by the government of Panama, consisting of:

6 oral vowels (a, e, i, o, u, ʌ)
6 nasal vowels (ã, ẽ, ĩ, õ, ũ, ʌ̃)
21 consonants (b, b̶, ch, d, d̶, dy, g, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, rr, s, t, v, w, y, z).[5]
To date, there have been very few books published in the Emberá language. These are mostly educational materials produced by Panama's education ministry (MEDUCA) or by Christian missionaries. The most significant of these to date is a Bible translation containing the New Testament and parts of the Old Testament titled Ãcõrẽ Bedea, "the word of God."[6][7] The following is an excerpt from the book of Matthew:

18 Jesucrito tod̶ara nãwã b̶asia: dji papa Mariara Jose ume dji edad̶i carea bed̶ea bia panasid̶aa. Baribʌrʌ dji edad̶i naẽna Mariara Ãcõrẽ Jaured̶eba b̶iogoa b̶esia. 19 Dji quima Josera ẽberã jipa b̶asia. Maʌ̃ bẽrã Mariara jũmarã quĩrãpita biẽ́ jara amaaba chupea igara quĩrĩã b̶asia. 20 Mãwã crĩcha b̶ʌd̶e bajãnebema nezocada cãĩmocarad̶eba Josemaa zeped̶a nãwã jarasia: –Jose, David̶eba zed̶a, Maria edaira wayarãdua, idjira Ãcõrẽ Jaured̶ebabʌrʌ b̶iogoa b̶ʌ bẽrã. 21 Mariaba warrada toya. Maʌ̃ warraba idji purura ãdji cadjiruad̶ebemada ẽdrʌ edaya. Maʌ̃ bẽrã idjira trʌ̃ b̶ʌdua Jesu. Matthew 1:182
Words from the Emberá language are marked in this article in parentheses and italicized. For example, woman (wẽra) or shaman (jaibaná).

The Emberá people mostly live in the Chocó department of western Colombia and in Panama. For the Panamanian Emberá, the Chocó and its river systems remain their ancestral homelands, and the different dialects of the Emberá language still mostly correspond to different parts of that area and its river systems.

The Emberá are a riverine people, historically building their houses along the banks of rivers. Although now most all Emberá people live in villages, towns, or urban centers, many established Emberá communities are still found along riverbanks. The designated autonomous region, the Comarca EmberáWounaan, is split up into two territories surrounding two of the Darién's major river systems, the Sambú and Chucunaque. The word for river in both the Emberá and Wounaan languages is dó, noticeable in the names of many of the rivers and towns in the Chocó department of Colombia, such as the Baudó river, as well as the capital of the department itself, Quibdó.

Contemporary Emberá housing style often employs many of the traditional materials and styles. However, they may often be smaller due to a comparatively smaller number of family members per house. Wooden boards often replace the jira bark as flooring, and durable aluminum roofing in place of palm leaves. Due to living in settled communities with other unrelated people, walls have become more common for added privacy, whereas walls were historically very uncommon. Propane stoves often replace or complement the traditional cooking fire. Some contemporary Emberá houses have both a larger structure of wooden floors and walls with metal roofing on a cement foundation, with an attached, more traditional thatchedroof structure for use as a kitchen. Many now live in cinderblock houses in the typical Panamanian style, if they have the access to the resources and infrastructure to rent or build one.

Part of Omar Torrijos's efforts to organize the indigenous people of the Darién was through the establishment of the first National Indian Congress in 1968. The Emberá were encouraged to selforganize and form political leadership in the same way the Guna people had done, and a Guna chief was even appointed to aid them in the process. Throughout the 1970s, more and more Emberá families continued settling into communities and towns.