Costa Rica's indigenous peoples have suffered abysmally. Centuries ago the original Indian tribes were splintered by Spanish conquistadores and compelled to retreat into the vast tracts of the interior mountains (the Chorotegas of Guanacaste, however, were more gradually assimilated into the national culture). Today, approximately 9,000 Indian peoples of the Bribri, Boruca, and Cabecar tribes manage to eke bout a living from the jungles of remote valleys in the Talamanca Mountains of southern Costa Rica, where their ancestors had sought refuge from Spanish muskets and dogs. There are currently 22 Indian reserves for eight different Indian groups.
Although various agencies continue to work to promote education, health, and community development, the Indians' standard of living is appallingly low, alcoholism is endemic, and they remain subject to constant exploitation. In 1939, the government granted every Indian family an allotment of 148 hectares for traditional farming, and in December 1977 a law was passed prohibiting non-Indians from buying, leasing, or renting land within the reserves.
Despite the legislation, a majority of Indians have gradually been tricked into selling their allotments or otherwise forced off their lands. Poor soils and rough rides have not kept colonists in search of land and gold from invading the reserves. Banana companies have gradually encroached into the Indian's remote kingdoms, buying up land and pushing campesinos onto Indian property. Mining companies are infiltrating the reserves along newly built roads which become conduits for contamination, like dirty threads in a wound. In 1991, for example, an American mining company was accused of illegally exploring within the Talamanca Indian Reserve. And hotel developers are violating the protective laws by pushing up properties within coastal reserves.
Indigenous peoples complain that the National Commission for Indigenous Affairs (CONAI) has proved particularly ineffective in enforcing protections. "When the moment arrives for CONAI to stand up for the Indian people, they don't dare. They duck down behind their desks and wait for their paychecks to arrive," says Boruca Indian leader Jose Carlos Morales. The various Indian clans cling tenuously to what remains of their cultures. The Borucas, who inhabit scattered villages in tight knit patches of the Pacific southwest, have been most adept at conserving their own language and civilization, including matriarchy, communal land ownership, and traditional weaving. For most other groups, only a few elders still speak the languages, and interest in traditional crafts is fading.
Virtually all groups have adopted elements of Catholicism along with their traditional animistic religions, Spanish is today the predominant tongue, and economically the Indians have for the most part come to resemble impoverished campesinos.
People and Society 
