CHOCOAN, an independent linguistic stock of South Ameri can Indians, so called from the Chocos, who are the best known of its tribes. At the time of the first appearance of Europeans the Chocoan tribes seem to have held the region in north-western Co lombia along the middle and upper Atrato river, together with the rugged mountain area between it and the Cauca, as well as west to the Pacific coast, where they extended from the Gulf of San Miguel south to the mouth of the San Juan river. The area at the mouth of the Atrato appears to have been occupied by tribes of the Cunan stock. The Chocoan tribes were one of the few South American peoples who lived in pile dwellings, as did the Barbacoan tribes, their neighbours on the south. The Cho coan tribes were skilful canoemen, having large canoes which they used in trade. Andagoya in 1522 heard the first rumours of the Inca empire from the coastal tribes of this stock, and from a dis trict called Biru near the mouth of the San Juan the name Peru is supposed to have been derived. The Chocoan tribes survive today in considerable numbers, but are very little known. They were described at the period of the Conquest as a warlike people, living mainly by hunting and fishing and on wild vegetable products. They had an abundance of gold, which they traded with the Chibchan (q.v.) tribes to the east. They used poisoned arrows and also the blow-gun, which was of the two-piece type character istic of the Amazonian tribes. They wore little or no clothing and lived communally in large houses of thatch, set on very high piles or sometimes in trees.
See P. Simon, Noticias historiales de las Conquistas de Tierra Firme en las Indias Occidentales (Bogota, 1882) ; W. Lehmann, Zentral Amerika (Berlin, 192o).