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The Muiscas held great ceremonies from time to time on the moorland
lakes. The people gathered under the leadership of their chieftains
and priests, to make offerings to the gods. Legend has it that
the El Dorado ritual was celebrated on some of these occasions:
a very powerful chieftain, accompanied by his priests, sailed
on a raft into the middle of the lake and threw emeralds and
gold into the water.
The gold figure found at Pasca, Cundinamarca, appears to represent
this tradition. |
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More about the Offering Raft |
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Guatavita Lake was the most important site in Muisca territory
for religious offerings, and was also the starting point for
the ceremony that the Spaniards called “Running the Land”:
youngsters from towns on the Bogotá plateau and in neighbouring
valleys used to meet on its shores at dawn, and then set out
from there to race a course that took them via the lakes of
Guasca, Siecha, Teusacá and Ubaque. They made offerings
at each of these places before running back to Guatavita again,
arriving after darkness had fallen.
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Opposing principles are in a state of equilibrium in indigenous
thought. There are men and there are women, light follows darkness,
drought follows rain, and the world above has its opposite,
the underworld. When this equilibrium is broken, the result
is chaos; uncontrollable forces take over the universe, threatening
disorder and terror.
Wise men intervene at this point to bring order back to the
world. They restore the balance by means of sacred offerings
and make it possible for life to follow its normal course. |
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The mamos or priests from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta utter their chants in the Offering Room. Gold is sacred to them, and they visit it so they can make offerings, as they do in Guatavita Lake. Their age-old music, which is called yanka, is accompanied by traditional instruments like the seed rattle, the male and the female snail, and the traditional drum.
Mamos taking part in the chants:
Seukukui - Nolberto Torres
Yareimacu - Julio Torres
Bunchanabin- Jesús Izquierdo
Menyabin - Luis Guillermo Izquierdo.
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The
Flight of the Shaman
The Offering |
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