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The high Andean plains and valleys in Nariño province
and in northern Ecuador were inhabited between 400 and 1600
A.D. by societies that lived as farmers, shepherds and merchants.
When the European conquistadors arrived in 1550, the inhabitants
included the indigenous Pasto, Quillacinga, Abade and Sindagua
groups. The descendents of these communities are still there
today, and retain some of their customs and traditions.
It can be assumed from various examples of highly-elaborate
funeral regalia that have been found in tombs in northern and
central Nariño that hierarchical societies existed in
those areas from at least the fourth century A.D. These ornaments
were made by cutting sheets of copper and covering them with
gold leaf that was heated by fire until it melted. Fusion gilding
was a metallurgical technique that was used in Ecuador and Peru
from the first century A.D., and is one of many signs linking
Nariño archaeology with that of the Central Andes.
On the high plains of southern Colombia and northern Ecuador,
a society of chieftainships bartered for exotic products and
goods from the Pacific coast and the jungles of Putumayo. Little
is known of their social organisation, but the fact that two
types of funeral regalia have been found, with exquisite emblems
of power, suggests that two ruling groups coexisted.
One of these groups used gold and pottery objects with figurative
and schematic designs, where representations of humans are static
while those of animals such as monkeys and birds portray movement.
Large ornaments with geometric designs, sticks carved from
chonta palm, and other exquisite objects like pyrite mirrors
and necklaces made from sea snails of the Spondylus species
from the coasts of Ecuador made up part of the regalia of the
leaders of the other ruling group.
Roasted coca leaves mixed with lime from ground shells were
used for ritual purposes. Figures of leading characters sitting
down and chewing coca, and the small poporos made of exotic
stones, suggest just how important this sacred plant was.
Discs decorated with geometric motifs and in contrasting colours
and textures produced visual and hypnotic effects when they
were made to turn while hanging from a cord in ceremonies.
At the time of the Conquest, the Andean region of southern Nariño
and northern Ecuador was inhabited by the Pastos, who lived
in densely-populated villages on the mountain peaks. The Quillacingas,
meanwhile, lived in central and northern Nariño in houses
scattered around the mountainsides or in flat areas. Both these
groups bartered for products and raw materials from areas with
different climates and temperatures.
Geometric designs predominate in Quillacinga pottery, while
the human figure is stressed in their vessels. Oval-shaped breastplates
were placed over the skulls of the dead as offerings.
The utilitarian pottery of the Pastos depicts their daily lives:
fishing, hunting and pastoral scenes are commonly found. The
ordinary people wore simple metal nose rings.
As with their ancestors and many other Andean societies in Ecuador,
Peru and Bolivia, the Pastos had a social and thought structure
that was dual in nature. To communicate this in a symbolic way,
they used complementary opposites in nature and the cosmos:
male and female, sun and moon, above and below, night and day,
heat and cold.
The materials and the physical characteristics of objects,
such as colour, shape and texture, expressed dual opposites:
gold-silver, gold-copper, red-tan, full-empty, shiny-dull.
Shapes and alloys were carefully controlled in Pan's pipes
and rattles, in order to ensure a perfect tone. Musical instruments
in the form of snails whistled in the wind as they were rotated
on the end of a cord.
This type of tomb was common in pre-Hispanic Colombia, in shallow,
individual graves. The great lords of Nariño, however,
were buried in tombs up to forty metres deep. As many as fourteen
corpses have been found in some of these.
Nariño
and the Gold Museum exhibition
The Pastos
Who were the
Mindalas?
Rotating discs
Music and ritual
in Nariño and Carchi
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