Lost Kingdoms of South America (2013) Ep3 Lands of Gold

South America is the perfect place to keep secrets it's jungles mountain ranges and river systems are daunting obstacles for any Explorer it is a continent that is beguiled adventurers for centuries something hidden go and find it go and look behind the ranges something lost behind the ranges lost and waiting for you go Kipling's poem is especially apt because this is Colombia the land of El Dorado home of the legendary kingdom of gold that in the 16th century lured the conquistadors ever deeper into the heart of South America I'm Jago Cooper and as an archaeologist who specializes in South America I've always been fascinated by the secrets and mysteries buried deep in these or inspiring and forbidding landscapes the history of this continent has been dominated by the stories of the Inca and the Spanish conquistadors but in this series I'll be exploring an older forgotten past traveling from the coast to the clouds in search of ancient civilizations as significant and impressive as anywhere else on earth here in what's now Columbia lived two of the most extraordinary societies in the new world the Muisca and tyrona shared language and beliefs that underpinned their cultures for a thousand years but it was their exquisite gold artifacts infused with intriguing meanings which drew European invaders into their remote lands in this program I'll be discovering how two extraordinary cultures rose to power what the gold so bedazzled the Spanish conquistadors really meant to these people and how it was that fate and circumstance would see the moister and tyrona take very different paths into the future the beaches of Colombia's Caribbean coast are beautiful almost a cliche of a tropical paradise but for me it's rich past is what makes this place so special history flows through Colombia for 12,000 years it was a corridor connecting the pre-columbian populations of Central America the Caribbean Amazon and Andes and the thousand years before the Spanish arrived the Chibcha speaking culture from Central America spread southwards to this lap Chibcha was a language shared by different communities scattered across part of Central America and what is now Colombia around 700 AD two of these communities expanded into highly organized societies skilled in agriculture and gold working one of those cultures the tyrona established themselves in the mountains of the Caribbean coast another the Muisca settled 500 miles to the south they developed independently for centuries free from outside interference but in 1492 that began to change Christopher Columbus discovered the new world for the Spanish and in the years that followed the conquistadors influence spread threatening the existence of the continents indigenous cultures in 1537 conquistador jiménez de Quesada set off in search of an overland route to the newly discovered Inca homeland of Peru with an army of 800 conquistadors he struck deep into the heart of Colombia with no idea of what he was about to find the expedition took more than a year to carve its way through the jungle up to the high plains and valleys of the interior one of Quesada's men described a journey like this we endured a great many hardships on the journey to the New Kingdom as much from having to slash new paths through the mountains and hills as from hunger and sickness and we arrived in this Kingdom naked barefoot and burdened by the weight of our own weapons all of which had caused the deaths of a great many smash three quarters of the Spaniards died on the nightmare journey those that survived found themselves in a new and alien world the Muisca were one of the largest indigenous societies in the whole of South America from the mountaintops their territory stretched beyond the horizon occupying an area larger than Switzerland a land where gold seemed to be everywhere but a society unlike anything the Spanish had seen before the moister weren't ruled by a supreme leader in the same way as the inker and Aztec empires in the norske world no one person had absolute control instead the mariska territory was organized into two large Federation's one in the north and one here in the South when the conquistadors arrived the Muisca population is estimated to have been about half a million people most of whom were living in small villages the Spanish chose one of those villages as the site of their first town and that town has grown into Colombia's sprawling capital city Bogota in the 16th century mooskaa settlements were spread all across this valley but little evidence of them is left here today so if I'm really to understand how whiskers society operated I need to look outside the city and travel 30 miles to the north to one of the few remaining whisker sites still standing one of the big problems with trying to understand how the Muisca society operated is the fact that very little remains are there architectural structures they built with wood which has since rotted away so this simply aren't the houses temples and meeting places left to find that we can study and understand them better except in this place where the Muisca broke from tradition and built from stone the spanish named it olympia Veneto the little hell because they believe the rituals practiced here were the work of the devil archaeologist car Langer Beck has carried out many excavations around Olympia needle walking through this site it is a very strange place it is indeed a unique place in the Muisca culture there is no place like this there is some indication that during the last years before the conquest the Muisca elite was beginning to relate itself with the Sun and there are evidences here of an astronomic observatory that probably had something to do with following the path of the Sun standing on the site you can't ignore these giant phallic symbols in the landscape what you think the origin and meaning behind this is well there's a lot of speculation but it is I think it's safe to say that it has something to do with frigidity which is caught of course it's also related to the Sun and it's also related to the activities of the Chiefs and religious specialists Carl's investigations indicate that there was a deep connection between the mooska and their environment and while there was no king ruling over all moist can people it seems each community did have leaders and the relationship between ordinary people and their Chiefs appears to have been an intriguing one Spanish documents clearly point to the fact that there was no notion of private property there was the notion of communal property yes the lands belong to the community I think the Chiefs were the guardians of precious objects gold precious stones food cotton things like that but I think there are no good evidences of properties in the hands of Chiefs what you think that tells us about day-to-day life of the Muskaan's here well the prestige of the chief was very much related to the ability of providing good feasts to the community when the Spaniards arrived they described this tradition among the Muisca to pay taxes to the Chiefs but when we investigate about what the meaning of paying taxes was providing food that actually was transformed by the family and the wives of the chief to provide feastings feasts to the members of the community Carles excavations have revealed another unexpected twist to the unusual relationship between the people and their leaders at his lab he showed me two skeletons unearthed at a mouseka site south of Bogota dating from the 1300s to the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s altogether some 700 skeletons were found and genetic analysis of the remains has helped archaeologists understand how Mosca society operated we have focused our analysis on trying to identify differences between the so-called rich people and the so-called poor people people with a lot of stuff in their burials like seashells and gold and things like that and other people without offerings and what lessons do you think you've started to learn from that well I think one of the most important lessons is that yes there was social differentiation of course but it was not inherited we have carried out genetic studies and the members of the elite the members of the community buried with stuff and there are no relatives among them and that's very interesting and so if you're telling me that it's not genetic and not inherited how do you think powered and well I think every every single shell of evidence points to define that power was negotiated powerful people have to convince other people with good argument not just by inheritance or the use of force this remarkable research makes the Muisca seem almost democratic to modernize there must have been an incredible sense of community but this site also points to a society whose every move was governed by their relationship with their gods legend tells that here at the Tekken Dharma falls the Malloys condado chika saved the people from drowning during a rain storm by splitting apart the mountain and letting the floodwaters drain away but what bow chika could not prevent was the Spanish onslaught that was just about to rain down on the worse can people what had caught the eyes of cassada and his men was more skin gold everyone commoner or chief in every village in town seemed to have artifacts crafted from the precious metal rumors quickly spread far beyond the new world that there was a vast city of gold somewhere in the mountains The Legend of El Dorado was born and in the years that followed waves of treasure seekers descended on South America in search of the fabled land but Eldorado wasn't a place it was a person the literal translation is the golden one a ruler so rich that it was said he covered himself in gold dust every morning and washed it off in a sacred lake each night one conquistador told the story thus he went about all covered with powdered gold as casually as if it was powdered salt for it seemed to him that to wear any other finery was less beautiful and to put on ornaments or arms made of gold words by hammering stamping or by other means was a common and vulgar thing if El Dorado was a person did he exist in the heart of Bhagat ours bustling streets one place offers a clue to the origins of this most enduring of mints so we're just going to the gold museum which over the years is built at the largest collection of pre-columbian gold artifacts in the country Boh guitars gold museum is packed with fantastic treasures but perhaps the most incredible of all is the magnificent golden raft of the Muisca archaeologist Juan Pablo Quintero explained that it appears to capture a moment in an ancient waterborne ceremony the very embodiment of the Eldorado legend how do you think that character is in the center of the raft it is probably achieved the representation of achieve it is well dressed you can see the ornaments it's bigger than the other characters who it's a high-ranking character so probably it was the chief the chief stands in the middle of the raft surrounded by 12 smaller characters all of them are adorned in gold ornaments and feathers some carry musical instruments or where Jaguar masks the smaller ones on the edge of the raft appear to be rowers simply start to think about the El Dorado myth this myth the man dressed in gold do you think this raft proves that to be correct it does not prove it directly I mean that's not direct evidence or archaeological evidence of the myth but it is very suggestive that it's a raft and that represents a an important ritual so you cannot think anything else but El Dorado me but other less literal interpretations of the myth are held by the descendants of the Muisca they keep ancient traditions alive at Laguna Guatavita a sacred lake in the heart of Moscow territory northeast of Bogota watching over the lake today and waiting to greet me is one of those descendants and the DK Gonzales to welcome me to the lake Enrique performed a greeting by blowing on a conch shell Shell's like this come from the coast more than 500 miles away and were highly prized by the ancient Muisca as the sound of the conch reverberate around the lake I asked enrique what the golden raft meant to him para usted piensa que esto estaba un cosas que pasol waka C Mira la balsa es algo que si in bellezza la unión que habia el Bing cool ok a via enter el Muisca y la madre Guatavita yell agua effective Amenti a Kyra donde se hace al Rito en la balsa para adorn our para nomber our si si casa key evidence supports Enrique's explanation Spanish chroniclers describe ceremonies taking place here and small amounts of gold have been discovered in the area like many myths El Dorado may contain a kernel of truth it supports the suggestion that the Moi's can people unlike the Spanish valued gold in spiritual rather than monetary terms nosotros Alli la los actually's muiscas como nuestros ancestress prana so Tros el oro no significa más que una forma de PAVA meant a yellow que está lo que symbolizes a laguna seca nzy Hoek spiritual ease a connection a spiritual SI consejos apple ahora esta es para no para Muisca es el más grande Tesoro que esta y de vivre mana ceralun las piezas de Oro si es tan oh no estan prononce otro no Simba Lisa tree kaiza whatever the truth about Eldorado archaeologists have discovered another dimension to the role the gold played in the culture when the moisture raft was found in a cave south of Bogota in the 1970s it was inside a pot containing small flat gold figurines known as tacos many of these objects are displayed behind glass at the gold museum but Juan Pablo has arranged for the vaults to be opened so I can take a closer look and it's immediately obvious that each of them represents a different character I really like that level of detail you can see on each particular artifact and each of them is very individual and how they're made how do you think the different elements that you see is representative of different people you can see like the achieves you can see the priests as here this one half if you see it has a head in their hand so that's telling you that's a warrior there are other noticeable differences in the tools you see the difference between that color and that color here you can see there is more gold but indeed more brown one is because it has a lot of copper more tan than this one and that is not by chance they decide to do that to do that way mixing gold with copper in different proportions mooska Goldsmith's could vary the color of the finished or home and unusually for gold artifacts the Turner's have flaws Spurs of excess metal and unpolished surfaces what were these two hoes for and what was their real value to mooska society if the moist guns add value till hoses ornaments or jewelry you would expect them to have a fine finish and you might also expect them to be buried with their owners as grave goods archaeologists studying musket gold faced a common problem most of the gold was acquired from looters in the years when selling to the gold museum was legal as a result much of the archaeological context has been lost but the looters stories are consistent the Toho's weren't found in tombs but in rivers and lakes on mountaintops and in caves the land north of Bogota is riddled with caves just the sort of place where tongue clothes were found I met archaeologist Roberta Jairus Perez an expert on moisture gold working and belief systems thinking about metal within whiskered society what were the most can using gold for well God was all important for risk especially for votive offerings they were prone into Lakes inside caves like the one in which we are now or placed in fields and sanctuaries temples and the foundations of houses wherever it was important to place an object that would a restore equilibrium in cosmos try and explain muy skill cosmology - minun well try to imagine the world as composed of opposite principles opposite and complementary so first of all you have man a woman then you have day and night as you have up and down so if you understand the world in this sense you understand also that there is an equilibrium now the point here is to understand that this is made by the gods but you as a man you can intervene in this equilibrium so if there is any sort of alterations say for example that you have three years in row where there is no rain you can intervene in there how do you do that with Botev offers because this is a way to restore this principle that has been lost or diminished in the earth and then you have the equilibrium and the conditions for life again so it seems the tongue shows actual purpose was as a shining gift to the gods to redress the balance of nature do you think whisk and metalworking is unique in the way that is created in South America no other society as far as I know dedicated over 50% of their production for votive offerings I think it is quite unique it's incredible that with masks and metals the entire lifetime of one objects can be just days because it's created for a particular purpose to go straight into the ground it seems to be a waste of time but then if you think that this was so important for society much more important than having a beautiful women wearing this object then you understand why so much travel had we assumed in order to produce these objects to the moisture Gold appears not to have had any intrinsic value and if it's value is purely spiritual it seems likely that every aspect of its creation its shape color and what it represented would have been part of a sacred process how it was made was therefore critically important today the secrets of that ancient craftsmanship have been preserved in a highly unlikely setting what do is here Goldsmith Omaha tarde doesn't so much take his work home with him as live with it in his apartment in central Bogota he has mastered the art of moisture metalworking it appears that the real skill is not a manipulating gold but in knowing how to mold beeswax a process known as the lost wax technique Omar starts to shape the wax into a flat figurine mooska 2 cos were 2d representations of the human form I asked Omar why the moisture made flat tacos was it easier than making a 3d figure yokomen a homicide evencio man facing in quanto Technica pero yo creo que es igual las piezas de mo Segundo cree que son planas o mucho más fácil --is yamete las posadas planus en una connotation maria's que se pueden present our mejor tipo de mal form a Sione's en la fonda CR saying Sal realmente la pieza plan'n es una pieza me completo la Muisca a and Rio and the flats ojos we made more complex by adding on the intricate details of face arms legs and bodily ornaments with wire like threads of wax Omar told me a really interesting these colored waxes are industrial and represent different properties different malli abilities that the wax has to make one of these pieces you need different types of wax with different types of malleability and the Muisca used a whole range of different beads with different properties in their wax omar's just using this one which is industrial because he doesn't have time to go out and Sunday and collect these moreover Colombian but it's a really interesting fact that more school cultivating different types of bees specifically for this process once the beeswax figurine is completed Omar bend it over and adds a network of little tubes the taco will then be packed in clay and placed in an oven to evaporate the wax leaving a mold into which the molten metal can be poured the network of tubes ensures that the metal travels into every intricate detail of the figure Bonhams so I love little wax creation is now inside this piece of clay which is going to go in the oven and the wax will evaporate leaving the mold once the wax has gone molten metal can be poured into the empty mold the moisture could control the color of the final piece by varying the relative quantities of copper and gold in the alloy I love it that in an anonymous apartment block in Bogota there's a guy wielding is acetylene torch ready to burn the place down research suggests that the moisture used fires rather than blow torches but it also tells us that those in charge of making these two hose were far more than just simple craftsmen it's possible that the tongue hose were actually being made by the priests themselves the moisture priests were masters of both ritual knowledge and practical skill al-bakr got everything so there's our little piece the wax is all melted away and also it's still flexed right round are these tubes of metal which have been used to pour in the metal into the mold we'll have to cut those off and then we'll Bend him back out and finish him off Lancers the system awesome seeing this process up close you can see why the moisture pieces have these rough edges and these little bits of metal still stuck on the sides the remnants of those tubes of metal coming down to fill the cast well Judy Celia so one day Tata yo voy a hacer todo en que todo es este proceso se para sido muy bonito puede mas muchas gracias golde malleability made it the ideal material for creating a wide variety of small the intricate objects offerings to the gods were frequent and her vast amounts of gold must have been needed given the importance of gold the Spanish expected to find mines throughout them whisking territory but it doesn't occur naturally here almost canned gold had to be brought in from elsewhere so how did they acquire so much of them in the hills north of Bogota are the minds of Nemec on where deep below the ground like rich deposits of one of the muskers greatest assets not precious gems or coal but a mineral vital for life itself salt deep underground and far from the coast isn't where I would expect a fine salt but a hundred million years ago an ancient sea existed here when the waters evaporated they left behind vast plains of salt tectonic activity later raised these mountains and the salt flats were folded into the rocks trapping huge pockets of the mineral beneath the earth entonces tienes s david NC Adela tipo de mina que estas r estaba haciendo la busca SI literalmente encima de la mina my guide edwin explained that in modern times - bought deep into the mountains in search of the salt but the mouseka didn't need to dig rain would fall through hills of salt like this one and they would collect the salt water from the streams at the bottom of the hill pour the water into big clay jars and heat them up to evaporate off the water gradually these clay pots would fill with salts and they'd smash them and be left with a salt cake salt cake production became a major industry for the Muisca giving them the economic power to amass the gold that they needed but the Moyes cos great strength would also expose them to danger some assault cakes being traded up and down the Magdalena River and the sort of production the industrial production that it showed that drew the conquest the doors up into the Muisca heartland a Spanish chronicler recorded the moment when conquistador jiménez de Quesada decided to change course seeing the excellent nature of the land and how the Indians always brought us salt which they packed into large blocks Jimenez decided to try to seek its source the salt trail led to Spanish directly to the Muisca with a fragmented structure of chiefdoms in the northern and southern Confederations the Muisca were unable to mount serious resistance to the conquistadors in a little over a year the whole of the Muisca territory was under Spanish control violence and old world diseases took their toll and the population crashed the Muisca were a people with a completely different value system to their Spanish conquerors are people in tune with their environment and the world around them communities held together by rituals and celebrations and a society for whom the real value of gold was in what it could achieve by being offered to the gods you further north along the magdalena river lived another connected culture the tyrona their future would be very different I'm making my way towards the mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta along the Caribbean coast to find out how and why rivers are the lifeblood of trade allowing goods to flow freely between the coast and the interior for the mouseka the Magdalena had been the source of much of their gold but some of that precious metal was also traded north to the tyrona the tyrona shared gold working skills and a language with the Muisca but they lived in a very different environment did they also share the same beliefs this is the land of the tyrona from here on the Caribbean coast the Sierra Nevada Santa Marta rises up to five thousand seven hundred meters the highest coastal range in the world high up in those mountains are scattered the lost cities of the tyrona archaeology in this sort of terrain where everything is covered by a thick carpet of vegetation is enormous ly difficult new discoveries are rare but in the 1970s a flood of tyrona gold and other artifacts started to appear on the black market the first clues that looters were working on a new tyrona site when archaeologists reached the location high in the mountains they were amazed it was the largest and most impressive tyrona site ever discovered it was given the name see you dad Beth either the lost city getting to ciudad perdida foot is a three day hike through these dense forested mountains today I'm teaching a lift with the Colombian army and it's giving me a wonderful perspective on the lost city I can see the terraces covered in vegetation the only leaves me imagination how big this side must be to put ciudad perdida in perspective archeologists estimated that it is ten times larger than the famous Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru even though most of it is hidden by thick vegetation it's still breathtaking when you consider the effort that was needed to build a city in this terrain archeologists have only just begun to scratch the surface but they are finding some really exciting evidence of what this place was once like Santiago Geraldo is leading the excavations what thanks does this site have do you think okay the earliest date that we have here is a 650 ad date and that's that's what I found during my research those dates really resonate with me this idea we're getting lots of cultures rising up these chips is speaking cultures and it's a very similar time period when the Muisca rise up the time when these periods are rising up maps out quite well say with the classic period of Mesoamerica and then the the Maya collapse around nine hundred to a thousand AD but these guys just keep on going it's thought that Ciudad perdida was occupied for almost a thousand years existing in parallel with Muisca society but while very little remains of mooskaa architecture here the tyrona structures have lasted remarkably well leaving clear evidence of how they were constructed so here we have a classic site on a wall now the stone shows up really nicely you can get this really nice faced edge coming down it looks really good and this must stuff goes on for miles yeah looking at the steepness of these mountain slopes how do you think that the tyrona coped with that with their architecture so really what's at a premium here for these societies is flat areas and what they were doing with all the terracing was actually creating flat livable space now one of the main difficulties is that these people use no mortar so what they did was a combination of masonry and rammed earth and that's what makes them incredibly stable and also the fact that they overlapped one Terrace to the other so you create step like platforms and that's what really creates stability in an area such as this one because you've got over 4,000 millimetres of rainfall and that means that a terrace can be washed away if it's not really stable working in harmony with the landscape the tyrona created a thriving city it's extraordinary that salt cotton and gold from the lowlands were traded up here around a thousand meters above sea level these stone terraces provided stable foundations for large wooden structures that would have been at the center of communal life in the city these platforms were fantastic the size of them the Hmong mentality do you think this is a particularly special part of the site oh absolutely we've got the main feasting gathering area over there and excavation work that I did in 2006 what we found was that most of the chests that was being deposited was drinking cups serving jars and big trays that pretty much spells out feasts and feasting for the most part and then you've got adjacent structures that probably served as kitchens what do you think the role of that feasting was here do you think it's a display or a status as in most human societies the politics of commonality are exceedingly important they're extremely extremely important just for creating allies there's work feasts there's when you've got a new trading partner coming in of course you want to impress him ritual feasts strengthen social relationships within the Chibcha speaking community and beyond during the 16th century we found evidence that Chiefs here were actually trading gold objects for wine with French and English pirates that we're bringing in wine so feasting definitely played a hugely important role in these societies as with the Muisca the secret of tyrona success came from their mastery of their environment centuries-old roots once connected all tyrona settlements this network of pathways hundreds of miles long allowed people to transport goods back and forth between the coast and the mountains the path I'm following leads to pueblito a tyrona settlement first inhabited almost 1500 years ago have come to me anthropologist Lorraine akka Aslam who has been investigating the significance of the paths and what they can tell us el Caminos case on pequeños okay pueden estar por ejemplo como s culeros cierto en el ciertas partes yo tros Caminos que son mucho más han please para la circulation de mayor can TI población que lo que encontrar Mo's a quien pueblito ye sona's en donde ya son pues case si que implica no NOS plane in dakar que había una población importante que se reuniones de lugar but the paths went simply an indication of population size and mobility they were designed to literally support tyrona society la algo muy importante que comprender de la vacacion de la sierra nevada santa marta para entender como fueron construido los caminos y lo que significa el adaptogen ambiental de estas public ANS all territory en las tempura's dubious es mucha SEMA lago de sparked a de lo que será el asesor Turris de los Caminos son a permitir que no hay una elección fuerte por la lluvia C Yami con este tipo de version no puede ver un mundo tyrona que es ampliado puto la sierra que tienen bing clothes entre los de frente partes del medio ambiente esto es lo mismo pero stead c.i.a algo muy importante es que las población s a travis en si priyo kalamos pero que es algo que se a Manton en el tiempo de un manejo del territorio través del caño sim en toda como funciona la sierra tenses el conocimiento que atrás indeed Oh durante todo esto Sano's este es en el territorio entry conocer aprender observar el territorio como se a los cambios so like the moisture the tyrona were perfectly in tune with their environment knowing how to use its resources without damaging the world around them evidence that this was a spiritual connection is preserved in one of the rocks near the centre of the town where priests gathered to predict the future these pools for divination were used by the tyrona they would drop a bead inside the water and watch how the bubbles came up that would help them with complex decisions they were due to make all objects that captured or reflected the light of the Sun were valued shimmering water shiny stones snow-capped mountains and the glinting colors of the forest one material in particular didn't just reflect light it was the same color as the Sun as well gold just like the Muisca whose gold gave rise to the legend of El Dorado the tyrona held the precious metal in high esteem under the guidance of archaeologists when I design sampe museum curators a cleaning Turin artifacts what's immediately striking about these objects is they have been burnished and polished smooth quite unlike the rough aged artifacts made by the Muisca looking at these pieces of tyrona metal what are the similarities and differences between whisker and tyrona metalwork well there are a lot of differences you know because the Muisca people didn't polish their pieces and these tyrona people were so great polishing and finishing every single details because they just use it for another thing the Muisca tuhoe's were not used for wearing them on you and these kind of of objects were used to work were used to to say hey I'm the boss boys can Goldsmith's made offerings to the gods tyrona gold also had spiritual value because it reflected the Sun that gave life but rather than make unique pieces like the Muisca the tyrona craftsmen effected symbols that were reproduced time and time again what were the important symbols with no way out Ultra birds birds with open wings which are these ones and also the Batman the Batman is a very important symbolic icon in tayrona iconography creatures like the Batman half-human half-animal a common in tyrona art it feels like another illustration of the close connection between the human and natural worlds so it seems that the link between gold and nature was just as important to the tyrona as it was to the Muisca but tyrona craftsmanship wasn't just restricted to gold at the University of Magdalena in santa marta archaeologists at Hilliker Nunez is working on a collection of remarkable ceramic objects claro que esta todo lo puedo Dippolito entonces estos artifact toes bien de sitios tyrona si todos vienen de sitio sedona a piezas archaeological materials que no son artifact o son materiales origin REO stay caballo hace la sierra thousands of different pieces of pottery have been collected here they provide an invaluable insight into tyrona life and beliefs and some of the symbols I saw in the gold artifacts I hear - en esta pieza que tenemos una cosa muy interesante si es aqui podemos identificar con bastante precision las acciones de un Murcielago y tambien ouvea meant a la posición antropomorphic apace us potus's astray me da de son t tambien teo mal que s Terrence in Volo como de fer telida e por su posición y por la representación de las vanna's y y lo musiah la busca está allá God owes a las sexually de a la reproduce e'en as ewa the connection with the natural world is very evident but there was a particular piece of pottery that captured my attention in iran doses piezas no puede ver a este camión gusta mucho que que parece que tiran ago in la enemy he ax si si podemos hacer la so Sein sur terre mente y ella bola siempre VA a ser un indica or tame Ambe este dinkler entre Lusso de coca y la gente tyrone era gente en koh samui interessante no intent roll a ceramic al-qasim even si esto una una imagen REO tonic Olmo gooniac a say representa ela ceramic ax pero también esta muy liga al transe cases quiere con le monde veo que la cook our helpers understanding of tyrona beliefs isn't based on the artifacts alone she's been working closely with indigenous people who could be the last remaining link with the tyrona I'm heading back into the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta to visit them the Kogi an indigenous community of around 12,000 people live in small mountain villages not far from the tyrona sites of Pablito and Cielo perdida living separately from contemporary society they've preserved their traditional way of life and they guard their independence fiercely so it's a huge privilege to be invited into their village for the day most Kogi still speak a language derived from Chibcha the tongue of the tyrona and the Muisca my guide Jacinto is one of the very few who also speak Spanish I asked him if he felt that his people were connected to the tyrona Kogi let alone a la Sierra Nevada claro SI para millet yeah yo habia como siempre lady check a cobia segi mo manténlo vivo nuestra cultura travia you Elmo resisted OD moleste an ya que esta moto a via en actually da e y como no way no ven aquí como Vega love my umbrella for moneda yellow mama Clavius again haciendo sous sus Casas conduct Incipio como como era la forma de la posesión de luca's Jacinto invited me to help in the building of a new house for the mummer's the Kogi spiritual leaders there's a deep cultural connection here with the environment one that seems to echo the philosophy of the tyrona I can easily imagine these houses sitting on the round stone terraces at pueblito or ciudad perdida one of the ceremonies that will be carried out in this house is the initiation ceremony when a boy turns into a man at that point that we came on a gourd and coca leaves and as you'll see the men here all shook oka this is an essential part of Kogi life it's impossible to know whether the tyrona had the same rite of passage but coca chewing records again and again in their pottery the connections are clear to see when Kogi men meets they exchange coca leaves they're repeatedly extracting lime from a gourd known as a puffer oh and wiping it across the ward of coca leaves in their mouths to release the active ingredients cocaine is derived from the coca plant but raw coca leaves don't have the same powerful narcotic effect Kogi men chew it is a mild stimulant that helps them to communicate with their ancestors these traditions passed from generation to generation continue the coquí's deep spiritual connection with their environment everything that goes into the construction of these houses has to come from a seed this is because they see themselves as seeds of the Sierra that humans need to be nurtured and grown just like plants so in these houses we start to see a connection between how they're constructed and the Kogi idea that people and environment are one you get a chichi say which alone a chichi know Nene via Hawaii a moco a kajillion hanger gunas and a nagi-chan will say she Chris Isaac hi creeper musashi moco effigy me a happen as a day Yama Yama tiny a much ago who knew me I mean the algae cut a balloon into another cake today Kogi culture is alive in part because of the protection offered by the mountains the same mountains that protected the tyrona nearly five hundred years ago unlike the Muisca the tyrona are never completely overrun by the spanish the geography of their homeland made it difficult for the conquistadors to penetrate far but Spanish colonization of the valleys stifled trade between the villages of the mountains and wave upon wave of old-world disease decimated the population eventually all the remained of the tyrona were dwindling communities scattered in the mountains they in the Muisca seemed to vanish but they didn't from Bogota to the Sierra Nevada I have witnessed the legacy of these cultures it's still living in the remains of their architecture in their artifacts rich with meaning in the gold that connected the tyrona and the Muisca to their spiritual beliefs the Spanish lured by the myth of El Dorado plundered the gold but they couldn't destroy the belief shared by the two cultures beliefs that live on with the Kogi today an unshakable faith in community and the value of their environment above all else even gold for me these are the treasures Kipling wrote off hidden behind the ranges you

Channel: Huh Bub

Views: 507,361

Rating: 4.6849546 out of 5

Keywords: Archaeology (Field Of Study), South America (Continent), History (Literary School Or Movement), Peru (Country), Bolivia (Country), Colombia (Country), Documentary (TV Genre)

Id: _sovvzUAVoA

Length: 53min 59sec (3239 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 19 2013