The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a tourist destination in Colombia where the heart of the world is located. The mountain range is a unique ecosystem; a place where Mother Nature cares for children and helps maintain the balance between nature and mankind, that’s why is called a sacred place; where wisdom and harmony flow. It is the highest elevation near the see, independent of the mountain range of the Andes.
In ancient times…
In ancient times, Serankua (father nature) created the world and granted a spiritual guardian to every stone, mountain and river of the Sierra Nevada. The sacred places are connected by the Black Line; which marks the ancestral territory and unites the spiritual and material worlds of the Kogui, Wintukua, Wiwa and Kankuamo peoples. The territory is a source of knowledge for all aspects of life.
The mammos
In the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta each sacred place has a purpose and must be cared and nurtured in a particular way. The mammos “read” these sites and interpret the offering necessary to obtain the benevolence and “permission” of the spiritual guardian or to repay and pay their favors.
Offerings of beads, stones, whole or crushed seashells, cotton, hair and nails, menstrual blood and semen, are wrapped in corn or frailejón leaves and tied with cotton threads. The priests deposit these wrappings in the sacred places.
Wintukua testimonial
“In any activity that we do, such as felling a tree, hunting an animal, sowing, harvesting a crop, building a house or a bridge; we must perform payment rituals to ask permission from the spiritual owners. If we do not, the consequences are very serious: diseases, conflicts, droughts, floods, landslides or fires…
Our sacred sites can not disappear, they can not be violated. Without them there is no foundation, there are no laws or rules to guide you”
Amado Villafañe, Wintukua.
Mammos consult the spiritual world through elements of power. The mamos wiwas, like the koguis, guess with the zhatukwa, a totuma (pumpkin) with water and tumas – lithic archaeological accounts. They interpret the bubbles and the sounds that are produced when they throw the beads in the container. The wintukuas consult using a small backpack where they keep sea shells and tumas.
Arhuaco testimonial
Amado Villafañe, arhuaco of the Gonawindua Tayrona organization, says that, according to the beliefs of his people, the indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta were given the mission of taking care of the balance between mankind and nature through the power of the creation. the mamos (their highest authorities). “The sacred sites, plus the power elements of the mamos, configure our own government system”, he says, adding that when they lose a sacred site “we lose the responsibility bequeathed from the beginning of time, and because of that imbalance is that there are natural catastrophes”.
Anthropologist research
Pablo Mora, an anthropologist who worked with the indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in an audiovisual project called Palabras Principales, affirms that the black line, which brings together the highest concentration of sacred sites, “is the point with the most threats by tourism, trade and agricultural exploitation”. – the viewer (el espectador).
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a place of great importance and a lot of spirituality, both for its residents and for the people who visit it, considering it a sacred place.
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