The Kogui Indians live in the Sierra Nevada highlands of northern Colombia. It is not possible to enter these areas without permission and without a guide.. When you visit villages, you must first get permission from the village leader.. Even if they don’t like to have foreigners staying in the village, you may have a chance if you talk to the leader and help the village financially if necessary.. I gave 15,000 pesos (5 usd) for one night stay in Seyviaka village. In this village, which was founded 13 years ago, there has never been a stranger but me.. You may also need to give 4-5 usd to help you enter the villages.
This is Sierra The Nevada region is a mountainous area approximately 40 km long.. Although its highest point reaches 5,000 meters, there is no village on the summit.. They generally live in the foothills and middle parts of the Mountain.. It may take 2-3 days to walk to some villages.. In addition, not only Kogui but also Arsarios, Arhuacos and Kankuamos natives live in these regions.. The first settlement here started after the Spanish invasion.. Some say it was 300 years, some say it was 400 years ago.. It is for this reason that; some natives’ names come from Spanish, some from Kogui.
Other important things for Kogui natives a district in Park Tayrona. This park is located by the sea and right next to the Sierra Nevada.. This park is closed to tourists for a month every year.. The reason is that the locals hold mass there for a month.
Village leaders are called “mamo” and you only have to see their hat to understand it.. Because no other local can wear the hat of the mamon you see in the photos and videos.. That hat is only for mamos. Every village in the vicinity also has a mamo. There is also a big mamo, that man is responsible for all village leaders.. The big mamo does not eat any meat, including chicken and fish, and lives alone. Although these mamos are not shamans, they are said to have stronger feelings and powers than them.. When mamos are still young, it is understood that they will become mamos in the future.. And when they were kids, they lived in caves for years without ever going out.. Some say 7 years and some say a few years for this period.
I said like shamans very interesting things are said about big mamo. It is also mentioned that he has supernatural powers, such as he can extinguish the fire burning in front of him with a single hand gesture, move the water in a bucket half a meter above the bucket, take the water out of the bucket and float it in the air.. Some things are hard to believe, such as doing some rituals naked and changing dimensions (perhaps astral travel) and traveling for 2-3 days in the form of a leopard, tiger or other animal, then comes back.. When I researched this subject a little more deeply, I learned that experts from Japan to Africa, from China to Europe come to this Sierra Nevada region every year to perform rituals.. When I asked why, they said that this place is the center of the world in terms of mystical powers.
Kogui Indians Chapter – 1
Also, until 70-80 years ago in this Sierra Nevada region, locals used to extract gold from the ground and make jewelry or trinkets.. Although it is said that there is still gold in this region, they say it is not as easy as it used to be.
Another feature of Sierra Nevada is that it hosts a wide variety of animals.. Besides many wild animals, even a tiger lived.. Those who say what is the tiger doing there can search it as “Tigre Colombiano”. The reason why I mention these animals is partly based on this; The natives living in this region do not have a religious belief as we know it.. they believe in nature. Air, water, soil, sun and forest. They are very good with animals and respectful to them.. A tiger was killed during the time of Alfonso, the mamma of Seyviaka Village, where I stayed.. When I asked him why he killed him, he was eating my animals, he said that’s why I killed him.. He also added; only a mamo can kill a tiger, other natives have no permission or right to kill it. As I mentioned above, they hold a ritual for a month every year in Park Tayrona.. While he was performing a ritual in a month, they would bring the animals that escaped from the park area back to this park.. Of course, not by grabbing them by the tail, but somehow communicating with the animals and allowing them to come back to the region.. They say that the reason the animals ran away was because they were scared because the park Tayrona is now a touristic place.. Again, during this one-month ritual, waves too big to be seen in normal times were seen in the sea.. So it’s clear that not many normal things are happening in the area in this one month mentioned.
Seyviaka village 2 I had my day. And I was often accompanied by the village mao, Alfonso.. Every now and then I’ve been watching from afar to see what mamo is doing while I’m wandering around alone.. Every hour or two, he would come to the village square, turn towards the rising sun and say something.. He was doing this ritual for 2-3 minutes.. Although I thought he was talking to himself, I realized later that the man was actually talking to nature.. Of course, you can’t always ask what are you doing like this, but as I wrote above, I think these mamos are a little different from ordinary people.
Kogui native men don’t get haircuts. When I asked why, they said it’s traditional, but later on I learned that shamans also leave their hair long.. There were some who said that if the hair is cut, some special feelings will be lost.. What I couldn’t understand was: some men say they never cut their hair but i see their hair is only up to their waist. If a 30-year-old never gets a haircut, it should grow to the ground.. I can’t figure out how this is happening. Another detail, as you can see in the photos, the natives’ hair also looks very healthy.. I’ve heard they use avocado for this, but I’m not entirely sure.. I will learn about the subject in more detail and share it here again.
There is a house where mamos meet with locals. That house seems a little private and women are not allowed in there.. During my stay in Seyviaka village, I witnessed 3-4 times mamon entering and talking to other locals.. Of course, it is not possible for you to stay in the house at that time.. They say they will have a meeting and you have to go out. Another detail is that men and women cannot sleep together in the same house without being married.. Although polygamy was not common, there were also those who said some men had two wives.
Kogui Indians Part – 2
Women are secondary in Kogui natives. For example, some houses have one hammock and only men can sleep in that hammock.. As we already know, they do not have a bed culture.. Women sleep on the ground, on the ground.. In addition to taking care of children and cooking, they also work in the vineyard and garden like men.. Although the living conditions are very difficult for a city dweller, strangely enough, he asked two local women, “Is there anything you want from life?” When I asked them, they said, “No, it’s enough to live here with our family.”. In other words, no matter how difficult the conditions are, they do not have the slightest complaint.
The clothes are the same for everyone, made of an ordinary, plain white piece of cloth.. They don’t use any color other than white.. Ok, they wear white, but I can’t say that they are clean inversely proportional to that.. There is no water in the houses. They solve the water business from the stream. And because they’re always outside, their clothes are no longer white, but gray or brown.. I can’t say that they give much importance to body cleaning.. There are not many toilet cultures either.. They do what they need out to random places.
Whatever they eat during the 3 days I spent in the villages i ate it. Rice is a must, but with every spoonful, a crack or two of earth was broken in my mouth.. They were giving water, but the bowl is full of earth you know.. It was the cleanest fried banana I’ve ever eaten, that’s all.. And of course, let’s not forget the fruits.. Since the villages are completely in the forest area, there are many fruit trees and their taste was very good.
There were 20 houses in one of the two villages I visited, while the other had about 50 houses.. But the villages were somewhat empty. The reason was, most families had gone to the mountains or the fields to work.. And they said it won’t be back sooner than 3 weeks. Even though I don’t see that they are dealing with agricultural work so professionally, I can say that they have enough crops and harvests for themselves.. In terms of livestock, there are almost all of them, from chicken to turkey, from cow to pig.. There are all of them, but perhaps most of the babies in the village have seen body defects due to malnutrition.. Their arms and legs are extremely weak, and their abdomens are excessively swollen.. I couldn’t understand how they are malnourished when they live in such a natural environment and have so much opportunity.. In addition, the Colombian government was helping the villages with this food and drink.
Men are already very he does not eat. The biggest reason for this is the thing called poporo, which they never drop, as you can see in the videos.. The outer shell of the butt is made from a fruit.. Inside, there is sea snail/shell dried and crushed.. They are constantly playing with this butt with a stick in their hands and slowly eating the crushed seashell.. At that time, they also have coca leaves in their mouths, which they keep constantly.. These two energized them throughout the day and also relieved the feeling of hunger.. Although women cannot use this buttock, every man can use it after he becomes an adult.
Another distinctive feature of men is that they always have a bag on their shoulders.. Like our messenger bags, they hang from the cross and always carry that bag, even if it’s empty.. When I ask why they carry the empty bag, they say it’s traditional, that’s why we carry it.
Although there are a few villages near the city, most of them do not.. In these schools, there are solar energy systems and that’s how they solve the electricity business.. There is absolutely no electricity in the houses.. They don’t have any items to work with electricity anyway.. But they have battery operated lanterns and I’ve seen them used in the villages I’ve been to.. They go to bed at 7-8 in the evening and wake up at 4-5 in the morning.. I even saw mobile phones in the hands of some young people living in villages close to the center.. I saw it, but I couldn’t quite understand what they were doing even though there was no phone signal.
Women and kids bags They make it and sell it to the stores in the center.. I haven’t seen them make and sell any handcrafted products other than them.. In general, I can say that they do not have much to do with money and stamps.. I was giving 4-5 thousand pesos (1-2 usd) for help while taking or after taking pictures of them.. The guide with me said that they buy bread with money, it would be better if you give it.. So even though they live on their own, far from the city, technology, do not think that they live in a place far from the world.. You can walk to the farthest village for 3 days and the people in that village are aware of what is going on in the center.
The Colombian government does not interfere much in this Sierra Nevada region.. Whatever the locals or village leaders say is valid.. Everyone I talked to said these natives are harmless, if you don’t do anything to them, they won’t do anything to you.. They were afraid of harming even the smallest animal.. In the 3 days I spent with them, I met maybe 20-30 people, I don’t have a bad memory with even one of them.. Although a little shy at first, they open up as they talk.. By the way, the locals use their own Kogui language, but many also speak Spanish.. It’s just that some old people I saw didn’t know Spanish that much.
Kogui Indians Chapter – 3
Average age of death in villages is around 60-65. I asked Alfonso, the mammo of Seyviaka village, who was the oldest in these villages?. I’ve never seen it, but my grandfather used to say. Previously, there were people living up to the age of 150 in these villages.. But he adds that he no longer sees eyes at that age.. Again, I learned other things from Alfonso. If they have serious health problems, they go to the hospital to the center, but they also find healing with natural methods.. Kinakina, marambo, kalabala, duandualda and romero plants are good for many diseases.. Romero plant was the strongest.. He says it’s hard to find, but it cures every ailment.
Another thing is that all Kogui Indians, except those who converted to Christianity, have strings or strings on their wrists.. These bracelets are worn by the village mamo or the big mamo as soon as the child is born.. It was to protect him from bad things and to prevent things like insects and reptiles from stinging him.. After learning this, no matter who I asked, neither an insect nor any other reptile bit or stinged any of them.. It is both strange and beautiful that women and children never encounter such a situation even though they are constantly lying on the ground.. I removed 15-16 ticks from my legs while walking for 6 hours in total in the forest to go to their village.. When I’m wearing pants and shoes on my feet. These natives, on the other hand, walk barefoot in that forest and have no such problems.
Added:
After the above villages, Uldezhaxa and I also visited Duanmanak villages. Of course, at that time, I also investigated the accuracy of what I learned about the Kogui natives from both the villages and the city.
As I wrote above, there was one big mamo before and he was responsible for the mamos of all villages.. However, since the villages were far from each other, the area where the Koguis lived was divided into 3 due to reasons such as lack of communication and even the destruction of the culture of some villages, and the conversion of some to Christianity, and each region had one big mamo.. So now there are 3 big mamos in total.. Another detail; The people who will be mamo or big mamo are obvious when they are young and I wrote that they lived in a cave for a few years as a child.. This thing is absolutely true. In some places, the child lived for a year, in others for a few years, without ever leaving the cave.. The reason was for the development and strengthening of feelings.. They were using those feelings for future rituals or healing a sick person.. Mamos can also heal patients in villages like a doctor, as well as midwife women who are going to give birth.. 80-90%, if not all, of the mamos have these abilities.
When it comes to the supernatural powers that are said especially for the big mamos, no matter who I talked to, both in the city and in the villages, “it’s true. “They have some supernatural powers,” it said.. Only a school teacher in the village of Uldezhaxa said that this is not true. Meanwhile, the village of Uldezhaxa has completely abandoned their old culture and converted to Christianity and they live a little more modern than other locals.. The teacher I’m talking about is also a native of Kogui. I asked everything I knew about the Koguis and tried to confirm the truth from him and learn new things.. That’s it for Big Mamo/s, he said things like water hovering aren’t real but his feelings are so strong. He said he can heal a patient, knows plants well, can make medicine from plants and is a little different from you and me. And he also said that some mamos have the ability to cast spells.. Another issue is that if the mamo of the village dies, someone else in the family becomes a mamo.. He is either like his son or his brother.
As for men not to cut their hair at all, in some regions it can be cut until the age of 10, and then it is not cut at all. Many of my followers have asked what they use for hair care.. Some men cure and use avocado fruit, while others simply wash it with stream water.. For women, they said they used all kinds of fruits.. These people’s hair is not the kind we know. For example, the 50-year-old person has never cut his hair, but his hair only reaches his waist.. This was generally the case with these natives.. They say that after a while the hair stops growing.. But I can say that some men have slightly longer hair.
