Today we left Bogotá and headed towards Lake Guatavita. The walk through the forest introduced us to the meaning that the Muisca people give to water and nature. On the shores of this lake, which is considered one of the origins of the El Dorado legend, we heard that gold was a ceremonial offering rather than a show of wealth.
The silence around the lake placed the golden artifacts we saw in the museum in a different place. Gold, water and mountain were parts of the same story here.
We also stopped by the Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral on the way. The crosses and large halls shaped by light within the galleries of the old salt mine created an unexpectedly impressive space underground. In one day, we were first in a sacred lake open to the sky, and then in a worship area carved into the mountain.
When we returned to Bogotá, we finished the day at Harry's. The words that stuck in our minds today were gold, water, salt and memory.
natives of colombia
Muisca are one of the people belonging to the Chibcha language family living in the Eastern Andes of Colombia. It is accepted that the first peoples of the American continent were connected to the communities that migrated from Asia via the Bering Strait a long time ago. Over time, they transitioned from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled lifestyle and grew products such as corn and potatoes.
In the Muisca world, nature is not outside everyday life; at the very center of life. The earth is thought of as the mother and the sun as the father. Gold is a sacred material that represents the sun, the divine and eternity, rather than an indicator of money or wealth. Therefore, seeing gold works as just "jewelry" leaves their meaning incomplete.
The El Dorado narrative associated with Lake Guatavita also emerges here. The ceremony described is not an adolescence ritual in which all young men participate; the inauguration ceremony of the new Muisca leader, the cacique. It is said that the leader was covered in gold dust and went to the middle of the lake on a raft and left golden offerings to the gods. The famous Muisca Raft, which we see in the Gold Museum in Bogotá, is also interpreted as a depiction of this ceremony.
The Muisca people living in the mountains carried a bowl called poporo with them while chewing coca leaves. Poporon contains lime obtained by burning and grinding seashells. When coca leaf is used with this lime, its effect becomes stronger; it is believed that it gives energy at high altitude and reduces the feeling of hunger and fatigue.
For the Muisca, death is not the end, but the beginning of another journey. Leaving food, drinks and some items used in daily life next to the dead shows the belief that life continues after death. What we heard in Guatavita transformed the works we saw in the Gold Museum from being objects to parts of a larger world view.