TAYRONA

The Tairona had to abandon their settlements by the mid-17th century, and the forests swallowed up most of their footprints. However, some traces remain as evidence of their remarkable culture.

One of its most famous settlements was the Lost City. Known locally as Teyuna, it was founded around 800 AD, 600 years before Machu Picchu. It is one of the most important pre-Columbian archaeological sites in South America. Accessible by a long and strenuous hike through dense foliage and some 1,200 stone steps, it is believed to have housed between 2,000 and 8,000 people. So far, only part of the once-magnificent city has been excavated. The finds have been extraordinary: some 250 stone and mud terraces that served as platforms for houses, scattered across 300,000 square metres of lushly vegetated terrain. Recent excavations have also unearthed several fascinating artifacts: ornaments, gold offerings, pottery, and even musical instruments.

Another site, Pueblito, is located near the Caribbean coast. According to research, it contains at least 254 terraces and was home to around 3,000 people. In the past, there used to be numerous villages and hamlets scattered throughout the valley, forming a large network that would increase trade and other businesses. The Tairona even became involved in salt production, as found at Chengue, a small fishing village.

The Tairona had a system of government based on religion. Their rulers were part of the shamanic elite who claimed to be able to control the forces of nature, the cosmos, and all human thoughts and actions. One of the main beliefs of the Tairona people was the process of transformation, a typical shamanic power exchange. They believed that the souls of shamans, by cleansing their minds and bodies through long periods of fasting and strenuous ritual dances, could transcend the mortal human condition and acquire knowledge of unknown regions of the cosmos, inaccessible to others. Hence, shamans were considered the chiefs of the tribe and treated with great respect, and were responsible for raising armies, controlling agriculture, looking after the welfare of the Tairona, and even overseeing the barter trade network. The Tairona believed that shamans could come out of their bodies and gain knowledge from other creatures, which inspired their metallurgy. Many of the ornaments found in their settlements were believed to be of people turned into ferocious animals such as the famous 'bat-man' statuette depicting a shaman slowly turning into a bat.

The religious beliefs of the Tairona, as in many of the tribes of the period, greatly influenced their metalwork and art. Like the 'bat-man', many of their earrings and breastplates abounded with figures of men transformed into fearsome creatures, especially birds of prey, crocodiles, and snakes. These ornaments not only represented the status of the wearer but were also symbols of his supposed powers.

In those times, transformation was a concept that all tribes of the Chibcha family believed in and strove to bring about. Bats were considered to be one of the most powerful animals, so the Tairona did their best to look like them. Clothing used to symbolize this transformation has been found in the tombs of leading dignitaries of the Tairona period. According to researchers at Banco de la República, Colombia: "the ornamentation of their metallic visors was an allusion to the membranes inside the bat's ear, the cylindrical nostrils raised the nose to make it resemble the nostrils of certain species of bats, and the sublabial ornaments imitated the fleshiness of the animal's lower lip".

Contrary to what many people tend to believe, ancient Colombia was not only a center of excellent goldsmithing but also of pottery. The oldest pottery objects extracted from the area occupied by the Tairona were dated to around 2500 BC, although they are thought to have flourished after 200 AD. Another connection with the Muisca seems to be the similarity in gold working. Both Chibcha-speaking tribes had the same variety of offerings for their deities and even had almost the same type of tunjos. Tunjos are statuettes made of tumbaga, a mixture of gold, copper, and silver, which usually show the tribesmen in their daily lives. Another interesting aspect of Tairona modernity is that scholars believe the tribe was free to divorce. Their religious practices were also very similar to those of their modern-day counterparts, the Kogui or Cogui or Kággaba, and lasted for days, involving mainly deliberation, coca chewing, and deep meditation.