Trips to Colombia

TRIPS TO COLOMBIA: LOST CITY

In 1976, an important archaeological work allowed to discover the ruins of “Lost City” or “Buritaca 200”, an urban center Tayrona, whose system consisted of the occupation of an ample zone from interconnected terraces that alternated with zones of culture, dominating diverse climates and heights.

The archaeological findings are developing circular terraces maintained by extensive retaining walls in stone, ways, stairs and beautiful bridges.

The National Park Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, where is the Lost City, was cradle of a great civilization that in its flight of the conquerors during century XVI, was forced to move away of its towns to take refuge in the heights of the mountain. Pocigueca, Betoma and Tayronaca, legendary Tayrona cities, fought ferociously against the invaders, whose irruption less than caused in a century the general decline of a complex political and economic organization.

Lost city is located in the North slope of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, to 80 km of Santa Marta, capital of the department of the Magdalena. The vestiges of the establishment are concentrates to a side of Buritaca river, on the edge of a cross-sectional blade that comes off the Korea Hill in direction south-north. The ruins are distributed from the 900 to the 1200 meters on the level of the sea, in a subtropical humid forest, where it rains almost all the year and the precipitation reaches levels that go of the 2000 until the 4000 m.m annual, with temperatures that oscillate between 17° and 24° C.

The establishment has an extension of 20 hectares.
In few years, the left cities were invaded by the forest. At the end of century XX, their heirs, kogui, the arsarios and the arhuacos continue fighting to peacefully inhabit the territory that belongs to them.

In order to arrive at Lost City the first night in “Cartagena Edge” is due to make a route of three days from Santa Marta, happening, where facilities for the traveller exist. The following shutdown becomes in the Stop of Sight, in huts where the hammocks can be hung and of there towards Lost City. In order to raise one is due to have a previous permission of the indigenous Town hall and a guide. During the route food is not obtained, therefore, rich protein foods are due to take.


That it means Lost City for the Natives?

The natives consider that in the river basin of the Buritaca river she was where Teyuna, its mythical hero, was dedicated to carve figures of stone and gold that were buried to protect and to maintain “to the parents” of all the beings who populate the world. Teyuna was the constructor of the City of Stone - City Perdida or Buritaca 200 - and also is the father of the Kogi that him offerings or “payments” in certain indicated sites make with the purpose of to ask for authorization to make use of some natural elements without it causes environmental imbalance.

“When the figures were here, there was much mount animal, but when it arrived guaquero and it removed to figures everything already is finished, because it is as if they took to the papa of them, no longer are the ends to make payments, for that reason the world is going away to finish” say the natives from the region when talking about to the problem of the finders of treasures, to the shortage of hunting prey, to the few harvests, the prolonged ones invier and summers to us to the diseases that afflicted to the Kogi community of the Buritaca region.

Once the Teyuna park finished constructing the city gave Mamo or Hubukui priest to it that was as much in charge of the agricultural activities, of seedtime as of the harvest.

Each family seated in the neighborhood of the Lost City seeded cocoyam, maize and kidney bean, “as four bushes not more, because each gave an enormous amount of bulks, for that reason indigenous old it did not have to knock down much, each bush gave much”.

The product of the harvest took shelter and extended in the terraces of Lost City where it baptized Mamo it, process that lasted nine days including the confession ritual of the community besides the dances and songs. With this process the foods were ready to be stored and to be consumed during the rest of the year.

The present natives seed by means of the processes of tomb and burning fire, first of which she is realized with machete. According to the tradition, at times of the Taironas it was Kalabolo, the head of the wind, that just by demolished the trees to blow them; nevertheless he neglected it to the community and for that reason he had to undergo the consequences.

According to the oral tradition Kogi each archaeological terrace corresponds to a masculine or feminine clan. These clans receive “payments” that they look for to guarantee the obtaining of energy; the “payment” or offering are offered to him to the “guardians of the terraces” that are called Sundinkama by the Kogi and that in archaeological Literature is known like tensions or stones that help to maintain the walls.

The archaeological excavations were suspended as of 1990 because according to the natives the extraction of the content of the tombs, trátese of necklace accounts or of figures that represent “the parents”, earth has affected the energy loss of the mother and the proliferation of lawsuits between natives. According to the natives the sacking of the tombs is the one that has caused the violence that nowadays characterizes the catastrophic zone as well as floods, droughts and other events.

At present, the natives Kogi and Arsario who live in the river basins of the rivers Buritaca and Guachaca, meet at the end of the year to realize the celebration of sanación of the dedicated Earth to cause the growth and the abundance of the animal by means of ritual songs and dances that are carried out in Lost City. These celebrations are organized by Mamo that meets with other natives majors while the rest of the group is grouped according to sort, being located in the terraces and dancing and singing as the night flows out.

These dances and songs also are realized when the ceremonial houses are constructed that are also used to give lodging to the natives of the region which they visit Lost City.