Inspiration #No1 - The Kogi message - we need to act on.

Photo credit: Rheanna Griffin. Mama Shibulata, left, the Kogi priest and his translator Sylvestre, right, standing by the well dressing celebrating Oxfam's Water week and the theme that Water Can Change Lives.

The more I reflect on this June day back in 2012, the more I appreciate the determination and conviction of the Kogi Mamas and the synchronicities at work when, Mama Shibulata, a Kogi Indian priest  accepted my invitation to take part in our village well dressing.   The theme for the well dressing was the Oxfam water week campaign,  "Water Can Change Lives"  Our village didn't know at the time but the Kogi creation story starts with water.  It is the life force from where the Mother created the nine worlds.  It is how the Kogi divine and communicate with the Mother, it is what helps us all think. 

​I was giddy with excitement, should I prepare food, if so what and for how many ?  Should we bake a cake ?  What will he make of our well dressing tradition, will he be able to relax and enjoy his time away from the city hustle and bustle.   I didn't realise at the time but it wasn't about him, it wasn't really about our village or our welcoming hospitality.   It was about his message for the world, the one simple yet profound message, the warning from the elder brothers,  that he had come to share with younger bother.  The message younger brother was not listening to.   

​It was transformational and it all began at Sheffield Documentary Film festival, doc fest for short . . . . . 

,Sheffield Doc Fest takes place each year in June and  is renowned as one of the most important documentary film festivals internationally, where funders, distributors, commissioners, makers and screeners all show up to network and celebrate the genre.  It was here that representatives of the Kogi Indian community had come for a date with the doc fest audience and to premiere their film “Aluna”.    

Everywhere they went,  journalists and others keen to know more, flocked around them.   In the downstairs space of the Showroom Cinema,  it was hot and hectic, conversations had to be translated from English, to Spanish to Kaggaba and back again and the questions just kept coming.    I went up to the tall English man in their company and gave him my contact details and offered a calm haven back at our Peak District village,  if the group wanted to take a bit of timeout, it also happened to be our well dressing week. 

The Englishman was film maker Alan Eirera, who in the late eighties was invited by the Kogi to film in their secret world, a world where they had remained hidden for centuries and lived peacefully alongside nature, following the knowledge given to them by the Mother in Aluna.    They were frightened and asked Alan to make a film about their message to the world.  The film was, "From the Heart of the World"  and broadcast in 1990 by the BBC, as the film opens,  their teaching begins. 

The great mother created the world in water
She makes the future in it
This is how she speaks to us 
We look after nature 
We are the  Mamas and do this here
and we Mamas see that you are killing it by what you do.
We can no longer repair the world
You must 
You are uprooting the earth and we are divining to discover
how to teach you to stop.  

The Kogi have lived a reclusive mountain existence for over 400 years, whilst the great Aztec and Incan civilisations collapsed, the Kogi endured.  They fled high into the mountains, to safety from the looting of their gold statues and murders by the Spanish Conquistadors.    The film shows how cities of over 300,000 were able to thrive, without causing an ecological mess, without destruction, unlike the modern Columbian farmers who create a "a cancer of sterile dust" ,  Throughout the film as the message unfolds, we also see the and the extent of the disrespect for the culture,  the industrial scale grave robbing, theft and dismantling of their infrastructure. 

Mama Shibulata follows the priesthood tradition, one which takes a boy at birth, who has been selected through divination and is brought up in the darkness of the caves and the darkness of the night.  For nine years he is taught how to meditate on the  Mother,  to be in Aluna and learn the knowledge.   It's a nine year womb like experience before being birthed once more into the sunlight, to see the mountain ranges, the animals, the vegetation and his people.   For nine years, he has known the world only as an idea. 

The mountain they live on has a unique geology for the area and rises 5 km above sea level.   It is a microcosm of all climates from the glaciers, through to the cloud forests, the temperate rainforests, the paramo and the ocean.  They have plotted threads through the land, animals tracks, rivers, underground waterways, paths of winds and clouds, trains of thought.  These are not written down but part of the oral tradition.  

The Kogi with their deep meditation, their mind in nature, believe that they are the keepers of harmony, of life on the mountain and the world.  Their priests meditate for days on end without sleep or food, at access points for communicating with the earth.  They have been the first people people to witness the change in climate, the drying out of the Paramo, bushes are turning to dust and the landscape is becoming yellow.  If this dies then everything below it will die.  They are crying out over the disturbance in the natural water cycle, from the source of the rivers in the glaciers, down to the ocean and back up again as clouds.  Clouds are being stolen. 

I'm going to have to say it in a way that you will understand 
I want the Whole world to listen 
The great mother taught us right and wrong
She has given us what we need to live
But now the mother is being cut to pieces
Stop digging 
We know the water is drying up, it is not us, we are doing our work properly 
The world will go black
The rain wouldn't fall, it will get hotter, crops won't grow.

In the Kogi creation story, the Mother spun nine worlds from the golden thread coming from the water, each world had a different colour and the ninth world was populated.  Gold is the Mother's blood, it remains in the earth, it is fertility for the Kogi who once had golden water bowls for divination to communicate with the Mother in Aluna. 

After the Kogi came younger brother who was sent miles away across the seas, they are reaching out to younger brother to stop our destructive ways.   The Mamas know what happens when you don't live in nature, they are beginning to see the effects fo climate change, they are reaching out to younger brother who is not listening 

At the end of "From the Heart of The World",  we see the Kogi at the ocean edge giving offerings to the sea, just as they give offerings at the coal port to help the healing of the earth.   The Kogi have shared their message in the film, the world doesn't have to end if we act and as the bridge closes to their world once more, the elder brother says:  

younger brother can't come back
does he see
no
does he understand
​no
start to understand or what will happen.
​Right that's it. ​

Sadly, although the film made a huge impact in the way the Columbian government viewed indigenous people and their knowledge, it wasn't enough for younger brother.  The Kogi continue to witness ecological disasters,  the damming of rivers, the drying up of river beds, the importation of water,   boats overturning spilling coal into the sea,  rivers polluted by the billion dollar gold rush that replaced the illegal cocaine trade, extractive industries built on their sacred sites.   The Kogi say:  

Because you take out so much gasoline and minerals the earth is becoming weaker 

​The fingers that dig are powered by markets that will buy 

 In 2011/12 the Kogi invited Alan Ereira to return with his eye that remembers and his ear that remembers, to teach them how to use the film equipment, so they may make their film to once more ask Younger brother to STOP.   The film is "Aluna" , in consciousness, was premiered in the UK at Doc Fest.  

Their time in the Peak District was recorded by Sheffield film makers Rhianna Griffin and Rob Unwin.   I ended up as Sylvestre's and Mama Shibulata's driver for the day I remember looking in my rear view mirror and taking in the awesomeness of the situation, here I was with a Kogi Indian Mama in the back of my petrol guzzling car getting ready to go to the Nine Ladies ancient stone circle in Stanton Moor.  No wonder I crunched the bumper against the dry stone wall as I left the car park. 

The information board at Stanton in the Peak, tells us that The Nine Ladies stone circle, stretches back to the early bronze age, another era of great metal working,   Dwellings were similar, circular houses with low walls and conical straw roofs.    Rolling up his trousers, Mama Shibulata stopped purposefully at various points along the walk to the stone circle, reaching into his bag he scattered something and made blessings.   When he got to the stone circle, it was if he knew it already, he said it was all connected, everything is connected.   He was saying that something dropped here from space.  Could these nine ladies represent the nine worlds spun by the Mother, a connection in Aluna. 

Photo : Courtesy of Rob Unwin. Mama Shibulata standing in the centre of the Nine Ladies stone circle at Stanton moor in the Peak District. He holds his poporro, the gourd containing the lime, made from burnt and crushed seashells, given to every boy at the age of eighteen and a symbol of manhood. The stick is dipped into the gourd, transferring the lime into the mouth numbed by the chewing of cocoa leaves. the lime reacts with the leaves and triggers the release of minerals. The stick is then rubbed in meditation at the top of the gourd where deposits built up. It enables the Kogi to live at high altitude, to stay awake without food and meditate for days on end. The Mother taught them that they must not stop doing this.

Photo Credit : Rhianna Griffin Mama Shibulata, left, the Kogi priest and his translator Sylvestre, right, standing by the well dressing celebrating Oxfam's Water week and the theme that Water Can Change Lives. The Mamas teach that water is the force of life, the source of knowledge, it helps us think better and it is how the Mother speaks to us

I wish I had been able to ask more questions, I don't even know what they thought about our well dressing, our offering of thanksgiving for the return of water.   I had to be content with being an observer, wondering what on earth, we as an industrialised civilisation are doing to this earth and what I needed to do, in my life, starting with how I can use my skills and knowledge to make a difference.   

​Like the Kogi say, it will be hard for younger brother but the earth will die if we don't act. 

Please watch both films and explore the Tiarona Heritage website for more information, they are all freely available on line for us a younger brother to start making those changes. 
There is a list of resources at the foot of this article. 

Resources 

​Films : 
From the Heart of the World       ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq0kWs1q3hI
Aluna   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftFbCwJfs1I

Elsewhere online:
News from the Heart of the World - a recording of the zoom meeting from the 30th Orkney International Science festival in which Alan Ereira talks about how the Kogis keep going in the face of Younger Brother's refusal to take notice.  He is joined by Dr Alex Rogers a marine conservationist who also lent a hand with the making of Aluna. 

The Tairona Heritage Trust :  a UK based charity set up after the first film was made, to continue to spread the message and to generate hope.  Here you can see the latest update from 2022,  The Kogi have a project Muneka Masha - Reviving Water on the Seirra Nevada de Santa Marta, where they are leading a groundbreaking partnership with scientists to revive the water and repair environmental damage and also help meet the challenges of climate change.  

Author:  Jill Turner