Aili Pyhälä
The Kogi are an Indigenous peoples living in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. Despite centuries of attempted colonization and assimilation, the Kogi have largely maintained their autonomy and biocultural harmony. In this article, Aili Pyhälä explores the factors underpinning their exceptionally sustainable and resilient lifeway, namely their overarching nature-based cosmovision, strong cultural identity, and intricately intertwined spiritual-political governance model over social, economic and natural systems. She reflects on how the Kogi story could help all of us – anywhere in the world – discern what is worth holding on to (or recuperating) as globalization comes knocking at our door (or screens).
I learned about the Kogi for the first time in 2008, when glancing through Antonio Briceño’s breathtaking photos in “Gods of America”. The mesmerizing gaze of the Kogi men and women, dressed in all white cotton from head to toe, intrigued and captivated me. By then, I had seen time and time again how Indigenous peoples had been (or were in the rapid process of being) lured into mainstream modes of so-called ‘development’ – the (often false) notion of progress and civilization that, on the one hand, sees Western cultures as somehow ‘better’, and on the other hand tends to see humans and nature as somehow separate from one another.
What struck me about the Kogi, as I devoured every book and film that I could come across about them, was their rather unique case in today’s globalized world. I learned about how, to this day, despite centuries of contact and multiple invasions by colonizers and armed forces, the Kogi have continued to maintain and strongly safeguard their culture, traditions, and identity, with very limited interaction with people other than their fellow Indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada. Indeed, the Kogi are well known precisely for having strongly resisted the Western model development. Moreover, their territory stands out in the wider region as an island of intact, extremely well-preserved forests and waterways – acknowledged even by national environmental authorities for its high nature conservation status.
I came to see the Kogi as a beacon of hope. What if the Kogi could stand as a changemaking inspiration also to other Indigenous peoples and local communities who find themselves at the sticky interface between ‘traditional’ and ‘Western’ lifeways? What if the Kogi story could help all of us – anywhere in the world – be more discerning in our relative processes of acculturation, helping us distinguish what is worth holding on to (or recuperating), as globalization comes knocking at our door (or screen)? With the hope of finding some answers, I set off to northern Colombia, to see what I might find.
What makes the Kogi so resilient?
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (SNSM) remains ecologically intact, even after multiple generations of inhabitancy by the Kogi and other Indigenous peoples. Local management of natural resources and community-conservation by the Kogi has worked for generations and continues to be effective. In cases where the Indigenous peoples of the Sierra have reclaimed degraded pockets of their ancestral territory, within a decade, even those areas are thriving with biodiversity.
In my research, I found some key factors underpinning the exceptionally sustainable and resilient lifeway of the Kogi, namely their: i) nature-based cosmovision ii) strong cultural identity, and iii) intricately intertwined spiritual-political governance model over social, economic and natural systems.
Natural law – an overarching nature-based cosmovision
The holistic belief and knowledge system held by the Kogi is based on intricate interconnectivity amongst and between human and non-human elements, including water, mountains, earth, air, rivers, forests, plants and animals. Indeed, the Kogi see their territory as being ordered much like the human body: each part with its specific place and function, all inter-related, to maintain a healthy overall state. In the Kogi perspective, just as we need to take care of our own bodies (cleansing, feeding, protecting, maintaining healthy thoughts and relations, as well as healing and curing when hurt), we also need to take care of our territories and waterways in the same way. The cultural use and management of each element of the ancestral territory is guided by this natural order.
The Kogi believe that the function or task given to them by Jaba Sé (the Mother of Origin) is to care for, feed and heal all that remains in nature. The ancestral territory is what, according to the Kogi, the Jaba Sé left to them and the three other Indigenous peoples of the SNSM for them to carry out their mission of caring for nature. This belief system is guided by Aluna, the intelligence and concentrated thought and memory that bridges the human spirit and the universe, governing the world’s fertility.
The Kogi also believe that everything that exists in nature originated first in sé (spirit).Similarly, all that which we see today existed first as a person: the trees were people; the water was a woman; the mountains were men. In becoming material, we see them as they are today: organized; but in the world of sé (spirits), they continue being people. All the elements in nature are beings with whom one must maintain communication for there to be balance and harmony in this world that we co-inhabit. This cosmovision explains the importance of sacred sites, some of which are considered vital for the life of the entire (eco)system.
Offerings and sacred sites
The recognition and care given to sacred sites is fundamental to the Kogi. Indeed, the Kogi ancestral territory is scattered with sacred sites, all the way from sites in the sea up to the highest peaks. The majority of these remain secretly kept and well protected, with only a few being known to the outside world.
Given that everything exists also in the spirit world, the Kogi believe it is their duty to make offerings (pagamentos) to the spiritual beings of every resource and service provided to them, be it a tree for firewood or plant for medicine. Similarly, offerings are made to the stones, the water, the sun, the harvests, the food, the animals, the wind, and more. These offerings are given in sacred sites, which are fed by the offerings and by all the thoughts directed to the respective spiritual entities.
The Kogi care for the Earth according to principles and norms codified in sacred sites through gaka, codes that the Kogi can read and interpret in and across their ancestral territory. Large boulders with carvings represent what we would call maps, marking the walking routes along the mountain, indicating the sites of waterfalls and other valued natural areas. Traditionally, the Kogi would make pilgrimages to these sacred sites to leave offerings, each with specific purposes. There are sacred sites to prevent, cure and pay for illnesses; others where confessions are made; others where problems are solved; others for governance and decision-making.
The Kogi believe that if the sacred sites are destroyed, and if the practice of offerings were to cease, then the balance between spiritual and material as well as the connections between the different components of the territory would be altered, as would the possibility to continue their cultural work. Offerings and sacred sites are thus considered key to safeguarding traditional knowledge and teachings, and for people and nature to be able to continue to co-exist.
Strong-held culture & identity
The Kogi live according to the laws and principles of kualama (healthy living). For instance, maize is planted strictly in accordance with kinship, in that seeds are passed on to younger generations along a defined kinship lineage, and when there is a marriage, care is taken that seeds are given according to the correct lineage. All knowledge, too, is structured according to traditional principles. For instance, geisha (when children learn how to speak), is carefully coordinated and aligned according to thought, spirit, eyes and mouth – never overlooking any of these. Similarly, health is governed according to leyuma, and education and knowledge transmission is carried out according to the principles of shivulami. With these governing laws, the Kogi have managed to maintain their traditional knowledge systems and practices intact, including their language.
Women in the Kogi culture are seen as representing Jaba Sé (the Mother) and are therefore considered the center of force and power and thus even more sacred than men. Women also represent water, which is why it is equally important to care for women as it is to care for Mother Earth and its waters. Causing harm to one will harm the other. All the work has both a physical and a spiritual dimension, which is why these cultural practices are also referred to as spiritual work. The traditional work of the Kogi is seen primarily to regenerate, heal, offer, feed, secure and register aspects and situations of the physical world in the spiritual world.
Integrated socio-spiritual-economic governance of natural resources
The traditional governance system of the Kogi is structured according to four ezwamas, i.e., principles representing the four primary river basins of the Resguardo Kogi Malayo Arhuaco (RKMA)reserve. This highly logical ordering of governance according to river basins and access is largely what has enabled the Kogi to sustainably manage their watersheds and natural resources in a highly effective way for generations.
The knowledge of, and compliance with, the Law of Origin is overseen by the mamos, who oversee all knowledge creation and transmission and safeguard the balance and harmony of all beings. The Law of Origin dictates, through the mamos, and to the Kogi, where to live, how to live, where to hunt, where to build a house, where and how to cultivate, how to use and care for their natural resources and for the elements, including the water, earth, trees, seeds, wind, animals, and plants. For instance, the Kogi hold on to strict hunting practices, prohibiting hunting of certain species like the jaguar.
The knowledge and understanding of the mamo, in turn, is learned in an extraordinary and long apprenticeship, acquired from toddler age up to 25 years in isolation in a dark cave. The mamo acquire the skills to communicate with Jaba Sé, consulting her in any situation that requires decisions or actions, be they individual or communal. The spiritual consulting of Jaba Sé is undertaken using zhátukwa and sewá, the mediums or tools that the mamos and responsible authorities use as a bridge to listen to the laws dictated by the spiritual world. Based on this, the mamo gives instructions to their respective Kogi community on the steps that need to be followed to carry out the traditional work, both physical and spiritual. The mamo also give reports to Jaba Sé of what is thought, done, dreamed, imagined, and felt. These are referred to as confessions, a process of releasing or emptying a person or a community of all that has been accumulated – positive or negative – so that Jaba Sé can indicate what needs to be done to maintain harmony and balance.
As such, the knowledge and function of the mamo is the fundamental support system of the Kogi culture. Indeed, it is largely thanks to the mamos who have continued to hold on strongly to their traditional roles and institutions that the Kogi are still able to continue practicing their traditional spiritual, political, and cultural authority and identity.
What challenges are the Kogi facing?
The Kogi are increasingly facing challenges and pressures threatening their land, livelihood, and wellbeing. These threats range from deforestation by outside settlers clearing land for agriculture and extensive livestock raising, to mining and flooding from dams, as well as declining wetlands along the coast due to overdevelopment. Access to many sacred sites has been cut off by highways and other, destructive large-scale development projects and infrastructure. The socio-environmental impact of these megaprojects is affecting, according to the Kogi, the entire “order of their territory and culture”, destroying entire mountains, degrading their sacred sites, breaking ancient paths and structures, and disrupting also the social connectivity and relation to the territory. All this has radically transformed both the physical and the socio-cultural landscape, and with that the relations both in the human and non-human realm.
Similarly, much of Kogi ancestral land has been taken over by the state and sold to outside settlers, including foreigners, who are now flocking to these lush, productive lands to set up tourism ventures or cash crop agribusiness, largely cacao and coffee plantations. The increased access to the Sierra has attracted loggers and extractivists of all kinds. One of the most violent forms of encroachment has been that of tomb-raiding in identified sacred sites in search of precious gold artifacts (including remnant pieces from the ancient Tairona culture), ripping straight into the heart of Kogi history.
Tourism is bringing new diseases into the area, displacing villages, contaminating water sources, and polluting the valleys with plastic and other non-biodegradable waste. The cultural impacts are perhaps the most urgent and worrying. The mamos I spoke to see tourism as being a continuation of colonization, commodifying the cultural landscape of their ancestral territory. What is certainly and glaringly obvious is that the Kogi (and other Indigenous peoples of the Sierra) are not currently benefiting anywhere near their fair, equitable, and agreed-upon share from the tourism revenues, with essentially all monetary benefits from tourism going into the pockets of private business.
Over the decades, there have also been numerous attempts, some more direct than others, to assimilate the Kogi into mainstream society, notwithstanding through Western systems of education and healthcare. The traditional knowledge held by the mamos risks being lost, as children are increasingly attending school outside the village. The domain of ancestral knowledge that is perhaps being lost the fastest is that of medicinal plants. Only a few mamos and “mujeres sabias” (wise women) still hold this knowledge. The introduction of basic clinics offering purely Western-based pharmaceutical drugs in some of the Kogi communities in the lowlands poses serious threats to the continued used of traditional knowledge of medicinal plants and healing.
That said, education is entirely voluntary, never forced upon a Kogi child. Kogi children are still today given by their elders the option of whether or not they want to go to school. Mostly it is the boys who choose to attend school, girls more often opting to stay at home to help their mothers and elder sisters in household chores. This raises the question of what implications this highly skewed attendance has in terms of gendered knowledge and cultural transmission, and how this might affect gender roles more widely in the Kogi society.
What can be done?
The external pressures of extractivist mega-projects, assimilation, and tourism continue to threaten the Kogi way of life and are not likely to cease anytime soon; if anything, they may take a turn for the worse. Below I suggest ways in which we all can do our bit to collaborate.
Reclaiming and regenerating ancestral land
The number one priority, commonly shared by all the Kogi representatives I spoke with, is the reclamation of Kogi ancestral territory. In practical terms, this means financial support for the RKMA Reserve to buy back ancestral lands, and according to international law – (i.e., the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 169 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) they have every right to do so. To date, with the help of a handful of national and international NGOs (e.g. Amazon Conservation Team, Tayrona Heritage Trust, and Tchendukua), only a fraction of the ancestral territory has been recuperated. The Kogi are calling out to anyone willing to help them purchase back their land so that they can better care for it and continue with their traditional livelihood and spiritual practices.
The recuperation of the Kogi ancestral land and sacred sites is not, according to the Kogi, solely a territorial endeavor; it also involves education, health, and wellbeing, including general awareness-raising and capacity-building on waste management. The Kogi suggested starting with cleaning up all the garbage in the Sierra (left by tourists) and building awareness on how to reduce garbage in the first place: to replace all mercury batteries and chargers with solar-powered ones, and to replace all plastic consumable wraps with paper, cardboard, or ideally leaf-wrapped packaging.
Revitalizing Traditional Knowledge transmission
There are several domains of traditional knowledge that are rapidly being lost as more and more children are choosing to attend the Western school system instead of helping (and learning from) their elders in the village. As mentioned above, the domain of medicinal plant knowledge is perhaps the most critical, and one Kogi suggested that a separate apprenticeship project be specifically targeted just for medicinal plant knowledge transmission. One mamo said he would like to have support for projects teaching youth to make traditional musical instruments (drums and flutes), so that he could teach them how to play, sing and dance the traditional ways, as this musical knowledge is also rapidly being lost. Others raised their concerns about the diminished knowledge and skills in traditional food production, weaving and other handicrafts.
These different domains of traditional knowledge would, according to my Kogi informants, best be integrated into a revised education system, such that children in school learn not only according to a Western curriculum and value system, but also as much as possible their own traditional, cultural, and spiritual knowledge, beliefs, and practices. Meanwhile, supporting the existing knowledge holders, both men and women, in recuperating their rightful spaces and institutions is crucial. Incorporating the most appropriate mechanisms could be guided by community-designed “Planes de Vida” (Life Plans) rather than having externally defined “development plans”. This would allow for the Kogi to reflect upon their own values – locally and culturally defined, according to the “Law of Origin” – their own knowledge and customary law. Inspiration could be drawn from similar and successful initiatives elsewhere, such as the work carried out by CEMI with Indigenous peoples elsewhere in Colombia.
Final Words
The Kogi stand out as a truly inspiring example of Indigenous peoples still living in biocultural harmony on their ancestral territory, maintaining their strong traditional culture and identity, cosmovision, governance, sustainable management practices, and knowledge system. It is remarkable that despite the extent of external interventions, the Kogi continue to resist the Western ‘development’ model. This is, in my view, enabled largely by their continued voluntary isolation, self-governance according to their own nature-based cosmovision, strong-held culture and identity, and a highly egalitarian and effective system of spiritual leadership.
The Kogi remind us that the spiritual world is just as important as the physical world when it comes to knowledge, governance, and our relationship with the natural world. Indeed, all domains – including territory, spirituality, culture, and knowledge are – for the Kogi at least -intricately interwoven and interconnected, and it is futile to consider one more important than the other. On the contrary, this very interconnectedness – as imbued in the Law of Nature – is what characterizes ‘the Kogi way’, and society and nature – both in the material and immaterial – cannot and should not be treated separately. The challenge, then, is not only about how to reframe the paradigms of conservation and development, but how to re-find and re-connect with our place in, and relationship with, both the material and non-material worlds.
Should anyone wish to collaborate or donate resources in helping the Kogi recuperate and regenerate their ancestral territory and revitalize their traditional knowledge systems, they can do so via this link.
Aili Pyhälä has spent more than 25 years working in social and environmental justice around the world, engaging closely with Indigenous peoples and local communities, together with their knowledge systems, cultures, and practices. She is co-founder of Tima – Ethical Connectors.
Pingback: Kohtumine kogi tarkadega. Vestlused ja retked elu alusteadmistest – Koosloome Koda – CoCreation Hub