The Kogi is an extraordinary group of indigenous people that live in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains of northern Colombia, in South America. Unlike all other indigenous tribes, the Kogi culture was not totally decimated by the Spaniards. The Kogi were a very technically and culturally advanced tribe who were able to withdraw into the Rainforest and up into the mountains, where the Spanish Conquistadors had great difficulty in pursuing them.
The Kogi quickly assessed their situation and proposed commerce with the Spanish Conquistadors. Having moved back from the lowlands and ocean, the kogi needed salt to survive in the Rainforest. The Kogi traded the gold they used in their rituals for salt and fish.
The Spanish Conquistadors steadily increased the Kogi’s payments of salt and fish until the Kogi’s had no gold left. Nevertheless, the Kogi were able to keep their culture alive to the present day, however it is much smaller.
` What is amazing about these people is the technology that they had. In the middle of the Rainforest their ruins have remained perfectly intact for over a thousand years. These people were able to get into such a perfect alignment with nature that the Rainforest didn’t erode any of their construction.
I think that we need to look at how the Kogi achieved this. All of the knowledge and culture of these people is controlled by the priests. The initiation of a priest involves being kept in a large hut in with other initiates, for nine years. For nine years the initiates are kept apart from the world, in the dark, with only the elder priests coming in to teach them about the Rainforest and the world outside.
The imagination of the initiates is sensitized to an incredible degree, by the longing to be part of the world and the stories of the experiences of the priests.
Finally they are placed back into the world; the beautiful colors in the flourishing Rainforest, to see birds, clouds, animals, fruits and flowers. What they see and feel, the sensitivity that they have, and the knowledge and support given by the older priests to them, bring them into a much higher consciousness than ordinary men. This level of consciousness gives them the way to create such a harmonic and possibly, supremely ‘ powerful’ technology.
These people call all the rest of us the “younger brother”. They warn us that the “younger brother” must listen to the older brother or the planet as we know it including ourselves will all die.
I believe that the time has come that the rest of the world listens to the Kogi’s warning. We must make a concerted effort to align ourselves with all of nature’s highest, most evolved technologies. We need to give birth to a vastly higher consciousness, on a planetary magnitude, just as the priests of the “Older Brother” have engineered themselves to do, for thousands of years already, on a smaller scale.
From the Heart of the World, The Elder Brothers Warning is an amazing documentary. This is an excellent look at the dynamic and cultural phenomena that the Kogi community represents. The Kogi are an empowered indigenous community, aware of the significance of their contribution towards sustainability and ecology. The Kogi has shared their cultural dynamics as reflected in historical memory, to provide a view into the contemporary and traditional cosmology and epistemology of their people.
Everything to do with understanding the Kogi way of life, their society, their philosophy, their religion, is secondary to the shocking urgency of their ecological message. I have no doubt that what the Kogi are saying about the death of the planet is the absolute, pressing, truth.
The Kogi do not see the death of earth as immanent. I do not think the Kogi see anything as immanent. A recurrent theme in what the Kogi were saying in the documentary was; younger brother could help them. I think that the Kogi expected the documentary which was made to be part of the process by which younger brother returns not as a destroyer but to help the elder brother continue with his work. There has to be a connection between the elder brother and the younger brother, and we have to continue to make that connection work successfully.
History has proven how resilient the Kogi society is. The Kogi co-existed with the Spanish Conquistadors for approximately seventy five years, which no other indigenous people did without failing and eventually collapsing. They did have a trading relationship with the conquistadors; they had a close and intimate relationship from 1525 to 1600. Yet in 1600 they were able, when they were attacked, not only to mount an army of approximately twenty thousand people and put up fight, but when they lost the battle, and lost their cities and their wealth, they were able to rebuild their entire society. This in itself was a unique triumph, which singled the Kogi out as very unique from other indigenous cultures.
I admire everything about the kogi people’s way of life. There is structure, balance and purpose. I believe the Kogi people are very civilized. They live a very simple yet complex life that keeps them in tune and aligned with nature. They are not dependant on modern technology for their survivability. The kogi may not have GPS, bull dossiers, electricity, hospitals, or paved roads. What the Kogi do have though is thousands of years of knowledge, experience and the use of tools to build sophisticated homes, roads, crops, irrigation systems, sugar presses, and other structures. They travel great distances, following the stars, tides and other natural wonders. They have built an elaborate trading network with other indigenous tribes and the local Columbian people to sustain their society. The Kogi have a large level of respect for the elders in their society who keep order and peace among them. They know their history well and have a way of transmitting this history to their children. Without their knowledge of these systems the Kogi would have succumbed to disease, exposure, malnutrition, and war like other indigenous civilizations before them.
In conclusion the worldview shared by many indigenous people, despite differences in its formulation, the universe, and nature is alive and sacred, all beings in it are related and interdependent: the stars, the rocks, the waters, the winds, the creatures, the people, the spirits and so on. The human role within nature is to hold it sacred and to live in a balanced way within it, to give back as much as is taken.
I believe that the Kogi are the guardians of all mankind; the part of humanity that alone holds the wisdom to insure our healthy survival.