TAIRONAS: CULTURE, CUSTOMS AND ART - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2024

The Taironas were an indigenous group that inhabited several Colombian settlements for more than two thousand years. Located north of Colombian territory, the Tairona culture, in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, comprised the areas of three departments: Cesar, Magdalena and La Guajira. This area is bathed by important rivers: Cesar, Ranchería, Palomino, Don Diego, Guatapurí, Fundación and Aracataca.

Not much is known about the Taironas. Ciudad Perdida, also known as Teyuna or Buritaca-200, was the city founded by this culture in 800 and inhabited until 1600.

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta has an area of ​​17,000 square kilometers. Its Colón and Bolívar peaks are the highest peaks in the Sierra at 5,775 m high; the highest in Colombia and the world near the sea.

The mountainous and rugged terrain of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta led the tribes to inhabit small and large lands, which facilitated the formation of chiefdoms, territories where the chief ruled.

This people did not know writing and used the wheel and animals to move. They spoke Chibcha and the men practiced polygamy and exogamy, that is, they could make love with members of different tribes.

Here are some of the most interesting and curious peculiarities for which this indigenous group stood out.

Characteristics of the taironas

Economy

The economy of the Taironas was basically agricultural and was characterized by the cultivation of corn, squash, beans, arracach or yucca, the latter cultivated by some of the main ethnic groups in the world. The Taironas also ate soursop, pineapple, guava and avocado.

The indigenous people took advantage of the variety of thermal floors, that is, the different temperatures of the land to facilitate the harvest of different products.

As for the diversity of the climate, it ranged from the warm lands of the sea, through temperate areas (medium temperature), to the cold and high mountains whose great agricultural production sustained the population for more than 700 years. Specifically from the 9th century to the end of the 16th century of the Christian era.

In addition, the Taironas frequently had a high consumption of fish or goat meat or rodents for celebrations or special days. Reason why fishing was more important than hunting animals.

In general, these communities practiced the exchange of products. For example, the inhabitants of the hot lands produced salt, cotton, fish and snails that they exchanged for coca, corn and fruit to the tribes of the middle lands; and for potatoes and other products to groups in cold zones.

Architecture and engineering works

His engineering works were practically perfect and in no case did they affect the environment. Broadly speaking, the group always maintained ecological balance despite its population density, which was around 200 groups of up to 3,000 people each.

Among the most outstanding constructions are the stone retaining walls in the mountains, which are up to 9 meters high. Normally they supported the terraces, marked the paths, channeled the water flows and prevented the erosion of the mountains.

The shapes of the circular, semicircular or oval terraces varied according to the location and the use that was to be given to them. The ovals were built in the highest parts. In general, the size was between 50 and 880 square meters.

On the terraces they built the huts type, whose main structure was made of wood. The cylindrical walls were reinforced with reed and woven with mats and the conical roof was reinforced with straw.

Due to the abundant rainfall regime, they were forced to perfect the techniques to control the flow of water. The irrigation system had special channels that prevented erosion in desert areas. Interestingly, the underground canals that were built are still working.

The efficiency of the communication routes linked the main roads with those of religious cults, as well as those of the families of the chiefdom (tribe) with the place where the crops were made.

His great skills have allowed his immense stone work, after being buried for more than 500 years under the jungle, when discovered, it can be appreciated and still fulfills the functions of its creation.

Town planning

The Taironas reached a high degree in the urban conception, understood as the set of technical, administrative, social and economic norms that regulate the harmonious, rational and humane operation and development of a region.

They achieved a perfect integration of the moment in which he lived with his projection of the future and did not try to change the environment but to adapt to it as they found it, once chosen as a suitable place of settlement.

They knew how to maintain the balance between the distribution of the habitat and its exploitation. In fact, it was the Spanish who broke that balance and normal development, with their practices of looting, violence and domination.

This urban scheme was a unit: terrace of housing - family group - neighboring production area, individual or community. This graph was repeated and multiplied, always conserving the habitat-production relationship.

Goldsmiths, ceramics, textiles and musical instruments

The Taironas, one of the most advanced cultures in pre-Hispanic America, developed an extraordinary goldsmithing that stood out above that of other peoples. Most of these objects were ornaments that were used to adorn the body.

The famous wide pectorals, in hammered gold, with figures of suns, animals and men, represented the gods they worshiped: the sun, the moon, the earth, the jaguar and the serpent. The nose rings, ear flaps and sublabial ornaments stylized the features of animals whose properties were assumed by the person who wore them.

As for the iconography, the group's artists combined the human with the animal to make pieces of bone and ceramic from the region. In some of these objects, the work with molten wax and filigree also stands out.

The men and women of these tribes made fabrics in which they captured a sample of their feeling, thinking and acting. They developed an entire industry with textiles and used colorful feathers and made flutes from the human bones of enemies killed in combat.

Teyuna, spiritual and commercial center

Entering the region, through the valley of the Buritaca river, there are 1,200 built steps that give access to Teyuna, the lost city (popular name) of the Taironas and the most important for being the spiritual and commercial center of the population.

There, at 1,200 meters above sea level, you can see the first houses built on terraces enclosed in stone retaining walls. Until its discovery in 1973, Teyuna, which in Chibcha means Origin of the peoples of the earth, remained forgotten for 375 years.

Pressured by the arrival of the Spaniards to the coasts of Santa Marta, in 1525, the indigenous people were concentrating more and more in the interior of the Sierra and taking refuge in Teyuna around the year 1540. In addition, the group built two cabins on each terrace for a total of 280 homes, for which an estimated 1,500 people made up its population.

Teyuna, also known as Buritaca 200 due to the number of archaeological finds found in the Sierra, was abandoned around 1,600 and apparently due to outbreaks of epidemics that forced its inhabitants to leave the lands.

This territory thus remained desolate for more than three centuries and the indigenous people, therefore, the indigenous people settled in small settlements along the valley, a territory difficult for the conquerors to access.

Although the natives stopped visiting Teyuna, their descendants the Kogui knew and secretly kept the exact location of this city. But it was not until 1970 when the peasants who colonized the lower part of the Sierra saw the possibility of finding the treasures.

Thus began the looting of the tombs, an illegal activity known as guaquería and those who exercised this trade were called guaqueros, who came to kill each other in the fight for the treasure. Many of these finds were resold in international trade and lost forever.

It is in 1976 when a scientific expedition of the Colombian government arrived in Teyuna and began the process of revaluation, restoration and conservation of the finds and the terraces. Among the discoveries found were gold jewelry and finely carved ceramic vessels.

Some swords were also found, of which it is unknown if they are there because the Spanish managed to reach the lost city or because they were buried by the natives in the tombs as a war trophy.

Other customs and traditions

The Taironas wore loom blankets painted in various colors; jewels such as earmuffs, necklaces, crowns, mules, gold moquillos, fine and well-worked stones. They also carried feather and palm fans for those who raised parrots and macaws for their colorful colors.

They bathed in the streams, in places specifically designated for it. They spun fast and very thin, they wove slowly; they prepared honey in large or brown pots. They held parties and dances and there was also room for cleaning, delight and idleness since with very little work I had food and clothing for several days.

Between 500 and 2,000 meters of altitude, other populations were found, in total 32 urban centers: Tigres, Alto de Mira, Frontera and Tankua. Mainly concentrated in the valleys of the Garavito, San Miguel and Don Diego rivers. Others already lost are Bonda, Pocigueica, Tayronaca and Betoma.

Cultural identity

For some, the cultural identity of the Taironas is not so clear, they are, according to them, autonomous human groups with certain common socio-economic and ideological features, which would be united by commercial and economic exchange relations.

The existing differences would be between the inhabitants of the mountains and the coast, who would have maintained a degree of autonomy very similar to that existing in the Kogis today, with ties of economic and cultural dependence.

There are those who share the possible existence of a state whose purpose was conquest and domination; although for others the socio-political circumstances pointed to a possible confederation (pact) between the different villages.

The Kogi, descendants of the Taironas

The Kogi Indians follow the ancestral traditions of the Taironas and even today they continue to speak Chibcha like their ancestors. Linguistically, they belong to the macrochibcha family and are grouped in the valleys of the Garavito, San Miguel, Palomino, Don Diego, Guatapurí rivers and at the headwaters of the Ranchería and Sevilla rivers.

Currently, clearing, logging and burning is the main agricultural work technique in the lands of the Sierra Nevada, where probably 80 percent present some degree of erosion, caused, according to experts, by the colonist. However, the natives also have to do with this deterioration despite their close relationship with nature.

The Kogi know the wage labor and the circulation of the currency that have determined the socioeconomic relations throwing them to a process of peasantization.

By the year 2,000 the population of the natives in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta reached 32,000 and they belonged to the Kogi, Ica and Wiwa. Furthermore, the political relations of these groups with the state have been advancing with different indigenous organizations.

References

1. Some aspects of the Tayronas economy along the coast adjacent to Cienaga (Magdalena), Carl Henrik Langebaek, archaeologist.
2. Explorations in 2006-2011, By Yuri Loveratto South America.
3. The Lost City of the Tayronas. Alvaro Soto Holguin. Illustrated edition. Publisher I / m publishers, 2006. ISBN 9589343031, 9789589343036. 160 pages.
4. Wheel Langebaek, Carl Henrik (2010) some aspects of the economy tayrona on the coast near cienaga (Magdalena). I maguaré; No. 5 (1987) 2256-5752 0120-3045.
5. Explorations in the slope North of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. Bernardo Valderrama Andrade and Guillermo Fonseca.
6. Die spanish-indianischeauseinandersetzung in der nordlichen Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta (1501-1600) 1. Henning Bischof, archaeologist German, Bonn 1971.
7. Legendary Treasures of Colombia and the World By Javier OcampoLópez. Research ethnohistorical of Reichel-Dolmatoff (1951 and 197).
8. Education and the Rise of the Global Economy by Joel Spring.