THE MAJOR BROTHERS

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a unique pyramid-shaped mountain that lies
at the northern end of the Andes. On the slopes live four indigenous villages, The
Arhuacos, The wiwas, The Kankuamos and the Koguis. In this case I will talk of the
Koguis, they belong to the family Chibcha. The Koguis translate "Jaguar" in the
language of the village Kogi. They say that are descendants of the Tayrona.
The Kogui see to earth as a living being. They believe that " The Big mother controls
all, but that the modern humans have broken the balance of the naturally". The teen
woman has the two shoulders cutlery and the adult woman carries a long dress with
a shoulder discovered, they carry necklaces in their necks.
When the men are single have a backpack made by their mothers, when they are
married have two backpacks, a backpack made by their mother and the other made
by theirs wife. The men dress with a white dressing-gown and a white hat as a
representation of the snow of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta.
All indigenous Kogui have an amulet that helps out a project of sickness. This amulet
is a rope of cotton with two round black seeds. The Koguis live in round huts named
"Malokas". The huts were built with wood and straw by the Koguis. The highest
authority of the koguis is the mamos. They are chosen for their birth and trained by
other mamos.
Each family has two or more plots, with agriculture being its main economic activity.
The Kogui people have several economic areas. The potato, cassava, Malanga,
sweet potato, maize, bean, banana and sugar cane were cultivated by the men's
Kogui.
The principal activity of the women is the fabric, they weave the whole clothes,
dressing-gowns, caps and others. Their social organization is based on the family
unit, consisting of husband, wife, single children and their daughters married to their
respective spouses. At present the kogui live in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Martha
but also they have moved for the Guiajira.
In 1990, having evidence in his mountains that we're suggesting great ecological
hurt in the world, the Kogui sent a message to the world across archeologists of
Lampeter's University, in a filming supported by the BBC. The Kogui sent a warning
to the “minor brothers”
"The world does not have to end, but it might continue, but until they stop violating
the land and the nature, which they stop exhausting the energy of The Great Mother,
his organs, his vitality, until the persons stop working in opposition to the Great
Mother, the world will not last." This message attracted the attention of the whole
world and the sure Koguis of which his message must be understood in order that
the “extraordinary disaster “finishes.
To the new generation of Koguis he concluded that they needed to find a way of
expressing with a scientific support. Hereby they initiate an extraordinary trip across
the Colombian coast, extending 400 kilometers of golden thread, which is alone an
excuse to sit down to talking with some western scientists, debating and
demonstrating the base of his rational foundations brings over of the wisdom and
the cosmos.
The Koguis used to can´t studying, now they have an agreement with the Andes
University. The studies that at this moment the koguis realize will serve in a future in
order that they demonstrate all his theories and could debate them with arguments.
The Koguis do not use the traditional medicine to treat diseases, they use the
alternative medicine, that is to say, they think that the disease is a spirit that one
empowers of the weakest and unstable persons spiritually, for which they work or
treat this person with medicinal plants, one of the most important is the coca, this
plant is very important for them because for them it is a sacred and beneficial plant.
The alternative medicine of the indigenous is a holistic medicine, since they isolate
the affected person and treat her with rites, these rites are a species of "magic". All
the indigenous have different traditions like dances and legends, the Koguis when
Superiors believe of the others have dances and special legends, in the dances the
koguis use masks, each of the masks represents a supernatural force that fights
against opposite but complementary forces. The koguis think that a mystical world
called ALUNA exists, they by means of meditations and offerings to mamos support
the balance sheet of the harmony and the creativity of the world.
The myth for the community kogui fulfills a fundamental paper, since it is used in the
"advices", to examine a social lack. The myth is used as law, in the stories they find
the biographies of the mythical ancestors. Therefore, an apprentice of breast must
memorize the path of the ancestors, his genealogy, the places where they presented
the important events
To finish, we can say that the Koguis say to themselves like that the same Major
Brothers “because they feel superior to other indigenous communities for living in
the only part where the sea meets the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta