>>10535512

(Please read from the start)

“[…]

The Muisca legislation was consuetudinary, that is to say, their rule of law was determined by long-extant customs with the approval of the zipa or zaque. This kind of legislation was suitable to a confederation system, and it was a well-organized one. The natural resources could not be privatized: woods, lakes, plateaus, rivers and other natural resources were common goods.”

“Language

Chibcha, also known as muysca, mosca, or muysca cubun, belongs to the Chibchan languages. It was spoken across several regions of Central America and the north of South America. The Tairona culture and the U'wa, related to the Muisca culture, speak similar languages, which encouraged trade. The Muisca used a form of hieroglyphs for numbers.

Many Chibcha words were absorbed or "loaned" into Colombian Spanish:

• Geography: Many names of localities and regions were kept. In some cases, the Spanish named cities with a combination of Chibcha and Spanish words, such as Santa Fe de Bogotá (Chibcha: "Bacatá"). Most of the municipalities of the Boyacá and Cundinamarca departments are derived from Chibcha names: Chocontá, Sogamoso, Zipaquirá, and many others.

• Fruits, such as curuba and uchuva.

• Relations: the youngest child is called cuba, or china for a girl; muysca means people.”

“Economy

The Muisca had an economy and society considered to have been one of the most powerful of the American Post-Classic stage, mainly because of the precious resources of the area: gold and emeralds. When the Spaniards arrived in Muisca territory, they found a rich statem, with the Muisca Confederation controlling mining of the following products:

• emeralds: Colombia is the primary producer of emeralds in the world

• copper

• coal: the coal mines still operate today at Zipaquirá and other sites. Colombia has some of the world's most significant coal reserves.[7]

• salt: there were mines in production at Nemocón, Zipaquirá, and Tausa

• gold: gold was imported from other regions, but it was so abundant that it became a preferred material for Muisca handicrafts. The many handicraft works in gold and the zipa tradition of offering gold to the goddess Guatavita contributed to the legend of El Dorado.

The Muisca traded their goods at local and regional markets with a system of barter. Items traded ranged from those of basic necessity through to luxury goods. The abundance of salt, emeralds, and coal brought these commodities to de facto currency status.

Having developed an agrarian society, the people used terrace farming and irrigation in the highlands. Main products were fruits, coca, quinoa, yuca and potatoes.

Another major economic activity was weaving. The people made a wide variety of complex textiles. The scholar Paul Bahn said: "the Andean cultures mastered almost every method of textile weaving or decoration now known, and their products were often finer than those of today.”

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>>10545345

(Please read from the start)

“Culture

The Muisca were an agrarian and ceramic society of the Andes of the north of South America. Their political and administrative organization enabled them to form a compact cultural unity with great discipline.

The contributions of the Muisca culture to the national Colombian identity have been many.

[…]

Religion

Muisca priests were educated from childhood and led the main religious ceremonies. Only the priests could enter the temples. Besides the religious activities, the priests had much influence in the lives of the people, giving counsel in matters of farming or war. The religion originally included human sacrifice, but the practice may have been extinct by the time of the Spanish conquest, as there are no first-hand Spanish accounts.

Oral tradition suggests that every family gave up a child for sacrifice, that the children were regarded as sacred and cared for until the age of 15, when their lives were then offered to the Sun-god, Sué.

Deities

• Sué, Suá, Zuhé or Xué (The Sun god): he is the father of the Muisca. His temple was in Suamox, the sacred city of the Sun. He was the most venerated god, especially by the Confederation of the zaque, who was considered his descendant.

• Chía (The Moon-goddess): her temple was in what is today the municipality of Chía. She was widely worshipped by the Confederation of the zipa, who was considered her son.

• Bochica: though not properly a god, he enjoyed the same status as one. He was a chief or hero eternized in the oral tradition. The land was flooded by Huitaca, a beautiful and mean woman, or by Chibchacum, protector of the farmers. Bochica listened to the complaints of the Muisca about floods. With his stick, he broke two rocks at the edge of the Tequendama Falls and all the water came out, forming a waterfall. Bochica punished Huitaca and Chibchacum: He made Huitaca an owl and made her hold up the sky. Chibchacum was tasked with holding up the Earth.

• Bachué: the mother of the Muisca people. It was said that a beautiful woman with a baby came out of Lake Iguaque. Bachué sat down at the bank of the lake and waited for her son to grow up. When he was old enough, they married and had many children, who were the Muisca. Bachué taught them to hunt, to farm, to respect the laws, and to worship the gods. Bachué was so good and loved that the Muisca referred to her as Furachoque (Good woman in Chibcha). When they became old, Bachué and her son and husband decided to go back to the deep of the lagoon. That day the Muisca were so sad, but at the same time very happy because they knew their mother was very happy. Other versions of the legend say that after stepping into the lagoon of Iguaque, Bachué ascended to the sky and became Chía; in other versions Chia and Bachué are two different figures.”

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>>10545347

(Please read from the start)

Let’s take a closer good to the Muisca gods:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bochica

“Bochica (also alluded to as Nemquetaha, Nemqueteba and Sadigua) is a figure in the religion of the Muisca, who inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense during the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the central Andean highlands of present-day Colombia. He was the founding hero of their civilization, who according to legend brought morals and laws to the people and taught them agriculture and other crafts.”

“Description

Similarly to the Incan god Viracocha, the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl and several other deities from Central and South American pantheons, Bochica is described in legends as being bearded. The beard, once mistaken as a mark of a prehistoric European influence and quickly fueled and embellished by spirits of the colonial era, had its single significance in the continentally insular culture of Mesoamerica. The Anales de Cuauhtitlan is a very important early source which is particularly valuable for having been originally written in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec. The Anales de Cuauhtitlan describes the attire of Quetzalcoatl at Tula:

Immediately he made him his green mask; he took red color with which he made the lips russet; he took yellow to make the facade; and he made the fangs; continuing, he made his beard of feathers…" (Anales de Cuauhtitlan, 1975, 9.)

In this quote the beard is represented as a dressing of feathers, fitting comfortably with academic impressions of Mesoamerican art. The connotation of the word 'beard' by Spanish colonizers was grossly abused as foundation for embellishment and fabrication of an original European influence in Mesoamerica.

Not one cultural representation of either of these gods, painted, sculpted, et cetera, show them bearded in any sense the Spanish colonizers believed they would have been. There is no evidence in the abundance of Mesoamerican art of European influence, most stridently ruled out by the likenesses they gave themselves and their gods.

There have been questions on the authenticity of the preserved stories, and to what level they have been corrupted by the beliefs and imagery incorporated by Spanish Christian missionaries and monks who first chronicled the native legends

Legend

According to Chibcha legends, Bochica was a bearded man who came from the east. He taught the primitive Chibcha people ethical and moral norms and gave them a model by which to organize their states, with one spiritual and one secular leader. Bochica also taught the people agriculture, metalworking and other crafts before leaving for the west to live as an ascetic. When the Muisca later forsook the teachings of Bochica and turned to a life of excess, a flood engulfed the Savannah of Bogotá, where they lived. Upon appealing for aid from their hero, Bochica returned on a rainbow and with a strike from his staff, created the Tequendama Falls, through which the floodwaters could drain away.

Bochica appeared in Pasca in Cundinamarca and later in Gámeza, Boyacá where the people showed him hospitability. He retreated in the Toya cave where many caciques visited him for wisdom. Caciques from Tópaga, Tota, Pesca, Firavitoba and others consulted Bochica. After the supreme being of the Muisca, Chiminigagua sent them to Sugamuxi the city became a sacred place where the Temple of the Sun would be erected and religious festivities organised around the arrival of Bochica.

>> Apart the Flood myth showing, it’s important to note the RAINBOW….We saw the rainbow in the Dogon people’s partial story about the flood; and of course it is mentioned in Noah’s story from the Old Testament. Maybe my memory is playing ticks on me, but I don’t recall the mention of the rainbow (other than what I just said) in the other cultures/civilizations we’ve seen so far.

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