Mythologies of the Wiwa Tribes

The Wiwa tribe in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada mountains have lived harmoniously with the wildlife surrounding them for thousands of years. Rising approximately 5,000 meters out of Northern Colombia’s Caribbean shores, the misty, cloud-shrouded Sierra Nevada mountains have been the home to indigenous tribes for more than 2,000 years. As if unaffected by time, the Sierra’s indigenous tribes still live as their Tairona ancestors did centuries ago. Despite growing modernization and tourism in the area, the Wiwa community – the smallest of four tribes living in the Lost City today – show us how they strive to keep their ancient culture alive. The Wiwa are direct descendants of the Tairona people (200 BCE), a great civilization whose impressive skills in architecture and gold work attracted the unwanted attentions of Spanish colonists in the early 16th century. Despite an increase in contact with the outside world, the Wiwa community still rejects modern life. Instead, they choose to live as their ancestors did: off the land and dedicating their lives to connecting spiritually with it. With a population of around 7,000 people, they’re the smallest ethnic group living in the Sierra Nevada mountains today. The Wiwa live a simple, community-driven life. Calling themselves the Damanas – the protectors of Mother Nature – the Wiwa dedicate most of their lives to safeguarding the natural world. At the center of the community are the Mamos, or spiritual leaders. Mamos have the responsibility of maintaining order within the community (by leading meetings to discuss important tribe matters) and, most importantly, to maintain the natural orders of the physical and spiritual world through meditation, song, and rituals. Training to be a Mamo starts at a young age and can take up to 18 years to complete.

He appears out of the jungle like an apparition—a man from the Wiwa tribe, one of four indigenous groups who call the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains home. In his traditional outfit—white cotton shirt, pants, a wide-brimmed hat, and two colorful mochillas strung across one shoulder—he stands out against the dense foliage of ferns and wax palms. It is my first day in the tropical rain forests of northeast Colombia and, along with about a dozen other hikers, I am on the trail to La Ciudad Perdida, or the Lost City. The pre-Colombian city was built around 800 A.D., making it some 650 years older than its Inca Empire counterpart, Machu Picchu, in Peru. The archaeological site that remains is sacred to the four tribes, all of which descended from the Tairona, who for centuries inhabited the Lost City before the Spanish conquistadors forced them to flee. Even as the jungle reclaimed its stone terraces and trails, the Lost City was never “lost” to the tribes themselves, who say they continued to make regular pilgrimages there. Only in 1975 was the city discovered by the outside world—by looters, no less. Six years later, the site, which the Wiwa call Teyuna, was opened to the public.

Today, 27 February 2024, the Wiwa Indigenous Peoples, together with Colombian human rights organisations CINEP, CAJAR, AIDA and FIDH, have issued an urgent alert to notify authorities and the international community of a situation of massive forced displacement throughout the Rancheria river basin. More than 300 Wiwa Indigenous Peoples, including children, some have been forcibly displaced towards the city of Riohacha and some to take refuge in other Indigenous communities in the Sierra Nevada, in the northeast of Colombia, due to confrontations between illegal armed groups in the area. Other Wiwa communities remain forcibly confined and at risk of being displaced. Since October 2023, several heavily armed illegal groups have intimidated and terrorised the Wiwa Indigenous Peoples. On 24 February 2024 the Wiwa were forced to flee due to armed clashes between the paramilitary groups the Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia (AGC) and the Autodefensas Conquistadoras de la Sierra Nevada (ACSN) who were vieing for control of the territory. According to the Urgent Alert (alerta urgente), an armed confrontation began in the community of Limón de Carrizal between the AGC and the Autodefensas Conquistadoras de la Sierra Nevada (ACSN) between 24 and 25 February which catalysed the forced displacement toward Riohacha.

The Wiwa suffer from extreme poverty. Child malnutrition is a major problem. In addition, the Wiwa are struggling to keep their land from encroachment of Spanish-speaking settlers. Education among the Wiwa is almost non-existent. The people have two houses, one on their farmland where they live most of the time and one in the village where they stay during town meetings. They wear white, cotton clothes, and the men have long hair. It's important to their cultural identity. They get rather offended if anyone suggests that they change either one of those parts of their appearance. One thing to note is that only about 65% of the Wiwas speak the native language Damana, a fact that contributes to differing reports of total population figures. The Wiwa live in the valleys of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Colombia, between Valledupar and Santa Marta. The bulk of the population lives on the southeast side of the mountains. They are the smallest of the three traditional Sierra tribes and are struggling to retain a separate identity. The humanitarian situation of the displaced Wiwa Peoples is very delicate and demands urgent action by the State to protect them. They are subjects of special constitutional protection and are in a situation of defencelessness and vulnerability. The Wiwa Indigenous Peoples are also recipients of precautionary measures granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 2005, due to forced displacement and acts of violence -- including the assassination of 50 indigenous leaders. The IACHR precautionary measures order Colombia to adopt measures to protect the life and integrity of the Wiwa Peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and provide humanitarian assistance to victims of displacement, particularly children.

The Wiwa are a smaller tribe compared to many, having about thirteen thousand members, and they live in Northern Colombia in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Those mountains are actually sacred to them and foreigners are sadly not allowed to enter their land. I wasn’t allowed to go either, but I was right on the border in a cultural house where the Wiwa meet to share stories with each other and talk. I spent close to two weeks in Colombia and nobody I talked to had heard of them, in their own country. You can imagine how much they like their privacy. In fact, you will notice that, conspicuously, none of my photos show any of the Wiwa, this is because they made me give my word I wouldn’t publish any photos of them, only of the surroundings. For example, the Wiwa have lived in the Sierra Nevada mountains forever, and have buried their grandparents, and great grandparents, and great-greats and so on for that time span. As I said before those mountains are sacred to them and outsiders are not allowed, and in fact only the most respected of elders are even allowed to climb the mountains to do their rituals. They told me that for generations the elders would climb the mountains together to speak with there dead relatives, but that they have lost their spirituality to the point that the elders today can’t perform the rituals correctly. Talking, or “having a dialogue” as the Wiwa say, is extremely important for them, and I sat and spoke with them virtually non-stop for three days. We only left the cultural house to buy food and for them to show me around the town. For the first two days they weren’t sure about me, and didn’t trust my motives, which again is understandable. At the end of the second day, one of them broke out a guitar and we started jamming together, and by the end of the night we were friends. After they realized I really did just want to meet them and learn, and not change their culture or make them start wearing a suit and a tie or something like that (things I haven’t done since my wedding ten years ago), the whole environment changed.