Around the world and throughout history humanity has found different ways to bury their dead. In the heart of Colombia, high up in the mountains of Cauca, one the more central states of the country, is a small village called San Andres de Pisambalá. Littered around the countryside are hundreds if not thousands of burial chambers, with an array of different carved entrances to cellars that have been chipped out of the igneous rock in top the mountainside for as far as the eye can see. The current residents of the area are part of the Nasa descendants (also know as Paez) whom the archaeologists and anthropologists believe are not related to the groups that constructed the tombs; their culture has been obfuscated by the arrival of the Spanish, the Catholic Church and more recently the Pentecostal sect of Christianity. Any group that survived the Spanish onslaught of murder and pillage, or the many that died out through nasty little bacteria and viruses such as the common cold and influenza should be commended. The story goes that the land of Tierradentro was aptly named as the Spanish could not believe that the Nasa people, who they tried to dominate, kept moving further and further inside the interior of the land, up mountains, over ridges and into forests. Tierradentro, the name of the archaeological site means “Inside Earth”. There is no irony lost in the name of the Nasa, in a land far, far away their mission is to get off earth, whereas the Nasa tribe in Colombia are very much wedded to the planet, specifically their lands and history of an agrarian lifestyle.
The tombs are accessed through a wonderful day out, where a picnic lunch and sturdy walking boots are required. To see the majority of the open tombs it is essential to stretch your calves and do a few squats as even though the people that built them would not have measured much more than a metre in height the steps they carved are in elaborate shapes and are often widely spaced. You don’t need to be a gymnast to enter, but it does help to make sure you have warmed up the essential tendons as you descend and ascend around 50 times in the whole day as well as walk 15 kilometers up and down steep, slippery hillsides between each site. The tombs are scientifically known as hypogea, they vary in size, shape and decoration. Many have deteriorated only leaving their form and others are full of entertaining carvings and painted walls. There is no record of elaborate jewelry being found amongst the bones and the beautiful artistry associated with Egyptian tombs is not present either. In fact the experience is more like uncovering a series of artworks that you might see by one of the more talented kids in kindergarten, faces that could have been crafted out of play dough and simple patterns painted in the red, black and white that adorn the walls. It is estimated that the tombs were created from 600-900AD so comparative art forms from around the world, before this date that you might find in Egypt, Greece or Rome, or slightly after in something like the Bayeux tapestry, despite their lack of perspective in drawing, offer much more to the development of language and more insight into the history of events from their respective time periods than can be found here. The caves, which show ingenuity in their architecture, size and shape, do not contain any real imagery, colors or insight into the life and society of those that crafted them.
Most of the tombs are half lit allowing the visitor to take photographs without flash. I felt no sense of awe or mystery despite the strong sense of time passing, mostly emanating from the musty smell and dampness that wafts out of the entrance of each tomb. It is the sheer mix of humidity and water that is in the region that makes it is a miracle that any design is left to adorn the walls, the majority are just green algae covered burial chambers but some still have some images and decorations. From tomb to tomb there are cartoon like comical faces, nothing in proportion to real life, everything stretched, with a similar spirit to Botero’s larger than life paintings and statues but only two dimensional and using a color pallet of 3 different mineral dyes. There are also many patterned designs, simple tartan patterns, crosshatched and angled. The designs of the stairwells are something to behold, deep, jagged steps but each with its own architectural form and more often than not in a spiral shape from the earths surface to the base of the tomb. The tombs themselves however are not the only interesting jewels in this evergreen part of the planet.
The joy of this archaeological gem, listed by UNESCO for its intrinsic value as a record of Pre-Colombian societies in the north Andean region, is the journey. In the height of the civil disturbance in Colombia the only safe way to arrive was by helicopter. A grassy knoll with a bricked out circle still remains and is perhaps used today by government VIPs. For the average Joe without access to a chopper you have to arrive by bus, the nearest airports are 4-5 hours away in Popayan or Neiva. It is preferable to arrive via Popayan as it is a beautiful white city with a historic center with UNESCO recommendations for both its culinary history and over 400 years of Easter week celebrations that allegedly are more consistent and impressive than those from the Spanish city of Seville from whence their tradition originated. From either airport you need to cut through the mountains to arrive at San Andres Pisambalá. From Popayan the experience can be slowed from rock falls and waterfalls over the highway. Some flood the road with obstacles that need machines or man to help you pass. Coming from Popayan you will pass by many indigenous communities, coming from Neiva less so. The route from Neiva is lower in altitude and the landscape is more arid. From Popayan the lush green, imperious mountains with constant cloud sitting over the forests will accompany you for most of the route. Arriving is really a small part of the journey of discovery. The real journey starts en route at the base of the village where you enter the archaeological area through the museum entrance.
To understand fully the undertaking of the ancient people and appreciate the vast mountain scape you need to consider a trek of 8-10 hours. The first site is only a 10 minute hike upwards, about 1/3 of the way up the mountain to an area named Segovia. This site contains most of the tombs and for those who just want to tick the box along with the museum this is sufficient to get an understanding of what was built and then decorated by the communities of the first millennium. In Segovia there are 20 or so tombs, each with a different structure of stairways so each descent requires a different strategy. The site has been shored up with a concrete covering over the stairwells making it easier to descend and ascend, but the steps are not made for the average human sized leg but rather someone that might measure 3 meters or more. You can imagine those who traversed in and out did so by clambering up and down and not with a comfortable upright pose. The modern day guardians who are the park wardens assured me though that even the largest and portliest homo sapiens of the third millennium do manage the journey in and out of the tombs. This first set of tombs is probably the best preserved set so it is understandable if time is short or you are not fit enough for an all day trek that this is the end of the of your journey. However for those with a stronger wanderlust the journey continues further up the hill to the second set of uncovered graves, called El Duende. From there you continue up and down, along the mountain to El Tablon where the guardian statues have been placed, standing to the attention of the tourist camera in a small troop, far removed from their original role of guarding the dead. Another down and up, across a river, with a couple of bamboo trunks laid vertically to keep your feet a few inches above the water, you arrive at the last of the nearby sites called San Andres. From there only the two distant sites remain, but equally the real journey of discovery begins.
If you head to El Agucate (the avocado) then you will begin to appreciate the beauty of the surrounding area. You have to conquer one mountain to descend to the bottom of the popularly named trendy vegetable mountain much loved by Hipsters. It is named for its shape rather than its orchards of avocado trees. The slopes all around are covered in coffee plantations, the crop that yields the highest income to the local farmer; other things such as beans, fruits and sugar cane are grown but in much smaller quantities. With Colombia’s appalling infrastructure this durable crop can be picked, dried and shipped without any risk of affecting its quality. This is after all the center of Colombia so getting this from the field to the port is incredibly expensive and inefficient compared to some other competing areas of the country and the rest of the world. Even with the coffee prices going through the floor in the last few years most of the indigenous farmers can still scratch a living with their hectare or two of crops. Whilst those that built the tombs would have never consumed a drop of caffeine, this new generation of locals whose forefathers would have beaten off the Spanish soldiers and their diseases, are celebrated with a golden statue of the “Cafetero Indio”, located in nearby Inza. This region is one of the largest areas where the indigenous population are producing their own coffee and exporting it through a cooperative to the rest of the world.
As you walk up and up, past the bamboo combined with clay constructed houses and refuges you find yourself half way up the mountain that protects the village of San Andres. Then you descend to start the climb of one of the highest points in the region. It is around an hour of sheer uphill trekking, where each resting moment is rewarded with a more complete view of the region. Jairo, my guide, stopped at one point to scrump a few oranges from a tree whose prime purpose was to provide shade to the coffee plant rather than yield refreshment for the passing laborer or tourist. Jairo who is Colombian’s version of the oriental camel refused to drink any water the entire day, so it was a relief for me and I am sure his kidneys that he decided to consume a couple of oranges, which if juicy is your thing, you won’t find anything more worthy of the adjective. They were so full of liquid that they were impossible to consume without expressing a good part of sticky liquid over your chest, legs and feet. The divisions between each segment only existed in principal, there was no pith apart from that between the peel and the fruit, so it was possible to eat it more like an apple than an orange; peeling away the skin and then just biting off chunks at a time. The only waste apart from the skin was the odd pip. It is a far cry from the pithy, dried out versions that adorn the bowls of north American and European kitchen tables. I would not say that each orange had enough water to replenish all of that expunged by the walk, but it certainly kept Jairo going for the rest of the day.
With 2 oranges in our bellies we were powered up enough to arrive at the top of the Aguacate mountain. From there the sweeping vista was completed by the sun making its first early appearance of the afternoon. Towns and villages can be seen from every angle, kids playing football tens of kilometers away, church spires, row upon row of coffee plantations and the company of birds soaring at eye level. The tombs buried in the distant mountain from the towns are not as elaborate as others. One interestingly enough contained a snake, not a beautiful carving or design on the wall, but a live reptile. Jairo said that it must have fallen in by mistake as it did not have the size or dexterity to get out. For a moment you could imagine your self in one of Indiana’s temples of doom, but the doorway was not closing in and the little slithering monster froze with fear at the feet of the daunting man above. As these tombs are less visited the tomb keeper a man who was almost deaf made the most of this time with human company. He did not need to keep them safe with a lock and key as other guardians do with the tombs closer to the main park, everything was left open to explore. As we saw him on our approach from the distance he chirped something across the mountain summit and insisted that we enter each hole, promising grand delights that were not really there. The tomb of the sun, was a simple carving of a circle with dashed lines of rays, one other tomb was damaged so you could actually leave through a collapsed part of the mountain and another that contained some more elaborate pattern than we had seen in the previous hypogea. As we joked around, having to shout and stare directly into the face of hard of hearing supervisor, the vultures closed in above our heads. Nearby in the ravine was a dead horse, which had attracted hundreds of the flying carnivores all tucking into their afternoon snack of rotting flesh. The smell made you wretch and it is something you can imagine used to be a feature of the human tombs, all of those hundreds of years ago. Now only the musty smell of damp moss prevails, long gone is the flesh from the bones of its inhabitants and indeed long gone are the bones themselves.
On the journey with Jairo we talked at length of the indigenous society to which he belonged. With the new constitution of Colombia in the 1990s the indigenous groups were given more autonomy over their societal structure as well as defined areas of land, called resguardos. Each group and each resguardo can make their own criminal and civil laws, but they still have the support of the state with a number of handouts to support those that fall through the social cracks such as unemployment, somehting very different from the core of Colombian society who get no such benefit. In this particular area, especially further north in the mountain range a lot of coca is grown and so there is still the presence of the paramilitaries and left wing groups. Jairo played down the violence and history, saying that he never new of anyone being killed in the height of the troubles, but from a little investigation this clearly was not the case, and today only a pretty good stones throw away from the UNESCO site, local indigenous leaders are regularly being murdered on a weekly if not daily basis. The peace process has promised a lot to the tribes of these mountains in terms of security and safety but they are still being muscled around by the criminals that use their productive lands for the production and movement of cocaine. In contrast with the conflict of the armed insurgents there is also a conflict with the church that decided many years ago to convert the groups from their traditional rituals and rites to those of the Catholic mass and the one true Christian God. The beautiful adobe walled eclesiastical building of San Andres Pisamabalá, that had once donned a traditional thatched roof, today stands draped in scaffolding. The reason being that a few years ago 4 of the local Nasa community decided enough was enough and one night they torched the sacred building of the Christians as a message to the local priest. I quizzed Jairo about this and he told me that they had warned the community that they were fed up with this alternate view of how they should worship but unfortunately for the building nobody told the priest, so there was never a two way dialogue to try and prevent the planned tragedy. Some in the village don’t speak of it, they prefer to refer to it as an accident, but Jairo was quite clear that even though there may have been some local support the 4 were duly punished for their crime.
Punishment in the entire region is swift and entirely forgiving. It is in a sense a physical version of the Catholics insistence of the repetitive chant of hail Mary, where once you have pledged your penance for any sin the slate is wiped clean or if you prefer whipped clean. In all cases where crimes have passed a cursory or perhaps more in depth investigation results in a lashing from a dried out and stretched bull’s penis. Even murder is punished with the same instrument, the only difference being the number of repetitions of the whip. For those that continue to transgress there is a punishment swap between groups where the offender is sent to another nearby group of the tribe, where they have to work for several months or years to pay of their debt to society. If you persist to be a pariah, then the final punishment is exclusion, effectively propelling the individual into the wider Colombian society and a more traditional penal code that might eventually catch up with you. Jairo told me that nearly everyone in his area had been punished at some point or other, the most common violation of the norm being adultery. There is very little sense of progressive liberalism and Jairo gave away his macho philosophy that really all women were to blame for such vices. I pushed him a few times on the theme but he was adamant that it was wiles of the female species that tempted the poor men to succumb, with both ultimately paying the price. In politics and in day to day life the Colombian woman in general and equally in this particular sub group are not retiring wall flowers. The current leader of the area, known as the governor, is a woman. She is serving a one year term and many of her lieutenants that form the governing council are also from the fairer sex. Each person who has political and judicial responsibilities is sent for a 3 month crash course in how to investigate incidents as well as generally be a decent human being. This is all paid for by the overall group that span the northern Cauca mountains, a course that Jairo explained allowed him to assist the governor for his term of one year on the council. It is a far cry from the formal justice system of Colombia, which is completely broken through bureaucracy, corruption and incompetence. In a sense as we walked up hill and down dale between the tombs, I felt the system in which Jairo lived, albeit a smallish hermetic bubble made much more sense than the chaos that the rest of Colombia has to live under. It is much easier to manage a smaller society, where everybody knows everybody else’s business, with its simplicity and swift justice, there is much more honesty and less vengeful feeling than exists in the wider community.
As the journey came to a close we descended back down the mountain. Jairo continued to tell me about his life and the life of others, he also continued to snack on mother natures offerings, such as the sugarcane and wild blackberries that were growing all around. We arrived back at the museum a good half an hour before it was due to be closed, only to find that it was closing already. There was no real logical explanation given, perhaps the management wanted an early supper or more likely the hours were more flexible than those advertised. We managed to get into one exhibit where they had only displays from the Spanish colonial time onwards, in one room there was an old set of stocks. Jairo had not seen them before so I explained why and how they were used. He then explained that similar punishments were still used today in his village, where those that are accused or found guilty are dragged in front of the community and tied up in public. It is only for a few hours and not as inhumane as the sturdy wooden clamps that were on display. Returning to the village just before the sunset meant that the day I had started at sun rise with a hearty breakfast in the hotel had come to its natural close. The cycle and rhythm of life here in the mountains of Cauca is one that is only broken by the invasion of tourism and the cocaine gangs that continue to snipe in shadows. Years before, 1500 years in fact, the natural cycle of life was perpetuated around the tombs of their ancestors, places that were more than likely tended to on a daily basis by the families of those that had passed on. Decorated with simple designs, but forged into solid rocks that have lived on much longer than the society that brought them into being. The variety of crops and even the mainstay of life, the coffee plant, are all very different now from the days when the tombs were central to the lives of those that farmed and fought against nature as well as each other. The struggle continues for the new tribe now, to rid themselves of outside forces, so they can live within their own rules and as peacefully as their gods may permit them to do so. I doubt that will happen anytime soon, however Jairo and the other people I met shared a great sense of peace and contentment with all that the mountains yield and for the harmony that can be found within them.
