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Indigenuos Peoples of Columbia
            
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GUANE
800 - 1200 A.D.
The few archeological remains that are known give
us an idea of their textile industry. Also, the chroniclers mention
their agriculture, their religion and their respect for other men. |
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GUANE FACE
If in the search for the face of the past, through art and design, I
find nothing but portents, after the second epoch of Colombian history,
that of the Spanish invasion, I see nothing but disasters. The
confirmation of this can be found in the Guane face, which was
completely erased in race as well as in image.
Through several centuries, there pass al I types of plagues through the
territory known today as Santander, the most travelled and worn portion
of our national . territory. Conquistadors, feudal lords, inspectors,
regents, bishops, viceroys, capitants and tall, blond Nordics have
passed though. Santander received a terrible last blow of destruction in
the period of the Commune, from which it has not yet recovered. In order
to confirm this, it is enough to observe the towns that participated in
the Commune and the lamentable state that they are in. These regions
have received very well-placed low blows in order that the words "Guane"
or "communards" not be heard again. Neither were the tombs, like those
of the rest of the nation, left in peace; later, the salt mines which
had been stolen from the Indians, produced the element which began the
Commune. The bones of those patriots who participated were exhibited in
cages, yellowing with the sun and the wind; they were not sung to, like
their brothers, whose remains were smoked in the wind in rites of
veneration and appreciation. Rather, their remains vvere treated with
the most terrible expression of savagery.
Santander has suffered from all kinds of Attilas; it is sufficient to
remember how the mercenary Federman was known, and feared, in this
region.
The population of Santander has been left stupified and exhausted as a
result of its calvary. Just now, after five hundred years, the first
steps have been taken to organize a museum dedicated to one of the most
interesting nations found by the barbaric Iberians, who destroyed
everything in the name of God, satisfying an ancestral hunger which has
not yet ended.
All of the chroniclers of the invasion are in agreement with respect to
the description of the Guane nation: the large population, their poise
and beauty. "Beautiful" is the word most often used to describe the men;
the women were known not only for their beauty but for their "gentility,
grace and finery".
The few archeological remains that are known give us an idea of their
textile industry. Also, the chroniclers mention their agriculture, their
religion and their respect for other men.
From Fray Pedro Simon, we know that Bochica was
.also their god, their protector, as he was of the Muisca nation, the
neighbors and brothers of the Guane, who ,poke a language which came
from the same Chibcha Dots.
When I feel the horrors that America, the continent of peace, liberty,
love and natural splendor, has seen, I am filled with fear and I ask,
"What is man? Where is his ethical behavior? “We fool ourselves with the
false idea that we have been made in the image and nature of God; we
show none of His characteristics. Pride, ambition, the desire for power,
greed, the dark and unmentionable zones of the mind, the lack of respect
for other human beings do not allow us to believe ourselves rational
beings instead of animals; we act, based on our dark sub-conscious,
pushed by libido and sexuality, full of complexes, encouraged by
destruction and death. Being thus, we still dare to call and consider
the native inhabitants of America inferior beings, animals without a
soul, unthinking. Who was more unthinking, the Spanish or the Indians?
In the confrontation, it has been the Indian who has given more signs of
sanity and reason, and who has left signs of a better political and
social order. They have demonstrated that they were men who played,
laughed, made tools and instruments, thought about philosophy,
literature, poetry, art, science, religion and morality. There were
signs of all of this, which the great white beast destroyed, putting
apartheid, slavery, officially-approved sacking and mass destruction in
its place. Before Hitler were the Spanish in America.
The Guane face is a face which is not present; we guess it from the
mummies, we can see it in their textiles, their spinning wheels and in
the colors they used: indigo for the profound blues and the sky-blue
tones; native flowers for the vermillions and violets; cochineal for the
purples. With these colors, they dyed their cloaks and blankets, which
are still produced in the regions of Boyaca and Santander, although they
are no longer made of alpaca and vicuna wool, nor of the fiber of the
silk-cotton tree; rather, they are made with sheep's wool and dyes from
Germany.
One must search for the Guane face in the song of the blackbird, the
thrushes, the troupials and the mockingbirds of Santander. Perhaps the
quail or the dove which fly near Guapota know of it, or the vigorous,
pot-shaped armadillos of Charala. Perhaps the screams of the wood
chickens will tell us something; the enchanted woods of Guazaque may
have an answer. The guama forest and cornfields of Oiba might have seen
it; ask them. Lets play guessing-games with the seeds of the pumpkin and
the gusms fruit; in the spells against the evil eye we'll find the face.
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