The Kogui, Arhuaco and Wiwa peoples, direct descendants of the Tairona people, are the indigenous groups that currently inhabit the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a great mountainous massif that rises up above the Colombian Atlantic coast.

These indigenous communities believe that the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the place of creation and the heart of the world, where all things were born, and is therefore a sacred place, and the fate of the world depends upon the care given to it.

For this indigenous community weaving is an act of creation, a way to deploy one’s thoughts, an art that maintains and reinforces personal, family and social relationships. Weaving is a task used to represent elements of their daily lives, express their mythological thought, remember the past, and honor their values and cultural identities.

The Kogui creation myth tells: ‘Since the beginning of the world, the Universal Mother organized the task of weaving. She gave the loom to men, and the weaving of bags to women. Thus, men and women would help each other. When men and women weave they are talking to the Universal Mother. Weavers travel, through the yarn, the history of the world’s creation. They recreate their origin and remember their laws and vital principles. The

 Kogui children, Tayrona National Park, La Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

weaver walks through the world through the yarn. Men walk through it up and down and left to right, along the length and breadth of the loom. Women walk through it in a spiral movement, along the cylindrical body of the bag. With yarn, the “mama” (shaman) ensures the life of new born babies and keeps away bad spirits, yarn is used to take measurements for building houses and temples, yarn is used to tie up the bodies of the deceased and their spirit is safeguarded so they may live on in the memory. Yarn represents the union between the human and the divine, the earthly and the eternal. Yarn is the umbilical cord that joins the Universal Mother with humanity.’

The Universal Mother, only possessor of the art of spinning and weaving, took her massive spindle and drove it vertically into the newly created earth.

She put it in the center of the Sierra Nevada, right through its highest peak, and said: “This is ‘Kalvasankua’, the central pillar of the world!”

And saying this she took a strand of cotton thread from the tip of spindle and, with its end, drew a circle around the vertical axis, declaring: “This will be the land of my children!”