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The five most important traditions of the muiscas

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The five most important traditions of the muiscas

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1- Gastronomy
They were large farmers, eventually having extensive crops that they cared for thanks to advanced techniques (such as the use of channels for water irrigation).
Therefore, much of their diet was based on the harvest of fruits, vegetables and grains. As in many of the human settlements in the history of Central America and South America, corn was their favorite food, eating it in the form of tortillas, buns, arepas or chichas.
Beans, tomatoes, peppers, guavas, potatoes and yuccas were the basis of their agricultural crops.
They did not manage to domesticate animals, but hunting and fishing was part of their routine. Deer, rabbits, birds and various kinds of fish made up their diet.

2- Manufacture and clothing
The manufacture of garments was taken very seriously, with this art falling exclusively on women.
Since they grew cotton, this used to be the main element in their creations. They made tunics that were used on special occasions as ceremonies or rituals, these were printed with inks of vegetable origin and adorned with feathers of several birds.

3- Commerce
They were particularly skilled in the art of bartering and trading in the elements they obtained from the earth, especially salt.
Every product that they cultivated could be used for exchange, even establishing markets for this purpose.
Minerals such as gold, emerald or copper, were objects of common commercialization among the Muiscas, after extracted, they were molded and polished to increase their value.
They rented land and houses under a credit system where they handled loans and interest.

4- Social organization
Their social organization had a very well defined hierarchy, divided into several strata:

• Priests.
• Quechuas (Warriors).
• Nobles.
• Merchants and craftsmen.
• Miners.
• Slaves (They used to be prisoners of war).

The most powerful male members of the tribe, acquired the right of polygamy, although they had a "main" wife called güi chyty (First consort).
The priests acted as doctors or healers, to acquire this social status they had to prepare for many years.

5- Religion
They adored nature; the sun, the moon, the water or the rainbows were considered deities. Its main god was called Chimininchagua, the Muisca believed him creator of the entire universe and owner of light.
Among its main rites was the human sacrifice to the sun (To avoid their anger or revenge), and also that of the bath of the chiefs in the lagoon of Guatavita, where they rendered idolatry to the gods submerging in the water covered in gold dust.

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The Muisca language or colonial times Chibcha pertaining to the Magdalenic subgroup of the Chibchense linguistic family that was spoken in the current territory of the Cundiboyacan highlands. Due to the great number of its speakers, in 1580 it was declared General Language of the New Kingdom of Granada. General Language Chairs were created in Santa Fe where the Muisca language was taught to the priests who were to evangelize the Indians of the "valleys of Bogotá and Tunja", epicenters of their two main dialects. The Muisca language is known thanks to the chronicles and the "primary sources of the Muisca language", five linguistic documents prepared in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century by missionaries of the Dominican and Augustinian orders with the sole interest of evangelizing to the Muisca Indians.

These activities stimulated the elaboration of grammars, catechisms and vocabularies, some manuscripts and other printed matter, which passed the Arabic language from Arabic to written language, which allowed philologists and linguists of the nineteenth century to approach the knowledge of that language, officially extinguished Following the Royal Decree of Carlos III that ordered on April 16, 1770 the teaching of Castilian as the official language of the Empire. However, since much earlier the Muisca language had stopped speaking in some places in the highlands, as evidenced by the fact that in Tabio, on March 17, 1751, the Protector Prosecutor Juan Antonio Peñalver initiated a visit to said municipality and its aggregate Subachoque, proclaiming in the plaza "by the voice of the Spanish language, not to speak of the Indians"

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Asociación de Cabildos Indígenas de Bogotá ASCAI

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The Muiscas were fed with: Corn, potatoes, quinoa, salt, honey, fruits, grains.

In pre-Hispanic times, the Muisca cultivated corn, potatoes, quinoa and cotton, among other agricultural products. They were excellent goldsmiths, they practiced the exchange of blankets, salt, ceramics, coca and emeralds with the neighboring towns (muzos, panches, sutagaos, guayupes, tecuas, achaguas, tunebos, lanches).

The market was an obligatory site of the economy of the communities, which practiced the purchase-sale and even more the barter. There they exchanged essential products such as corn, salt, honey, fruits, grains and blankets and even luxury items such as bird feathers, copper, cotton, coca and sea snails imported from the Tairona territory. Bacatá, Chocontá Pacho and Hunza had the largest markets in the whole territory. The general currency was round gold "tejuelos", although emeralds, salt, coca and cotton blankets were also used as monetary equivalents or to facilitate barter.

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They occupied the highlands of the widest part of the Eastern Cordillera, in the departments of Cundinamarca, Boyacá and Santander.
Its economy was optimally developed thanks to the use of slopes and farming systems, drainage channels and irrigation. They had a well developed agriculture, they cultivated corn, potatoes, coca and cotton. The game was plentiful: pheasants, quail, rabbits, guans, doves, wood pigeon, many other birds, deer, mountain pigs and armadillos. With cotton, they identify themselves as great textile weavers or blankets.
Our Muisca peoples in this region of the savannah were characterized as potters and pottery is one of the cultural manifestations that allows us to situate them in time, based on the analysis practiced on ceramic vessels and it can be seen that the age of pottery it is located between the year 310 to the 1305 which allows to establish that the Muiscas occupied these territories around twelve centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards.
The potters made the ceramic for ritual use and offering, in addition to huge vessels to process the salt, pots, jugs and bowls for domestic use. Ceremonial-type ceramics stand out, adorned with zoomorphic figures such as the frog, the snake, and anthropomorphic figures that perhaps represented the caciques.

The symbolic pictography found in the hieroglyphics of the rocks of the Abra, was executed by a race different from the first civilizations previously annotated and different from the race of Indians conquered by the Spaniards. But it is of a race that spread throughout the continent and has the same character as that of the valleys and mountain ranges of Venezuela and the margins of the Orinoco and the Amazon. And the characteristics of these hieroglyphics are the same for all of America already engraved on rocks, already painted with indelible red ink, either placed on inaccessible heights or on the banks of rivers or demarcating border sites.