The Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) in Bogotá, Colombia, is filled with strange creatures shaped in gold—the material of choice for many pre-Columbian societies, including the Muisca, Quimbaya, Calima, and Tairona.
Tunjos were small offering figures made of gold or ceramic. They represented various deities, animals, humans, and mythical beings, each carrying a distinct cosmological meaning. Their wide variety of forms, sizes, and details reflected the complexity of these societies’ spiritual narratives.
The philosophy associated with shine and its power to communicate with supernatural beings dictated the aesthetics. Materials and finishes were chosen for their reflective quality. Polished stones and pools of water were used by ancient civilisations to observe celestial bodies for orientation during sea voyages.
In many Mesoamericans’ worldview, the universe was divided into three realms. The upper and under worlds both sheltered ancestors, gods, and supernatural beings. They embodied contrasting but complementary forces like light and dark, or masculine and feminine. Birds symbolized the upper world, while creatures such as bats, caimans, and snakes personified the underworld because they inhabited caves, water, and other openings in the earth. The middle world belonged to humans, jaguars, and deers.
Little distinction was made between humans and non-humans. Animals, plants, rocks and objects were all seen as individuals with their own soul or spirit. Just like humans, non-humans formed thriving communities, built homes, harvested resources, and engaged in communal activities and dances.
Each being had a worldview shaped by its physical form, which functioned like a malleable body-garment, or cuerpo-ropaje. By adorning themselves with feathers, ornaments, or body paint, humans could transform their body-garment and become bats, jaguars, or fish. By adopting the perspective of these animals, they could uncover the mysteries of life and death.
Parrots, meanwhile, were believed to possess the ability to become human by imitating human speech. Language was a powerful means for cultural preservation by transferring knowledge and maintaining social cohesion. However, this ability to transform into a human made parrots potential substitutes for human sacrificial victims.
Across the Indigenous Americas, caciques were believed to descend from deities or powerful beings such as the jaguar. They played a crucial role in maintaining harmony between the human and spiritual realms. Looking directly at their face was forbidden, and their feet were never to touch the ground: they were carried on litters to indicate their elevated status. Even in death, their tombs were transformed into sanctuaries.
The dried leaves of coca, cultivated in the Andean region, were kept in a container called poporo. They were chewed with lime to induce an intense hallucinogenic haze that propelled priests into heightened states of consciousness. In this altered state, the line between the physical and spiritual realms blurred, allowing for communion with mythical entities.
