GUARDIANS OF THE EARTH AND LIFE
Cosmogonically the territory for the U'wa Nation is a living being; the earth is our mother and our mission is to maintain the balance of its four pillars: water, sky, earth and mountains, because when the balance of nature is broken, the communication is broken; the direct connection between the material and the spiritual is broken.
Learn the meaning of each element for the U'wa Nation
Grass
Hair of Mother Earth
Trees
Hair of Mother Earth
Rocks
Bones of Mother Earth
Water
Sweat of Mother Earth
Flowers and animals
Mother Earth's ornaments
Oil
Blood of Mother Earth
Other gods accompany Sira, Creator and owner of the universe: Rairia, cares for and administers a fraction of the universe; Kanuar'a is the creator of the hills and Yaksowa is the creator of the waters.
ZIZUMA
It is a sacred area located in the highest part of the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy, where our divine beings coexist and the ancestral and cultural knowledge of the traditional authorities (Werjayas) is materialized.
As the essence of our spirituality, Zizuma, the U'wa Nation name for the majestic mountain that dominates the ancestral territory, plays a unique and central role in our cosmovision. It is where we connect with our ancestors, sages, and other indigenous peoples.
GUARDIANS OF THE EARTH
"Every living being has blood: every tree, every vegetable, every animal, the earth too, and that blood of the earth (ruiria, oil) is what gives us all strength, plants, animals and men".
The damage that can be caused by the exploitation of oil cannot be measured and leads to the imbalance of the world, because ruiria is vital to maintain it; it is the energy of the earth and the generator of balance between the world below and the intermediate world we inhabit. If this is broken it will be reflected in natural disasters; in the contamination of water, which is life, and of the earth from which we feed ourselves.
The exploitation of the earth generates a rupture with the spiritual, all beings on earth have their spirit. For this reason, since the early nineties, we reject oil exploration and exploitation, which in addition to bleeding the earth, causes irreparable environmental damage that undermines our beliefs.