Warning from heart of the world

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 27, 1995 by Michael J. Farrell

When the Spanish conquistadors brought their version of civilization to North and South America, they subjugated or exterminated nearly everyone who marched to any other drummer than their own. Old cities and cultures gave way to new The indigenous peoples adjusted at the edges of the new gung-ho world while the old world faded from memory.

Then, out of a 400-year silence, a lost tribe speaks out from high on a mountain. It pronounces an urgent, plaintive warning. This is the astonishing story of "From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers' Warning" (Mystic Fire Video, 88 minutes, $29.95 plus $4.95 shipping: 1-800-292-9001).

"Imagine a pyramid standing alone by the sea, each side 100 miles long," the story begins. And 4 miles high. It is the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range in Northern Colombia. It is planet Earth in miniature, from lush tropical rain forests at the bottom to perpetual snow at the top. It also has one of the more exotic histories on earth.

A few miles from the mountain is the city of Santa Marta, founded by the Spanish in 1525. it is closely associated with the international drug trade. You can hire an assassin there for $100, we are told. Santa Marta "would like to be Los Angeles or Miami; it belongs to our world."

Outside Santa Marta are old Indian graveyards where tomb robbers rob tombs in broad daylight. They are ruthless and would kill you for little reason. On a lucky year, one could make $15,000 for finding old gold in the burial urns. Raped in life, the Indians are raped again in death - throughout this video, reality and symbol do a constant dance.

Nearby is the dense rain forest, which looks like paradise, but 15 miles into it is El Infierno, hell. For centuries it was only a rumor - of a city rich in gold. It would be hell to reach it, everyone said. But finally one of the grave robbers did. It has no name other than The Lost City." It is an ecological and architectural wonder. A network of roads covers the entire area, although never a wheel rode on them.

The gravediggers looted the city for three years before the archaeologists found it. There was a carved stone at the entrance to the city. Some kind of map: They did not know how to read it.

There were others who knew, the Kogi, who, centuries ago, as the earlier plunderers advanced, retreated ever higher up the mountains and were forgotten. Most Colombians do not know they exist, we are told, and "no Colombian speaks their language."

A few years ago, Britain's British Broadcasting Corp. tried to reach them. A government official they trusted brought back word: The Kogi had a message for the world. The BBC's Alan Ereira paid several visits, gaining more trust and access each time (he has also written a book, The Elder Brothers' Warning, published by Knopf).

At a fragile suspended bridge made of sticks, the outsiders are admitted by the Kogi. They all wear robes of white cotton. Each carries a bag slung on his shoulder in which his valuables are kept. Each carries a curious wooden gourd, which, to oversimplify, represents the right balance of male and female, and contains a cocoa concoction with ritual and perhaps gastronomical implications.

They call themselves the Elder Brothers. The rest of us are the Younger Brothers. They call their mountain the Heart of the World. At the outset they explain where they stand: They have been entrusted with conserving nature. "We Mamas see you are killing (the world) by what you do. We can no longer repair the world. You must."

There are about 12,000 Kogi now, descendants of the Tairona people, whose gold work and architecture were regarded with wonder by the Spanish invaders. They have a rigidly structured society ruled by the priests, or Mamas, named after the sun: the enlightened ones. To judge by the video, women take a back seat, at least when the BBC comes calling, although some of the Mamas are women.

The Kogi speak in a captivating, lilting rhythm - rendered with amazing skill by British actors who do the translation - with quaint constant repetitions that etch the message indelibly on the mind.

"In the beginning the Great Mother divided up the Earth," one man begins (they never divulged their real names). "She sent you (the Younger Brothers) far away, far away, far away. And in this place, this place she put us. Then the Younger Brother came back again to this side of the world, he came back again, and he started to destroy, and he started to kill us. So now you've reached here. The Younger Brother is at the gate of the Elder Brother."

According to this theory the Great Mother made the ocean to keep out the Younger Brother. "It was said long ago that the Younger Brother should stay in his place over there. But he never listens."

Their version of a town hall, called the Nuwhe, into which only men are allowed, has stood for a thousand years. There, they hang out, stirring up their gourds, called poporos, with a short stick, which they seem to use as a prop in the way other cultures use worry beads. Here, the Mamas lay it on the line.