The Kogi Guardians of the Heart of the World

The Kogi are a truly amazing tribe of people who live high on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain in northern Columbia where they have preserved their unique culture for many thousands of years. The Kogi were not conquered by the invading Spaniards 500 years ago because they hid away high on the mountain where the conquistadors could not get to them.

Since then they have deliberately shunned much contact with the outside world and its people who they refer to as the "Little Brother" or "Younger Brother." They call themselves the "Elder Brother" and believe they are the guardians not only of the sacred mountain on which they live but also of the whole planet.

The Kogi call the Sierra Nevada their Mother, as is the Earth herself and they believe they were entrusted by their version of the Native American Great Spirit with the ways of living in balance with the natural world whilst at the same time carrying out ceremonies to preserve creation and all life. This they do by meditation, visualisation and by a process of making special payment gifts of certain natural things back to their Mother.

The Kogi, who are the descendants and survivors of the Tairona civilisation, have wise men or tribal shamans known as Mamas who are specially trained in the oral traditions and special knowledge they were originally given. These Mamas are specially selected and spend their first nine years living in dark caves learning all they need to know. The Mamas learn who to enter the spiritual world of "Aluna" and from there how to cause what is needed in this one.

The Kogi work as a collective consciousness and some of the Mamas are said to be telepathic. They are also able to stay awake for over a week in their sacred ceremonies.

The Kogi live entirely on what they can grow on the land they live on and have managed to do this for thouands of years. They live completely in balance with nature and the ecosystem.They have no crime and murder of another Kogi has never happened.

The Kogi were given signs to look out for to know that all is well and they have been able to see that this is no longer the case. They have seen evidence that their mountain home is dying and they believe that if it does so too will the rest of the world. The Sierra Nevada provides a perfect model of very type of terrain and microclimate on Earth. Its peaks are covered in snow and rise 17,000 feet above sea level but lower down there are forests, desert areas and mangrove swamps and coral reefs on the coast.

The Sierra Nevada acts like a microcosm of the macrocosm of the rest of the planet and the Kogi can tell from signs of its health what that of the rest of the world is like. In1988, alarmed by signs that the health of the mountain was not as it should be the Kogi Mamas knew that it was time for them to give a message of warning to the "Younger Brother." They allowed BBC journalist Alain Ereira to make a unique TV documentary about them, which was entitled From the Heart of the World.

After this they went back to their isolation from the outside world and there was no further contact with any other journalists. Lately, however, the Kogi have seen even worse warning signs that show the life on their sacred mountain is dying, and what makes things worse is for the first time ever they have been unable to find all the special gifts they need to use in their healing rituals. The Kogi know that it is time to speak to the Younger Brother again.

Singer, musician and radio presenter Sabrina Montanaro has recently made contact with me at Myspace where she has a site. Sabrina is in touch with the Kogi Mamas having actually travelled to meet these amazing people. She has started broadcasting from Italy a series of seven shows in which the Mamas speak and also she has Alain Ereira as a special guest talking about his continued work with the Kogi.

It is my personal belief that the Kogi are probably the best possible advisors the Younger Brother (us) have if we are really going to do anything about saving the world and ourselves.