Link TV (Channel 375) is an international channel on Direct TV where you can see lots of interesting things. Last night there was a documentary called "At The Heart Of The World" about the Kogi Indians in a remote area of the Sierra mountains of Columbia, whom the film maker said were the last remaining people of a pre Columbian civilization.

"The Older Brothers" as they call themselves, sent one of their own out to "Little Brothers" civilization (us) to learn Spanish so they could communicate a dire warning--the Earth is dying. Their holy men, called mummers, say the Earth is decaying and losing its strength as her resources are heedlessly ripped away by Little Brother-- they are tearing out her eyes and heart.

Their peaks are losing their ice caps and when meltwater is lost, we will all die, they are sure of this. The Kogi are small people who wear white tunics and pants; they reminded me of prophets of old in their certainty of doomsday. They chew coca leaves and constantly dip into a small gourd (always in their hands)with a stick to ingest lime with the coca.

To make their lime, they make trips to the seashore to get seashells which they burn, then crush to a powder. Meanwhile
grave robbers are looting their ancestors tombs looking for gold objects. A mummer said "Our ancestors
used to have gold objects hanging in the trees and gold bowls for our rituals.." The Spaniards took everything, now there are only a few artifacts in museums.

It bothered me to see some grave robbers digging carelessly looking for gold--they had uncovered a huge magnificent funeral clay pot but they broke it trying to hack it out of the ground.
The Kogi delivered their predictions to the film maker and retreated back to their mountain fastness, with warnings for Little Brother never to return.

susil