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I have always been interested in Colombian Natives. We hear so little about them I am curious to learn about them.
The most popular ones are the Muiscas, they inhabited what is now the Cundiboyacense plateau where Bogota is located. Many places in nearby Bogota have Muisca names including the former. They got mixed with the Spaniards or eventually died out as a result of diseases.
Bogota's Gold Museum displays the world's largest pre-Columbian gold collection. There's also Lake Guatavita.
The Taironas in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta are also a highlight imo and a personal favourite. They are linked with the Muisca peoples as they speak a Chibchan language. Most native Americans from Colombia speak the Chibchan branch of languages. Lost City up in the mountains is an archeological site founded by the Taironas and Tayrona National Park was named after them.
There's also the Quimbayas in the Eje Cafetero Region and the San Agustin/Tierradentro cultures in South West Colombia in present day Huila. Just to name a few. Guanes, Nukak, Calima culture, Pastos, Emberas, Zenues, Wayuu also deserve a mention.
There are a lot of indigenous peoples in Colombia but they make up only 3% of the country's population. The Amazon region hosts a lot of them.
The most popular ones are the Muiscas, they inhabited what is now the Cundiboyacense plateau where Bogota is located. Many places in nearby Bogota have Muisca names including the former. They got mixed with the Spaniards or eventually died out as a result of diseases.
Bogota's Gold Museum displays the world's largest pre-Columbian gold collection. There's also Lake Guatavita.
The Taironas in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta are also a highlight imo and a personal favourite. They are linked with the Muisca peoples as they speak a Chibchan language. Most native Americans from Colombia speak the Chibchan branch of languages. Lost City up in the mountains is an archeological site founded by the Taironas and Tayrona National Park was named after them.
There's also the Quimbayas in the Eje Cafetero Region and the San Agustin/Tierradentro cultures in South West Colombia in present day Huila. Just to name a few. Guanes, Nukak, Calima culture, Pastos, Emberas, Zenues, Wayuu also deserve a mention.
There are a lot of indigenous peoples in Colombia but they make up only 3% of the country's population. The Amazon region hosts a lot of them.
Cool post. I hope I get a chance to visit that famous Pre-Colombian gold museum some day. It looks impressive.
It seems lazy to stereotype Latin America as just one large monolith. Why do people keep doing it?
This is promoted by Latin Americans in the United States. They have themselves to blame for that.
The "hispanic/latino" identity group in the United States is predicated on the notion that all Latin Americans share some kind of vaugue common culture. They don't actually at all, but for political reasons it's beneficial for them to pretend that all those nationalities are part of the same demographic because they can use those statistics to demand government resources and make ridiculous political claims.
What happened as a result of that, is that people beleive it's real. Since they purport themselves to all be "Latinos", people have come to see them as all one cultural group.
It seems lazy to stereotype Latin America as just one large monolith. Why do people keep doing it?
Because people are lazy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tritone
The "hispanic/latino" identity group in the United States is predicated on the notion that all Latin Americans share some kind of vague common culture.
In hindsight it would have been smarter to develop a linguistic group for the census called "hispanaphonic" for people who speak Spanish. So if your grandparents are from Puerto Rico, and you have only a vague notion of the Spanish language except for a dozen food words, you would not be "hispanaphonic". Ditto if you speak Portuguese, then you would just end up in one of the language categories.
It's just a language group. Just because it is the largest one outside of English in the USA, it shouldn't have been raised to the "ethnic level".
Incidentally there are more Spanish speakers in the USA than in Spain, Colombia, or Argentina. The only country with a larger Spanish speaking population than the USA is Mexico.
Historically, people did not see Latin Americans as monolithic. There wasn't such a thing as a "hispanic" before that was introduced. There was no concept in the past that Mexican-Americans and Cuban-Americans had anything to do with each other. Those were unrelated nationality groups.
It wasn't until the "hispanic" political groups invented and promoted this concept in the media that people started to see all those nationalities as related. They deliberately tried to blur the obvious cultural differences in order to legitimize the concept. To them it was more important to contrive large statistical numbers for the sake of getting federal funding and political clout.
The "Latino" political group in the United States is wholly responsible for the monolithic Latin American stereotype. They literally invented that and promoted it.
It's just a language group. Just because it is the largest one outside of English in the USA, it shouldn't have been raised to the "ethnic level".
Incidentally there are more Spanish speakers in the USA than in Spain, Colombia, or Argentina. The only country with a larger Spanish speaking population than the USA is Mexico.
Not for long. Spanish is not a stable language in the United States because there's no generational transfer - spanish speakers don't have spanish speaking children and grandchildren. Already, 35% of "Latinos" don't speak spanish at all. Soon, the majority will not. So they won't even have language in common.
In the near future (if they keep up this charade), the "hispanic" demographic will just be people who are related to a person that once spoke spanish.
IDK, OP. Don't schools devote 6th Grade social studies to Latin America anymore?
Anymore?
The US public school in the 1970s and a private one in the early 1980s that I attended barely mentioned, if at all, Latin America in social studies/history curricula, including a World History class which got to about the French Revolution.
Latin America has come into US consciousness over the past 15-20 years or so now that its vast labor and consumption pools have become somewhat relevant to the US and global economies.
This is what I don't get...why do people assume that Latin America is one giant monolith? Just because most countries speak Spanish doesn't mean that they're all similar. Nigeria, Guyana, and England all have one language, doesn't make them the same culture. Of course people conveniently forget that not even all of Latin America speaks Spanish, a huge portion speaks Portuguese, and there are large indigenous-speaking minorities scattered around.
Even economically all the countries are really different. Chile and Argentina are on similar economic level to some Central European countries like Hungary or Poland, while Nicaragua and Honduras are on level with India or Nigeria...
The cuisine is totally different too. Good luck trying to find tacos in Peru, or aji de gallina in Brazil, or feijoada in Dominican Republic, or mofongo in Mexico
Culture is of course completely different depending on where you go as well. Buenos Aires is completely different from Cuzco, which is completely different from Tijuana, which is completely different from Antigua Guatemala, which is different from Rio de Janeiro. In fact culture in many Latin countries changes even just by going from state to state, and the difference is a lot more noticeable than in the United States or even some European countries
It seems lazy to stereotype Latin America as just one large monolith. Why do people keep doing it?
this is the thing, Latin america has more in common with each other than differences, and that means a lot.
Common language- Spanish
same religion- Catholicism
same form of government- Republics
same form of law- civil law (french and roman law)
same cultural heritage- all celebrate almost the same holidays (religious based ones)
Argentina and Chile suffered from he same historical misfortunes than the rest- colonization, dictatorships ect
Common history from the colonization to the independence movements all happened at the same time. Bolivar liberated 5 countries and Martin 2 the rest got liberated about the same time.
They even have a common pop culture as most artist are famous across countries and is very normal to listen an Argentinian signer on a bar in Havana or Santo Domingo. Famous tv shows are seen across the continent.
Food is different because is regional based- Argentinian has a lot of meat because of the flat lands while mexico eats more corn.
music is different because is linked to local cultural heritage but its not alien to anyone across the continent, people will listen to Gardel in Panama city or listen to cumbia in santiago de chile.
LA has different levels of development but the fastest growing economies are not Argentina or Chile. but Panama and Dominican republic, so some even level could be achieved soon.
There's not much Native American influence in Colombia, you got that wrong. + Chile has a greater Native American input than Colombia.
true
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