Pueblo Mulkupkungui
Christian Kieffer | Magdalena, Colombia
Photographer: Christian Kieffer
Exhibit Title: Pueblo Mulkupkungui
Location: Magdalena, Colombia
I visited the isolated Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range near the Caribbean Sea in northern Colombia for the second time in 2018. The Sierra Nevada is the tallest coastal range in the tropics and among the highest in the world, rising to an elevation of 5,700 meters only 42 km from the Caribbean shore. Wiwa, Arhuaco, Kankuamo, and Kogi are the four indigenous people that call this region home. The Tairona culture, which thrived prior to the Spanish conquest, is the ancestor of these indigenous groups. I was picked up in Santa Marta by my guide, Adrian Fonseca, who is the son of a Colombian farmer and an Arhuaco woman. On the boundary between the Departments of Magdalena and La Guajira, we stepped off a bus headed towards Palomino in the middle of nowhere. We were met by two Venezuelan migrants, after which we began a two-hour motorbike journey up the highlands. We finally continued our journey on food-related trails through the tropical rainforest after a two-hour ride. We reached Vereda La Tablada, a little farm, where we would spend the night before nightfall.
The following day, we proceeded on our journey, walking alongside rivers and crossing them several times before reaching Vereda del Sol, Pueblo Kogi Mulkupkungui. I spent two nights in the community, learning about their customs and culture. I was carrying my Fuji XT2 with a variety of lenses at the time. I slept on a hammock in one of the round homes constructed of palm leaves, clay, and stone, in the hut of the mamo. It was not possible to take photos of the Mamo. Mamos are tribal priests who are highly respected in Kogi society and are not shamans or curers.We resumed our journey two days later, and after a brief stroll, we returned to a rmeeting point with our motorbike taxi and descended the mountains to the sea.
Christian Kieffer, Beaufort Luxembourg
www.christiankieffer.com
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