Younger Brother Destroys Great Mother!

What I'm going to describe to you may come across as torture. Not only because of my terrible writing skills, but also because of the child abuse you're about to experience through this little story. Still I would urge you to keep an open mind, look past the horribly constructed sentences and the perceived child-abuse, and see the wonder that is The Earth in the mind of a Kogi Priest.

The Kogi are a small Indian tribe that lives on a mountain slope in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Columbia. What makes them special is that they're the only tribe that has lived in almost complete isolation and have kept their culture and religion since before Columbus and the rest of the Europeans destroyed all other tribes. They live in a very hard to reach area, fairly high up the mountain and they never ever let strangers past a certain point, a small wooden bridge that crosses a steep valley into their territory. They speak a language no one, not even other Colombians, can understand and their closed society of a few hundred people have lived by the same strict rules for over a thousand years.

One of their strict rules says that shoes are forbidden, because they would destroy the connection to the Great Mother, their name for Mother Earth. They dress only in white clothes and deeply believe that a man's clothes says a lot about the man in them, and they are pure, clean and spiritual people. Originally their domain housed all climate types found on the planet: down by the cost it is tropical and from there you travel through rain-forest, savanna, desert, all the way up the mountain where pinewoods could be found in everlasting snow with temperatures at the very top that don't even reach 0 degrees Celsius. The Kogi see themselves as caretakers of the Great Mother and all her inhabitants.

Years ago they decided to warn the rest of the world and for that occasion they gave permission to a BBC television crew to enter their domain, for that one time. Because they had something very important to say to the rest of the world, who they dubbed "Younger Brother" themselves being the "Older Brother", the wiser brother... The Kogi are governed by their priests who are called "Mamma's"; don't be fooled, they come in female and male variations :-) They teach the rest of the tribe about the Great Mother and how to only take from her what you need. And that for everything you take from her, there's a price to be payed.

They invited the BBC exclusively to tell Younger Brother that he has forgotten the lessons from the Great Mother. In their scarce trips to the city they noticed that Younger Brother just keeps digging and tearing at the Great Mother, robbing her of her minerals, fish, animals and plants, without ever considering giving anything back. The Mamma's warn us that we are killing the Great Mother and that we should give up our greedy ways before it's too late and The World ends...

Wikipedia:

The Kogi base their lifestyles on their belief in "Aluna" or "The Great Mother," their creator figure, who they believe is the force behind nature. The Kogi understand the Earth to be a living being, and see humanity as its "children." They say that our actions of exploitation, devastation, and plundering for resources is weakening "The Great Mother" and leading to our destruction.

Now where's the child-abuse, you ask. Well, they are the Mamma's; the way a Mamma is "created" would be explained as child-abuse in our civilized but o so warring and destructive western society. One of the "modern" Mamma's, who finished his education as priest in only 5 years, tells us how Mamma's were originally educated.

A child lives in the mother's womb for 9 months. That child is taken away at birth and what follows is essentially 9 more years in a fabricated womb. The child is taken to a cave or a special building where it is kept in the dark. In the beginning only his mother comes to feed him, at night of course. Then, other Mamma's take over who teach the child everything, or at least they try. Imagine: the cave has just enough light to avoid blindness, all food is made without salt or seasoning, as tasteless as possible, a constant scent is maintained, so the Mamma-to-be almost knows only one smell... There's almost no colors to be seen and the poor kid has no idea whatsoever what the outside world looks like.

All this time the Mamma's describe the world to him or her, describe how the Great Mother imagined all wondrous lifeforms he will meet once he's let outside. They do their best to paint a notion in the child's mind of a blue sky, a red beetle, the smell of an orchid, the sounds of birds... And all the child has is it's imagination. Just like the Great Mother he has to imagine in his own mind the world with all it's variety, all it's detail, all the colors...

Just how impossible a task this is for the child, as well as for the Mamma's, becomes apparent on the child's ninth birthday, when he or she is escorted into the sunlight of the real world for the first time... One can imagine what happens next: the poor kid is shocked to the bones... All sensory input had been kept to an absolute minimum till that point and the sudden avalanche of colors, sounds, smells, the intricate and complex details of even the smallest insects leave an overwhelming impression on this child that stays with it for the rest of it's live.

With that comes a deep rooted respect for all that lives and doesn't live on and in the Great Mother. Mamma's have tried to explain what an ant is, but seeing the creature for real, after trying to imagine it, strikes the new Mamma with awe: never could he or she have imagined how complex and beautiful even this simple creature is. After trying to imagine the color blue, all his doubts and questions ate washed away after his very first look upwards. The new Mamma knows beyond any doubt that life is a miracle, we are a miracle, but most of all Mamma knows this: the imagination that conceived of the planet and all life on it has no boundaries, the Great Mother is to be respected by all of us. We, Younger Brother should heed the warning of the Kogi's and listen to their Mamma's.

So, take off your shoes, go outside and feel Great Mother beneath you, around you, inside you. Life is a miracle, take it from Mamma :-)

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And what about that BBC documentary? Fear not, for all interested here it is:

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