Muzo people

The religion of the Muzo consisted of few gods. Their creator god was called Are (he had a Muiscan counterpart called Chiminigagua). Maquipa was the deity who cured illnesses, and the Muzo adored the Sun and the Moon.[5] The Muzo people did not construct temples.[6]

The sacred mountain peaks Fura and Tena

Conquistador Pedro de Ursúa, noted for his failure in suppressing the Muzo in 1552

The two mountain peaks Fura and Tena, bordering the Carare River, were considered sacred by the Muzo people and believed they were the parents of humanity, creation of Are.[10] Fura and Tena taught the Muzo agricultural techniques, craftwork, and tactics of war. The myth of Furatena tells about a man with blue eyes and blonde beard, Zarbi, who entered the Muzo territories looking for the Fountain of Youth. On this journey, he met the beautiful Fura and they got together. The husband of Fura, Tena, was outraged, killed Zarbi and hung his body on the Fura mountain. After this cruel act he killed Fura and committed suicide, giving birth to the two pointing hills. According to the Muzo legends, the tears of Fura turned into emeralds and butterflies.[11]

The Muisca performed secret pilgrimages to Fura and Tena, avoiding the Muzo warriors attempting to discover them. In his work Compendio historial de la conquista del Nuevo Reino de Granada, Lucas Fernández de Piedrahita tells about the existence of a cacica named "Furatena", who was the owner of the finest emeralds of the Muzo territories. In the early years of the Spanish conquest, zipa Sagipa wanted to see Furatena.[12]

The first time the presence of emeralds in present-day Colombia was known to the Spanish was in 1514 in Santa Marta. During the campaign of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, the earliest contact with emeralds from the Eastern Ranges was made in 1537 in Chivor by Pedro Fernández de Valenzuela and Antonio Díaz de Cardoso. During the years of the Spanish conquest of the Muisca, the explorers heard about the emeralds from Muzo.[13] In 1544 Diego Martínez discovered the mines of Muzo.[14]

Although the accounts on the exploitation of silver, copper, iron and gold in the region vary, the chroniclers agree on the emeralds. To extract the emeralds from the surrounding rock, the Muzo used pointed wooden poles, called coa. The veins containing the minerals were cleaned with water. After extraction, the Muzo people elaborated the minerals.[5]

In the years before the arrival of the Spanish, the Muzo were in conflict with the Muisca. They hid their emeralds from their eastern neighbours and zipa Tisquesusa entered the Muzo terrain, killed a leader and cut his daughters to pieces to get information as to where the emerald deposits were located.[15]

The Spanish colonisers had problems subjugating the Muzo in the 16th century. The Muzo resisted the Spanish forces, and the terrain full of creeks and ravines was inhospitable to the Spanish horses; the Muzo hid in the many natural forts the geography provided them.[16][17] When conquistador Pedro de Ursúa founded the city of Tudela close to the Muzo territories in 1552, the Muzo people attacked and razed the newly founded settlement, driving the Spanish back.[17]

The conquistador who subjugated the Muzo to the rule of the New Kingdom of Granada was Luis Lanchero, captain in the army of conquistador Nikolaus Federmann.[13] His first expedition with 40 men in 1539 failed, but he succeeded in subjugating the Muzo twenty years later in 1559 or 1560,[18] when he founded Santísima Trinidad de los Muzos, present-day Muzo on the remains of earlier Tudela.[18][19] During his second campaign, Lanchero almost lost his life after being hit by a poisoned arrow of the Muzo.[20]