As capitalist societies begin to measure the output of energy in terms of this second life of things, individual skills and creative energies become irrelevant to the process of growth. Matter severed from its producer acquires a second life independent of its source of energy and equivalent to all other things in the form of commodities. With the new modes of industrial production, observes Karl Marx, the creative energy or central force of people disappears in the things that they produce. As they are sold as commodities, they appear in the international art market, independent of their place of origin and devoid of any life force. However, as these materials are looted and pulled out of ancient indigenous grounds, they cease to hold together the center from which this vital force grows. Buried all around the vast mountainous terrain of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, these ancient materials sustain the interconnections to the creative energies in the cosmos. Pre-Columbian materials -many times sonorous and full of detailed expressions made of gold and copper, ceramic, jade and stone quartz of different luster and color- are said to be the medium through which people, plants and animals are able to concentrate the necessary life force to fulfill their fate on Earth. So long as you leave the thread alone, you will remain stationary at the same hour of your existence." But the boy started pulling the thread and before he knew it he became a man, married the girl he loved, saw his children grow up, passed over his anxieties, lived honors and profits, and then cut short his old age, all in four months and six days. When you find time heavy on your hands, pull it out your days will pass quick or slow, according as you unwind the ball rapidly or little by little. It is a very different strand from the one that Walter Benjamin mentions in the story of the genie who gave the boy a ball of thread and said: "This is the thread of your life. "It is here where the Universal Mother planted her gigantic spindle across the highest peak," as she said: "this is Kalusankua, the central post of the world." This vital thread, like an umbilical cord, holds all living elements as they fulfill their fate on Earth. It is at this point of intimacy and flowing vitality at which the familiarity of the indigenous Sierra comes alive.Īccording to Kogi, Wiwa and Ika cosmology, there is a life force that grows in people, as much as animals and plants, which like the thread of a spindle extends from the center of the cosmos. Collection RestrictionsĪccess to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm.When people in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta are gathered around the hearths of their houses, it is common to hear the sound and movement of the women's spindles whirring on the earth floor as they pull out threads of material, and the rhythm of men's hardwood rods rubbing continuously against the mouth of their gourd containers. Gage Skinner collection, Box and Folder Number National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution. Identification of specific item Date (if known) G. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website. Please submit a written request to For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. NMAI.AC.116, Item 116_001_012_009 Scope and ContentsĪn animal skull placed as a marker or warning of sorts, at a high elevation about the Kogi (Kagaba) settlements in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. Gage Skinner collection / Series 2: Colombia Identifier
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