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The Chibchas: A History and Re-Evaluation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Martin Glassner
Martin Glassner*
Affiliation:
Southern Connecticut State College, New Haven, Connecticut
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Extract

Most diverse are the evaluations of the Chibchas and their civilization and even the descriptions of that civilization. Steward and Faron, for example, call it “The Greatest Chiefdom” of South America, while Kroeber calls it a “realm,” Oberg calls it a “Feudal Type State” and others use the word “Kingdoms.” At any rate, a review of some evaluations will illustrate the confusion about the stature of the Chibchas among the aborigines of the New World and at the same time serve as an introduction to their civilization.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , January 1970 , pp. 302 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1970

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References

1 The Chibchas, like the Aztecs, Incas, Araucanians and other major groups of Latin America, are commonly known now by names which they never a to themselves. In the case of the Chibchas, it would be well to clear up this matter before proceeding to a discussion of their civilization.

It is argued by many writers, including contemporary ones, that the Chibchas should properly be called Muiscas as the word “Chibcha” refers to the language spoken by these people or to the language family which includes various languages spoken from Mexico to Ecuador, There may be some validity in this argument, since many of the earlier records use the term “Muisca” or some variation thereof in preference to Chibcha. Among these variations are Mwiska, Muiska, Mozca, Mosca, Moxca, Muexca, Muxca and Muysca.

Nevertheless, “Chibcha” has been chosen arbitrarily for general use in this article because it is the appellation most familiar to North Americans. No other claim is made for its suitability.

2 Kroeber, A. L., “The Chibcha” in Steward, Julian H. (ed.), Handbook of South American Indians (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1944), Vol 2, p. 887.Google Scholar

3 Ibid, p. 888.

4 Williams, Bartlett, and Miller, , The People and Politics of Latin America (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1958), p. 47.Google Scholar

5 Markham, Clements, The Conquest of New Granada (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1912), p. 39.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. 20.

7 Fagg, John Edwin, Latin America: A General History (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1963), p. 43.Google Scholar

8 Picón-Salas, Mariano, A Cultural History of Spanish America, translated by Leonard, Irving A., (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), p. 6.Google Scholar

9 Thompson, J. Eric, Archaeology of South America (Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1936), pp. 145––6.Google Scholar

10 Carneiro, Robert L., “The Aboriginal Cultures of Colombia,” in Wilgus, A. Curtis (ed.), The Caribbean: Contemporary Colombia (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1962), p. 33.Google Scholar

11 Haury, Emil W. and Cubillos, Julio Cesar, Investigaciones Arqueológicas en la Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia (Cultura Chibcha) (Tucson: University of Arizona, 1953), p. 8.Google Scholar Throughout this report the authors carefully label their discoveries as fragmentary and their conclusions as tentative. They were reinvestigated and confirmed, however, by Broadbent, Sylvia and they and her own new findings are summarized in her article, “Agricultural Terraces in Chibcha Territory, Colombia,” American Antiquity (April, 1964), pp. 501–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Eidt, Robert C., “Aboriginal Chibcha Settlement in Colombia,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers (December, 1959), pp. 374–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This is a fine example of the value of an expert from another discipline using his background and tools to focus on a problem of an anthropological-archaeological nature. While occasionally reaching beyond his evidence for conclusions, Eidt has made a most useful contribution to our understanding of the Chibchas.

13 Markham, p. 19

14 Eidt, pp. 377–78, explains his map in this way:

“Political boundaries marked by early historians of the Chibcha civilization were not always in agreement. Although most selected a frontier which was near Fusagasugá at the southern limit of the altiplanos, few concurred on the northern extent. . . . It is evident from the gradual increase in knowledge about the Chibchas that succeeding authorities discovered closer ties with the north, until limits became more or less accepted at what we can see [on the map].” Other useful maps appear in Markham, Kroeber, Perez de Barradas and Haury and Cubillos.

15 Fals-Borda, Orlando, Peasant Society in the Colombian Andes: A Sociological Study of Sancio (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1962), p. 86.Google Scholar Extensively documented, this early team study of a peasant society in a “western” country contains much valuable information on Colombia past and present.

16 Eidt, p. 375.

17 Ibid., p. 378.

18 Eidt’s figures for the five Chibcha states are:

He discusses modern and ancient agricultural methods and the probable area under cultivation and concludes, “An inspection of modern crop yields in the Chibcha homeland shows that suf¬ficient food staple (potatoes) could have been produced to support an estimated population of about 600,000.” Ibid., p. 380. It is interesting to note that the census of 1919 in what was the Chibcha domain shows a population of just over 700,000 Indians and mestizos in a total population of just over 1,100,000. Details on the census, good maps, and much additional in¬formation may be found in de Barradas, José Pérez, Los Muiscas Antes de la Conquista (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Bernardino de Sahagún, 1950).Google Scholar

19 Several writers, including Paravey and Zerda, theorize that the Chibchas came from Japan, basing their theories on studies of their language; others, such as Posnansky and Marquez, that they came from the Lake Titicaca area because of similarities between the Tiahuanacu culture and theirs; Triana theorizes about their origin in the Orinoco basin because of certain physical characteristics; and Steward and Faron, Haury and Cubillos, J. Eric Thompson, and Eidt all speculate with varying degrees of documentation and uncertainty that they came from the north, perhaps from as far as Mexico, though all but Eidt add that the cultural similarities they found between the Chibchas and the civilizations of Mexico and Central America could just as well have traveled from south to north.

20 Markham, p. 46.

21 Uricoechea, Ezequiel, in Antigüedades Neogranadinas, (2nd ed.; Bogotá: Ministerio de Educación Nacional, 1936),Google Scholar attributes the Zipa’s continuing success to his experience in fighting the Panches and to superior knowledge of the country. He says, “Without the arrival of the Spaniards, it is probable that the Zipa would have gained control of all the territory of the Chibchas,” pp. 46–47. Based largely on secondary sources and tending toward the fanciful at times, this is still a useful source.

22 Henao, Jesús María and Arrubla, Gerardo, History of Colombia, translated and edited by Rippy, J. Fred (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1938).Google Scholar This is perhaps the finest history of Colombia, written by two highly respected Colombian historians.

23 Markham, p. 150.

24 Ibid., p. 15 6.

25 Steward, Julian H. and Faron, Louis C., Native Peoples of South America (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1959), p. 214.Google ScholarPubMed

26 Kroeber, p. 897.

27 Because of a great many contradictions among the various printed accounts of the Chibchas, it is very difficult to obtain a clear picture of what their civilization was actually like. Ac¬cordingly, this description of the Chibcha civilization is reconstructed from fragments of many sources and does not resemble any one in detail. Two especially useful sources, in addition to those cited elsewhere in this article, are Triana, Miguel, La Civilización Chibcha (Bogotá: Escuela Tipográfica Salesiana, 1922)Google Scholar and Rodríguez, Guillermo Hernández, De Los Chibchas a la Colonia a la República (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1949).Google Scholar The former is a brief and somewhat poetic account, while the latter is a sizeable compendium of information on nearly everything about the subject, somewhat interpretive but more scholarly and less imaginative than some other sources cited here.

28 A11 of the material on the Parte comes from Broadbent, Sylvia M., Los Chibchas: Organización Socio-Política (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1964).Google Scholar This is an excellent compilation of ideas and comments on the Chibchas. It also contains considerable new material gleaned from Church records and other archives and is extensively documented.

29 Haury and Cubillos, p. 86.

30 Miranda, Heriberto Martínez, América India: (Estudio Etnográfico) (Bogotá: Editorial Aguila, [1938]), p. 179.Google Scholar This is an admittedly embellished history and the factual material must be carefully extracted from the speculation and romantic color.

31 Markham, p. 136.

32 Eidt, p. 3 83.

33 Ibid., pp. 386–87.

34 Henao and Arrubla, in the original Spanish version of their History of Colombia, assert that the gold coins were not only used in the markets, but also to pay tribute to the Zipa and Zaque. No confirmation of this has been found by this writer.

35 “Castellanos reported that goldsmiths from Guatavita who did roving work in the Zipa’s territory paid no taxes, and as a consequence the Guatavita chief was obliged to support two of the Zipa’s subjects for each goldsmith hired out. This went on until the Zipa had sent ‘more than 2,000 loafers’ to the chief.” Eidt, p. 383.

36 Eidt, p. 389.

37 Kroeber, p. 904.

38 Carneiro, p. 32.

39 FaIs-Borda, p. 91. The Chocontáes are the residents of the area around Chocontá, of which Saucío, the community he studied, is a neighborhood.

40 “Of all the documents examined in Chocontá and elsewhere, none gave the slightest indication that Saucío ever belonged to a Spaniard. On the contrary, as shown by the historical evidence, the Indians of Saucío appear to have remained undisturbed on their land, and they even formed a pueblo, or hamlet .... Thus, to summarize, it appears that the Indians of Saucío held on to their land and were given title as communal owners, and that their rights were upheld by the authorities and respected by the Spanish neighbors.” Fals-Borda, pp. 93–94.

41 Henao and Arrubla, p. 93.

42 Fals-Borda, p. 11.

43 de Espinosa, Antonio Vázquez, Compendio y Descripción de las Indias Occidentales (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1948), p. 300.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., p. 301.

45 Fals-Borda, pp. l6–17.

46 Eidt, pp. 389–90.

47 Broadbent, p. 38.

48 Fals-Borda, p. 238.

49 Ibid., footnote 45, p. 19.

50 Ibid., p. 21.

51 Ibid., p. 25.

52 Ghisletti, Louis V., Los Mwiskas; Una Gran Civilización Precolombina (Bogorá: Ministerio de Educación Nacional, 1954), Vol. 1, p. 209.Google Scholar

53 Fals-Borda, p. 175–76. He lists twelve Chibcha words still in common use, and of course most of the place names in central Colombia are Chibcha.

54 Ibid., p. 179.

55 Eidt, p. 391.

56 In the area of political organization, objective study may reveal that the Iroquois Confedera¬tion was superior to all the others, with the possible exception of the Incas.