Kuku-ta

Kuku-ta gives its name to the Cúcuta valley, where rivers descend from the eastern Colombian Andes towards the Catatumbo and Lake Maracaibo. The name is associated with an Indigenous leader and was used for the wider valleys of the Pamplonita, Zulia and Táchira rivers. An Indigenous town of Cúcuta stood in the valley under colonial rule.

In 1733 Juana Rangel de Cuéllar donated land at Guasimal for a parish sought by Spanish and mixed-descent residents of the valley. Their request arose amid tensions with the inhabitants of the Indigenous town. San José de Guasimales developed separately from that older Indigenous community on the other side of the valley, and the wider valley’s name came to be applied to the new settlement.