Chibcha

The Chibcha religion is that of the Muisca, who lived in the central highlands of the Colombian Andes before the Spanish conquest. The supreme being was Chiminigagua, who created light and the Earth but was not worshipped directly; worship went instead to the moon goddess Chía and her husband Sué, the sun god.

The Muisca made offerings at lakes such as Guatavita, and at the Sun Temple of Suamox. Priests performed sacrifices, sometimes of people. In one tale the goddess Huitaca, who taught pleasure, music and dance, rebelled against the culture hero Bochica and was turned into an owl, or into the moon.

After Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada's conquest of the 1530s, the gold-adorned temples fed the legend of El Dorado. The last public ceremony took place at Ubaque on 27 December 1563.