Naoma

Naoma is the religion of the Tairona, a group of Chibchan chiefdoms of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, who built stone-terraced towns such as Teyuna, called Ciudad Perdida. Little is written of their faith itself.

After the Spanish founded Santa Marta in 1525 the Tairona fought them for decades, and by 1600 the survivors had retreated to the high mountains. Their descendants, the Kogi, Wiwa, Arhuaco and Kankuamo, are believed to have kept much of the old tradition. The Kogi speak of a creator, the Great Mother, whose thoughts, the aluna, came before the world. Their priests, the mamos, are trained from early childhood in isolation.