Hernando C. Kulez and the Earth Mamas

"Thank you so very much," Hernando Carlos Kulez said as quickly as he could into the microphone, while the banquet room of the London Hilton filled with applause. Kulez was on stage to pick up the 1992 international Pulitzer for a series of compelling photographs of civilian casualties in the Gulf War.

Throughout his career, the middle-aged Chilean had worked hard to become one of the preeminent photojournalists covering frontline world situations, and had followed the crisis in the Gulf, once the war itself had ended, to nearby Serbia.

Over and over that evening, Kulez kept asking himself, "what am I doing here?" His firsthand experience observing the cruelties of war was nothing of which he was proud. For while having covered stories of devastation in his native South America, he’d seen the deaths of thousands in the huge natural and man-made disasters he had photographed. But it didn’t prepare him for the sheer inhumanity he’d witnessed recently covering the volatile situation in Bosnia-Herzegovena.

Returning to his seat, Hernando was pulled into a flashback memory that recurred for him day in and day out, since four months ago when he taken photographs of terrorist Croatian firing squads killing innocent people. This evening, almost every time there was a round of applause, he heard gunfire and saw the senseless killing once again. To his damaged emotional body, shell-shocked from recent events, it was as if he were right there again, watching.

"... the Mamas, the priests of the Kogi Indians, say their home in the Sierra Mountains of South America was once the Garden of Eden," Hernando was pulled out of his trauma by a young BBC filmmaker’s acceptance speech. "From this place, which they call the Heart of the Earth, all that they do in their civilization, every simple task, is done in a special way, in order to ensure health and fertility in the world. And after making this documentary on the Kogi, I think it just well may be true: they’re responsible for the fact that we’re still here today."

**

Kulez recalled seeing this BBC documentary on the Kogi tribe a few months before; it had revealed to the world the story of their ancient civilization. Something about their story had stirred Hernando’s interest.

*

He didn’t know whether it was his journalist’s instinct or his soul’s cry for help that compelled him to learn more about this pre-Colombian civilization and its people. After the horrors of the massacre of innocent people he had eyewitnessed since fighting had broken out in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the quiet simplicity of the Kogi’s lifestyle seemed to beckon Hernando.

Elder Brothers, the "Mamas" or shaman of the Kogi, believe their civilization to be the guardians of life on Earth, and the Earth is Aluna, mother of all life. As spiritual leaders for their tribe, the Mamas have maintained their ancient ceremonies over centuries in order to balance the spiritual and material forces of nature, and in so doing, the actions of all humanity.

Sitting on a hill in the highlands above Santiago, Kulez thought back to the Pulitzer Awards banquet; since the ceremony a week before, he hadn’t had another flashback episode. Taking this as a sign he was on the right track, he convinced his editors that he would bring back a scoop of a human interest story if they sent him to photograph the Kogi. So with only a few personal items, cameras and film, he traveled by bus out of Bogota, Colombia, and from the last busstop by burro to the Kogi town of Pueblo Viejo.

Until the BBC’s documentary, the Kogi had remained hidden to the rest of the world, where they continue to live under the strict regime of their traditions. Following the Spanish conquest and with the growth of the modern world, their ancient prophecies hold that the Earth’s technological developments will bring catastrophe. For centuries they have also believed that they are roped to the rest of civilization, and all the world will sooner or later be yanked to destruction.

	"I’ve come to see the Mamas. I'm here because I want to learn from them," he explained to the constable after finding his way to the meeting hall. The constable agreed to summons one of the Elder Brothers, who listened as Hernando explained that he had come to learn how they work through their spiritual practice to heal the world.
Mama Jefe listened to Hernando’s request, and agreed to take it to the Mama’s meeting hall, the nuhue, to their assembly that evening. And he offered Hernando lodging in a small hut in the village. That night at the nuhue, Mama Jefe told the other priests of Hernando’s request. As he seemed full of pain and worry, many of them at first felt his request was intrusive. According to their custom, they consulted Aluna, great Mother of all, through their formal divination technique of tu-tuma — reading bubbles in a bowl of water. A hallow bead, the tuma, is dropped into the water, and the Mamas listen for the answer to come through the bubbles that surface.

In the dream, Kulez saw himself inside the cave, and he first noticed a young Kogi child, who pointed to the center of the temple, where the light was so bright it nearly blinded Hernando. This light emanated from a spectacular object, and he saw that it was a mineral, in crystal form, glowing with electric blue-green luminescence. He was impelled to look at it, and as he did, Hernando felt the radiating energy from the crystal enter his body. Immediately he was healed. Then the next thing he knew, he was outside the temple and somehow found himself holding the incredible crystal above his head, with both hands. When Kulez woke up, the fever had indeed broken, and Mama Jefe was sitting next to him. "You can bathe at a creek nearby," he showed Hernando. "And then we shall go to the temple."

There was a secret prophecy handed down to Elder Sister when she was in training by her own mentor to take over as the high leader of the Kogi, many years ago, that told of a Younger Brother who would come in the future and would ask for help, and who was really coming there to help the world. Three years ago, when the BBC had come to tape, she'd wondered if they might have been the fulfillment of that prophecy. But the tu-tuma beads never told the tribe it was any of the crew, and as for Kulez, the tuma at the Mama’s meeting had sent bubbles rising high above the water and whispered it was right to take Hernando to meet Elder Sister.

Now, as he followed Mama Jefe into the cave, Kulez recognized its interior from his dream. There was no child in sight, but once again the first thing he noticed was the shining blue green crystal. And once again, its radiant energy captivated him.

Ever the frontline journalist, Hernando went to do what was instinctual from his many years covering the war: "get the photograph." And before the high priestess even began to comprehend any of what was happening, he reached into his pocket for his camera.

Mama Jefe, who had seen cameras when the BBC were filming and recognized the flash, observed the whole encounter, and was shocked by the suddenness and force of what he’d just seen. He knew immediately that the force of the crystal had amplified the energy released by the flash and had somehow zapped her, for Elder Sister’s connection to the sacred stone was extremely powerful.

***	Mama Jefe, who had felt Hernando’s sincerity, saw the ironic consequence of the situation. He put his hand on Hernando’s shoulder. "We must send her back to Aluna, and then you will take her ashes to Pueblo Viejo," he said tenderly. "You will consult the tribe, and you will know what to do."

Hernando must return to the village alone, Mama Jefe explained, for the shaman would need to stay there with the young girl now that Elder Sister could no longer care for her. Late that afternoon, Hernando built the pyre outside the cave as Mama Jefe watched over the remains of the high priestess and conducted the Kogi death ritual in the temple.

Emerging from the cave after sunset, Mama Jefe asked Hernando to help him bring the body outside, and the two men conducted her cremation ceremony in silence. And while the fire raged, Kulez had a vision. He saw the spirit of Elder Sister come to him, and she told him to stay with the Kogis and master their ways. Even though it seemed hopeless, for when they found out what he had done they would probably inflict due punishment, he was thusly guided to approach them when he returned to Pueblo Viejo.

Kulez made his way back to the town alone, and went directly to the nuhue. He told the Mamas exactly what had happened, how Elder Sister had been struck and died when he took a photograph of the amazing crystal. They gasped in shock as he told the story, for it was the first time one of the Younger Brothers from the modern world had learned of their most sacred healing stone.

They told Hernando more of their ancient prophecy about the devastation of the Earth, which explained why the Mamas had in fact sent the BBC away after the documentary was filmed. Afterwards, when the negative spirits of the outer world began to creep into their society, they actually had cut down the bridge by which those from the world of the Younger Brothers could easily reach their land. They saw the coming destruction of the planet and told him they believed the Younger Brothers, of whom he was one, were going to cause this catastrophe.

****

*	They asked him to leave while they consulted the tu-tuma. When the bubbles spoke, they said for Hernando to stay, and many were in fact disappointed. Their tribe holds a verbal tradition and none of them even writes, and so they told him he must as well give up his cameras and film.

The highest ritual of the tribe was the Mama’s annual pilgrimage to the high temple, from where they journeyed slightly further on, to a nearby peak above the Sierra. There, there is a spring from which waters flow into the Amazon valley below. According to their ancient sacrament, by placing the potent crystal in the spring, powerful healing energy would bestow health and fertility to the waters that then drains into the populated valleys of Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador. Thus, the world once again would be renewed for the coming year ahead with these recuperative properties. And as the time of year of the secret pilgrimage was approaching, Hernando was amazed to be asked by the Mamas to join them on their journey.

As he joined the assembled Mamas, Hernando was amazed at the majestic beauty of the sacred place. To everyone’s surprise, the child, who had been trained by Elder Sister about the ritual, removed her veil to look. The holy youth pointed almost immediately at Hernando, and asked for him to come to the altar where she and Mama Jefe were standing. The child led as Mama Jefe assisted in what was coming through, and the youthful priestess asked for Hernando to help with the next part of the ritual. Touched and honored, he followed the girl to the altar where sat the crystal, underneath a woven blanket. She pointed for him to remove its cover.

Hernando did exactly as he was asked, and she then passed her hands all around the crystal, as Elder Sister had taught her always to do when about to touch it. Now she asked him to lift the sacred object for the ritual, and motioned him to place it under the waterfall coming out of the spring. In traditional manner, the potent mineral charged and blessed the Amazon valley below.

From that time, Kulez has never left the Kogis. He stayed in the Sierra with several of the other Mamas to restore the mountain temple, and when they finished rebuilding, the wise child came of age to take over as the Kogi tribe’s new Elder Sister.

Graphics: title image adapted from "Kogi Mask" by Marc Korell
images marked with * from Drunvalo Melchizedek,
** from Llabyrinthina.com, *** from Journey to the Heart of the World press release,
**** from Explore.com, all the rest are from University of Wales, Bangor

To read The Message from the Kogi, click here

More links about the Kogi, lost tribe of pre-Colombian America:
Labyrinthina.com,
Entheogen Dot
Tairona Heritage Studies Centre
Drunvalo Melchidezek
Journey to the Heart of the World
The Kogi People
Water and the Kogi

To read the classical myth, as given by Alice Bailey, click here
with interpretations of the Virgo Hercules myth, from The Labours of Hercules
Click here to read synthesis on the Zodiacal Deity Virgo

The Labours of Hercules and Esoteric Astrology are from the collected writings of Alice A. Bailey;
©Lucis Publishing Co., 120 Wall St., 24th Floor, New York, NY 10005

Questions? Answers? Feel free to write us with your comments!

Inspired? We invite you to participate! There are several ways to support our work.