Guardian of ancient technology. Defender of tradition and values via guidance.
Medicine man. Guardian and musician of sacred ceremony space.
I am Zyta Ïe Hyntyba Itzaquyny (the path to the mountains, the serpent dance, the offering of sacred smoke). I am a medicine man, traditional musician, artist, teacher, and dancer from the indigenous Muisca (Muyska Chibcha) people in central Colombia. I am also a minister and founder of the Church Takiwaira.
I started my journey with the sacred plants in 2005 in the jungle of Putumayo (Colombia), since then I have dedicated my life to the awakening of the ancestry, accompanying healing ceremonies, cleansing rituals, and offerings to Mother Earth in my territory of origin, the altiplano Cundiboyacense of Colombia.
Since 2009, I have received guidance, training, and advice from the Muisca Mamo Grandfather Comba Nymy Quene, my godfather Eric van den Hove, and other Grandparents and Grandmothers of the Muisca tradition to share ancestral medicines using music and dance as tools of transmission and connection.
I also received the support and care of the Grandfather Suagagua Ingativa Neusa, the Grandmother Tymy Cagui Yanguma, and Chyky.
Since 2016, I have accompanied in Church Takiwaira's ceremonies in Jamundí, Valle del Cauca (Colombia), and I am blessed by my godfather, Taita Eric van den Hove, to share the sacred plants of Native American cultures -such as Ayahuasca and Tobacco- in Europe.
For me, music and dance are vehicles to create a spiritual connection and harmonization of the psychic and energetic body.
Muisca means "people". They are people of the Andean highlands, grandsons, and granddaughters of the tobacco plant (wesika hoska), coca (fuhuza), and corn (aba). The Muiscas or Chibchas are indigenous people who inhabited the Cundiboyacense plateau in Colombia since the 6th century BC.
The Muisca civilization was one of the most advanced in South America. Chibcha society was based on an economy characterized by intensive agriculture, a variety of crafts, and considerable trade. The Muisca were skilled cotton weavers and excellent gold and emerald goldsmiths. They founded the current cities of Santiago de Tunja -the mythical city of Hunza, the main city of all the Chibchas, and the main political, administrative, economic, and spiritual center- and Bogotá in Colombia.
Guardians of oral tradition, weaving, and spiritual gold. Ancient peoples, and tribes of sacred offerings to Mother Earth (hicha waià). The Muiscas consider sacred many natural places such as mountains, hills, rocks, lagoons, forests, rivers, trees, and water sources, among many others, which they venerate, not only because they consider that some divinity lives there, but also because they believe that there are strategic places for the balance of nature.
For the Muisca indigenous society, plants are animated beings that interact with man. All plants possess various degrees and kinds of energy that give them the power to heal and transform. Coca leaves, yopo seeds, yagé (Ayahuasca) and tobacco (hopa hosca or rapé) are plants of knowledge. The priests, shamans, and other adult men of certain groups used them in their religious life, for communication with the supernatural planes, the Gods, or the Spirits of the ancestors. They are fundamental plants in the rites of divination, healing of diseases, and source of knowledge to make the best decisions for communities and their ecosystems.
The Muisca community settled in the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in Colombia is far from being that pre-Hispanic culture already extinct and synonymous with a pre-colonial past. Although the capital and most populated city of the Republic of Colombia, Bogotá, was raised in a considerable part of its territory, the Muisca never disappeared. At present they are organized around the figure of indigenous councils, most of them recognized by the Colombian state, which since the Constitution of 1991 ceased to be a monocultural state to recognize itself as a multiethnic and multicultural one.
The Muiscas define themselves as a nation in reconstruction and lead processes of territorial and cultural recovery supported by the knowledge of the elders of their community (abuelos) and the orientation of other indigenous peoples such as the Kogi of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Obando Rodríguez, 2018 via Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines).
