Representatives in Bogota of Colombia’s indigenous peoples asked permission from Mother Earth Friday to begin a three-day festival starting with the renowned ‘Septimazo’.
The Septimazo event will launch the Third Meeting of Indigenous Peoples festival and will begin today at the capital city’s Planetarium and culminate in the Parque Santander. Between 6 to 7PM visitors will be able to enjoy watching an array of traditional, ancient cultural activities presented by the participating indigenous groups.
It is expected that 14 communities will take part – some 600 people – including the Embera tribe, displaced by violence from Colombia’s Pacific Coast.
On Saturday November 21 an installation act will take place in the La Salle Technical Institute between 9 and 9.30AM and on Sunday 22, in the same location, there will be a ‘meeting of indigenous wisemen’ where a space will be dedicated to the exchange of ancestral knowledge from 4 to 5PM.
The whole event will enable a visualization of indigenous culture and traditions as well as the social, economic and political contribution and enrichment they have offered the capital city since arriving there for many diverse reasons and as a result render it an ever more multicultural metropolis.
Bogota’s indigenous residents are currently spread among 15 communities – Inga, Muisca de Suba, Muisca de Bosa, Kitchwa y Ambiká-Pijao bringing together some 15,000 indians, reported news station Radio Santa Fe Friday.
This so-called Third Meeting of Indigenous Peoples has been organized by the Disrict Administration and headed by the Secretariat of the National Government with collaboration from the Association of Indigenous Chiefs and the Council of Indigenous Communities.
The majority of Colombia’s indigenous tribes are heavily affected by the armed conflict taking place throughout the country and several of these tribes are at severe risk of disappearing altogether. Many thousands have been forced to flee their homelands and now reside in cicites such as Bogota where they are fighting to keep their cultures alive.
