This remarkable assemblage of a ceramic tripod container, metal votive figures, and raw emeralds was made as an offering (ofrenda) by a person or community of the Muisca period in the highland altiplano region that surrounds Bogotà. Perched on the container’s rim, birds and humans gaze down on a lake of raw emeralds and five small figurines made of tumbaga (gold-copper alloy). We do not know what plea or thanks the offering was meant to convey, or to which power it was dedicated, but the act of interring or placing more or less elaborate ofrendatarios was central to the success of an individual or community’s life.
Fertility, reciprocity, and the maintenance of a balanced earth and universe are at the forefront of Indigenous worldviews, ways of being, and practice, developed over millennia and fortunately surviving today as an alternative to the Western doctrine of considering nature a resource for humans to exploit and tame. Equilibrium is precarious, and sustaining it requires constant reaffirmation, negotiation, healing, and reciprocity. Offerings are one way to achieve this.
Here, the votive figurines, cast using the lost-wax technique, are rich in copper rather than gold and hence have corroded to a dull greenish black. Value is culturally constructed. The purity of gold or gemstones—fundamental to European measures of worth—is unimportant to Indigenous Colombians. Almost all “gold” objects from ancient Colombia, whether offerings or body adornments, are actually made of tumbaga, an alloy of copper and gold, deliberately mixed to achieve specific practical, aesthetic, and symbolic goals. Copper and gold are perfect complements. Gold (yellow, brilliant, not-changing) was associated with the sun and male essence. Copper’s red color was linked to female characteristics, and the mineral’s ability to transform (changing color and texture as it corrodes) associated it with the changing nature of the moon. The mixing of copper and gold thus represented the coming together of male and female to create new life. Objects made of tumbaga are valuable and powerful because they embody totality. Indigenous Colombians also prized copper for its particular odor, and the pink/red color of tumbaga items with a high copper content were no doubt an aesthetic preference for some people and in certain contexts.
Alongside copper, gold, and platinum, materials such as emeralds, quartz, textiles, cotton, shells, clay, and feathers were and are of great value to Indigenous Colombians, but not in terms of generating personal wealth or property. Their value lies in their energetic qualities, which allow them to embody, communicate, negotiate, and impact the forces that govern the cosmos.