Muisca Indians & The Legend of the Gilded Man

Some twelve years before the Santa María, the Pinta and the Niña cautiously nosed their way into the supposed eastern fringes of the Spice Islands, an annual ceremonial ritual was performed for the last time in the highlands above Bacatá. The local tribal king allowed himself to be undressed by his attendants, whereafter they applied a sticky layer of balsam gum to his body. From cane tubes they then puffed powdered gold dust onto the king so that he looked like a living statue of gold. Glittering in this magnificence, he presented himself before his people and led them in solemn procession to the shores of Lake Guatavitá. There he stepped onto a balsa raft with braziers of moque burning in the four corners, and was paddled by his nobles out across the water while his people lined the shore, made music, and chanted praise to their gods. When the canoe reached the centre of the lake, it drifted to a halt. Then, in a splendid climax, the king plunged overboard, piercing the reflective surface of the water from the living world, down into the netherworld of the spirits. Thus the lake would wash away his golden coat in a symbolic cleansing of the sins of the entire tribe, whilst paying homage to the spirit gods. The ritual complete, the Indians celebrated with a debauched evening of singing, dancing and drinking.

Shortly afterwards this area of the Muisca peoples was invaded by a larger Chibchá-speaking tribe, and the ceremony was snuffed out. But tales of this 'Gilded Man' as he came to be known, survived and flourished, simply because it was far too brilliant a spectacle to be forgotten. It soon became deeply entwined within the folk myths of the Indians, who had never seen the ceremony for themselves, but whose imaginations easily added gaudy accretions of fantasy, exaggeration and awe to the original truth. In their wonderings the Gilded Man became a fabulous king who ruled over a lost tribe of great sophistication and huge wealth. He held his court in a golden city whose palaces were sheathed with plates of gold, his soldiers wore golden armor, and the nobility were decorated like their lord in powdered gold whenever the court held its week-long banquets.