Muisca

The Muisca, loosely called Chibcha, farmed the high Altiplano Cundiboyacense around present-day Bogota from about 600 BCE until the Spanish conquest of 1537, the great northern civilisation of the Andes. They spoke Muysccubun of the Chibchan family, a language now being revived, and organised rival confederations under the Zipa of Bacata and the Zaque of Hunza, who warred, allied and traded salt, emeralds and cotton mantles across the plateau. Goldwork votives cast by the lost-wax method, above all the raft of El Dorado, gilded a religion of lake and mountain shrines where a gilded heir once dove into Lake Guatavita. First European contact came with Quesada in 1537, whose column met the Zipa's envoys bearing salt and cotton mantles; priests and officials then pressed the Muisca into the New Kingdom of Granada as Christian subjects. Customs lasted in colonial villages into the 19th century, and today Muisca descendants are culturally redefining and reviving the nation.