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Running the Land

from Plastic Island Pentecost by Evan Hause

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about

"Running the Land" refers to the Muisca ritual ("Correr de la Tierra") where participants run 30 miles between five regional lakes (Ubaque, Teusacá, Siecha, Guasca or Martos, Guatavita) in Colombia, ending at Lake Guatavita, the sacred lake that is the actual "ground zero" of the El Dorado legend.

According to the chronicler Juan Rodríguez Freyle in his work "El Carnero" (1638), among the various rites practiced by the Muiscas, "running the land" was an event in which the participants toured the territory of five sacred lagoons: Guatavita, Guasca, Siecha, Teusacá and Ubaque. Being a very demanding crossing, some died trying to reach the various sanctuaries and other burial sites that were on the route.

"Here was where to get first to the sanctuary hill they put all their strength, and where they drowned and died many tired, and if they did not die then, that next night, in the big drunkenness they did, with much drinking and fatigue another day dawned. These were buried by those caves of those rocks, putting idols, gold and blankets, and respected them as holy martyrs, having taken the demon souls.

"In the last days of these festivities and it was already known that all the people had run the land, the caciques and captains and the main people gathered in the great lagoon of Guatavita, where for three days there were great drunkennesses, a lot of moque and turpentine were burned, day and night, and the third day in very large well decorated rafts, and with all the gold and saints that they had for this, with great music of bagpipes, fotutos and rattles, and great fires and the crowd that was around the lagoon, came to the middle of it, where they made their offerings, and with that the ceremony of running the earth was over, returning to their homes." (Rodríguez Freyle, 1638).

The following modern assessment of this ritual goes a long way in expressing my feelings with this album as a whole:

"Today, we are at the crossroads of a world devastated by the indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, the uncertainty of the influence of our behavior with the environment on global warming, armed conflicts fratricidal in defense of particular interests and purely economic. .. It would not hurt to review in our past, in our landscape, in our own heritage that we have printed on our skin, that other and better ways of relating to the environment and our fellow human beings were and are possible. The last ceremony of running the land recorded in 1538 was interrupted by internal conflicts between Muisca groups and the arrival of the Spaniards in the highlands. Maybe it's time to run the earth again , not to thank or worship ancient gods, but as an act of recognition and reflection on our indigenous past, our present complex and our eternally close connection to the earth."
Martinez Celis, Diego. "Revive Muisca ceremony of running the earth in Guasca, Cundinamarca." In Rupestreweb, [http://www.rupestreweb.info/correrlatierra.html]

credits

from Plastic Island Pentecost, released October 14, 2018
Guests:
Maureen Hurd - bass clarinet

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Evan Hause New Jersey

Here you will find my personal studio music discography - also known as the EVHA catalog. For a full listing of my music check out evanhause.com Thank you for listening!

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