Ritak’uwa

Ritak’uwa is the highest point of the Eastern Cordillera in the Andes of Colombia and is one of the 18 peaks of the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy. Its glaciated summits are a sacred area called Zizuma by the U’wa nation. The climate crisis has reduced the glacier area in Colombia by 68% since the 1950s. The disappearance of Zizuma threatens the heart and soul of the U’wa nation, who claim “without Zizuma we are condemned to die a slow death.” For the U’wa people, the territory is a living being. The earth is our mother and therefore we must maintain the balance of its four pillars: water, sky, land and mountains. In their cosmovision, grass is the hair of mother earth, trees are her hair, rocks are her bones, water is her sweat, flowers and animals are her ornaments, and oil is her blood. The god Sira is the creator of the universe and the goddess Rairia administers a fraction. Kanuar’a is the creator of mountains and Yaksowa is the creator of waters. The U’wa people remind us, “The earth is one, if we continue to exploit it, we are doomed to extinction.”