Buying a Wayuu Bride - Sort Of

A column decorated with goat hides represents the dowries paid by young Wayuu men to their brides' families.

Before he can get married, a young man of the Wayuu indigenous people must give his bride's family a big dowry: Often 50 goats, necklaces, cattle, money and jewels.

In this matrilineal society, the valuables are supposed to go primarily to the family of the bride's mother, according to Bogotá's Museum of Regional Dress, which has a small exhibition on now about the practice.

The Museo de Trajes Regionales, located on Calle 10 
just above Plaza Bolivar, is one of 
La Candelaria's lesser-known museums.

The exhibition consists primarily of a column covered with goatskins representing the animals given by the groom. The young man generally must collect gifts from relatives and friends to amass a sufficient dowry. It's a controversial practice which persists mostly in rural areas of La Guajira.

Despite appearances, the museum's website denies that this represents a bride price, calling the payment rather the groom's 'appreciation of the prestige of the bride and her family.

"In no case is this a sale or trade of a human being," says the website.

Wayuu traditional dress.

Nevertheless, when I visited La Guajira years ago, Wayuu women told me they felt humiliated by the dowry, as tho they were being traded for livestock.

But the dowry is perpetuated across generations, since fathers insist that they be paid, to compensate them for the dowry they themselves paid their own wives' families.

The Wayuus' traditional territory was divided in two by the Colombian-Venezuelan border. While this certainly separated families, it also created a privilege for the Wayuu people, who usually can cross the border freely. Many Wayuu, particularly women, have become wealthy traders - and contrabanders.

The Guajira peninsula has a history of lawlessness, from contraband and pirates. Henri Charrière, the protagonist and author of Papillon, cohabited with Wayuu women while hiding out after escaping from Devil's Island.

The Wayuu divide themselves into clans, based on maternal descent, and these clans have historically

carried out murderous feuds. When paramilitary groups wrested control of the region from guerrillas in the mid-2000s, they sided with some clans against others, committing massacres and forcing people to flee to Venezuela.

The last few years, the Wayuu's always-dry territory has suffered a severe drought, killing many children. The situation has likely been worsened by coal mines, which have diverted streams and consume huge amounts of the region's scarce water.

And altho the Wayuu exhibition is small, the dress museum is worth visiting to see the regional and historical clothing worn by different groups of afro, indigenous and white Colombians.

Campesinos from Huila Department.

Guambiano Indigenous people from Huila Department.

A mask from an Amazonian indigenous tribe.

A view from the museum's interior.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Mass Murder Chic

A vendor with a 'Nazzy' t-shirt on Calle 13 the other day.

Nazzy t-shirt up close.

While on Calle 13 the other day, I saw this very short street vendor wearing a 'Nazzy' t-shirt while hawking his candies and cigarettes. I suspect that the man has little idea about who the Nazis were and that they were responsible for murdering tens of millions of people - including people with genetic abnormalities like him.

It's more than a bit bizarre that many mass murderers have become chic - including Colombia's own Pablo Escobar, who is estimated to have murdered as many as 50,000 people while building his drug empire.

But here's Escobar, a cultural icon, smiling from a t-shirt:

Argentinean-Cuban rebel leader Che Guevara was idealistic, courageous and led an exciting life. But he also executed hundreds - including teenagers - without trial, and made racist statements about Afro-Venezuelans in his Motorcycle Diaries book. But that hasn't stopped Che from becoming a hero for young people who want to make the world a better place.

Students walk below a Che Guevara mural on the Universidad Nacional campus.

I found this image on Rodolfo Grimaldi's blog, which exposes Ché's dark side. I don't know about all of those accusations against him, but do understand that the Cuban revolution was very homophobic at its origin.

And Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, whose tyrannical rule killed as many as 70 million people thru massacres, public executions, starvation and forced labor, has become a cartoon figure - and commercial icon.

Mao beauty salon near the Universidad Nacional.

Fortunately, Hitler has not (yet) become a hipster symbol. But I have seen 'Stalin' used as a first name in Latin America - chosen presumably by idealistic parents who shut their eyes to the Soviet dictator's purges, mass murders and ethnic cleansing.

I can't help including this t-shirt made by the Spanish company Zara which looks a lot like a Nazi concentration camp uniform, altho the company claims it's supposed to look like something from the U.S. Old West.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombian Traditional Clothing

Indigenous costumes in the Museo de Trajes Regionales. 

Among Latin American nations, Colombia is known for its cultural and ethnic variety - but not particularly as an indigenous nation, as are Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia.

But altho Colombia's population is only about one percent indigenous, it has some 80 different indigenous ethnic groups, according to Wikipedia, whose territories cover close to one-third of the country's surface area.

A traditional loom. 

The Museo de Trajes Regionales (Museum of Traditional Clothing), on 10th St. in La Candelaria, one block east of Plaza Bolivar, is somewhat misnamed. Nearly all of the exhibitions on display right now are of traditional indigenous clothing.

Impressively, since they are such a tiny minority, a considerable number of Colombia's indigenous peoples have preserved lots their traditions. I've visited the Wayuu people in La Guajira along the Venezuelan border and the colorfully-dressed Guambiano people near the town of Silvia.

A Chichba weaving. 

Indigenous youths in traditional clothing walk across
La Plaza del Periodista in La Candelaria.

But many Colombian indigenous peoples have been hit hard by the nation's long armed conflict, by environmental damage and by the rise of the country's capitalist, westernized culture, which lures many young indigenous people from their communities into towns and cities, where success is harder to obtain than it looks, but new addictions and diseases are in easy reach.

Still, one frequently sees students from indigenous communities walking La Candelaria's streets proudly wearing their people's traditional clothes.

Preparing for the exhibition about the --- people of Peru. 

On the 15th of this month the museum will open an exhibit of work by the Shipibo Konibo, an indigenous people from the Peruvian Amazon, whose women consume yage, or ayahuasca, a psychedelic substance obtained from a vine, in order to see visions and create artwork. Yage and other psychedelic substances are widely used throughout South American by indigenous peoples during rituals and ceremonies. But yage in particular has become popular among non-indigenous people, including tourists, as a recreational drug (despite causing vomiting and diarrhea). I've even heard that the vine the substance is obtained from has become scarce in many areas.

A weaving of a woman and an anaconda,
inspired by a yage-taking session. 

The museum's building was once the home of Manuelita Sáenz, revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar's lover and savior. In 1828, the two were together in a building across the street when Bolivar's enemies came to kidnap and kill him. But Saenz managed to warn Bolívar, who escaped thru and window and hid underneath a bridge.

The museum's atrium has a bust of Manuelita Sáenz, who once lived here. 

A Wayuu woman.

The museum charges 3,000 pesos admission.

Find a list of La Candelaria's museums here.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours