ALAN EREIRA
Alan Ereira is a producer, film maker and historian.He worked at the BBC on television and radio since 1965 contributing documentaries to the Timewatch strand amongst others.
He has been awarded the Japan Prize for his 1978 documentary on the Battle of the Somme, and the Royal Television Society Best Documentary Series award for his 1988 documentary on the Armada.
In 1990 he was asked by the Kogi people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, to produce a message from them warning about the damage we are doing to the Earth.
Alan subsequently directed a documentary called The Heart of The World: Elder Brother’s Warning for the British Broadcasting Corporation. These meetings were allowed by the Kogi Mamos who normally restrict any direct interaction with the modern world. In A’s case the Mamos made an exception as they saw him as the filmmaker they wanted to convey their message to the world.
The Mamos of Colombia
The Mamos are the highly trained spiritual and secular leaders of the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada De Santa Marta, the main mountain ranges in Columbia. They are sometimes also called Mamas (derived from ‘mamos’, the sun)
To this day they have safeguarded their cultural and spiritual heritage for thousands of years, unaltered; they are the last survivors of an ancient civilization called the Tairona, from which the Inca and Aztec have descended.
And whilst the civilizations of the Inca and Aztecs suffered immeasurably, their culture brought to the brink of destruction by the Spanish invaders’ quest for gold close to five hundred years ago, the peoples of the Sierra survived the onslaught of the conquistadores by retreating into mountainous sanctuaries in the Sierra.
The Arhuaca, Kogi, and Wiwa do not wish any visitors; their society has only been able to preserve its cultural and spiritual coherence by retreat and isolationThe Kogi are the last surviving civilization from the world of the Inca and Aztec, and their cities are untouched by our world. The mountain they inhabit is an isolated triangular pyramid rising over 18,000 feet from the sea, the highest coastal mountain on earth. It is on a separate tectonic plate from the Andes, and its unique structure means that it is virtually a miniature version of the planet, with all the world’s climates represented. The mountain is quite literally a micro-cosmos, a mirror of the planet on which every ecological zone is represented and in which most of the plants and animals of the planet can find homes.”
Films produced by Alan on the Kogi of Colombia
Alan Ereira is the only filmmaker ever to be allowed by the Kogi Mamas to film them and their message in two documentaries.
The Kogi believe their knowledge of the black lines and of the invisible ways in which our world is interconnected has enabled them to live in harmony with nature for centuries.
The training received by their elders, called “Mamas”, is intended to help them to connect with the thought-energy in nature, known as “aluna”. This ancient tradition is passed on orally and by training in their practice of “listening to water”. To listen, they insist, is to think.
This became the feature-length TV film “From the Heart of the World”, which was widely shown handled to the setting up of the Tairona Heritage Trust.
The Kogi were almost unknown until they agreed to the making of ‘From the Heart of the World – The Elder Brothers’ Warning’, a BBC documentary made by Alan Ereira in 1990. The film contained a strong message of warning concerning the environment.
“Up to now we have ignored the Younger Brother. We have not deigned even to give him a slap. But now we can no longer look after the world alone. The Younger Brother is doing too much damage. He must see, and understand, and assume responsibility. Now we will have to work together. Otherwise, the world will die.”
Kogi Mama
The Kogi believe that they live in order to care for the world and keep its natural order functioning, but they recognized some years ago that this task was being made impossible by our mining and deforestation.
In 1990 they emerged to work with Alan Ereira, making a 90-minute film for BBC1 in which they dramatically warned of our need to change course. Then they withdrew again…
The first film had a stunning global impact, and is now probably the most celebrated film ever made about a tribal people. It was repeated on BBC2 immediately after its first showing, and then in many other countries – some 30 times in the US last year, not bad for a 20-year-old documentary!
A few years ago, Alan was called back by the Kogi Mamas who asked why ‘younger brother and sister’ (us) have not listened. They do not think we have taken much notice of the risks.
He was then asked by the Mamas to work with them again, and the result is “Aluna”. ALUNA is made by and with the KOGI, a genuine lost civilization hidden on an isolated triangular pyramid mountain in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, nearly five miles high, on the Colombian-Caribbean coast.
The Kogi say that without thought, nothing could exist. This is a problem, because we are not just plundering the world, we are dumbing it down, destroying both the physical structure and the thought underpinning existence.
The Tairona Heritage Trust
Alan is the founder and director of the TAIRONA HERITAGE TRUST.
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the highest coastal mountain in the world, and the indigenous groups which live on it – the Kogi, the Arhuaco and the Assario – are the descendants of the Tairona civilization which flourished there at the time of the Spanish Invasion.
Gonavindua Tairona is the political organisation founded by the the Mamas (priests) of the three tribes in 1987 in order to represent their interests in the face of increasing Western pressures. The three tribes refer to themselves as ‘The Elder Brothers’, and to Westerners as ‘The Younger Brother and Sister’.
Unlike most South American civilizations, the Taironas lived in relative peace with the Spanish for the first seventy years following the Conquest until Spanish demands finally caused a rebellion which was ruthlessly crushed. Tairona survivors fled up into the mountain to reconstitute their society.
Pioneering fieldwork this century was done by Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff from the 1940’s to the 1970’s, but the harshness of the terrain makes the area relatively under-researched. Films, notably by Robert Gardner, David Attenborough and Brian Moser, have been made about the Arhuaco (or Ika).
The Tairona Heritage Trust has successfully cooperated with Gonavindua Tairona by raising money for the purchase of their ancient territories.
Its work was largely with the Kogi, but the Trust aims to broaden the scope of that work by gathering material concerning all aspects of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and its peoples.
LINKS:
Films:
From the Heart Of The World and ALUNA
Book:
The Elder Brothers’ Warning – available on Amazon & Random House
RETURN to the other members of our Advisory Council
