Re-existence in the Ancestral and the Inherited: Sacred Plant Medicine and Urban Muysca Indigenous Revitalization 

Abstract: The ethnobotanical study of Indigenous peoples has generally focused on rural settings, particularly in the Amazon, often overlooking the role of plants and sacred medicine as active agents in urban Indigenous landscapes. For the Muysca people of Suba in Bogotá, Colombia, plant medicine—once demonized and forbidden—has become a symbol of resurgence, healing, and territorial belonging. In this paper, we explore how the traditional use of tobacco and its derivatives, namely ambira, hosca, and rapé; as well as coca, both in its leaf form and processed as mambe; tyhyquy (Brugmansia arborea); and other medicinal plants, are integral components of practices such as the revitalization of Muysca memory, the healing of communal bonds, and the defense and reclamation of land in the city. Based on ongoing collaborative research using Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology and drawing on visual methodologies and interviews with Muysca elders and healers, we argue that there is an intimate entanglement between sacred plant medicine, the Muysca body, and the territory of Suba, which further constitutes an embodied ethics of land care that actively contests technologies of urban coloniality in Colombia.

The Muysca¹ people are the original inhabitants of Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. During the colonial period, Indigenous populations lived in territories that would later become cities such as Santa Fe (now Bogotá) and Tunja, until the growing mestizo population began to displace them. The establishment of pueblos de indios (“Indian towns”),² he imposition of forced labor under the encomienda system, recurrent epidemics, campaigns to eradicate Indigenous beliefs,³ and the introduction of livestock in 1542⁴, all profoundly disrupted the Muysca way of life. These forces reshaped the landscape and economy, entrenching a colonial mindset that transformed social organization and harmed the health of the land.⁵ During the Republic period in the nineteenth century, measures like the privatization of resguardos [colonial reservations]⁶ were implemented, removing the status as Indigenous people, which led to the dispossession of their lands and native identity.⁷ 

The resurgence of Muysca identity in the twentieth century—marked by the creation of the Cabildo Indígena Muisca de Suba [Muisca Indigenous Council of Suba] in 1991⁸—symbolizes a reclaiming of memory and a renewed relationship with ancestral territory. Suba refers to one of the traditional territories of the Muysca people, though their presence historically extended across a much broader region. In Muysccubun, the Muysca language, currently undergoing revitalization, Suba means “fruit” or “flower of the Sun,” a name that reflects a deep cosmological and territorial connection. This resurgence directly challenges centuries of exclusion, cultural transformation, and territorial exploitation, underscoring the need to revisit colonial and historical narratives in order to understand the persistent challenges Indigenous peoples face in Colombia and globally. For the Muysca people of Suba, these challenges are especially tied to urbanization and forms of ethnic-environmental discrimination, such as the destruction of sacred sites, rapid deforestation, and the contamination of essential water sources. 

Through cultural revitalization projects, the CIMS has worked to recover ancestral practices in traditional cuisine, weaving, language revitalization, music, dance, agriculture, and ancient practices of ancestral medicine involving sacred plants. These efforts not only preserve the cultural richness of the Muysca people but also foster a sense of belonging within the community, underscoring a history of resistance and the reaffirmation of identity in Colombia’s capital city.

In the Americas, although anthropology has shown significant interest in studying sacred plant medicine among Indigenous communities, this focus has primarily been on rural Amazonian practices.⁹ As a result, the use of plant medicine by Indigenous peoples in urbanized landscapes has been largely overlooked. This project explores the traditional and sacred use of plant medicine among the Muysca, who, as previously mentioned, reside in Colombia’s capital city. 

We analyze the process and relationship between Muysca medicinal knowledge and practices through the concept of cuerpo-territorio (body-territory)¹⁰ and literature on coloniality,¹¹ with a specific focus on the urban coloniality of nature.¹² By “urban coloniality of nature,” we refer to the ongoing colonial logic that shapes urban environments by severing the relationship between Indigenous bodies, land, and nonhuman beings, treating nature as extractable, disposable, and external to urban life. We argue that there is a deep, interconnected relationship between sacred plant medicine, the Muysca body, and the territory of Suba, which collectively constitute an embodied ethics of land care that actively challenges the technologies of urban coloniality in Colombia. 

This intimate entanglement is explored through the concept of cuerpo-territorio, coined by Indigenous scholar Lorena Cabnal.¹³ SShe asserts that the Indigenous body, as a political entity, is inherently an extension of the land. Both bodies and the land—including plants and other non-human entities—are seen as interconnected parts of a single unit. This perspective is an epistemic stance that challenges the dualistic view of bodies as bounded matter, separate from physical space. For Cabnal, as for many Indigenous peoples, understanding this visceral relationship of vincularidad [interconnectedness] highlights Indigenous ontologies that emphasize the “awareness of the integral relation and interdependence among all living organisms (in which humans are only a part), with territory or land and the cosmos.”¹⁴ 

As part of the same process, the concept of cuerpo-territorio also helps us understand how violence inflicted on one element of this interconnected unit is felt by the whole.¹⁵ Consequently, the Muysca people experience the effects of urbanization-driven environmental degradation in various ways, including health issues, pollution of sacred sites, and challenges to the revitalization of their culture. Drawing on the work of decolonial scholars such as Escobar, Alimonda, and Grosfogel,¹⁶ who link coloniality to the erosion of place-based knowledge systems and alternative ways of engaging with nature, we extend the concept of the coloniality of nature into the urban context. This allows us to examine how the racialization of space has historically served as a tool for the dispossession and displacement of Indigenous peoples, and how urban development narratives and practices continue to marginalize the knowledge, worldviews, subjectivities, and human-nonhuman relationships of urban Indigenous communities.¹⁷ In this paper, we illustrate how the Muysca community, through both everyday and ritual practices, embodies an ethic of land care that actively challenges the technologies of urban coloniality in Colombia. 

This paper is the result of a collaborative effort between two scholars of Indigenous studies. Nicolle Torres, a Muysca Indigenous woman from Suba, has focused her academic work and leadership within the community on the revitalization of the native Muysca language. Andrea Sánchez-Castañeda, a cultural anthropologist from Bogotá, raised in Suba, although not Muysca herself, has spent nearly a decade researching processes of resurgence and territorial appropriation among the Muysca people; her research has primarily employed a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology. 

This paper stems from an ongoing research project in which we, Nicolle and Andrea, used PAR as the primary methodology. Together, we conducted interviews with Elders and Zaitas (traditional medicine women and men) and initiated the Sacred Medicine Photovoice project in collaboration with the community’s communication group.¹⁸ This visual methodology, which involved several Muysca members, focused on self-representations of the Muysca people’s relationship with plants and sacred medicine.

The Muysca community of Suba has developed multiple initiatives around cultural revitalization, considering it a fundamental axis for their survival within their 50-year Plan de Vida [Life Plan]. Cultural revitalization, understood as a set of pedagogical and research actions that the community has undertaken about themselves,¹⁹ has materialized in various projects and practices, especially in the recovery of knowledge related to traditional medicine and agriculture. In this process, the use of medicinal and sacred plants occupies a central place, not only as part of the healing practice but also as an intrinsic element of the spiritual and cultural relationship the Muysca people have with the territory. 

The revitalization of plant medicine does not simply aim to rescue practices from the past or reconstruct elements that no longer exist in the Muysca present,²⁰ but to make visible those practices that, although hidden, remain alive in the community. These practices are largely preserved in the memory and the everyday life of the elders, who, despite the territorial and cultural transformation of Suba, have kept their knowledge and defend it in the face of Western biomedicine. An example of this is the ontological relationship between the Muysca and plants, manifesting in the community’s understanding of plants as living beings with spirit, requiring care and respect.²¹ Within this worldview, there are certain formalities or protocols of interaction, such as avoiding getting close to plants during menstruation so as not to “sicken” them, asking for permission when harvesting, not pulling them out with anger to prevent them from drying out, and establishing constant communication with them (using words in thought or aloud) in acts like watering them, collecting them, or “activating” them in ritual contexts. In this sense, the preparation of infusions, oils, poultices, juices, syrups, drops, or ointments requires not only knowledge of their properties but also the use of words and the spiritual knowledge of the plants, where healers, traditional doctors, or apprentices ask for a plant’s permission to ensure the effectiveness of its use. 

Additionally, within traditional Muysca medicine, the assignment of gender dimorphism to certain medicinal and sacred plants is a significant practice. Although it is not a strict rule, it is recognized that some plants have a gender that complements or relates to human gender. For example, the fuhuza (coca) is considered a feminine plant, essential in the spiritual dimension of men. Today, Muysca women from Suba may also use it, but its traditional use has been more closely linked to male spiritual work. 

Another key dimension of the revitalization of sacred plant medicine lies in agriculture, a practice that has undergone drastic transformations over more than 480 years of colonization. The arrival of the city—or, as the Muysca community of Suba refers to it, unchecked urbanization—radically altered agricultural dynamics, displacing traditional gardens that, in many cases, were sold due to rising land taxes and urban expansion. Despite the loss of cultivable land, the community has found forms of resistance through urban agriculture. In this context, Zaita and Elder Ignacio Mususu Neuque emphasized the importance of gardens as sources of self-sustenance for the community: 

“The gardens in the territory are important because here we use many plants, and we have to buy them and bring them from other territories, but we can plant them here ourselves. These seeds and plants will grow with the intention of the Muysca territory.”²² 

Similarly, Zaita Myriam Triviño, one of the Muysca midwives, asserted: 

“The gardens are fundamental to us as the Muysca community because in the gardens we plant our own medicinal plants. We grow our own food! Preserving the gardens helps us ensure the survival of these seeds and plants, which are essential for life, both for nourishment and for medicinal purposes.”²³

Far from being knowledge accrued through external and dispassionate observation, these practices emerged as a response to the imposition of the city. In courtyards, rooftops, and front gardens, Muysca families, and especially Muysca grandmothers, have passed down the land and seeds from generation to generation, now cultivating them in flowerpots, old cooking pots, barrels, buckets, and other recycled containers. Paradoxically, the waste generated by urbanization and modernity has been transformed into tools of survival, allowing medicinal plants and some edible species to not disappear under the concrete, but to continue resisting in the domestic spaces of the community. In these containers, the Indigenous grandmothers have preserved the botanical memory of the territory, ensuring that sacred plants remain alive in their lands.  

As part of ongoing territorial resistance, the Muisca community of Suba actively reclaimed the Santuario mountain in 2018 by occupying land adjacent to Parque Mirador Los Nevados—a sacred site for the Muysca that had been converted into a fenced district park, which also contained a Muysca cemetery. The recovery of the Santuario marked the first direct act of territorial appropriation since the founding of the Muisca Cabildo. Although the Santuario land is private property with urban development permits granted by the district administration, the community—supported and authorized by the Cabildo—occupied the site and built their first Qusmuy, or ceremonial house, around one of the sacred stones located within Muysca territory. On this mountain, the community has built a fuechy (fireplace), three food and medicine gardens, and their ceremonial house.  

Since the occupation, the Muysca have held numerous rituals and celebrations at the Santuario, including the burial of placentas by mothers, the internment of deceased community members, intercultural meetings, political gatherings with other Muisca nations, as well as educational, cultural, and communal cultivation and harvest events. Additionally, the community has organized trasnochos—overnight sessions of discussion and reflection on issues affecting the community, often incorporating sacred medicine into the process. For instance, the Zaita Myriam offers a profound reflection on the spiritual and cultural significance of the Santuario in her community, emphasizing the symbolic importance of placenta-planting ceremonies in the Santuario, which serves as an act of grounding:

“We hold placenta planting ceremonies in this territory, we plant them in the Santuario as a symbol of rooting—of how I root myself to Mother Earth and to this land. Additionally, we work with the umbilical cords of the children, to help them in the process of rooting themselves to the territory.”²⁴ 

“The difference between us Indigenous people and other peasants lies in the type of relationship we have with plants. An Indigenous person shares an intimate relationship with these plants; for us, plants are people [...] But to build those relationships, you must unlearn what it means to communicate, understand, and resonate with the territory in different terms. And how do we do that? Through the relationship with spiritual plants. Spiritual plants awaken this vibration.”²⁵

The traditional use of tobacco and its derivatives, including ambira, hosca, and rapé, as well as coca in both its leaf form and processed as mambe, along with the tyhyquy (Brugmansia aurea) and other medicinal plants, has been a vital component of the Muysca revitalization process and the strengthening of political efforts aimed at defending and reclaiming land in the city. During the interviews, both the Elders and the Zaitas divided the plants into two categories: plantas de poder [spiritual plants, “plants of power”] and other medicinal plants. The plantas de poder, such as tobacco, coca (Erythroxylum coca), and brugmansia (Brugmansia aurea), are highly revered in the medicinal practices of the Zaitas. These plants are considered living entities with spirit and agency, working alongside the Zaita to either harmonize people or spaces or to “open or share” the word—an act that involves opening space to share knowledge, initiate an important conversation, or bring messages. As Elder Ignacio shared, when government authorities from the Ministry of Environment were scheduled to visit the Santuario, the Elders prepared days in advance and used tobacco as a messenger to announce the encounter. The tobacco helped bring spiritual and earthly beings to accompany the community in this political meeting. In recounting the experience, he explained that the way the tobacco was burning allowed him to foresee a positive outcome for the political meeting, saying, 

“I saw an Elder sitting, reading a big book. He was sitting in the Santuario, and when I saw the Elder, I knew we were going to have good news.”    

Other spiritual plants, such as coca, are also used by the Muysca either as leaves or in the form of mambe, a powdered mixture of coca and other medicinal plants like yarumo (Cecropia peltata). Mambe has been revitalized as a medicinal plant within the community and is widely used. For the medicine man Yeison Yopasa, mambe serves as a vessel of intergenerational knowledge that revitalizes the essence of the Muysca people. By using mambe, the Muysca healer embodies the plant’s personhood, but most importantly, the healers are infused with the knowledge of their ancestors about the territory. As Yeison states, 

“The mambe carries the wisdom of the elders who have walked the territory. So, we make medicine to find the spirit, the words of the elders, and the feeling of Mother Earth herself. This medicine awakens in us the knowledge that exists and is stored within, which is the essence in each of us.”²⁶ 

Following the same train of thought, Zaita Myriam also signaled how other plants of power from other territories allowed the traditional medicine of the Muysca to awaken:  

“For the awakening of the traditional medicines of the Muysca people, many of us had to take medicines from other peoples, from other territories. So, personally, I tried yopo from the Amazon, and I also took the yagé medicine. And yes, we started using other medicines that, in one way or another, opened our own path—both personal and communal—so that we could connect and find the essence of what our medicines truly are.”²⁷ 

For both the Zaitas and the Elders we spoke with during this project, plants of power are reserved exclusively for use by the medicine man or woman. These plants are used to prepare themselves before assisting patients, to harmonize communal gatherings or rituals, and in specific and rare cases, are shared with patients, community members, or outsiders seeking medical assistance. Additionally, all of them emphasized how their experience as “caminantes de la medicina” (medicine walkers) was shaped by the transmission of knowledge from their grandparents, who were once medicine men or women, or through the teachings of community elders. They highlighted the importance of lineage and the preservation of knowledge. 

Similarly, the Zaitas discussed how, in their medical practice, they primarily work with medicinal plants in various forms, such as cataplasms, salves, tinctures, steams, or syrups, which they prepare themselves, often customized to the patient’s needs. These plants are not only used in their healing practices but, according to our research, are also commonly used by the Elders and the broader community in their daily lives. The plants most frequently mentioned included stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), calendula (Calendula officinalis), rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus), elderflower (Sambucus nigra), arboloco (Smallanthus pyramidalis), arrayán (Myrcianthes leucoxyla), and cedro nogal (Juglans neotropica), among others. Sometimes, these plants are combined with plants of power when the healers prepare sacred medicines, such as ambira, a wax-like mixture made from tobacco and other medicinal herbs. While some of these plants are not native to the Suba territory, they have been integrated as a result of colonization. These non-native plants are now recognized as active agents, and as they are shared throughout the community, no distinctions are made between them—they are all regarded as allies.  

While this paper does not categorize Muysca’s sacred plants as “psychedelics,” it is essential to briefly acknowledge how the contemporary discourse around psychedelics intersects with Indigenous plant medicine. The Muysca classification of plantas de poder is rooted in relational, territorial, and spiritual epistemologies that do not easily align with the Western concept of psychedelics, which often separates psychoactive effects from cultural and ecological contexts. While some of these plants might be considered “psychedelic” by biomedical or psychonaut communities, labeling them as such risks erasing their deeper ontological and political significance within Muysca lifeworlds. Framing plantas de poder as “psychedelics” may constitute another form of coloniality of nature—one that extracts Indigenous knowledge and beings into globalized markets of wellness, pharmaceuticals, and tourism. Notably, none of the Elders or Zaitas interviewed for this project used the word “psychedelic” to describe their practices. When the term was brought up in conversation, most were unfamiliar with its meaning. This absence reveals more than a linguistic difference; it underscores a profound divergence in worldview, one in which these plants are not understood as mind-altering substances, but as sentient beings, ancestors, and allies—relatives with whom they interact through ritual, respect, and reciprocity. Therefore, asserting that these plantas de poder are not psychedelics may serve as a strategic and necessary refusal to preserve their integrity and meaning within the Muysca resurgence.

This project has demonstrated that sacred Indigenous plant medicine is also present in urban landscapes. While technologies of dispossession make it increasingly difficult for communities to cultivate their own edible and medicinal plants, Indigenous peoples find ways to either reclaim urban spaces or establish alternative forms of urban agriculture. We hope this work inspires ethical and collaborative research with Indigenous communities worldwide to gather, preserve, and produce knowledge that not only highlights the complexity of plant medicine but also addresses the political, cultural, and territorial needs of these communities. 

Although the knowledge of medicine men and women, midwives, and Elders has been passed down through generations, its formal recognition has only occurred in the last 30 years, following the official acknowledgment of the community by the Colombian state. This shift has moved sacred medicine from intimate and hidden domestic spaces to communal sacred sites, such as the Santuario mountain, and to public spaces, where the Muysca symbolically reclaim their territory through these practices. By revitalizing Muysca medicine and plant knowledge, the Zaitas and Elders maintain a profound connection to the territory of Suba, which includes not only the non-human plants, animals, fungi, and minerals, but also the spiritual realms. Additionally, as seen in the case of the Santuario, by advocating for the cessation of urban development on these lands, the Muysca contribute to the stewardship of ecosystems that are crucial for the survival of endangered, endemic species of fauna and flora in the city.

¹ Muysca and Muisca refer to the same Indigenous people of central Colombia. The form Muysca is preferred by the community because it preserves a historically grounded spelling that reflects phonological features documented by colonial-era writers. In particular, the digraph uy was used by missionaries to represent a sixth vowel sound that did not exist in Spanish and was distinct in the ancestral language. Over time, this graphemic convention was replaced by ui due to misinterpretations and a loss of knowledge about the original phonetic values. The community’s current use of Muysca therefore seeks to restore this distinction and reaffirm the language’s integrity in its revitalized form. However, in institutional and legal contexts, the spelling Muisca (with ui) continues to be used—for example, in the official name of the Cabildo Indígena Muisca de Suba—reflecting historical conventions and bureaucratic continuity. [Return to Section]

² María Eugenio Martínez, Tributo y trabajo del indio en Nueva Granada (de Jiménez de Quesada a Sande) (Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de Sevilla, 1977). [Return to Section]

³ A.J. Echeverry, “Por el sendero de la intolerancia. Acercamiento a la extirpación de idolatrías en el Nuevo Mundo en los siglos XVI y XVII,” Historia Caribe 7, no. 21 (2012): 55–74. [Return to Section]

⁴ L. Gallo, “Permanencias y transformaciones: el territorio muisca en la Sabana de Bogotá en la segunda mitad del siglo XVI.” Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura (2021): 363–98. [Return to Section]

⁵ Jairo Gamboa, "Los grupos muyscas en el momento de la conquista española y su incorporación a la monarquía castellana, siglos XVI y XVII," in Muysca: memoria y presencia, ed. Myriam Montes and Carolina Moya (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2016), 21–54. [Return to Section]

⁶ L. Yopasá, “Los Muysca de Suba, 30 años con su bastón de resistencia y reivindicación” (Undergraduate thesis, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2019). [Return to Section]

⁷ The shifts between third-person and first-person plural pronouns (“we,” “our”) throughout the article are intentional. This is a collaboratively authored piece, co-written by a Muysca woman and a non-Indigenous postdoctoral researcher. The variation in voice reflects the complexities of our distinct positionalities and the collaborative nature of our work. These shifts are part of a decolonial methodology grounded in Participatory Action Research (PAR), and are intended to unsettle fixed notions of authorship, perspective, and belonging. [Return to Section]

⁸ Yopasá, “Los Muyscas de Suba.” [Return to Section]

⁹ Luis Eduardo Luna, “The Concept of Plants as Teachers Among Four Mestizo Shamans of Iquitos, Northeastern Peru.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 11 no. 2 (1984): 135–56; Luna, “Indigenous and Mestizo Use of Ayahuasca: An Overview,” in The Ethnopharmacology of Ayahusca, ed. Rafael Guimarães dos Santos (Transworld Research Network, 2011), 1-21; Glenn Shepard, “Psychoactive Plants and Ethnopsychiatric Medicines of the Matsigenka,” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 30, no. 4 (1998): 321–32; Shepard, “A Sensory Ecology of Medicinal Plant Therapy in Two Amazonian Societies,” American Anthropologist 106, no. 2 (2004): 252–66; Clint Carroll, Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental Governance (University of Minnesota Press, 2015). [Return to Section]

¹⁰ Lorena Cabnal, “Tzk’at, Red de Sanadoras Ancestrales del Feminismo Comunitario desde Iximulew-Guatemala,” Ecología Política, no. 54 (2017): 98–102. [Return to Section]

¹¹ Aníbal Quijano, “Colonialidad y modernidad/racionalidad,” Perú Indígena, no. 29 (1992): 11–20; Quijano, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America,” Nepantla: Views from South 1, no. 3 (2000): 533–80; Quijano, “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality,” Cultural Studies 21, no. 2–3 (2007): 168–78; Walter Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking (Princeton University Press, 2000); Mignolo, “Delinking: The Rhetoric of Modernity, the Logic of Coloniality and the Grammar of De-Coloniality,” Cultural Studies 21, no. 2–3 (2007): 449–514; Mignolo and Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis (Duke University Press, 2018). [Return to Section]

¹² Paola A. Sánchez Castañeda, “Quyca Muysca: Urban Coloniality of Nature, Cuerpo-Territorio [Body-Territory], and Muysca Resurgence” (PhD diss., Florida International University, 2023); Sánchez Castañeda, “There Is No Territory to Sow: Urban Coloniality of Nature and Muysca Dwelling,” City & Society 37 (2025): e70006.  [Return to Section]

¹³ Lorena Cabnal, “Tzk’at,” 98-102. [Return to Section]

¹⁴ Mignolo and Walsh, On Decoloniality, 1. [Return to Section]

¹⁵ Sofia Zaragocin et. al., “Interventions: Bringing the Decolonial to Political Geography,” Political Geography 66 (2018): 199–209. [Return to Section]

¹⁶ Arturo Escobar, Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes (Duke University Press, 2008); Héctor Alimonda, “Sobre la insostenible colonialidad de la naturaleza latinoamericana,” in Ecología política de la Amazonia. Las profusas y difusas redes de la gobernanza, ed. Germán A. Palacio Castañeda (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2009), 61-98; Ramón Grosfogel, “Del ‘extravismo económico’ al ‘extravismo epistemico’ y al ‘extravismo ontológico’: una forma destructiva de conocer, ser y estar en el mundo,” Tabula Rasa 14, no. 24 (2016): 123–43. [Return to Section]

¹⁷ Sánchez Castañeda, “Quyca Muysca;” Sánchez Castañeda, “There Is No Territory to Sow.” [Return to Section]

¹⁸ See a digital version of the physical exhibit at the CSWR, “Sacred Plants of the Muysca—In the Words and Photos of Community Members,” Center for the Study of World Religions, August 25, 2025, https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/08/25/digital-display-sacred-plants-muysca-words-and-photos-community-members, along with the Photovoice project, Ubazagasqua, https://www.ubazagasqua.com/. [Return to Section]

¹⁹ A. Durán, “Ty/Kuvx/Juinjaye: Prácticas pedagógicas en los procesos de revitalización de las músicas propias de los pueblos Muysca de Suba, Nasa y Zio Bain,” (Undergraduate thesis, Universidad Pedagógica Nacional de Colombia, 2023). [Return to Section]

²⁰ Cabildo Indígena Muisca de Suba, Hospital de Suba, and Secretaría Distrital de Salud, La huerta medicinal muisca: Medicina tradicional indígena muisca de Suba (Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá, 2008). [Return to Section]

²¹ Cabildo Indígena Muisca de Suba et. al., La huerta medicinal muisca. [Return to Section]

²² Zaita Ignacio, interview with author, January 13, 2025. [Return to Section]

²³ Zaita Myriam Triviño, interview with author, January 13, 2025. [Return to Section]

²⁴ Zaita Myriam Triviño, interview with author, January 13, 2025. [Return to Section]

²⁵ Yeison Yopasa (medicine man), interview with author, January 11, 2025. [Return to Section]

²⁶ Yeison Yopasa, interview with author, January 11, 2025. [Return to Section]

²⁷ Zaita Myriam Triviño, interview with author, January 13, 2025. [Return to Section]

Alimonda, Héctor. “Sobre la insostenible colonialidad de la naturaleza latinoamericana.” In Ecología política de la Amazonia. Las profusas y difusas redes de la gobernanza, edited by Germán A. Palacio Castañeda. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2009. 

Cabildo Indígena Muisca de Suba, Hospital de Suba, and Secretaría Distrital de Salud. La huerta medicinal muisca: Medicina tradicional indígena muisca de Suba. Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá, 2008. 

Cabnal, Lorena. “Tzk’at, Red de Sanadoras Ancestrales del Feminismo Comunitario desde Iximulew-Guatemala.” Ecología Política, no. 54 (2017): 98–102. 

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