Calabashes and gourds are natural, waterproof containers that grow in many different sizes and shapes, and have been used extensively throughout the Americas. Traditional Colombian poporos (containers for lime powder for coca-chewing) are often made of calabashes (bottle gourds). These were greatly valued, and were often replicated in ceramic and tumbaga (gold-copper alloy).

“Plants and animals make music,” observes Diomedes Izquierda Mesía, an Arhuaco elder. “When it rains, or when there is wind, the plants are making music. Birds also have fiestas, they make music. The river makes music, too.” This music accompanies, celebrates, and helps to sustain all of life. 
  

Colombia is home to more than 1900 species of birds—the most of any country, and comprising approximately twenty percent of all bird diversity worldwide. Birds have social lives that are revealed in ancient artworks and in the mythology of contemporary Indigenous Colombian cultures. 
  

Colombia has the highest number of terrestrial mammal species of any country in the world—more than 450. Some of the most common are anteaters, sloths, tapirs, spectacled bears, deer, capybaras, pumas, jaguar, and several monkey species. 
  

Lobsters with human faces, as seen here, seem to reveal the internal personhood of these creatures. This notion of an essentially human essence within every living being is what makes communication and transformation between all beings possible. As Arhuaco elder Jaison Pérez Villafaña observes, “Until we know the pain and joy of other beings, we cannot understand them.

In the words of Arhuaco elder Jaison Pérez Villafaña, “My spirit travels, but it also has a home; my body.” 
  

Each item shown here features four monkeys surrounding geometric shapes in sets of three. A myth told by the Miraña people suggests that this may represent the Orion constellation, which is identified by its trapezoid of four main stars and three aligned stars in the middle forming the “belt” (pictured below). As the myth recounts:
 

Made of hammered sheets of tumbaga (gold-copper alloy), the two house models seen here are extraordinary examples of the skill of ancient metalsmiths as well as the detail and accuracy with which they captured their world in portable objects. Community meeting houses of different cultural groups may be either round or rectangular; although they are different in shape, both forms can encapsulate the cosmos. The diagrams below show Tukano and Yakuna malocas (meeting houses).

This offering container is in the shape of a house that sits within an enclosure. It is guarded by two figures who form the corner posts of the enclosure. The small circular door leads to an interior divided into ritual spaces. Remarkably, this offering includes pieces of green glass, a product of European technology, alongside native emeralds. The person or persons who made this offering deliberately chose to incorporate new European materials into their traditional ritual practices.

This elaborate ceramic container and its contents (emerald beads, tumbaga nose ring, fish pendant, and tweezers) was once deposited in the ground as a complete offering. The container is in the shape of a communal house or temple, with gabled roof and steps at the entrance. The house’s shape also relates to the ocean, with eyes and the teeth of a shark, speaking to an intimate relationship with the primordial waters of creation.