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The Ministry of Culture, through support of the National Museum of Colombia, The Colombian Institute of Antropology and History and Tropenbos International Colombia, presents the exhibition "The Amazon arrived in Bogota. This temporal exhibition presents a view of the Amazon region including the impact of geopolitical, cultural and religious events like the extraction of natural resources and evangelic missions on the people and the territory. It presents the multiple identities and cultures that come together in this region nowadays as consequence of those past events.
The Colombian Amazon has a settlement history of over 10.000 years. It constitutes the most biologically and ethnically diverse area of the whole Amazon region. In this exhibition several culturally important objects are presented and organised under the following topics:
People of coca and blown tobacco. These are people living in the Lower Caquetá, Vaupés and the Igará-Paraná, Apaporis and Mirití rivers.
People of coca and licked tabacco. These are people living in the frontier with Peru.
The yagé and yoko people. These are people living in the Putumayo and Upper Caquetá.
The people of manihot, achiote and huito. These are people living along the Amazon river.
The people of masato de yuca. These are people living in Guainía and were evangelized by Sofía Muller.
Nomad people. They are people that roam in the Guaviare; named nukak and yuhup.
The people of colonization. These are settlers and colonists in the Putumayo and Caquetá and are mostly dedicated to agriculture, cattle ranching, commerce and drug traffic.
The exhibition is organised around four main themes which refer to important historic periods of the Amazon. In the center of the exhibition, a huge map of the Amazon region lies on the floor as a geographical reference during the tour. The thinking stool is the symbolic reference during all historic periods and the visitor can see how it is transformed from one period to the next.
The first historic period which the exhibition refers to is the Rubber Exploitation period at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Since the 17th century many different renewable and non renewable natural resources have been extracted from the rainforest in what has been locally referred to as extraction booms. These booms include rubber, illegal crops, animal pelts and more recently genetic resources. All these booms have left little wealth and wellbeing to local inhabitants.
Another important moment in the history of the Amazon was the arrival of Religious Missions and missionaries. With the arrival of the Spaniards to America and to the Amazon, began the religious conquest of the indigenous people´s souls. Great efforts were made by the Spanish crown to civilize, educate and convert indigenous people throughout the continent.
The last part of the exhibition refers to the political relationship between the state and the indigenous people. In the 20th century many efforts have been made on behalf of the state to promote civilization in these remote areas of the country. More recently political recognition of indigenous people has been promoted and government and indigenous authorities have been able to sit down at the same table and discuss land use, education and health plans.
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