Chaquén

Description

Chaquén flew over the boundaries of the sowing fields of the Muisca's rich agriculture. He manifested during contests and festivities. According to a 17th-century chronicler, the Muisca organized races on holidays where vassals of caciques competed in many aspects, with dances featuring new inventions, feathers, flutes, horns, and drums. People wore uniforms and animal skins with diadems of fine gold, and winners received richly decorated mantles; festivities were celebrated with much chicha. During the first months of the year, agricultural festivities were held around crop fields to honor Chaquén for a good harvest. Men and women danced holding hands, playing flutes and horns, singing both happy and sad songs while holding earthenware bowls of chicha. These celebrations also served to gain partners, as drunken men and women found each other, and caciques and nobles acquired their women there. The honoring of Chaquén was a celebration of fertility for both agriculture and people, encompassing sexual rites with feathers and costumes also used in Muisca warfare. Chaquén also punished adulterers, as happened with Tintoa and Sunuba. Tintoa, a young guecha warrior, fell in love with Sunuba, the principal wife of a prince. When the prince went to war, he named Sunuba guardian; upon returning, he discovered the affair and sought punishment. The lovers fled, but Chaquén found them and transformed Sunuba into a type of cane or reed condemned to live near swamp waters, and Tintoa into a dry weed growing only in arid areas, separating them forever.