The Elder Brothers

The Elder Brothers are the last surviving high civilization of pre-conquest America. They live in Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta...the highest coastal mountain in the world...19,000 feet above the sea and only 26 miles inland. The mountains gradually rise from the Caribbean beaches and burning desert at the base to eternal snows at the top. It is the land of the Kogi...the special Indian people who consider themselves the Elder Brothers of humanity. From the start, author/film maker Alan Ereira did not want to make a film about the Kogi...he wanted to make a film with them. His willingness to allow the Kogi to tell their story rather than dictate to them...lead the Elder Brothers to break centuries of suspicion and secrecy. This wonderful book is about how Ereira managed to make his documentary film. The author is careful to explain that the Kogi Elder Brothers offer us a way of understanding our own past. The Elder Brothers believe that they are the guardians to life on earth. The Kogi are not a violent people but like all indigenous people of America who were hospitable...they have learned that hospitality is the most dangerous virtue on earth. Hence, now that they have given Ereira the message...they want to be left alone again. The Kogi have a powerful message...true "words of wisdom" that can help mankind. The Elder Brothers look on us as children, dangerous, irrational and essentially helpless. They call us, the "Younger Brothers." They also see as moral idiots, greedy beyond all understanding. Over and over Ereira informs us that the Kogi speak of us sacking, looting the planet, tearing at is flesh without respect. If we fail to respond...the Elder Brothers say all life will be destroyed. This book will certainly shake your soul. The Kogi are intelligent but an understanding of their world requires profound understanding and deep thought, according to the author. The Kogi are balanced...in harmony with mother nature and hope that we will listen to them and change our ways. They know that the "Younger Brother" has a butterfly mind which has paid no attention to mother nature's teaching. At the beginning the Kogi had a garden of Eden...but it was all destroyed with the arrival of the brutal Spanish conquistadors who sought gold and killed all who did not obey. In order to understand the significance of the Elder Brothers I must borrow the words of one scholar in this marvelous book who documents his comments in the "Journal of Latin American Lore." The scholar states, "I truly believe that the Kogi can greatly contribute to a better understanding and handling of some of our modern dilemmas and that we should consider ourselves fortunate to be contemporaries of a people who perhaps can teach us to achieve a measure of balance...My appeal is to humanists, to psychologists and philosophers, to historians and to the community of international planning experts who, I am afraid, are far removed from the Magna Mater of the S

This book should be required reading in order to qualify for participation in the human race. WHY IS IT OUT OF PRINT??? This book is an eye-opener to the tragic environmental destruction we all are causing to the Earth. I have no doubt that we could make miraculous healing changes to the world environment if everyone read a copy. It not only features an incredibly important environmental message, it is a great read! The reader is invited into the world of the Kogi of Colombia and blessed with the opportunity to perceive the world through their eyes. This book is a rare jewel, one does not often find a recounting this valuable and moving. After reading it, I gathered my children and talked about the impact we all make on the global environment every day. We went through our home to find ways to improve and change as much as one family can. This book will prove to be an epiphany to anyone fortunate enough to read it. It is startling that the "younger brothers" have gutted the Earth, burnt the sky, poisoned the sea and are now working on the extinction of human life.

The heart-breaking story of the Kogi indians of Colombia, who believe that their divine purpose is safeguarding the planet from the ecological holocaust caused by modern civilization. The description of the elderly shaman and the young boy, secluded in a cave high in the Andes as they enact ancient rituals in a desperate attempt to save the world, is one of the most mind-blowing passages I have ever read. A gut-wrenching, haunting, and ultimately terrifying book, the message of the Kogi people could very well contain the key to our survival as a species.

Very moving account of what is happening to the Kogi-Indians in Colombia. Makes you think about what the "white brothers" did to indigenous people in America.