Kogi Tribe Raises Selected Children in Darkness for Nine Years to Connect With an Invisible Cosmic Consciousness
They are raised in dark ceremonial houses or caves, where elder Mamas teach them about the physical world through stories, songs, sounds, and spiritual instruction. The children learn about sunlight, animals, rivers, and mountains without being allowed to experience these things in daylight.
This practice was documented by anthropologist Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, who studied the Kogi and published a detailed account of their spiritual education in 1976. His research describes a demanding training process that could last 18 years, beginning with nine years in which the child lives a nocturnal existence, deliberately separated from the ordinary visual experiences of childhood.
The Kogi live in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a mountainous region near Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Their ancestors belonged to the ancient Tairona civilization, which existed long before the arrival of Spanish conquerors. During the colonial period, Indigenous communities retreated into the mountains, preserving many of their traditions, religious beliefs, and ways of life.
A Kogi woman with a child at Ciudad Perdida in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains, photographed in March 2017. Image credit: Dwayne Reilander / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0.
Unlike modern societies that generally understand nature through scientific observation, the Kogi interpret the world through a spiritual system in which everything is interconnected. They consider themselves responsible for maintaining the balance of the Earth, a task they believe was given to them by the Great Mother, the spiritual source of creation.
According to the Tairona Heritage Trust, an organization dedicated to supporting the Kogi and preserving their culture, the traditional ideal was to select a child at birth and begin preparing him for the role of Mama. The child would be cared for by his mother and elder spiritual teachers, but his early environment would be deliberately restricted to darkness.
Reichel-Dolmatoff’s anthropological account describes children more commonly beginning formal priestly training around the age of two or three. They were taken to isolated ceremonial centers in the mountains, where they lived with an experienced Mama and his family. During the first nine years of their instruction, they were not permitted to see daylight or even the light of a full moon.
The restrictions were not simply intended to keep the children physically isolated. The Kogi believed that their future spiritual leaders needed to develop a different understanding of reality, one that did not depend primarily on what the eyes could see.
Their daily routine was also unusual. The children were trained to sleep during the day and remain awake at night, when they received instruction in sacred songs, dances, religious language, and the stories explaining how the universe was created. Their teachers wanted them to become familiar with the spiritual structure of the world before becoming accustomed to ordinary physical appearances.
The children were sometimes taken outside at night, with their exposure to moonlight restricted. Historical descriptions also refer to the use of torches and low-burning fires during instruction, meaning the tradition should not be understood as nine uninterrupted years without any source of light whatsoever. It was primarily a strict separation from daylight and the normal visual environment.
One account preserved by the Tairona Heritage Trust describes how a mother could visit the doorway of the ceremonial house where her child was being raised. She would sing to him while he danced, after which he would return to his secluded environment. As the child grew older, spiritual instructors gradually assumed greater responsibility for his education.
The same account describes children receiving specially prepared foods and blessed water. They were also taught to pay attention to small details such as bubbles appearing in water, which carried spiritual significance within Kogi teachings. Their education involved learning to observe, remember, listen, and interpret the natural world according to the community’s traditional beliefs.
Reichel-Dolmatoff’s research explained that the early years were intended to alter the child’s ordinary perception of time and space. By changing sleeping patterns, limiting exposure to daylight, and emphasizing spiritual instruction, the Kogi sought to prepare future Mamas for the religious responsibilities they would eventually assume.
The training could continue long after the initial nine years. According to the 1976 anthropological study archived by Yale University’s Human Relations Area Files, a young trainee could briefly return to his family around puberty before undertaking another nine years of instruction. The later period focused more heavily on moral teachings, mythology, and the responsibilities of spiritual leadership.
The entire process was meant to produce someone who understood the world differently from other members of the community. A Mama was expected to interpret spiritual signs, conduct ceremonies, guide important decisions, and help maintain the relationship between human society and the forces believed to govern nature.
At the center of this system is Aluna, perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of Kogi cosmology.
The Kogi believe that before the physical universe existed, there was a state of consciousness without material form. This consciousness is associated with the Great Mother, who conceived the world spiritually before it appeared as physical reality. Mountains, oceans, animals, plants, and human beings were first imagined within Aluna.
The 2012 documentary Aluna: An Ecological Warning from the Kogi People, directed by British filmmaker Alan Ereira, presents the Great Mother as pure thought without physical form, and the world comes into existence through her act of thinking.
According to this understanding, thought is not merely something produced by human brains. It is part of the underlying reality from which physical existence emerges. The visible universe is the expression of an invisible spiritual order that the Kogi believe continues to influence everything taking place in the world.
This is why the practice of raising selected children in darkness carries such importance within their culture. The Mamas are trained to concentrate on the invisible spiritual relationships behind nature rather than becoming entirely occupied with its physical appearances.
For the Kogi, Aluna is not simply another dimension somewhere beyond Earth. It is the spiritual foundation of the world itself, present in the processes that allow rivers to flow, plants to grow, animals to reproduce, and human communities to survive.
Their belief is that every living thing has a spiritual origin and that human actions can disturb the balance between the physical world and its invisible foundation. The Mamas believe they have a responsibility to understand these relationships and perform ceremonies intended to preserve them.
This spiritual responsibility extends to agriculture, marriage, and the use of natural resources. The Tairona Heritage Trust explains that the Kogi traditionally bless seeds in Aluna before planting them, conduct ceremonies associated with fertility, and make offerings to spiritual guardians connected with different aspects of the environment.
The Mamas also visit sacred locations known as Ezuamas, which the Kogi regard as important points of connection with the spiritual powers associated with nature. These places may be connected with particular mountains, rivers, forests, or other geographical features, and the ceremonies performed there are intended to protect the balance of the surrounding environment.
The Kogi describe the Earth as a living body whose different parts depend upon one another. In their understanding, damaging a sacred site is not merely destroying a piece of land. It is interfering with a relationship that helps sustain the wider natural world.
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Ereira first worked with the Kogi during the production of the 1990 BBC documentary From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers’ Warning. In that film, the Kogi warned that humanity was damaging the Earth through deforestation, mining, pollution, and the destruction of important natural environments.
The Kogi call themselves the Elder Brothers and describe modern industrialized humanity as the Younger Brothers. Their explanation is that the Elder Brothers were entrusted with understanding and protecting the world, while the Younger Brothers became increasingly concerned with changing and exploiting it.
They believe that the Younger Brothers have forgotten the spiritual relationships that make life possible. According to the Mamas, this separation from nature has led humanity to damage the environment without understanding the wider consequences.
After their first warning received international attention, the Kogi waited to see whether people would change their behavior. When the environmental destruction they were witnessing continued, they invited Ereira back to make another documentary.
This second film, Aluna, was intended to do more than repeat their warning. The Mamas wanted to demonstrate what they meant when they said that places separated by great distances could nevertheless be connected.
One of the documentary’s most unusual sequences involves a plan to use approximately 400 kilometers of golden thread to represent an invisible network connecting sacred locations along Colombia’s Caribbean coast and the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The Kogi believe that these sites are linked through Aluna, even when the connections cannot be observed directly. A particular location near the mouth of a river might have a spiritual relationship with another location high in the mountains, and damage to one could affect the other.
Gold carries special meaning within their beliefs because of its enduring nature and its association with the creative forces of the Earth. By using golden thread, the Mamas wanted to make their invisible understanding of the landscape visible to people who were unfamiliar with it.
The documentary also follows one of their senior spiritual leaders, Mama Shibulata, during a visit to England. There, he meets an astronomer and encounters scientific ideas about the universe that are very different from those traditionally taught among the Kogi.
ironmental balance of the surrounding region.
Scientists appearing in the documentary explain that coastal and inland ecosystems are indeed connected through physical processes, including water movement, evaporation, salinity, and the movement of nutrients. Altering wetlands can have consequences beyond the immediate location where the disturbance occurs.
Marine biologist Alex Rogers, associated with the University of Oxford, discusses how environmental damage along Colombia’s coast reflects problems affecting other regions of the Caribbean and the wider planet. He agrees that human activities can produce effects across interconnected ecosystems, lending scientific support to the general environmental concern expressed by the Kogi.
Another scientific discussion focuses on the importance of particular habitats that serve as refuges for species over long periods. Destroying such areas might not cause an immediate visible catastrophe, but the long-term consequences can be serious because animals and plants may lose locations essential for their survival.
The Kogi have long regarded particular places as especially important, although their explanations involve spiritual relationships rather than the ecological mechanisms described by scientists. The documentary suggests that Indigenous environmental knowledge can sometimes identify relationships and vulnerabilities that deserve scientific investigation.
The distinction is important because evidence that ecosystems are interconnected does not establish the existence of Aluna as a cosmic consciousness. The Kogi’s spiritual explanation and the scientific explanation are different, even when both emphasize the importance of protecting the natural environment.
Their traditional training nevertheless raises other questions, particularly about what prolonged separation from sunlight might mean for a developing child.
Modern medical research shows that insufficient sunlight can increase the risk of vitamin D deficiency, which can lead to rickets and problems with bone development. Vitamin D can also be obtained through certain foods, so the absence of sunlight does not automatically mean a child will develop the condition.
However, reliable medical evidence explaining how Kogi children undergoing this training maintained adequate vitamin D levels is limited. It is therefore difficult to determine whether the traditional practice caused particular health problems or whether dietary and environmental factors provided some protection.
Prolonged visual deprivation can also interfere with normal visual development, particularly during early childhood. This makes the distinction between near-total darkness and absolute darkness significant when describing the training. Historical accounts establish severe restrictions on daylight, but they do not justify assuming that every child experienced an uninterrupted absence of all light.
There is also no scientific evidence that raising children in darkness gives them the ability to communicate with a cosmic intelligence. The purpose and spiritual significance of the training are documented features of Kogi culture, but the abilities attributed to the Mamas belong to their religious understanding of the world.
The Kogi’s message is not limited to what happens during those childhood years. Their larger concern is that humanity has become so focused on material progress that it no longer recognizes how deeply its survival depends on the natural world.
Their warning about damaged forests, disappearing wildlife, altered rivers, and disturbed ecosystems is connected to a belief that human beings have responsibilities toward the Earth rather than unlimited authority over it.
Near the end of Aluna, the Mamas continue their journey despite the destruction they have witnessed. Their purpose is not simply to predict disaster but to persuade the outside world that protecting rivers, forests, and sacred landscapes is necessary if future generations are to survive.
For the Kogi, the unusual childhood training of the Mamas and their warning to modern civilization are parts of the same worldview. Both begin with the belief that the physical world cannot be understood by examining isolated objects alone, because every living thing belongs to a larger network of relationships.
Their spiritual explanation remains a matter of belief, but their concern about the destruction of interconnected ecosystems raises a question that modern environmental science also takes seriously: how much of the natural world are human beings changing before they fully understand the consequences?
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