West IndiesThe West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies in three archipelagos: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, and the Lucayan Archipelago. The subregion includes all the islands in the Antilles, plus The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which are in the North Atlantic Ocean.
New Kingdom of GranadaThe New Kingdom of Granada (Nuevo Reino de Granada), or Kingdom of the New Granada, was the name given to a group of 16th-century Spanish colonial provinces in northern South America governed by the president of the Royal Audience of Santafé, an area corresponding mainly to modern-day Colombia. The conquistadors originally organized it as a province with a Royal Audience within the Viceroyalty of Peru despite certain independence from it. The audiencia was established by the crown in 1549.
Walter RaleighSir Walter Raleigh (ˈrɔːli,_ˈræli,_ˈrɑːli; 1552 – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellion in Ireland, helped defend England against the Spanish Armada and held political positions under Elizabeth I. Raleigh was born to a landed gentry family of Protestant faith in Devon, the son of Walter Raleigh and Catherine Champernowne.
GuatavitaGuatavita is a municipality and town of Colombia in the Guavio Province of the department of Cundinamarca. Guatavita is located 75 km northeast of the capital Bogotá. It borders Sesquilé and Machetá in the north, Gachetá and Junín in the east, Guasca in the south and in the west are Tocancipá and Gachancipá. Before the Spanish conquest of the Muisca on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, the central plateau in the Colombian Andes, the area was inhabited by the Muisca organized in their Muisca Confederation.
Muisca raftThe Muisca raft (Balsa Muisca in Spanish), sometimes referred to as the Golden Raft of El Dorado, is a pre-Columbian votive piece created by the Muisca, an indigenous people of Colombia in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The piece probably refers to the gold offering ceremony described in the legend of El Dorado, which occasionally took place at Lake Guatavita. In this ritual, the new chief (zipa), who was aboard a raft and covered with gold dust, tossed gold objects into the lake as offerings to the gods, before immersing himself into the lake.
AmazonsIn Greek mythology, the Amazons (Ancient Greek: Ἀμαζόνες Amazónes, singular Ἀμαζών Amazōn, via Latin Amāzon, -ŏnis) are portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Heracles, the Argonautica and the Iliad. They were a group of female warriors and hunters, who were as skilled and courageous as men in physical agility, strength, archery, riding skills, and the arts of combat. Their society was closed to men and they only raised their daughters and returned their sons to their fathers, with whom they would only socialize briefly in order to reproduce.
Alexander von HumboldtFriedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 1769 - 6 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography, while his advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement pioneered modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
YanomamiThe Yanomami, also spelled Yąnomamö or Yanomama, are a group of approximately 35,000 indigenous people who live in some 200–250 villages in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil. The ethnonym Yanomami was produced by anthropologists on the basis of the word yanõmami, which, in the expression yanõmami thëpë, signifies "human beings." This expression is opposed to the categories yaro (game animals) and yai (invisible or nameless beings), but also napë (enemy, stranger, non-Indian).
Muisca religion and mythologyThe terms Muisca religion and mythology refer to the pre-Columbian beliefs of the Muisca indigenous people of the Cordillera Oriental highlands of the Andes in the vicinity of Bogotá, Colombia. The tradition includes a selection of received myths concerning the origin and organization of the universe. Their belief system may be described as a polytheistic religion containing a very strong element of spirituality based on an epistemology of mysticism.
Boyacá DepartmentBoyacá (boʝaˈka) is one of the thirty-two departments of Colombia, and the remnant of Boyacá State, one of the original nine states of the "United States of Colombia". Boyacá is centrally located within Colombia, almost entirely within the mountains of the Eastern Cordillera to the border with Venezuela, although the western end of the department extends to the Magdalena River at the town of Puerto Boyacá. Boyacá borders to the north with the Department of Santander, to the northeast with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Norte de Santander, to the east with the departments of Arauca and Casanare.
