Aluna
aluna jaba (kággaba)
Among the Kággaba (Kogi) of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, *aluna* refers to the spiritual dimension of the world—often translated as "the mother-thought"—where every element of nature has its own spiritual master, its father and mother, with whom communication must be maintained. It is not a separate otherworld: it is the reverse side where what appears originates and takes order. The term surfaces in the public discourse of the Gonawindúa Tayrona Organization as "aluna jaba," the Mother in *aluna*, she who has left the history of each thing and its connections. Here, we adhere only to what the Kággaba themselves have made public: the closed knowledge of the *mamos* is not unearthed.
cada elemento de la naturaleza tiene un dueño espiritual, tiene un padre y una madre en el mundo espiritual con los cuales se debe mantener comunicación, esas son las normas que deben revivirse permanentemente y para eso la Madre, aluna jaba, nos dejó una historia acerca de cada uno de los elementos de la naturaleza y sus relaciones.
Aluna is a Kággaba word, and we can only approach it through mediation: the Spanish of the Gonawindúa Tayrona Organization, the Kogi’s public voice before the Colombian state. They themselves state that the Ley de Origen “is not written in words”—the same caution applies to aluna. What we say of it remains within the bounds they have made public; the mamos’ reserved knowledge is not to be touched.
Within these bounds, the term names a dimension: not a realm of ideas, but the spiritual aspect of every being. “Every element of nature has a spiritual master, a father and a mother in the spiritual world,” and it is with them that one must “maintain communication.” Humans are not alone in populating this aspect: everything has its counterpart there. And it is from there, they say, that “the Mother, aluna jaba, left us a history of each element of nature and their relations.” Aluna is thus less a belief than a way of dwelling: what is seen and touched retains, behind it, a kinship and a norm that must be kept alive.
≠ Plato’s world of ideas: there, the intelligible is another place, truer than the sensible and separate from it; aluna is not elsewhere—it is the relational depth of this world, where every mountain, every water has its father and mother. ≠ the imaginary or the symbolic of our human sciences, which relegate such presences to the realm of representations: for the Kággaba, aluna is held to be real, prior to the material, and it is what prescribes. It is, on the side of spirit, what the Ley de Origen is on the side of norm, and sacred geography on the side of narrative: three ways of saying that truth does not float above the earth but doubles it.