GUANES’ CULTURE

Los Guanes is a native Chibcha group, who was placed in the region where now are place the provinces of Soto, Guanenta and Velez, in Santander, Colombia.

In the middles of eighteen century Los Guanes’ population was very close to the extinction. The mining had a strong influence in the disappearance of this town in the colony time.

You can see next a short description of the features of Guanes’ culture.

Territory

La Mesa de Xerida or Mesa de los Santos was the permanent place for the central power of the native group knows as Los Guanes.

Their lands at west border on the Yariguies’ lands, at north border on the Chitateros’ lands, at east on the Laches’ lands and at south border on the Muiscas’ lands.

Government

The chief Guanenta was one of five sovereigns who governed the Chibcha town. He decided the punishment for the people who did something wrong in the town.

Between the punishments imposed by Guanes you can count this:

• The thieves were tie to a branch and killed with an arrow, and the chief gave a blanket as a prize to the archer who hit in the mouth or in the eye to the thief.
• To the spoilt kids they put chili water in the eyes.
• They killed to the unfaithful women.

Skills

They cultivated the cotton, pineapples and corn. They were very good artisans and made great works with cotton’s threads made by them.

Los Guanes made their own weapons, including arrows and bows. They interchanged blankets for salt with los Muiscas from La Sabana de Bogota and ceramics with the native called Chitareros.

Physical appearance

According to the results of some investigations, The Guanes’ men had 1,63meters of high and the women 1,51meters average. It was also possible to know the blood group of this town, it was O. This result was obtained from a sample of 100grm of skin.

THE E-MAIL REVOLUTION, ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Once upon a time a boring world where nobody can talk with anybody face to face, but everybody was happy…

This paragraph could be extracted from a fairy tale, but actually is a representative way to express how the mankind has been communicating in the last years.

Some years ago it was quite normal to see some people getting some stamps when they wanted to sent a letter to a relative who has travel abroad. And when they finally could post their letter, they had to wait for too long to received an answer.

It is a lucky that all these things have changed. Now you can save all this time and money (because it was too expensive to sent a letter to another country) using the email. This wonderful tool has arrived to become the communication in something simple and friendly.

It is quite normal in these times, to hear everybody asking for your email address, because that’s the coolest way to be in touch nowadays. And it is not only for fashion, it is because through this tool you can send and receive message, files, pictures and other stuff, making the email a very useful resource.

However the email is finishing with the old and traditional face to face chat. These days is more common to be in touch with you neighbor through the email than talk with their personally. Even worse, the people prefer to be in an internet coffee sending emails and using the chat than to be in a park talking with some friends.

In conclusion, the email has change the communication, becoming it easier and cheaper, but it is becoming the communication quite impersonal and insecure, and is possible that one day we will not talk with anybody face to face.