In order to teach how they worked, the Mamas demonstrated a divination, explaining the different beads and the technical process of reading the signs. Sitting on a hillside above the town, they sat with their ritual pointed hats and a divining bowl. The hats represent houses, a round house over a round skull which is itself an image of the whole of the world. The Mama in his hat-house becomes the world, and his divination is a transaction between man, the physical world, and aluna.

 In a world which divides everything into four classes, there are naturally four classes of stone bead. These are white, black, red and green. The white beads are called abu, the Mother. These represent water, with all its implications of the primeval spirit-ocean. The black beads represent spirit; they 'belong' to the time before the Dawning, and are associated with death. Green beads represent plants and trees, and are used for divinations concerning vegetation; red beads represent human blood, and are used for divination concerning sickness.

 The primary object of a 'technical' divination is to find out where to make the appropriate offering. The whole process is part of the Kogi concept of balancing and regulating the world by taking offerings from one place to another, of putting things back into balance in the Sierra as a whole. The stone bead is called a tuma.

 The tuma was made specially for divination - it is a living being, it has life, it has its soul, it has everything.

 To carry out the divination, the tuma is placed in a bowl made from the bottom of a large gourd. The bowl is called the tu-tuma.

 The Mama chooses the tuma and gives spiritual power where the Mother of the tuba is, where the Mother of water is, where the Mother of divination is, he gives it power. He takes the water and pours it in the tu-tuma where the stone is thrown; he also blesses the water and prays. Now they are purified: the water, the tuba and the tu-tuma - the three of them - they are purified.

 And all at once the Mama speaks to the tuma; he says that we are going to talk and straight away he throws it into the container, straight away bubbles come out, speech comes out and the Mama listens to the word of the bubbles, listens; the Mama hears clearly what is needed.

One of the alarming aspects of tomb-robbing is that it involves the theft of divining beads. These should be kept, like the golden Mothers, in their pots in the earth.

 These were their houses. Four types of beads, all of them in their pots. We have always kept them in pots. We also go into pots, and everything that represents us. Now that they are pulling out the roots of the earth, the earth is being diminished. When the Younger Brother has finally stolen all the beads, everything will start to dry out.

The Kogi also claim that they had golden tumas and golden tutumas, which were stolen by the Younger Brother. In the Museo del Oro in Bogota, there is a life-size model of an 'Indian' dressed in golden pieces. The golden cap on his head looks suspiciously like a divining-bowl.

 Whenever the Kogi did something for the cameras, it was properly done and seriously meant. They would stage it in the sense that the time and place would be chosen to make it filmable, but it was still a real event, not play-acting. So the divination we filmed was a real divination, and the speech of the bubbles was listened to with care, and interpreted. The question put was the inevitable one: how should they speak to us? The Mamas consulted the oracle and spoke, and Ramon interpreted the interpretation.

From the beginning in Colombia everything, everything remained as it always was among us, the native people; the same belief, the same mask, the same dance. Everything well organized, in order, a terrace for every animal.

 Younger Brother was permitted to be in other places, other countries. There was a dividing line, the sea.

 He said, 'Younger Brother that side, Elder Brother this side. You cannot cross it.' Because this Colombia was the heart of the world, of the whole universe.

 But Younger Brother came from another country and immediately he saw gold and immediately he began to rob. There were golden images, golden oracles. The Mama prophesied with golden bowls, he had a golden tuma, he had everything and Younger Brother took it all to another country.

 Now the Mama grows sad, he feels weak. He says that the earth is decaying. The earth is losing its strength because they have taken away much petrol, coal, many minerals.

 A human being has much liquid inside. If the liquid dries up we fall with weakness. This same thing can happen to the earth, weakness makes you fall, weakness.

 So the earth today catches diseases of all kinds. The animals die. The trees dry up. People fall ill. Many illnesses will appear, and there will be no cure for them. Why?

 Because Younger Brother is among us, Younger Brother is violating the basic foundation of the world's law. A total violation. Robbing. Ransacking. Building highways, extracting petrol, minerals.

 We tell you, we the people of this place, Kogi, Asario,

 Arhuaco: that is a violation.

 So the Mamas say, 'Please BBC no one else should come here, no more ransacking because the earth wants to collapse, the earth grows weak, we must protect it, we must respect it, because he does not respect the earth, because he does not respect it.'

 Younger Brother thinks, 'Yes! Here I am! I know much about the universe!' But this knowing is learning to destroy the world, to destroy everything, all humanity.

 The earth feels. They take out petrol, it feels pain there. So the earth sends out sickness. There will be many medicines, drugs, but in the end the drugs will not be of any use, neither will the medicine be of any use.

 The Mamas say that this tale must be learnt by the Younger Brother.