The Heart of the World

I still remember seeing the documentary on this when it appeared, sometime in 1991 - a BBC team going to a very remote mountain-dwelling tribe in the rainforests of Columbia for an education; after centuries of deliberate isolation, the Kogi, who call themselves the Elder Brothers, wanted to explain how the ignorance and greed of the Younger Brothers (ourselves) on the plains below was going to destroy life on earth in the next few years. These people have preserved the culture and philosophy of a culture lost everywhere else: the civilisation of the Chibchas, the people of El Dorado. The documentary was rivetting, Alan Eireira's book of the film is a must-have, I'm delighted to have found it serendipitously while browsing the South American travel section at the library here.