Muisca

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Muisca

Muysca
Muisca raft (1200–1500 CE) representation of the initiation of the new zipa at the lake of Guatavita
Total population
14,051[1] (2005, census)
Regions with significant populations
Altiplano Cundiboyacense,  Colombia
Languages
Muysccubun (Chibcha), Colombian Spanish
Religion
Muisca religion, Catholicism
Related ethnic groups
Guane, Lache, U'wa, Tegua, Guayupe, Sutagao, Panche, Muzo

The Muisca (also called the Chibcha) are indigenous peoples in Colombia and were a Pre-Columbian culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The Muisca speak Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan language family, also called Muysca and Mosca.^[2] The first known contact with Europeans in the region was in 1537 during the Spanish conquest of New Granada.

In New Spain, Spanish clerics and civil officials had a major impact on the Muisca, attempting to Christianize and incorporate them into the Spanish Empire as subjects.^[3][4]

Postconquest Muisca culture underwent significant changes due to the establishment of the New Kingdom of Granada. Sources for the Muisca are far less abundant than for the Aztec Empire of Mesoamerica or the Inca Empire and their incorporation to the Spanish Empire during the colonial era. In the New Kingdom of Granada and into the colonial era, the Muisca became "the official 'tribe' of the Colombian nation" and "a local version of the Aztecs and Incas".^[5][6] Recent scholarship on the Muisca by archeologists, anthropologists, and historians is revising the understanding of the Muiscas' prehispanic and colonial era past.