Pasca is a town and municipality in the
Cundinamarca department of
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
located in the
Andes
The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...
. It belongs to the
Sumapaz Province
Sumapaz Province is one of the 15 provinces in the Cundinamarca Department, Colombia.
External links
Sumapaz Province in Cundinamarca
Provinces of Cundinamarca Department
Province
A province is almost always an administrative division ...
. Pasca is situated on the
Altiplano Cundiboyacense
The Altiplano Cundiboyacense () is a high plateau located in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes covering parts of the departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá. The altiplano corresponds to the ancient territory of the Muisca. The Alti ...
at a distance of from the capital
Bogotá
Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...
. It borders
Fusagasugá
Fusagasugá (; ) or Fusa is a town and municipality in the Departments of Colombia, department of Cundinamarca Department, Cundinamarca, in central Colombia. It is located in the warm valley between the rivers Cuja River, Cuja and Panches, a centr ...
,
Sibaté
Sibaté () is a municipality and town of Colombia in the Soacha Province, part of the department of Cundinamarca. Sibaté is located on the Bogotá savanna with the urban centre at an altitude of and a distance of from the capital Bogotá. I ...
and
Soacha
, image_map = Colombia - Cundinamarca - Soacha.svg
, map_caption = Location of Soacha in Cundinamarca
, pushpin_map = Colombia
, coordinates =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_nam ...
in the north, Bogotá D.C. in the north and east,
Arbeláez
Arbeláez () is a town and municipality in the Cundinamarca Department, Colombia. It borders Fusagasugá, Pasca and other municipalities of the Sumapaz Province.
Arbeláez is recognized as a quiet and friendly city of Colombia. It is known for it ...
in the south and Fusagasugá in the west. Is the entrance to the Páramo del Sumapaz, the biggest ecosystem in its genre in the world. The urban center is located at an altitude of and the altitude ranges from to .
[Official website Pasca]
Etymology
Pasca in the
Chibcha language
Chibcha, Mosca, Muisca, Muysca (*/ˈmɨska/), or Muysca de Bogotá, was a language spoken by the Muisca people of the Muisca Confederation, one of the many Indigenous peoples in Colombia, indigenous List of pre-Columbian cultures, cultures of ...
means "father's enclosure", according to Acosta Ortegón.
[ (1999]
Notas sobre toponimia en algunas coplas colombianas
Thesaurus. Tomo LIV, Núm. 3. page 1122.
History
Pasca in the time before the
Spanish conquest
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predece ...
was inhabited by the
Muisca
The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan langu ...
, organized in their
Muisca Confederation
The Muisca Confederation was a loose confederation of different Muisca rulers (''zaques'', ''zipas'', '' iraca'', and ''tundama'') in the central Andean highlands of present-day Colombia before the Spanish conquest of northern South America. The ...
. The southern Muisca territories were ruled from
Muyquytá, the current capital. On April 6, 1536
conquistador
Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, O ...
s
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada y Rivera, also spelled as Ximénez and De Quezada, (;1496 16 February 1579) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador in northern South America, territories currently known as Colombia. He explored the territory named ...
and
his brother started the strenuous march into the inner highlands of Colombia. With 209 men he arrived on March 12, 1537, in
Guachetá
Guachetá is a municipality and town of Colombia in the Ubaté Province of the department of Cundinamarca. Guachetá is located at from the capital Bogotá. It borders the Boyacá municipalities of Ráquira and Samacá in the north, Ubat ...
. From there he led his army to conquer the villages of the Muisca on the
Bogotá savanna
The Bogotá savanna is a montane savanna, located in the southwestern part of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the center of Colombia. The Bogotá savanna has an extent of and an average altitude of . The savanna is situated in the Eastern Range ...
.
[
One of his captains, Juan de Céspedes, reached Pasca in July 1537, founding modern Pasca on July 15.][ It was the last village of the Muisca to be conquered before heading south into the domain of the Sutagao.][
]
Economy
Main economical activities in Pasca are livestock
Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals ...
farming and agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
, predominantly papa criolla, other potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...
es, pea
The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the flowering plant species ''Pisum sativum''. Each pod contains several peas, which can be green or yellow. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and d ...
s, onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion ...
s, bunching onions, tree tomato
The tamarillo (''Solanum betaceum'') is a small tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Solanaceae (the nightshade family). It is best known as the species that bears the tamarillo, an egg-shaped edible fruit. It is also known as the tre ...
es, bean
A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes th ...
s, carrot
The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in color, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild carrot, ''Daucus carota'', nat ...
s, cabbage
Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nb ...
, lettuce
Lettuce (''Lactuca sativa'') is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable, but sometimes for its stem and seeds. Lettuce is most often used for salads, although it is also seen in other kinds of food, ...
, tomato
The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...
es, corn
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
, blackberries
The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy of ...
, and the Colombian fruits gulupa and curuba
Banana passionfruit (''Passiflora'' supersect. ''Tacsonia''), also known as taxo and curuba, is a group of around 64 ''Passiflora'' species found in South America. Most species in this section are found in high elevation cloud forest habitats. Flo ...
.[
]
Archeology
The famous Muisca raft
The Muisca raft (''Balsa Muisca'' in Spanish), sometimes referred to as the Golden Raft of El Dorado, is a pre-Columbian votive piece created by the Muisca, an indigenous people of Colombia in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The piece ...
, representing the ritual of ''El Dorado
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...
'', was found in Pasca in 1969.[Explanation of the metallurgy of the Muisca raft by Eduardo Londoño]
- Museo del Oro The raft is now part of the Gold Museum collection in Bogotá
Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...
.
The town contains an archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
and a natural history museum.
Famous pasqueños
* Colombian poet and politician Adolfo León Gómez was born in Pasca and his grandmother, poet Josefa Acevedo de Gomez, lived and wrote her work here
* Native Zoratama
Zoratama, also spelled as Soratama, was a Muisca woman and the lover of Spanish conquistador Lázaro Fonte. Her story reminds of the North American indigenous Pocahontas who married John Rolfe after saving the life of John Smith.
Together wi ...
lived in Pasca
Ivan Ramiro Sosa cyclist winner of multiple races.
Gallery
See also
*''El Dorado
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...
''
* Juan de Céspedes
* Archeological Museum of Pasca, Sumapaz National Park
Sumapaz is the 20th locality of Bogotá, capital of Colombia. It is the largest of Bogotá's 20 localities, starting in the north at the edge of the urban frontier with Usme and stretching to the south at the border of Cundinamarca with the depar ...
References
External links
*
Photos of pre-Columbian art found in Pasca
{{Municipalities cundinamarca department
Municipalities of Cundinamarca Department
Tourist attractions in Cundinamarca Department
1537 establishments in the Spanish Empire
Populated places established in 1537
1537 disestablishments in the Muisca Confederation