The goddess Bachué (in
Chibcha language: "the one with the naked breast"), is a
mother goddess
A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or the natural world, ...
that according to the
Muisca religion is the mother of humanity. She emerged of the waters in the
Iguaque Lake with a baby in her arms, who grew to become her husband and populated the Earth. She received worshipping in a temple, in the area now within the municipality of
Chíquiza, formerly called "San Pedro de Iguaque".
The legend tells that after she accomplished the goal of giving birth to humanity, Bachué and the parrot god, her husband, became
snake
Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more j ...
s and returned to the
sacred lagoon
Sacred waters are sacred natural sites characterized by tangible topographical land formations such as rivers, lakes, springs, reservoirs, and oceans, as opposed to holy water which is water elevated with the sacramental blessing of a ...
. The history of Bachué was mentioned by the
Spanish chronicler,
Pedro Simón
''Fray'' Pedro Simón (San Lorenzo de la Parrilla, Spain, 1574 - Ubaté, New Kingdom of Granada, ca. 1628) was a Spanish franciscan friar, professor and chronicler of the indigenous peoples of modern day Colombia and Venezuela, at the time ...
in his book ''Noticias Historiales'' where he wrote that the indigenous people also called her "Furachogua" (Chibcha for: "the good woman"), and worshipped her as one of their main deities. Simón also mentions that the
Muisca believed that Bachué sometimes came back from the
underworld
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld ...
to guide her people.
See also
*
Muisca women
This article describes the role of women in the society of the Muisca. The Muisca are the original inhabitants of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense (present-day central Colombian Andes) before the Spanish conquest of the Muisca in the first h ...
*
Rómulo Rozo – sculptor of ''Bachué, goddess generatriz of the Chibchas''
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bachue
Muisca goddesses
Pre-Columbian mythology and religion
Mother goddesses
Muysccubun