The Magazine

PERFUMADOS: Navigating Indigenous Identity Through Ritual Art

September 15, 2025
By: CHICHIMUT (Diego Armando Barajas)

**CHIPE: The Invisible Perfumado**
Inspired by the Hitnü medicine from Arauca, CHIPE is a vision of the deer-man who, upon inhaling yopo (Roffa), ceases to be a body and becomes spirit. Invisible to the jaguar, he transforms into vibration, song, and air. This work evokes an identity defined not by the visible but by its connection to the spiritual world and the capacity to inhabit other planes. Here, invisibility is protection but also freedom.

Los Perfumados is a pictorial series born at the crossroads of artistic creation, field research, and ritual experience. This body of work does not arise from abstract or individual inspiration but from a direct lived experience: a prolonged process of listening, learning, and presence within Indigenous communities of Colombia, where art emerges as an act of memory, reciprocity, and healing. My aim with this series is to capture the multiple dimensions of these communities’ identities as a conscious and necessary response to the historical efforts of colonizers to erase them. Since the arrival of colonization, a systematic process of acculturation was set in motion—one that sought not only to eliminate languages, symbols, and spiritual practices, but also to render ancestral knowledge invisible and stigmatized. Rituals were labeled as superstition, power plants demonized, and entire worldviews reduced to mere folkloric curiosities. This symbolic and cultural violence sought to impose a single narrative, denying the plurality of living identities that have inhabited and cared for these territories for centuries.

In the face of this legacy of silencing, my work positions itself as an act of counter-memory: a gesture that brings back into view what was once concealed and pushed to the margins. I seek to reveal the richness, depth, and complexity of these identities to counteract the stereotypes inherited from a colonial gaze that oversimplified them to the point of distortion. Each image is an affirmation that Indigenous identity is neither static nor a vestige of the past, but a living, dynamic force capable of transformation without losing its spiritual and territorial roots.

Los Perfumados was born from a profoundly personal and spiritual journey: the urgent need to reconnect with my Muisca roots (an Indigenous people of Colombia) and to understand who I am, and why I grew up without a clear path to my origins. For years, I questioned why my ancestors had been silenced, why our practices had been erased, and why no living trace seemed to remain of our identity and culture.

Los Perfumados was born out of a deeply personal and spiritual journey—an urgent need to reconnect with my Muisca roots (an Indigenous people of Colombia), and to understand who I am and why I had grown up without a clear path to my origins. For years, I asked myself why my ancestors had been silenced, why our practices had been erased, and why no living traces of our identity and culture seemed to remain. It was through a process of immersion with various Indigenous communities of Colombia—such as the Inga, Cofán, Hitnü, Murui Muina, Emberá, Pastos, Barí, U’wa, Muisca, and Nasa peoples—and through my encounters with ancestral plant medicines like yagé (ayahuasca), yopo, tobacco, and cacao, that I began to find answers.

Participating in rituals, planting practices, and prayers alongside spiritual leaders, taitas, traditional healers, midwives, and knowledge keepers, I came to understand that the colonial system had not only erased our paths but had deeply fractured our collective memory. And yet, within these spaces of living wisdom, I discovered signs, songs, and visions that helped me reorient my path, reframe my identity, and begin to heal a historical wound.

It was in these sacred spaces that the visions which gave rise to Los Perfumados emerged. Some images were first channeled during ceremonies; others were sketched in notebooks while living in the communities; still others came from words, songs, symbols, and gestures shared by elders, within the framework of living spiritual practices that not only transmit knowledge but ways of being, seeing, and feeling the world.

This process was also deeply territorial: each pigment orgánic used achiote, tobacco, yagé, jagua, cacao, chimó, which originates from direct relationships with plants and the environment, collected, prepared, and activated in spaces of ceremony and prayer. Each painting is, therefore, a symbolic translation of ancestral knowledge, a spiritual cartography born from the territory, the body, and the vision.

This work does not aim to speak about Indigenous peoples but to create with them, from their practices, visions, and languages. Through ritual art, it proposes a way to activate memory, heal the relationship with the earth, and affirm that Indigenous identity is not a frozen past but a present force that continues transforming and flourishing.

The Inga people, located in the Sibundoy Valley and the forests of Alto Putumayo, of Quechua origin and descendants of the ancient Incas who migrated to Colombian territory, maintain a worldview deeply linked to the ritual use of yagé and the word as a vehicle of healing. Due to their mastery of sacred plants, vision medicine, and their role as guardians of the balance between body, spirit, and jungle, they have taught me that art can be a form of prayer and vision.

The Cofán people, located in the jungle regions of Putumayo and the Ecuadorian border, “are” one of the oldest peoples of the Amazon, known for their profound knowledge of the jungle and defense of territory against extractivist threats, their rituals with yagé, and their vision of the jaguar as a being of power have deeply influenced my pictorial process.

The Hitnü people, located in the Arauca and Casanare departments in the Llanos foothills, are a nomadic population at risk, inhabiting savanna and forest zones. Their language and ritual practices, their connection with yopo (Roffa ancestral medicine that is extracted from the seed of a tree, then macerated into a powder and inhaled through the nostrils), and the jaguar as a figure of transformation revealed to me other ways of seeing the world. Working with them has been an act of symbolic and poetic resistance.

The Murui Muina (Huitoto) Indigenous people, located in Amazonas and Caquetá, call themselves “people from the center of the world.” They maintain a complex system of chants, dances, and tobacco as ritual practice to sustain the order of the universe, with a worldview centered on the word and song as weavings of identity. They taught me that painting can also be a way to sing the history of the territory.

The Emberá people, located in Chocó, Risaralda, Antioquia, and areas of the Darién, are an ancestral people of western Colombia with a strong connection to rivers, gold, and the humid jungle. They are known for body art and healing chants; their silent wisdom and connection to the body as a ritual space have influenced my understanding of painting as a second skin.

The Pasto people, located in the department of Nariño in the southwestern Andean zone, are an agricultural and ceremonial people known for their relationship with fire, corn, and lunar calendars; their connection to earth cycles and knowledge of fire as a transformative element offered me a vision of art linked to the care of food and lineage.

The Barí people, located in Norte de Santander on the Venezuelan border, are a warrior people and defenders of their jungle territory; their relationship with yuca as the root of life and the figure of the tapir as guardian of the forest taught me that art can also be nourishment and care.

The U’wa people, located in the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy, Arauca, Boyacá, and Santander, are an Andean people known for their firm defense of Mother Earth and their vision of the world as an energetic fabric. Sharing with them meant learning about dignity, balance, and the act of caring for the world without needing to utter a word.

The Muisca people, located in the Cundiboyacense high plateau (Bogotá, Boyacá, and Cundinamarca), are an ancestral people who inhabited the center of present-day Colombian territory. Their worldview revolves around water, sun, moon, and cycles; as part of my own roots and territory, my bond with the Muisca people is a way to remember that I too am earth that has forgotten but can return to its origin.

Art as Prayer and Sacred Pigment

In my artistic practice, each pigment is much more than a color: it is a living being, a presence summoned through a careful and respectful ritual that begins with conscious gathering and extends to the preparation and activation of the material for creative acts. I gather achiote with respect, always in tune with the season and natural abundance. For me, this plant symbolizes the blood of Mother Earth; its intense red is fire, life, and protection. In the Chitareras communities, achiote is a tree of power, and its pigment is not just a material but a bond with the earth, with the energy that opens paths and heals. Tobacco is the master plant of the spirit. Its harvesting is done with reverence because its essence is sacred and powerful. When preparing its pigment, I channel its energy to purify the space and align the creative process. In the Indigenous worldview, tobacco is a word and bridge between worlds, a medicine that cleans and opens invisible doors. Extracting pigment from yagé is immersing oneself in the vision and mystery of the jungle; this plant is medicine for the heart and mind, and its presence awakens deep perceptions. Yagé pigment is transparent and vibrant, a reminder of the inner journey that connects art with the energy of the jaguar and ancestral wisdom.

Jagua is living ink that protects and transforms; I collect it in its natural environment, caring for balance. Its black-blue pigment is more than color: it is a second skin, a mask that makes visible the invisible, a symbol of protection and bodily memory. Cacao is the heart of many Indigenous communities; its pigment, sweet and warm, evokes emotional memory, lineage, and care. Collecting and preparing this pigment is an act of connection with life’s sweetness, a ritual of love and belonging. Chimó, an ancestral mixture used to energize and protect, is also a fundamental part of my pigments. Its ritual use during preparation connects body and spirit, linking the work with the strength of the territory and its invisible guardians.

Each pigment is activated in ceremonies, chants, and prayers. This ritual process not only transforms the material but also transforms me as an artist and human being. Painting is therefore a sacred act, a bridge between matter and spirit, between personal and collective identity, between body and earth.

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About the Author

Diego Armando Barajas Vera (CHICHIMUT) is a visual artist from Chinácota, Norte de Santander, Colombia. His work is rooted in direct experiences with Indigenous communities, particularly within ritual contexts involving medicinal plants. Using organic pigments sourced from nature, his artistic practice reflects on the origins of humanity and the sacred connection between body, land, and ancestral memory.