The Sierra, as I heard about it and experienced it in the company of the Mamas, appeared to be a garden of Eden, a heart of the world containing the whole of the world. And here, I was told, the Mother's offspring, her male child Serankua, created humans. They were made to look after the world, to care for everything in it. Animals and plants were placed not under their dominion but in their care.

The Kogi word for themselves, Kaggaba, means 'people'. I believe that it comes from kaggi, meaning 'earth'. Similarly, our word 'Adam', which in Hebrew means 'mankind', comes from adamah, also meaning 'earth'. But the Kogi do not simply mean that people were created from clay; they mean that humanity shares in the nature of the earth, and is part of it. The second half of Kaggaba, aba, means 'mother'.

Everything that could be, everything that will be, already was known to the Mother. If she had not thought it, if it had not been shaped in aluna, then it did not have the possibility of being conceived. And if it cannot be conceived, it cannot be made. Helicopters, television cameras, all our inventions, are not ours alone I was told. These things already were, from the time before time.