DEDICATED TO...

LAURA’S BIOGRAPHY

 She is an anthropologist from Cali, Colombia, passionate about exploring how myths reveal hidden truths about culture. Specialized in the connection between Muisca and Yoruba traditions, she focuses on how colonial narratives transformed sacred rituals into stories of fear.

She met Camilo during her university research, and together they began investigating ancestral legends for his diary The Rituals of Fire and Water. Laura joined the project for her knowledge of Afro-Colombian history and anthropology.

When I first met Camilo, he was the kind of person who looked at myths not as stories, but as keys to hidden truths.

He was passionate about ancient cultures, especially about how African and Indigenous beliefs might have once shared the same language of rituals, fire, and water.

We became close friends during our studies, and eventually, he invited me to support him on one of his most ambitious investigations — the one about the Buziraco.

Camilo kept a personal diary, “The Rituals of Fire and Water,” where he documented every finding, every connection, and every mystery he encountered. He asked for my help because, as an anthropologist, I had specific knowledge about colonial archives and the Afro-Colombian traces in Cali's oral traditions.  

That’s how I found myself standing next to him, in front of a legend that everyone thought they already knew.   

People say the Buziraco is a monster —   

A giant entity about four meters tall, with a dark aura, enormous wings, and horns that could pierce a person.   

They say that in 1978, it brought plagues, hunger, and fire to the city of Cali.    

That it hid in the hills during the day, and at night it came out to torment people.    

That friars placed three bamboo crosses to protect the city…   

Until one day, lightning struck and destroyed them — and the disgrace returned.    

 That’s the story everyone in Cali knows.

But our research led us to something very different. Because legends — real legends — always hide another layer beneath the surface.

As I read through the archives, I realized what Camilo meant when he told me:

    “It’s time to stop believing in the nonsense the Spanish Catholic world brought to our ancestors.”     

    This whole story — the crosses, the demon, the fire — was never about the devil.

    It was about cultural resistance.

   Many years ago, Yoruba believers lived in southwestern Nigeria.   

    During colonization, they were enslaved and brought to Colombia — through Chocó, very close to Cali.   

There, they performed rituals imploring their freedom, praying to Shangó, the deity of thunder and justice.   
When Shangó responded, he would throw lightning flashes into the center of their ritual dance circles.   
 
Imagine that: for a people stripped of their freedom, lightning became a message of hope. 

But when Africans and Cali natives began to interact, the Spanish grew afraid.   They spread rumors that these dances were acts of evil.   They said that Shangó was not a god but the devil himself —   and they gave him a new name: Buziraco.  

That was how the legend was born.   Not from truth… but from fear.   From ignorance.   From the need to control.    The Spanish had already plundered gold and land.   Now, they plundered belief.   They transformed Shangó, a god of justice, into a demon of chaos.   And they taught people to fear the very rituals that once gave them strength. 

One night, the people of Cali decided they had enough.   
They went out hunting with torches, holy water, and friars, determined to destroy Buziraco.