Guecha warrior

Guecha Warriors (Spanish: "güechas" or "gueches") were warriors of the Muisca Confederation who, in the time before the Spanish conquest, defended the territory of the Muisca and inhabited the Tenza and Ubaque valleys as well as the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, the high plateau of the Colombian Eastern Ranges of the Andes. Neighboring tribes include Panche and the Pijao. From descriptions, the "güechas" seem to have been a separate endogenous caste who served as guardians of the Muisca Territory.

Etymology
Güechá, in the Chibcha language of the Muisca, has a number of possible translations. The word güe- (with umlaut) can mean "people", "I killed", "house" or "place", and chá means "man" or "male"; meaning güechá can be literally translated to "man of the house", "man of the people", or "man who causes death" - the latter fitting perfectly with their status as warriors.

Güechá also stands for "the brother from another my mother", so "uncle".

Selection process
The Güechá Warriors were an elite troop of the Hamza soldiers. They were selected among the strongest and bravest men of the domains of the zipa, the ruler of the southern Muisca Confederation. The selection did not require nobile lineage, so any Chibcha could be become güechá. Exemplary service might even merit appointment as a cacicas, a part of the local nobility. The Güechá were reputed for valor, courage and overcoming a rigidly organized society within an absolutist monarchical system.

Features
A privileged group, individual Guecha Warriors were esteemed for toughness, courage, and bravery. Their work earned them prizes, as well as vacancies in cacicazgos (chiefdoms). Those who fell in battle received posthumous honors, meaning their corpses were adorned with certain balsams and borne on the shoulders of other fighters. The presence of their corposes was then used to infuse life into other soldiers. As undefeated Cid Ruy Diaz de Vivar, the Muisca guechas were rescued from death to go out and win battles against their enemies. The guecha status was not hereditary; it was only available to men of courage and great strength and skill with weaponry. It could be that the warriors were the only "democratic" group among the Muisca.

Appearance
The Muisca rulers (zaques and zipas) wore armor made of gold.

Chroniclers from the period of the Conquest give interesting details: "Men of great bodies, bold, loose, determined and vigilant" (Simon Peter), "brave and determined men, with big beautiful arrangement, lightness and skill" (Lucas Fernández de Piedrahita). Muisca men of the above qualities were sought among the vassals of the entire zipazgo of Bogotá and instructed and sent to the strengthen the borders.

Hair
Warriors wore their hair very short for safety in combat. Muisca ordinary men, by contrast, wore shoulder-length hair "as Nazarene", as can be seen in an oil painting by Gaspar de Figueroa dating from 1656 and owned by the Cómbita temple in Boyacá, entitled "San Nicolas de Tolentino". Fernandez de Piedrahita writes that it was considered a great shame to cut off the hair of a cacique; the Spanish invaders used that punishment to shame them. High-ranking muiscas, such as the chief of Tunja is known Quemuenchatocha wore long hair so they could roll it over their head within a wreath of feathers that Piedrahita describes as falling onto the eyebrows. Other major lords and chieftains wore bonnets or cotton caps.

Jewelry
Sumptuary customs forbade common men and women from using paints, glass or jewelry. The jewels were only for noble men, priests, chiefs or captains who were brave within the "hierarchies among vassals" (Fernandez de Piedrahita). The rich wore blankets during processions, ceremonies and contests. Crowns were similar to mitres and tiaras, their forehead crescents made of gold or silver with upturned toes, masks, gold medallions, bracelets with beads of green stone, red, and white strung at intervals. They used fine gold in gold chagualas nose and ear rings, etc. Uzaques "grandees" were allowed to pierce their ears and noses and to wear neck jewelry. The "guechas" were certainly important for the trade that developed in the defense of the territory, according to Pedro Simon, and were licensed to use gold objects. They had edge-pierced ears as well as nose and lips and hung their "fine gold beads, and how many had died panches everyone in the war" (Fernández de Piedrahita).

Armament and war
Weapons of the Muisca, which would use 'guechas "mentioned clubs, darts, spears, arrows, slingshots, tiraderas; Bows manipulated their slaves panches and Colimas that they had and they were taken with them to war. The Indians went into major combat "with beautiful curled feather plumes parrots and parrots, many of them in wide ribbons of fine gold, encrusted with emeralds lucid intervals, bracelets and fine coral beads, with gold beads at intervals ... " (Peter Simon). Fernández de Piedrahita mentioned in the fighting "... Vija inks and jagua for adornment and nuance of bodies ... ".