The Origin of the World: Baba and Nana, the First Spirits

One of the first times I visited San Blas, I had an interesting conversation with a Guna who was showing me around Isla Perro. I asked him, “Do you believe in God, or in a mighty being?” After that, we had an engaging conversation. I don’t even know how long we talked, but it felt like it went from daytime to sunset.

He started by saying, “We believe in Baba and Nana.” And his story went something like this: 

According to the Guna, before there was sea or sky, light or sound, there was only silence… a great stillness that stretched forever, and from that silence emerged two breaths: Baba, the Great Father, and Nana, the Great Mother. They were not separate beings but two parts of one whole — the warmth and the cold, the sun and the earth, the seed and the soil.

Together, they started to dream. From their dreams, the first light emerged, becoming the sun and stars. Their songs transformed into rivers, mountains, and forests. From their laughter came the birds; from their tears, the ocean.

When they saw the beauty of the world they had imagined, they wanted to create guardians that could protect it—beings who could walk, love, and care for it. So Baba shaped the first humans from the clay of the riverbanks, and Nana breathed into them the wind of life. She taught them how to plant, sing to the rain, and live in harmony with all that exists.

But she also warned: “Remember, you are part of everything you see. The rivers are your veins, the wind your breath, the earth your body. If you harm them, you harm yourself.”

The Guna say that even now, Baba and Nana sleep beneath the world, dreaming new life into existence. When the sea is calm, it is because grandmother is resting. When the wind moves the palms, it is Nana whispering to remind her children that they belong to the earth, not above it.

To this day, every chant, ceremony, and story in Gunayala begins by honoring them —the first harmony, the balance that made all things possible.