Members of local tribes – the Arhuaco, the Koguis, and the Wiwas – have stated that they visited the site regularly before it was widely reported, but had kept quiet about it. They call the city Teyuna and believe it was the heart of a network of villages inhabited by their forebears, the Tairona. Ciudad Perdida was probably the region's political and manufacturing center on the Buritaca River and may have housed 2,000–8,000 people. The site was originally inhabited by the Tairona people. According to the Kogi people, some of the last preserved indigenous descendants of the Tairona, The Tairona lived for thousands of years, up until the age of the conquistadors. From its building somewhere around 800 A.D. up until around the late 14th century, the Tairona people lived in this settlement along the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. Although they are commonly referred to in general as the “Tairona people”, there were many groups and settlement spread across the mountain and the beach in different, smaller communities, or polities, all trading and working together. The Tairona people were forced to flee from La Ciudad Perdida after years of trade and conflict, sometime in the 15th century. When the Spanish landed on their land in 1514, the conquistador took out his declaration and read, “I assure you, that with the help of God, I will make war on you in every place, and in every way I can and I will subject you to the yolk and obedience of the church and their highnesses and I will take your persons and your women and your children and I will make them slaves and I will take your goods and do you all the evils and harms which I can”.[6] The Tairona people were strong warriors, and resisted the oppression of the conquistadors for a long time, up until about 100 years later when they finally fled. For many years after the Spanish arrived on their shores, the Tairona were able to hold their ground despite violent treatment from Europeans. The Tairona people, much like the Kogi people today, were not violent people. The Kogi believe in kindness and equality. The Tairona people lived to protect and serve the earth, not only for themselves but for everyone. As the European colonizers began to settle on indigenous territory, they began enslaving the natives who fished and collected salt on the coast. The Tairona people in the mountains, dependent on the fish and salt farmed by the coastal Tairona people, told escaped enslaves Tairona members to return and bring the Europeans gifts of gold to appease them The Europeans took the gold but were not appeased and began to get more and more hostile with the natives. This isn't to say the Tairona didn’t meet them back with a wall of resistance. They held their ground for many years against the conquistadors. The exact number of years it took for them to finally be forced to flee La Ciudad is unknown. The effects of the conquistador's colonization of their village are still seen today. As the years passed, the Europeans took more and more of the gold originally crafted by the indigenous people. Much of that gold still resides in museums across Europe, leaving the current descendant tribes of today, Kogi, Arsarios, Arhuacos, Kankwamos, and the Chimilas, without any of the gold of their ancestors. The Kogi people live on the last Pre-Columbian settlement and have more-or-less kept the ways of the Tairona people for years since they were forced out of their settlements by conquistadors in the 1500’s. It’s important to recognize though that with time comes evolution and adaptation, indigenous people are not exempt from these changes. Although the Kogi can be a way to gather more information about ancient tribes, it’s not a perfect guide to who the Tairona were 500 years ago. The Kogi people believe that everything buried in La Ciudad Perdida contributes to the peace, harmony, and balance of the world. After teaching one of their members Spanish, they presented this case to the Colombian government and successfully reclaimed the rights to their ancestral land, and groups like the Global Heritage Fund continuously work to protect the historic site against, as the Kogi people would say, “younger brothers” harm.