The Zipa

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When the Spanish arrived in the central Colombia highlands, the region had two kings; the Zipa, was the ruler of the southern part including what is now known as Bogotá. The Zaque was the ruler or king of the northern area in Hunza, known today as Tunja.

The Zipa was the title of the king. The Zipa didn’t exercise a tight control over those he ruled, it was a position of great honor and surrounded by elaborate court ceremony. The position of the Zipa was such that not even the members of the nobility dare to look at him in the face, and it is said if the Zipa needed to spit, someone would hold out a piece of rich cloth for him to spit on, because it would be sacrilegious for anything so precious as his saliva to touch the ground. Whoever held the cloth (all the while carefully looking the other way) then carried it off to be reverently disposed of.

When Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada arrived in Bogotá the ruling Zipa was Tisquesusa and the Zaque was Nemequene

The position of the ruler was inherited but the inheritance was not patrilineal. Instead the king was succeeded by his nephew, the oldest son of his oldest sister. There were exceptions and the subjects apparently had some say in the matter, if only to confirm the successor in his post.