The Muzo people are a Cariban-speaking[2][3][4] indigenous group who inhabited the western slopes of the eastern Colombian Andes.

During the time of conquest, they resisted heavily against the Spanish invaders taking twenty years to submit the Muzo.

Their northern neighbours were the Naura people,[5] the Panche in the south, and to the southeast the Muisca inhabited the higher-elevation Altiplano Cundiboyacense.

Many Muzo children were born covered with bristle hair, which made the superstitious mothers kill their babies.

[5] The Muzo people lived naked and gave their children names of trees, animals and plants.

[citation needed] The Muzo society was divided into warriors, higher castes and chingamanas or chingamas; and slaves, commonly captured from other indigenous tribes.

[5][6] Warfare and hunting were executed using poisoned arrows, as was a common practice with indigenous tribes in South America.

[6] The two mountain peaks Fura and Tena, bordering the Carare River, were considered sacred by the Muzo people and believed they were the parents of humanity, creation of Are.

The myth of Furatena tells about a man with blue eyes and blonde beard, Zarbi, who entered the Muzo territories looking for the Fountain of Youth.

[11] The Muisca performed secret pilgrimages to Fura and Tena, avoiding the Muzo warriors attempting to discover them.

[14] Although the accounts on the exploitation of silver, copper, iron and gold in the region vary, the chroniclers agree on the emeralds.

[16] It is estimated that the Muzo people pushed the Muisca who originally inhabited the lower-elevation terrain eastwards into the mountains of the Eastern Ranges by 1000 AD.