Source: Revista Colombiana de
Antropología, Vol. 39, Bogotá, Enero-diciembre 2003, pp. 203-235.
U. Oslender (2003, p. 209).*  
DOI: https://doi.org/
10.22380/2539472X. 1241  
However, in this regard, amphibian culture and its social and economic expressions portray the dynamics according to which the yield from livestock farming and agriculture depends heavily on 'the rhythm of the floods and droughts of rivers and channels' (Fals Borda, 1979, 2002, p. 23). This rhythm also influences and determines the time and space in patterns of settlement, thereby giving settlements regular, irregular, fixed or temporary cycles and seasons. The superstitions and legends of this landscape, dominated by water, but created, controlled and appropriated by community environments, continually lead to what Fals Borda calls the 'mythological idealisation of amphibian culture' (1979, 2002, p. 26) which, as we will see, finds one of its most representative icons in the devil or the demon.  
The Colombian Pacific could be regionalized in some way, taking Buenaventura as a distinct reference point between southern and northern areas. The southern Colombian Pacific stretches out from a zone irrigated by the Mataje River, at the borders between Ecuador and Colombia, up to San Juan to the north of the port of Buenaventura and northwards from the San Juan River (Almario García, 2012, p. 73), then from the San Juan River northwards towards the Darién region in the northern Colombian Pacific, which is occupied for the most part by the current department of Chocó. In colonial times, this area was broken down into five 'countries' or 'regions', according to the proposal put forward by Jiménez: Nóvita, Citará, Tatamá, El Raposo and El Baudó (Jiménez, 2004, p. 3). In reference to the economic structure, society and conventions, Jiménez suggests that Nóvita constituted gold country, Citará farming country and El Baudó shelter country (Jiménez, 2004, p. 1).