The article discusses relations with the dead, forms of metamorphosis, and the role of religious specialists among Chibcha (Kogi, Barí), Carib (Yukpa), and Arawakan (Wayuu) groups of northwestern South America. Each of these groups deviates from standard understandings of Amazonian animism. Despite their heterogeneity, the groups share a belief in a continuous interaction with the dead and, at the same time, lack notions of voluntary and purposeful metamorphosis. Relations with spirits and the dead are of greater importance than immediate relations with game animals, which are generally not considered to have the same interiority as humans. This difference also produces forms of shamanism and priesthood based on divination, dreams, and the mastery of spirit helpers. The Isthmo‐Colombian area in northwestern South America is thus marked by forms of hierarchical animism in which relations to the collectivity of dead, offerings, gifts, and, in the case of the Wayuu, sacrifice play an important role. [Isthmo‐Colombian area, Amerindian sociocosmologies, death rituals, Yukpa, Barí, Kogi, Wayuu]