Antropología

Today is El Día del Maestro, or Teachers’ Day, in Bolivia. Prayers of gratitude fly to everyone at Centro Misionero Maryknoll, from the language program staff to the mission formation team to the communications team to the secretarial staff to the groundskeepers and custodial team, for preparing and maintaining an excellent learning environment.

As promised, Profesora Karla took Grace and me to a museum operated by the public university, Universidad de San Simón, featuring the natural history and cultural history of Bolivia, especially our region of Cochabamba. 

Profesora Liliana set the table for us during the first period of class, giving us a preview of what we could expect to learn. This led to an excursion into the ritual sacrifices made by the ancient Andean peoples to propitiate Pachamama for the sake of a good harvest. There were and are parallels in Andean cosmology between the fertility of the earth and the fertility of the human species, and the signs and symbols of sexuality play a significant role in the sacred rites of the people. Vestiges of those rituals remain with Bolivians today, as witnessed by the sacrificial offerings of infant figures to Christ crucified, in gratitude for fertile land and fertile families, during the celebrations of Santa Vera Cruz in Tatala early last month. Of course, the knowledge that, in the past, human beings were sacrificed as well as animals and plant offerings left us uneasy. (Rumor has it that in La Paz today, the most marginalized members of society—the homeless, the mentally ill—are sacrificed when major construction projects, such as of skyscrapers, begin.) As Profesora Liliana explained it, there is no good-evil duality in the Andean cosmology. Death is a part of life; thus, sacrifices even of humans was seen as simply an aspect of the unity of all creation, living and defunct. This is not to condone such sacrifices, by any means—it is a way of understanding the incomprehensible and unspeakable.

At the museum, a guide led us swiftly through the paleontological wing, from the Paleozoic Era to the present geological period, giving us a capsule version of the evolution of Earth and life in what is present-day Cochabamba. The remainder of our hour was devoted to a sweep through an anthropological history of Bolivia, from archaic times predating Inca civilization through the Tiwanaku empire to the Inca reign to the colonial period and early modern era. Artifacts of the hunting-gathering period to the advent of agriculture and herding were displayed before us. The simple ceramics and carved stone objects told the story of a transition from nomadic existence to sedentary society, as the tools and utensils of la vida cotidiana appeared. So, too, the ritual objects that accompanied the emergence of polytheistic cults. I both marveled at and was taken aback by the mummified children and adults, their petrified bodies telling the tale of the funeral rites of a long vanished people. I was shocked by the exhibits of elongated craniums, formed (deformed?) intentionally with wooden planks and cloth bands from infancy to signify that person’s status or ethnic identity in their community. There was hardly time to contemplate the meaning of this obscure practice as we hurried forward through time to the colonization of the Inca civilization, and the early crude attempts by the Franciscans to evangelize the peoples. They did not yet speak Aymara or Quechua, so they invented pictograms inscribed on cowhide to teach the Ten Commandments to the peoples, and they fashioned rounded stone tablets with simple symbols set in relief to depict the mysteries and tenets of the Christian faith.

This is a rather rushed summary of only some of the exhibits that made a surface impression on me. I apologize for the lack of description and analysis! After nearly four months of cultural and historical excursions, I am beginning to reach a point of saturation. Of course, breezing through an entire museum in one hour is another reason for feeling like what I received hardly has begun to sink in. A third reason, of course, is that I could follow and retain only so much of what our Spanish-speaking tour guide said. He spoke well despite having more gums than teeth, but my mind was constantly wandering as I set to reading every sign and placard … that is, when I was not standing with mouth agape at the sight of mummified children with elongated skulls. Call it culture shock by way of a blast from an ancient past.