"Community Justice" and Cultural Property: Very preliminary thoughts

The church at Quila Quila

During southern hemisphere winter in 2005 I was working in a Bolivian village. One weekday morning the church bells starting ringing. The only other time that had happened, a building was on fire and we assumed this was the case. Some of us went out to see what was up. Turns out a young man from outside of the community had been caught trying to break into someone's house. He was locked in a closet and the community was trying to decide what was to be done with him. There was talk of lynching him.

As hard as it was to believe that our friends and coworkers might actually lynch this poor kid, several other lynchings had taken place in Bolivian villages right around then. Thankfully, the kid wasn't lynched: I think that the higher-ups in the community fully realised that such a move would be bordering on insane for so many reasons, not the least being that the place is a tourist attraction and nothing discourages tourism like beating a kid to death and setting him on fire. As far as I know, the kid was handed over to police who drove in from La Paz.

Thus it didn't really surprise me to find out that two men were lynched in the village of Quila Quila this year after allegedly being caught 'red handed', stealing colonial paintings from the local church.

Before I continue, I'm not going to put any links to news stories here because they are all filled with photos of dead bodies. Google at your own risk.

What allegedly happened:

The only picture of all this that I am willing to post

Quila Quila is home to less than 200 people and, although it is only 40 km from the city of Sucre, it is difficult to get to. Although not particularly high for Bolivia, at 2,582 m above sea level, one has to leave the main road and eventually cross a river which is often flooded to get there. On Sunday 6 March, 2012, residents of the village of Quila Quila noticed three strangers in the village. Some reports say that the men attended mass in the morning or were seen in the church which was opened on the Sunday, but I have been unable to verify this (or verify that the Quila Quila church even has regular mass). Clearly this was suspicious and the community placed the church under observation.

Sometime in the night, two of the men were caught coming out of the window of the church. They had allegedly removed paintings and metal objects from their usual spots, and in the pocket of one man there was allegedly a stolen item and a gun. The community took the men into custody early Monday morning.

At some point a member of the community was able to contact the police in Sucre and informed the authorities that the two men were about to be lynched. This call was either made by or confirmed by the pastor of the village (if he does exist, that would support the idea of a Sunday mass), who urged the community members to hand the suspects over. Police officials attempted to reach Quila Quila that day but river flooding prevented access. Meanwhile what little contact was made with the community did not produce any confirmation that the suspected thieves were safe.

At 4 am on the Tuesday the authorities again tried to reach Quila Quila. News reports indicate that around 80 or 90 police officers, officials, and others were deployed. At the previously flooded Cachimayu bridge, motorcycles were lowered by ropes and an advance team headed towards the entrance of the community while the rest proceeded on foot. At 10:30 am they reached the entrance to the village, which they found was blockaded by the villagers. They negotiated with the villagers at the blockade for a few hours and eventually learned that the suspected thieves had been killed.

Upon promising that community members would not be prosecuted and, interestingly, that they would investigate the theft in order to find the suspected 3rd thief, the villagers told the police what happened and where the bodies could be found. In a shallow grave behind the church, the police exhumed the bodies of Severo Higueres Cruz of Potosí and Pablo Vilasaca Pallehuanca of La Paz. An autopsy confirmed that the men had been handcuffed, beaten, and stoned and had died of manual strangulation.

Reality:

Quila Quila also has nice rock art...

Yesterday I did a quick news search of lynchings in Bolivia. In a half hour I found 7 lynchings this year, not including the Quila Quila lynching. Everyone kinda halfway talks about lynchings in Bolivia, especially in relation to community justice systems and, especially, Indigenous community justice systems. In 2009 when the new constitution came into effect, publicly sanctioned community lynchings were presented as the possible horrible outcome of a move towards decentralized, cultural justice systems. That didn't happen, thankfully, and the government constantly says that community justice doesn't get to include lynching, but that doesn't mean that this is not a cultural phenomenon and, of course, that it isn't a possibility in the case of 'caught red handed' theft.

While this is the only case that I know of where alleged cultural property thieves were lynched, it is also the only one that I know of where the thieves were caught in the act by villagers. In a way, this was the only case where a lynching could occur and it did occur. It seems like under similar circumstances (remote village, no police presence, red-handed church thieves), a lynching might happen again. Theft is, I am told, considered to be really quite serious in Indigenous communities and theft from the community is probably considered even more serious. I have a pile of academic papers on lynching in Bolivia to read over regarding cultural and social motivation so I won't start speculating on that now, but this has to be seen as a real possible outcome of an attempted theft of cultural property in Bolivia under certain circumstances.

Such things are so difficult to approach objectively through the lens of my own cultural sense of morality and justice. I'll let you know how reading the papers goes.

Goodbye commenting!

Hey y'all. Just a little heads up. I have removed comments from this blog. The two main reasons for this are that almost no one comments and because I seem to be hot on the blog spambot circuit. I am just not into denying a list of spam comments every day. I am also not into that lil' 'no comments' notice at the bottom of each post.

I like the idea of conversational comments to online works. Back in the early to mid 00s, aka the Live Journal era, comments were half the fun: that exchange was an integral part of the experience for everyone involved. Things change. Blogs are more like a daily/weekly/monthly newspaper column and commenting has moved on to other social media.

Disabling comments does not mean I do not want to hear from you. I really do! Heck I even made a Twitter account to try to 'engage' more: a move that surprised those who have heard me talk smack about Twitter for years. This just means you have to email me with comments, corrections, and ideas.

Spain to 'restore' silver from Odyssey Marine case to Bolivia...but why?

I'm only about a month behind the times on this one: that is pretty good for me.

Many of you have been following the odyssey of Odyssey Marine for some time. I admit that I haven't. It is high drama between a commercial salvage company and Spain that played out in US courts. Out of the controversy surrounding the wreck of the Nuestro Señora de las Mercedes (or, as it might be better known, 'Black Swan'), Peru and Bolivia emerged as potential claimants for the contents of the wreck.

Totally inadequate summary of the complex back story that I am sure that I don't fully understand:

• Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes is sunk off the coast of Portugal during the 1804 Battle of Cape Santa Maria.
• In May 2007 it becomes clear that the commercial salvage company Odyssey Marine had located a major wreck when they the company flew 17 tons of mostly silver coins from Gibraltar to Florida. Subtle.
• Odyssey Marine would not disclose which wreck the coins came from, nor the type or date of the coins involved. This made everyone wonder what they were hiding. They called the operation The Black Swan Project. The results were around $500 million USD worth of gold and silver coins (guessing they mean price of metal).
• It eventually came out that the ship was the Nuestro Señora de las Mercedes; this is important because the ship was sailing under the flag of Spain and was not a private merchant ship.
• Spain claimed sovereign immunity over the contents of the wreck. Crazy stuff goes down such as ship seizures and stuff in disputed territorial waters.
• In 2009 a magistrate judge in Florida ruled that the treasure did come from a Spanish warship and ruled in favour of Spain's claim of sovereign immunity. A district court judge validated the report. Said the judge: "The ineffable truth of this case is that the Mercedes is a naval vessel of Spain and that the wreck of this naval vessel, the vessel's cargo, and any human remains are the natural and legal patrimony of Spain."
• In 2011 the 11th circuit court of appeals upheld the findings of the lower court: the ship was a Spanish warship and the stuff should be sent to Spain. The key line from the ruling is "We do not hold the recovered [treasure] is ultimately Spanish property. Rather, we merely hold the sovereign immunity owed the shipwreck of the Mercedes also applies to any cargo the Mercedes was carrying when it sank."
• The US Supreme Court has since declined to hear arguments for an emergency stay on the return of the coins. On Feb 24 of this year, the coins flew to Spain.

So going back to that last quote: the US court ruled that Spain clearly had sovereignty over the wreck and thus had sovereignty over the contents of the wreck. This does not mean the contents of the wreck are property of the Spanish government, rather that the lawful government of Spain is the proper authority for determining the ownership right of the contents of the wreck. With that in mind, Peru, Bolivia, and some descendants of the business folk who had invested in the shipment back in the day have come calling.

Seriously: Those are all buckets of silver.

'But blogger-type-person', you might say, 'that was a Spanish ship that went down off the coast of Portugal, what does that have to do with Peru or Bolivia...and isn't Bolivia landlocked?'. To that, I push my glasses up my nose and say, well, in 1804 Bolivia (then called Upper Peru because Simón Bolívar was but 21 years old and was in France attending Napoleon's coronation that year...fun fact!) was part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of La Plata, and it had not yet lost its coast to Chile. But that is beside the point. Bolivia is involved because, well, historic injustice.

The silver carried on Nuestro Señora de las Mercedes came from the fantastic silver lode of Potosí. It was mined by countless anonymous Indigenous people who were more or less forced into a system of corvee labour that was the result of a unique and complicated series of agreements that allowed for Indigenous social structures to stay partially in place in return for an annual supply of mine workers. Not all the miners at Potosí came as a result of the mita system, but life wasn't great for anyone digging the mountain. It still isn't. There are a lot of estimates for how many people died in the mines, but, taking into account things like silicosis and mercury poisoning let us just say the number is vast. At some point several tens of thousands of black slaves were brought in. The idea of Potosí is complicated and painful. The area is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Potosí by Guayasamín at La Capilla del Hombre, Quito. Your stoic, cold-hearted blogger started crying there, looking at their emaciated contorted bodies clawing for the sunlight. It made the 11 year old I was with cry too which made me feel worse.

Here is a fuzzy question: when does cultural property become cultural property?

The silver on the ship, as I said, was undoubtedly mined by people Indigenous to the land that is now Bolivia. It was very likely minted in Bolivia, with Indigenous Bolivians (and black slaves at some point, who apparently were strapped to the mint mills in place of mules who tended to die from the exertion of twisting the machine) performing most of the work. Yet this activity was done under the aegis of the Spanish crown, was overseen by Spaniards, and the minted coins were property of Spain/Spanish people. Indeed the coins only exist for the expressed cultural purpose of being sent to Spain, that was their reason for being. There was nothing illegal about their movement until, maybe of course, they were removed from the seabed by Odyssey Marine (yet to be determined according to Spain). Seems like Spain has a good case for granting ownership of the coins to itself.

Last month Queen Sofía traveled to Bolivia to chill with President Evo Morales and take a tour of the lovely ruins of Tiwanaku (represent!) where she lit some candy on fire because that is just what is done. On 16 October, as part of that visit, Spain and Bolivia signed a Memorandum of Understanding stating that the two governments were going to work together towards the 'reposición' of some of the silver from the wreck. I avoided translating that word because I am not sure what English word to use in this case. Is this a 'return', a 'restitution', a 'repatriation'? Is it, dare I say, a 'reparation'? The objects are being cleaned and conserved and, once it is established which pieces were coined in Potosí (which, I'm going to say, is probably going to be most if not all of the silver), they are going to sort stuff out.

Evo and Sofia. Note that Bolivia now has two flags:
the Republican tri-color and the Indigenous wiphala to the right.

Morales, as expected, discussed Indigenous exploitation during his speech following the signing of the agreement. Minister of Culture Pablo Groux stated that this was a way to give Potosí 'a little recompense' for everything that was taken out of the mountain. Which, by the way, made up the majority of the silver in circulation in the world at the time.

Miner monument at Potosí

Me speaking intellectually, if we are going to accept the idea of a World Heritage, the return of the silver objects to the World Heritage Site of Potosí seems like a great idea. The story of the wreck against the backdrop of the mountain and the stories of the miners is a stellar contextualised heritage experience. I'd go see that...heck I will go see that. Maybe that is what is going on here to a certain degree, but one can't help but wonder how much this is a gesture of good will over a past injustice that the current Bolivian administration is passionate about. Spain, of course, has the sovereign right to determine the owner of the wreck's contents by whatever rubric they think fits.

Much of Bolivia's political rhetoric at the moment is focused on the transformational moment of the Conquest and the centuries of Indigenous hardship that followed. The idea of colonial period suffering is enshrined in the preamble of the 2009 Constitution and, historically and even currently, the struggles of the miners are the archetype of the struggles of all Indigenous people (kinda, perhaps communal land holding is more symbolic). It is pretty interesting to see this 'reposición' go down because it is certainly meaningful.

So yeah, this is really just your standard 'Who owns the past' sort of post, but it is a unique situation: Spain, as sovereign over the wreck potentially granting an insane amount of silver to Bolivia? Interesante.

[Antiquities] Trafficking Gangs Operate in Bolivia (La Razon, in English)

(the second installment of my translations of the wonderful feature that La Razón has put together on cultural property crime in Bolivia)

Trafficking Gangs Operate in Bolivia

This year there were two robberies of cultural property, with 115 pieces stolen. Interpol believes that the offenders have taken them to as many as five countries on other continents.

La Razón
5 November 2012
http://www.la-razon.com/suplementos/informe/Mafias-traficantes-operan-Bolivia_0_1716428485.html

The trafficking of cultural property is not only undertaken by huaqueros at Tiwanaku and its surrounding areas, or at the other archaeological ruins of the country, it also happens as a result of the complicity of custodians and people living near Colonial religious sanctuaries, according to information from the International Police (Interpol) in Bolivia, and at the same time government mechanisms for the protection of this heritage are still weak.

In August, the churches of Guaqi and Ocobaya in the provinces of Ingavi and South Yungas of [the Department of] La Paz, respectively, suffered the theft of relics that usually end up on the black market. "After the arms trade and the drugs trade, trafficking in cultural property is one of the easiest ways to obtain illicit money in the world, and the thefts at Colonial churches and of pre-Columbian objects are intense," says the renowned Peruvian archaeologist Luis Lumbreras.

Control

Interpol explains that the primary threat to Bolivian relics is the illicit trade. "There is no good, effective control, the only thing that is applied is social control, as villagers (of the sites where there is looting) say, and even the help of the Ministry of Culture is not enough; because of this, when they [the villagers] find an ancient piece they sell it to foreigners", related Colonel Álex Ríos.

Because this heritage is protected by the Political Constitution, article 331 of the Penal Code punishes their theft with one to five years in prison, and the penalty is increased to between three and ten years if the crime is committed with weapons or with the concealment of the identity of the agent by two or more individuals in a remote area; furthermore article 223 dictates that: "Whoever destroys, deteriorates, removes or exports an object that belongs in the public domain, a source of wealth, a monument or object of national archaeological, historical or artistic heritage, incurs a imprisonment from one to six years.

The statistics of the Unit of Intangible Heritage of the Ministry of Culture reveal that in the last 15 years there were at least 89 thefts that resulted in the disappearance of 1,276 heritage pieces. In 2011 there were four burglaries that [resulted in the theft of] 32 objects; and so far this year there were only two cases (those of Ocobaya and Guaqui), but the number of stolen relics amounts to 115.

Traffickers of archaeological pieces hire campeseños to dig into the subsoil of pre-Hispanic ruins, according to Interpol and archaeologists Jedú Sagárnaga and José Estévez; in the case of Colonial churches, the guardians or "stewards" are the primary suspects. Interpol warns that these people are contacted by gangs to remove objects, and then hand them over to "bridges" or "links" that lead to the end of the chain, the antiquities dealer or collector. The chain has national and international links.

Guaqui

Something like that happened in Guaqui between the night of Thursday 2 August and the morning of the next day, or at least that is what is suspected. There the image of Tata Santiago, as devotees know him, was the victim. Only the saint knows who stole 105 silver artefacts which were approximately 200 years old. "There has been an arrest; however it seems that it will be difficult to recover the items", Eduardo Quispe, the neighbourhood leader, mutters with anger.

The event took place one week after the Patron Saint feast day, and according to guardian Ricardo Aguilar, the accusations point to a Peruvian citizen Teófilo Campos, who came last year to the village with the alleged intention of writing a biography of the late father Sebastián Fancella, and who asked to be housed in the basilica while he wrote his book. "He said that he was conducting interviews", related the neighbourhood leader Rogelio Ticona. Now, Campos is apprehended in the San Pedro penitentiary in the city of La Paz.

The crime happened on exactly the night that Aguilar forgot to set the electronic alarm that protects the building. "I had not armed it, I forgot, I did not think this would happen, I have worked here for years", argues the 64 year old man, trying to find an explanation for what happened. But Ticona has no doubt about what happened: "They had planned it (Aguilar and Campos), the caretaker knows where the cables go. They had been cut; the one who is directly responsible is him".

The parish priest, Celso Garcilazo, admits that it was "unwise of the caretaker Aguilar". However, what happened in Guaqui reflects the fundamental common denominators of the looting of cultural property. "Generally it is undertaken through the complicity of the caretaker or the person in charge of the custodianship of the churches and even those that have alarm systems, they are not activated and just on that day they forget to arm them and the objects are removed," explains Colonel Ríos of Interpol.

Aguilar and one of his sons were the guards of the church during the past 15 years and each receives 300 Bolivianos to safeguard the ecclesiastical treasures––money that is paid from the savings of the church––because the communities of the municipality refused to send their people to undertake this task. When Aguilar returned to the site on the morning of Saturday the 4th of August, according to his story, the first thing he saw was the cut cables of the alarm. Now he is one of the suspects and has given his statement to the Prosecutor.

The first attempt to loot the riches of the church was in 2001, but on that occasion the alarm did its job and stopped the crime. The robbers fled, fearful of being caught by the villagers, and left a ladder and several blankets with which they intended to hide the silver ornaments. But it was a different story in August this year. "We were robbed of 80% of the silver and the altarpiece" says the priest Garcilazo, it is by the grace of God and Tata Santiago that 60 valuable Colonial paintings have not suffered the same bad luck. At the same time, those that managed this coup are the same people that robbed the church of Laja, in the Los Andes province.

Interpol reveals that the Internet is the preferred medium for traffickers to sell stolen relics. "There are international gangs operating particularly in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, because of their cultural riches," describes Colonel Ríos. The fate of these objects is the black markets that feed millionaires' private collections, or antiquities collectors, or the collections of individuals in Canada, Spain, United States, Switzerland and even Japan.

Marcelo El Haibe, of Interpol Argentina, told AFP news agency in October that traffickers in historical artistic works operate in Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile and Mexico because there is a high demand for archaeology, religious art, and paleontological remains whose destinations are the United States, Switzerland, Spain, Germany or Britain.

Because of this, Peru is about to create an elite police to fight this scourge.

Bolivia is also a transit nation for the removal of stolen heritage objects from other nations in the Andean region to other continents. This is because of a lack of border control. However, criminals are turning to other methods to undertake their crimes; for example, two years ago Bolivian police seized a Peruvian pre-Inca mummy that was 700 years old, which was meant to be sent to a European country through the postal service.

While the experts that were consulted believe that there must be greater border security, or that a Cultural Heritage Law must be designed to deal with trafficking in this area, or restate the idea of creating a Cultural Police Force, the minister of culture, Pablo Groux, believes that the first step is to register and catalogue cultural property at a national level. The Intangible Heritage Unit has a register that exceeds 20,000 pieces.

Concerns

During the festival of 25 July, security was doubled at the Colonial church in the village of Guaqui, but no local thought that evildoers would wait two weeks to strike the blow that has left the village worried and saddened. "Nobody was able to foresee that that was the night (between Thursday the 2nd and the morning of Friday the 3rd of August) that the thieves would come", says pastor Garcilazo.

The Police, the Public Ministry, and the Ministry of Culture have investigated the theft; however, there are criticisms of their work during the investigations. "There was an oversight by the prosecutor and the investigation didn't happen quickly. We waited from the 3rd of August and they arrived at 5 in the afternoon on the 7th of August", complained the local leader Quispe, who also complained against the Municipality. "We have drawn attention to this because they should be the first to help and they only said that they were going to be interveners."

Román Mamani, the other neighbourhood leader, commented that the mayor Víctor Mamani––who could not be reached by the La Rázon reporter––worked with the authorities to find the stolen relics. Meanwhile in the church, the curate Garcilazo seems resigned to the idea that he is not going to see the silver pieces of Tata Santiago again and, therefore, it is now the responsibility of devotees to help replace the relics whose whereabouts are unknown.

"There are no others, those of the recent or distant past, which are equal and we want to recreate them. God willing, perhaps you will find them; however I do not have much hope for that. The only thing left is for people to contribute." The curate believes that the apostle Santiago "is hurt", but that he forgives them for this desecration. "I wish that these people could repent", he says.

The morning of Thursday 6th of October, when this horror visited Guaqui, the alarm was being repaired in this local church just like in Ocobaya––where a grown of gold, the caps of a cross, and three pieces of silver depicting Our Lord of the Exaltation in high relief were stolen––they are the only cases of theft of cultural property in this year.

Schools must take the first step

When will school books talk less about Greek and Roman art, and more "about our Indigenous communities starting to love, respect, and conserve our heritage", opined the Argentine historian Fernando Soto.

The faculty member and researcher at the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata believes that children should be of primary concern regarding historic heritage. "Without the direct intervention of the State and without an awareness program that is part of primary and secondary school, from early on, the battle against this scourge (trafficking in archaeological objects) will never be won", explains Soto to the La Rázon reporter via email.

For the scholar, the heritage of colonialism works to our detriment. "There has been almost 500 years of self-underestimation and of a discourse that tells that that these objects would be better protected in museums in the First World", says the specialist.

He placed the blame on the demand that exists in other countries for archaeological pieces, adding that only way to fight against this would be to fight the buyers of stolen cultural property in other nations. "The problem is with those who want [the objects], who are always private institutions that are very powerful economically".

He admits, however, that in recent years, in some South American states, important steps have been taken to protect the archaeological and paleontological heritage. "Compared with the neoliberal policies of the 90s (when it was not only pre-Columbian pieces of our past that were sold, but whole chunks of our countries). So everything, everything that is done is still insufficient", says the author of several books, articles and essays on archeology in South America.

At least 300 cultural treasures can be found outside of the country.

In 2006, Édgar Arandia, then Vice-minister of Culture, and now director of the National Museum of Art, undertook an inventory of Bolivian archaeological pieces that are located outside of the country. The preliminary report revealed that "there were at least 300 Pre-hispanic artefacts in other countries", he says. He does not know of a similar study besides that one.

Currently there are doubts about the number of relics that are exhibited in other countries, of which it is important to know if they were displayed legally, in accordance with Bolivian law. For example, the Peruvian archaeologist Luis Lumbreras, one of the most renowned archaeologists in Latin America, relates that one of the main collections of Pre-columbian works from Bolivia is in the German capital: Berlin.

Tiwanaku

"One of the major collections of Bolivian pre-Hispanic art is that of the Museum of Ethnography of Berlin,  where they have hundreds of great pieces", said the specialist who is a professor of Social Studies at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Peru and who conducted a workshop in the city of La Paz in early October.

Arandia, who also serves as executive secretary of the Cultural Foundation of the Central Bank of Bolivia, confirms what Lumbreras said. "In Berlin there is a pre-Columbian stone that represents lightning, and in Denmark lithic tablets are exhibited." Moreover, the Peruvian expert says, for example, many studies of Tiwanaku have been done based on works from this culture that are not in Bolivia. "A large part of the publications about Tiwanaku are based on pieces that are outside of the country".

However, according to data from the Ministry of Culture, few pieces have been recovered from the hands of traffickers: there have been only 14 cases since 1971. Now, this division [the Ministry of Culture] is preparing an official request to Peru to recover archaeological pieces that belong to the Tiwanaku, Wari, and Inca cultures, which were seized three years ago in the neighbouring country, in an investigation that also involved historic pieces belonging to Ecuador and to Peru itself.

That nation is also dedicated to launching a frontal assault against the traffickers of these objects, according to the AFP. The Vice-minister of Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of Peru, Rafael Varón, commented that based on recent developments they are working on a plan to create a specialised police force focused on Cultural Heritage, like those that exist in the United States, Italy, and Argentina to train prosecutors and judges.

Objects for sale on the internet

I am selling a Keru (vase) from Late Tiwanaku IV. Piece complete with double frontal applied decoration (anthropomorphic and zoomorphic), painted decoration in monochrome bands, geometric motifs. State of preservation: average to good (rob******@hotmail.com)". [I have removed the email address listed in the paper] The advertisement is on www.mundo.anuncio.com.bo [sic: http://www.mundoanuncio.bo/]; the piece is priced at $300 USD. Ex-prosecutor Milton Mendoza complained alleged pre-hispanic objects were being offered for sale on the internet.

Just like the sale of archaeological objects, a bolivian webpage is www.mercado.com.bo. On http://bo.clasificados.st/antiguedades an antique ceramic is for sale: "Urgent sale of an Inca carved stone that is approximately 1500 years old, according to the analysis performed by archaeologists who think that it is a phallic symbol that represents the virile power of man, I have a pressing need to sell it because of my health, and because of that I hope for an offer".

Sad comments by Cleveland Museum curator: A looted Wari pouch 'symbolizes the entire exhibition'

Remember that unprovenienced and underprovenanced Wari hide pouch that the Cleveland Museum bought from Sotheby's last year?

On 24 October the Wall Street Journal published a 'Cultural Conversation' with Susan E. Bergh of the Cleveland Museum calling her a 'Champion of the Wari'. The interview concerns "Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes", an exhibit that the Cleveland Museum has on right now. From the article:

At one point, Ms. Bergh stops before a piece with pride. Her museum fought for this rare hide bag last year at auction—paying $146,500, more than twice the high estimate. On it is a modeled human face painted with geometric designs of the elite. The real human hair that surrounds the face still glistens. This object "has the same kind of facial features and tunic as other pieces nearby," she says, "but we don't really know who he is, or if he's a real figure at all." 

In a way, he symbolizes the entire exhibition, which is full of mystery and ambiguity. "The Wari have not been subject to much scholarship," Ms. Bergh says. "We are trying to attract scholarship."

Sometimes I just wonder if these folks purposefully craft their statements so as to make me cry into my soup.

I wrote about this hide bag a few months ago when everyone was talking about other questionable acquisitions made by the Cleveland Museum. There was some general internet discussion that a whole host of poor buying decisions on the part of Cleveland were being eclipsed by the poor decision to buy an unprovenienced/underprovenanced Classical item. I was just surprised to see that bag again so quickly since, well, I thought it was weird ever since I saw it for sale.

Lot 109 now in the Cleveland Museum;
at least it has a 1940 provenance.

The pouch was offered at Sotheby's as lot 108 in the 13 May 2011 African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian Art Sale (N08749). The origins of the bag are unclear and it has no provenience and questionable (as published at least) provenance from before 1976 when it was pictured in Alan Lapiner's tome. The photo in Lapiner is pretty terrible but it is on the same page as a Wari vessel, a figural group that is also now in the Cleveland Museum and was also purchased at Sotheby's in the May 2011 auction as lot 109.¹ The museum paid $146,500 for the pouch which is pretty wild. Not that I've ever seen a Wari hide pouch before, let alone seen one sold, but it is a memorable item and it was odd to see it turn up so quickly. Usually these things float off into the aether.

But sadness:  "We don't really know who he is", says Bergh. Well yeah. In all likelihood that pouch, (if ancient, there is always that doubt!), was yoinked off the neck of a mummy. Señor Wari Mummy might just have been the guy ON the pouch! The pouch has human hair! What if the hair on the pouch matched the hair on the mummy? That would be awesome! Also, what was IN the pouch?!

Señor Wari Mummy says: Please don't promote
mummy looting then pretend it helps scholarship.

But no. Bergh is somehow proudly highlighting a lack of context as if it were some mystical ancient archaeology mystery. No fair, Ms. Bergh, no fair! You don't get to capitalize on the trickle down effects of a problem that you are actively supporting. That is just lame.

Also, the fella on the bag doesn't 'symbolize the entire exhibition'. Sure he symbolizes much of the exhibition, which is largely made up of looted objects in private collections. But the government of Peru has loaned some archaeologically-excavated objects to Cleveland. Which, of course, brings up the question of why Cleveland needed to buy the weird bag in the first place if they can just work out super snazzy loans with Peru.

Perhaps the worst part is this lady saying that the Wari have not been the subject of much scholarship and that she and her museum with their expensive hoard of looted objects is trying to attract scholarship to the Wari.

Hey, friends and colleagues that study the Wari, just so you know the Cleveland Museum has your back. They know that what you guys need is for a US museum to give the thumbs up to collecting Wari material. No, they aren't going to donate $146,500 to excavations at Wari. They aren't going to use it to help facilitate the loaning and display of more objects borrowed from Peru (maybe the archaeologically excavated Lord of Wari regalia?). Nope, they are going to buy looted Wari items at great expense and put them on display. That, friends, is how you attract scholarship to the Wari.

I'm going to go out on a limb and speak for everyone else working on the Andean Middle Horizon: please don't pretend that the collection of Wari material helps we poor scholars who actually work on this stuff.

Ironically, they are showing Aguirre, the Wrath of God as an exhibition event. If you are in Cleveland, go and enjoy watching Werner Herzog's take on a conquistador's fall into madness as he searches for the riches of El Dorado. Lets just say that his attempt to plunder the ancient treasures of Peru doesn't work out for him.

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1. This one actually looks quite 'good'. It has the typical fluffy provenance of "Christoph Bernoulli, acquired by 1949; Acquired from the above by 1960", but it appears to have been illustrated in a publication by Julio Tello in 1940. No provenience offered but, I don't have the Tello on hand, maybe he had something to say. The Cleveland museum paid $31,250 for it.

Relics for Sale at Tiwanaku [Bolivia, from La Razón]

Another thing that this blog is not supposed to be is a news blog. However I think regional stories might not get a lot of play in the blog/twitter world. Thus what follows is my own (horribly flawed, terrible, I am sure) translation of a story by Jorge Quispe in the Bolivian paper La Razón this morning.

La Razon did a big cover story, three articles, on this issue today. Good for them. I'll translate them for you all in the next few days.

For better or for worse, it is worth having discussions about this kind of stuff in Bolivia and if it is in English, it will travel. If you all are into it, I may translate more articulos from español to English as they come up.
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Relics for Sale at Tiwanaku
A museum official offers pre-Hispanic vases. In the village and surrounding areas there prevails a black market in these pieces.

La Razón/ Jorge Quispe
5 October 2012
http://www.la-razon.com/suplementos/informe/Reliquias-venta-Tiwanaku_0_1718228195.html

"Right now this could be 150... 150 dollars". This is how Zacarías Limachi offers for sale a supposed pre-Columbian vase of approximately 30 cm in size. He sits on the patio of his house, two blocks from the ancient ruins of Tiwanaku, in the Ingavi Province of [the District of] La Paz.

The inhabitant of the nearby community of Huacullani is a connoisseur of pre-Hispanic ceramics, because he is also one of the guards of the Museum of Tiwanaku, the most important archaeological center in Bolivia. "And the little ones, how much are they?", asks the buyer and the man, who wears the uniform of the [Tiwanaku archaeological] repository, responded in a cautious tone. "This one is 100 and the other is 50 (dollars)".

The first object has zoomorphic figures on it and the other two are a vase of 25 cm, without decoration, and a sort of small plate. In mid September, Limachi had offered the three relics for 350 Bolivianos each. However, now their prices have gone up. "You know how it is, boss! It is not possible to buy [these items]. It is also not possible to sell them right now, that is prohibited as well...", so defends the campesiño upon noting the stranger's interest.

Authentic
The buying and selling of the pieces encountered is prohibited by law. Article 99 of the Political Constitution dictates that Cultural Patrimony of the Bolivian people––natural, archaeological, paleontological, historical, documentary resources and those items that pertain to religious orders and to folklore––is inalienable, non seizable, and imprescriptible, and the State guarantees their registration, protection, restoration, recuperation, revitalization, enrichment, promotion, and distribution.

According to Limachi, the trio of fragments that he offers were extracted from his property in Huacullani, two and a half hours from Tiwanaku, a village where there was formerly archaeological excavations. However, the municipal official is considered a man with little luck because other people from Huacullani have found better pieces. "They searched in my place and one (of the others) had already looted another vessel, better than these".

He is not the only huaquero or excavator, people who dig in the ground to find object made by the ancestors, to sell to tourists or collectors, in this area. They are at the end of the black market chain for this category. Locals even stock 'private museums' in their houses with objects they recover; the cost to observe and see them is around 10 Bolivianos. And, just the same, there are scammers who offer fakes for sale.

The archaeologists Jedú Sagárnaga and José Estévez agree that this region is the source of the relics, that the excavations undertaken by experts only account for 5% to 8% of the territory that the Tiwanaku culture inhabited, over 3,500 years ago [sic] and until their enigmatic disappearance in the 12th century of the present era, the vestiges of which are 70 km from the city of La Paz, 10 km from the shores of Lake Titicaca, at approximately 3,485 m above sea level.

The buyer that contacted Limachi gave a the La Razón reporter photos and a video (available at www.la-razon.com) in which one can see and hear the official employee bargaining for the three relics that, according to the archaeologist Sagárnaga, are originals to a degree of certainty of 90%, that is, they were used by the Tiwanaku. "Two of them are bottles what served to hold chicha and the little plate is called a basin; it is not a lid, it is a receptacle, possibly for food," explained the specialist who, also, is a member of the Archaeology Society of La Paz.

Traffic
This phenomenon is repeated in other archaeological locations in the country, according to the experts interviewed. For example, at the ruins of Samaipata in the Department of Santa Crus, where there exists the remains of the ancient Mojocoya and Inca cultures. Here one encounters the so called "Cerro de Cántaros" [Hill of Jars...or Mound of Vessels], where campesiños find ancient pieces––especially ceramic vessels––to sell to visitors (read the supporting piece on page 6).

The absence of a Patrimony Law to preserve and care for historical objects in on the table for discussion and the Ministry of culture is preparing a project on this topic. Moreover, due to the buyers complaint in which Limachi offered his three relics, La Razón went to Tiwanaku and nearby communities such at Lukurmata and Huacullani, where it was confirmed that there were inhabitants that not only offered for sale alleged vessels that date to the epoch of the City of the Sun, but also weapons that appeared to be pre-Colombian.

Near the Tiwanaku museum, in the shops that sell crafts and other souvenirs, you also find arrowheads that were made before the coming of the Spanish. In principal, the sellers avoid the conversation and deny the existance of pieces of this type. But when they develop trust, they show what they are hiding. One of the women displayed two ancient projectile points, one white and one dark. The asking price was 50 Bolivianos.

With images in hand, the archaeologist Sagárnaga––who works in the Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas y Arqueológicas of the  Universidad Mayor de San Andrés––offered the following identification of the objects: "One is milky quartz, the other is black obsidian. The bigger is about 2 cm and a bit in length and the other, it probably exceeds a cm. Because of their size, morphology and material the pieces correspond with authentic pre-Hispanic items, which would have mainly been used for hunting".

Furthermore, the specialist assured that the objects were from the Tiwanaku culture. "We are talking about an age of around 1000 years. However, to conclusively prove their authenticity as pre-Columbian objects we must subject them to laboratory analysis, that can not be done now, but in my opinion I would say they are originals."

After they left the seller with her two arrowheads, a boy who works by transporting tourists on his bicycle approached the journalist and offer them a piece of a copper topo for 50 USD. The black market in these relics is a booming business in the municipality. "Be it a monolith of two meters or a projectile point of an inch, in both cases we are talking about heritage objects that can not be in private hands let alone be sold.

It is a crime and it is punishable by law"stresses Sagárnaga.

The picture does not change in the town of Lukurmata, two hours away [from Tiwanaku] by car, where there are also archaeological ruins and locals that sell, secretly, fragments found in their chacras, small parcels of land that are cultivated. After asking a campesiño for Tiwanaku crafts, he thought and asked [the reporter] to wait for a minute. He entered into his house of adobe and corrugated metal, and came out with a piece of round lithic of approximately 20 cm in diameter with a hole in the center.

Archaeologist Estévez accompanied the La Razón reporter during the visit, was surprised and guarantees the authenticity of the object and stated it was carved in sandstone, the material in which the Tiwanaku crafted various objects. Back in the city of La Paz, Sagárnaga reviews the image and agrees with his colleague. "It's a club that, when a wooden handle was placed in the hole, served as blunt weapon. It is relatively easy to manufacture, but I doubt the villager who was selling it knows its morphology so, without a doubt, it is pre-Columbian. "

But in this trade there exist replicas that are presented as authentic. Estévez complained about the presence campesiños who paint pieces of pottery and who store them under the earth for a month or a year, to gain an ancient look and/or to dig them up during tourist visits or visits of individuals interested in buying relics from the Tiwanaku period. This he verified in Huacullani, two hours away from Tiwanaku.

In the village, a skirted woman [by this the author means she is dressed in Indigenous clothes] offers for sale a vessel and assures that it is pre-Hispanic. "Give me 300 Bolivianos and it is yours, because it is quite old, it is Inca, and it was used by my mother, my grandmother, my grandmother's mother", she tries to convince in Aymara. After allowing photos to be taken she reveals that she has other similar objects, but to access them you first have to show her money. In the city of La Paz, Sagárnaga carefully examines the images and concludes that the fragment is not authentic. "The pitcher from Huacullani has a common morphology which reoccurs during various centuries. It could be 500 years or it could be a week old. I think it is contemporary or, at most, colonial".

And the findings do not stop there. A few meters away from the Tiwanaku town hall, in a normal local provisions store, an old woman offers an alleged "Inca mask" that, according to her, she rarely shows to people. The ceramic piece is wrapped in a black bag and is hidden among beer and Coca-Cola bottles and other products. "I have others which are in my room, but this one is worth US $150." In reviewing the photos, Sagárnaga concludes that "it is an imitation, seemingly of the Moche culture".

The main archaeological site is visited daily by at least 200 people, a number that triples on the weekends. [The village of] Tiwanaku lives on tourism and even during the feast day of the town, which is held every September 14, the Gateway of the Sun adorns the banners of the people. On that day, a La Razón reporter traveled to the site to notify the Mayor Marcelino Copaña that one of the empoyees of the museum sells relics.

But Copaña was annoyed when asked about the presence of a "black market" in historical pieces in his municipality. "I don't think so. That's a lie, that is false, that we don't believe. The press has always said those things, but that's no good. I want the press to tell the truth. Let's see! Who is that person? (who sells) No! ... Lies! It does not exist. That is prohibited, that is prohibited... ".

A little calmer, he adds: "It is not possible to sell anything. Nobody can sell anything, brother, nobody... ". But there is another reality is when you ask villagers for ancient objects. And even though an old legend states that those who move them [archaeological objects] will grow hopelessly ill, locals believe that they are immune to the sickness.

"Me, I do not worry because I'm from Tiwanaku," says one woman after showing the alleged relic found on her chacra.

El Cerro de los Cántaros [The Mound of Vessels] is another site where one finds pieces
Approximately 30 km from the ruins of the Fuerte de Samaipata, in the province of Florida of the department of Santa Cruz, is the location of the Cerro de los Cántaros, where it is common to find pre-Columbian pieces.

Nestled in a areas of much vegetation and almost inaccessible, the site is named from the many years in which have been found fragments of the Inca, Mojocollas, Omereques, Chané, and Guaraní cultures. "You can find jugs, plates, cups, and other types of ceramic utensils  as well as axeheads, bone samples, and lithic (stone) pieces", explains Richard Alcánzar, an archaeologist who has lived here for 12 years, to the La Razón reporter.

This area is near Floripondio, El Filo, El Toro, the hill La Patria and Las Rueditas, locations of great value to pre-Hispanic archaeology and, for this reason, it is not strange to hear that there are traffickers that are provided these valuable fragments by the huaqueros or excavators who are engaged in finding these artifacts to sell.

However, Alcánzar indicates that the locals have gained an awareness and thus do not encourage this illegal business. "Here there is not much trafficking. The sites are protected and if the villagers find archaeological pieces, they first go through the museum, or they tell us so we can go to the area [where the items were found]" and, afterward, verification is done through laboratory analysis and subsequent cataloging. However, other sources claim, as occurred in the town od Tiwanaku and in nearby communities, there are campesiños that offer tourists the relics discovered in the Cerro de los Cántaros.

Only 40% of the archaeological area of Samaipata and its surroundings have been explored, according to this scholar. "At the moment, we have 357 pieces found in all of the upper middle area, the valleys and those around Mairana". In recent years, there has been an influx of outsiders coming to the solstice of 21 of June, and with them, there also has been an increase in the desire of those visitors to take away a "momento" of Samaipata, which has caused an increase in traders in archaeological remains, states informants interviewed by the La Razón reporter.

In 1998, the site was declared Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. It is the second most important archaeological space in the country, after Tiwanaku: it is a ceremonial center of the Inca culture whose name in Quechua means "high resting place". Here there is a sculpted rock that is 250 m long and 60 m high, which was converted into the largest petroglyph in the world, with zoomorphic figures, serpents, and pumas.

The Monoliths of Tiwanaku have Spirits
My son was sick, the doctor said that he was fine and the yatiri said that it was katja, one woman complained; a concern that allowed me to record the past and give an opinion for the future.

They say that when the archaeological ruins of Tiwanaku were not yet restored, a trail ran around them; at that time the first vertical monolith was called by the name "The Frier". One night, a campeseño of the village was inebriated on a bottle of alcohol after having played football and celebrated the victory. On the path he ran headfirst into that vertical stela of stone. As if in a dream, he heard "Sir, Sir arise, walk to your house, for here is the path and thank you for your trago [grain alcohol]. The following morning he woke up in his house and, not finding his sporting equipment, he asked his wife about it. Her response was categorical about the absurdity of his questions. He decided to retrace his steps and encountered his lost items at the foot of the monolith as well as his broken bottle. Since this, in his dreams, every time he hears: And thank you for the trago! The persistance of these words caused him to seek the services of a yatiri.

On another occasion, Don Lucas Choque, a yatiri, recounted that, when the ruins were beginning to be restored and were not yet fenced, a boy started playing ball with the Gateway of the Sun, as if it was a goal. After days of satisfaction, his punishments were revealed. First one foot crumpled in, then the other, then his arms, until the youngster was almost made into a ball. His parents started with the running about, the interrogations and the investigations, they flew to the house of the amauta, until finally one of the yatiris correctly diagnosed, thanks to coca [leaf divination], the cause and could provide remedy for the case.

Andean wisdom teaches that seemingly inert elements also have spirit. The monoliths are not sculptures made for an aesthetic desire, they have powers. In them live ancestral spirits, and therefore Catholics commonly exorcised them and removed them as idolatries. Be it traditional knowledge or simply witchcraft, today the majority believe that the wak'as are superstitions and trickery. Even prejudices and colonialism rule over many people.

Call for papers for a special issue of the European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research on Trafficking in Cultural Objects

Normally I don't post things like Calls for Papers and so on, but I am directly involved with this one so here it is! Anyone who is interested, please email us.
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EJCPR is a peer-reviewed international criminology journal with a special interest in transnational organized crime (http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/criminology/journal/10610). It is run by Editor-in-Chief Ernesto U. Savona (Professor of Criminology, Università Cattolica del S. Cuore- Milan Director of TRANSCRIME (Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime) and Managing Editor Dr. Stefano Caneppele (stefano.caneppele@unicatt.it).

Each year thematic special issues of the EJCPR are published. These special issues are devoted to innovative topics in the field of criminology and criminal justice, and in 2014 the Trafficking Culture team at the University of Glasgow (http://traffickingculture.org/) will be guest editing one with a focus on ‘trafficking cultural objects’. For criminologists, this is something of a niche area of study, and more attention has tended to be paid to other types of transnational criminal trade. The Trafficking Culture research programme has been established to advance the evidence base in this area, as well as to undertake theoretical work and comparative study of the trafficking of cultural objects as contrasted with other types of transnational illicit commodity trade. The guest editors’ aim for this special issue is to gather together a collection of papers which inform this topic. The field of ‘illicit antiquities’ studies has been built around contributions which cross disciplines. Lawyers, archaeologists, art world professionals, anthropologists and criminologists have all played a part in explicating the issues and debating the solutions. We therefore welcome contributions to this special issue from writers in any discipline, although papers should consider the parameters of EJCPR as a criminal policy and research publication.

Original evidence-based research and/or analytical manuscripts are invited on any aspect of crime in relation to the problem of trafficking in cultural objects, and the topic is widely framed for the purposes of this publication to include all aspects of the trade in illicit antiquities, including socio- economic, cultural and criminological contexts, and beyond these core topics, comparable crime policy problems which may offer transferable solutions to these fields of illicit entrepreneurial activity.

We would also be pleased to hear from those with expertise in this field who would be prepared to act as peer reviewers for the special issue.

• The deadline for first draft submissions is Friday 28 June 2013.
• Decisions about the outcome of the submission accompanied with detailed reviews will be sent out to authors by Friday 4 October 2013.
• Should the submissions require revisions these should be completed and submitted by Friday 31 January 2014.

It would be helpful if the manuscripts do not exceed 7,000 words including Figures, Tables and References. For information on other aspects of the EJCPR manuscript format please see the Instructions for Authors on the journal’s website above.

Manuscripts should be submitted through an electronic system. In order to complete the review process, authors are asked to submit their articles online at http://www.editorialmanager.com/crim, following the Instructions for Authors.

Please circulate this call to anyone who might be interested. For formal or informal inquiries about any aspect of the process please contact the guest editor Prof Simon Mackenzie on simon.mackenzie@glasgow.ac.uk