Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
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Archaeologists as a whole tend to have strong opinions about what they feel
is a proprietary right to excavate in the name of science. However, their outlooks on guaqueros,3 huaqueros,4 and huecheros5 the producers6 of the international market in pre-Columbian artare far from monolithic.7
Rather, archaeologists opinions on clandestine, unofficial excavation represent a continuum of predispositionsfrom sympathy to villainization. In
private, a great many archaeologists are realists, frank in their dislike of
competition from the locals, but with a closeted sympathy for the poor indigenous people they hire to work as camp help and grunt laborers, often at
less than a living wage.8 To paraphrase:
What are you going to do? They are poor, malnourished farmers
without money for seed, and without sufficient land to practice
subsistence agriculture. They keep, on average about US$ from the
US$ a year they earn. With this paltry amount, milperos must
support large families and contribute to communal ceremonies. This
in a land where there is no socialized security or medicine, taxes are
usurious, and such things as sinus medicine and antibiotics cost
between US$ and US$1 a treatment.
Under these conditions, wouldnt you take the US$. to US$1
for artifacts tilled from your fields, and the US$ to US$1 a day for
work as a clandestine excavator during the off-season? This is equal
to or better than the paltry sums they earn as laborers on oppressive
plantations with company stores. These are subsistence diggers 9 who
excavate artifacts to supplement traditional socioeconomic life ways.10
These realists are kept from expressing their sympathy or from using experienced and knowledgeable subsistence diggers to help them find and excavate material remains by fundamentalist or, more appropriately, purist
archaeologists.11 Purists see themselves and their chosen profession as the
standard-bearers of enlightened science and keepers of the moral high ground.
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Dissenting voices12 point out that archaeologists have, up until quite recently, practiced destructive excavation. Indeed, many archaeologists confess
that they cannot tell unofficial subsistence archaeology from older official excavations. These realists and any who sympathize with them are relentlessly
disparaged by purists.
Purists see themselves as noble, self-sacrificing excavators who, without regard for money and prestige, are seekers of truth and knowledge. To paraphrase them:
We are out to protect ruins and archaeological resources from the
uneducated masses who do not know any better. After all, in our
civilization people do not dig up ancestors graves and loot their
artifacts; those milperos should not either. These poor people are
immoral, motivated by greed, plunder for profit, and are exploited by
antiquarians. The beleaguered governments are just trying to protect
their patrimony. Artifact looters 13 are dubious people, doing illegal
thingsthe antithesis of self-conscious archaeologists.
These purists form the moral minority, so to speak, of the archaeological community. Their position is undermined somewhat by the fact that the
institutions for which they work or consultuniversity museums at Harvard
and Pennsylvania continued to collect pre-Columbian material even after
it was deemed improper or illegal to do so.
[I]n Panama, a contract among interested parties, including the state,
was drawn up in secrecy between a family owner of the archaeological
site known as Sitio Conte and Harvard University regarding the
distribution of booty. Although equitable terms were apparently
established, the truth is that most of the valuable pieces of gold, glyphs,
and polychrome ceramics were kept by the Harvard museum and by
the University of Pennsylvania museum, which negotiated a similar
contract with the owner; the host country received none of the
recovered materials. Today, Panamanians, specialists or not, who wish
to study or simply look at cultural objects produced by the Cocl culture
must travel to the United States.14
Michael D. Coe15 uncovers an interesting misconception about the specialists who operate on the distribution level. There are, Coe asserts, purists
who perpetuate the myth that no proper, card-carrying academic would be involved in the looting of artifacts. Coes research reveals evidence to the contrary. In the past, concerned and respected scholars often worked to procure
artifacts for private collectors and public institutions. To understand the scope
of Coes findings, we must examine the work of Clemency Coggins, the art
historian who created the myth of the purely academic specialist.
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One day, after I had burned my field, I was returning to a place where I
left some tools. Then, I was underground. I had fallen through the . . .
[roof] of an ancestors tomb. I thought the devil was coming for me
until the dust cleared and light came through the hole in the roof. I
took some things home, and soon people came to hear my story for
themselves and look at the precious gifts. Many began to tell me that
these are semillas and that they are worth money.23
These stories travel quickly and soon connections are made with the merchants or truckers who travel regularly from outlying agricultural communities
to way stations and urban areas. Once the income from a few artifacts has
greatly enhanced family and community resources, communal milperos who
work fields during agricultural on-seasons become huecheros in off-seasons.
Rarely, however, does the money that changes hands transcend racial,
ethnic, and social barriers. The Indians, in spite of their hard work, remain
subsistence diggers, the producers, or pick and shovel labor of this socioeconomic system. Mestizos, or mixed blood, and Ladinos, or those who regard
themselves, in a real or mythical sense, as descendants of the conquistadors,
and allies of Western culture, jealously guard their status and roles as distributors and consumers.
My huechero friends who have fled Central America for the United States are
surprised that norte americanos protest the clandestine excavations of preColumbian artifacts, as we have so few federal and state laws in our own country that prohibit the destruction of known cemeteries or forgotten graveyards.
As such, many of the interred remains in the United States are fair game.
In no way do I mean to suggest that current sensibilities allow for the defilement of our sacred grounds; the National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia,
and Forest Lawn, cemetery to the stars in Southern California, are safe for
now. But old, out-of-use, or forgotten graveyards are continually backhoed and
bulldozed to make way for subway tunnels, shopping malls, parking lots,
housing tracts, and roads. The debate over method notwithstanding, we dig up
our own.
The bones and artifacts taken from these excavations are used in land fill,
unceremoniously reburied in mass graves, or, under the mantle of science, held
indefinitely for future study. There are those who justify this artifact looting
as economic progress, or the scientific study of the human record. There are
others, most notably Africans24 and Native Americans, 25 who see the desecration of their ancestors graves known ancestors in some cases and
sacred burial implements as a violation of tradition that symbolizes their subordinate status. Semantics notwithstanding, we do loot from our own graves.
The rest, as they say, is a matter of perspective.
From the perspective of many Native Americans, the people who conquered
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and colonized them have looted artifacts from their national cemeteries.26
From the point of view of purist archaeologists, there is a hoard of irritating,
hot-headed activists who are whining about a few million artifactssome used
in ongoing studies, some notthat are in storage or exhibitions.27
There are critics who suggest that Native Americans, indeed all indigenous peoples, are so changed by the modern world that they can no longer be
considered the legitimate representatives of Indian tradition, much less the executors of their ancestors remains. Does the same logic apply, my huechero
friends ask, to the descendants of the original colonists who have been so
changed by history and contemporary circumstances?
Are artifact looters motivated solely by ignorance, moral decay, and greed?
The aforementioned purported analysis of so-called artifact looting in Latin
America paints a highly selective portrait of artifact looters and subsistence
diggers as either ignorant or villainous. These stereotypes and justifications ignore the colonial and neocolonial contexts that constrain traditional subsistence systems and are not amenable to local solutions.
On a local level, participation in cash economies like subsistence digging
are motivated not by the attractiveness of wage labor, but by the severe economic realities under which subsistence producers operate. It disturbs some archaeologists and art historians that artifact looting is not merely the occupation
of those who are ignorant of scientific methodology or evil-intentioned, but
rather a way of life practiced for subsistence. For if these are not artifact looters, but survival-oriented subsistence diggers, or huecheros, then the reasons for
their excavations of material remains are as compelling as those of archaeologists and art historians. According to Ernil, subsistence digging has intensified
among the poor, who dig to survive, even if it is against the law.28
In fact, many subsistence diggers see the debate over who may or may not
excavate artifacts as a struggle not between ignorant farmers and villains on the
one hand and archaeologists and art historians on the other, but as an aspect
of class warfare. To paraphrase their perspective:
Every year, the archaeologists dig up the artifacts and take them away.
The next year they come back with more money, people, and
equipment. They talk of our ancestors with reverence, but treat us,
their descendants, like ignorant peasants or immoral villains. The
excavations are often run like plantations, where we are exploited. The
archaeologists want strong backs and weak minds. When we work for
them, they pay us little and do not treat us with respect. We are never
asked what we think and there is no chance for advancement. The
artifacts represent money and power to archaeologists and art historians.
That is how they make their upper-class living. To us, these gifts from
the ancestors mean seed corn, food, clothes, medicine, and security.
This is how we live our lower-class lives.
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their proprietary rights? Then there are the purist archaeologists and art historians who are ignorant of social history and unequal power relations, show
little concern for the welfare of indigenous descendants, and whose publications do not link archaeological theory with critical ethnography. Purists who
show little concern for the links between excavations sponsored by oppressive
regimes and the lack of basic human rights for indigenous descendants are but
another self-serving interest group involved in the search for artifacts or art.
I have examined the all too familiar scenario of assumptions, terms, and
uniperspectival moral stances that remain as unquestioned as if they were administered under post-hypnotic suggestion. These assumptions, based as they
are on purist stereotypes, polarize debate and offer no effective strategies for
the conservation of cultural heritage and resources. My analysis is biased
against purist archeologists and art historians, not out of dislike for individuals or disciplines per se, but because there are some among these fundamentalist scholars who suppress debate and dialogue on this issue.
In regards to the huecheros, they are not, as some claim, my people. I have
not gone native, nor do I condone their socioeconomic practices. I do realize, however, that unless we end the war against stereotypical artifact looters
and begin the study of subsistence diggers, there will be no effective plan to
conserve cultural heritage and resources.
1. D. Matsuda, The Looting of Pre-Columbian Artifacts from Latin American Archaeological Sites (masters thesis, California State University 1).
. Rigoberta Menchu, Me Llamo Rigoberta Menchu y si me nacio la conciencia 1 (Editorial Varga,
Barcelona 1).
. K. Bruhns, The Methods of the Guaqueria: Illicit Tomb Robbing in Colombia, : Archaeology 1 (1).
. M. Coe, From Huaquero to Connoisseur: The Early Market in Pre-Columbian Art (Dumbarton
Oaks, Washington, D.C. in press).
. D. Matsuda, Some Notes on Huecheros in and around Belize: A Regional History of
Civil Violence and the Simultaneous Rise of Huecherismo, The Journal of Belizean Archaeology (1, in press).
. D. Heath, Economic Aspects of Commercial Archaeology in Costa Rica, : American
Antiquity (1).
. Huaquero and guaquero are derived from the Quecha word huaca, which means ancient
site or sacred artifact. Huechero, in local parlance, is a conflation of the words hueche,
a folk taxonomic classification for animals that burrow, leave telltale holes, and live
underground, and ero, a Spanish suffix that denotes human agency. So huecheros are humans who, like burrowing animals, leave telltale holes, and make their subsistence living
underground.
. Thanks to the archaeologists, notable exceptions to this rule, who treat their workers
with respect and are sensitive to the ethics of archaeology and community relations.
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. A person who uses the proceeds from artifact sales to support his or her traditional subsistence lifestyle.
1. D. Staley, St. Lawrence Islands Subsistence Diggers: A New Perspective on Human Effect of Archaeological Sites, : Journal of Field Archaeology (1).
11. See, e.g., C. Coggins, The Maya Scandal: Thieves Have Stripped Historical Sites of the
Ancient Culture and Exported Artifacts Illegally to US Market, : Smithsonian 1
(1); C. Coggins, Illicit Traffic of Pre-Columbian Activities, Art Journal
(1); I. Graham, Looters Rob Our Past, 1: National Geographic 1 (1); R.
Adams, Lost City of the Maya, 1: National Geographic 1 (1).
1. See, e.g., Coe, supra note ; G. Griffin, In Defense of Collectors, 1: National Geographic
(1).
1. See Staley supra note 1.
1. R. Torrez de Arrauz, Legal Foundations: The Governments Roles and Responsibilities, Rescue Archaeology (Wilson and Loyola eds., Preservation Press, Washington,
D.C. 11).
1. Bruhns, supra note .
1. C. Coggins, quoted in Karl E. Meyer, The Plundered Past 3940 (Atheneum Press, New
York 1973).
1. Coe, supra note at .
1. M. McConahay, Army to Play Role in Future of Rainforest, San Francisco Chronicle. October 1, 1, at A.
1. D. Matsuda, Some Thoughts on Ancient and Contemporary Social Organization in
Belize: A Huechero Illustration, 1 Proceedings of the First Annual Symposium on Maya Archaeology
(1).
. D. Matsuda, Huecheros Remembered, 1: ECO: Journal of Environmental Information 1,
1 (JulyAugust 1).
1. J. Watanabe, Saints and Souls in a Changing World (University of Texas Press, Austin 1).
. D. Matsuda, supra note .
. Personal communication with research participant, 1.
. S. Harrington, Bones and Bureaucrats: New Yorks Cemetery Imbroglio, : Archaeology (MarchApril 1).
. S. Heimoff, Angle of Repose, 1:11 Express 11 (July 1, 1); L. Zimmerman, Sharing Control of the Past, : Archaeology (1).
. R. McIntosh and S. McIntosh, Peoples without History, :1 Archaeology 1
(JanuaryFebruary 1).
. C. Meighan, Burring American Archaeology, : Archaeology (November
December 1).
. Quoted in Plenge, The Robbers Tale: The True Story of the Most Extraordinary Treasure Ever Found in the New World, : Connoisseur (1). See also Segundo
Salazar, quoted in Plenge, Grave Robbers Digging up Ancient Peruvian Treasures, The
Daily Review-Alameda Newspaper Group, December , 1, at A; J. Daniszewski, Thieves
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