Las “Reliquias Calchaquíes” de metal de la Colección Zavaleta en el Field Museum of Natural History de Chicago. Un análisis integral.

El Field Museum of Natural History de Chicago (Illinois, Estados Unidos) posee una gran cantidad de piezas arqueológicas procedentes de tres provincias del Noroeste argentino (Salta, Tucumán y Catamarca) que fueron adquiridas en 1904 durante la Louisiana Purchase Exposition, feria universal llevada a cabo en Saint Louis (Missouri, Estados Unidos) donde Manuel Zavaleta, su colector, llevó parte de su compilación de objetos con fines de obtención de un rédito económico. Este artículo propone abordar un universo específico de éstos, las piezas elaboradas en diversos tipos de metal, desde un análisis integral no solo contemplando sus características, sino también haciendo una revisión desde la estadía de los objetos en Saint Louis hasta su actual resguardo en el museo de Chicago. Hoy día la muestra de objetos metálicos de la institución es de 185 ítems. Análisis morfológicos, funcionales y tecnológicos fueron efectuados así como un seguimiento de los mismos en el registro archivístico y fotográfico del museo. Los artefactos arqueológicos fueron también sometidos a evaluación composicional mediante un analizador portátil por fluorescencia de rayos X provisto por la institución. Sus resultados en términos semi-cuantitativos, y junto a una evaluación de los alcances y limitaciones de este tipo de acercamiento analítico, son presentados.

Epilogue

This epilogue reflects on the author's experience while serving as a supporting participant in a grant project known as the Philippine Youth Leadership Program (PYLP). In the closing days of the program, all Filipino participants came together to perform a “Philippine Culture Night.” A conversation between the author and an observer revealed the supposed ubiquity of American culture around the world. If “American” culture is so ubiquitous, then Americans are in no need of discovery, definition, or exhibition, by themselves or by others. This creates an uncomfortable lack of reciprocity in which the dynamics of cultural exhibition are reduced to an asymmetrical “you dance for me, but I never dance for you; I discover, observe, define, and preserve the things of this world, but I am not subjected to those processes by others.” Yet this notion betrays a certain postcolonial cultural narcissism in which the legacies of empire often loom larger in the minds of former colonizing nations than they do in the minds of nations formerly colonized. It cannot be forgotten that “live exhibits” and cultural performers are ultimately agents unto themselves, choosing and participating in representations that are independent of how observers may attempt to objectify them. This was certainly the case for the Moros at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

Introduction

This introductory chapter provides a background of the Philippine Village exhibit at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. Despite the supposedly comprehensive nature of the Philippine display, the exhibit was ultimately called upon to serve two sometimes divergent scientific and pedagogical functions. On the one hand, the Philippine Village was a self-contained exhibit, set apart as an inclusive continuum of indigenous types ranging from the “head-hunting,” “dog-eating,” savage Igorots to the highly civilized Philippine Scouts and Constabulary. By viewing these communities in quick successive comparison, onlookers could draw broad lessons from the “demotic” differences in dress, materials, cultural customs, and habits. The Philippine exhibit was also meant to be an interactive display promoting a sense of otherization and cultural affirmation. This book examines a particularly soft spot in the subjective and contested colonial discourse between colonizer and colonized at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition—that of the Philippine Muslims, also known as Moros. The chapter then describes the Moro Village, which was constructed to effectively commodify and exoticize the mundane aspects of Moro life.

C. W. Beehler's collection of vertebrate fossils: A lost legacy

The Kimmswick ‘bone bed’, a late Wisconsin paleontological locality in Jefferson County, Missouri, south of St. Louis, has been known since the early nineteenth century. The site gained international recognition in 1843 when a German immigrant and enterprising entrepreneur, Albert Koch, sold a composite skeleton of an American mastodon to the British Museum, parts of which came from Kimmswick. A half-century later a mechanic, inventor, and fossil hunter named Charles W. Beehler spent several months each year between 1897–1904 exhuming a massive collection of vertebrate fossils, representing several taxa, but one dominated by American mastodon (Mammut americanum). In addition, Beehler discovered human artifacts that he deemed were associated with the extinct fauna, thus adding Beehler to a growing number of proponents of what was termed the ‘American Paleolithic’. In retrospect he may have indeed uncovered evidence for an association between humans and extinct fauna, but the relationship went unrecognized by leading scientists of the time. Beehler constructed a wooden frame building on the site to house his collection, which he referred to as a museum. This was in preparation for visitors who would flock to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, known officially as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Featuring his active excavation and mastodon-dominated bone collection, Beehler created an attraction that enticed fair goers—as well as the curious—to schedule trips to Kimmswick. Following the World's Fair Beehler returned to St. Louis, but the disposition of his collection remained a mystery. There is no evidence that any significant number of specimens made their way into institutional hands where they were preserved. Beehler attracted national and international attention through his work at Kimmswick, but his reluctance to share or donate his collection to a reputable institution left him with a legacy of notoriety, and led to the loss of this important collection of vertebrate fossils.