Round 3: La Gringa (Part 3 of 3)

[This is a continuation of Cavia porcellus vs Ursa pacificus and Round 2: Dave vs Duck. Read those first]

There are no pictures available for this post. And that's appropriate because you can't take pictures of the stuff I'm going to write about. The theme is darkness: the darkness of the pampa at night, the darkness of the interior of my gut, and the darkness of the place where La Gringa takes you..... DP, 30 July 2014.

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3 August 2014.....After Harold, Susana, and I had done a solid round on the feast, we took a break and waited for Harold's friends and in-laws to stop by. Carlos and Lorenzo dropped in not too long after we had finished. As is customary, Susana prepared them heaping plates of delicious duck to eat while we conversed.

Carlos and Lorenzo are motorcycle mechanics who were preparing to take a trip up into the Callejon de Huaylas the next day. They'd head up past Yaután to Huaraz, then continue down the alley - or callejon - between the Cordilleras Negra and Blanca, towards Caraz, Carhuaz, and Yungay. We discussed my fantasy of restoring a Harley-Davidson Panhead (ca. '48-65) or just finding a vintage Honda 250cc here in Casma. While you see those old Hondas around, it turns out they've all been retrofitted with new Chinese-designed engines manufactured in India. Those are the only spare parts available.

Later, Susana's mom and dad came over for some duck and drinks. Altogether we ate and drank some wine Harold had been saving, lots of Pepsi, a few beers, and anisadoI had brought over. Anisado is anisette; I brought it and explained that my father said his parents always had anisette for guests, along with the southern Italian specialty strega ('the witch'), which is manufactured in his natal Benevento.

Susana's parents commented on how, when they were younger, they never missed a party. Living in the chacra (Quechua for 'agricultural field,' but locally slang for the countryside), parties were frequent, but far apart. Every little village in the irrigated river valley will have an occasional party with loud music, food, and often lots of beer. Susana's parents explained that they never drank much, but boy did they love to dance. They told a story of how, one time, they needed to cross the river to get to the party. So, when they approached the river, they took off their pants, waded through, dried off, and put their pants back on at the other side...all before arriving at the dance! Naturally, they had to repeat the process in reverse to get home.

Nostalgic stories of the chacra led to some interesting discussions of teratology. As I discovered during my ethnographic fieldwork of 2007, there are plenty of legends about archaeological sites in the valley. In fact, most of the valley is some kind of archaeological site, depending on how you look at it. A running theme in these stories is the danger loaded into this old and changing landscape.

We began talking, humorously, about piegrande, or Big Foot. Big Foot is not really a legend here, but with cable television and satellite dishes provided by TelMex, the History Channel is no doubt doing a great job circulating bogus stories about mythical beasts. As a stocky, bearded man, I did my best impression of the Patterson-Gimlin Film, the famous image of Big Foot hoofing it around a few boulders near Bluff Creek, California.

Before long the discussion turned a little serious, to a topic I'd never heard of: La Gringa. La Gringa ('the American woman' or 'the white woman') is reportedly an apparition that appears in the dark of the desert pampa, calling to men who pass through at night, enchanting them, and dragging them off to who-knows-where. La Gringa shares some elements of other known archaeological and Latin American legends. Many of the legends I collected in the area in 2007 developed a theme of attraction, loss, and denial. Some of these legends included huaqueros (pot-hunters) who found great stores of gold in glowing pots; but they were suddenly pulled backward, only to turn toward the pot again and find it gone. Other stories featured other-wordly creatures descending from the hilltops to bring havoc to the valley. Latin American folklore also features la llorona, a banshee-like character who enchants as she screams.

As Susana's parents, Carlos, Lorenzo and I contemplated our nighttime commute out of the chacra and back into Casma, we half-joked about La Gringa. She couldn't harm women, because they wouldn't be attracted to her. Alternatively, if we ran into her, I'd explain what was up. I'm a gringo and naturally can reason with la gringa. Of course, I could always just hop out of our mototaxi and make like Big Foot to scare off la gringa if she happened to appear.

After a couple more rounds of beer and soft drinks (note: beer here is consumed in 1-2 oz portions; 3-6 people share a 24oz beer over many rounds) we finally made our move to leave. It's hard to leave Peruvian company. The hospitality is sincere and sustained. There's always another beer, soft drink, or round of duck to share.

But, it was time. Susana's parent's loaded into their mototaxi and Carlos, Lorenzo, and I loaded into ours. We had decided that we would take the direct route out of the chacra. Instead of going down the San Rafael section of the southern branch of the Casma River - past the villages of Santa Matilde, San Francisco, and etc. - we would take a straight shot across the desolate Pampa Allegre. Pampa Allegre is an empty, long, inter-mountain pampa where you find the 3500-year old site of Pampa de las Llamas-Moxeke and the slightly-later sight of Pampa Rosario. It's also a crossroads of mining trails, sand quarries, and informal garbage dumps. None of these paths are mapped, let alone paved or lit. There is simply no light.

No one really knew this route except for me, because it was my morning commute every field season from 2004 to 2010. However, I never drove it at night.

The decision to let the gringo lead the way must have seemed completely absurd - if not deeply regrettable - almost as soon as we left the light of the village. The landscape had changed since my regular commutes, and  so I had literally lost my bearings. Where I expected to see small dusty hills, I saw pump-irrigated grape vines. When we began to bear left a little bit, I explained, "OK, we've made a turn down towards San Francisco. Not what I had planned, but it will do." This interpretation could not have cultivated confidence in my fellow passengers. Nor did it do so in me. I became increasingly concerned as the San Francisco landmarks failed to appear as they should.

It is incredibly difficult to reckon distance in the barren, monochrome, and lightless desert at night. However, soon our little headlight began to reveal unmistakable features for me. "A ha!" I exclaimed, "That's the Inca road in front of Pampa de las Llamas. Bear right!" A little further on I made out the transverse trail that cuts towards the arm of the pampa we sought. "On our right is Pampa de las Llamas, it's 3500 years old! Keep going and we'll come to the wall with a hole in it; it's also sort of a garbage dump," I hollered over the high-pitched strain of the small engine. "Bear left after the wall and we'll pass in front of Pampa Rosario...there it is! It's an Early Horizon site!"

After crossing the endless stones and empty sands of Pampa Allegre, we started to see the low glow of Casma over the cerros (low bedrock hills) before us. Cane, corn, and maracuya vines began to close in on us, enveloping the dusty path in the reassuring reflection of our own headlight. "Are Susana's parents behind us?" I asked. "Sí, están par' allí," confirmed Carlos. They're right there behind us. 

The path descended into the well-known agricultural fields, the chacras-proper, that funneled us past the extortionate 'guard house' that links the country road to the highway. Once on the highway, we were home-free. Tractor-trailers full of eucalyptus lumber from Huaraz, speeding colectivo station-wagons, and other mototaxis be damned; we had crossed the pampa at night, guided by a gringo, and hadn't had the misfortune of encountering La Gringa.

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Or had we? I arrived home at my hotel at about 10PM. After the cold, loud, and stressful trip across the pampa it seemed a lot later. I took a shower, got into pajamas, and began relaxing for the night. While checking the Internet, I began to feel cold again. Real cold. Then I started to shiver. My teeth began to chatter. I had escalofrios. 

Escalofrios translates pretty directly to 'chills.' Usually chills are associated with cold temperatures and illness; so are escalofrios. But escalofrios, like chills, can also refer to the tremors one gets when freightened. In my limited understanding of Peruvian folkways, escalofrios go along with susto, a form of deeply-applied fright that can result from bad magic, curses, and other nefarious forms of witchery.

Whatever the case, I sat there on my bed, trembling and - at one point - realized, 'I don't think I can actually control these tremors.' I put on a sweatshirt, wool hat, and wrapped a lliclla (small blanket/wrap used for warmth and carrying things in this part of the Andes) around my head and shoulders. I climbed into bed. It wasn't particularly cold in my room, or really at all that night. But I was freezing terribly and wrapped up far more intensely than would have seemed necessary or appropriate to anyone but me. On top of it all, I felt sick to my stomach. Along with the escalofrio was estomago suelte, or 'loose stomach.'

After four hours in bed, I began to warm up. So much so that I began sweating. I thought I might have slept a little, but I'm not sure. I recognized that I was both hungry and sick to my stomach, a little cold, but also quite sweaty. My skin was pallid, but internally I felt feverish. My guts were out of sort, but I was also hungry.

I went on a late-night quest for crackers and found them up near the 24-hour stalls that service the big rigs ripping down the Panamerican Highway.

Returning home, finally, I realized it was 3am and I was not going to go to the field to climb mountains for several hours. I turned off my alarms and went to sleep again; this time I felt a bit better.

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In the pampa we hadn't seen La Gringa, but maybe she got in me somehow. Maybe La Gringa got inside my guts and gave me escalofrios and estomago suelte. We didn't see her, but maybe she heard us joking about her and decided to show el gringo who would have the last laugh. Or maybe I had consumed a menagerie of otherwise innocuous microbes from the country feast that laid siege to my innards. None of the Peruvians seemed unwell, but lots of other - more urban - Peruvians would have thought twice about eating a feast in a village with no running water. 

Whatever the case, something got inside me, and it was Andean. Whether one chooses a folkloric approach (aka. a structuralist approach, if you want to nerd-out like an anthropologist) or a biomedical approach depends on how one wants their engagement with the place to play out. For me, I prefer to live between the worlds of biomedical empiricism - where you only get what you can see - and structuralist explanations based in local cultural logics.

In any case, a 2-day course of Ciprofloxin from the local Chavinfarma seemed to do the trick in bringing the stomach back into order. Within two days I climbed a 900m peak. The mountain made me do it.

Round 2: Dave vs. Duck (Part 2 of 3)

[This is a sequel to 'Cavia porcellus vs. Ursa pacificus.' Read that post first]

Just after my encounter with the cuy in Huaraz, my friend Harold invited me to his house to celebrate his birthday with him and his family. I lived with Harold, his brother, and his mom in 2007. Their taking me in is a testament to the incredible generosity of Peruvians. I recognize that everyone says that about every culture; but it is really hard to imagine inviting someone you've known for three weeks to come live in your house, to cook meals and provide a bed for them, and to take care of them when they (along with everyone else in the household) are quite sick. To do so without asking for anything in return is amazing beyond words. I would like to say that I have the generosity, trust, and would to do the same, but I'm not sure. 

Harold has also known since 2007 that I'm a vegetarian. It's become a running joke that I love tacu tacu, the exquisite Peruvian version of rice and beans. His wife, however, planned to make ceviche de pato. Ceviche de pato is a spicy duck stew. Although it bears the name of the sweet and spicy ceviche made with uncooked fish, ceviche de pato is cooked quite thoroughly. In this case, the ceviche is a reference to the addition of aji peppers in the stew, the very same ones used in fish ceviches. It's also one of the iconic dishes of this area. Like regions of the Southern US with their local barbecue recipes, regions, cities, and even villages in Peru have their own local specialties. People will drive far outside the city to taste local specialties, often served at restaurantes campestres, country restaurants.

Harold had told his wife ahead of time that I don't eat meat, but I had also mentioned that perhaps I would try the pato. Like cuyes, ducks are also typically grown and fed right in someone's yard. The domestic ducks in this part of Peru are usually Muscovy ducks (Cairina moschata), which are native to the region. Harold and his wife Susana raised a bunch of them in their backyard and killed the two largest to feed his friends and family.

I watched happily as Susana cooked the duck, boiling rapidly, over a moderate fire in their backyard candela. Candelas are country stoves made of a pair of adobes, poured concrete, or a metal frame into which long logs and canes are progressively fed. 

When it came time to eat, it was just the three of us, as Harold's suegros (in-laws) would be late. Susana was a most gracious and amazing host (and cook). In addition to ceviche de pato, she prepared zarandejas (a light-colored bean), yucca sancochada (steam/boiled), rice, sarsa criolla, and bought a lovely orange package of aji. In Peru, aji comes in clear tubular bags of varying lengths. It can be various colors and always smells incredibly delicious and fragrant when you approach the aji lady in the market.

Dutifully, Susana piled us each a huge plate of pato, rice, and beans. She cut me some sarsa, flooded it with lime juice (key lime, remember), and anointed it with a roughly cut ring of fiery aji.

"He's not gonna eat it," said Harold.

"I'm gonna try it. I told you I would," I said.

Susana's lovely plating and place-settings for Harold's birthday meal

It was a lot easier to eat the duck. I had a lovely and large breast portion, stewed to obvious perfection with sweet onions in spicy red juices. Susana had done an excellent job and, while Harold was both amused and concerned that I might challenge my philosophy, I was determined at least to do all parties dignity by cutting off as much as I could, placing it in my mouth, chewing thoughtfully, and swallowing. That is a form of eating that I probably never do. Now was the time.

I ate a few bites indeed. A good cubic centimeter or two, which is exponentially more food than the centimeters squared of cuy I had eaten earlier in the week. Yet, I could not eat very much. There's something in the juices and fats, the flavors and textures of meat that doesn't yet agree with me. I can chew and swallow it, but then my body - or mind or both - begins to tell me that something isn't right. 

I explained to Susana and Harold that I was grateful for the delicious duck that they had raised, killed, and cooked not 10 meters away in their yard, next to the cuyes, in the shade of the quincha cane walls, and in the shadow of their recently-planted garden of maracuya (Passiflora edulis or "passion fruit") vines, banana (Musa sp.) and guayaba trees (Psidium sp.).  

I had eaten all I physically could. I didn't think I would 'get sick' so to speak, but I also didn't want to risk it. Which is worse? Eating just a little of a cut - enough so that it can be salvaged and saved - or eating a lot more and then potentially vomiting in front of your guest, not because the food is bad, but because my body is bad?

Susana and Harold took it in stride. Harold already knew I wouldn't eat any of it, and I suppose that I did more than expected of me from his perspective. Susana may have remained somewhat unsure of the whole event; but she nevertheless smiled a big, honest, and kind smile, "I don't mind at all, it's barely touched, I'll save it for later."

No matter how far I am willing to push myself outside my boundaries of comfort, it turns out that there are deeper structures in me that set certain limits. There are probably lots of ways of explaining this with respect to brain areas, psychological structures, and biological reflexes. I'm not much interested in those explanations. For me and the duck, it's enough to know that I simply cannot eat very much meat, even if I were to want to do so.

And I wanted to eat that entire duck breast, not because I like or desire meat, but because I believe(d) there was something valuable to be experienced there between me, Harold and Susana, and the duck.

[Continue to Part 3 of 3 - Round 3: La Gringa]

Cavia porcellus vs. Ursa pacificus (Part 1 of 3)

So, I tried to eat this cuy (Cavia porcellus or "guinea pig"). Let me explain...

Cavia porcellus, "cuy" or "guinea pig," served in the popular picante de cuy style

I became a vegetarian when I was 15 and I've really been very successful in practicing my philosophy since then, even when abroad. People always ask my whether it's hard to be vegetarian in Peru. Really, it isn't. Most of Peru is very agriculturally productive and produce-centric. Using a combination of knowledge about the cuisine, careful questions about dishes, and a bit of willful (and necessary) ignorance about what is being served, I've found that Peru is very vegetarian-friendly. This is to mention nothing of the specifically-vegetarian restaurants that are popping up around the country, including provincial Casma.

Some months ago, when my friend and colleague Jorge invited me to speak at his university in Huaraz, he also said that they would prepare me a traditional cuy. Cuyes have been raised in Peru for at least seven hundred years, as indicated by my own archaeological research. Other archaeologists no doubt have found even older remains. Cuyes are both ritual beings and foods for special events. Curanderos ("curers" or shamans) use cuyes to this day in cleansing rituals. I have found cuyes as ritual offerings in special buildings dating back to the 13th or 14th century.

Cuyes are also special for food because they're usually raised right in the back 'yard.' If there's a single food that you know has eaten clean, healthy food, it's the cuy. That's because you gave it to him. And what you gave him was green pasto, which seems to me to be weeds, or panca de maiz, which is to say, green corn stalks.

When Jorge said he planned for us to eat cuy, I thought about doing "the right thing." As a vegetarian traveling to another country (or another person's house), the right thing is to let everyone know way ahead of time that you're a vegetarian. For example, when I lived in the village of Mojeque in 2007, I spent a lot of time hanging around and meeting people ahead of time. By the time I stayed in town, it was old news that I was veg. And why not? Everyone always wonders what gringos eat ('everything's canned, right?'). So showing up as a vegetarian gringo probably didn't seem that unusual; because gringos are by nature unusual.

I thought about doing "the right thing." Then I thought about doing another thing: eating the cuy. I became a vegetarian as a sort of one-boy protest, as a boycott against the totally unnecessary consumption of meat in late 20th, early 21st century America. Over the years my engagement with the philosophy has shifted in depth, scope, and commitment. However, my practice has essentially never wavered.

I thought about eating the cuy because I am no longer sure that my vegetarian philosophy transcends the context in which it was first applied. In the Northeastern US today, there's really no reason for me to eat meat, and it's completely possible to live well while avoiding it. But in the Andes, maybe eating cuy isn't the same as eating commercial meat in the US.

Joseph Bastien, a missionary-turned-anthropologist wrote in Mountain of the Condor that lives on the mountain were eternally tied to the mountain itself. Bodies and beings (the latter being, perhaps, souls) were continually recycled by the river that ran down the mountain, and the mountain itself was a being with a head, torso, and feet. To die on the mountain was not only the best, but the only way to die; because only on the mountain could the being be returned to life by the river. When residents of the mountain die away from the mountain, they must be brought back for burial, so their 'souls' can be recycled by the river.

Accordingly, animals hunted on the mountain die only in a certain sense. Their body is damaged, but their inner being is recycled. Mountain of the Condor shows that the context in which death and the consumption of meat are intimately related to the philosophy and ethics of meat consumption.

In the context of Huaraz, maybe vegetarianism doesn't make sense - is literally absurd - compared to the context of the Northeastern US.

So, I tried to eat the cuy. I had prepared myself for this for months, and so I found it not particularly difficult to pick up the rodent and put it to my mouth. However, I found it quite difficult to actually eat. The difficulty arose from the fact that this was a rodent - an old rodent as it were - that was deep-fried. I poked the center of the belly area with a fork and then with my very sharp Opinel #8 pocket knife. Both rebounded like I was poking a wiffle ball. I asked Jorge where the meat was. He said it was there, everywhere. It's all meat. I just had to dig right in, bite right in there.

I gave it another shot. I picked up the stiff little guy, opened my mouth, and took a big bite. Well, a little bite. I got a little bit of crunchy skin. I'd say about one-half square centimeter. I repeated the process. It was...OK. Having removed a square centimeter of the hard skin, I dug into the 'meat' below it. Mostly rib meat, I was able to pull off about another square centimeter of the softer flesh below the crunchy skin. It took me a couple of tries to get this much off; but chewing and swallowing wasn't too hard.

Cuy sort of reminded me of tender, juicy, and dark poultry meat; though I haven't had any of that for over 18 years. The chewing and swallowing - once I got the meat free - wasn't as hard as I thought. In your mouth, with the jaw masticating away, it all becomes mush. I didn't particularly like the texture or the flavor, but the eating wasn't as much of a challenge as I had thought. I'm surprised by this, as - after some years - I had thought that I might be missing something by not eating meat. It turns out 'tastes' can be acquired and lost. Apparently I've lost my taste for meat, its textures and its flavors.

Nevertheless, I was keen to soldier on with the cuy, but my stomach couldn't handle it. It turns out that the influx of proteins, oils, and connective tissue really does have an effect on the un-familiar stomach. I began to feel a little nauseous. I did not want to feel that way, I wanted to eat this cuy. I wanted to be fully immersed in the authentically ancient and widely revered meat of the Andes. I simply could not.

I explained this to Jorge and he was incredibly gracious as a host. We ordered a big plate of yucca frita and some ensalada criolla (which is basically a lime-washed red onion salad) and he took over with the cuy.

Admittedly, he found it a bit difficult to eat, too. I had regrettably let it get a bit cold. But even so, this cuy was tough. A proclaimed lover of cuy, Jorge dug in like a champion and finished that beast. However, he noted that it was maybe a dinosaur of a cuy, or perhaps just died of old age. My first cuy was not the tender delicacy that I had hoped would help me experience the Andes more fully and challenge my own deep-seated philosophy. It was a methusalen sage, and I had failed to acquire its wisdom.

All that was for Jorge.

[Continue to Part 2 of 3 - Round 2: Dave vs. Duck]

With lungs full of thin air...

I gave a talk yesterday at Universidad Nacional Santiago Antunez de Mayolo in Huaraz. It was a really excellent experience. I had originally planned on doing some exploring during the day before the bus trip, I realized that it would be better to travel to Huaraz during the daytime. For one, it feels like it would be safer. And, as I had remembered from 2007, the views ascending the Cordillera Negra are amazing.

The Cordillera Negra is a patchwork of greens, browns, and tans that represent myriad small agricultural fields that are quilted into the countryside. It seems that wherever people have found a sowable area on the steep mountainsides they've carved out a little rectangle for potatoes, wheat, or hearty-looking leafy greens. 

Patches of fields, eucalyptus trees, and aloe plants
of the Cordillera Negra

I spent a brief period in Huaraz in 2007 and I still remember the moment of crossing the Cordillera Negra into the Callejon de Huaylas as one of the most amazing views I'd seen in my life. As you begin to descend into the Callejon de Huaylas, you first see the Cordillera Blanca, with its snowy peaks, on the other side of the Callejon. The Cordillera Blanca is Peru's highest mountain range, home to Huascaran, the highest point in Peru and the highest mountain in all of the Tropics. At 6768m (22,205') Huascaran is the fourth highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere. Alongside Huascaran are the peaks of Huandoy and Alpomayo. ... Huaraz itself is no slouch, at 3000m (10,000') it's about twice as high as Denver, CO.

With the Cordillera Negra in foreground and
Huaraz city in shadow at center right,
the Cordillera Negra is bathed in clouds in the background.

The talk at UNASAM was really quite successful. It's always a little scary to give an academic talk at a new institution. Even more so when the institution is in a foreign country, and in a part of the foreign country that is self-styled as being very different culturally. Huaraz is a largely Quechua-speaking area, and many of the students at UNASAM are bilingual in Quechua and Spanish; many of them are primarily Quechua speakers. On top of all that, who am I - a gringo - to tell learned Peruvians about the archaeology of Peru and what it might mean to local Peruvians?!

By all accounts, though, it was a successful presentation. I explained that, in my experience, the past and present are inextricably intertwined; accordingly, archaeology and ethnography are inextricable elements of my archaeological practice. In my research at El Purgatorio, I found that "the past" - as manifested in archaeological materials - was ever-present for the people living nearby, for the archaeological remains provided both a source of meaning and a potential barrier to permanent residence in their village. As both an ethnographer and an archaeologist, I worked as best as I could to discern and attend to the needs of the people living near El Purgatorio while also completing a serious and successful archaeological excavation. As an archaeologist - a practitioner of archaeology in the present - I did my best to use my expertise in knowledge to provide those living near El Purgatorio with the information they needed to manage the issues surrounding their proximity to an archaeological site (as a foreigner, I could not physically help them with many of these issues). This explanation seemed to be well-received by the audience, which included students and professors.

The students were particularly impressive in their engagement with the issues. They agreed that archaeological projects are more than excavation; rather, they should have a social development side to them as well. After all, archaeology is one of the social sciences. Why shouldn't it have a direct-impact social dimension? This question - and an affirmative response to it - has guided much of my research and publication (see for example, "Archaeology is More Than Stones and Bones"), research influenced by both Dr. Melissa Vogel and Dr. Alan Kolata.

My friend and colleague, Lic. Jorge Gamboa, accompanied me for the entire day, right up until the bus left for Casma. Jorge is writing a really interesting book on the uncontrolled and rapid urban expansion of Trujillo, Peru. As we waited together for my bus to leave, Jorge thanked me for coming. I could only respond by explaining that it was for me to thank him. "How many people have the opportunity to come and give a talk, by invitation, to the unique and beautiful city of Huaraz, Peru?" I asked. In this case, I recognize that I'm exoticizing Huaraz a little. It's a very different place than most of the places that I haunt. But that's also what makes it so special and it's what makes the opportunity to exchange ideas with the students and faculty of UNASAM so rich. 

Jorge explained that most of the students at UNASAM are from the 'popular class.' Many are native Quechua speakers, and I imagine most are first-generation college students. It was also explained that when most think 'archaeologist' they think 'gringo.' I believe that the audience yesterday, with their enthusiasm and engagement, will quickly change those standards, and bring a new and vibrant generation to archaeology.

As I rode the bus back down the Cordillera Negra toward Casma, I snapped a picture of the sunset over the distant desert plains. The Cordillera Negra is just as beautiful at night as it is in the daytime.

With sincere thanks and enthusiastic encouragement to the students and faculty at UNASAM including Lic. Jorge Gamboa, Dr. Germán Yenque, Dr. César Serna Lamas, y Dra. Sonia Huemura.

Gracias!

Attachments:

Pacifico c Gamboa V. - 2014 - Investigaciones Antropologicas en Casma: Arqueologia, Etnografia, Comunidad y Desarollo

Pacifico - 2008 - Archaeology is More Than Stones and Bones

Sometimes adventure is lonely, sometimes it's not.

Sometimes exploring is about the people you meet. Today I went up the Sechin branch of the Casma River to the village of Huanchuy. I had initially planned to go to the formative site of Juerequeque and walk south, searching for late-period sites, but decided that I wanted to get to know the modern villages before exploring the archaeological sites at their boundaries.

It took a while for the colectivo to Huanchuy to fill up, and so my day started a little late. I ended up buying the two front seats in the colectivo because it's really uncomfortable cramming three people in the front seat of a small Toyota wagon. It was also because, as I joked, 'tengo un trasero hancho, pe.' I have a wide ass, man. Actually, this particularly self-deprecatory form of humor, which appeared to be much appreciated, was also a way of responding to the previous joke that 'el gringo tiene plata, se ha comprado dos pasajes.' The gringo has money, man, he bought two seats! For an extra $2, it was worth having the front seat all to myself on the bumpy ride to Huanchuy.

In Huanchuy, I immediately sat down on the Plaza de Armas and began taking a few notes about the villages we passed, the ruins I saw in the distance on the ride, and on some of what I had heard from the other passengers about local ruins. Before very long two elder men came and sat with me. They asked me who I was, where I'm from, and if I was on paseo, a little stroll. I explained I'm an archaeologist scouting sites for future research. As is often the case, one of the men, Feliciano Martinez (who gave me his permission to take and publish his picture) offered to take me through his chacras (agricultural fields) to visit a ruin that had been the site of huaqueo (looting). 

It seemed to me that I would get a personal introduction to a local archaeological site and I reasoned that - whatever the age of that site - there would likely be trails that led down the valley to other sites. So, together, we left the Plaza de Armas of Huanchuy for the east bank of the Sechin River Valley.

Plaza de Armas de Huanchuy

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Walking through the chacra Sr. Martinez explained to me the history of the area. It had been owned by hacendados named Monje and Blanco, but the land was redistributed in the 1970s during the Agrarian Reform. We walked a long time through corn fields and I noticed that the distant hills were also sown with plants. I asked if they used irrigation tubing to bring water and he explained that a combination of rain and asequia (irrigation canal) water was sufficient to sow the lower reaches of the hills; this is very uncommon in the lowest parts of the valley, where the hills are pure granitic bedrock.

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After crossing the chacras Sr. Martinez and I came upon an archaeological site that I decided to explore. In our exploration we went our own ways around the hillside settlement. Sr. Martinez went right to the top and I took my time exploring the terraces, taking photographs of the surface artifacts, of the architecture, and making notes about the site. I reached the top after Sr. Martinez had already made his way halfway down with a pile of cactus, or prickly pears that grow on wild cacti, called tuna. This kind of linguistic reversal from the apparent norm is not uncommon, and takes a little while to get used to. I surveyed the valley from the peak of our hillside archaeological site and then descended to share my lunch of avocados (locally, palta), pitless mandarin oranges (mandarinas sin pepa), and green olives with Sr. Martinez.

Sr. Martinez enjoying cactus

Sr. Martinez and me sharing lunch

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After lunch I explained to Sr. Martinez that I would follow the path south until the village of El Olivar. He confirmed that it is possible to do this, so off I went. He went back through the chacras to Huanchuy. 

My path was actually an old path that modern people thought might have been an ancient asequia. In attempting to revive the hypothetical asequia they created a very nice flat path that I followed around the contours of the quebradas (canyons), keeping an eye peeled for archaeological sites.

Path or asequia, possibly ancient, possibly modern, probably a little of both.

Before long, however, the path dissolved into the friable granite bedrock that I followed. The terrain became steep and thorny, and I was forced to descend into a very obviously modern asequia at the edge of a mango field. Before long I had to cut through the mango field and find the farm road back to El Olivar.

Following a modern asequia

Finally, I hitched a ride on a donkey cart driven by a kind man named Prospero. As we passed a small cluster of houses, all of a sudden, we heard cries of 'la carreta, la carreta, la carreta!' The cart, the cart, the cart! And so a gaggle of little children came running out of a house, ran alongside, and even jumped and hung on the back of the cart! We all laughed and eventually one of the children hollered, 'ya me bajo!' Alright, I'm getting off! And they all hopped down and scurried back to where they had come from.

B, the donkey

La carreta, la carreta, la carreta!

Announcement: Heritage Politics Lecture and Teaching Honors

This Wednesday I'll be heading to Huaraz, Peru to give a talk on archaeology, ethnography, and their interrelationship in the politics of heritage. Thanks to Jorge Gamboa and the Universidad Nacional Santiago Atunez de Mayolo for the invitation!

I've also been awarded an honorable mention in the Course Design Excellence Award from the University of Chicago Center for Teaching and Learning. According to the CCT,

"The Excellence in Course Design Award acknowledges graduate students' accomplishments in the area of course design. In particular, it recognizes graduate student instructors' clear and transparent organization of a course, clearly articulated plans to engage students in the classroom, and demonstrated ability to critically analyze student achievement of stated learning objectives."

My congratulations to the winner and the other finalists. Thanks to the CCT for their consideration and appreciation of my work!

Travelogue 19 July 2014, Part 2 of 2

As a kid I always wanted to go on adventures. I lived in a suburb, then an exerb, then another – more remote and older – exurb. We’d play in the woods and explore them, though we knew that on the other side of the woods was another development just like ours. Knowing that your adventures are limited to the area in-between doesn’t diminish the sense of adventure, not even in hindsight. There was something legitimately revelatory in finding the plywood shacks that older kids used for chewing tobacco and looking at dirty magazines. Even more exciting was finding the remains of old buildings that had fallen out of use when the farmland (it’s always farmland) was converted into a development.

Yet, the legitimacy of those childhood adventures doesn’t diminish the experience of finding archaeological sites at the edges of Peru’s rural valleys.

Today I took a trip up to Yaután. I’d always wanted to go there, as it seems my years of experience in this part of Peru are pretty concentrated in the provincial city of Casma itself. The trip to Yaután and, ultimately, the sites of Palka and its neighbors highlighted for me all the wonderful things about Peru, Peruvians, and Peruvian exploration in search of archaeological sites.

Last night as I did a turn around Casma, I checked in with the ‘colectivos’ that run to Yaután. Colectivos are semi-private autos that do fixed runs between small towns. They usually hold 4 passengers, plus the driver, and can range in quality from later-model Toyota wagons to very early Mopar vehicles. When they’re full, they go. The fare (pasaje) is cheap and – increasingly – posted in the windshield. The colectivos (which also refers to the vehicle, not just the service) get filled up by callers barking out the destination. They’ll identify people, point at them and call out – inquisitively – “YAUTÁN!”

As a gringo, this technique always tips me off as to where people think I fit in. Callers often look at me and holler, “Huaráz!,”because Huaráz is the mountain sports capital of this area (and maybe all of Peru).

Last night I conversed with the colectivo caller and he explained they run from 4am to about 9pm back and forth to Yaután. I said I wasn’t going that night, but would the next day. Well, today he remembered me. I walked up and he said “Ya vez? Yaután!”… “See! Yaután,” ‘cuz he knew I’d return. However, I needed some AA batteries and asked when we’d be leaving “ahorita!” he said. I always understand ahorita to mean, ‘in a couple minutes.’ It’s the Peruvian version of the proper usage of ‘presently’ in English.

I said I needed some AA batteries, would get them, and then return. But another caller resting on a bench in the colectivo garage corrected me. “En Yaután también hay!” It’s hard to explain the charm of this phrasing. To me it translates pretty directly as “They got’em in Yaután, too!” But the light sarcasm floating over the totally factual – and helpful – statement defies easy appreciation. The resting caller was right, they have AA batteries in Yaután. I wanted to get there and so did the 3 other guys waiting in the wagon to hit the road to Yaután.

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The road to Yaután cuts in between the two branches of the Casma River. The south branch is properly called the Casma River and the north branch is the Sechin River. They meet about at the town of Casma and then flow past the Port of Casma into the Pacific Ocean.

The road between these branches cuts between a series of large, rocky, and almost completely barren mountains. The landscape is lunar or Martian in appearance: authentically extraterrestrial. Of course, this is because it really is an extra terrestrial landscape. It was formed under the ancient shoreline by volcanic activity and gradually elevated by tectonic uplift. These geologically recent origins also explain the distinctive pointy peaks of these Andean foothills, and probably why there are so many large rocks on top of granitic bedrock. All the sand was washed away by the ancient ocean or blown away by more recent winds. Indeed, there are some ancient fossils of bivalves in the hills, but very few plants in between Casma and Yautan, which is to say cutting between two sets of these mountains.

Eastward view of the mountains between the Sechin and Casma Rivers,
between Casma and Yautan

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Peru might be a small country, but Peruvian downs are definitely small towns. After only a little discussion about what I, a gringo, might be doing in Yautan, it turned out that the director of public relations was in the front seat of the colectivo. He was eager to help me find my way to the archaeological sites in the area, especially Palka. He explained that from the Plaza de Armas - the obligatory central square in every Peruvian town - I could take a mototaxi to the dirt path down the valley that would take me to Palka. He helped me find the taxi and off we went.

Yautan's Plaza de Armas

Now, I wasn't particularly interested in Palka. I know it's a very old site (i.e. Formative or Pre-Ceramic, ca. 2000BC or older). I also knew that the university in Huaraz had been doing projects there and found a Middle Horizon (ca. AD 500) settlement there, too. However, I reasoned that if there were an archaeological site in easy reach, there would be a path, too. Usually the sites are perched on the border between the cerros and the agricultural land and linked by worn footpaths. I could go check out Palka and then continue on looking for the archaeological sites that I'm interested in, which date to about AD 1000-1500. 

I found Palka and a pathway that I followed westward for a while. There were indeed some other archaeological sites, but I won't comment on them here. Instead, I want to comment on some unexpected finds.

Main temple terraces and mound at Palka (middle ground).
Notice that it mimics the mountains in the background

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On my way down from the walk through Palka's trails, I noticed a series of aluminum cans filled with charred corn fiber. At first, I thought these cans were used to create smoke for harvesting honey from any one of the many beehives that are found around these sandy, rocky cerros. However, many - if not all - of these cans were arranged along the trail, as if to illuminate it. 

Why would someone be illuminating a trail to an 'unimproved' archaeological site? My guess is that there are rituals of some sort that take place here at night. Archaeological sites remain important places for modern rituals ranging from the occult to overt nationalist purposes (e.g., Evo Morales being sworn in at Tiwanaku, Bolivia and Alejandro Toledo and his wife holding important political events in Cusco's sacred sites).

I wish I could have done more investigating of this mystery. On the one hand, I fully recognize and appreciate non-academic uses of archaeological sites. I think it's essential that archaeologists not monopolize the use and interpretation of sites. On the other hand, if I knew who was doing what out there, I might be able to provide some pointers on safe and sustainable practices for preserving the site for continued and future use by academics and non-academics alike.

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Archaeology, like any job, can lose its joy rather quickly. The most romantic notions of archaeology are pretty well wrecked as soon as you start that umpteenth day sifting sand for the same small scraps of broken ceramic vessels. The first time you run a project, you get a crash-course in endless acid reflux. Archaeology becomes a series of frustrations with broken equipment, bureaucratic barriers, and bundles of paperwork - much of it of your own making.

Yet exploration of millennial archaeological sites reminds me of the thrill of adventure. It feels like real exploration, real adventure. It really does.

Looking north over the Palka River/Rio Grande, 19 July 2014

Travelogue 19 July 2014, Part 1 of 2

Arrived in Casma last night after a long trip to Peru. I flew a budget airline, which was mostly fine; but it prolonged what is already a moderately long voyage that always feels very long. No matter what, it takes all day to get from the US to Lima, Peru and then it takes all day to get from Lima to Casma. I gave myself a day in-between to visit some of my favorite sites in Lima before boarding another metal tube full of humans for another long voyage.

When I arrived in Casma, the first thing I did was check in to my hotel. As is often the case, they weren’t quite certain that I had a reservation because all the rooms were booked up during the middle of my supposed stay: for Fiestas Patrias/Peruvian Independence Day. However, once I showed the attendant my email correspondence substantiating my claim. I got a room that maybe had been forgotten for a while. There was no shower curtain and the floor was not swept. Peruvians always keep floors clean, I think as both a matter of pride and as a sign of respect to others who might visit.

As a matter of self-care, I took a spin on foot all around Casma to get my bearings. Then I ate at one of my favorite restaurants, El Tio Sam (Uncle Sam), Casma’s best-known restaurante turistica. I've been going to Tio Sam for a long time. I’d stopped here during my first trip to Peru in 2001, have run into countless archaeologists there just by accident in subsequent years, and I spent a lot of time eating there eating alone during my stay whilst completing my dissertation field research. Now, as was the case in 2011, it seems that Tio Sam is doing bangup business contracting a pension with the OHL road construction crew. 

Last night, men in yellow fluorescent uniforms were lined up out the door to sign the register and receive their dinner. The menu appeared to be roast chicken and puree de verduras, served over a pile of rice. Naturally the puree nearly slid off the plate: a Peruvian serving technique that says, ‘I’ve given you all this plate can handle, engordate!’

I ordered my classic favorite dish here, a dish done so well here that there’s almost no point in asking for it elsewhere: tacu tacu solo con sarsa criolla. Tacu tacu is exemplary as a Peruvian coastal dish. It includes a combination of indigenous, European, and Asian ingredients prepared in a stick-to-your-ribs recipe that nourishes people who begin work during cold, foggy mornings and end in hot, dry afternoons. Tacu tacu must have been hacienda food that was made cheaply and in bulk to feed to farmhands and corvée laborers.

In its foundation, tacu tacu is Peruvian rice and beans. I've been told that the rice must be leftover from yesterday and the beans are typically canarias, which are like Mexican pinto beans. The rice and beans are mixed with piquant spices that almost certainly include one of the innumerable Peruvian chilis, collectively called aji, salt, and citrus. Some cooks use breadcrumbs on top and make a yellower version. However, Tio Sam does it much much better. They use cebolla china (green onions) and no breadcrumbs. The tacu tacu always has a reddish-pink color to it. The sarsa criolla served on the side is mild red onions mixed with lots of lime juice (exclusively a variety like the key lime), and hot pepper rings. They marinate together to create a refreshing and satisfying dish that is somewhere between a condiment and a salad.

The key here is that the sarsa’s tart and sweet juices flood around the rice and bean pancake and then mingle with its base. I could eat tons of this, and I have. I sometimes have asked for a double order of doubly hot sarsa. Some young (American) archaeologists from these parts have been known to collect the extras from their colleagues and save them for late-night snacking. Such a good dish.

Having stuffed myself full of the savory and sour tacu tacu con sarsa criolla, I made my way back to the hotel. On the way back I ate some picarones: Peruvian fried dough rings made with pumpkin flour and anise, topped with clove-infused molasses 'miel' (honey). I also ran into my old friend and colleague Felix, who - when not expertly excavating with an American archaeological project - serves as the de facto harbor master for the mototaxis that serve the Sechin branch of the Casma River.

Finally, I returned to the hotel, crawled into bed, and failed completely in reading any of Don Quixote (who is perhaps the archetype for all archaeologists). I slept for a solid 9 hours.

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I think that it’s important to attend to various kinds of self-care when travelling, especially when traveling alone. In this case, getting my bearings by doing a pass around Casma – a city I knew pretty well 3 years ago – is a good way to feel at home again in what is, admittedly, quite a strange place for a gringo. Eating familiar and favorite foods really helps one to acclimate to a new place, too. In this case, the tacu tacu was not only one of my favorite foods, but a food that I've eaten together with friends and my wife; it's become a bit famous among us, and so it is doubly familiar. It's familiar to me, but also the food I've shared with my familiars.

Tacu Tacu with Sarsa Criolla from El Tio Sam

Academic Publishing: the Oddest Economy?

It's no secret that there are weird things about in the political economy of 'academia' these days. In a nutshell, it seems that demand is higher than ever for the stuff that academics produce and that people are paying more than ever to get those 'products.' In plain terms, more people are going to college than ever and they're paying extraordinary amounts of money to go. Yet, teaching positions that pay living wages - not to mention wages that are commensurate with the cost of becoming qualified to teach - are amazingly rare. But I want to leave that aspect aside for a moment and think about publishing.

Academic products qua writing fall into a bizarre economic limbo that deserves some attention because, I think, the limbo depends on the fact that no one talks about it. In brief, researchers win and then spend lots of money doing research, for which they are not personally remunerated. Research grants typically cannot be used to pay rents, mortgages, utilities, student loans, etc.: all those things that adults need to pay while living as adult members of society. 

After conducting research, researchers spend endless unpaid hours writing up their research into 6000 word articles 100,000 word books, and countless public presentations. The texts they write are then evaluated by unpaid peers who spend their own uncounted hours - without pay - anonymously (and thoughtfully) reading, commenting upon, then rereading and reporting upon their colleagues' articles. Unpaid journal editors, who are not anonymous, ferry the texts, comments, and revisions back and forth, from colleague, to peer, to publication platform. 

Those journals then publish the articles in print and online, where they are accessible to institutions and individuals who pay for subscriptions. Institutions, like universities, pay particularly high fees for access to these journals. 

So where does the money go?

Recently, I asked a colleague who had published a peer-reviewed article in a well-known journal, "So what's the split on the royalties for your article?" My colleague drew a total (and reasonable) blank at the question because the topic isn't even broached. The economic dimension for text-producers is totally ignored, even though the whole publication system is supported by fees. 

I joked that even in the micro-economy of independent music production, where every publication is understood to be a money-losing endeavor, we still talk about splitting the profits after expenses. Usually labels and bands split the profits 50/50. Labels usually keep a spreadsheet of the income for releases, which ideally come in runs of 1000 units. And labels usually demonstrate that they've lost money. But everyone's happy to support this labor of love for a form of cultural production that - like academic research - is a good unto itself.

Happily, ProQuest does discuss royalties with respect to doctoral dissertations. Royalties came up, for me, when I paid $90 to have my dissertation available 'open-access.' I chose to pay for open access because many of my peers overseas, distinguished and active archaeologists, do not have institutional subscriptions to major academic databases. ProQuest informed me that, by paying for open access, I was relinquishing a claim to any royalties from my dissertation. 

As I understand it (and I'm willing to be educated better on this, if I'm wrong), ProQuest sells dissertations in hard copy to anyone who is willing to purchase them. Now, I paid $90 for my dissertation to be open access. I should still have access to the royalties from sales. What if it becomes a runaway hit and sells a million copies? Why would open access (which I paid for) annul my right to royalties?

Well, of course all contracts are negotiable. So I attempted to negotiate. I told my dissertation office staff that I wanted to retain rights to royalties. ProQuest responded that this was not an option. Negotiation attempted and failed.

Now, one might also ask, "Must a PhD publish their dissertation on ProQuest?" Honestly, that was not something that was presented as an option. Embargoes exist, wherein one can have their dissertation's publication delayed by up to 2 years, usually to protect informants and other people named in the dissertation. But that requires special permission. And it's only for 2 years. 

What if I really wanted to press the issue? How would I go about doing that? I'm not sure that there's even a structure for that sort of negotiation in the dissertation publishing system.

Well, no one will actually buy my dissertation anyway. I'm mostly glad that it's available via open access to my peers, especially in Peru. Yet, sadly, when I try to access it through the ProQuest site, it's surprisingly difficult to find it...and to find where one would even look to download it. 

The point is that there are always things that appear to be fixed, and we should push back on them when we feel they're badly built. Sometimes we'll hit walls and that will be enough for the moment. Yet, sometimes it's worth it to keep pushing and pushing until the structure is reconfigured to a better form. 

In the meantime, I plan to employ a workaround. When the dissertation is finally published, I'll post a copy on my personal website, free of charge, and easy to download.

Que los dioses bendiguen a Univision...well, almost...

"May the gods bless Univision...well, almost..."

I've long had an issue with cable TV. Actually two issues. First, there's so much crap on cable TV that directly contravenes everything I'm trying to do as a knowledge-worker that I really don't want to support it. The History Channel, of course, is enemy #1 for continually broadcasting anti-science (worse than pseudoscience) so intensively that it's often impossible to have a reasonable conversation with someone on the street about archaeology. Typically I end up spending a few minutes kindly explaining that, while I wouldn't rule out the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, there is no evidence at all that extra-terrestrials had anything to do with any of the amazing archaeological sites that raise the profile of archaeology. I think that's a pretty accommodating and appropriately open attitude to have. Unfortunately, it also means that I spend a few minutes undoing the bad work of the History Channel and never get to talking about basic things like some surprising similarities and differences between our own and prehistoric societies.

Secondly, I cable is expensive. With my meager budget, cable is not a monthly expense that I want to take on. So, I make do with broadcast TV and whatever I can find through online on-demand subscriptions. Frankly, I tend to watch only PBS News and Masterpiece Theatre. That's plenty. Plenty to make me a real snob, probably, too.

But it also means that I'm completely unable to watch hockey, soccer, many American football games, rugby, cycling, and many other sporting events that are incredibly important to a lot of the rest of the world.

For example, today is the first semi-final World Cup match being contested between Brazil and Germany. I checked my local TV listing and it's not on broadcast. This is one of the most watched sporting events on the planet. And it's not on broadcast. That's to say, it's not on English language broadcast TV. The other FIFA affiliate is broadcasting Katie and Eyewitness News while Germany perpetrates what will be one of the most memorable soccer games ever by 5PM tonight. No one will remember either of those daytime programs on the English language station.

So, while the gringo networks snooze along mid-afternoon, Univision is broadcasting - free of additional charge - the semifinal. Now, I'm not offering a full-on and unconditional applause for Univision. Like many media outlets, it certainly has its issues; not least among them is the role of women on television and machismo, more generally.

However, what it is certainly doing is providing a consistent and dependable opportunity for virtually the entire world - certainly the entire Spanish-speaking world - to contemporaneously experience a major world sporting event. For example, when I travel to Peru next week, I feel confident that I'll be able to discuss with my Peruvian friends how Univision's comentaristas declared this game Brazil's worse loss since the 1920s. That is, only 30 minutes into the game, with at least 60 yet to play. At 34 minutes in, was this game a fait accompli? Maybe so. More important is that the rest of the Spanish-speaking world and I will now have a common point of reference for an interesting debate.

Univision's foresight to broadcast (or is it that they would never consider not broadcasting?) the World Cup is an example of the production of a global public. Literally, an enormous segment of the world population tunes into Spanish-language television because it's the most dependable and economic means to tune in. Myself included because - among other things - cable is expensive.

Rather than sincerely thanking Univision, what I might do instead is to highlight the pleasure of participating in a 'culture' beyond the one in which I was raised. All critiques of media-consumption-as-participation aside, it's pretty great to be able to watch the World Cup at home (and not by paying table-rent at a bar) and to do so knowing that much of the world is following the same video feed.

PS: A note on the actual contest between Brazil and Germany. This game highlights for me the power of teamwork. Four of five goals by Germany were scored because a potential shooter passed the ball. Each time, Brazil's players converged on the attackman, thereby leaving open one or more players slightly behind. In each of those cases, the likely shooter passed back to a less-likely shooter who shot and scored. I don't know if this is unique to World Cup soccer. It may be a reasonable strategy to assume that players from diverse club teams will shoot rather than pass because they're not accustomed to assisting their fellow national team players. Alternatively, it may be that Germany has absolutely focused on fundamentals that the Brazilians had entirely underestimated.