the MAAM - or how national identity can evolve

While I was in Salta , I also visited a number of museums, including a very new - and quite well done - one by the name Museo de Archaelogia de Alta Montaña, the MAAM (Museum of Archaeology of High Mountain Areas.... the English acronym of MAHMA just isn't that sexy, is it? Does that reflect the fact that Argentine ladies are generally more sexy than English one? I don't know, but feel free to weigh in on this subject in the comments section). This museum is so new it isn't in most guidebooks, although it should be. On the one hand, it has a number of excellent exhibition items, but almost more interestingly, it illustrates how Argentina's attitude viz-á-viz its own history is changing, particularly regarding the original indigenous inhabitants of the southern cone.

The reason the museum was created was for an Incan ice-mummy that originates in the Salta region. The Incas had this crazy thing where they made human sacrifices, though not on the scale of, say, the Aztecs, although their way of doing it was pretty loco. First the kids - and I mean children, usually between 6 and 12 - would be selected from different regions of the huge empire and be blessed by the Inca (emperor) during the Inti Rami (sun festival) in June in Cuzco. From there, the children, priests, and entourage would walk in a straight line to the sacrificial sight - straight across rivers, through valleys and over mountain tops, and whoever has seen the landscape here knows that isn't easy today with mountaineering equipment. (In the meantime, Jeremy Piven would be handling the logistics.) These sacrificial sites were of course significant in their own right - they lay atop the highest peaks in the Andes, usually above 6000 meters over sea level. The peaks were both home to gods, and also these high peaks were revered as deities themselves by the Incas. Although northern Argentina was among the furthest places from Cuzco still in the Incan empire, a disproportionate amount of these sacrifices took place in what is now Argentina, because some of the highest mountains in the Andes are there, including Aconcagua, which is the highest peak in the Americas although no sacrifices have been found there.
The little girl that is housed in the MAAM was first unearthed in the 1930s, but then sold to a collector in Buenos Aires, where she was soon forgotten and badly abused. Eventually, it was purchased at a yard sale in the mid nineties for an astounding U$S 25 - that's right, the same price as two movie tickets and a medium popcorn, and a far better investment considering that the buyer received an invaluable archaeological artifact that to locals is a semi-goddess. The museum was created to house her remains and explore the Inca influence in what today is Argentina.

The museum emphasizes the continuity of the belief system that led to the girl's being sacrificed, which among peasant indigenos in the area are still maintained. In fact, videos that form part of the display have interviews with campesinos who talk about how the girl's spirit appealed again and again to local people to return her body home during her decades in exile. According to these locals, those visions and dreams have discontinued since the body's return to Salta, although she did appear to one woman to thank her and affirm her spirit is back at rest. The exhibits also emphasize t he girl as a person, on not simply an object to be stared at, and so the room in which she is displayed is treated like a tomb: visitors are asked to remove hats and keep their voices low. Moreover, she isn't lit all the time, but visitors push a button that lights her up for several seconds.
Speaking of that lighting button, it's actually quite funny: There is a thick panel of glass, and behind it darkness. Since most museum exhibits aren't right up against the display screen, most visitors lean down and really close to the glass before pushing the button - only to find themselves 3 inches from the girl's half-decayed face, with her mouth and eyes torn wide open, screaming. I think it's about as cos e to a horror flick as any museum will take you. I certainly jumped at that, then decided to hang around the room and see what others' reactions would be. I wasn't disappointed, as most visitors not only jumped back from the glass, but most the girls would scream, also. I know the museum organizers wanted to give the girl dignity by keeping her obscured, but the result seems rather counterproductive.

I think the approach of the museum, particularly acknowledging the girl's continued importance to local peoples, is a tremendous step forwards for Argentina. This after all is the country that a) managed to kill almost all black descendants of slaves in a war with Paraguay and where many people say that if they're black, they simply can't be Argentine because there are no black Argentines, b) waged a war of extinction against indigenous peoples, know as the Conquista del Desierto, that today would probably be condemned as genocide, and c) not only has Catholicism as a state religion, but continues to ban all forms of abortion (and where many feel embarrassed to buy condoms!) and pays the country's bishops out of state coffers.
In essence, government money is supporting something that implicitly (or even explicitly) acknowledges - and even emphasizes - the country's polyethnic and polyreligious past and present. This goes along with the generational gap I've observed in how Argentines perceive themselves, with youngsters feeling more connected to the rest of South America than to Europe, and decrying anti-Bolivianism as outright racism, hypocrisy in a country that itself has indigenos and needs to embrace its Latino identity. Sure, much of this is the result of Argentines coming to terms with their new found economic position in the world (way farther down, and no longer on par with countries from Southern Europe or akin to the USA, and now being outperformed by Brazil and, even more so, Chile) that in many ways have made it more South American, but the affects are as much cultural as anything else.