12.7 Hands On Archeology
Hands On Archeology
Visit: October 5, Tuesday
We had only classes late in the day, and so Suzanne and I decided we would once again try to visit the museum at the town of Yucuita. We had been unable to see it the first time we went, though we had wandered around the ruins. So we set off again, cruising along the cuota. It is about 45 minutes to drive there. We hoped that it would be open this time, it not being a Sunday.
In the square we saw a monument we had missed the first time, with the puebla?s ancient city-sign on it. The municipio offices were open this time, which was hopeful. A couple of people were working on inputting data into a computer and ignored us for a couple of minutes, but finally looked our way. We explained we would like to see the museum. They explained we had to see the President, who was not there but we could ask at a house up the way for him. Which we did, but the woman there said we had to go to a different house to ask. So we set off to try to find that one, but in passing the office again another gentleman met us and said hello. He said the president was out of town, and he had the only key because it wasn?t really a museum, but a back room in the offices. The town couldn?t afford a real museum.
But he would be happy to show us his collection, if we wished. I figured that since we?d driven out there we might as well see his couple of artifacts, and we went to his nearby house. His name was Javier *name, a guy maybe my age and missing all his front upper teeth. He took us into his main room and offered us chairs at his table. An old, old, old woman was sitting in a chair nearby and ignored us completely the whole time we were there. It became apparent to me she was blind and mostly deaf. But Javier?s wife came in and introductions were made all around, and she offered us coffee or refrescos which we politely accepted.
One by one Javier took some pieces off his living room shelf and handed them to us. First a large piece of a broken urn. Then a broken statue piece, followed by a funerary Cosijo urn, then four bowls.
First the statue piece. Interesting. Second the funerary urn. I gasped. It was clear to us what it was, and though it was broken it was just incredible to have this thing put into my hands. I had seen many of these in the many museums, but of course, never had touched one. I will admit that it is a real thrill to hold a piece of functional art, even though it is broken, which is probably a thousand years old. I was aware, as well, that this had probably been in a tomb and held some noble?s ashes those ten centuries earlier.
And the bowls. The largest had been broken and repaired, another was intact but fairly crude. The third was a finely made, small red piece, and the fourth was a nearly perfect red on cream city-state stage bowl; beautiful, nearly perfect, museum quality. It nearly took my breath away.
It was so perfect that I had a moment thinking that these were fakes, and maybe and he was going to offer to sell them to us. Nope, no such thing here.
He took out a closed, wooden box and handed us first several rough cutting stones. They fit perfectly in my hand. One even had a groove for the thumb. Then, an incredible obsidian spear blade. I gasped. Then an ear spool, gesturing to show what it was, though I had recognized I already. It was the kind of thing that the nobles wore. Then a little idol. It noticed that it had a u-shaped hole in the back so that it could be put on a string as a pendant, or maybe stitched onto a piece of clothing. Then the arrowheads started to come out. Flint, chert, obsidian; large, medium, small and tiny, for birds.
I asked him if he had personally collected all these. He said yes, over the last fifty years. They were all from the Yucuita area. He told us too that he was holding them until the town could afford its own little museo.
A little statue of a monkey, complete with tail. ?No mono en Oaxaca,? I said, and he nodded, no monkeys in Oaxaca. This was traded from the lowlands. He had a dozen or more hatchet heads, some of them of stone not found in Oaxaca. More trade goods.
Then the beads. First a string of stone beads, including one of a bird and another which Javier said was a jaguar, but which Suzanne insisted looked more like one of their little eating dogs. Then a string with pieces of coral beads. Another with shell beads. Another string of stone beads, jade and turquoise, obsidian, other stones I don?t know. A string of crude stone beads.
Then two little delicate pieces of silver, bent and blackened with age.
Several round discs with a hole in the middle. Most of them had abstract designs, but this one has a double-headed jaguar.
And another idol, and another, and more and more. Lots of them. They all have similar features, of prominent facial features, hands crossed over their belly covering up most of the torso, and feet visible underneath. The stone used was profusely varied, but all had the little holes in the back to make a pendant or sew it onto clothes.
Miscellaneous pieces, like a huge mano, a matate, a bone awl, a dozen or so pieces of obsidian which were parts of a war club?the spikes sticking out to be exact. Here is a heart-shaped grinding bowl.
Here are a bunch of decorative pieces from shell, probably abalone. Javier told me he was walking around on the hill behind the town, which had once been a part of the citadel of the ancient city, when he stepped into a hole that swallowed his entire leg. He dug around and there was a skeleton in it that was just dust. Nothing was preservable from it. But there were also these, which had probably been clothing decorations.
I was awed by this time. I could no longer gasp in delight and wonder. I was astonished at this array.
?Un momento,? he said and left the room, then returned with several plastic bags. ?Barro,? he said. And proceeded to carefully take out the pottery pieces he had collected. I was flabbergasted that he just kept them in these bags! These three bags full.
And out the came, one by one. I was careful to hold each one individually. Suzanne was busy clicking away with the camera. Here are some photos of them. They were not in this order, but we had to start taking group photos because he memory card was getting full.
Pieces of statues, several torsos without limbs or heads; many human heads. Some of them were animal heads, like a pair of monkeys, visible in the upper right here a jaguar, a skull, two which I labeled dinosaurs, to Javier?s amusement. And a few almost whole figures, one of whom appeared to be wearing a tie. Many little pots, which once held grave offerings. A couple of broken bits with handles that were used to press imprints into mud for decorations.
These items appeared to me to be to be from the village era, which archeologists say was occupied between 1500 BC and 1200 BC for Yucuita. And there I was, sitting in a house in this little town fondling the sacred items and gifts to the dead which were between 3,200 and 3,500 years old. It was humbling, to think of that. I felt like those people, ancestors to this generous man showing his collection to us, ancestors to the cultures of the Americas, were not far away. I could almost feel their hard, brown hands in mine, shaping these simple figurines, maybe singing a song to their gods or their ancestors, watching and feeling a shape come out of the mud. It was a thrill, like holding a friend?s newborn baby or like falling love with a new kitty. Warm, full, long-term, mysterious.
Mysterious indeed. Look at this one. Here is a little clay head shaped in Oaxaca over 3,000 years ago and if this does not look African I can not imagine what does! Another one, whose punk-like haircut provoked Javier to call it Mohican, but also looked African to Suzanne and I. And this one he labeled Hindu, which it does appear to be, with that moustache and turban (though with less assurance than the African faces.)
A lot of people feel that Africans came to Central America during this period, or even earlier. I cannot help but feel this head for certain, and maybe the two, are tiny bits of evidence to support that.
The table was getting full. My brain was full. I was satisfied. That was when Javier?s wife struggled out with a wooden box full of stone bits. More stone axes, stones to polish other stones, a couple of stone rasps. And some more idols. Javier called this one a jaguar, but Suzanne and I feel it was an opossum. A jaguar head. Pieces of obsidian, blanks for blades or their cast-offs. Round weights with holes bored through, maybe for nets or for bolas. Or heck, beads for a giant. My head was swimming.
We have lots more photos, but no room on the site to put them all. But here is part of the collection.
They finally showed us a map which he had made, traced from an early document to show the city layout and its borders. He noted one place where neighbors had moved a border stone and cheated them of a part of their land. In a corner was a symbol, the same symbol which we had seen in the plaza on the monument. It was also on the benches. It is the ancient symbol for the puebla, you can see the hill and flowers on it. Yucuita is Mixtec for yucu, hill, and ita, flower. So Javier and his wife proudly pulled out a tapeta, a woven wall hanging, of their town.
It is interesting to note the names. At the top it is San Juan Yucuita. The Mixtec name I have already mentioned, and the San Juan part was added by the Spaniards after the patron of the town?s church. In the lower name the San Juan part if of course the same, but Suchixtepeque was the Nahuatl name, given to it either by the Aztecs when they came into the area, or afterwards when Nahuatl was the lingua franca used by the Spanish colonizers. Most towns in Oaxaca have this many names. His pride in his town and his people was evident.
As we were about to leave he suddenly said something to his wife, who dashed out the door and returned with this, a large drinking vessel nearly perfect. Her brother had turned it up while digging for a road. It has eagle heads around the rim. I damn near swooned to hold it.
We spent about two hours going over these things. My brain was full, my excitement worn out. Javier told us there were some nearby sites and we should visit them. He said we should be sure to visit Apoala, where the first Mixtecs were born, and go overnight to visit it early. He invited us back and gave us his phone number.
We plan to return.