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Abstract
This article examines the lives of artefacts collected by physical anthropologist Aleš Hrdlička during his expeditions to Peru. In 1910 and 1913, Hrdlička travelled to the Andean nation to gather materials that could shed light on the peopling of the Americas, health and disease in pre-Columbian societies, and the purported racial ‘types' of the region. The study focuses on cultural artefacts the scientist acquired, beginning with these materials’ collection as specimens meant to reveal the racial prehistory of the Andes, and continuing with their classification, display, and exchange as museum objects at the Smithsonian Institution. My analysis of Hrdlička's Peruvian collection draws attention not only to how scientific representations of Peru and the Andes have shifted over time, but also to the way in which a focus on museum objects can elucidate changing notions about the cultural agency of prehistoric populations and their present-day descendants.
Acknowledgements
I thank Candace Greene, Nancy Parezo, and my fellow SIMA participants for fostering a fun and engaging intellectual environment. Florence Babb, Nicholas Kawa, and William Stein read drafts of the manuscript and provided useful suggestions and critiques. I am also grateful to those who attended a colloquium I gave on this research at the University of Florida Department of Anthropology and thank Susan deFrance, Richard Kernaghan, Ellen Lofaro, Camee Maddox, Michael Moseley, Maya Stanfield-Mazzi, and Mark Thurner for their help either there or during other stages of this work. The article is dedicated to the memory of William Stein.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
[1] The quotations in this introduction, unless otherwise noted, come from sections of Hrdlička's ‘My Journeys' travelogue that deal with his Peru travels (AHP n.d., B163).
[2] Trephination refers to the practice of making an incision in the skull of a living human by scraping or drilling. Contemporary research on Andean trephination suggests the practice was used almost exclusively as a medical response to cranial trauma (Andrushko and Verano Citation2008).
[3] The scientific consensus among biological anthropologists and human geneticists today is that ‘race' is not a valid scientific concept. Still, the abandonment of race in favour of notions such as population and ancestry has not put an end to racialized assumptions (and outright racist premises) in research on human biology (Caspari Citation2003).
[4] That is not to imply that the Boasian culture concept and its uses in social and political discourse should be viewed as wholly innocent or by definition progressive. Bennett (Citation2014), for instance, emphasizes the emergence of cultural anthropology as a ‘liberal science' that could mediate relations between rulers and ruled in a variety of colonial contexts.
[5] Sometimes, however, the makers of Inca greatness had non-Peruvian origins. See Gould (Citation1982, 64) for a discussion of nineteenth-century racial scientist George Samuel Morton's puzzlement at the existence of civilization among ‘small-brained Incas' and Thurner (Citation2011, 106–107) for analysis of how Morton and other scientists of the era theorized the non-Peruvian roots of the Incas.
[6] Hiram Bingham, for instance, described indigenous people living in the vicinity of Machu Picchu as ‘corngrowers' who were ‘of a different breed' than the temples’ creators (Heaney Citation2010, 127).
[7] There are five ethnology items if one includes a Peruvian ‘Baby Shirt' (ET9226) that may be associated with Hrdlička due to an administrative error.
[8] Pessimism regarding ‘mixed bloods' is a consistent theme in Hrdlička's work. Stocking, in his analysis of late nineteenth and early-twentieth century ideas of race in anthropology, observes that ‘it was common knowledge that “half-breeds” had nowhere produced a “high civilization”. The Latin Europeans of South America were paying for their racial liberality' (Stocking Citation1982, 52).
[9] Oppenheim (Citation2010, 96) notes Hrdlička's preference for the ‘more typologically defined' Koreans over the Japanese.
[10] It is also possible that Hrdlička kept one or more of these three bowls after a similar incident involving a different ‘near-Indian' woman making him soup near Santa Lucía.
[11] One is tempted to put forth a similar theory about the acquisition of Hrdlička's other ethnological item—a single mud-caked sandal that is strikingly similar to pre-Columbian ones housed in the Smithsonian's collections—especially when reading Hrdlička's description of unearthing ‘several rawhide sandals, almost identical in style to those still used by the common people in these regions' at a burial site near Hrdlička (Citation1914, 12).
[12] Hrdlička was accompanied by Julio Tello, described in a recent volume as ‘America's first indigenous archaeologist' (Burger Citation2009), for a portion of the expedition. Likely due to a linguistic misunderstanding (Guillén Citation2012), Hrdlička grew to resent Tello for conducting his own work alongside Hrdlička and allegedly limiting the materials that the foreign researcher could obtain.
[13] Arkush (Citation2012) provides a thoughtful discussion of traditions of representing Andean violence and their implications for archaeological interpretation.
[14] My analysis of the ways in which Hrdlička's Peru materials were exhibited and exchanged is based largely on information found in the Exhibit Hall 23 photo books housed in the Collections Records Room of the Museum Support Center in Suitland, MD, as well as a survey of relevant catalogue cards in this room. Especially for the “South America: Continent and Culture”, I rely on materials in the Smithsonian Institution Archives, specifically in Record Unit 363 (RU363 n.d.). Quotations in this section of the essay, unless otherwise noted, come from the photos or miscellaneous materials found in the photo books. The immediate and longer-term reception of Hrdlička's work in Peru is a topic worthy of further investigation. Paz Soldán's (Citation1914) and other foreign language reviews of Hrdlička's Peru work can be found in Box 340 of the Hrdlička Reprint Archive. Tello also wrote a report on the expedition that was published in a Lima newspaper (Tello 1913 cited in Burger Citation2009, 336). On more than one occasion, Peruvian colleagues have shared with me their recollections of learning about Hrdlička (and Ameghino) in school units on American prehistory.
[15] Two slings collected by Hrdlička (A301131, A301136) were listed as ‘loaned to Hrdlička' on 4 June 1924, perhaps for display purposes. The catalogue card A301131 includes the note indicating that it was displayed in a physical anthropology exhibit on prehistoric American trephining (see below).
[16] I am grateful to Maya Stanfield-Mazzi for making me aware of Rowe's (Citation1979) discussion of A307655.