Mater Amazonia: The Vatican Returns to the Tropics

From October 2019 to January 2020, the Anima Mundi Vatican Ethnological Museum presented the exhibition “Mater Amazonia – The deep breath of the world,” timely inaugurated as the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon was coming to an end. Its outspoken positioning in current political concerns is striking. That even for the Vatican times can change fast, can be appreciated by contrasting the present exhibition with another one featuring the Amazon at the Vatican, organised almost a century ago. As part of the commemorations of the Holy Year 1925, the Pontifical Missionary and Ethnographical Exhibition showcased the work of missions around the world. Missionaries were asked to send objects representative of mission work to be featured in this exhibition, which eventually displayed a selection of 40,000 from the impressive amount of 100,000 objects, which were sent as gifts to the Pope (Dries 2016).

A lot has changed in the (Catholic) world since then. Latin America has long been and remains an important and strategic continent for the spread and practice of the Catholic Faith: with 1.2 billion Catholics in the world, more than 40% are in Latin America. Similarly, of the 10 countries with the most Catholics in the world, 4 are in Latin America. At present, however, the stability of the presence of the Church in the continent is threatened by the rise of neo-Pentecostal churches, particularly so in the Amazon region. For this reason, the 2019 Synod for the Amazon discussed – to the amazement of many – the possibility of opening up the Church for married priests to evangelize, clearly accommodating local realities into Catholic doctrine.

Equally, the 2019 exhibition “Mater Amazonia – The deep breath of the world” encapsulates this changed dependency: it literally speaks of the search for “A Church with an ‘Amazonian’ face” – a clear departure from the previous emphasis on mission work. Interestingly, the Church’s position is framed strongly within the currently soaring rhetoric of the defence of the peoples and the biodiversity of the Amazon, in which the metaphor of the Amazon as the “lungs” of the Earth features prominently. Visually appealing, the exhibition presents the ways of life of indigenous peoples in a narrative that is intermingled with environmental advocacy. The exhibition showcases around one hundred objects as well as photographs and videos from the Vatican collection and from four other missionary museums in Italy. Its simple yet functional design does not take objects as “works of art,” but rather tries to place them in their context of use, with showcases often packed with objects next to each other. Regrettably, only a few of them are numbered or have labels; there is likewise no catalogue or hand-out for consultation, and in general little to no information is provided on the objects’ provenance – with the exception of those that had been collected for the 1925 exhibition.

Upon entering the gallery, the visitor is presented with a wall map of the Amazon and some basic information on the size of the region and the broadness and complexity of its environment. Next, a large panel with black-and-white portraits of both Catholic and secular activists invites visitors to delve deeper into the history of Catholicism in the Amazon in the twentieth century. Almost all of the people portrayed were murdered in the context of their fight to preserve the environment and defend the peoples of the Amazon, making this section a strong (visual) statement that confronts visitors without mediation. Objects made with non-native materials such as plastic beads and buttons allude to the centuries-old relationship between indigenous peoples and the non-indigenous world.

The exhibition continues with a few showcases about the lives and material production of diverse indigenous peoples: ceramics, graters, basketry with geometric designs (Figure 1), the maloca community house, musical instruments, hunting, funerary traditions, and masks. In this section, the exhibition texts – presented in both Italian and English – are very difficult to read due to imperfect lighting and placement. This difficulty causes visitors to have to move around and change perspective in a useless effort to read, but at the same time (intentionally?) creating an experience of exploration. In fact, there seems to be no well-defined path or order in which the exhibition should be visited but, instead, the space invites meandering around.

A set of seven Ticuna ritual flutes is presented to tell about the importance of rivers for Amazonian peoples (Figure 2). This part of the exhibition raises some concerns. The public exhibition of sacred objects (especially those with restrictions as to who is allowed to see them) has been the matter of attention to museum staff and anthropologists alike (Augustat 2011). While the ritual and secret nature of the flutes is duly acknowledged in this exhibition, it is up to the visitor to consider whether or not such unrestricted display of otherwise secluded materials is appropriate - even in a religious setting such as the Vatican.

Finally, two large video screens present shots of large-scale development initiatives (mining industry, cattle ranching, infrastructure projects) intertwined with images of Amazonian landscape and scenes of everyday life.

This is where the activist aspect of the exhibition speaks the loudest, with conservationist statements and pleas for peace and understanding being projected together with the images. Significantly, Pope Francis is ubiquitous here. Through his statements he is even emphatically staged as an expert on Amazonian sociopolitics and biodiversity. Occasionally, his words are placed next to those of Amazonian indigenous leader Davi Kopenawa. Still, one has the feeling that the Pope is the main or most important presence in this exhibition.

In sum, this small exhibition is attractive, yet puzzling in its political grafting on global concerns about nature and humanity in the Amazon. While the 1925 exhibition celebrated the work of missionaries in converting (native) peoples to Catholicism, the 2019 one explicitly underscores the need to open up to the “multiplicity of human manifestations.” Over its activist framing, however, still looms the special relationship between Amazonian natives and the Church. Even the inclusion of many objects from the 1925 exhibition has some hidden effect. Being custom-made presents for the Pope, these objects primarily materialize a connection with the Church rather than their role in native society. The discourse thus creates a dichotomy between forest-burning Bolsonaristas on the one hand, and the native Amazonian peoples with the Catholic Church on the other. With secular activists and catholic missionaries literally juxtaposed as defenders of the nature and peoples of the Amazon, one senses that Mother Amazonia does not just give life to Earth, but especially to the twenty-first century Catholic Church, gasping for fresh air.

FIG 1. Display of a selection of Amazonian indigenous objects. Photo by M. Françozo, 2019.

FIG 2. Video about the destruction of the Amazon. Photo by M. Françozo, 2019.

mariana françozo
faculty of archaeology, leiden university, leiden, the netherlands
tesse d. stek
royal netherlands institute in rome, rome, italy