Mummified children in MAAM...

At the guesthouse in Salta I met an amazing Argentinean lady called Betty… At 46 years old, she looked more like 30, and she had such vitality and life that she just drew people to her. Tall and robust, with long jet-black hair, she really was larger than life. She was so excited by the things that she saw and learnt, and her enthusiasm was infectious… I met her and was instantly drawn to her positive energy and her outlook on life. A Buddhist, a free spirit, she believes in love, karma, cause and effect, and the importance of responsibility for one’s actions instead of guilt or blame. When I first met her she gushed about a museum that she had been to in the main square of Salta called MAAM (Museo de Arquologia de Alta Montana - Museum of High Altitude Archaeology http://www.maam.org.ar). I had heard about this museum, but to be totally honest, after five weeks of travelling and countless museums, I was a little museum-ed out and didn’t plan to go… But after hearing Betty talk about it, I decided to go the next morning (between 9-10am entrance was free! Hooray for free things on Tracy’s limited budget) and I am so glad that I did.

After travelling for many years and in many places around the world, it is hard to be truly surprised anymore. Excited, fascinated, bewildered, awed, yes, but I very rarely encounter something so totally new that it blows me away. But this museum definitely did that. Actually, it wasn’t so much the museum itself, although I thought it was fantastic, but it was what I learnt in the museum that was so surprising and new that it really made an impression on me.

The information presented in the museum is entirely in Spanish, so I took along my dictionary and spent over four hours translating every word, talking to the guards when I couldn’t understand something, and watching each of the videos through twice, sometimes three times, to make sure that I was able to understand as much as possible. I have since spoken with a number of my fellow travellers who were also in Salta, and each one of them agreed that it was one of the most amazing museums they had ever been in.

The museum is based around the discovery of three mummified children, discovered high in the mountains in the province of Salta, near the border of Chile. They were discovered in 1996 on an expedition with archaeologists from Argentina, Peru and the United States, sponsored by National Geographic. The children were discovered at 6300 metres above sea level, where the low temperatures, low atmospheric pressure and lack of pathogens meant that they are the best preserved mummies in the entire world. It is thought that the children have been preserved there for over 500 years, dating back to the time when the Incan empire ruled over much of South America.

The children were sacrifices, offered to the gods because of their physical perfection and beauty. Under the Incan empire, only the most beautiful and gifted of the children were chosen as offerings. They marched from their home villages to Cuzco, the capital of the Incan Empire, along with their family and religious leaders, where they were treated like royalty. After feasts and ceremonies in their honour, the children and their entourage paraded back to their home towns, where they were now seen almost like deities themselves. Then they marched up the mountain where they were given a kind of spirit made from maize, and when they fell asleep they were covered, buried alive.

But to the Incan people they did not die, but rather, they were forever sleeping in the mountains, at the highest point in their world, where they would live forever with the gods. Their presence there would protect the community, and enable them to have good harvests, and protect them from natural disasters.

There was only one of the children on display, but I found her appearance fascinating. She looked so real, so alive that I could imagine that she was just sleeping there. I could picture her eyes opening and her winking at me. It was hard to imagine that she had been dead for over 500 years. She looked so peaceful. She was kept inside a chamber that was maintained at minus 20 degrees and at low pressure, in order to simulate the same environment that the children were in for 500 years before their discovery.

I tried to work out what I felt about the children being taken away from their mountain… People have many different ideas about this. Some people say that they should go back to where they were so carefully buried by their people, other people say that they should remain in the museum where they are. Most of the tourists I’ve spoken with seem to think that the children should go back to the mountain, out of respect for the indigenous culture and beliefs. I have heard many people argue passionately about how they were dug up against their will, and how they were buried in the mountains for a purpose for their people, and that taking them away was disrespectful and plainly wrong.

I’ve thought a lot about it since, and it’s hard to me to make up my mind. On one hand I totally agree with the importance of respecting local customs and traditions, and I would hate for a relative or ancestor of mine to be displayed in a museum… but at the same time, the museum was so carefully, beautifully presented, that it is hard to find a fault in the way they are educating about the past. They treated the children with such honour and dignity. I felt so enlightened… such a feeling of empowerment that comes through knowledge, that I was grateful for their discovery. I felt so inspired to learn more about the life of the Incans, their beliefs, their culture, their way of life…

So in the end I decided to go against my fellow travellers and my normal instincts for preservation of culture and heritage at all costs. I decided that I was happy for the children to stay where they are, and be grateful that their presence can help to educate and inspire people from around the world to learn more about the indigenous way of life in South America. Who knows? Maybe that is what their purpose is now…