S  I

A PUBLICATION OF THE PEABODY MUSEUM AND THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY • 11 DIVINITY AVENUE CAMBRIDGE, MA 02138

JEFFREY QUILTER JOINS PEABODY MUSEUM AS ACCOUNTING WITH DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR CURATORIAL AFFAIRS STRINGS ATTACHED The Khipu Database Project In July 2005, the Peabody Museum welcomes Jeffrey Quilter as Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Gary Urton Intermediate Area Collections. Jeff joins the Museum after 10 Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre- years as Director of Pre-Columbian Studies and Curator of the Columbian Studies, Harvard University, Pre-Columbian Collection at Dumbarton Oaks, in Curator of Andean Collections, Peabody Washington, D.C. He received his undergraduate education at Museum. Photos by Hillel Burger New York University and the University of Chicago and the Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in Among the hundreds of extraordinary Anthropology, in 1981. He has taught at the University of specimens that make up the Peabody Jeff Quilter: photo Maryland, George Washington University, Yale University, and Museum’s collection of textiles from by Barbara Fash. Ripon College, Wisconsin, where he served on the faculty for Pre-Columbian Peru, there is a baker’s 15 years. dozen of what represents one of the Jeff has already been hard at work on creating a new exhibition for the Peabody most intriguing systems of record Museum, opening this Fall, based on the Peabody’s excellent Moche collections. keeping invented by an ancient civiliza- “The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages” will open October 21 as part tion. These devices are known as khipu of a three-day conference on the Moche and Maya civilizations. (also spelled, in a hispanicized form, Jeff has conducted archaeological field investigations in several U.S. states while quipu). The name of these objects his special interests have focused on Peru and Costa Rica. His recent research at comes from a word meaning “knot” in the El Brujo archaeological complex, Peru, was funded by the National Quechua, the lingua franca and admin- Geographic Society, and a preliminary publication “Peruvian Temple of Doom” istrative language in the Inka Empire appeared in the July 2004 issue of the society’s magazine. With Prof. Luis Jaime (c. 1400 – 1532 CE) of western South Castillo of the Catholic University of Peru, Jeff organized the 2004 Dumbarton continued on p. 2 Oaks Symposium: New Perspectives on Moche Political Organization. Presentations from that symposium will be published as a volume in the near continued on p. 8

Featured in this issue: A ccounting with Strings Attached GARY URTON page 1 Lewis and Clark’s Grizzly Bear Claw Necklace I. CASTLE MCLAUGHLIN page 3 Becoming Indonesian: Post-Colonial Photography in Indonesia KAREN STRASSLER page 5 Technical Study and Conservation of Colonial Period South American Figurines ESTHER CHAO and JUDY JUNGELS page 6 Field Photography: the Marsh Arabs of Iraq, 1934 OMAR AL-DEWACHI page 9 Figure 1: Detail, khipu, Nazca Valley, Peru, T4554. America. The common form taken by system of number signs—for instance, In the ongoing effort to understand the Inka khipus is threads of spun- 243 = three ones, four tens and two the khipus, the Peabody Museum is and-plied camelid hair or cotton one-hundreds—the Inka would indi- hosting the Khipu Database Project fibers formed into what is called a cate the same value by placing a knot (khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu). main or primary cord, which is usu- signifying three single units near the Under the direction of the author, the ally about a half a centimeter in diam- bottom of a pendant cord, then four Project is creating a specialized appli- eter. From the primary cords, a knots each signifying ten at the next cation for storing data from individual variable number of thinner wool or highest level of that same cord, and khipus and for querying those data. cotton strings, called pendant cords finally, two knots at the highest level Almost three years after its incep- (Figure 1), are suspended. The pri- on the cord, each of which signified tion, the Khipu Database Project has mary and pendant cords of khipuse ar one-hundred. entered data on some 270 samples, often strikingly colorful, the result One of the major challenges of including the Peabody Museum’s own either of the varied hues of the khipu studies arises here, for while thirteen samples (Figure 3), from the camelid hair or native cotton used to students of the khipus are able to estimated 600 in collections around construct the strings or the applica- interpret numerical values knotted the world. Analysis of the data is tion of vegetal dyes to the raw fibers. into cords, we still cannot say in most already yielding significant results in There are numerous examples of cases what was being enumerated. In identifying patterns in the features of khipus tied together in arrangements fact, the great unknown that lies at the khipu construction (e.g., patterning in that suggest that the information con- heart of khipu studies is the attempt to the organization of numbers and col- tained in the linked samples formed answer the question of how the Inka ors, the direction of spinning and ply- interconnected accounts. One extraor- record keepers indicated the identities ing of threads, the knotting of dinary sample in the Peabody of the many different categories of pendant cords, and the attachment of Museum is composed of five individ- peoples, actions, and objects they were pendant cords to primary cords). ual khipus tied together in a ring responsible for recording in these Significant breakthroughs that are (Figure 2). knotted-string devices. The only area made by the Khipu Database Project Most khipu pendant cords have in which we have been able to inter- may help researchers at Harvard and knots tied into them. From work car- pret the numerical knots with any elsewhere begin to unravel the stories ried out on khipus early in the twenti- degree of confidence concerns calen- encoded in the Inka knotted-string eth century, we know that the knots of drical values; for instance, a series of recording device, the khipus. most khipus are arranged in clusters at 12 cords with values of 29 or 30 is different levels to indicate numerical thought to represent a series of lunar The Khipu Database Project is supported values in the Inka decimal-place sys- months, while numerical totals of by the National Science Foundation, tem of numeration. For instance, just approximately 365 are thought to rep- Dumbarton Oaks, and the Harvard as we would organize number signs resent the number of days in a solar University Faculty of Arts and Sciences and managed by Carrie J. Brezine, a mathemati- from right to left in our decimal-place year. cian, database specialist, spinner and weav- er, and student of ancient Andean textiles.

Figure 2: Five khipus strung together, Nazca Figure 3: Two khipus tied together, Nazca Valley, Peru, T3310. Valley, Peru, T4563.

2 • Symbols L  C’ G B C N I. Castle McLaughlin Associate Curator of North American Ethnography, Peabody Museum

The Peabody’s rare and valuable col- ognized it as a lection of Native American objects North American acquired by Meriwether Lewis and object, and its William Clark has generated tremen- identity was dous interest during the current quickly estab- bicentennial of the 1804–1806 expedi- lished. tion. The collection, and the Peabody’s In addition, related research and collaborative the object itself projects, have been featured in a range may be the most of scholarly and popular media across visually com- the country. But the “rediscovery” of a pelling and single object—a grizzly bear claw meaningful of all necklace thought to have been lost to surviving Lewis history—has excited the public and and Clark arti- researchers anew. facts. Made from The rarity of the necklace and its thirty-five large James P. Ronda, professor of Western American History, University of intriguing “lost and found” life history grizzly claws, Tulsa (right), with Scott Fulton, conservator and Castle McLaughlin, have generated some of this interest. (three more have curator, in the Peabody’s conservation department with the bearclaw necklace, March 2004. Photo by Esther Chao. Few expedition artifacts of any kind become remain, and it has been decades since detached) strung a previously unknown Lewis and on a foundation of river otter fur, the bears. It is possible that those bears Clark object of this significance has necklace evokes an ancient and endur- were Plains Grizzlies, a type of North surfaced. The necklace first came to ing human respect for the power of American brown bear that is now the Peabody as part of a large acces- bears. Native peoples of North extinct. The absence of stylistic elabo- sion from the Boston Museum in America recognized bears as healers ration makes tribal attribution diffi- 1899, which included other Lewis and and warriors and many cultures con- cult to determine, but the necklace Clark materials originally from the sidered them to be closely related to was almost certainly given to Lewis Peale Museum. It was recorded in the humans. Bears have played a promi- and Clark by a leader from a Plains or nent role in North American belief Rocky Mountain tribal group. Chiefs and ritual for thousands of years, and customarily presented the captains “medicine” necklaces made from their with emblems of their leadership in …brave men wear collars made of claws and teeth have great antiquity. exchange for formal diplomatic gifts the claws of the brown bear which During the historic era, grizzly claw from the United States, such as peace are also esteemed of great value and necklaces were generally associated medals and military uniforms. with male warfare and leadership. Grizzly bears were key players in are preserved with great care. While their meaning and form varied the Lewis and Clark expedition. Lewis and Clark journals culturally, they were always rare and Largely mythic animals until Lewis highly valued, and were owned by few and Clark generated the first written men. description of the species, grizzlies museum ledger, but a later annotation The Lewis and Clark necklace may have remained central to the mythol- indicated that it had been retained by be the earliest example of its kind in a ogy of the expedition. The explorers the Kimball family, which owned the museum collection. With the possible eagerly anticipated their introduction Boston Museum. In 1941, an heir exception of vermilion pigment on to these “white” bears, which they returned the necklace to the Peabody, one claw, no trade materials were used hunted, measured, skinned, described along with a group of objects from to fabricate the necklace. The claws and discussed with Native Americans Oceania. It was catalogued as a “whale were carved to accent their curvature throughout their travels. But they tooth necklace,” carefully packed, and and were treated with red pigment, soon learned to fear the formidable placed into storage with other items probably ochre, to honor the spirit of physical prowess of angry bears, which from the South Pacific, where it the bears. They were carefully strung presented one of the greatest natural reposed quietly for decades. In according to size and color, and pairs obstacles to their progress. Their January 2004, an inventory crew rec- of like claws may represent individual continued on p.4

Spring •  • 3 “S  C”L S

In 2003–04 and 2004–05, the Peabody Museum was host The two years of lectures culminated in a small work- and co-sponsor, with the Asia Center, of a public lecture shop held at the end of April 2005, entitled “Inadvertent series entitled “Signs of Crisis in Southern Asia.” The series Documents: New (and Old) Forms of Political and aimed to address a set of pressing questions in the anthro- Historical Mediation in Southern Asia.” This workshop pology of media and South and Southeast Asia: How is a examined how the explosion of small media technologies sense of crisis as a pervasive or natural condition in has vastly expanded both who engages in documentation Southern Asia produced through various forms of media- and what counts as a document, transforming the nature of tion and representation? How are communications tech- history itself. Accidental, inadvertent and amateur records nologies, not only the mass media but also those “small are increasingly mined as sources of historical truth, but media” that are more decentralized and amenable to popu- while these documents may be accorded a privileged lar production and use, generating new forms of, and authenticity, they may also be discredited as interested, par- responses to, political violence? How do these technologies tial, or simply insignificant. The material qualities of new provide novel locations for social memory? How might media documents—their means and scope of circulation, tracking the movements and effects of images help us their degrees of accessibility and secrecy, and their vulnera- understand emerging political imaginings, particularly in bilities to erasure and manipulation—also profoundly relation to the visible and the invisible, the recognized and affect their evidentiary status as historical documents. Six the unrecognizable, within political discourse and practice? scholars working in the Philippines, India, Indonesia, and Finally, how might a perspective that encompasses Cambodia joined together with members of the Harvard “Southern Asia” enrich our understanding of these community for a lively, extended discussion of the politics processes? of history making in South and Southeast Asia, where The series brought to Harvard twelve scholars who work rapid adoption of new communications technologies and in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, the Philippines, and ongoing political instabilities bring these issues into sharp Pakistan at the intersection of communications technolo- relief. gies, visual anthropology, and the study of contemporary politics in post-colonial Asia. Also as part of the series, the This lecture series was organized by Karen Strassler, Hrdy museum hosted a special round table discussion on the Postdoctoral Fellow in Visual Anthropology at the Peabody 2004 Tsunami and its aftermath. Museum, and Professor Mary Steedly of the Social Wing of the Anthropology Department.

BEARCLAW continued from p. 3 encounters with bears gave them insight into and respect unaccountable.” One of the mementos that William Clark for Shoshone and Nez Perce warriors who hunted the ani- kept of the expedition was the foot of a grizzly that he had mals only with hand weapons. The captains gifted tribal shot. leaders with the claws and skins of bears they had killed, This bear claw necklace references the natural and cul- and the Nez Perce named Meriwether Lewis “White tural worlds at play during the expedition—and their inter- Bearskin Folded.” action—in a way that no other single object can. No other Brown bears have become symbolic of unspoiled artifact evokes so many aspects of the expedition and of the wilderness, and Lewis and Clark themselves seem to have profound changes that have occurred since 1804. A number regarded them as emblematic of the independent lands and of scholars and Native Americans have visited and con- people they encountered. Their interactions with grizzlies sulted on the necklace, which is currently on display in the also forced Lewis and Clark to transcend scientific Peabody’s Lewis and Clark exhibit. A loan request from the approaches to nature. In June of 1805, near Great Falls, National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Exhibit has been Lewis was nearly killed by a charging grizzly, which chased approved, so that the necklace can appear in the final venue him into a river. The encounter impressed Lewis deeply, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and he described the bear’s retreat as “mysterious and May 2006 – September 2006.

4 • Symbols B I: P-C P  I Karen Strassler Hrdy Postdoctoral Fellow in Visual Anthropology

What do photographs do? How does Many of the photographs held in the practice of photography shape the Peabody Museum photo archives how people see the world around testify to a vast project of document- them, imagine themselves and others, ing the world’s diversity—a project in and recollect the past? How do these which anthropologists were active mute, two-dimensional, paper objects participants—undertaken in the last become invested with intensely per- quarter of the nineteenth and the sonal sentiments and memories? As beginning of the twentieth centuries. objects that are collected, displayed, The museum’s holdings from the exchanged, and sometimes discarded, Indies are small compared to its more how do photographs mediate social extensive collections of, among others, relations among people? And how Native American, Filipino, and does such a globally widespread tech- Japanese photographs, but they are nology transform and become quite representative of the different enfolded into local cultural practices genres of colonial photography. as it becomes integrated into everyday Alongside photographs from various life in a place like Java, Indonesia? archaeological and ethnological expe- ditions—of Borobudur and other ancient temples, typical traditional …the Peabody Museum photo architecture, and “natives” engaged in Studio Portrait, Jakarta, Indonesia, c. 1955. archives testify to a vast project of traditional activities such as weav- Private collection. Photographer unknown. ing—are several studio portraits of documenting the world’s diversity… attractive, young native women in the zines about life in “the Orient.” “typical” dress of their regions. My own research looks at how As the Hrdy Postdoctoral Fellow at Although they have an ethnological these and other European, colonial the Peabody Museum for the past two bent to them, these photographs were photographic practices were adopted years, these are just some of the ques- not taken by anthropologists, but by and transformed by Javanese and tions I have focused on in continuing professional studio photographers, ethnic Chinese photographers who research on popular photographic who sold them as commercial images began to take up photography as a practices in post-colonial Indonesia, and postcards. Such images were pur- profession, a hobby, and a practice of originally begun for the Ph.D. disser- chased by European colonialists eager everyday life in the late colonial tation. Photography first came to to collect souvenirs of “native life” and period. Following photography in var- Indonesia in 1840, as a technology uti- to send them home to their friends ious forms from the late colonial lized by the Dutch colonial govern- and family in Europe as tokens of period into the present, I examine the ment to document and survey the their exotic experiences in the tropical central role photography has played landscape and antiquities of the East colonies. For studio photographers, in helping people in Java imagine Indies. Photography was extremely these commercial images provided a “Indonesia” and what it means to be difficult in those early days and the supplement to their central source of Indonesian. The history of amateur tropical climate posed many chal- income: producing elegant personal photography clubs in Indonesia is one lenges to early European photogra- portraits for the European, Chinese, site of exploration. In the late colonial phers; but although the results of and “native” elite of colonial society. period, although Europeans domi- these expeditions were often unsatisfy- As photography became less techni- nated the clubs, there were ethnic ing, the camera itself served as a pow- cally challenging and cameras became Chinese and Javanese members; fol- erful symbol of colonial power and more portable in the early twentieth lowing independence, it was these European science and modernity. As century, more and more people local elites who continued the practice photographic technology became less became amateur photographers who of amateur photography. Translating cumbersome and easier to use, it was delighted in photographing the native the practices of colonial clubs into a also increasingly deployed for ethno- peoples and landscapes of the Indies, new “Indonesian” idiom, these ama- logical documentation of the diverse and who, rather than selling their teurs were self-consciously dedicated peoples, customs, and artifacts of the images, entered them into contests to producing images that showcased Indies. and offered them to popular maga- continued on p.8

Spring •  • 5 T S  C  C P S A F Esther Chao, Assistant Conservator and Judy Jungels, Conservation Intern, Peabody Museum Photography by Conservation Department

The Conservation Laboratory of the and graduate students at Harvard Peabody Museum may have been part Peabody Museum is currently study- University, and at other institutions, of an original full set of Colonial ing seven polychrome wood figurines the Conservation Lab is conducting a Period carvings of Inka royal lineage depicting Inka royalty. Two years ago, detailed study of the methods of con- starting with the first Inka king, these small wood figurines were struction and material constituents of Manco Ccapac and followed by subse- requested for classroom use and were the objects and trying to determine an quent rulers possibly up to discovered to be in very poor condi- approximate date of manufacture. Atahualpa.3 The Peabody Museum’s tion. They were subsequently brought According to the Peabody series includes four kings and three to the conservation department for Museum’s accession records, the seven queens: Manco Ccapac (in Figure 1), evaluation. Current understanding Inka figurines were collected by Mama Ccora Ocllo, Mayta Ccapac suggests that these sculptures are Captain Eliphalet Smith, Jr., in 1816, Papa, Mama Ccoa (in Figure 2), Una unique. Colonial portraits of Inka probably in Lima, Peru, and donated Yopanque, Mama Chimbu Ocllo, and kings, queens, and members of the to the Peabody in 1974 by one of his Tupac Yopanque. nobility are prevalent in the form of descendants. The likely date of manu- The standing figurines measure 30 paintings or book illustrations facture of the figurines is between the to 35 cm high. An x-radiograph was between the sixteenth to nineteenth mid-18th century—when the distinc- taken of one male and one female fig- centuries, while the depiction of simi- tive style of male headdress as seen in urine to examine the structural com- lar personages in extant sculptural art colonial pictorial representations and ponents and manufacturing is extremely rare.1 In collaboration in the Peabody’s small sculptures techniques and to evaluate the condi- with professors of art history and emerges2—and 1816, the date of tion of the underlying structure. The anthropology, conservation scientists, acquisition. The figurines at the x-radiograph revealed that the fig-

Figure 1: Manco Ccapac after conservation. Wood, gesso, paint, lead Figure 2: Mama Ccoa before conservation. Wood, gesso, paint, gold leaf, alloy, gold leaf, glass eyes. ca. late 18th– early 19th century, Peru. glass eyes. ca. late 18th – early 19th century, Peru. PM 974-10-30/8909. PM 974-10-30/8904.

6 • Symbols urines appear to have been carved from a single piece of wood and are attached to wood bases with a wood peg.4 It also showed that the hands of the male figure are composed of metal. Over the wood, layers of gesso (calcium sulfate) were applied to form the detailed relief of the facial fea- tures, folds of clothing, arms, legs, feet and ornaments. They were then care- fully painted in a palette of red, white, black, green, brown, and flesh-tone colors. Both male and female figures feature gold-leaf headdresses and are dressed in specific decorative elements attributed to Inka royalty and specific individuals.5 All have inset glass eyes. Unique to the kings are their lead- Figure 3: Before and after detail of the face of Manco Ccapac. alloy hands, which probably held a staff, now missing.6 On each king’s crown, the traditional indigenous red tation on custom-fitted mounts Technical Study… Endnotes fringe of Inka royalty, maskapaycha, is within archival-quality lidded boxes. 1. Portraits of Inka kings and nobility and scenes of the Inka genealogical tree were a combined with the mid- This type of enclosure provides the common mechanism for establishing histori- eighteenth–century style of crown immediate support and protection cal and legitimate continuity in the Colonial with a small existing hole at the top, from increased loss or damage of Period. These illustrations were used by the into which feathers would have been component parts until conservation native elite in Peru to establish their personal 7 connections to the current authority and to inserted. treatment can be fully implemented. gain status socially and economically in the As part of the technical study of Conservation began work on the colonial system, see Thomas B.T. Cummins, the figurines, conservators conducted figurines in Spring 2005. Techniques Toasts with the Inca: Andean Abstraction and an elemental analysis to identify the commonly used to conserve poly- Colonial Images on Quero Vessels. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002, pp. materials composition of the fig- chrome wood sculptures from Europe, 165–72. urines. Using non-destructive X-ray santos sculptures, and panel paintings 2. The “turban” style of headdress with a cen- fluorescence (XRF) at the Straus were employed. First, the surfaces tral medallion that holds two feathers at the top of the crown was a creation of artist Center for Conservation, we were able were cleaned to remove dirt and Alonso de la Cueva (1684–1754), whose 8 to identify some of the pigments. grime from storage, using cotton illustrations were first published ca. 1740. For example, the elemental composi- swabs and a weak enzymatic solution After 1745, several artists adopted this crown tion of the blue pigment seems to in combination with distilled water. in their published illustrations including Jose Palomino (1748), Justo Sahuaraura Inka indicate a mixture of Prussian blue Controlled cleaning methods enabled (1850), John Ranking (1827). See José 9 (FE4[Fe(CN)6]3) and lead white. the retention of any residual soot-like Imbelloni, Pachakuti IX el Inkario Crítico. This is consistent with published grime that might be associated with Buenos Aires: Editorial Humanior, 1946, examples of pigments identified in the figurines’ proximity to the use of p.199 and Teresa Gisbert, Iconografía y mitos indígenas en el arte. La Paz: Gisbert y Cía, South American paintings of the candle or oil-lighting. The flaking 1980, pp.132–35. time.10 Future analysis will include paint was consolidated with a solution 3. Illustrations of Inka royal lineages usually polarized optical microscopy to con- of isinglass adhesive, which was cho- portray 13 to 14 kings. Since the Peabody series includes the queens, or coyas, the com- firm the results of XRF analysis on the sen for its strength, stability, and its plete set may have been once 26–28 figurines. other pigment colors. aesthetic compatibility. Finally, areas 4. At the end of the eighteenth century, most of The figurines’ unstable condition of gesso loss are now being filled with the wood used in colonial Peru for sculptures required immediate conservation calcium carbonate in a polyvinyl was cedar. Three-dimensional forms made from maguey in combination with textile was attention: most were separating from acetate emulsion binder and toned another technique that had roots in indige- their rectangular wood bases; the with gouache paints. See Figure 3 for nous traditions, see Gisbert, op. cit., 99–103. paint overall was actively flaking; and before and after conservation of Wood samples from qeros dated to the Inka small regions of the decorative gesso Manco Ccapac’s head. and Colonial periods were sampled and iden- tified as from the genus Escallonia (Andean detail surface were lost, or found sepa- Selected figurines are proposed for name of chachacoma), which grows in Peru. rated in proximity to the figurines’ exhibit in the Peabody Museum lobby Visual assessments also include alder and storage tray. Their condition necessi- cases for later in 2005. mesquite woods, from Ellen Perlstein et al., “Technical Analyses of Painted Inka and tated placement in a horizontal orien-

Spring •  • 7 Colonial Period Qeros” in Objects Specialty pp. 122–31. The sculptures of the queens are 8. Courtesy of Narayan Khandekar, Senior Group Postprints (American Institute for more personalized. Although they all wear Conservation Scientist. X-radiography was Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works) 6 traditional dress, mantle and tupu,each conducted by Henry Lie, Head Conservator, (1999) pp. 94–111. The type of wood from woman holds a different object. For example, at the Straus Center for Conservation, Fogg which the Peabody Museum’s figurines are Mama Ccora Ocllo, who taught weaving to Art Museum. carved has not yet been determined. the Inkas, holds a spindle (not shown) and 9. The earliest discovery of Prussian blue dates 5. On the foreheads of each of the male figures the fourth Inka queen (married to Mayta between 1704 and 1707; the use of lead white is the distinctive red fringe, maskapaycha, Capac), Mama Ccoa in the Peabody’s collec- dates to antiquity. Nicholas Eastaugh et al., that was worn by Inka kings. Similarly, they tion, who helped the poor, holds a gold box Pigment Compendium: A Dictionary of wear the traditional tunic, unku, over which a (Figure 2) Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, El Historical Pigments. Oxford: Butterworth- mantle, yakolla, is draped. Other Inka cos- Primer Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno.1916 Heinemann, 2003, p. 309, 233. tume ornaments include large gold ear- ed. J.V. Murra and R. Adorno, eds. J.L. 10. Alicia Seldes et al., “Green, Yellow, and Red spools, tulumpi, a solar shaped medallion on Urioste, trans. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, Pigments in South American Painting, the chest, lion masks on the shoulders and 1980, p. 127. 1610–1780,” Journal of the American Institute ankles, and sets of fringes below the knees, 6. X-ray fluorescence identified the metal hands for Conservation 41 (2002), pp. 225–42. antar, see Gisbert, op cit., 1980, pp. 120–24 specifically to be a lead-tin alloy. and Carolyn Dean, Inka Bodies and the Body 7. Again the one to two feathers that would be of Christ: Corpus Christi in Colonial Cuzco, inserted at the top of the headdress is a Peru. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999, design of Cueva’s.

INDONESIAN, continued from p. 5 the beauty of their new nation and to technology of the colonial state My research thus aims to show sharing those images with the world, intended for surveillance purposes. In how colonial photographic practices through a global network of amateur the postcolonial period, the state were reworked and transformed in the photography clubs. Similarly, the began to use the identity photograph postcolonial period, in the process mostly ethnic Chinese studio photog- as part of the identifying documents helping produce the very idea of raphers who continued the practice of all citizens were required to possess. Indonesia and a sense of being studio photography in the postcolo- For many poor Indonesians, the iden- Indonesian among people in Java. I nial period drew on colonial tem- tity photograph was also the only self- hope that my work will help us see plates, but reinvented them in a new portrait they owned. As a result, how the photographs taken by anthro- style. Working with Javanese backdrop people reproduced these images for a pologists have a social life and a value painters, they developed an iconogra- wide variety of personal purposes dis- that extends beyond their immediate phy of distinctively “Indonesian” land- tant from those envisioned by the use as scientific evidence and ethno- scapes, showing volcanoes, palm trees, state, using them as funereal portraits graphic illustration, influencing prac- beaches, and modern Indonesian and as tokens of affection exchanged tices of “self-documentation” among architecture. When people posed among friends. In the 1970s, when those whom anthropologists have against these backdrops wearing the snapshot cameras and color process- studied. The Peabody Museum has latest fashions of the day, they ing first became accessible in been an ideal place to continue work appeared not as exotic natives, but as Indonesia, people began elaborately on this project, not only because of modern and proud Indonesians. documenting their weddings and the museum’s extraordinarily rich col- Another colonial practice that con- other family rituals. The form of these lection of photographs but because of tinued into the postcolonial period documentations closely mimics the the many people here interested in was identity photography. The anthro- documentation of aristocratic wed- photographic history in particular pometric photograph was developed dings and rituals during the colonial and visual and material culture more both as an instrument of anthropo- period. generally. logical knowledge intended to meas- ure racial and ethnic differences, as a

QUILTER, continued from p. 1 future. Jeff is the author of two books, Life and Death at the Andes, will be published by Duncan Baird (U.K.) in Paloma: Society and Mortuary Practices in a Preceramic 2005. He has served as editor of four scholarly compila- Peruvian Village (1989) and Cobble Circles and Standing tions, is Series Editor for Case Studies in Archaeology Stones: Archaeology at the Rivas Site, Costa Rica (2004), both (Wadsworth), and has published numerous major articles by the University of Iowa Press. His third book, Treasures of in peer-reviewed journals.

8 • Symbols F P:  M A  I,  Guest Curator, Omar Al-Dewachi Gallery Talk given October 20, 2004

Growing up in Baghdad, I was never a different way. This time they were at conscious that the cultural slur the center of yet another story of the “Macdan” actually referred to the devastation of Saddam Hussein’s rule. Marsh Arabs. The word Mcaidi (sing.) In 1992 and after crushing a major was loaded with meaning: unclean, rebellion involving the Marsh Arabs, socially inferior, and ignorant. The the Saddam government ordered the Marsh Arabs and their significance diversion of the waters of the Tigris were absent from my schoolbooks, but and Euphrates through the construc- my medical education in Baghdad tion of a large canal and several dams. taught me that the marshlands of As a result of sealing off the wetlands southern Iraq were plagued by from the rivers, the marshes were endemic diseases and public health drained, and the lands were converted - - issues. While coming of age in Iraq, to desert, forcing the Marsh Arab peo- Sheikh Falih al-Sa.ihud, Al bu-Muhamid the Mcaidi as a cultural figure had ple to abandon their homes. tribe, 1934. PM 53-26-60/15921.358. always been my “other.” Last year, Professor Steve Caton When I arrived in the United States (Department of Anthropology, in 2001 to start my Ph.D. in anthro- Harvard University) drew my atten- pology at Harvard, I never thought tion to a collection of photographs that I would again cross paths with from Iraq, housed in the Peabody the Macdan. Soon, I realized that the Museum’s archives. When I visited the West had a different cultural location archives, I found a collection from for the Marsh Arabs, mainly through 1934 containing about 636 images and their archaeological connection with depicting different tribes and groups the Sumerian civilization, their self- of people. In addition to the 127 maintained ecosystem, and a fascinat- images taken among the Al bu ing lifestyle that had long attracted the Mohammed tribe of the Marsh attention of Middle East scholars and Arabs—the subject of this exhibit— travel writers—most importantly the the collection included images from work of traveler and explorer Wilfred the Dulaim and the Shummar tribes, Thessiger in the 1950s—that shaped as well as the Subba (Mandean) and Western cultural imagination and the the Yazidi groups of Iraq. No negatives romanticized the Marsh Arabs. were available, just prints and contact As I watched recent events in Iraq sheets. The collection box carried the unfold, the Marsh Arabs of Iraq name of physical anthropologist Dulaim tribesman, No. 1043. PM 53-26- became prominent in the news, but in Henry Field, who, in 1953, while visit- 60/15921.5.

ing Harvard as a Research Fellow, Village in Hawiza Marsh, 1934. PM 53-26-60/15921.337. donated the collection to the Peabody Museum. After some preliminary research, I found out that these photo- graphs were taken during the Field Museum’s expedition to the Near East in 1934. Led by Henry Field, and sponsored by Field’s uncle—a scion of Chicago department store magnate Marshall Field—the expedition con- ducted an anthropometric survey of the region’s people, mainly in Iraq and Iran. The collection included photo- graphs of cultural landscapes, images

Spring •  • 9 of people in their everyday life, photo- cal expedition to the famous site of graphs documenting the expedition ancient Kish. While in Iraq, Henry members at work, and a number of Field established good relationships photographs taken for purposes of with British and local officials ruling physical measurements, mainly the Iraq at the time and conducted some classic frontal and profile views of preliminary anthropometric research. men and women used for anthropo- In 1934, Field returned to Iraq to con- metric measurement in anthropology. tinue his anthropometric survey of In the Peabody archives were also two the country’s other regions. Through boxes, under Henry Field’s name, con- his connections, Field acquired a per- taining data-sheet files. The number- mit signed by the British adviser to ing on the data sheets corresponded the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, with numbers on the anthropometric which entitled him and his expedition shots. Documented on the data sheets Henry Field taking anthropometric measure- members to visit every liwa in Iraq. was information of the physical char- ments, Hawiza Marsh, 1934. PM 53-26- Even though many Marsh areas at that acteristics of individuals, their height, 60/15921.377. time were unsafe for visitors, Field was head circumference, hair description, assured by the British Air Vice skin color, and body markings, all col- written by Lady E.S. Drower, a linguist Marshal in Iraq that he could visit the lected during the expedition. While who was living in Iraq at the time Hawiza Marsh under the protection of the content of this collection became working on the Mandeans, to be a Falih al Saihoud, the Paramount clearer, the context of the images was very insightful and useful cultural and Sheikh of the Al Bu Mohammed. still blurry. linguistic document. What I found Sheikh Falih was on good terms with most fascinating, however, added the British officers who ruled Iraq. another dimension to the story: When the expedition arrived at the As I try to cope with the difficulties Henry Field’s memoirs The Track of marshes, they landed as guests of of being an Iraqi in the United States Man, published in 1953, contains two Sheikh Falih. In his memoir, Field at this time, the construction of this chapters devoted to his 1934 work in writes about a great sheikh who was Iraq. One chapter offered descriptions always eager to share the two trophies exhibit on the Marsh Arabs of Iraq and anecdotes of his encounters dur- that he was proud of, namely an 8 has become a way for me to mediate ing his research among the Marsh gauge rifle and a tricycle, both given Arabs; the other contained anecdotes to him by the British government for the reality of my own “otherness” in of Field’s visit to northern Iraq and “services rendered.” Sheikh Falih facil- America. his meeting with the Paramount itated Field’s work and allowed him to Sheikh of the Shummar tribe at the use his brick-built mudhif—one of the time, Sheikh Ajeel El Yawir—the first non-reed guesthouses in the The collection fascinated me and grandfather of the current Iraqi presi- marshes—for the purposes of con- ignited an interest in exploring it fur- dent Ghazi El Yawir. As I read his ducting his measurements. To show ther. The information available on the memoir, images from the collection his gratitude to Sheikh Falih, Henry collection raised more questions than started coming into focus. This was Field promised to send him portraits answers. Who was Henry Field? What yet another narrative that contextual- taken of the Sheikh and his family kind of research was he interested in? ized the expedition’s fieldwork and members. What were the exact aims of expedi- Field’s research among the Marsh tion? How did the the expedition Arabs. Eventually the photographs The Exhibition members conduct their work in Iraq from the collection, along with Field’s I like to think of this exhibit as a at that time? publications and memoirs, became “photographic documentary,” frac- At Tozzer Library, I found the pub- remarkable interpretive tools to revisit tured by time, space, and representa- lications of the Field Expedition to the expedition to the Marsh Lands. tion. Through both the visual and the Iraq. The two volumes, titled the textual components of the exhibit, I Anthropology of Iraq, represented Henry Field have tried to (re)create and capture a Field’s statistical and cultural analysis Henry Field, a graduate of Oxford multi-layered narrative of Field’s of the anthropometric data from the University, was trained in anthropol- expedition to the marsh lands. In the upper and lower Tigris-Euphrates ogy and archaeology, having studied text, I have synthesized and tried to regions. The monographs also offered under scholars such as Henry Belfour, complement, yet also complicate, the cultural and ecological treatment of R.R. Marett, and L.H. Dudely Buxton. image and vice versa. Through this these places written by other members He first visited Iraq in the late 1920s dialectic, I have attempted to tell sev- of the expedition. I found the chapter with Buxton as part of an archaeologi- continued on p. 15

10 • Symbols PEABODY MUSEUM 2004 EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS: Highlights

New in the Galleries

Imazighen! Beauty and Artisanship in Breaking the Silence: Nineteenth Gifts of the Great River: Arkansas Berber Life Century Indian Delegations to Effigy Pottery from the Curtiss Opened December 1, 2004 Washington DC Collection On View through June 2006 Opened March 17, 2005 Opened June 2, 2005 On View through December 2005 On View through March 2006

Día de los Muertos: Day of the Dead the Trio Alma de Barrio.Attended by of Mexico in Boston, the Direccíon Día de los Muertos has become one of over 400, the event was sponsored by General para Asuntos Culturales/ the Peabody’s most successful events. the Peabody Museum, the Consulate S.R.E., and Corona Extra. In 2004, the Peabody collaborated once again with the Consulate of Mexico in Boston to bring performers from Mexico City to the Museum for a special Day of the Dead event: Origins; In Yoli in Miquiztle, A bi-lin- gual play presented in Spanish and English, performed by two members of the Grupo Saltinbanqui with Gelia Alvarez and produced by Claudia Salas. The play was a classic Day of the Dead metaphor of death as a con- tinuation of life with a little political and social commentary. The audience was led by a three mojiganga (from Harvard’s Ballet Folklorico) to a fiesta in the Mesoamerican galleries with music by Eduardo Gonzáles and Ciria Gómez performing for a full house in Origins: In Yoli in Mizquiztle for the Day of the Dead festivities. Photo by José Falconi.

Spring •  • 11 PEABODY MUSEUM 2004 EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS: Highlights (continued)

Peabody Hosts a Mesoamerican Weekend October 1–3, 2004, began the first in a planned series for Saturno, University of New Hampshire, and Ann-Seiferle special weekends focusing on Central and South America Valencia, Harvard, spoke on some of the newest material archaeology and culture. The inaugural event, “Picturing on Maya murals from San Bartolo and Aztec maps, respec- Mesoamerica,” focused on imagery and writing systems in tively. the Maya, Aztec and Mixtec cultures. From maps to murals Next year’s conference will look at two distant but con- to hieroglyphics, over ninety participants took part in three temporary cultures, the Maya and the Moche of Peru. The days of talks, workshops, and gallery tours by Harvard, topic complements the Peabody Museum’s exhibition Brandeis, and Boston University specialists. A highlight of planned for the Fall, highlighting its spectacular Moche the conference was the opening lecture—and the year’s pottery collection. The Maya-Moche weekend will take Founder’s Lecture—by Anthony Aveni, professor of place October 21–23, 2005; the exhibition, “The Moche of archaeoastronomy at Colgate University, who spoke on Ancient Peru,” will open October 21, 2005. perceptions of the sky in Mesoamerican cultures. Bill

The 2004–2005 Lecture Program The Museum’s lecture program in Museum Associate, each spoke about Exhibit-related lectures fleshed out 2004–2005 brought wonderful speak- very different and exciting research and offered interesting viewpoints on ers on a variety of topics and high- efforts as diverse as the role of run- new Peabody Museum exhibitions, lighted several important Harvard and ning in human evolution and collabo- including a curator’s talk on the Peabody research endeavors. Pat rative research on the Mapa Berbers of North Africa, by Imazighen Courtney Gold, Wasco fiber artist; Cuauhtinchan #2, an important guest curators Susan Miller and Lisa Gaylord Torrence, Curator of Native 16th-century codex from Puebla, Bernasek (Harvard); the archaeology American Art at the Nelson-Atkins Mexico. Steven Kuhn, Associate of the ancient Marsh Arabs, by Museum of Art; David Mather, Professor of Anthropolgy, University Edward Ochsenschlager (Brooklyn University of Montana, and Jolene of Arizona, gave the third Hallam L. College) complementing the Field Rickard, University of Buffalo, contin- Movius, Jr., Lecture on the evidence Photography exhibition, and a gallery ued the Peabody’s Lewis and Clark for and the importance of male- talk by Field Photography guest cura- Lecture series, which commemorates female role specialization in the sur- tor Omar al-Dewachi, featured on both the National bicentennial and vival of Homo; and Ian Graham was page 9 of this issue. complements the current exhibit the recipient of the Tatiana “From Nation to Nation.” Discussion Proskouriakoff award this year and ranged from how Native Americans spoke about his nearly twenty-five recorded information in the decora- years of work to find, record, and tive elements objects to the goals and publish Maya inscriptions for the use issues involved in creating a National of scholars worldwide. Ian’s vast Museum of the American Indian. archive of photographs and drawings Dan Lieberman, Professor of are now part of the Peabody Anthropology, Harvard; Elizabeth Museum’s permanent archival Boone, Professor of Art History, collections. Detail, Mapa Cuauhtinchan #2. Photo by Tulane; and Ian Graham, Peabody Lugene Whitley.

12 • Symbols Archaeology Month October is Massachusetts Archaeology Month. In 2004, the Peabody expanded its offerings with three different behind-the-scenes programs for school groups: a Zooarchaeology Lab program, an All About Human Teeth program, and a Hands-on-the-Collections workshop. Students and teachers from the Haggerty and Tobin schools in Cambridge took advantage of the school pro- grams. In addition, the Zooarchaeology Lab hosted its twelfth annual open house with over 100 visitors from the general public.

Peter Burns,research associate,Zooarchaeology Lab, speaking to students at the Open House. Photo by Levant Atici.

Peabody Museum Contributes to the Celebration of the 350th Anniversary of the Harvard Indian College. memoration, the Peabody Museum developed an exhibit The year 2005 marks the 350th anniversary of the Harvard Fragments of Significance: Illuminating the Harvard Indian Indian College. Three hundred fifty years ago, Harvard’s College, and loaned a seventeenth-century woven bag “Charter of 1650,” pledged the young college to “the educa- attributed to Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, the first Native tion of English and Indian Youth.” With funding from the American graduate of Harvard College, for display at the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Among the conference. Indian through the New England Company, Harvard built Fragments of Significance was designed to evoke the the Harvard Indian College in 1655, which stood in material world of Harvard College’s first Native students Harvard Yard, on the site currently occupied by Matthews and to explore their experiences through material culture. Hall. In those early years, approximately six Native It opened on April 7, 2005 and continued through com- American students from the Wampanoag and Nipmuc mencement June 2005. The display drew from Peabody tribes entered the college, Museum archaeological collections from Harvard Yard. The though only one gradu- project also was the focus of an independent study course ated: Caleb (Anth 92R) by Whitney Martinko (HC’05, supervised by Cheeshahteaumuck Diana Loren). A hands-on archaeology workshop utilizing (Wampanoag) in 1665. Harvard Yard collections was offered during the opening of During 2004–05, the the display. This display may offer an opportunity for fur- Harvard University Native ther development in terms of curriculum or exhibiting. American Program, the Caleb’s Bag was exhibited at the conference from April Provost, and the Program 8–9, 2005. Cheeshahteaumuck (Aquinnah Wampanoag for Interethnic Studies from Holmes Hole, Martha’s Vineyard, Class of 1665) was commemorated the begin- the only Indian College student to graduate from Harvard ning of the Indian College College. After becoming ill his senior year, Caleb died of event with a conference tuberculosis (“consumption”) the following year (1666) in “From Gospel to Charlestown at the age of 20. The bag resonated as Sovereignty: Commem- emblematic of the commemoration. To quote from the orating 350 years of the label, which was composed for the occasion: “Stories of Harvard Indian College,” tragedy resonate because of triumphs achieved; that similar “Caleb’s Bag,” PM 90-12-50/49302. held April 9–13. to strands of cloth, meaning lies in the ties that bind.” (Judy Photo by T. Rose Holdcraft. In support of the com- Kertesz and Jackie Old Coyote).

Spring •  • 13 MUSEUM NEWS AND NOTES

Retirement Hillel (Steve) Burger, long-time Peabody Museum photographer retired this year after 35 years of serv- ice. Steve’s superb photographs appear throughout Museum exhibits and Peabody publications. The Museum is indebted to Steve for his many years of service and his painstaking efforts to show the beauty of the object and accommo- date the needs of the researcher.

L-R: Carved wedding vase, Santa Clara Pueblo, 20th c., T2122.1; Malanggan mask, c. 1895, T312.1; yucca plant, Glass Flowers collection, courtesy of the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Photos by Hillel Burger.

Esther Chao, Assistant Conservator, Registrars Committee luncheon, and Harvard University, May 18–22. Davíd received a travel grant from the worked with corporate sponsors and Carrasco, professor of Anthropology, Li-Ching Foundation to visit China the Registrars Committee Harvard, and Lugene Whitley, pro- and learn about the state of museums Development Chair to increase finan- gram administrator of the Moses and conservation issues in China. This cial support. Mesoamerican Archive, Peabody included visiting museums and sites Museum, were the principal organiz- in Shandong, Hubei, Sichuan, and Scott Fulton, Conservator, presented ers of the conference, which included Shaanxi and talking with conservators the results of a Peabody Museum scholars from Mexico, the U.K. and working on polychrome qi -lacquer on project (reported Symbols 2004), the United States. A book of essays the terracotta warriors of Emperor funded by IMLS on the Conservation will be published by the University of Qinshihuang. of Tumbaga Metals from Panama at New Mexico Press. the 2005 AIC conference, June 8–13. Genevieve Fisher, Peabody Museum The presentation concludes the 2002 Lugene Whitley,Program registrar, is currently the Standing IMLS Conservation Support grant Administrator for the Moses Chair for the Awards Task Force of the awarded to the PMAE for re-housing Mesoamerican Archives, has received a Registrars Committee, a Standing of Latin American metals. grant from the American Society of Professional Committee of the Botanical Artists to write and illustrate American Association of Museums. Irene Good, Peabody Museum a book on Aztec plants. The Awards Task Force, composed of Associate, received an American six registrars from across the United Institute of Iranian Studies Senior Obituary States, acts on behalf of the Registrars Fellowship 2005 to initiate a collabo- Alexander Marshack, self-taught pale- Committee to distribute up to sixteen rative collections publication program oanthropologist and research associate professional development awards each with the National Museum of Iran. of the Peabody Museum since 1966, year. These awards take the form of She recently completed an American died on December 20, 2004 at the age funding to attend conferences, work- Philosophical Society grant to study of 86. Marshack received a bachelor’s shops, or similar events, or funding to ancient silk. The results will be pre- degree in journalism from City provide key registration resources. In sented at the 2005 South Asian College, eventually becoming a photo- spring 2005, the Awards Task Force Archaeology congress at the British journalist for Life magazine and other developed a five-year (2006–2010) Museum in London in July 2005. publications. Marshack was the first to strategic plan with the goal of better interpret markings on Stone Age arti- serving its membership. During the The Moses Mesoamerican Archive facts as primitive calendars. His con- 2005 AAM meetings in Indianapolis, and Research Project co-sponsored tinued research launched an entirely in her capacity as Awards Task Force with the David Rockefeller Center for new approach to the study of cave art. Chair, Viva attended the Registrars Latin American Studies an interna- Committee Board Meeting, presented tional conference “Understanding the awards to this year’s recipients at the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan #2” at

14 • Symbols Tatiana Proskouriakoff Award, 2005 The Peabody Museum has awarded the Tatiana “the most significant archaeological project in the Americas Proskouriakoff Award to a man who, in the eyes of the today.” High praise from an exalted source. epigraphers who work on the decipherment of the Maya Ian’s Corpus Associate Directors David Stuart, Peter script, is the individual most responsible for all the great Mathews, and even Eric von Euw all freely admitted they breakthroughs in decipherment that have occurred in the couldn’t keep up with him in the jungle. Truth to tell, none past quarter century. In honoring Dr. Ian Graham on the of them could keep up with his pace of producing Corpus occasion of his 80th birthday two years ago, David Stuart volumes, either. A gifted writer, Ian has produced dozens of said that were it not for all of the meticulous drawings and scholarly articles, and two marvelous books on the early photographs of the Maya monuments that Ian has com- Maya explorers Teobert Maler, and Alfred Maudslay. He is piled and shared with epigraphers, the decipherment could also a world-class bibliophile and a charming man. For never have gotten these and his many other contributions, the Peabody Ian Graham, 1978. Photo by Hillel Burger. as far as it has, Museum takes great pride in honoring Ian with the Tatiana let alone as Proskouriakoff Award for 2005. quickly. In a Tatiana Proskouriakoff was the extraordinary Russian- similar vein, the American architect whose drawings of ancient Maya archi- Peabody’s late, tecture, studies of Classic Maya stone sculpture and jade, great Bowditch and decipherments of the historical portions of the Maya Professor, hieroglyphic inscriptions revolutionized our understand- Gordon R. ings of that distinguished civilization. Tania, as she was Willey, was often known to friends, spent the last two decades of her very heard to remark productive life working at the Peabody Museum. Previous that the Corp us Proskouriakoff Award winners have been Professors Linda of Maya Schele, Michael Coe, Floyd Lounsbury, George Stuart, Hieroglyphic David Kelley, and Victoria Bricker. We know that Tania Inscriptions would have been extremely pleased with this year’s choice. Project, of which Through the vision and generosity of Mr. Landon Clay, Ian was founder the Tatiana Proskouriakoff Award is given biennially to a and director, is noted scholar of Mesoamerican culture.

FIELD PHOTOGRAPHY… continued from p. 10 eral stories that engage the ambigui- entries testify to the complexity of fresh in our consciousness, this exhibit ties and complexities of anthropology, such an undertaking. denotes another, yet similar fieldwork, colonialism, racial science, As we look back at history, our encounter, with Iraq; this time representation, and photography. present is our only lens. Thus the through the lenses of racial science The various panels of the exhibit ideas of the exhibit and its photogra- and physical anthropology. Arriving as capture these themes through the phy are [further problematized] also an Iraqi citizen in the United States to visual and the textual readings and the refracted by the present situation of start my Ph.D. one month before the use of different genres of photogra- the Marsh Arabs, and captured in the events of 9-11, I became gradually phy, which reflect the relationship exhibit by the multimedia presenta- part of the institutionalization of sur- between the viewers and their sub- tion of NPR’s photographer Tom veillance. Through INS reporting for jects. The exhibit moves from the rep- Bullock. Although I tried my best to special registration, detailed inter- resentation of the landscape and guide the viewer in this documentary viewing, fingerprinting, and being people in their everyday lives to the through my deliberate choice of photographed, I came to realize how “scientific data” of anthropometry. images, text and representation, I the science of the 1930s still haunts us The images were chosen to capture opted to leave the experience of the to the present day. As I try to cope the realism of a “culture in motion,” exhibit as open-ended as possible. with the difficulties of being an Iraqi and the representation of the “other,” The significance of the subject of in the United States at this time, the mediated through the science of the this exhibit is highlighted as well by construction of this exhibit on the expedition, the imagination of its current events in the United States, at Marsh Arabs of Iraq has become a members, and complicated by the pol- a time when imagery from events in way for me to mediate the reality of itics of local encounters. The power of Iraq and the Middle East dominate my own “otherness” in America. the images and the reflexive qualities our public culture. With the pictures of some of the text taken from Field’s from the Abu-Ghuraib prison still

Spring •  • 15 MUSEUM NEWS AND NOTES (continued)

Theodore C. Bestor , Professor of Anthropology, has been S ally Falk Moore , the Victor S. Thomas Professor of awarded a Walter Channing Cabot Fellowship by the Anthropology, emeritus, has received the Harry Kalven Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the 2004–2005 academic Prize for 2005. The Law and Society Association awards the year. prize annually for “empirical scholarship that has con- tributed most effectively to the advancement of research in Davíd Carrasco, Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of Latin law and society.” American Studies, was awarded the “Order of the Aztec Eagle” by the Mexican government in December for his Michael Herzfeld, Professor of Anthropology, Social contributions to the organization of new knowledge about Anthropology Wing, received a Walter Channing Cabot Mesoamerican cities and religions and to our understand- Fellowship in the last round of these awards from the ings of the stories and struggles of undocumented immi- Faculty of Arts and Sciences (2004) He currently serves on grants from Mexico. The latter focus of his work can be the program committee for the upcoming Ninth seen in the recent Alambrista and the US-Mexico Border: International Conference on Thai Studies, and is a member Film, Music and Stories of Undocumented Immigrants of the Conseil d’Orientation du Réseau des Maisons des (University of New Mexico Press, 2005). The Order of the Sciences de l’Homme under the aegis of the French Aztec Eagle is the highest award given by the Mexican gov- Ministry of Research. ernment to a non-Mexican. Pauline E. Peters, Lecturer in Anthropology, has received a Rowan Flad, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, initiated Fulbright Hayes Research Grant for a longitudinal study to a survey project focused on the Neolithic and Bronze Age document the social effects of the high levels of illness and settlement patterns of the Chengdu Plain in Sichuan, China death consequent of HIV/AIDS in Malawi since 1986. in collaboration with colleagues from China, the U.S. and Taiwan. In the summer of 2004, Prof. Flad was a visiting Stanley J. Tambiah, Esther and Sidney Rabb Research scholar in the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy Professor of Anthropology, emeritus, was honored with a of Social Sciences, and he participated in the Korea Society portrait by the Harvard Foundation Minority Portraiture Fall Fellowship program in October. He organized the East Project. The Project recognizes faculty members and Asian Archaeology Seminar during the Spring 2005 aca- administrators of color who have served Harvard with dis- demic term. tinction for more than 25 years.

Exploring the Maya and Moche Worlds: The Peabody Museum Weekend of the Americas

Friday October 21–Sunday October 23, 2005

Lectures, tours,workshops

For information: 617-495-2269 email: [email protected] www.peabody.harvard.edu/weekend.html

16 • Symbols Lucien Taylor has been appointed Assistant Professor of Retirement Visual and Environmental Studies and of Anthropology, Nur Yalman, Professor of Social Anthropology in Middle Social Anthropology Wing. He received the B.A. (1988) and Eastern Studies, emeritus, a professor of Social the M.A. (1992) in Philosophy, Theology and Anthropology at Harvard University since 1972, retired in Anthropology, from the University of Cambridge, the June 2005. Yalman, who is of Turkish descent, received a M.A.V.A. (1992) in Visual Anthropology from the B.A. from Robert College in Istanbul, Turkey, and a B.A., University of Southern California, and the Ph.D. (2000) in M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard. Prof. Yalman specializes in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. Middle Eastern studies, specifically Middle Eastern religion, In 1998 he joined the faculty of the University of Colorado, and has performed fieldwork in Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Boulder, where he co-founded and directed with Ilisa India. Among Yalman’s publications are the book Under the Barbash the Graduate Program in Transcultural and Bo Tree, a study of the caste, kinship, and marriage prac- Ethnographic Filmmaking. Taylor is Associate Director of tices in Sri Lanka, as well as many articles regarding Middle the Film Study Center and the Department of Visual and Eastern religion. Environmental Studies at Harvard.

Taylor’s publications include Visualizing Theory (ed., 1994), Obituary Cross-Cultural Filmmaking (with Ilisa Barbash, 1997), and Evon Z. Vogt, Jr., professor emeritus, and member of the Transcultural Cinema & Other Essays by David MacDougall Department of Anthropology from 1948 until his retire- (ed., 1998). He was also the founding editor (1991–94) of ment in 1990, died on May 15, 2005 at the age of 85. Visual Anthropology Review, a journal of the American Vogtie, as he was known to his colleagues and friends, was Anthropological Association. Taylor’s film works (all co- an expert on the indigenous people of southern Mexico directed with Barbash) include Made in U.S.A. (1990) and and Guatemala, especially the modern-day Maya of In and Out of Africa (1992). Taylor and Barbash are cur- Chiapas, who knew him as Totik Shune, or Sir John. He rently in post-production on “Big Timber,” a feature-length trained generations of graduate students, published nine- film about the culture of sheepherders in Montana. teen books, and earned many honors, including the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the government of Mexico’s highest Kimberly Theidon, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, award for a non-Mexican. He will be missed. Social Anthropology Wing, was awarded a research grant from the Wenner Gren Foundation for her project, “States of Concern: Coca, Conflict and Control in the Apurímac and Ene River Valley, Peru.” Her research focuses on alter- native development, the administration of conflict, forms of governmentality and the rise of the cocalero movement in the Apurímac Valley, one of the foremost coca growing regions of Peru.

Jason Alik Ur has been appointed Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Archaeology Wing. He received the B.A. cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania (1994), and the M.A. and the Ph.D. (2004) from the University of Chicago. Before coming to Harvard Ur was a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at SUNY Stony Brook. Ur’s research interests include the archaeology of Mesopotamia, Iran, Egypt, and Syria-Palestine; ancient Near Eastern his- tory and chronology; Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform, and settlement and landscape archaeology. He has worked on excavations in Iran, Syria, Turkey, Egypt and Yemen. Evon Vogt giving a seminar in his office, 1982. Photo by Hillel Burger.

Spring •  • 17 PEABODY MUSEUM PRESS

A busy and diverse publishing season new fascicle of the C orpus of Maya lies ahead for the museum. Once Hieroglyphic Inscriptions. Mary C. again being marketed and distributed Stiner of the University of Arizona is by Harvard University Press, the the author of The Faunas of Hayonim Peabody Museum Press is able to con- Cave, Israel: A 200,000-Year Record of centrate its efforts on editorial and Paleolithic Diet, Demography, and production activities. Seven new Society (ASPR Bulletin 48), which Peabody Museum Press books and reviewer John D. Speth of the two new volumes of the journal Res University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, are listed in HUP’s Fall 2005 cata- has termed “superb.” Ian Graham, logue—a record number for one pub- director of the museum’s Maya lishing season at the museum. Corpus Program, is completing work Retired Peabody Museum photog- on Volume 9, Part 2, of the Corpus. rapher Hillel S. (Steve) Burger recently Tonina is the fourth of five anticipated returned on a freelance basis to com- volumes on the Classic Maya monu- plete work on the next two offerings ments of that site, which is located in in the Peabody Museum Collections Chiapas, Mexico. Series: Gloria Greis’s book on the As part of an ongoing project to museum’s Mecklenburg collection of bring back into print many classic Iron Age artifacts from Slovenia and Peabody publications of the past, the Anne-Marie Victor-Howe’s work on press will be bringing out a hardcover carved ceremonial spoons from the facsimile edition of Watson Smith’s Northwest Coast. Greis’s volume, A Kiva Mural Decorations at Awatovi and Noble Pursuit, which will be available Kawaika-a in the fall. The original, in January 2006, is a colorful account volume 37 in the Papers series, was of the life and archaeological contri- published in 1952 and featured origi- butions of Duchess Paul Friedrich of nal serigraphs of numerous kiva Mecklenburg. The duchess was cousin murals. These illustrations are repro- to Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz duced as full-cover foldouts in the fac- Josef I and German Kaiser Wilhelm II, simile edition, which, like the press’s both of whom supported her work. 2004 edition of The Swarts Ruin by Steve Burger’s luminous photographs Hattie and Burt Cosgrove (Papers 15, of the jewelry, weapons, armor, and originally published in 1932), is likely other Iron Age artifacts that she exca- to become a collector’s item in its own current exhibit Imazighen! Beauty and vated add depth and beauty to the right. The release of both of these fac- Artisanship in Berber Life, written by book, which presents the highlights of simile editions has been timed to Harvard anthropology graduate stu- the Duchess’s work to a general audi- coincide with current and planned dent Lisa Bernasek, and a planned ence for the first time. exhibits at the museum on Mimbres exhibit on Plains Indian warrior art Fall 2005 will also see the release of pottery and mural painting, respec- and horsegear, still in the research a new Bulletin in the American School tively. Also in the works for upcoming stages, to be curated and authored by of Prehistoric Research series and a seasons are publications related to the Associate Curator Castle McLaughlin.

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Symbols is published once a year by the Peabody Museum and the Department of Anthropology at Harvard. The yearly subscription rate is $4.50. Please make checks payable to: “Symbols—Peabody Museum” and send to: Peabody Museum Harvard University 11 Divinity Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138.

18 • Symbols NEW IN 2005–2006

The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages Opens October 21, 2005

The Moche offers a rare look at one of Peru’s oldest civiliza- tions through its most central of art forms, ceramics along with artifacts of stone, wood, metal, and textiles and photo- graphic panels of colorful murals and friezes. Understood principally through their ceramics, the Moche examines the imagery used by this ancient people and how it conveys their everyday experience, cosmological beliefs, and their relationship to earlier cultures and legacy.

Busy market street, many signs and banners strung above pedestrians, Moche ceramic stirrup vessels, Chicama Valley, Peru. T5094.1, T5089.1. Pusan, Korea. PM 2003.17.3132. Photo by Roger Marshutz. Photo by J. David Bohl.

Pusan, Korea, 1952–1954: the Photographs of Roger Marshutz Opens February 15, 2006

As the Korean War (1950–1953) drew to a close and South Korea began to rebuild, American GI Roger Marshutz was stationed in Pusan to photograph U.S. reconstruction efforts. In his spare time Marshutz also wandered the streets, documenting the daily life of Korean civilians. These photographs offer official and unofficial glimpses of U.S.–South Korean relations, as well as a portrait of a country undergoing enormous political, economic, and cultural transformation.

Spring •  • 19 Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology NONPROFIT ORG. Harvard University U.S. POSTAGE 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138 PAID CAMBRIDGE, MA PERMIT NO. 54565

SELECTED EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS IN 2005–2006

Fall Conference on the Maya and Exhibitions and Events Lectures Moche Civilizations Harvard Museums Community Day Gordon R. Willey Lecture: David Grove, In conjunction with the new fall exhibi- A ll six Harvard Museums open free to Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois tion on the Moche civilization of ancient the public! Special activities and tours “Three Daughters: Rethinking Peru, the Peabody Museum will host a at all museums Formative Period Mesoamerica” weekend conference October 21–23, September 18, 2005 September 22, 2005 2005. “Exploring the Maya and Moche The Moche of Ancient Peru: Curator’s Talk: Diana Loren, Associate Worlds” kicks off with a free, public Media and Messages Curator, Peabody Museum Curator’s talk and Exhibit opening. Opens October 21, 6:30–8 pm Native American Photography and The Saturday and Sunday program offers Curator’s lecture 5:30 pm Federal Indian Policy talks and workshops on various aspects October 6 of the two contemporary civilizations. Day of the Dead/Día de los Muertos Full conference information is available T he Peabody Museum and Consulate Lecture: James (Woody) Watson, Faribanks in July. Contact the Peabody Museum of Mexico’s annual celebration! Professor of Chinese Society and Professor at 617-495-2269 or November 2 of Anthroplogy, Harvard University www.peabody.harvard.edu/ The Global Soybean: American weekend.html. Pusan, Korea, 1952–1954: the Photography Farmers, East Asian Consumers, and of Roger Marshutz the Biotech Revolution Opens February 15, 2006 November 16

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