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UNIVERSIDADE ESTADUAL DE CAMPINAS SISTEMA DE BIBLIOTECAS DA UNICAMP REPOSITÓRIO DA PRODUÇÃO CIENTIFICA E INTELECTUAL DA UNICAMP

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DOI: 10.1086/649321

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Cidade Universitária Zeferino Vaz Barão Geraldo CEP 13083-970 – Campinas SP Fone: (19) 3521-6493 http://www.repositorio.unicamp.br The Shapingof LatinAmerican Museumsof NaturalHistory, 1850-1990

Maria Margaret Lopes* and Irina Podgorny**

ABSTRACT

Thisessay reflects upon the milieu and the character of Brazilian and Argentinean naturalhistory museums during the second half of the nineteenth century. It argues thatthe museums were influenced not only by European and North American mu- seumsbut by each other. Museum directors in thetwo countries knew each other and interacted.Some of therelationships between these museums were friendly andcooperative, but because they were in young,emerging nations, they also be- camedeeply involved in theinvention of nationalityin theirrespective countries andinteracted as rivalsand competitors. Even through rivalry, however, they con- tributedto each other'sdevelopment, as did rivalryamong museums within each of thetwo countries. Later in thecentury they went well beyond the nationalist perspective,finding, through their research into paleontology and anthropology in theirregions, a continentaland uniquelySouth American scientific perspective, definedin reactionto NorthAmerican and European views.

INTRODUCTION IN RECENT YEARS, SEVERAL HISTORIANS HAVE STUDIED MUSEUMS of naturalhistory and theordering of nature in theeighteenth and nineteenthcen- turies.I Most of thehistory of SouthAmerican museums has been writtenwithin spe-

Institutode Geociencias,State University of Campinas,SP, Brazil. CONICET, Departmentof Archaeology, Museo de La Plata,Argentina. Acknowledgments:Irina Podgorny acknowledges the support of an earlycareer grant from Funda- ci6nAntorchas (Buenos Aires), and Maria MargaretLopes acknowledgesthe support of FAPESP Brazil,and the Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Fellowship program, "Pro Scientia et Patria:Los Museosargentinos y la construcci6nde un patrimonionacional," through the Museo Etnogrnfico de la Facultadde Filosofiay Letrasde la Universidadde BuenosAires. They are both especially grateful to thedirector of theMuseo Etnogrnfico,Jos6 A. Perez Gollkn;Dr. Roy MacLeod, Universityof Sydney,Australia; and Dr. SilviaFigueir6a, University of Campinas, Brazil. This article is forSusan Sheets-Pyenson,in memoriam. (See DavidAllen, "Eloge: SusanRuth Sheets-Pyenson, 9 September 1949-18August 1998," Isis, 1999,90:168-9.) ] SallyG. Kohlstedt,"International Exchange and National Style: A Viewof Natural History Mu- seums in the United States, 1850-1900," in ScientificColonialism: A Cross-Cultural Comparison, eds. NathanReingold and Marc Rothenberg (Washington, D.C.: SmithsonianInstitution, 1987), pp. 167-90; Mary P. Winsor,Reading theShape ofNature: ComparativeZoology at theAgassiz Museum (Chicago: Univ.of Chicago Press,1991); Claude Blanckaert,C. Cohen,P. Corsi et al., eds., Le Museum au premier siecle de son histoire (Paris: Mus6um National d'Histoire Naturelle, 1997);

@ 2001 byThe Historyof ScienceSociety. All rightsreserved. 0369-7827/99/1401-0004$02.00

Osiris, 2001, 15:00-0() 108

This content downloaded from 143.106.108.94 on Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:42:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE SHAPING OF LATIN AMERICAN MUSEUMS OF NATURAL HISTORY 109 cificnational traditions, however, and retains a hagiographicand parochial flavor. In 1988,Susan Sheets-Pyenson discussed two Argentinean museums, the Museum of La Plataand the National Museum of Buenos Aires, within the broader context of the expansionof colonial science.2 The avenueof discussionthat she openedup, however,has neitherbeen followed nor contested. This silence cannot be explainedby discontentwith a revisedframework. It suggests, rather, how highly a nationalscien- tifictradition may be valuedby those who perceive themselves as itsheirs. In this context,local institutionshave continued to be seenas ifthey had emerged as iso- latedand independent phenomena. In thisessay, we do notattempt to writethe history of Latin American museums generallyor ofArgentinean or Brazilianmuseums in particular.3Rather, we wishto reflectupon the milieu, the rhetorical character of scientificinstitutionalization and consolidation,from a comparativeperspective. A LatinAmerican point of view that aimsat going further than the limits imposed by national boundaries quickly reveals thatnational histories have more in commonthan it is customaryto assume.With regardto Argentinean and Brazilianmuseums of thesecond half of thenineteenth century,we wantto showthat the influence of contemporaryEuropean and North Americaninstitutions was mediatedby South-South links among local naturalists.

THE LOST WORLD As a consequenceof the "enlightened" policies of Spain and Portugal at theturn of theeighteenth century, museums, cabinets, botanical gardens, and scientificsocie- tiesarrived in IberianAmerica on theships of metropolitanscientific expeditions. In return,the cabinets of America sent collections to the new or reorganized botanical gardensand museums of Madrid,Lisbon, and Coimbra. Within this framework camethe first Cabinete de HistoriaNatural, in Havana,Cuba, the Casa Botainicade Bogota'in Colombia,the Casa de HistoriaNatural of Rio de Janeiro,as well as cabinetsin Mexicoand Guatemala. The disruptiveevents that followed-scientific controversies, wars of indepen- dence,shortages of funding and staff-led to the dispersal of these early collections. Nevertheless,what remained was thebasis on whichmuseums were organized in thecontext of newlyindependent South American colonies during the first half of thenineteenth century.4 Continuities with the scientific and cultural projects inher- itedfrom the colonizing powers did notmask the special character of thesenew institutions.The museumsof naturalhistory established in BuenosAires (1812 / 1823), Rio de Janeiro(1818), Santiagode Chile (1822), Bogota(1823), Mexico (1825), Lima (1826), and Montevideo(1837) wereall framedin theprocess of buildingnew nation states; national museums were found as formercolonies became

AndreasGrote, ed., Macrocosmoin Microcosmo:Die Weltin der Stube;zur Geschichtedes Sam- melns,1450 bis 1800 (Opladen:Leske & Budrich,1994). 2 SusanSheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Mu- seumsDuring the Late NineteenthCentury (Montreal: McGill-Queen's Univ. Press, 1988). 3 Foran overviewof Brazilian museums, see MariaMargaret Lopes, 0 Brasildescobre a pesquisa cientifica:Os Museuse as cienciasnaturais no seculoXIX (Sdo Paulo: Hucitec,1997). 4 Culturaland academicexchanges between Spain and Portugaland theirformer colonies in Americawere reestablished at theend of thenineteenth century.

This content downloaded from 143.106.108.94 on Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:42:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 110 MARIA MARGARET LOPES AND IRINA PODGORNY independent.5In the New World,museums were the loci of institutionalizationof naturalhistory. But as a standardmeasure by whichto testthe scientificculture of a country,they also became symbolsof nationalidentity. The governmentsof thenew politicalentities created in Brazil and in theAndean and RiverPlate regionshad highhopes forthe natural sciences and theirmuseums. In particular,the Creole elites of the independentrepublics sought to overcomethe economic,social, and culturalfragmentation resulting from the rupture of thecolo- nial orderby discoveringand surveyingnew reservesof naturalresources. One of themain roles of thenatural history museum, especially in thevery first years, was to collect and to displaythe mineralogical resources of theseterritories. Mineralogical collectionswere used for teachingin new universitycourses, but theywere also used to createdazzling exhibitionsof thecountry's mineral wealth. Interest in mineral researchwas at thecore of the firstmuseums of LatinAmerican countries,6 but in the second halfof thenineteenth century other fields such as evolutiontook their place. This process can be understoodpartly as a consequenceof thegrowing specialization of the naturalsciences, but also in termsof the emergenceof specific institutionsfor different scientific disciplines. In fact,by thesecond halfof thenine- teenthcentury the museums of LatinAmerica had changedtheir priorities from mineralogical"El Dorado" exhibitsto broaderscientific purposes. One commontrait of naturalhistory museums in thisperiod-not limitedto Latin America,as Sheets-Pyensonobserved-tied the "builders"of science to theirinsti- tutionaland scientificsettings.7 On the otherhand, alliances and conflictsamong museumdirectors and scientificstaff did not necessarilyfollow nationallines. In fact,international scientific networks sometimes brought together local and "for- eign" scientists,in defenseof local institutionalleaders and theirmuseums. Museums,as symbolsof urbancivilization, were also specificloci fordisplaying the historiesof local natureand the historiesof the extinct-or nearlyextinct- indigenousinhabitants of theNew World.In LatinAmerica, as elsewhere,museums were also institutionswhere knowledgewas produced,following the patternsof contemporaryscientific practice. The nineteenthcentury witnessed many changes in thispractice and new roles formuseums in teaching,research, collecting, storage, and exhibitions.The mineralogicalcollections of the museums-which, by 1800, alreadyincluded specialized collectionsin geology,anthropology, botany, zoology, and archaeology wereeventually replaced by paleontologicalcollections illustrat- ing theevolution of species. In thisfield, the Argentinean museums of La Plata and Buenos Aires became continentalpoints of referencefor research on the fossilremains of extinctmammals. Argentinean and Brazilian museumdirectors shared a commonfaith in science viewed as the warrantyfor progress, and theyconceived of museumsas centersfor the nationalizationof local nature.Their mission was assumedto have a civilizingaim, and nativepeoples wereincluded in thenaturaliza-

5Maria MargaretLopes, 'A construydode MuseusNacionais na AmericaLatina Independente," Anais Museu Hist6rico Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, 1998, 32:121-45. 6 Silvia F de M. Figueir6a,As ciencias geol6gicas no Brasil: Uma historia social e institucional, 1875-1934(Sao Paulo: Hucitec,1997); IrinaPodgorny, "Un Belga en la cortede Parana,"in En los deltas de la memoria: Belgica y Argentinaen los siglos XIX y XX, B. De Groof et al., eds. (Louvain: Univ.of Louvain, Press, 1998), pp. 55-61. 7Irina Podgorny,El Argentinodespertar de las faunas y de las gentesprehist6ricas (Buenos Aires: Eudeba,in press).

This content downloaded from 143.106.108.94 on Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:42:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE SHAPING OF LATIN AMERICAN MUSEUMS OF NATURAL HISTORY 111 tionof history. Adapted to cultural and scientific changes, Latin American museums becamenot only places for systematic research but also monuments.The Museo de La Plata,where glyptodonts became symbols of Argentina'sglory, was themost conspicuousexample.8

FRIENDLY EXCHANGES AND RIVALRIES By the 1850s,it was receivedwisdom that every major European nation should possess-or alreadypossessed-a nationalmuseum of naturalhistory, aiming (or professing)to be a moreor less completeepitome of the three kingdoms of nature: animals,plants, and minerals. Such was theextent and influence of the great Musee d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris and the Natural History Division of the British Museum inLondon. Debates took place about the extent to which a publicmuseum of natural historyshould be supportedby thestate, on whatscale, for what public, and with referenceto whatcommercial and colonizing endeavors.9 The roleof thestate as patronwas constantlyinvoked, along with the need for museumsto be locatedin nationalcapitals. At the core of all thesedebates arose the problemof storageand exhibition space, which was presentedas a "natural"prob- lemresulting from the richness of thecountry's natural resources and thevastness ofits territories. In displaying the extent and variety of the Creative Power-and of thepower of the state-exhibits of large animals became a tropein museumrheto- ric.To haveenough room for the mounted skeletons of a whaleand a largeextinct SouthAmerican mammal was takenas themark of a triumphantstate. Duringthe 1860s and 1870s,in the South American lands that provided European museumswith large fossil mammals, national institutions in Argentina,Brazil, Chile,and Uruguay were renewed by governmentfunding. In 1862Hermann Kon- radBurmeister (1807-1892), a Prussiannaturalist, was hiredas directorof the Mu- seo Publicode BuonosAires, where he serveduntil his deaththirty years later. In 1868 his contemporary,Ladislau Netto (1838-1894), a Braziliannaturalist trained at theMusee d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, was hired to lead theMuseu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro,which he directeduntil 1892. Both headed fifty-year-old, federally supportedinstitutions with considerable collections; nevertheless they consistently stressedthe poverty of themuseums they had to remakeand werealways seeking morefunding.10 Nettoleft botanical studies to beginthe classification of theMuseu Nacional's anthropologicaland ethnographicalcollections. During his tenurehe transformed themuseum into a scientificinstitution of internationalstanding. He was activenot onlyin increasing state funding but also inpromoting the double role of the museum as a place forboth research and teaching. (Since Brazil had no universityuntil the twentiethcentury-only isolated faculties of engineering,medicine, and law-the

8 IrinaPodgorny, "De raz6na facultad:Ideas acercade las funcionesdel Museo de La Plataen el perfodo1890-1918," Runa, 1995, 22:89-104. 9 Richard Owen, On the Extentand Aims of a National Museum of Natural History.Including the substance of a discourse on thatsubject, delivered at the Royal Institutionof Great Britain, on the eveningof Friday,April 26, 1861 (London: Saunders, Otley and Co., 1862). 10 HermannBurmeister, "Sumario sobre la fundaci6ny los progresosdel MuseoPiblico de Buenos Aires," Anales del Museo Ptiblico de Buenos Aires para dar a conocer los objetos de la Histuria Natural nuevos o poco conocidos en este establecimiento.Entrega primera (Buenos Aires: Bern- heim& Bonneo,1864), pp. 1-10.In the1880s, the museum's name was changedto Museo Nacional.

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Figure1. Firstbuilding of Museu Nacionalfrom 1818 to 1892.Archives Museu Nacional. teachingof scienceat themuseum served a valuablefunction.) In 1876 he began theArchivos do MuseuNacional, in whichscientific staff published research from theinstitution's different departments. In the 1 880s his museum, as wellas theMu- seo Nationalde Santiagode Chile" andthe Museo Puiblico of BuenosAires, were proudto exhibitskeletal whales in theirhalls. Netto wanted to havein Rio de Ja- neiro,the capital of the Brazilian Empire, a museumthat was both metropolitan and universal.Side byside with Chinese porcelain from the Portuguese colonies in Af- ricaand Asia, he displayedartifacts from Pompeii, Egyptian mummies, and Japa- neseherbaria-all essential parts of the metropolitan and universalistic regime that he impartedto his museum. In orderto stress the uniqueness of his Brazilian museum's natural, archaeological, ethnographical,and anthropologicalcollections, Netto emphasized the museum's contributionto all of science.At a momentwhen it was importantto enhancecon- tactswith the most prestigious museums of the world, the Museu Nacional incorpo- ratedlocal findingsand redefined them, presenting them as "national."Thus nation- alized,they could compete with other territories equally exotic. Netto'smuseum in Rio de Janierowas thenational museum of Brazil.Because Argentinawas notyet formally a nation, Burmeister's museum in BuenosAires was stilla provincialmuseum, sponsored by the province of Buenos Aires. It wasassoci- atedwith the local university, sharing rooms with it in the same building. Burmeister proposeda modelof a museumwith a local scientificcharacter, focused on local zoology,with particular emphasis on paleontology.(The museumpossessed rich paleontologicalcollections.) His maingoal was to organizecollections and cata- loguesby describing new genera and speciesfrom the fossil remains in themuseum'scollection. To publicizehis discoveries,he startedthe Anales del Museo Pu- blico de Buenos Aires in 1864.Despite its name,the museum was seldomopen to laymen.The institutionwas seenand used as thedirector's private cabinet, and Burmeisterdid not concern himself much with the public or withexhibits. The An- ales becamethe main forum for presenting information about the museum's collections.(Netto's museum, by contrast, emphasized the public display of collections.) In BuenosAires, teaching was notparticularly emphasized, although Burmeister's staffdid lecture in theuniversity's medical and engineering faculties.

'I RudolphA. Philippi, 'Hist6riadel Museo Nacionalde Chile,"Boletin del Museo Nacional, 1908. 1:3-30.

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Despite theirdifferences in theoryand practice,Burmeister and Nettowere friendsand correspondedintensively. They also visitedeach other'scountries. Burmeister,for example, went to Rio de Janeiroin 1886and helped to mount a Sceli- dotheriumskeleton that the Argentineangovernment was donatingto Netto's museum. Thetwo directors were also rivals,however. Netto established close relations with a leadingscientific society in Burmeister'scity. In 1876Netto was electeda corre- spondingmember of the Sociedad Cientifica Argentina. In 1882,he visitedBuenos Airesand gave a lectureon thetheory of evolution to the young fellows of the society,who were enthusiastic Darwinists. The lecture was well received, and the society publiclyeulogized Netto's museum, thereby sending an indirectmessage to Bur- meister,the director of the museum in theirown city. One ofthe younger Argentin- ean naturalistschallenged the Argentinean Republic to takeup seriouslyits "noble rivalry"with the admirable Brazilian museum, its more numerous personnel, and its scientificschool-in short,to imitateNetto's museum.12 The rhetoricof rivalry be- tweenthe two South American institutions became a sourceof competition and sup- portfor both. In 1880Argentina became a unifiednation, and Buenos Aires was madethe na- tionalcapital. (Formerly the city had simplybeen thecapital of theprovince of BuenosAires.) After federalization, some of theinstitutions in Buenos Aires were takenover by the new federal government, but others were still administered by the province.Despite the intrigues of the younger generation of naturalists in theSocie- dadCientifica, Burmeister's museum received federal sponsorship, and its name was changedfrom Museo Puiblico de BuenosAires to Museo Nacional de BuenosAires. 13 At thissame time, a youngmember of theSociedad Cientifica, Francisco Mor- eno-son of theporteno elite, explorer of Patagonia, and a formerprotege of Bur- meister-lobbiedfor the creation of a new museum-monumentof natural history forArgentina as impressiveas thoseof Parisand London.Partly because a new provincialcapital was beingestablished at La Plata,he was successful.In 1884,the Museo de La Platawas establishedin a magnificentbuilding, a "Greektemple in themiddle of the Pampas," and Francisco Moreno became its first director.14 In debatingDarwinism, new models for museums, and careers for curators, the new generationemployed a rhetoricof rupturewith the past. Although they ac- knowledgedtheir debt to theirpredecessors, they attacked their ideas, methods, re- searchstyles, and "foreignness."In so doing,the new generation followed interna- tionalstandards for professional scientific practices. These new practices involved thereclassification ofcollections, worldwide exchanges among museums and scientificinstitutions, and publication of modem-style research.

12 EstanislauZeballos, "El Museo Nacionalde Rio de Janeiro,"Actas de la Sociedad Cientifica Argentina,1877, 3:269-75. Some of theyounger members of thestaff of theMuseu Nacionaldo Rio de Janeirolater headed provincial museums or otherlocal scientificinstitutions. They included BarbozaRodrigues (1842-1909) and Emilio Goeldi (1859-1917), directors of Brazilian museums in theAmazon, as well as JodoBatista de Lacerda(1846-1915), Netto's successor in Rio de Janeiro, and Hermannvon Ihering (1850-1930), in Sdo Paulo. 13 Theiraffiliations with the old museumsand thenew ones thatwere created in the 1880s and 1890s wereas follows:Francisco Pascdsio Moreno (1852-1919), at La Plata from1887 to 1911; FlorentinoAmeghino (1853-1911), at BuenosAires from 1902 to 1911;Carlos Berg (1843-1902) at Montevideofrom 1890 to 1892 and at BuenosAires from 1892 to 1902. 14 HenryWard, "Los Museos argentinos,"Revista del Museode La Plata, 1890,1:1-8, on p. 3.

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Evolutionarytheories had their monument in thenew Museo de La Plata,which beganwith no collectionsbut nevertheless aspired to becomea centerfor national explorationand forthe exhibition of nationalnature. In keepingwith Darwinian principles,Moreno set out to gathercollections and design exhibits that would illus- tratethe entire course of evolutionin Argentina,covering everything from fossil remainsin local sediments to contemporary industry and arts.'5 In 1890,the museum beganthe publication of twoseries-the Anales and the Revista del Museode La Plata. The Museo de La Plata,as monumentof naturalhistory, consolidated the modelof the public museum in LatinAmerica. Moreno was criticizedfor using his elaborateexhibits to charmthe public and attract the passing gaze ofthe province's politicians.The row of reconstructed skeletons of extinct glyptodonts and the whale skeletonshanging from the ceiling were described as a mercenaryexploitation of science.16 Nevertheless,the 1 890s witnessed his museum's success as a scientificicon. Its in- stitutionaljournals and expeditions competed in the search for fossil and archaeological remains.Moreno was attackedbut also enviedby Burmeister in BuenosAires: theMuseo de La Platahad become a strongcompetitor for Argentinean resources. Neitherthe national museum of Argentina nor that of Brazilhad enoughstate sup- portor a properbuilding, and the contrast made them less attractivethan La Plata.17 Onlyby their publications could they ensure their status before an international audi- ence thatfollowed with interest debates between the Museo de La Plataand the mostfamous paleontologist inArgentina, Florentino Ameghino, on the classification of mammalianfossils. (In theseyears an independentscholar, he laterbecame a museumdirector himself, heading the Museo Nacional de BuenosAires from 1902 to 1911.)Ameghino's authority was viewedas greaterthan that of thestate institu- tionsthemselves. Even the president of Argentina sent fossils to himfor examina- tion,instead of sendingthem to themuseums that his ministries subsidized.'8 In Brazil,the 1 890s witnessedthe founding of provincial museums. Hermann von Ihering,a Germannaturalist, formerly on thestaff of the Museo Nacional in Rio de Janiero,established the Museu Paulista in Sio Paulo,with the help of OrvilleA. Derby(1851-1915), an Americangeologist who had startedhis careerat themu- seumin Rio de Janiero.Derby had developedclose tieswith the wealthy elite of Sio Paulo province-then,because of coffee,the wealthiest province in Brazil. Throughthese connections Derby became the director of theComissao Geografica e Geologica(Geographical and Geological Commission) in thecity of Sao Paulo.'9 Fromthis position he was able to help Iheringbecome, in 1894,the director of a new museumthere, the Museu Paulista. Its magnificentbuilding, designed as a monumentto Brazilianindependence, had far more space than was neededto house thecollections of the Comissdo and the private collections with which it began. Like

II IrinaPodgorny, "De raz6na facultad"(cit. n. 8). 16 Eduardo L. Holmberg, El Joven coleccionista de Historia Natural en la Repu'blica Argentina (BuenosAires: Ministerio de Instrucci6nPublica de la Naci6n,1905). 17 "We haveno space fordisplaying new specimens.... Whereto arrangethe whales' skeletons storedin theattic and in thecorridors of theMuseum?" Carlos Berg,"Informes sobre el Museo Nacional," in Obras completas y correspondencia cientifica,ed. FlorentinoAmeghino (La Plata: Tallerde ImpresionesOficiales, 1934), vol. 1,pt. 18,pp. 464-7. 1 Irina Podgorny,El Argentinodespertar (cit. n. 7). 19 Silvia E de M. Figueiroa, Um Seculo de pesquisas em Geociencias (Sao Paulo: InstitutoGeolog- ico, 1985).

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La Plata,this new provincial museum would also challengethe national museum in thecapital. Ihering'sdirectorship of theMuseu Paulista would last almost twenty years. Fol- lowingprinciples laid downby George Brown Goode, the famous secretary of the SmithsonianInstitution,20 Ihering asserted that specialization in particulardomains ofknowledge was theunique solution to the"crisis" that large and complex muse- umseverywhere were experiencing around 1900. Ihering limited his territory tothe naturalsciences of Brazil and South America. From this perspective he launchedan attackagainst the universalistic museum in Rio de Janiero,which aspired to repre- sentall of nature.Ihering opposed the uniqueness of his museumin Sio Paulo to everythingthat the older Brazilian museum stood for.21 The nationalmuseum, he claimed,was notgenuinely scientific. The boardof thatinstitution never forgave himfor his criticism and ridiculed the Museu Paulista for its majestic but still rather emptybuilding. In theirview, Ihering's boasts were made merely to gratifyhis own ego and to please his wealthypaulista patrons.22 Despitethese rivalries at home,Ihering reached out across national borders and madestrong alliances with Ameghino in Argentinaand also withhis counterparts in Chile at themuseums in Valparaisoand Santiagodo Chile.He expandedthe boundariesof the study of South American natural history at his museum in keeping withthe times, encouraging empirical research into the evolution of South American mollusks(both fossil and living).23

BOUNDARIES AND SOUTH-SOUTH LINKS Twodirectors quite literally helped to drawnational boundaries in SouthAmerica. In themid-1980s, Moreno was selectedto headthe commission that would determinethe border between Argentina and Chile. Emilio Goeldi, from the Museu Para- naensede HistoriaNatural e Etnografia,in theAmazon, headed the commission chargedto determinethe border between Brazil and French Guiana. The directors' normalwork also involvedputting the national stamp on new,unexplored territories in theircountries. To expungethe label "unknown"or "unexplored"from the maps of Brazil and fromBrazilian (and all of SouthAmerican) nature was a goal that museumdirectors assigned themselves. Adding to Argentinaand Brazil thousands ofsquare kilometers of "unknown" land and nature included collecting the material cultureof the indigenous peoples-and thepeoples themselves-in La Plata,Bue- nosAires, Sdo Paulo,the Amazon, and Rio de Janeiro. Thisprocess tied the building of science to theinvention of national identity. The museumsparticipated in thislatter process in twoways-explicitly, by exploring theterritories to be annexed,and implicitly, by giving value to theobjects acquired

20 GeorgeBrown Goode, "The Principlesof MuseumAdministration," Proceedings of theSixth AnnualGeneral Meeting of the British Association of Museums (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, July 1895), pp. 69-148. 21 In the same spirit,Ihering advocated a SouthAmerican mollusks museum. Maria Margaret Lopes,"Viajando pelo mundodos museus:Diferentes olhares no processode institucionalizagdodas ci&nciasnaturais nos museusbrasileiros," Imagina'rio, 1996, 3:59-78. 22 JoaoB. de Lacerda,"Ao sr.dr. Von Ihering,director do Museo Paulista,"Archivos do Museu Nacionaldo Rio de Janeiro,1895, 5:ix-xix. 23 Hermannvon Ihering,"Les Mollusques fossiles du tertiaireet du cr6tacesuperieur de l'Argentine,"Anales del MuseoNacional de BuenosAires, 1907, 8:1-68.

This content downloaded from 143.106.108.94 on Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:42:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 116 MARIA MARGARET LOPES AND IRINA PODGORNY forcollections and by givinglegitimacy to exterminationpolicies. The catalogue of nativepeoples' skeletons,skulls, and materialculture as "exotic"or "unique" became-aftertheir scientific baptism-part of theprecious treasure of Brazilian andArgentinean natural history. In thisframework, the museums collected the ar- chaeologicaland physicalremains of primitivecultures and-before theyvan- ished-theirhabits and languages.The moreextensive the comparative collection of skullsand languages,the more quickly could the question of theorigins of hu- mankindbe solved. Anotheridea, shared from the River Plate to theAmazon, was thatAmerica held thekey to the past as wellas thefuture of human life. Ameghino claimed that South America,specifically Argentinean territory, was thebirthplace of humankind.This idea was takenup by partof theArgentinean cultural elite, and theArgentinean 'nationalityof humankind" was defendedwith the same ardor as was thecontrover- sial claimthat Ameghino himself had beenborn in thePampas rather than in Eu- rope.24Ihering asserted that the extermination of "savage Indians" from Sio Paulo wasan inevitableconsequence of progress and civilization. Jodo Batista da Lacerda, directorof the Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiroat theturn of the century, took the BrazilianBotocudos Indian nation as thestandard of inferiorityin the scale of the developmentof the human races, which also madethem closer to thepossible origins of humankind.This physician-physiologistand craniometricanthropologist proposedtransforming the "Brazilian race" fromblack to whiteas theonly path to civilization.25 Argentineanand Brazilianmuseums cooperated in thesearch for the origins of people,animals, and territories. In cases wherethe origins of humankind could not be linkedto a nationalArgentinean identity, the Argentineans appealed to fossiland geologicalevidence. Both Burmeister, inthe new edition of his History of Creation, and Ameghino,in his book The Antiquityof thePeoples of La Plata, claimed that froma geologicalperspective America was no youngerthan the "Old World,"and thathuman beings who werecontemporary with the large mammals that became extinctafter the Deluge must have "existed simultaneously and before our times on boththe Western and Eastern continents [the Americas and Europe]."26 Cooperationbore fruit in otherways. From his studyof fossilremains of South Americanmollusks, for example, Ihering established paleontological links between thepresent-day continents of SouthAmerica, Africa, and Australasia.27 Because of theirspecial friendship, Ihering and Ameghino exchanged mollusk and mammalian fossils,each tryingto understandthe geological formation of theSouthern Hemi- sphere.28At the same time, they worked to emancipate South American geology from

24 In fact,Ameghino probably was born in Moneglia,Italy, close to Genoa. He emigratedto Argen- tinawith his parentsas a child.After his deathin 1911 a branchof theCatholic movement accused himof beingItalian. See IrinaPodgorny, "De la santidadlaica del cientffico:Florentino Ameghino y el espectdculode la cienciaen la Argentinamoderna," Entrepasados, Revista de Historia,1997, 13:37-61. 25 Fora detailedaccount of this theme, see ThomasSkidmore, Black into White: Race and Nation- alitv in Brazilian Thought(Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1974). 26 HermannBurmeister, Historia de la Creaci6n: Exposicion Cientificade lasfases que han pres- entado la tierra v sus habitantesen sus diferentesperiodos de desarrollo, 9th ed. (Madrid: Gaspar, n.d.),p. 310. 27 Hermannvon Ihering,Archhelenis and Archinotis(Leipzig, 1907). 28 Maria MargaretLopes and Silvia F. de M. Figueir6a,"Horizontal Interchanges in Geological Sciences," NineteenthInternational Symposium of the InternationalCommission on the Historyof

This content downloaded from 143.106.108.94 on Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:42:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE SHAPING OF LATIN AMERICAN MUSEUMS OF NATURAL HISTORY 117 thepreconceived theories of North American paleontologists concerning Patagonian fossils.29Their work is an exampleof unparalleled scientific cooperation in thecon- tinent.30Although removed from the exchange because of his work on theboundary commission,Moreno also appealed,as if it werea boundaryproblem, to science withregard to questionsabout Southern Hemisphere geology and paleontology.3' Hereit is importantto underlinesome aspects of the relationship between Brazil andArgentina with metropolitan centers. The idea of South-Southgeological links initiallyappeared in oppositionto theideas of northerninstitutions, especially in NorthAmerica; Europe was nota "neutral"authority in thesecontroversies, which wereof essentialimportance in decidingwhich European institutions and which countriesshould dominate the field.

CONCLUSION WithinLatin America there was no doubtthat, at theend of thecentury, the ideal naturalhistory museums were those located south of the River Plate.32 North of the river,from Montevideo33 to theAmazon, across the Andes in Santiago,34and in Valparaiso,the Argentinean museums of BuenosAires and La Platafused into a prevailingmodel of the museum. In thismodel, whales of the southern seas wereto be seen suspendedfrom the ceiling, and large,extinct South American mammals marcheddown the halls. These museums were the most envied, because they consti- tutedexemplars. On theother side of the river, Carlos Berg and Ameghino, Burmeis-

GeologicalSciences [INHIGEOQ: Useful and CuriousGeological Enquiries beyond the World (Syd- ney:INHIGEO, 1994),pp. 1-6. 29 Concerninghis controversywith the North Americans from the Princeton expeditions to Pata- gonia aboutthe Patagonian collections, for example, Ihering wrote to Ameghino,"Between us, I believethat our position regarding the American gentlemen is, scientifically,the same that unfortu- natelyprevails in politics.I wouldexpect impartial and proficient help only if European geologists, whoagree with your point of view, would proceed to examinethose samples again." The manuscript, Carta1546, Sdo Paulo,30/08/1902, is reprintedin FlorentinoAmeghino, Obras completas y corre- spondenciacientifica, ed. A. J.Torcelli (La Plata:Taller de Impresionesoficiales, 1937), p. 79. 30 Anotherexample of theclose scientificand personalrelationship among Latin American museumdirectors was thatsustained by Carlos Berg, a Russian-bornnaturalist, and his colleagues from theMuseo Nacionalde Montevideo,in Uruguay,which he also directedbetween 1890 and 1892. 31 "Interestingproblems, which can onlybe solvedby a systematicexamination of theArgentine countryby an experiencedgeologist. In thecourse of mypaper on Patagonia,read before the Royal GeographicalSociety (May 29), I proposedthat this Society, the Royal Society, and the British Mu- seum,with other scientific institutions, should proceed to carry out these necessary investigations.... If theseexpeditions be made,how manychanges may be producedin actualand generalideas on theage of SouthAmerican fossiliferous strata, on thedisappearance of thelost southern lands, and on theaffinities of extinct faunas so distantin timeand spaceas thoseof South America and Austra- lia!" FranciscoMoreno, "Note on theDiscovery of Miolaniaand of Glossotherium(Neomylodon) in Patagonia,"Nature, 1899, 1566, 60:397-8. 32 Jos6A. P6rezGollin, "Mr. Ward en BuenosAires: Los Museosy el proyectode naci6na fines del sigloXIX," CienciaHoy, 1995, 28:52-8. 33 In hisvast correspondence with Carlos Berg, Jos6 Arechavaleta (1838-1912), a Spanishbotanist whodirected the Museo Nacionalde Montevideofrom 1893 until 1912 and madeit one ofthe most distinguishedLatin American museums by theturn of thecentury, expressed his admirationfor the collectionsand libraryof theMuseo Piblico de BuenosAires, and also fordetails of smallexhibi- tionspresented there. 34 The Argentineanmuseums were also mentionedby EduardoMoore, director of Chile'sMuseo Nacionalde Santiago,in his "Report of Activities for the years 1910-1911," Boletin del Museo Nacio- nal, 1912,3:1-14. He said thatthe Santiago Museum could attain the level of similarinstitutions in foreigncountries, "especially in theArgentine Republic," only if it could increase the salaries of staff membersso thatthey could become full-time researchers.

This content downloaded from 143.106.108.94 on Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:42:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 118 MARIA MARGARET LOPES AND IRINA PODGORNY ter's successors at the ArgentineanMuseo Nacional, spent theirdays stressing, amidstinnumerable problems, the need to storethe big bones and to constructa new buildingto rivalthe sumptuouspalace at La Plata. What were enviedand disputedwere not merelythe accidentsof collectionsand buildings,but also the principlesof museumdesign and investigationthat reached beyondnational limits. The social rolesthat museums would play in thenew century turnedupon theirbeing conceived not as local, circumscribedto specificregions, but as incorporatingcontinental dimensions. They "musealized" naturalenviron- mentsthat political frontiers between countries did notdivide; they shared scientific intereststhat united South America; and theyidentified a commonbasis of intellec- tual culturein the South thatcould finallybe recognizedin theNorth. The affinitiesand rivalriesamong Brazilian and Argentineanmuseums did not reduce the value thatnaturalists working in Latin America attachedto theirNorth Americanand European contacts.Indeed, as we have noted,they took greatpride in establishingand keeping those relationships.35However, in thinkingabout the "mondialization"of science,besides therelationship between metropolis and colony we mustalso considerthe dynamicsof Latin Americanscientific integration. The case of museumsis but one aspect of such integration.More evidence is furnished by theLatin American Scientific Congresses that were held in Buenos Airesin 1898, Montevideoin 1901, Rio de Janeiroin 1905, and Santiago in December 1908 and January1909, in whichdirectors of museumsparticipated. These congresseswere consideredthe firstattempts at buildinga scientificcommunity within the regional contextof LatinAmerica.36 Our purposehas been to advancebeyond the discussion of acclimatization,recep- tion,and translationof science aroundthe world. Further investigation of the"mondialization"of science focusingon relationshipsamong countries that do notbelong to the NorthAtlantic axis is needed. Withinthis framework, it is possible to under- stand how the directorsof Brazilian and Argentineanmuseums, far fromperma- nentlyassuming a colonial discourse,could insteaddispose theirinstitutions to serve as symbolsof a new nationalidentity, using science "as a nationalistenterprise.?37 Despite the specificcircumstances of each museum,of each country,the praise of theunique, the proper, the peculiar that characterizes the whole, the essence of these new museumswas thedefinition of species fromtype, a basic principleof taxonomy. This perspectiveunited Brazilian and Argentineanmuseums. At theturn of thecentury,museums in London, Paris, and Washingtonwere, no doubt,centers of refer- ence, but ones perceivedfrom a local perspective,stimulated by the carapaces of glyptodonts,and by the hangingbones of whales fromthe remote southern seas.

35 MariaMargaret Lopes, "BrazilianMuseums of NaturalHistory and InternationalExchanges in the Transitionto theTwentieth Century," in Science and Empires. Historical Studies about Scientific Developmentand EuropeanExpansion, eds., PatrickPetitjean, Catherine Jami, and AnnieMarie Moulin(Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992), 193-200. 36 FranciscoR. Sagastiand A. Pavez,"Ciencia y tecnologiaen Am6ricaLatina a principiosdel sigloXX: PrimerCongreso Cientifico Panamericano," Quipu, May-Aug. 1989, 6, 2:189-216. 7 RoyMacLeod, "Reading the Discourse of Colonial Science," in Les Sciencescoloniales: Figures et institutions,ed. PatrickPetitjean (Paris: Organization pour la RechercheScientifique des Terri- toiresd'Outre-Mer, 1996,) pp. 87-96,on p. 95.

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