Ode to Andean Leaders in Indigenous Garb

Over the weekend I got myself characteristically worked up about Perú's impending run-off election between "Cancer and AIDS" to quote Mario Vargas Llosa. To prevent myself from launching into a blogged out-freak about the sense of confusion and disbelief inherent in knowing that the next president of Perú will either be a Fujimori or a Humala (...seriously), I will devote this entry to a much more amusing subject: Latin American politicians and leaders wearing Indigenous costumes. Sincere? Overtly Political? Both?

First we have the previously mentioned Ollanta Humala living his father's Movimiento Etnocacerista dream, dressed up as the Inka or perhaps as Ollantay/Ullanta, the semi-fictional Inka general after whom he is named. Like any good Andean power-seeker or power-holder, Ollanta as Ullanta holds a staff. Luckily red, the color of most mallku ponchos and general Indigenous important-ness in the Andes, is Humala's trademark color. Is that a coca leaf on the staff? Maybe!

Any hint to irony appears to be masked by Humalas perhaps sincere belief in his own inherited legitimacy. This is nearing the Tupac Amaru II school of Peruvian politics. Why shouldn't Ollanta dress as the Inka, he IS the Inka...right?

Next we have Ecuador's Rafael Correa, now serving his second term as president. After graduating from college Correa spent a year working at a rural kindergarten where he seems to have picked up some Quechua. A big deal was made out of this during his first campaign (yours truly thought that the fact that "knowing some Quechua" was newsworthy was a sad commentary on the historic place of Indigenousness in Ecuadorian high-level politics) and here we see Correa in a mallku poncho receiving a staff-like pututu from an Otavalleño dude. Don't let go!

Moving on, we see Rafael Correa enjoying some poncho time with Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales. Morales appears to have acquired a dove. What is notable about these costumes is that Chávez and Morales have eschewed the usual highland-style costumes favored by most South American leaders for Amazonian feathered headdresses. I'm not even going to pretend to know which group those come from but they are not unlike those of the Shuar, whose leader has been questionably arrested as of late. If I remember correctly, Correa had a staff in hand at some point during this particular ceremony. Staff is a must!


Back to highland styles, here we have Morales and Chávez again, this time in Bolivia. On the left both men are wearing Mallku ponchos (unkus), fair for President Morales who remains Apu Mallku, and matching ear flap hats. Morales sports a formidable coca-leaf lei and his hat is decorated with a wiphala.  They have matching pouches!



We all know that President Chávez is no stranger to Bolivian Indigenous garb.  On the right we see Morales and Chávez, this time at Tiwanaku, enjoying a different set of earflap hats. Note Chávez' hat includes a repeating gateway of the sun pattern and a controversial spelling of the site ending in "-nacu". You can't see it but he is wearing the same scarf as your author-ess is as she types!

Finally we have Evo Morales at his second Apu Mallku ceremony at Tiwanaku. His outfit from the first Apu Mallku ceremony was declared by Bolivian law to be the Cultural Patrimony of the Nation, so it stands to reason that he would need a slightly different outfit for the Jan. 2010 event. Morales, here, had graduated to the full two staff display of power, and walks through the Kalasasaya's eastern gateway, mimicking the Gateway of the Sun which is poorly positioned for a photo-op.

I honestly wonder how politically successful these displays are. I find myself sorting Evo Morales into a slightly different category than the other fellas: his Ingenuousness is a component of his political discourse. He trades on ancient legitimacy which, I would imagine, these ceremonies reinforce and he isn't dressed up as a particular ancient hero which just strikes me as weird (cough couch Humala cough). The others, however, just come off a bit dodgy. How does one avoid accusation of, at worst, cultural appropriation or at best, pandering? Can a costume really just be a costume in such tense political climates?

Pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin! Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

This week a few media outlets reported on a story that I had never thought about. Long story short: there are two known remaining samples of the smallpox virus (in Russia and the US) and they have been condemned to destruction by the World Health Organization since the 1980s. What an amazing and chilling thought: the true and complete destruction of smallpox! Do we celebrate victory or mourn loss? As this blog is about preservation, I ask you all how far should preservation extend? Should something, a small bit, be saved?

Taking most of my information and quotes from an article in Live Science, a clear case is made for the destruction of the two samples. First, if the known samples are officially destroyed, the possessors of any other samples found to be in existence can be treated as criminals; smallpox can become something that it is universally illegal to posses. Second, the risk of accidental contamination is eliminated: although such a situation is extremely unlikely, just such an accident caused a death in the UK in the 1970s. Finally, the virus' genome has been sequenced so it exists forever in that format.

Yet, I find myself feeling that something is inherently wrong with total destruction.  Don't get me wrong, I honestly feel that the triumph over smallpox is one of the greatest achievements of our little species. Once, at a museum exhibit about the eradication of the disease, I was so filled with emotion that I cried: VERY uncharacteristic of me. Yet I can't help thinking that, in destroying the remaining two known samples, humanity is making the wrong preservational choice.

Pragmatically, we have no idea what will be possible in the future. While we dream of science future, our policies have always reflected science present. Think of archaeologically excavated teeth bones from the later 1800s that were painted with chemicals to aid in preservation that are now useless for any sort of scientific dating or isotope analysis. Who knew? What if there is an entirely unknown next step for science that would require the actual smallpox virus for analysis? Practically, stealing the virus from the CDC is impossible and any number of nasty things housed there are a theoretical low risk.

Also, historic smallpox scabs have been hailed as interesting and valuable bits of preservable heritage before, it is not new to view disease in that way. Imagine how different everything might be without smallpox. What would the conquest of South America look like if Inka Huayna Capac hadn't caught smallpox and the Spanish had faced organized Inka resistance with a clear leader?

This virus is our past, it has affected the course of our world, is it not our heritage?

So, then, both the willful preservation and the informed destruction of smallpox at this juncture can be seen as highly symbolic acts. To preserve the virus for anything other than purely scientific reasons would be akin to saying that smallpox is the heritage of humanity: the vanquished foe consigned to a guarded vial in some deep dark vault, a memory of our past preserved forever. To destroy the beast after the battle is already won feels like the execution of Vercingetorix after his 5 years of captivity following the battle of Alesia: the final public blow to an enemy that is no longer a threat. Do we really want to be Caesar in this analogy?

The WHO is meeting to discuss this issue next month. I doubt 'cultural patrimony of humanity' will be a phrase that tumbles from any of the medicos there and perhaps it shouldn't be. I just cannot help but wonder if, for one reason or another, we humans will be sorry if smallpox is entirely destroyed.