Popped into the National Archive for the small, temporary exhibit on women workers! Not super sure on the best translation. Let’s go with “Impressions of Working Women.”
That guy’s got nothing to do with anything; it’s just the best photo I got of the door.
There’s an exhibit room just inside the Archive, where visitors don’t have to go through security. It’s pretty small, but a nice place for a curated show of documents.
Including not happy documents, like this 1942 petition to a charity for assistance from a nurse who contracted tuberculosis in the course of her work.
Plenty of great old photos, which, of course. It’s the Archive.
From the School of Nursing affiliated with the Eva Perón Social Help Foundation in 1947.
Actually, though, know what was most impressive? The freaking exhibit room.
That’s all for this minipost! If you’re in Microcentro taking in the government-affiliated tourist sights, you’ll be close to the Archivo General de la Nación. Pop in for a few minutes to see whatever historic documents they have out for eyeballing and the amazing exhibit room at 25 de mayo 263, weekdays from 10 to 5.
La Chacarita is the national cemetery of Argentina, and also the country’s largest. It doesn’t get near the attention that Recoleta gets, which might explain why I saw maybe 10 other people and was asked twice if I was looking for something in the 90 minutes I was there.
Yeah I am. I’m looking for ideas.
The enormous cemetery was established in 1887 following a yellow fever epidemic and is 230 acres. It is chock full of notable figures including scientists (Nobel laureate Bernardo Houssay), artists (Antonio Berni, whose work I included in the MALBA post), and tango luminaries (Homero Manzi, Ángel Villoldo, Osvaldo Pugliese, and many others). There are a number of former presidents, though they seem mostly from dictatorship eras, and also labor leaders and at least one guerrilla leader. Botanical garden designer and namesake Carlos Thays is buried here, as well. La Chacarita is absolutely full of Argentina’s history.
It is, unsurprisingly, also chock full of fancy, fancy vaults.
Tribute to a beloved mother, now missing its inverted exclamation markVery modern design for this crypt.Just like in Recoleta, some crypts are in really, really bad shape.
Group pantheons and vaults are also very common.
Spanish-Argentine Mutual Society PantheonMilitary pantheonThe vault for the Sociedad Tipográfica Bonaerense, a 160 year old labor union of typographic workers, one of the first unions here.Here lie the founders of the Boca Juniors; I literally cannot overstate the importance of football (soccer) or of the Boca Juniors to it.Municipal employees, just in case you want to be buried with your closest co-workers.
Let’s look at two of the most famous burials in La Chacarita. First up, Carlos Gardel, immensely famous and important tango guy.
I was there around 4 pm and the shadows were terrible for photos.
The figure on the left is the man himself, who died tragically at the height of his career, at age 45. Visitors often leave lit cigarettes in his hand. The figure on the right mournfully hunches over a broken lyre.
This is the tomb Jorge Newbery, aviation hero and namesake of one of Buenos Aires’s airports (although generally, that airport is referred to as “Aeroparque”). He died in a plane crash at age 38. Whoever designed his tomb really brought the drama.
“Sorry, did you say there’s going to be a carrion bird on the tomb?” “No, I said there’s going to be five carrion birds on the tomb.”“One of them is going to lurk over the actual crypt door.”
Don’t for a second think that I don’t believe with my whole being that this is incredibly awesome.
There are some pretty nice sculptures in La Chacarita, too.
The broken columns and crumbling look are intentional, by the way.This is the memorial and tomb of Enrique de Vedia, a writer and teacher.
Just in case you’re not flush with crypt-levels of cash, the cemetery has several columbarium walls, the oldest of which (at least, as it appeared to me) serve in places as the cemetery’s border wall.
The newer interments of this type are actually below ground, in a sort of open-air cavern of columbarium walls.
I didn’t get a picture of the main entry of La Chacarita, as I came in one of the side gates, or a bunch of other buildings and tombs; the place is so freakin’ big, you guys. I didn’t go into the British or German sections at all (I didn’t even find them). I’m going to go back at some point, so I will post on those sections when I do.
El Cementerio de La Chacarita is the largest single thing in La Chacarita, with several bus lines and a few stops on the B subway line right near it. It’s open from 7:30 am to 5 pm. There’s a free tour in Spanish on the second and fourth Saturdays every month at 10 am (cancelled if it’s raining); check the website for the most up to date information available.
Tucked in the Paseo La Plaza on Corrientes Ave, the “street that never sleeps” and a center of theater and tango, is the Cavern.
Can’t buy me love, but can buy me a ticket to ride if by “ride” you mean “go into the museum”
Named for the Beatles’ frequent venue, it’s a Beatles-themed complex that includes a cafe, a club, a theater, performance spaces, and a museum.
The Museo Beatle belongs to one of the most charming categories of museum, “personal collection that got way out of hand.” In this case, Rodolfo Vázquez began collecting Beatles stuff at the age of 10, and by 2001, he had the Guinness Book of World Records certified biggest damn Beatles collection (re-certified in 2011 by Guinness as having 7,700 items).
Can’t buy me love, but can buy me the catalog in the gift shop
The museum is organized chronologically, and how else would you start, but with the Fab Four’s frickin’ births?
Original birth certificates, I was told
Don’t worry, Pete Best fans, the museum’s got you covered.
I’m not actually a big Beatles fan; I don’t know much about them. I was surprised by how meteoric their rise really was. They added Ringo and recorded their first album in 1962, released it in 1963, and by 1964, the merch production was insane.
Authentic Beatle wig, and those squares at the bottom are candy. Licorice candy.
Sure, sounds fun.
That is PANTYHOSE, with their FACES ON IT.
Continuing on through Beatlemania…
Several videos available throughout the timeline.
…and on to Sgt Pepper’s something something.
Pig Ringo’s eyeliner wings on point.
I understand Beatles memorabilia, not unlike their aesthetic, gets weirder from here.
All of us cohabitate in a lemon-hued submersible.And we are clean and sober as the day is long.
There are various records, advertisements, and autographs of anyone even tangentially related to the band throughout the museum. All that is well and good, but you want a photo op. Of course you do.
The only true Beatles photo op.
You do, eventually, come to that point on the timeline when things, as all good things do, come to an end.
Bummer.
But as I’m sure every other person on the planet knows, because I know this, the Beatles didn’t just vanish in 1970. They all had solo careers!
Visitors will find nooks dedicated to each man’s solo efforts and life decisions.
I heard John remarried.
Ringo…well Ringo did some things I was entirely unaware of until five seconds before I took this photo.
After visiting the museum, you can walk across the courtyard to the cafe and have a typical and filling Argentine lunch for 250 pesos (about US$5.50).
If you’re a Beatles fan or just want to see a bunch of Beatles stuff, you’ll find The Cavern in the San Nicolás barrio at Av Corrientes 1660, inside the Paseo La Plaza, which is a actually a really lovely complex of shops, restaurants, performance spaces, and trees in the middle of a busy place. It’s close to the D line and B line of the subway, Congress, the Obelisk–a thousand ways to get there. The museum entries are 250 pesos (about US$5.50) for foreigners, 200 pesos for Argentines and residents, and free for kids 10 and under. Check the website for the hours.
There are two museum ships in Puerto Madero: the ARA Uruguay and her more famous yet less interesting sister, the ARA Presidente Sarmiento. But just because she doesn’t have the very cool history of the Uruguay doesn’t mean the Presidente Sarmiento is boring.
I’d say that it might be unfair to compare them, but it’s impossible not to, as they are literally within sight of each other.
The Sarmiento was a training ship for the naval academy. It was English-built and launched in 1897. Retired in 1961, it’s been a museum since 1964.
I love passageways on ships! This one has a lot of plaque bling.
Lots of stuff to see from the glory days:
Training sailors got a mattress on their hammocks, so that’s cool.This guy had a really fancy pillow embroidered to commemorate his voyage around the world.Arf.
The sign wasn’t super clear on the origin of the taxidermied Lampazo here, but it seems like in 2014 they decided that he’s probably Buli, owned by Lt Calderon and ship’s pupper on the 37th voyage. I don’t know how he came to be taxidermied and under glass on the Sarmiento, and I didn’t see anything on board to shed light on that. Such pressing questions remain mysteries.
There’s no meal service.
The crew dining room now has a video you can watch, and going on through it leads to the officers’ digs, which are nicer.
If you’re an officer, you mattress doesn’t swing.
The Captain’s quarters are off-limits to visitors, presumably because the naval personnel currently assigned to the ship have taken over the best space for offices. But there’s a nice little model of it.
Command and comfort.
You can climb up on the decks, too, which afford a nice view of the Woman’s Bridge and other ship stuff.
I wasn’t entirely sure I was allowed up on this part, but two navy dudes saw me climbing down and didn’t yell at me, so I assume I was.
The Presidente Sarmiento is open seven days a week, 10 am to 7 pm. It’s 20 pesos to get on board (at the moment!) and located in Puerto Madero, kind of across the street and to the right from the Casa Rosada. It’s a very short walk along the river to the ARA Uruguay, so if you’re super into museum ships, you can hit them both.
You might recall I have visited a bank museum before, that of the Banco Ciudad. It was a very interesting look at the bank’s founding and role in society, and I was slow to add any other bank museums to my list when I found another one. I assumed it would be similar.
Banco Central is the national bank of Argentina, and its history is of course tied to the economic history of the country, which is, to put it generously, bonkers. The museum, officially known as the Museo Histórico y Numismático Héctor Carlos Janson, takes an entirely different course than that of Banco Ciudad and focuses on the history and development of currency. That history is also bonkers.
The first room of the museum looks briefly at the history of currency in South America.
Oh, hey, is that a painting the recreates elements of a 17th century map? Probably pretty charming!Is…is Buenos Aires Mary? Or Jesus? You know what, nevermind.
Anyway, back before Europeans arrived for their extended pillage-murder spree, frequently used currency items included cocoa beans, leaves, small metal pieces, and cowrie shells.
Only nobles had access to cocoa trees and the bean store houses. Yes, there were also counterfeit beans.
Next up are examples of colonial-era currency.
Obviously everything in this museum was in a glass case, so it’s a whole post of just super shitty photography.
The colonial coins were minted in Potosí, in Bolivia, close to Cerro Rico, a huge silver mine that Spain spent years plundering. A stunning number of miners have died there over time, earning the place the name “the mountain that eats men,” because nothing in colonial history isn’t horrifically grim (mining the mountain continues to be horrifically grim).
VTRAQUE VNUM: “Both Are One” (Spain and the colonies), LOL.
Next up, the first currency minted following independence:
Money was minted by the provincial governments, which is why the gold coin above says “Provinces of the Rio de la Plata.” The Banco de las Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata was created with the aim of unifying the nation’s printed currency, but the other provinces were not cool with this so it did not happen (had a lot to do with economic troubles from the war with Brazil). So, money from all over continued.
Notes were printed abroad, and included portraits of important figures of independence in the New World, such as Simón Bolivar, George Washington, Ben Franklin, and William Penn.
Things got weird, as things tend to do, during the civil war. General de Rosas, blurrily pictured below, dissolved the national bank and created an administration to issue paper money and coins. These were monedas corrientes. I am not nearly as well-versed in Argentine history as the museum’s informational panels assume, so I can’t much fill you in beyond that.
You will note, possibly, two things about the following bill: One, its domination is 1000, which means it was rapidly devaluating, generally not at all a good thing; and two, it’s got palm trees and kangaroos on it.
Unexpected!
The money was at the time printed in Buenos Aires, but the plates were engraved in London. The museum notes that printing houses at the time worked for several countries and contends that’s why the kangaroo and llama appear together on an Argentine banknote, but frankly I still have a lot of questions.
I also find the next phase of currency a wee bit confusing, something that can likely be attributed once again to my lack of knowledge of the nation’s history, but next you get “pesos fuertes” and “pesos corrientes.”
If there is any unifying lesson to this museum, it’s that the Argentine economy has never been all that stable.
Here we take a small detour into a historical oddity. A French lawyer showed up in the west of the country and in 1860 declared himself “King of the Araucania and Patagonia.” He then created a constitution, a flag, and a national anthem, and started minting money.
Orélie-Antoine de Tounens, looking a lot like a dude that would just go do something like that.
He was arrested, declared insane, and deported, but he apparently took his claim very seriously and tried, for the rest of his life and without success, to really make it stick. He died childless, but people have claimed to be his heirs for awhile now, and they actually still mint (technically worthless) coins, I guess for the sole purpose of having them displayed at the Central Bank museum.
Cool?
Now, I’m going to hop forward about 100 years, skipping a major financial crisis, to get to the financial crises of recent history. There was a substantial devaluation during the military dictatorship, which attempted to stabilize things, but, spoiler alert, did not.
These are from the last couple years of the dictatorship, the early 80s.
The military dictatorship fell and democracy was restored in 1983, but there was still a huuuuge problem in the form of a massive external debt, currency devaluation, and serious inflation. The new government started whacking off zeroes, so that 10000 old pesos would equal one new peso.
It did not work. These were printed in 1983; by 1985, 10000 peso notes were back in circulation. That year, the president decided what the country really needed was to start from scratch. The peso was old and busted. The Austral was the new hotness.
Alas:
The name “peso” made its return with the “pesos convertibles” in the 90s, when the peso was pegged to the US dollar at a 1 to 1 rate. This also didn’t work and led to the financial crisis of 2001, which many Argentines can tell you absolutely wild stories about. The president famously fled the Pink House by helicopter. Some of the bills from this period are still in circulation; I could dig some out of my wallet right now.
This time of utter economic collapse led to a widespread return to a barter economy, leading to the use of these barter network vouchers.
Things got…okay after that. And then less okay. That’s kind of how it goes here.
The current government, for political reasons I’m not going to get into, decided that the money needed a makeover, so now it’s all about the nature.
Oh, hey…we’re back up to 1000 pesos notes. Huh.
After the rooms of currency, the museum has some historical artifacts related to the history of banking in Argentina, including French scales used to weigh coins.
Eva Perón spent a few months working out of the Central Bank, and they have her office furniture.
I think I’ve mentioned before that it’s hard to overstate Evita’s importance here.
I’m going to wrap this us with the museum’s most endearing feature, a selfie point.
These denominations should be good for a few months, at least.
The Banco Central Museum is located in the financial district of Buenos Aires, blocks from the Plaza de Mayo, at San Martín 216. It is open Monday through Friday, 10am to 4pm, and is free. There are some information cards in English for each room, although several were missing when I visited, and they are not particularly complete. The main signage is solely in Spanish. As it is located in the city’s heart, you can get to the museum in a million, billion ways.
Well, hello, 2019. I have been a terrible writer. I was in the US for the end of December and all of January, and even though I took with me a backlog of museum visits to work on while I was there, it obviously never happened because a good 97% of my focus at home is devoted to getting tacos. Thank you for your understanding.
So now I’m home, and also sick, which is a great condition for acclimating to the change in time zone, but whatever, my point is I have time. So–
This is the Museo Judío de Buenos Aires, and if you’re thinking that’s a bit unassuming and you might miss it, don’t worry, because this is the temple next door:
You are not going to miss it.
The museum is connected to the Templo Libertad, the central synagogue of Buenos Aires. It faces the same stretch of squares as the Teatro Colón and the Supreme Court building. I’ll touch on the history of Jewish Argentines lightly as I go here, but Argentina has the largest Jewish population in Latin America, and their history is, of course, extensive.
Visitors to the museum will encounter first a heavy, locked door, and they must be buzzed into the antechamber. Visitors are at this point required to show identification to the doorman, who sits behind a shield. After that, the doorman is able to buzz visitors through the next heavy, locked door. You will find extra security precautions at many Jewish schools and synagogues in the city; 1992 and 1994 saw two major terrorist attacks against the Jewish community (the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish Community Center [AMIA], respectively). They are accustomed to foreign visitors, and passports are welcome forms of identification.
Inside, you will find a warm and welcoming staff. The signage is in Spanish, although an audioguide is available in multiple languages for download on smartphones, so bring some headphones. It does not appear that the guide is linked on the museum’s website, so it requires Internet access within the building or a local data plan. I hope they consider linking it in the main website so it can be downloaded prior to visiting. I also hope they expand the content someday, as it is on the lean side, but nevertheless a pleasant way to tour the museum.
The museum’s collection is entirely donated, and it includes ancient artifacts:
Bronze Age oil lamps made of clay
As well as a few contemporary art pieces here and there:
…which is a nice touch, a reminder of the museum’s place within a community that is both ancient and living.
Most of the items are from the 19th and 20th centuries. This is a 19th century Polish Tanahk (Hebrew Bible) in miniature that could be hidden on one’s person as necessary.
There are other religious texts and cases:
…as well as items related to Jewish life from all over the world:
“Tallit Bag”–the glare is obscuring the label there.
An example of a table set for Passover
In the late 1800s-early 1900s, there was a large number of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe, escaping violence and attracted by Argentina’s liberal immigration policy. Thousands settled into agricultural life, and Jewish gauchos became a thing.
Alberto Gerchunoff emigrated to an Argentine Jewish agriculture colony as a small child from what is now Ukraine, and later became a writer, although gaucho seemed to be a better look on him.
My favorite part was the Menorah collection!
Also the Torah pointer, which is just a really practical design.
YOU ARE HERE
Visitors can also see the temple itself, which is very impressive, and hosts an active congregation.
The museum has a small gift shop.
For game day.Don’t worry; God doesn’t play favorites.
A unique history museum and worthwhile visit, the Museo Judío de Buenos Aires is open Monday through Friday from 10am to 6pm. The entry fee is a relatively steep US $10 for foreigners (but currently 80 pesos for Argentine residents and 50 pesos for Argentine retirees). It’s easy to get to via the B and D subway lines and a multitude of buses, and just down the street from Teatro Colón, so it’s right in the thick of things.
It isn’t the biggest waste of life ever perpetrated, but it was a waste of life all the same.
It’s not easy for people who were born and raised in imperial powers to understand, either. There’s a lot of background to the conflict, which is important for understanding how the islands are generally viewed by Argentines, and I am in no way well-versed in the history of it, so I’m going to try to briefly illustrate what was going on before the war broke out in 1982.
1– The sovereignty of the Malvinas (they are known officially outside of Argentina as the Falklands, but this is where I live and also what the museum is called, so I’m going to stick with Malvinas) had been in dispute for 200 years, although they have been held continuously by the British since 1833.
2– The belief that the Malvinas are rightfully the possession of Argentina has been culturally entrenched for a long time.
3– British rule over the Malvinas is seen as imperialistic, and the imperial ambitions of European nations and the US has long wreaked profound tragedy across South America, and indeed the political interference of those nations was actively still doing that in the support of the various military juntas that overthrew Latin American governments at the time.
4– Argentina’s military dictatura had murdered thousands of people and was facing a severe economic crisis and growing opposition; the war was a somewhat cynical ploy to bolster home support by appealing to that dumbest of manipulable emotions, nationalism. The war, the loss–it’s all tainted by its association with an illegitimate and murderous regime.
5– Unlike the US, which is more or less constantly sending soldiers to die in conflicts, Argentina hadn’t been involved in any foreign conflicts to speak of since the Paraguayan War in 1870. Most of the Argentine war dead in the Malvinas were conscripts.
So–the Museo Malvinas is located on the edge of the ex-Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada, once the largest clandestine detention center and execution site during the dictatura, now a memorial complex. The museum itself is quite new and really lovely.
Outside the building is a large pool with a map of the Malvinas in the middle:
As seen from inside the building
and a memorial to the ARA General Belgrano, which was sunk by British torpedoes with 321 of its crew and two civilians.
It’s not a particularly comforting space. You walk down, until the silhouettes of the ship are above you. The sound of the fountain forcefully brings to mind the idea of water rushing into the ship. It is an evocative, emotional memorial.
Inside, the museum covers the history and flora and fauna of the islands.
That is the focus of the very polished film that runs inside this little theater, despite its introduction here.
There is a lot of multimedia in the museum.
There are also areas that cover the older history of the islands as well as Argentine-British relations.
A sizable portion of the museum is dedicated to how the Malvinas have been and are currently addressed in Argentina’s culture, and the idea and importance of sovereignty.
Much of the museum works to make the concepts accessible to the children who visit; this interactive map says “How do we build paths to the Malvinas?” and the strings are color-coded to the choices that can be made as a nation: diplomacy, dialog, peace, conflict, compromise, etc.
Plenty of space is also given to the war and the dictatura (the leaders had assumed that the UK would not really bother with a military response and that the US, which Argentina had been aiding in funding the Nicaraguan Contras, would stay discreetly out of it, neither of which would be true) that made the dumb ass decision to go through with the invasion.
A Mother of the Plaza de Mayo implores viewers to remember the Disappeared are also Argentines.A soldier lost his sleeve and the arm that was in it.
A lot of dumb ass propaganda going around, too.
The war dead are, naturally, also memorialized. You can watch the tablets and note how many were young draftees.
So, for better or worse, the Malvinas remain a British holding (the Falklanders, incidentally, are overwhelmingly of British descent and wish to stay within the UK). The brief war ended with 904 dead and 2432 wounded. The loss finally brought down the dictatura, which had bought nothing with all the blood it spent for Argentina except meaningless grief and psychic scars.
The Malvinas are currently on the 50 peso note.
The Museo Malvinas e Islas del Atlántico Sur is free and open seven days a week and holidays. It’s accessible by train and several bus lines, as it is situated at the back of the ESMA on Avenida del Libertador, a huge avenue. None of the signage is in English, so if your language is weak, you’ll need to bring a translator. There’s a nice small cafe within the building.
The Bazar de Magia, a shop that houses the Argentine Museum of Magic, is not particularly ostentatious.
It’s more classy and confident.
Stepping inside, however, reveals a slick space of vibrant color, from the enormous performance posters to the magic, clown, and practical joke props for sale. Visiting during normal shop hours will also grant you a look at a (small for museum but large for personal, which it is) collection of magic artifacts, including original posters from the 19th and 20th centuries, props, photos, and books. Most of it centers on one stage magician in particular.
There was once a famous magician named David Bamberg, who was the seventh, and final, member of the Bamberg dynasty of Dutch magicians. During the first half of the 20th century, he performed in Chinese-style clothing under the fakey Chinese and remarkably racist name Fu Manchu.
A thing started by his dad.
Odd place for a lot of the stuff belonging to a UK-born itinerant magician of Dutch extraction to end up, right? Well, David Bamberg started using the stage name “Fu Manchu” in Buenos Aires, and eventually retired here and opened a magic school. He died in the city in 1974.
The Spock ears, the finger nails…just…wow.
The museum is a small room, so it only takes a few minutes to look around, but if you’re interested in vintage magic stuff in general or David Bamberg in particular, you’re going to like it.
There is also a cabinet of mid-century Argentine magic props. The sign says the staff will not tell you how they work.
Although disembodied hands are pretty self-explanatory.
Visit the Argentine Museum of Magic in the Bazar de Magia during store hours every day but Sunday, but they break for lunch–check the website for hours. The store not only has magic props and gags, there’s also books on magic (even some in English). You can walk there from the Plaza de Mayo, and it’s around the corner from the Avienda de Mayo stop on the C line.
I need to get this posted, because I was told that this museum will be closing next month, which sucks, because it’s pretty cool. It has a strong online presence, a good physical space, and a great staff. It will be a loss.
The MUMIN (MUseo de MINerales, get it?) is the educational endeavor of the SEGEMAR, the Servicio Geológico Minero (Argentine Mining Geological Service). It caters mainly to school groups, tasked with making rocks interesting to children. Geology, being perhaps not the sexiest of sciences, could make that a bit difficult to achieve, but they have done an admirable job. Things to touch, demonstrations to look at–there’s a lot of activity for minerals.
If a rock museum could have jazz hands
The museum is located within a government ministry building, the name of which escapes me at the moment–but you do need an ID to get in.
I poked around on my own until a staff member came out, discovered my terrible Spanish, and immediately went back to send out a very patient English-speaking geologist. He showed me around the museum, told me about all the displays, and answered all my questions. Let’s see a little of the collection! Argentina has a lot of mineral-related loot.
So, do you have a favorite kind of fossilized thing? ‘Cause I do.
That thing is petrified wood, and the MUMIN has a huge chunk of it. Yaaass.Patagonia’s got some crazy fossil deposits.Up top you can see the impressions of a plant; at the bottom is a sauropod bone fossil.
“That’s cool,” you’re thinking. “BUT ARE THERE PRETTY ROCKS”
Of course!
Fluorite! One of my favorite minerals.Big ol’ piece of rhodochrosite, the national stone of Argentina.
The museum does have an app available on the website that will do AR stuff with a few signs as well as a VR headset with a short meteorite thing to watch; nothing extravagant but fun and memorable. There are a few more hands-on elements to see/do, including some SUPER FUN SAND TABLES:
whaaaaaaaaaaaaat
If you move the sand around, the volcano changes:
There’s another one!
Islands in the stream, that is what we are
In this table, you move the sand around to form the topography of the land. Then you can make it rain by spreading your hand. The idea is to demonstrate how water moves over the topography.
Know what else I liked? This Argentina-specific graphic of geologic time:
Although the geologist explained that it is just illustrative–if you dug beneath the Obelisco, you wouldn’t find a whole lot of the middle layers. You would, however, cause no end of excited reactions on the part of the local government.
Wanna see more minerals?
Good news.
I will never not find it fascinating that some minerals naturally grow in distinctive shapes.
NEVER.
Finally, I will close this out with a geode.
The label doesn’t tell you this but the very nice geologist will, this geode is an enhydro agate–a geode with water inside of it. Did you know that was a thing? I had no idea that was even a thing!
The MUMIN is free and open to the public Monday through Friday from 9am-5pm (closed on holidays). Take your ID though because you need that to get in. It’s very close to the Plaza de Mayo and easily accessible by all the subway lines that go there. Go while you can.
The Ethnographic Museum is under the auspices of the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the University of Buenos Aires. It was founded in 1904, and it while it houses collections from other places in the world, it’s focused chiefly on this part of South America. There is a lot of information available on the English-language website.
I dig museums in old, stately houses.
There are several exhibitions, and I’m not going to talk about all of them, because that would be a lot. The first one, The Uttermost Part of the Earth, addresses the native populations of Tierra del Fuego, and what happened to them. It’s not a happy story.
“These people, who fascinated the Western world, are here no more. They were massacred in a few decades and not by the 16th century conquistadors, but by our grandparents less than 100 years ago.”
There were two groups that had lived in the area for thousands of years: sea hunters (Kaweshkar and Yamana) and land hunters (Selk’nam). That went fine for awhile.
*sigh*
The hall is set up with the items of the Native peoples on the left, and items that would be used by explorers and colonizers on the right. A model of a Yamada-style canoe is in the center. There is a guide at the beginning of the hall that translates all the text into English.
Each side is labeled “utopia,” “occupation,” and “science.”
Let’s take a look at the Native artifacts first.
Meet Robert Fitzroy, captain of HMS Beagle, the ship that Charles Darwin sailed around South America on:
Now meet O’run-del’lico, a Native boy kidnapped by Fitzroy in retaliation for a stolen boat, who was renamed “Jemmy Button” because his family was given a button for him while he was taken back to England for a long time.
No part of this story is okay.
He and three other kidnapping victims, renamed York Minster, Fuegia Basket and Boat Memory, because no indignity was too small to inflict on them apparently, were supposed to be “civilized,” Christianized, and returned to Tierra del Fuego to serve as missionaries and intermediaries. Boat Memory died in England. The other three dropped Europeanism like a hot brick and reintegrated into their tribe immediately on their return.
“Hey,” I can hear you asking, “what other insanely racist things resulted in contact with Natives?” Hahaha.
Incidentally, the quote on the right side of the wall says, “A curious paradox of the West, that it cannot know without possessing, and it cannot possess without destroying.”So human zoos were a thing that happened.And there was stuff to help color-code people.YEEAAAAAAGH WHY DO THEY ALL HAVE EYELIDS
The Selk’nam didn’t long survive sustained contact with non-Natives, which would come to include actual contract murder. The very last died in the 1970s. I’ll end this part with a song, included in the museum’s English guide and I believe from Anne Chapman’s book The End of a World, of the last shaman, Lola Kiepja (recordings available at that link):
“Here I am singing, the wind carries me; I am following the steps of those who are gone. I have been allowed to come to the mountain of power, reaching the great mountain range of heaven, the way to the house in heaven. The power of those who are gone comes back to me. I step into the house in the great mountain range of heaven. Those from infinity have spoken to me.”
The next exhibition is “Challenging the Silence: Indigenous People and the Dictatorship,” so the reading isn’t going to get any lighter here.
Main hall/exhibit space.
The last military dictatorship (supported by the US, I might add), as I’m sure you’re aware, is still very much in living memory here. Visitors are encouraged to leave a Post-It on the wall, which says, “How to challenge the silence?”
It will come as no surprise that Native rights and labor organizers ran afoul of the dictatorship.
On the left, Mapuche politician and activist Abelardo Coifin, died in internal exile. On the right, Mapuche activist Celestino Aigo, disappeared by the military in 1976.Marina Vilte, teacher and labor leader, disappeared by the military in 1976.
The exhibition includes information on how the sugar mills (having been the beneficiaries of military muscle keeping workers in check and working for decades) would act as agents of the dictatorship, informing on workers and allow their land to be used for clandestine detention centers. One company’s own vehicles detained over 400 activists, 30 of which were never seen again.
The company was Ledesma, which is still a major producer today.
The exhibit also examines the museum’s own contribution to the erasure of Native cultures during the dictatorship, which celebrated the “Centenary of the Conquest of the Desert” in 1979, which could more accurately be characterized as the centenary of the genocide of the Native peoples. So, sure, parade time.
The busts of Native chiefs were displayed, meant to “remind us of the great facts of this epic that concluded with the happy integration of a numerous mass of indigenous peoples into the national life” are actual words that fell out of the museum director’s mouth in 1979.
Let’s take a gander at the artifacts that live upstairs, and channel our inner (or outer) textile nerds.
This exhibit covers a lot of ground and A LOT of time, there was an entire class of children occupying a large part of the room (and I never, ever begrudge children their space in learning institutions–I just didn’t get to the more recent artifacts because their activity was taking up a lot of floor space, but they were really engaged and two thumbs way up to the museum for having a hands-on activity for them), and my dinky little minor in anthropology did not equip me for being a great source on pre-Colombian history, so let’s hit this in broad strokes.
Here’s the region we’re looking at:
The English guidebook has got my back.
The exhibit covers about 4000 years of cultural development in the region (following roughly 6000 years of hunter-gatherer societies), beginning with the earliest domestication of crops and animals.
You can still see the colorwork!How gorgeous are those stitch patterns?!
It would have been very nice to have more information about each object, such as their ages and sources.
As things settled into the first millennium CE, society got less egalitarian and chiefdoms formed. Power became hereditary and ancestor worship was socially important.
Along with the integration of groups into a large political entity came more defined social stratification and a centralization of power and activity.
Also human sacrifice happened.
But nevermind the increasing sophistication of craftsmanship, particularly metalworking, and restricted luxury goods that signified social status, let’s get back to the textiles.
Aw, yeah.
The loom comes into use, and surviving textiles show that weavers developed into specialized master craftspeople, just as the metalworkers and ceramics makers did.
Of course, everything goes to hell when the Europeans arrive, as it does. That was the area that the school children were working in, so I didn’t get photos over there.
The exhibition room is large, and there are a lot of stairs, but they’ve used the space well. Old houses present a lot of challenges when they’re used as public institutions, and they’ve done a nice job with this one. If steps are an issue for you, be aware that there are lots.
There’s more to see at the Ethnographic Museum, which is open Tuesday through Friday from 1pm to 7pm and 3pm to 7pm on weekends (closed Monday). There’s a small shop if you’d like to support the museum by upping your swag game. Admission is 40 pesos (about a US dollar currently), and it’s super easy to get to on subway lines D, A, and E and tons of buses.
The Exhibitist 