#South American History

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 50: Early Modernish and Earlier 4

These Questions are the result of suggestions a the previous iteration.This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct earlier time grouping. In some cases a culture lasted a really long time and I grouped them by whether it was likely the later or earlier grouping made the most sense with the information I had. (Invention ofs tend to fall in an earlier grouping if it's still open. Ones that imply height of or just before something tend to get grouped later, but not always. Sometimes I'll split two different things from the same culture into different polls because they involve separate research goals or the like).

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration. All cultures and time periods welcome.

[1five1two]

[baebeylik]

Cat Statue. Fernando Botero. Colombian.

Purchased by the city of Barcelona in 1987.

[nickysfacts]

For the Inca, the guinea pig was like a adorable multi purpose tool for their society!😄

[dailyhistoryposts]

On This Day In History

August 10th, 1864: The Uruguayan War, fought by Uruguay's ruling Blanco Party against the Empire of Brazil and the Uruguayan Colorado Party. The Colorado Party was tacitly supported by Argentina.

[factoidfactory]

Black History Month Fact #5

Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery in 1888. Princess Isabel signed the Golden Law, granting freedom to all enslaved individuals.

That means that when my mom was a kid in the early 1960s, there were still people alive who had once been slaves.

[enbycrip]

Been digging into things on Canadian/British, United States/British and South American/Spanish history recently and the notable thing that has come up on both - in all three cases, the European settlers were the ones actively engaging in genocide of the indigenous population. It was not the active policy of the European government.

In all three cases the European government actually passed protective legislation for the rights of indigenous subjects at the request of either indigenous people themselves travelling to Europe to make these representations, or not-entirely-awful Europeans passing on what was happening to them. They weren’t *incredible* protections in any of the three cases, but they at least recognised that indigenous people were *people* with actual basic rights. Like “not being automatically murdered or enslaved”.

But then European settlers went *batshit* at this legislation. The entire idea of “No Genocide” policies provoked enormous settler backlashes in all three cases. It was even a material, if not enormous, factor in why the US declared independence.

And the European governments in question just…rolled over. Made no real attempt to enforce this protective legislation. And it *certainly* was *not* why Britain sent in troops when the US declared independence. The Founding Fathers just viewed even the fact they had been *asked* to not murder indigenous people as an outrage.

None of this is to excuse European colonial states today of our responsibility to pay reparations and lobby for protections for indigenous people (and BIPOC in general) in our ex-colonial states. We’ve benefitted so much, especially on mass resource plundering, that reparations are a responsibility we cannot shirk.

(I just finished a biography of Charles Hapsburg and how he frittered away *massive* silver imports stolen from South America on European wars. That huge resource injection was pretty vital to the beginning of European international capitalism in the 16th-17th centuries. Before that, states just kept coming up against insufficient metals for currency, especially ones with the intermediate value of silver that let a critical mass of lower-level transactions happen.)

What it is, however, is an examination of the different ways states can be responsible for genocide, eugenics, and other crimes.

It does not need to be active policy for a state to be responsible. Even passing protective legislation doesn’t prevent a state’s responsibility if they don’t take measures to enforce that legislation, and, particularly, *if they give in to loud backlash from privileged parties who see it as an infringement of their privilege for people they are oppressing to be given some basic rights.*

I am not a proponent of “history repeats itself”. Context *always* matters, and every different situation has a different context. However, history itself provides an incredibly important and *necessary* context for situations we face now. And these facts are *incredibly* relevant to *many* situations we are currently facing.

[newhistorybooks]

“This book draws together a range of recent research on diet and foodways in the Andes, integrating stable isotope data with the results of zooarchaeological and paleoethnobotanical analysis. It highlights how vital foodstuffs and commensality in both everyday and extraordinary contexts transformed and generated social meaning and social relationships in the ancient Andes.”

[why-rock-look-tasty-if-no-eat]

🌻

I didn't forget about you, I just got distracted a lot as I was writing this.

Many of the people who believe that the Egyptians are among the first, or very first, to practice mummification would be intrigued to know that there is another civilization who had practiced mummification for two or three millennia prior. With the new found recognition of the oldest human-made mummies in the world belonging to one culture and recognized by UNESCO, the Chinchorro are once more walking with the living. The Chinchorro are a long extinct culture, with an the estimated range of 7000 to 1500 BCE that had lived in the regions of Southern Peru and Northern Chile on the west coast of South America. These people have brought many an archeologist great joy with the sheer amount of knowledge that can be found regarding the topic of this bare bones dissertation: mummification.

As their culture was relatively long lasting there have been shifts of their practices regarding the process of mummification. Right at the start there is a glaring difference between Chinchorro and Egyptian mummies. While the Egyptians chose who got mummified, and had got paid for it, the Chinchorro practiced mummification on all of the dead, regardless of age or gender. However, unlike the Chinchorro, death was biased. The very land which gave them access to plenty of fish was poisoning them with arsenic.

One leading theory on why they practiced mummification as they did was due to their high infant mortality rate, which is recorded by the amount of infant mummies against adult mummies. Arsenic was also not the only thing poisoning them, as manganese is also toxic and heavily used in the funerary practices. Red ochre is non-toxic. The reason for why those were labeled toxic or non toxic will be expanded upon below.

At this moment in time, there are three known distinct periods that the dead were treated with. The oldest method has been coined ‘Black Mummies’ that were largely practiced around 5000 BCE. In between was the ‘Red Mummies’ that was used around 3000 BCE and made way for the last technique. Being the last, but not exclusive, mummification process used, the ‘Bandaged Mummies’ have a largely unknown time scale. The following paragraphs will go into greater detail of the Chinchorro exciting way of living with the dead.

If you do not wish to learn the detail of mummification you can skip to the next paragraph. Beginning with the base process as a reference point for all three techniques. Strong evidence shows that the family who experienced the loss would handle the mummification, with the woman likely in charge of the process. It has been found that since the women would be in charge of cutting and cleaning the meat of kills, they were then chosen, or chose, the delicate task of deskinning the dead and removing the muscles. After the flesh had been removed the organs followed and thus begins the changes of the techniques.

With ‘Black Mummies’ their chest cavities would remain empty, their skeletal structure was reinforced with sticks, and then the skeleton would be molded with clay to reform the body. Following that, the skin was placed back on the body and would be painted black using manganese, and a black clay facial mask would be placed. The mask itself would have accurate recreations of the eyes, mouth, and mouth. The end product would leave a hollow space on the inside, and the head was largely left alone. Once it was finally finished the mummies would then be buried in plots much like the ones that we use today.

Used during the height of practiced mummification; ‘Red Mummies’ would have the same methods as their predecessors but would instead have their entire body (including the head) emptied then stuffed with plant fibers, clay, and animal fur/feathers. The body was also built back up with clay with the skin also placed back onto the body and then painted red with red ochre. The death mask was also painted using black paint and black hair was added to the head. These mummies were also buried in plots and similarly to the ‘Black Mummies’.

Moving on to the last practice during the waning of the Chinchorro, the ‘Bandaged Mummies’. These were largely similar to the ‘Red Mummies’ and mostly differed by having their skin put back onto the bodies like bandages. Which is where they got the name ‘Bandaged Mummies’. As this is the last known practice, it is currently unknown when this was last used among the Chinchorro population. These mummies were also buried like their predecessors.

Which leaves on to the last segment: the burial. As the Chinchorro were near the coast, reeds were common to find and their usage in making the equivalent of burial shrouds/caskets. All of that would not be enough to ensure that the mummies still wouldn’t decay but the arid climate from the Atacama Desert helped stave off the worst of the damage to human history. Climate change, however, is destroying the bodies of loved ones long since passed and the bodies are quickly degrading by the rising humidity off the coast that the Chinchorro once called home.

I’m normal about things, why do you ask? Stop doubting me, you’re the one who read it on tumblr!

Favorite misspelling: Chinchorror

Sepúlveda, M., Rousseliere, H., Van Elslande, E. et al. Study of color pigments associated to archaic chinchorro mummies and grave goods in Northern Chile (7000–3500 B.P.). herit sci 2, 7 (2014).

Christopher Hewitt, The Chinchorro Created Mummies Thousands of Years Before the Egyptians (2014).

UNESCO, Settlement and Artificial Mummification of the Chinchorro Culture in the Arica and Parinacota Region.

Paul Karoff, Saving Chilean mummies from climate change (2015).

source: trust me bro /j

[wagonlitcommunitytheatregroup]

You are offered 10 Million Dollars to go back in time, live for 10 consecutive years and record your findings. Where/when do you go and why?

Here are the rules:

You are offered to go back in time to any year of the holocene era and you must remain there for 10 consecutive years.

You will be outfitted with video recording devices that can't be detected and record what you see.

You will be innoculated against any potential diseases.

You will be trained in the dominant language of wherever you go prior to your departure.

You will start with enough money to get yourself a modest dwelling.

You cannot alter history, reveal yourself, or produce any children, inventions, art pieces, etc.

You must blend in and you will develop a backstory with historical experts before you go.

You can die/be killed during the duration of the job.

Upon your return you will be awarded $10 Million but 10 years will have passed in the present day meaning your loved ones may have died or moved on to other relationships.

Do you do it? If so where and when do you go?

[valkyries-things]

MARTINA CARRILLO // ACTIVIST

“She was an Ecuadorian activist who defended the rights of black people and fought against slavery. Together with six other slaves of African descent, in 1778 she went to Quitoo to present her case to the president of the Royal Audience who promised to help them. They were nevertheless punished by whipping, Carrillo receiving 300 strokes. Today is honored as a national heroine.”

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 46: Early Modernish and Earlier

These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.

This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct earlier time grouping. Basically, I'd already moved on to human history, but I'd periodically get a pre-homin suggestion, hence the occasional random item waaay out of it's time period, rather than reopen the category.

In some cases a culture lasted a really long time and I grouped them by whether it was likely the later or earlier grouping made the most sense with the information I had. (Invention ofs tend to fall in an earlier grouping if it's still open. Ones that imply height of or just before something tend to get grouped later, but not always. Sometimes I'll split two different things from the same culture into different polls because they involve separate research goals or the like).

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration. All cultures and time periods welcome.

[dontdenymeshakespeare]

The Fall of the Inca Empire

On 26 July 1533 a man perhaps dressed in rags, perhaps not, was garroted in the main square of Cajamarca, Peru. The people around him cheered and one man was smiling – at least on the inside. These two men weren’t any men. The man being garroted was once the emperor of a great empire in what’s now South America and the man smiling at his death was a Spaniard who wanted the gold and silver in the…

[baebeylik]

Zoomorph Effigy.

Ecuador. Chorrera Culture. 13th Century BCE. Made from stone.

Now housed in the Walters Art Museum.

[nickysfacts]

The Amazon Rainforest is one of the most beautiful and unique places in the world, easily comparable to a mythical world!🇧🇷

🏹🐊

🐆🏺

[mondonguita]

Looking at vintage propaganda on Pinterest this one caught my attention bc well it's from South America. It's Integralist propaganda. According to wikipedia:

Brazilian Integralism was a political movement in Brazil, created in October 1932. Founded and led by Plinio Salgado, famous for his participation in the 1922 Modern Art Week. The movement adopted characteristics from European mass movements of those times, specifically of Italian fascism, but distancing itself from Nazism because Salgado himself did not support racism. He believed that every person of every race should unite under the Integralist flag.

Similar to others nationalist and classical populist political movements that were appearing in South America around that time.