Juanita
Trip Start
Nov 03, 2004
1
39
165
Trip End
Nov 23, 2006
Arequipa,
Peru
Thursday, June 9, 2005
Juanita was 14 or 15 when she was sacrificed on Misti to appease the
mountain god, perhaps because of repeated bad harvests or volcanic
eruptions. Her parents had been especially selected and their
children were marked from birth for sacrifice to the gods. They
lived in special houses and were prepared for this possibility their
entire adolescence. Only the beautiful, unblemished and innocent
where chosen. If by 18, there had been no event of a magnitude to
require a human sacrifice, or if someone else was chosen to make the
pilgrimage to the mountains, they were free to live normal lives.
Perhaps this outcome was ultimately more difficult. If you've been
prepared all your life for the possibility of semi-divinity perhaps
a life of tilling the fields and raising your children seems a bit
anticlimactic.
Juanita and her entourage would have walked from Cusco to Arequipa =0
A(this trip took us eight hours on the bus) and then climbed to the
summit of the mountain. Here various feasting and ceremonies were
performed (although she fasted). She would have been cold,
exhausted, hungry and probably honoured and frightened but perhaps
also elated. At the end of the rituals she was given an
intoxicating drink before being hit over the right temple which
caused (according to CAT scans) an instant death.
She was buried alone on the mountain top with ceremonial offerings.
In 1995 volcanic eruptions in the surrounding area meant that the
ice cap on Misti began to melt and her grave was uncovered. She
rolled down into the crater of the mountain and was discovered,
perfectly preserved, by an archaeologist who had been working on an
Inca sacrifice project in the surrounding area. The fact that he
found her within two or three weeks of her uncovering and before she
started to degenerate is almost miraculous. Her face is bleached
where it was uncovered to the elements, but the rest of her body
removed covered, her hair is still attached, her fingernails perfect
and her internal organs still perfectly frozen.
The grave goods buried with her are as amazing as those at the Museo
de Alta Montaņa in Salta. These are completely perfectly
preserved. Her shawl is damaged where it was exposed to the
mountain elements but the colours are as bright as they were 500
years ago. You can view her alpaca shoes and the tiny symbolic
sandals for her journey to join the gods together with fine ceramic
offerings, gold and silver idols dressed in feathers and an unusual
textile offering, the meaning of which has not yet been
established. She was buried with her umbilical cord, her first
fingernail trimmings and her baby teeth.
Three other children were sacrificed on the same day, further down
the mountain as secondary offerings to Juanita. Two of them are
also perfect. [In Salta the three children were given titles - The
Maiden, The Child Struck by Lightning and The Boy. I thought that
The Child Strike by Lightning had survived a lightning strike and
that had marked her as an appropriate offering. In fact, by burying
the children on mountain sides surrounded by gold and silver
offerings the Incas were drawing the lightning (intentionally or
otherwise) down upon the children's graves.] The third child from
Misti is very badly damaged by lightening.
The museum is administered by the university - they receive no
funding from their government. They have done a very good job with
limited funding. Your tour begins with a slightly overwrought
National Geographic film on the discoveries. The exhibits are
spacious and there are sympathetic and informative displays of all
the grave goods found with the children. They have also used a very
skilled photographer to amplify aspects of the items found with the
children and some of the effects of dissection mummification.
But, in the final room, in a temperature controlled -20oC chamber is
Juanita. David and I disagree on the ethics of this. He only
viewed her for half a minute or so but he thinks that being able to
see her gave him a sense of perspective on aspects of the burial and
the physicality of the Inca people that the photographs didn't. He
felt is added something to his experience at the museum. I refused
to look at her so it couldn't have added anything to my experience.
I feel that I able to adequately learn from the investigation of
experts into the ritual and circumstances of Juanita's death. My
untutored gawping at the corpse of a child who was raised to be
sacrificed and probably went fearfully but willingly to that death
simply intrudes on her dignity.
I guess they succeeded in raising some "inquietudes".
