Empires of the Dead

Chris Heaney has written a remarkable study of Andean mummies from the fourteenth century or so until today. Understood by the Incas and other civilizations as immortal ancestors, by the Spanish colonizers as a frustratingly thorny spoil of victory, and by scientists and museums as an indispensable piece of the human puzzle, these live remains have prompted enduring and fascinating controversies and clashes since the conquest. In fact, they seem to appear in virtually every major turning point in Peru's longue durée history as well as many transitional moments in anthropology and archaeology. Heaney leads the reader gracefully from the Tahuantinsuyo to contemporary museum disputes about repatriation, contributing to numerous interdisciplinary debates. Anyone involved in or intrigued by polemics about the custodianship of human remains will benefit from reading Empires of the Dead.Heaney's impeccable research and vivid prose, known to many through his journalistic work in magazines such as the New Yorker and the Atlantic, stand out in the crucial initial chapters on Inca and other pre-Columbian groups’ understanding of the living dead, their veneration for ancestors and their care for cadavers. In contrast to conquistadores, scientists, and policymakers examined in the ensuing chapters, Heaney respects these views and practices. He brings them to light through painstaking ethnohistory, successfully incorporating his findings into discussions past and present. He tells the Inca side of the story—and the stories are fascinating. In the midst of the conquest, Inca warriors went to great lengths to save their ancestors, worrying in some cases as much about the dead as the living. What to do with these tombs and remains confounded the newcomers. Ransacking or destroying them only seemed to augment Andean people's respect for the dead, deepening their allure and power and thus weakening the invaders’ hegemony. The Andeans’ loyalty to their dead intrigued the Spanish, and by the middle of the colonial period, Europeans and creoles also demonstrated a fascination with tombs and cadavers.The Spanish bioprospected—a term that the author applies carefully—these remains for information, part of what he deems “mortuary empire.” Heaney's cinematic tale of Lionel Wafer, who arrived to Puerto Bermejo in 1687 on a pirate ship, highlights these different waves of exploration and speculation. The Welsh adventurer described bodies protruding from the beaches of the Huarmey River. After interrogating locals and digging up remains, he crafted a story of a grandiose Inca settlement. Wafer was one of many such adventurers and protoscientists. In an important precedent to modern sciences, travelers and scientists throughout the colonial period searched for and debated about “Inca mummies,” seeking to use them to decipher a long history and to support often outlandish claims.Heaney vividly captures the long arc of scientific fascination with and abuse of Inca remains. In these initial chapters, however, he at times includes too many examples and cites too many works, his prose getting ahead of him. In a few sections, he simply sets out to do too much, addressing numerous academic debates and historiographical currents while attempting to keep the narrative readable and even amusing. I had to reread a paragraph once or twice in these early sections. This is a quibble, due mostly to the very high bar he sets for himself as a writer and researcher.Many scholars would have stopped in the eighteenth century, satisfied with an ethnohistorical tour de force with implications for numerous fields and controversies; fortunately, Heaney brings the story to the twenty-first. His focus on the preoccupation with the dead and the search for a supposed secret code to human history provides stunningly novel entryways into Andean history as well as anthropology and museum studies. For example, the chapter on “San Martín's mummy” captures many of the ambiguities and contradictions of Peruvian independence, particularly what to do with the Indigenous population and the silences about the legacy of the Incas. His study of Julio Tello (1880–1947) is intellectual history and biography of the highest order. Across two chapters Heaney captures Tello's rise as an esteemed archaeologist, the disdain that he received in Peru due to his humble roots, and the tough waters that he had to navigate abroad as he sought support for his research projects in American and European institutions. Throughout his long career, Tello confronted racism and petty turf wars that impeded his work. These two chapters are not only an outstanding biography showcasing Heaney's deep research and rich prose but also transnational history at its finest. The book moves easily from Peru—Huarochirí, Lima, Cusco, and more—to the United States—Harvard University, Philadelphia, and museums such as the Peabody. These two chapters on Tello will intrigue and enlighten anyone interested in modern Latin America, archaeology, and the many other disciplines that Heaney engages.In the epilogue, Heaney returns to and brings together his different arguments and stories, examining the troubling place of Andean mummies in museums across the globe. The author does not simply chastise those who have facilitated these collection pieces, from looters to museum directors, but instead underlines alternative ways to understand and relocate mummies. I cannot think of a historian who has done a greater service in rethinking the present use of the past. This remarkable book will engage casual readers, work well in a variety of courses, and contribute to debates about the Andes, past and present

Ancient history · Archaeology · Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · Sociology · Anthropology · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Paleopathology and ancient diseases · Psychedelics and Drug Studies

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  Open Access•Marion Uckelmann•Antiquity•2024

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