B ... is for Baroque

But perhaps not the baroque you were thinking! This is Guarani Baroque, the architectural style that developed in the Jesuit missions that grew up along the Parana River in Paraguary, Argentina and Brazil, from 1609, when the first mission was established, up until 1767, when the Jesuits were expelled due to their increasing independence from the Spanish and Portuguese colonial administrations. For an excellent overview of the history and geographical spread of the Jesuit missions, Robert H. Jackson's presentation has some wonderful old maps and photographs of some rarer locations.

San Ignacio Mini is hardly one of those magical names that sing in the public consciousness when one thinks of South America.  It should be, however. The beauty and power of the ruins is simply breathtaking, tumble-down and nearly reclaimed by the jungle as they are. These are World Heritage Listed properties, and San Ignacio Mini is the most accessible of 28 "reducciones" that gave birth to a new cultural movement: the Guarani Baroque.

The Jesuit priests ministering to the Guarani sought not to simply spread the word of their God; it is said they sought build utopian communities in the tradition of the early Christian communities, where all social life and commerce proceeded from and for the communal religious effort.  Each reduccione was no less than a planned community; humble accommodation for the weavers and spinners and cooks and hunters; fancier accommodation for the Guarani elite and the priests.

Fanciest of all, of course, was the church itself, fronted by a plaza and enhanced by terraces to focus the social life of the community on the religious centre. The stone churches that are (mostly) visible today were built over early wooden versions; by the time a community was sufficiently established to warrant a stone church, the artisan skills taught by the Jesuits has been mastered by their Guarani workforce.  Over time, this  led to the flowering of a new aesthetic: European lines, with Guarani motifs.  The Guarani Baroque is also observable in music, art and literature produced from the reduccione period.  The US documentary channel PBS recorded a special on The Music of the Missions, with playable sound files.

Today (or more correctly, in 1999, when we visited, and in 2004, when the World Monuments Fund outlined some progress in protecting the site), San Ignacio Mini remains remarkable, red brick walls jutting proud from the green jungle, its fabulous Guarani motifs blending native spirituality with the European need to stamp dominance on every corner of the earth.  But the allure of this site, for me at least, is in seeing it reclaimed by the jungle, even as the beautiful paved patios; the neat little houses, and the gorgeously carved stone church crumble into dust. Nothing, not even the greatest of cultural marriages, endures forever. Such a Catholic message, that.

Previously:  A is for Amazonia

A ... into Amazonia

It's one of the fabled journeys, and it doesn't feel quite real, at first.  Arriving into Belem is simply too ordinary - hot, to be sure, but nothing anyone who grew up in tropical Australia can't handle.  Steamy and busy and dirty and loud, but that's a lot of places.  And then you head down to the river to check out the boats, and it suddenly crystallizes into the journey of a lifetime.

Of course we can sleep in hammocks!  Get there early, get a good spot and crowding won't be a problem!   Why should we mind being the only tourists on the boat - it'll be fun!  The Joao Pessoa Lopes was a commuter boat, basically - goods and people up and down the various towns on the river, people climbing on and off all the time, hammocks popping up immediately over your head in the middle of the night.

Three days to Manaus, we were told.  But this is Brazil, where the "mas or menos" used everywhere else in South America isn't added in.  It goes without saying.  Three days turned into eight, but they were also eight of the most remarkable days of our life.  We can still hear the giggles of little Leticia, who slept with her mum in the hammock next to ours, and was an excellent education in how to survive a very mischievous toddler.  "Le-ti-cia" would come the exasperated cry, and usually followed by a gale of laughter as someone on board plucked Leticia from somewhere she wasn't meant to be.  And at one point, moored alongside another boat for several days as we shared supplies, that was a lot of possible hiding places.  Health and safety has no real foothold in the Amazon, as we discovered when the two casually lashed together boats actually became a unit for socialising and trading ... and when our boat ran out of my necessary daily ration of Guarana softdrink, my husband joined the crowds shimmying it over the rail to the better supplied vessel.   

 On the river, too, commerce thrives, the boats being constantly approached by canoes small and large, with fruit to sell, or meat, or fish. The dexterity with which even the tiniest children (these two couldn't have been more than six) handled the various wooden craft on the river was astonishing - but then, they literally live on the river, in homes and communities that probably haven't changed significantly in the last century, possibly two.  Except for the satellite dishes in every yard, of course - "for the futbol!" we were told.

The archaeology of the Amazon River is endlessly fascinating: a museum in Belem first alerted me to the idea that the traditional idea of scattered, nomadic tribes barely subsisting in the rainforest was unlikely to be an accurate representation of the past realities. The work of Brazilian archaeologist Denise Schaan has demonstrated that the islands at the mouth of the Amazon once supported a highly sophisticated network of chiefdoms over a period from around 1000 A.D, enduring well into the colonial period; very recent work in Bolivia has shown the "islands" of vegetation in the Amazonian floodplains have signs of human presence dating back 10,000 years. ('Scientists discover earliest human presence in the Bolivian Amazon', Popular Archaeology.) This article in the Washington Post offers a good overview of a variety of research being conducted into past societies in the Amazon Basin; Schaan's website www.Marajoara.com is also an excellent resource.

This was information that didn't exist or I had no access to at the time; instead I made do by drifting from museum to museum across Brazil, and taking notes wherever I could decode the Portuguese or find someone to chat to in English. Occasionally, I hit the mother lode - in the little town of Sao Raimundo Nonato, several days to the south in Piaui state,  I was able to buy the Proceedings of the International Meeting of the Peopling of the Americas that had been held there to honour the amazing discoveries in the Serra di Capivara National Park (I'll cover that under P for Pedra Furada - but the image under my blog title is my photograph of one of the more famous rock art panels there.) 

Even a small amount of reading about the archaeological record in northern Brazil makes it very clear that this seemingly timeless landscape has been heavily curated over time, and at various points in its history, supported significant social complexity.  Easy enough to believe on the narrow river, when you can see life on the banks, but on the wide river ... nature seems to rule.

An A-Z of my tracks

The ordeal of scanning a million and one old-style photographs to make them available for this blog has meant I never quite got it off the ground.

Nor did I  forget it, hower.  I yearn to tell these stories.  Yearn, people. So I am shamelessly stealing an idea I saw on another blog - cassmob's Tropical Territory & Travel - to kick it off.  An A-Z of my tracks so far in life, a vehicle to explore what these place have meant to me personally, and their significance to the world of archaeology.

So journey with me - not just through the alphabet, but through South America, and Europe, and of course, my home country, Australia.

And tomorrow, the letter A will bring such delights as Amazonia,  Alcantara, and Arequipa.

Leaving Belem, Para, Brazil, 1999.

Why "tracks through time and place?"

The tracks are mine - the footprints I've left here and there as I explore the places most dear to me.  Some are awe-inspiring and internationally significant; others are simple markers of someone else's journey, personal and small scale.  Archaeology is all around us, and I have always loved to stop and listen to the stories the places tell.

I'm hoping that "Tracks through time and place" will be something more than a simple, archaeologically inspired travelogue.  For the student of archaeology, the journey never has to end: new findings from Easter Island offer a new understanding of my visit there; new data on the DNA of Brazil's"Lucia" is part of the ever-expanding story of complexity in the Amazon Basin.

I make no pretence to being an expert on archaeology or paleoanthropology.  It has been my passion for many years, but I am a writer and editor by profession, with a simple BA.  I make no offers of new archeological insights or original thinking; simply a little reflection and research to flesh out the bones of personal experience. And some pretty pictures.

Enjoy.