IJCP.

08 Matsuda

11/4/98 11:37 AM

Page 87

The Ethics of Archaeology,

Subsistence Digging, and Artifact
Looting in Latin America: Point,
Muted Counterpoint
*
The author portrays the indigenous populations who engage in subsistence digging of sites in Latin
America both as a means of supporting themselves economically and as a way of connecting
themselves to their past and their ancestors who left the buried remains as a type of gift to their
descendants. The article is also critical of the mainstream archaeologists, who, according to the author, hide behind the veil of scientific objectivity. Finally, the author juxtaposes the varying competing interests, particularly against the backdrop of denial of basic human and economic rights
in these regions, and poses the question, to whom should these cultural remains belong?

from the jungle proper and into an un- 1

charted archaeological ruin. We move through a Classic period site, past grand
edifices and sprawling plazas covered in vegetation, and into a ceremonial district where the Maya investigate a series of large house-mounds for traces of
ancient pole and thatch structures.
Like farmers using planting sticks, milperos,1 or traditional farmers, hoping to find buried artifacts, repeatedly probe the collapsed, earth-covered
structures with ramientas, or metal rods, usually a piece of construction cable
used to set concrete. Having located what they believe to be a cluster of entombed remains, the Maya set about digging.
I position myself near one of the irregularly shaped excavation pits. There
I watch, listen, and fan away smoke from burning cow dung used as insect repellent, as campesinos, or rurals, grunt and strain their way through ancient backfill using picks and shovels, heading toward a cache of artifacts. When all tool
work stops, I look down into the pit, where a Maya is on his knees delicately
uncovering something with his gnarled, bare hands. Within moments, he lifts
a dirt-encrusted object up out of the makeshift excavation and on to the rainforest floor. He then climbs from the pit and brushes off his find. Ah, semilla, he says, holding the artifact up like a proud fisherman displaying his catch.
*Dr. David Matsuda has observed the pre-Columbian art market for over a decade. He recently
completed a year-long study of subsistence digging in and around Belize for the Organization of
American States and the Government of Belize.
1

International Cultural Property Society

IJCP.08 Matsuda

11/4/98 11:37 AM

Page 88

Why do you call the artifact a semilla? I ask.

The artifact, it is like a semilla, the Maya smiles, because it too is a regalo del patron, or gift from the ancestors.
For Rigoberta Menchu, The semilla is honored because it will be buried
. . . the semilla is something pure, something sacred. For us, the word semilla
is very significant.2 The term semilla (seed) confers an unparalleled sacred
status in many indigenous social groups, so equating artifacts with this gift
from the ancestors is significant. Many of Latin Americas indigenous peoples
see themselves as the legitimate heirs to both seeds and artifacts, which are
conceived of as ancestors gifts, given to humanity by real or mythological patrons to be harvested, or excavated, as it were, by later generations.

Archaeologists as a whole tend to have strong opinions about what they feel
is a proprietary right to excavate in the name of science. However, their outlooks on guaqueros,3 huaqueros,4 and huecheros5 the producers6 of the international market in pre-Columbian artare far from monolithic.7
Rather, archaeologists opinions on clandestine, unofficial excavation represent a continuum of predispositionsfrom sympathy to villainization. In
private, a great many archaeologists are realists, frank in their dislike of
competition from the locals, but with a closeted sympathy for the poor indigenous people they hire to work as camp help and grunt laborers, often at
less than a living wage.8 To paraphrase:
What are you going to do? They are poor, malnourished farmers
without money for seed, and without sufficient land to practice
subsistence agriculture. They keep, on average about US$ from the
US$ a year they earn. With this paltry amount, milperos must
support large families and contribute to communal ceremonies. This
in a land where there is no socialized security or medicine, taxes are
usurious, and such things as sinus medicine and antibiotics cost
between US$ and US$1 a treatment.
Under these conditions, wouldnt you take the US$. to US$1
for artifacts tilled from your fields, and the US$ to US$1 a day for
work as a clandestine excavator during the off-season? This is equal
to or better than the paltry sums they earn as laborers on oppressive
plantations with company stores. These are subsistence diggers 9 who
excavate artifacts to supplement traditional socioeconomic life ways.10
These realists are kept from expressing their sympathy or from using experienced and knowledgeable subsistence diggers to help them find and excavate material remains by fundamentalist or, more appropriately, purist
archaeologists.11 Purists see themselves and their chosen profession as the
standard-bearers of enlightened science and keepers of the moral high ground.

88

IJCP.08 Matsuda

11/4/98 11:37 AM

Page 89

Dissenting voices12 point out that archaeologists have, up until quite recently, practiced destructive excavation. Indeed, many archaeologists confess
that they cannot tell unofficial subsistence archaeology from older official excavations. These realists and any who sympathize with them are relentlessly
disparaged by purists.
Purists see themselves as noble, self-sacrificing excavators who, without regard for money and prestige, are seekers of truth and knowledge. To paraphrase them:
We are out to protect ruins and archaeological resources from the
uneducated masses who do not know any better. After all, in our
civilization people do not dig up ancestors graves and loot their
artifacts; those milperos should not either. These poor people are
immoral, motivated by greed, plunder for profit, and are exploited by
antiquarians. The beleaguered governments are just trying to protect
their patrimony. Artifact looters 13 are dubious people, doing illegal
thingsthe antithesis of self-conscious archaeologists.
These purists form the moral minority, so to speak, of the archaeological community. Their position is undermined somewhat by the fact that the
institutions for which they work or consultuniversity museums at Harvard
and Pennsylvania continued to collect pre-Columbian material even after
it was deemed improper or illegal to do so.
[I]n Panama, a contract among interested parties, including the state,
was drawn up in secrecy between a family owner of the archaeological
site known as Sitio Conte and Harvard University regarding the
distribution of booty. Although equitable terms were apparently
established, the truth is that most of the valuable pieces of gold, glyphs,
and polychrome ceramics were kept by the Harvard museum and by
the University of Pennsylvania museum, which negotiated a similar
contract with the owner; the host country received none of the
recovered materials. Today, Panamanians, specialists or not, who wish
to study or simply look at cultural objects produced by the Cocl culture
must travel to the United States.14
Michael D. Coe15 uncovers an interesting misconception about the specialists who operate on the distribution level. There are, Coe asserts, purists
who perpetuate the myth that no proper, card-carrying academic would be involved in the looting of artifacts. Coes research reveals evidence to the contrary. In the past, concerned and respected scholars often worked to procure
artifacts for private collectors and public institutions. To understand the scope
of Coes findings, we must examine the work of Clemency Coggins, the art
historian who created the myth of the purely academic specialist.

89

IJCP.08 Matsuda

11/4/98 11:37 AM

Page 90

First, perhaps, we should try to examine what the relationship is

between the world of the specialist and that of the dealer. Particularly
salient, it seems to me, is the fact that the present nature and success of
the antiquities business has imposed a great strain on that relationship,
one which has in the past been largely benign and cordial. There is a
sense of betrayal, and of confusion, on the part of many archaeologists
and art historians whose dealings with dealers have always been correct,
and carried on in an atmosphere of antiquarian scholarship, and of
aesthetic pleasure in the objects involved. Their opinions, freely given,
have been offered in the hope of enhancing the objects in an historical
sense, and of ferreting out forgeries. In return for such information art
dealers have traditionally kept such specialists informed on what objects
were where; and they have given them photographs. But somehow this
time-honored relationship has gone bad.16
Coggins ends with a suggestion that specialists rethink their relationship with
dealers.
Coe undermines the credibility of Cogginss findings. Intending, in part,
to do a biographic sketch of Dumbarton Oakss founder Robert Woods Bliss,
Coe pursued archival research into this prominent collectors past through
documents, letters, and records of financial transactions. His research indicates that some of the founding fathers of Harvard archaeology were acquisition specialists for the Bliss Collection.
Alfred Kidder, Samuel Lothrop, and Alfred Tozzer, specialists whose
dealings with dealers had always been correct, were, in reality, actively procuring looted pre-Columbian artifacts.17 Cogginss selective portrayal of history
draws an imaginary boundary between subsistence diggers, artifact smugglers,
art dealers, and collectors ignorant and villainous on the one hand, and
art historians and archaeologists morally correct and enlightened scientistson the other.
All archaeologists, whatever their predisposition be they realists or
puristsare constrained by the bureaucracies of the countries in which they
excavate. For the regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala to admit that artifact
looting is really subsistence digging, they must confront the fact that there
are indigenous peoples among them oppressed by land speculation and
resource-hungry militaries, constrained from extra-local commerce, and lacking political power who dig their ancestors remains to put food on the
table. Rarely do purists, dependent as they are on excavation permits, focus attention on Latin Americas politico-military elite.
The army . . . Guatemalas most powerful institution . . . is expected to
play a crucial role in the Peten [jungle] conservation effort. [However]
[c]ontraband . . . continues in areas under army control. . . . Skins,

90

IJCP.08 Matsuda

11/4/98 11:37 AM

Page 91

archaeological treasures and illicit truckloads of tropical hardwoods still

cross . . . supposedly policed borders.18
I estimate that within Mexico there are , people who supplement traditional resource procurement strategies in the northern state of Jalisco, more
than 1, in Guerrero, and between 1, and , in each of the
states of Vera Cruz, Chiapas, and the Yucatan Peninsula. In El Salvador and
Guatemala, upward of , people conduct unofficial excavations to make
up for subsistence shortfalls, and Belize, with a population of 1, to
,, may have as many as , to , people who hunt and gather artifacts part-time.
A scant 1 to percent of this number are full-time artifact looters and
smugglers the command and control structure of Mafia-like consortiums
who interface with international markets.19 These are the distributors who
move artifacts from outback to urban areas and secure passage across national
and international borders.20 The rest are subsistence diggers, who hunt and
gather artifacts part-time in agricultural off-seasons as part of the seasonal
round21 of traditional food-getting practices (figure 1). I have interviewed
some four hundred subsistence diggers, and most are refugees from civil violence and economic despair.22
Decades of prolonged civil violence forced subsistence farmers into unfamiliar ecosystems, both within and outside of El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras, and Nicaragua. It is in these outback areaswith no seed crops,
poor soil, and unstable weather patterns that the abundance of uncharted
archaeological ruins became a viable socioeconomic alternative to starvation,
and a preferred way to rebuild working capital.
Integration of subsistence digging into traditional food-getting lifeways
and belief systems begins when fields are prepared and seeds are planted. Artifacts are uncovered as fields are cleared and tilled and farmers hole the
ground to plant semillas with their digging sticks. In addition, I have heard
stories about how the roots of felled trees have pulled off the roofs of subterranean tombs, or about farmers who have fallen through the roofs of tombs
while crossing their fields. A milpero relates:

91

IJCP.08 Matsuda

11/4/98 11:37 AM

Page 92

One day, after I had burned my field, I was returning to a place where I
left some tools. Then, I was underground. I had fallen through the . . .
[roof] of an ancestors tomb. I thought the devil was coming for me
until the dust cleared and light came through the hole in the roof. I
took some things home, and soon people came to hear my story for
themselves and look at the precious gifts. Many began to tell me that
these are semillas and that they are worth money.23
These stories travel quickly and soon connections are made with the merchants or truckers who travel regularly from outlying agricultural communities
to way stations and urban areas. Once the income from a few artifacts has
greatly enhanced family and community resources, communal milperos who
work fields during agricultural on-seasons become huecheros in off-seasons.
Rarely, however, does the money that changes hands transcend racial,
ethnic, and social barriers. The Indians, in spite of their hard work, remain
subsistence diggers, the producers, or pick and shovel labor of this socioeconomic system. Mestizos, or mixed blood, and Ladinos, or those who regard
themselves, in a real or mythical sense, as descendants of the conquistadors,
and allies of Western culture, jealously guard their status and roles as distributors and consumers.

My huechero friends who have fled Central America for the United States are
surprised that norte americanos protest the clandestine excavations of preColumbian artifacts, as we have so few federal and state laws in our own country that prohibit the destruction of known cemeteries or forgotten graveyards.
As such, many of the interred remains in the United States are fair game.
In no way do I mean to suggest that current sensibilities allow for the defilement of our sacred grounds; the National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia,
and Forest Lawn, cemetery to the stars in Southern California, are safe for
now. But old, out-of-use, or forgotten graveyards are continually backhoed and
bulldozed to make way for subway tunnels, shopping malls, parking lots,
housing tracts, and roads. The debate over method notwithstanding, we dig up
our own.
The bones and artifacts taken from these excavations are used in land fill,
unceremoniously reburied in mass graves, or, under the mantle of science, held
indefinitely for future study. There are those who justify this artifact looting
as economic progress, or the scientific study of the human record. There are
others, most notably Africans24 and Native Americans, 25 who see the desecration of their ancestors graves known ancestors in some cases and
sacred burial implements as a violation of tradition that symbolizes their subordinate status. Semantics notwithstanding, we do loot from our own graves.
The rest, as they say, is a matter of perspective.
From the perspective of many Native Americans, the people who conquered

92

IJCP.08 Matsuda

11/4/98 11:37 AM

Page 93

and colonized them have looted artifacts from their national cemeteries.26
From the point of view of purist archaeologists, there is a hoard of irritating,
hot-headed activists who are whining about a few million artifactssome used
in ongoing studies, some notthat are in storage or exhibitions.27
There are critics who suggest that Native Americans, indeed all indigenous peoples, are so changed by the modern world that they can no longer be
considered the legitimate representatives of Indian tradition, much less the executors of their ancestors remains. Does the same logic apply, my huechero
friends ask, to the descendants of the original colonists who have been so
changed by history and contemporary circumstances?
Are artifact looters motivated solely by ignorance, moral decay, and greed?
The aforementioned purported analysis of so-called artifact looting in Latin
America paints a highly selective portrait of artifact looters and subsistence
diggers as either ignorant or villainous. These stereotypes and justifications ignore the colonial and neocolonial contexts that constrain traditional subsistence systems and are not amenable to local solutions.
On a local level, participation in cash economies like subsistence digging
are motivated not by the attractiveness of wage labor, but by the severe economic realities under which subsistence producers operate. It disturbs some archaeologists and art historians that artifact looting is not merely the occupation
of those who are ignorant of scientific methodology or evil-intentioned, but
rather a way of life practiced for subsistence. For if these are not artifact looters, but survival-oriented subsistence diggers, or huecheros, then the reasons for
their excavations of material remains are as compelling as those of archaeologists and art historians. According to Ernil, subsistence digging has intensified
among the poor, who dig to survive, even if it is against the law.28
In fact, many subsistence diggers see the debate over who may or may not
excavate artifacts as a struggle not between ignorant farmers and villains on the
one hand and archaeologists and art historians on the other, but as an aspect
of class warfare. To paraphrase their perspective:
Every year, the archaeologists dig up the artifacts and take them away.
The next year they come back with more money, people, and
equipment. They talk of our ancestors with reverence, but treat us,
their descendants, like ignorant peasants or immoral villains. The
excavations are often run like plantations, where we are exploited. The
archaeologists want strong backs and weak minds. When we work for
them, they pay us little and do not treat us with respect. We are never
asked what we think and there is no chance for advancement. The
artifacts represent money and power to archaeologists and art historians.
That is how they make their upper-class living. To us, these gifts from
the ancestors mean seed corn, food, clothes, medicine, and security.
This is how we live our lower-class lives.

93

IJCP.08 Matsuda

11/4/98 11:37 AM

Page 94

Are, as huecheros suggest, archaeologists and art historians not entirely

selfless and noble? Any blanket accusation of the motives, intent, and methods
of archaeologists and art historians is out of the question. But a qualified yes
to the huecheros assertions raises the following point: despite protests to the
contrary, archaeologists and art historians do profit from their work.
How is ownership understood in these rancorous, passionately defended, polarized perspectives? Recent debate has centered on whether
pre-Columbian artifacts are the patrimony and cultural heritage of fivehundred-year-old states or republics, or whether these material remains are
legalized international property. This elite forum about the ethical, legal,
and intellectual issues related to the disposition of cultural property, particularly archaeological remains,29 is secondary and distracts from what
should be the primary issue the unequal power relationships that make
subsistence digging a viable socioeconomic alternative for Latin Americas
indigenous populations. Does the labeling of artifacts end the enforced
poverty wrought upon those who must dig their own heritage to survive? In
a word, no. The distinction between patrimony and property does not include indigenous voices, create alternative modes of subsistence, or provide
for the survival of indigenous lifeways and belief systems. Any agenda without regard for these basic human rights will not end the unsystematic excavation of material remains and the unregulated collection of artifacts.
Indeed, the late Archaeological Commissioner of Belize stated in a personal
communication with the author that the intensity of subsistence digging is
inextricably linked not to auction house prices but to the success or failure
of subsistence agriculture.30
In sum, who has proprietary rights to Latin Americas cultural heritage
and resources? Is it the indigenous subsistence diggers who are exploited at
every turn and forced to survive by clandestinely excavating their ancestors
material remains? The historic inequalities that make subsistence digging a viable socioeconomic alternative for them must be addressed by the governments that issue excavation permits. Granting agencies must measure success
by the completion of substantial, holistic research, and not a headline at a
time. Furthermore, the improvement of conditions for indigenous peoples
must be a part of all funded excavation work. Willful ignorance of the living
history that links ancestors to descendants will keep huecheros working for
the highest bidders.
Do artifact looters and smugglersthe command and control structure
of in-country operationshave proprietary rights? What about art collectors
and dealers? Their influence would be significantly reduced if focus shifted
from penalties to redevelopment alternatives for subsistence diggers. Some
Mestizos and Ladinos, the inheritors of five-hundred-year-old sovereign states
and republics, are proud descendants of the Conquistadors, who looted the
ancestors of the contemporary indigenous peoples they now exploit. What of

94

IJCP.08 Matsuda

11/4/98 11:37 AM

Page 95

their proprietary rights? Then there are the purist archaeologists and art historians who are ignorant of social history and unequal power relations, show
little concern for the welfare of indigenous descendants, and whose publications do not link archaeological theory with critical ethnography. Purists who
show little concern for the links between excavations sponsored by oppressive
regimes and the lack of basic human rights for indigenous descendants are but
another self-serving interest group involved in the search for artifacts or art.
I have examined the all too familiar scenario of assumptions, terms, and
uniperspectival moral stances that remain as unquestioned as if they were administered under post-hypnotic suggestion. These assumptions, based as they
are on purist stereotypes, polarize debate and offer no effective strategies for
the conservation of cultural heritage and resources. My analysis is biased
against purist archeologists and art historians, not out of dislike for individuals or disciplines per se, but because there are some among these fundamentalist scholars who suppress debate and dialogue on this issue.
In regards to the huecheros, they are not, as some claim, my people. I have
not gone native, nor do I condone their socioeconomic practices. I do realize, however, that unless we end the war against stereotypical artifact looters
and begin the study of subsistence diggers, there will be no effective plan to
conserve cultural heritage and resources.
1. D. Matsuda, The Looting of Pre-Columbian Artifacts from Latin American Archaeological Sites (masters thesis, California State University 1).
. Rigoberta Menchu, Me Llamo Rigoberta Menchu y si me nacio la conciencia 1 (Editorial Varga,
Barcelona 1).
. K. Bruhns, The Methods of the Guaqueria: Illicit Tomb Robbing in Colombia, : Archaeology 1 (1).
. M. Coe, From Huaquero to Connoisseur: The Early Market in Pre-Columbian Art (Dumbarton
Oaks, Washington, D.C. in press).
. D. Matsuda, Some Notes on Huecheros in and around Belize: A Regional History of
Civil Violence and the Simultaneous Rise of Huecherismo, The Journal of Belizean Archaeology (1, in press).
. D. Heath, Economic Aspects of Commercial Archaeology in Costa Rica, : American
Antiquity (1).
. Huaquero and guaquero are derived from the Quecha word huaca, which means ancient
site or sacred artifact. Huechero, in local parlance, is a conflation of the words hueche,
a folk taxonomic classification for animals that burrow, leave telltale holes, and live
underground, and ero, a Spanish suffix that denotes human agency. So huecheros are humans who, like burrowing animals, leave telltale holes, and make their subsistence living
underground.
. Thanks to the archaeologists, notable exceptions to this rule, who treat their workers
with respect and are sensitive to the ethics of archaeology and community relations.

95

IJCP.08 Matsuda

11/4/98 11:37 AM

Page 96

. A person who uses the proceeds from artifact sales to support his or her traditional subsistence lifestyle.
1. D. Staley, St. Lawrence Islands Subsistence Diggers: A New Perspective on Human Effect of Archaeological Sites, : Journal of Field Archaeology (1).
11. See, e.g., C. Coggins, The Maya Scandal: Thieves Have Stripped Historical Sites of the
Ancient Culture and Exported Artifacts Illegally to US Market, : Smithsonian 1
(1); C. Coggins, Illicit Traffic of Pre-Columbian Activities, Art Journal
(1); I. Graham, Looters Rob Our Past, 1: National Geographic 1 (1); R.
Adams, Lost City of the Maya, 1: National Geographic 1 (1).
1. See, e.g., Coe, supra note ; G. Griffin, In Defense of Collectors, 1: National Geographic
(1).
1. See Staley supra note 1.
1. R. Torrez de Arrauz, Legal Foundations: The Governments Roles and Responsibilities, Rescue Archaeology (Wilson and Loyola eds., Preservation Press, Washington,
D.C. 11).
1. Bruhns, supra note .
1. C. Coggins, quoted in Karl E. Meyer, The Plundered Past 3940 (Atheneum Press, New
York 1973).
1. Coe, supra note at .
1. M. McConahay, Army to Play Role in Future of Rainforest, San Francisco Chronicle. October 1, 1, at A.
1. D. Matsuda, Some Thoughts on Ancient and Contemporary Social Organization in
Belize: A Huechero Illustration, 1 Proceedings of the First Annual Symposium on Maya Archaeology
(1).
. D. Matsuda, Huecheros Remembered, 1: ECO: Journal of Environmental Information 1,
1 (JulyAugust 1).
1. J. Watanabe, Saints and Souls in a Changing World (University of Texas Press, Austin 1).
. D. Matsuda, supra note .
. Personal communication with research participant, 1.
. S. Harrington, Bones and Bureaucrats: New Yorks Cemetery Imbroglio, : Archaeology (MarchApril 1).
. S. Heimoff, Angle of Repose, 1:11 Express 11 (July 1, 1); L. Zimmerman, Sharing Control of the Past, : Archaeology (1).
. R. McIntosh and S. McIntosh, Peoples without History, :1 Archaeology 1
(JanuaryFebruary 1).
. C. Meighan, Burring American Archaeology, : Archaeology (November
December 1).
. Quoted in Plenge, The Robbers Tale: The True Story of the Most Extraordinary Treasure Ever Found in the New World, : Connoisseur (1). See also Segundo
Salazar, quoted in Plenge, Grave Robbers Digging up Ancient Peruvian Treasures, The
Daily Review-Alameda Newspaper Group, December , 1, at A; J. Daniszewski, Thieves

96

IJCP.08 Matsuda

11/4/98 11:37 AM

Page 97

Plundering Iraqs Archaeological Heritage, San Francisco Chronicle, December 1, 1, World

Section, at A11.
. The Ethics of Collecting Cultural Property: Whose Culture? Whose Property? (P. Messinger ed.,
University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque 1).
. David Matsuda, personal communication with H. Topsey during his Organization of
American States PRA Fellowship (1).

97