(In)visible Ruins: The Politics of Monumental Reconstruction in Postrevolutionary Mexico
Whereas scholars of postrevolutionary Mexico have long attended to the ideological significance of pre-Hispanic monuments, this article looks at the actual work involved in reconstructing them. Field reports from state archaeologists for the pyramid at Tajı́n (in the lowlands of northern Veracruz) from the midto late twentieth century reveal a parallel between the fragility of the monument and the precariousness of the local population, whose labor refashioned the pyramid. An ethnographic consideration of San Antonio Ojital, a community once located north of the archaeological site, further suggests that the making of monumentality elicited a regime of perceptibility that conceals the ongoing struggles of local residents. By layering these temporally dispersed episodes in the long recovery of the main pyramid in Tajı́n, I present monumentality as a selective process of reconstruction, which despite privileging wholeness, unity, and containment has only worked on the basis of obscuring social and material fragmentation, destruction, and precariousness. I n March 1929, topographer Agustı́n Garcı́a Vega visited the lowland basin of the Tecolutla River in order to pursue a project commissioned by the Office of Pre-Hispanic Monuments: he was to reconstruct a fragile and junglecovered pyramid located only a few miles from the recently created settlement I would like to thank the reviewers and editors of HAHR for their insightful comments and critical suggestions. I also want to thank Ray Craib, Timothy Haupt, Mark Healey, Sandra Rozental, Adam Smith, Kirsten Weld, Marina Welker, and Trais Pearson for commenting on drafts of this article. Earlier versions of this piece were presented at Harvard’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Seminar on Violence and Non-violence in 2015 in Cambridge, MA, at the 2016 Latin American Studies Association conference in New York City, at the 2016 University of Florida Center of Latin American Studies Annual Conference in Gainesville, FL, and at the “Antropologı́a, poder y ruralidades” seminar held at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México’s Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas in 2017. I am grateful for the feedback that I received from all the participants. I am further indebted to the members of the cooperative Lankasipi, to Jesús Trejo, and to Benjamin Blaisot for sharing their experiences and their own photographs with me. I also wish to acknowledge the staffof the National Institute of Anthropology and History for allowing me to conduct ethnographic research at the site, consult their archives, and use their historical images. Research for this project was made possible by a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Hispanic American Historical Review 98:1 doi 10.1215/00182168-4294456 2018 by Duke University Press Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/article-pdf/98/1/43/525587/43landa.pdf by guest on 20 July 2019 of Tajı́n.1 Garcı́a Vega’s presence in the lowlands of Veracruz was part of a larger nationalist effort to reconstruct the past or, in the words of President Plutarco Elı́as Calles (1924–1928), to “uproot prejudices and form the new national soul.”2 What Garcı́a Vega found upon arrival, however, differed greatly from the complete, pristine, and deserted spaces suggested in the written accounts and images of well-known geographers, explorers, and scholars from the previous century.3 Judging by the photographs that Garcı́a Vega took, the recessed niches of the structure had collapsed, the balustrades on each side of the stairway were uneven or incomplete, and the pyramid’s outward-projecting 1. Agustı́n Garcı́a Vega to Ignacio Marquina, Mexico City, 22 June 1934, Archivo Técnico del Instituto Nacional de Antropologı́a e Historia, Mexico City (hereafter cited as ATINAH), vol. 1 (1924–35), tomo 125, Tajı́n, Estado de Veracruz. On the history of the settlement of Tajı́n, see Kelly and Palerm, Tajı́n Totonac, 56. On the violent land disentailment process that affected this region in the late nineteenth century, see Kourı́, Pueblo Divided. It must be noted that experts commissioned by the Office of Pre-Hispanic Monuments were not the only ones visiting Tajı́n. Geologists too visited the area hoping to identify rock formations potentially rich in oil. Oil exploration and drilling during the first halfof the twentieth century in fact contributed to the active land market that characterized the region during this period. See Brizuela, Historia agraria. On the expansion ofthe southern frontier of the oil-producing district in northern Veracruz, the subsequent nationalization of the oil industry, and its eventual demise, see also Olvera, “Rise and Fall”; Salas Landa, “Crude Residues.” 2. Plutarco Elı́as Calles, quoted in Meyer, Segovia, and Lajous, Historia, 178. 3. The role that the nineteenth century played in valorizing this monument and therefore in advancing its visual reconstruction should not be underestimated. The photographs ofthe pyramid taken in 1890 during the Comisión Cientı́fica Exploradora to Cempoala led by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso and the lithographic representation of the pyramid from Antonio Garcı́a Cubas, which was attached to his Carta general de la República Mexicana of 1858, illustrate this point. In both instances, each of the structure’s seven levels is symmetrically placed, its characteristic niches are perfectly aligned, and an imposing main stairway exhibits all its constitutive blocks. The pyramid, in short, is given solidity and integrity that it certainly lacked in material terms but that nevertheless was attributed to it in order to communicate a sense of stability, historical precedent, and grandeur. On the Comisión Cientı́fica Exploradora, see Galindo y Villa, Las ruinas; Casanova, “La fotografı́a”; Torre Villar, Ocupaciones. On the life and work of Garcı́a Cubas, see Craib, Cartographic Mexico, 32–33; Carrera, Traveling, 17–18, 156. Earlier accounts and images of the pyramid are found in Diego Ruı́z’s report of his discovery of the monument in 1785: Diego Ruı́z, “Cabo de la ronda del tabaco,” Gaceta de México (Mexico City), 12 July 1785, pp. 349–51. See also Marquez, Due antichi monumenti; Humboldt, Essai politique; Nebel, Voyage pittoresque. For an analysis of the role of travelers in the construction of a national patrimony in Mexico, see Pani, “Los viajeros decimonónicos”; Keen, Aztec Image, is also relevant. 44 HAHR / February / Salas Landa Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/article-pdf/98/1/43/525587/43landa.pdf by guest on 20 July 2019 cornices were severely damaged (figure 1).4 “Luckily,” Garcı́a Vega observed, “the governments of the last couple of years, conscious of their duty, have started to look after our ancient monuments, and little by little we will attend and care for each of our great pre-Hispanic oeuvres.”5 At the most fundamental level, attending and caring for an ancient and crumbling monument required, in Garcı́a Vega’s view, “recuperating the pyramid’s original look.”6 This meant returning the monument to what Garcı́a Figure 1. The pyramid’s condition before restoration work. Agustı́n Garcı́a Vega to Ignacio Marquina, Mexico City, 22 June 1934, Archivo Técnico del Instituto Nacional de Antropologı́a e Historia, Mexico City, vol. 1, tomo 125, Tajı́n, Estado de Veracruz. SECRETARIA DE CULTURA.-INAH.-MEX. Reproduction authorized by the Instituto Nacional de Antropologı́a e