Global Courant
Indiana Jones has shaped the image of the historian-archaeologist-explorer in cultural popular. The premiere of his latest film, Indiana Jones and the dial of fateserves as an excuse to analyze how our perception of the heroes in charge of discovering the past has changed.
That is the case of Hiram Bingham III, the model that inspired the character of Jones.
Bingham was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1875, where his father was a missionary. Following the family tradition, he studied at Yale University. Between 1911 and 1915 he led several expeditions to Peru that made him famous. In 1917 he joined the air force and shortly thereafter had a brilliant but short-lived political career.
The Machu Picchu
Over the decades, rivers of ink have flowed over him. His son wrote a Biography showing that he had built his identity as a mythical explorer despite being a human with lights and shadows. And a few years ago, an academic admirer of Indiana Jones published an account of Bingham’s life that included all his controversies.
Hiram Bingham became famous for “discovering” Machu Picchu in Peru. Some prefer to see him instead as the first tourist to visit his ruins.
When Bingham arrived at the place, he met people who lived there. Also, many had met and written about the area before. That is why, at first, he had doubts about the reality of his discovery.
In his diary he noted that the discoverer of Machu Picchu was the farmer from Cuzco Augustin Lizarraga, because he found his signature on the spot. But in line with the racism of the time, he did not consider him worthy of such an honor for being (according to him) a mixed-skinned dark. This argument allowed him to call himself the discoverer of Machu Picchu.
Bingham is currently seen as someone who actually recovered a scientific object for a worldwide audience. And, of course, he didn’t do it alone. He achieved it thanks to the work of other researchers, peasants, muleteers and treasure hunter.
Fortunately, today we no longer need discovery heroes. That is why it is no longer necessary to hide those who contributed to historical knowledge before us.
Photograph of Machu Picchu taken by Hiram Bingham III in 1912 after major cleanup work had been carried out.
National Geographic / Wikimedia Commons
United States and Latin America
Although at his death in 1956, an obituary described Bingham as a promoter of the study of Latin America, their works they reflected complex ideas about the link between the United States and the South of the continent.
One of the explorer’s main interests was the Monroe Doctrine. This ideology defended that the United States could consider any European intervention in Latin America an aggression. In short: “America for the Americans”. But his theories went further: in one of his works he came to propose invading Mexico. Although his proposal was not carried out, these works generated debates about the relationship between the United States and Latin America.
View of Hiram Bingham III on top of a bridge in Espiritu Pampa, Peru, next to one of the locals who helped him.
Harry Ward Foote / Wikimedia Commons
His expeditions in Peru were peaceful, but not harmless. In addition to treasures, he sought to demonstrate scientific superiority US. According to his work, if the future of Latin America belonged to the United States, so did its past.
His ideas about the role of the country as guardian of the Latin American nations were part of the academic culture of the time. In addition, the explorer extracted enormous amounts of archaeological remains from Peru. The authorities allowed them on the condition that they return them 18 months later, something that did not happen.
The activity emptying deposits provoked criticism in Peru that put an end to their expeditions. This convinced Bingham of the need to restore US hegemony over the area. And, in fact, this was one of the reasons why he entered into policy.
At the same time, the Peruvian authorities demanded for years the return of the pieces that Bingham had taken, while Yale University defended its right to keep them. That all this was acceptable shocked us. After all, his way of working was a lot like “grab the object and run”.
Not surprisingly, the adventures of Indiana Jones have received much criticism in Peru, and not just because of the parallels between Bingham and the fictional hero. the fourth installment, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skullgave a terrible image of the country and the references to its history were full of mistakes as funny as they are offensive –for example, that Jones had learned Quechua, an Andean language, with the Mexican Pancho Villa–.
Its premiere also coincided with the controversy of the restitution of archaeological remains. Fortunately, this was finally resolved in 2011–2012, when Yale delivered the objects to Peru.
Conflicting labor relations
One of the most remembered characters from the second installment of the saga, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, was Tapón, an orphaned child whom the archaeologist protected.
It seems that Bingham had a more complex relationship with childhood than Jones had, since he was opposed to the abolition of work childish. What’s more, his expeditions used the forced labor of children. One of them drowned in a river while carrying photographic equipment and, although the death was an accident, the news It did not benefit his image.
Photo of Hiram Bingham III at the door of his shop near Machu Picchu in 1912.
Wikimedia Commons
These were not the only dubious practices of the explorer. Bingham discovered ruins by burning the vegetation that covered them. He worked with treasure hunters. And he organized a network to buy human bones. What interested him most were the skulls, especially if they had anomalies or trepanations.
Like the archaeologist in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Bingham also fought against the communists during the Cold War. But he did it by participating in the witch hunt of the McCarthyisma persecution against people suspected of being communists based on statements, unfounded accusations, denunciations, interrogations, irregular processes and blacklists.
If a current historian were to act as Bingham did in the first half of the 20th century, he would not enjoy legitimacy. However, the figure of him remains praised in the 21st century and books are still published celebrating their discoveries. His interpretations were wrong, but his findings fueled debates that broadened our knowledge.
Many history students are humorous when people equate their work to that of Indiana Jones. Some historians worry about the distorted image of their profession that these films offer.
But what would be more worrying would be if our ways of rescuing the past resembled those of the real character this hero was inspired by.
Jose Miguel Escribano PáezAssociate Professor Ph.D. in Modern History, Pablo de Olavide University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. read the original.
