The whistling of the wind envelops the hills and ravines. We feel wrapped and moved by the mystique of the lullabies that, in moments, explode into screams, until the calmness arrives again. This occurs again and again: they are the voices of our ancestors announcing their survival in the ancestral Tastil territory.
In the province of Salta, 106 km from the capital, lie the sacred ruins of Santa Rosa de Tastil. Morohuasi and Corralito (or Corral de Piedra) can also be found in the province’s interior. These sacred places safeguard the history of our pre-Hispanic peoples and bear witness to their preexistence.
Morohuasi and Corralito became collection points for the agricultural production of the northwest and southern regions, respectively. The pre-Inca urban conglomerate known today as Santa Rosa, extended over 17 copiously built hectares and functioned as a produce exchange and distribution center for the region, as well as distant areas such as the Pacific coast (Cigliano, 1973). In other words, this city played a key role in the economic organization of the territories and the social interaction among local populations: people who came from the valleys, the puna, the Chaco plains; and caravans that traveled long distances with their herds of llamas through the Puna, the jungle, and the coast toward these main settlements to trade their goods (Vitry et al., 2023).
For the people who talk about their history, culture, and territory, the stones become an inescapable reference. “The people of the past knew and gave great value to the stones, because they used them for communication and wrote about their daily lives on petroglyphs,” Marcela recalls her father told her, who was the guardian of these ancient stones between 1970 and 1995.
Likewise, Lucio Germán Zerpa, who for many years was leader of the Indigenous Tastil People’s Council, emphasized the special bond between the Tastil people and their ancestral sites. From his perspective, the antigales (ancestral sites or ruins) are more than simple archaeological sites, they are scenarios that connect the past with the present:
The antigales are part of our memory, part of our identity. That is where our ancestors lived, and we live next to them, and in some cases on the very same place . . . This is the case of the Incahuasi site and the Cruz family, who live next to the antigal. This family even makes use of some of the site’s constructions or seed conservation systems built centuries ago. (2019, p. 131)
Ancestral cartography harbors the deepest spirituality. The antigales are part of the community’s territory, the place where culture and life have developed since time immemorial. Those who make up today’s communities, especially young people and children, walk in the footsteps of their ancestors, retracing history with their bodies, so that the past is present and is future as well. The territory welcomes the spirits of their ancestors, but also the ” powers” of the watersheds, ravines, lagoons, hills, rivers, churquis, cardones, molles, archas, garrochas, jarillas, sinquis, suris, foxes, vicuñas, quirquinchos, tarucas, vizcacheras owls, etc.[1] All these turn the territory into a living being, which we must respect and protect.
The Integration of the Tastil Sacred Sites into Archaeological Projects
The magnitude of the Tastil ancient city attracted the attention of researchers at the beginning of the 20th century. The first known work on the “ruins” is Antiquites de la region andine de la Republique Argentine et du desert d’Atacama (Paris, 1908) by the Swedish archaeologist Eric Boman. Although the most exhaustive research was carried out between 1967 and 1973 by Eduardo Cigliano, professor at the Universidad Nacional of La Plata, Buenos Aires, with a vast multidisciplinary team. The studies of the archaeologist Rodolfo Raffino in 1990 also stand out. In line with this work, in 1975, the Santa Rosa de Tastil Site Museum was inaugurated and, in 1997, the ancestral city was declared a National Historic Monument. It is currently part of the “Qhapaq Ñan Project: Andean Road System,”[1] a project that seeks to investigate and conserve this 30,000-kilometer network of ancestral roads that extends through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.
The ancestral territory of the Tastil people extends through different landscapes and villages of the Quebrada del Toro and the puna in the Department of Rosario de Lerma[1] (including El Alisal, Gobernador Solá, El Gólgota, San Bernardo de las Zorras, Las Cuevas, El Rosal, Potrero de Chañi, Alfarcito, Las Mesadas, La Quesera, among others). In addition to the sacred site of Santa Rosa, the Qhapaq Ñan also crosses communal property in Abra de Chaupiyaco (Las Capillas).[2] [1] The department of Rosario de Lerma is located in the central part of the northwestern part of the province of Salta, 37 km from the city of Salta. [2] In Salta, the Qhapaq Ñan crosses the Llullaillaco Volcano Ceremonial Complex (6,739 meters above sea level), Potrero de Payogasta, Los Graneros de La Poma, Las Peras-Sauzalito, among other stretches of roads where structures such as the Apachetas in Abra de Ingañán are found, which are evidence of the Andean cosmovision.
Archaeological projects such as this one gives rise to different interpretations and positionings among the residents, partly because the institutional participatory mechanisms were implemented only belatedly. At the national level, the Indigenous Peoples’ Committee of the Qhapaq Ñan Ancestral Road[1] was created as a space for dialogue and decision-making between archaeologists and the sociocultural viewpoint of the indigenous communities. Manolo Copa, from the La Quesera community in Salta, and Claudia Liliana Herrera Salinas, from the Guaytamari community of Uspallata in Mendoza, allude to this: [1] The Committee is made up of the peoples of the territories through which this ancestral road passes: the Kolla people in Jujuy, the Diaguita -from the Lule family- in Tucumán, the Atacama, Tastil and others of the Diaguita Calchaquí nation in Salta, the Angualasto in San Juan and the Huarpe in Mendoza.
The creation of the Indigenous Committee has been a fundamental milestone for the peoples of the Ancestral Path, and is associated with the opportunity for all the territories to meet again . . . The intercultural dialogue strengthens us as a Committee but also strengthens the project, even the INAPL [National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought] itself . . . is also a form of resistance. Working side by side with the INAPL and with provincial institutions is our way of taking care of our culture. The project is also a great tool for bringing visibility to the preexisting peoples of the territories where the Ancestral Road passes through, and to make us visible not only as a question of the archaeological past but also as our present and our future. (2020: 64)
At the jurisdictional level, the government of Salta created the Provincial Management Unit of the Qhapaq Ñan, days after the ancestral road was declared part of UNESCO’s World Heritage in June 2014. Its institutionalization was the result of previous actions by civil organizations, or Local Management Units, that were created to generate a cooperative work space for the management and conservation of the road routes and archaeological sites. The establishment of these occurred thanks to a 2010 national policy created to promote a “cycle of information, consultation, consensus” for the communities involved in the heritage process, within the framework of Law No. 24071/92, which ratifies ILO Convention No. 169. This legal provision calls for indigenous peoples to exercise ownership over their territories and natural assets, requiring people outside the communities to carry out a free, prior and informed consultation before undertaking any activity on ancestral sites.
The Qhapaq Ñan Salta Program coordinated the creation of four Local Management Units between 2012 and 2014: Tastil (Tastil archaeological site and Tastil-Potrero subsection), [1] Tolar Grande (Llullaillaco Volcano archaeological complex), La Poma-Rodeo (Graneros de La Poma archaeological site and Las Peras-Sauzalito subsection), and Potrero de Payogasta (Potrero de Payogasta archaeological site). Since then, several educational activities have been organized at these sites, for example, to raise awareness on the road’s history and the memory of its peoples. They also provide training and knowledge exchange opportunities, which are highly valued by the communities:
For example, in Tastil, through the indigenous organization Turu Yaco, we have accompanied the conservation tasks in the province. We have a pirquera tradition [construction by piling stones], and we have always carried out the conservation of the paths, and we know which canto [size and shape of the rock] must be placed towards the sun and how it is placed. Participating in [these tasks] allowed us to teach our ways of taking care of the Trail but also to learn new things. We have applied many of the teachings on site preservation to other places as well: it is a way for our memory to persist for our descendants (Copa and Herrera Salinas, 2020: 64).
However, memory is uncomfortable when history stumbles with splinters that puncture the steps taken. Among the Tastil, they still remember the lack of predisposition by the provincial government to summon them and give local communities information about the Tastil Archaeological Site Museum. Although back then there was no legislation that recognized the preexistence of the country’s indigenous peoples and that protected their territorial sovereignty, when these legal instruments began to appear in 1990, there was no immediate willingness to work with the community. It took many years before consensus was reached, as we will see below.
Continuity in the Present. The Heritage of the Tastil People
The Tastil People began to organize in the mid-1990s and since then, their demands have been centered on sovereignty over their ancestral territory, which is closely linked to the problem of identity and cultural recognition. Their main fears are eviction and the seizure of the lands where their families have lived since time immemorial. The graves of their ancestors bear witness to this. Another concern is the huaqueo or plundering of the treasures in the sacred sites of Tastil and Morohuasi.
In 2007 they decided to formally create the Indigenous Tastil People’s Council.[1] A year later, INAI recognized the Tastil people and, consequently, each community could initiate the process of their own territorial survey (under Law No. 26160), thus suspending any further evictions and promoting the technical, legal, and cadastral census of lands occupied and owned by indigenous communities. Both instruments became fundamental in the defense of the territory and to seek to defend that right. [1] Currently, the Council is made up of representatives of the fourteen communities scattered throughout the pre-Puna and Puna regions of the department of Rosario de Lerma. Of these, eight have legal recognition, three are in the process of being processed, and the rest have not started the process, although they affirm that they belong to the Tastil people. Likewise, nine have at their disposal the folders of the survey of their territories, which contain georeferential and census data of the families that make up each community. It should be noted that the geolocation is carried out regardless of whether or not the communities have their legal recognition number.
While the Tastil people was making progress in their legal federal recognition, the implementation of the “Qhapaq Ñan Program: Andean Road System” was approved in 2008.[1] Although the nomination with the UNESCO had already begun in the six countries it crosses, in Salta, the technical team was going to plan and formally carry out the work of achieving consensus and the participation of local communities. It took a few years to materialize, because the Local Management Units were only created until 2012. During this period of time, several families in the area also experienced a series of attacks as direct effects of the heritage recognition project.
The communities and the program team had to travel a very steep road to reach an agreement. From the point of view of the former, the exercise of archaeological projects went against their cosmovision and spirituality and is seen as a cultural and material dispossession. It also transgresses against the wisdom of the grandfathers and grandmothers, who warn that the antigales should be respected, because the forces that guard them retaliate against looting and even against the community and the territory itself. Don Lucio Zerpa recalls a story showing the consequences of huaqueo:
In my community lives an 83-year-old grandmother who lives near a site that shows evidence that it was inhabited many years ago (there are drawings, there are well arranged stones, etc.). This grandmother tells us that on a certain occasion, about 50 or 60 years ago, when she was a young girl, a company was developing a project to extract limestone. One day, one of the employees stayed longer, after working hours, to extract more . . . and from that time on he never showed up again, he got lost and was never found again. According to this grandmother, the land itself, the place itself, swallowed the man, because it is a place of respect. Because of this [huaqueo] she herself was also affected, her own life was affected without her having anything to do with it. The land began to move and swamps were formed where there were none before. Her animals began to walk into these swamps, and it was hard for her to get them out, and in some cases they even got lost.
There are paths and ancestral sites that families continue to use assiduously. But when they receive provincial, national, and international recognition, the communities often lose their right to them. Visits to the sacred site of Tastil are regulated by the museum, which helps safeguard traces of the past, but the communities cannot practice their ancestral ceremonies at the site, such in honor of the Pachamama, the hills, and the ancestors who walked along these paths.
Emilse Tacacho and her team (2013) argue that, since the nomination of the Tastil sacred site as a World Heritage Site, the corporate, landowner, and state gaze has once again focused on the ancestral territory, bringing with it various consequences. A recognition of this magnitude gives a renewed value to the region, which is already a well-defined tourist destination. In fact, the reactivation of the “Train to the Clouds”, the remodeling of the archaeological museum of Santa Rosa, the access to Las Cuevas, and the sales network of local handicrafts and artisan products from Campo Quijano to San Antonio de los Cobres are part of a plan that favors the exploitation of rural tourism.
Since 2009, the families of San Bernardo de las Zorras, El Rosal, Potrero de Chañi, Santa Rosa de Tastil, Alfarcito, and Quebrada del Toro have been receiving strategic plans that promote tourism and handicraft production. For example, the Hemispheric Agrotourism Program (PHA) offers local people interested in linking their agricultural practices with rural tourism, on-site training provided by the Rural Training Center, which is funded by the “Plan Más and Mejor Trabajo” (More and Better Work Plan), under the National Ministry of Labor. In 2012, the municipality of Campo Quijano granted community representatives a line of microcredits and subsidies for the purchase of work tools and urban construction materials. It also provides a training space for the development of tourism enterprises.
Some families founded the Entreperneurs Association of the Cerros de Quebrada del Toro or Turu Yaco, a Quechua word that means “water with mud” in reference to the characteristics of the Toro River in the summer. Its objectives are to value and preserve the natural and cultural heritage of the region, generate genuine sources of employment to prevent the migration of young people, improve their living conditions, among others. The enterprise manages tourism, lodging services, restaurants, handicrafts, transportation, and excursions through the Turu Yaco Community Tourism Corridor, from Paraje El Alisal, Tastil, to El Tambo. The activities proposed by the families are aimed at revaluing and promoting local culture through immersion experiences in their daily life, such as planting and harvesting seasonal fruits and vegetables (potatoes, beans, corn, peas, apricots, etc.), preparing meals and making handicrafts (weaving, woodwork, leather and stone) with local workshop workers.
The communities of El Toro try to intervene in most of the projects and activities that involve their territory, heritage, and culture. Their interest, presence, and willingness to fight is what prevents the subjugation of what is theirs. Their claims are based on a legal framework and on the memory of the stones that bear witness to their ancestry. In this sense, Turu Yaco constitutes a great gesture of cultural and territorial sovereignty and, at the same time, it is a way to solve one of the most distressing problems for locals: the flight of young people, who leave their homes to continue their secondary or higher education and often stay far from home. The depopulation of these areas stems, in part, from the lack of job opportunities and an institutional vacuum, since many localities do not have nearby health centers, civil registries, or other facilities. Perhaps, in the near future, the project will revitalize the area and contribute to the reopening of basic institutions and new job vacancies.[1] [1] The older adults recall that when the C-14 branch train line was operating as an essential means of transportation and not only for tourism, several health, security and other institutions linked to the railroad were inaugurated. In addition to mobility, it made possible the exchange of agricultural products and handicrafts, and the distribution of drinking water. Its closure was very unfavorable for the population of the region.
The Effects of Hypertourism and Co-Management of Heritage Spaces
Tourism unfortunately also generates catastrophic transformations on local populations, ranging from going from historical invisibility to one of hypervisibilization, leading to the exoticization of indigenous culture, the commodification of their identities and, most seriously, forced land displacements. Catalina Fairstein (2015), reflecting on the effects of the patrimonialization of the Quebrada de Humahuaca, Jujuy, argues that paradoxically, what is declared a patrimonial heritage is increasingly weakened by the same declaration.
Attempted evictions and violence have worsened with hypertourism. For example, in 2008, a lawyer showed up in the community of Las Cuevas, with only his last name of “Pescador”, to demand that the 30 resident families leave. When he saw that his intimidations had no results, he brought a group to harass and frighten the people with bladed weapons. Community leaders then organized the first mobilization on behalf of the Tastil people, demanding support from the Provincial Institute of Indigenous Peoples of Salta (IPPIS)[1] and a dialogue with the provincial authorities. In response, IPPIS issued them a document stating its support for their struggle, although the provincial government did not express any opinion on the matter. [1] The Tastil, Lule, Atacama, Iogys and Weenhayek peoples are waiting for Congress to approve the bill to amend Law No. 7121 on the Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Salta. The reform consists of replacing Art. 5 of the law with another that recognizes these peoples together with the nine that already have federal recognition and representation in the IPPIS.
The siege of the Las Cuevas Indigenous community continued for several years, despite the fact that it had obtained its federal recognition and documentation on its territorial survey. The landowner aggressions experienced by some families led the Tastil People’s Council to march again through the streets of the capital city to the provincial Legislature in 2010. On this occasion, it had the unanimous support of the 35 territorial organizations of indigenous peoples that make up the ENOTPO.
Other subsequent events are the attacks against a grandmother of the Valle del Sol Community[1] in 2014, and attacks against a family of the Los Alisos Community[2] in 2018. Both cases were prosecuted by judge Diego Rodríguez Pipino, who showed a clear inclination toward disregarding indigenous law and overlooking the alleged attacks against the families by landowners such as Francisco Jovanovics and Ricardo Solá Usandivaras. [1] For more information about the dispossession and destruction of Doña Andrea Quipildor’s house and property, please visit the following websites: “Salvaje atropello a la Comunidad Valle del Sol”, in the Lule People blog, “Pueblo Tastil movilizado y organizado en defensa del territorio ancestral en Salta”, by ANRed, and “Juez y parte” in ENOTPO. [2] For more information on the Martinez cousins’ eviction, see: “El Consejo del Pueblo Tastil se expide ante desalojo en la comunidad Los Alisos” and “Miembros del Pueblo Tastil fueron acusados de usurpar su propia casa”, by Claudia Álvarez Ferreyra in Página 12.
Since the nomination of the Qhapaq Ñan to UNESCO, private interests to control tourism has become more active. Exploitation claims in this field (and in the real estate market) are not necessarily aimed at taking care and preserving of the heritage sites. Moreover, the harassment experienced by the communities of Las Cuevas, El Gólgota, and Inca Huasi have fueled frictions with the project’s technical team. Consequently, the greatest challenge for the Local Management Units has been to achieve a bond of trust and cooperation among all participants. An the Tastil People Council march[1] in June 2013 was a manifetation of disagreements within the Santa Rosa Local Management Units. Over a period of four days, elders, youth, and adults toured the different sites and localities of the territory, from Santa Rosa to the Community of Valle del Sol, demanding the recognition of community property, sovereignty over the Tastil heritage, and representation in the IPPIS.
In spite of the difficulties, the work between the Local Management Units parties is progressing between disagreements and agreements. In July 2024, the Iberoamerican Network on Cave Art organized a panel discussion with some representatives of the Qhapaq Ñan project from Argentina and Peru, in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the UNESCO declaration. One of the topics discussed was, precisely, how the Local Management Units were experiencing the co-management/participatory work of intercultural dialogue that the project’s participants are trying to sustain. For example, based on consensus, they agreed that the communities could continue to organize peaceful marches through the hills and their sacred sites in order to safeguard their safety. Also, community members have been trained in pre-Hispanic restoration for the identification and conservation of the rock art on the walls of Graneros de la Poma.
Mining Worsens Local Problems
Today more than ever, the joint effort must be strengthened, as a new threat thrives in leaps and bounds, sponsored by provincial and state government policies. The greatest fear for local communities today is the environmental impact associated with the advance of mining that poisons the land and depletes natural resources such as water.
Mining exploitation and infrastructure projects such as the Bioceanic Corridor that seeks to connect the Mercosur countries and facilitate the exit of exports through the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, are of great concern for the Tastil people, placing indigeneous territories and their heritage in grave danger.
The wind exhorts the memory of the stones, which narrate the history of the people who have walked the territory since ancestral times. Faced with the threat of extractivism, the stones must speak out more forcefully, because with the land under threat not only life is in danger, but the culture and history that safeguard sacred places such as Morohuasi, Corralito, the ancient city of Santa Rosa, and Abra de Chaupiyaco.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AA.VV. (2013). “Procesos de reconocimiento de los pueblos Tastil. Antiguas y nuevas estrategias: educación, turismo rural y artesanías”. VII Jornadas Santiago Wallace de Investigación en Antropología Social. Sección de Antropología Social. Instituto de Ciencias Antropológicas. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UBA, Buenos Aires. Disponible en: https://www.aacademica.org/000-063/338
Balsa, J. (2013). “Las políticas de colonización y regulación de los arrendamientos del Peronismo clásico (1946-1955) y los posicionamientos de la Sociedad Rural Argentina y la Federación Agraria Argentina”. Revista Estudios del ISHiR. Año 3, N° 6, pp.22-42.
Copa, M. y Herrera Salinas, C. L. (2020). El Qhapaq Ñan como memoria ancestral de los pueblos andinos. Camino ancestral Qhapaq Ñan. Una vía de integración de los Andes en Argentina. Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación. Secretaría de Patrimonio Cultural.
Sulca, E. M. de Los Ángeles (2022). “Sentirse parte de la lucha: Participación juvenil y procesos de reivindicación de la comunidad indígena Las Cuevas, pueblo Tastil”. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Desidades, N° 33, Año 10, mayo-agosto, pp. 190-202. Disponible en: CONICET_Digital_Nro.d33e5ff5-1b64-40ac-a20b-7a1c71ca20e9_B.pdf
Rodríguez Echazu, S. (2021). Quebrada del Toro: una historia local con participación comunitaria. Buenos Aires : Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación. Disponible en: quebrada_del_toro_digital.pdf (argentina.gob.ar)
Vitry, Ch. y Trujillo, A.P. (2023). Qhapaq Ñan: Sistema Vial Andino. Obras de conservación con participación comunitaria en sitios del patrimonio mundial. Salta: Crivelli Editores.
Zerpa, L.G. (2019). “Defendiendo los sitios sagrados del Pueblo Tastil”. Patrimonio y pueblos originarios. Patrimonio de los pueblos originarios. Félix A. Acuto y Carlos Flores (comps.). Buenos Aires: Ediciones Imago Mundi.
