By Edgardo Civallero | Sara Plaza
Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino
Rostros de Chile Precolombino [Faces of Pre-Columbian Chile]
(Santiago: Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, 1997)
Ilustr. – 92 pp.
As many other excellent materials published by the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, this book features the pieces shown at the exhibition titled “Rostros de Chile Precolombino” (Faces of Pre-Columbian Chile), including the drawings by musicologist and draughtsman José Pérez de Arce: an attempt to reconstruct the reality of pre-Hispanic peoples’ life in the present territory of Chile. Besides the drawings the volume includes explanatory texts surrounding them and various additional elements such as photographs, drafts and maps essential to the understanding of textual and graphical information. “Rostros de Chile Precolombino” takes the reader to a trip in time and space: from the 9000 BC’s puna (high plateau) to the 20th century’s Araucania. It is also a journey through various civilizations, costumes, traditions and languages: hunters from the puna region; fishermen, llamas shepherds, quipucamayoc and traders of Arica; peasants from the Atacama region, including the hamlets of Tulor, Quitor and San Pedro; Diaguita craftsmen and ceramists; Mapuche women; Selk’nam spirits... Page after page, the book presents the cultural evolution of Chilean peoples and their legacy, which still remains alive in many parts of the country.
Book, in Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino [es].
