Transcript

Eat like an Inca · The Front

0:01
Speaker 1: It looked like said, like a chicken saute type thing.
0:03
Speaker 2: Right.
0:03
Speaker 1: It's really small anyway, so I ate it, but it
0:07
Speaker 1: was a bit weird. The guy next to me took
0:10
Speaker 1: one bite and he vomited on straight away at the table,
0:13
Speaker 1: at the table on top of people.
0:23
Speaker 2: From The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
0:26
Speaker 2: I'm Claire Harvey. In today's episode, We're off to the
0:29
Speaker 2: Lost City of the Inkers Matchipitchew with Troy Branston. Troy
0:34
Speaker 2: is a senior columnist for The Australian, but he's also
0:37
Speaker 2: our in house renaissance man, a history buff author and
0:41
Speaker 2: an adventurous traveler. He's our very own Stanley Tucci. This
0:46
Speaker 2: trip to Darkest Peru wasn't just a holiday. Troy was
0:49
Speaker 2: a guest of the Australian Museum and it's all in
0:52
Speaker 2: aid of their exhibition that's live now, Golden Empires of Peru.
1:04
Speaker 2: So Troy, had you heard of matchw Pitchu before he
1:06
Speaker 2: went on this expedition.
1:07
Speaker 1: For me, I'd always been really interested in it, and
1:10
Speaker 1: I have this opportunity to go as a guest of
1:12
Speaker 1: the Australian Museum to see Matchupitchu. Immediately, when I have
1:16
Speaker 1: this opportunity, my mind went back to Indiana Jones and
1:19
Speaker 1: the Raiders Lost Arc the opening scene where he's in
1:25
Speaker 1: the Peruvian temple. He lifts up the golden fertility idol
1:31
Speaker 1: replaces it with a bag of sand. He thinks it's okay,
1:38
Speaker 1: and then the boulder comes after him. Because Matchi Pitcher
1:55
Speaker 1: was only rediscovered about one hundred years ago, it has
1:59
Speaker 1: that sort of lur of being a place of mystery
2:03
Speaker 1: and magical wonder that people want to go and see
2:06
Speaker 1: for themselves, like you are, Indiana Jones.
2:09
Speaker 2: That boulder scene from Raiders of the Lost Dark is
2:12
Speaker 2: of course referenced in almost every movie these days. I've
2:19
Speaker 2: recently watched Paddington in Peru twice, which is the extent
2:22
Speaker 2: of my research for this interview, which features Paddington making
2:25
Speaker 2: his way to match You, Pitch You, and then a
2:27
Speaker 2: giant boulder destroys the inco site.
2:32
Speaker 1: Right, it is one of those things, you know, everybody knows,
2:35
Speaker 1: that famous picture from above of seeing this sort of
2:37
Speaker 1: city upon a mountaintop, wondering what it is, how it
2:41
Speaker 1: got there, And of course when the Spanish conquisitors came
2:44
Speaker 1: through Peru and South America in the early fifteen hundreds,
2:48
Speaker 1: they destroyed a lot of these sites, but they never
2:51
Speaker 1: found match You Pitchu, so it was untouched, and when
2:54
Speaker 1: the Yale University, Academic High and Bingham rediscovered it in
2:58
Speaker 1: nineteen eleven, it became a world sensation. And then for
3:03
Speaker 1: the last one hundred years, people have been trying to
3:05
Speaker 1: work out, firstly, how on earth did this place come
3:09
Speaker 1: about and what was its purpose.
3:16
Speaker 2: It's been said the key to understanding other cultures is
3:19
Speaker 2: to listen to their music. Over the past couple of decades,
3:23
Speaker 2: with shows like Parts Unknown and Netflix's Street Food, it
3:27
Speaker 2: seems it's food that's the most powerful when it comes
3:31
Speaker 2: to unlocking different cultures.
3:33
Speaker 3: So it was in the spirit of.
3:35
Speaker 2: Anthony Bourdin that Troy didn't shy away from one of
3:39
Speaker 2: Peru's delicacies.
3:41
Speaker 1: I did try guinea pig.
3:44
Speaker 3: That most people consider a household pet.
3:47
Speaker 1: I wouldn't recommend it. It tasted a bit like sort
3:51
Speaker 1: of bland pork to me. But yeah, if you can
3:54
Speaker 1: get that image of the very little guinea pig squeaking
3:58
Speaker 1: away out of your mind, might really enjoy it.
4:01
Speaker 2: I think you know, will have managed to come to
4:03
Speaker 2: groups with eating some kind of cute creatures, but guinea
4:05
Speaker 2: pig feels like a bridge too far.
4:07
Speaker 1: Well, I think, unlike Australia, where tourists come and they
4:10
Speaker 1: eat crocodile or emu or something like that, a lot
4:14
Speaker 1: of Peruvians eat guinea pig. It's a big part of
4:16
Speaker 1: their culture.
4:17
Speaker 2: He one of your traveling companions didn't enjoy it as
4:19
Speaker 2: much though.
4:20
Speaker 1: Yes, another journalist I was on the trip with took
4:23
Speaker 1: one bite and he brought it up straight away. Now,
4:27
Speaker 1: I don't know whether that was the guinea pig. It
4:29
Speaker 1: might have mean, it might have been something else. He
4:31
Speaker 1: didn't finish it, But I'm proud to say that I
4:34
Speaker 1: struggled through to say that I did eat guinea pig.
4:37
Speaker 1: But as I say, Cloud wouldn't recommend.
4:39
Speaker 3: Very manfully conquered the guinea Thank.
4:41
Speaker 2: You, thank you.
4:41
Speaker 1: That's my Indiana Jones prowress.
4:46
Speaker 3: So let's talk about the Inkers.
4:48
Speaker 2: This is a remarkable civilization, but they didn't have a
4:52
Speaker 2: system of writing that we can recognize. They didn't invent
4:55
Speaker 2: the wheel, and they didn't even use any kind of
4:58
Speaker 2: draft animals. So how on earth did they build this civilization?
5:02
Speaker 1: Yeah? This is one of the lost cities of the
5:05
Speaker 1: Inca civilization, a very advanced civilization in many ways, and
5:10
Speaker 1: Peru's matic picture is a really good example of that
5:13
Speaker 1: because it's built on several fault lines, it's two and
5:16
Speaker 1: a half thousand meters above sea level. It's constructed with
5:20
Speaker 1: this series of interlocking rocks, so there was a quarry
5:23
Speaker 1: on one side of the mountain, so they'd have to
5:26
Speaker 1: break the rocks massive stones and put them in place
5:29
Speaker 1: through a kind of interlinking system so that the seismic
5:33
Speaker 1: activity could be absorbed by these rocks moving back and
5:36
Speaker 1: forth but not collapsing. There's a series of Roman style aqueducts,
5:41
Speaker 1: and of course they grew crops, and they actually genetically
5:44
Speaker 1: modified some of their crops for different altitudes so they
5:48
Speaker 1: could grow these crops for a self sustaining community. So
5:51
Speaker 1: there are still archaeologists and scientists examining this site today
5:56
Speaker 1: and still learning new things.
5:57
Speaker 2: You mentioned the fertility symbol in rates of the lost ark.
6:01
Speaker 3: Fertility.
6:03
Speaker 2: Sexuality was a big part of their artistic expression, wasn't it.
6:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. They believed in fertility of the land
6:13
Speaker 1: and often they would represent that through sexual imagery. So
6:17
Speaker 1: for example, the water is fertilizing the soil to enable
6:21
Speaker 1: crops to grow, and that might be represented by some
6:24
Speaker 1: kind of sexual imagery of what looks like a male
6:27
Speaker 1: or a female. The other thing is that they really
6:29
Speaker 1: believed in three terrestrial existences, so the moon and the
6:34
Speaker 1: stars above the land we live on, but also the
6:37
Speaker 1: underworld and those who are undead, so to speak, and
6:41
Speaker 1: the relationship between all three is quite fascinating. And there's
6:46
Speaker 1: a number of objects in the museum which might be
6:49
Speaker 1: confronting for a lot of people because of this sexual imagery,
6:52
Speaker 1: but it's not often sexually based. It's based on fertility
6:55
Speaker 1: and agriculture and spirituality.
6:58
Speaker 2: Gold is a big feature of the exhibition, But were
7:00
Speaker 2: the inc Is interested in gold for its kind of
7:03
Speaker 2: monetary value?
7:04
Speaker 1: No, not really. I mean they would often use gold
7:07
Speaker 1: and silver for things like funery processions and even what
7:12
Speaker 1: they term is as ritual combat. So there was actually
7:15
Speaker 1: human sacrifice, and often it would be defeated warrior for example,
7:20
Speaker 1: from an opposing tribe would offer themselves up for sacrifice
7:24
Speaker 1: and it would be a great honor for them to
7:25
Speaker 1: be sacrificed in a highly ritualistic, elaborate ceremony that would
7:31
Speaker 1: then be watched by the two tribes. So these kind
7:34
Speaker 1: of things and the knives that they used for ritual
7:37
Speaker 1: sacrifice are on display at the museum, and there come
7:41
Speaker 1: from a number of different cultures, not only the Incas.
7:46
Speaker 3: Coming up how Peru is reclaiming its stolen treasures.
7:59
Speaker 2: Being like so many explorers kind of looted it, you know,
8:03
Speaker 2: not only human remains, but also anything that wasn't kind
8:05
Speaker 2: of nailed down back to Yale. Many of those treasures
8:09
Speaker 2: only returned to Peru in the past couple of decades.
8:13
Speaker 2: It's analogous to other debates that are going on, like
8:15
Speaker 2: the elderin marbles, the return of indigenous people's remains to
8:19
Speaker 2: places like Australia. What's your perspective on the fact that
8:23
Speaker 2: Peru has been able to reclaim some of the stuff
8:25
Speaker 2: that was stolen from it.
8:27
Speaker 1: On the one hand, these museums think that they're protecting
8:29
Speaker 1: these objects, they're bringing them to a wide audience, but
8:33
Speaker 1: you know, they often have ended up in those countries
8:35
Speaker 1: because they've been stolen, and sometimes they've been stolen with
8:39
Speaker 1: the approval of the authorities through corruption. You know, they're
8:41
Speaker 1: paying a customs official at a port to allow some
8:45
Speaker 1: kind of object to leave the country. So this is
8:47
Speaker 1: a complex debate. The Peruvians, when I talk to them,
8:51
Speaker 1: are pretty happy with where their things are and that
8:54
Speaker 1: they have been able to own their own history. Many
8:58
Speaker 1: of the objects that are in this exhibition in Sydney
9:01
Speaker 1: come from the Museo Laco in Lima. That's a privately
9:05
Speaker 1: owned museum. The family has been collecting these things for
9:08
Speaker 1: one hundred years. So I did actually ask the director
9:11
Speaker 1: of the museum about this, and she said, no, we
9:14
Speaker 1: have access to our own things that are in other museums,
9:17
Speaker 1: and things have been returned and they are, as I say,
9:19
Speaker 1: learning things themselves around the world.
9:22
Speaker 2: Do you feel as though this is one of those
9:26
Speaker 2: sites that is actually returning some sort of benefit to
9:29
Speaker 2: the people of Peru by having its treasures to the
9:31
Speaker 2: world for example?
9:32
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean people seeing this exhibition that they hope
9:36
Speaker 1: will think, well, I want to go there and see
9:37
Speaker 1: it myself. Tourism is a big part of the Peruvian economy.
9:42
Speaker 1: They're showcasing their history, their culture, their traditions to the world.
9:55
Speaker 2: Troy is a senior journalist with The Australian and he
9:58
Speaker 2: went to Peru as a guest the Australian Museum. His
10:02
Speaker 2: story is in our review section, the home of all
10:04
Speaker 2: the best journalism about the arts, culture and entertainment. Pick
10:09
Speaker 2: up the paper at your local shop for the touchy
10:11
Speaker 2: feely joy of a purely analog experience, or check out
10:15
Speaker 2: all our experts anytime at the Australian dot com dot
10:19
Speaker 2: a slash review