Pre-columbian archaeology, folklore and hybridization in Adán Quiroga

Abstract

This article focuses on the work of Adán Quiroga (an amateur archaeologist, scholar of the pre-Columbian legacy in the Argentinean North-Western area), paying attention to the way in which some central topics of the archaeological and folklorist legitimization of the continent are formulated there, which will later be key in several authors who have been linked to the spiritualist indigenism of the twenties. Focusing on La cruz en América (1901) and especially Folklore calchaquí (1929), we can see Quiroga's way of loading the Calchaquí area with pre-Hispanic and mestizo meanings, reinforcing its deep bond with the Andean world. Particularly in Folklore calchaquí, the Argentinean North-Western area is presented as a very rich space in terms of multitemporality and cultural productivity, imbued with a strong mystical feeling that emanates from pantheism and the most remote cosmogonies, which are still alive – at least in part – in current folklore. In this sense, the hermeneutic explorations of archaeology and folklore, which Quiroga undertakes in both essays, can be thought of as indirect responses to modern secularization.