The National Museum of Anthropology in Madrid has 4,426 inventoried human remains. From mummies from Atacama (Chile) to heads reduced by the Shuar, which the colonizers named jivaros. But, founded in 1875 by Dr. Pedro González de Velasco, it also has many European skulls and even the skeleton of the so-called Giant of Extremadura, the second tallest man in the history of Spain, 2.35 meters, Agustín Luengo Capilla, who died at the age of 26 in 1875. Today, almost none of these pieces, with the exception of a head reduced by the Shuar, are no longer displayed in the Madrid museum after the director, Fernando Sáez, dismantled them almost two years ago the Sala dels Orígens, a kind of time travel.
"We must move forward, museums cannot stay in the 19th century, they must have a new way of understanding collections, especially inherited ones. Regarding human remains, our museum, like many others, was born in a context in which physical and cultural anthropology were not separated and elements of biology were used to explain situations that are cultural . Reasoning was done about the size of the brain. It was the beginning of positivist science and it made sense to study human remains, to expose them, but science has followed a different path. It seemed to us that we needed to take a step", explains Sáez, who believes that "many times they continue to be exposed not because it is morbid, but because it is curious. It would be the idea of the old cabinet of curiosities, to expose surprising things. But we want to go down another path, not be a 19th century museum."
And the step his team took was to remove the room and publish a letter of commitment on the treatment of human remains in accordance with the new international standards. Despite the fact that the cases are very diverse and the letter would not prevent them from exhibiting the remains of the giant Agustín. "Many of the human remains belong to ancestors of other peoples or cultures or ethnic groups for whom it would not be acceptable for them to be taken from the graves, from Mother Earth, the Pachamama. And we must respect their will. We have not organized return processes because it requires legal and diplomatic processes, but we wanted to hear them. It had been a while since we had exhibited the Atacama mummies. If the legitimate heirs do not agree, if it goes against their values, we did not want to persevere without listening to them. After all, it was a position of superiority: we are the masters of the nation. And today many museums with human remains from 19th and 20th century expeditions take the same position in Europe and America. And in Canada or Australia there are even repair processes”.
But also, he explains, "we have human remains that can come from a legitimate acquisition, such as those of Agustín Luengo Capilla. When dismantling the Sala dels Orígens, we no longer had space to put it. As we hope to implement a new, more coherent permanent exhibition soon, we'll see. Instead, we do expose one of the tzanzes, the shrunken heads of the Shuar, because by them they have already been transformed into objects that have a spiritual force inside. The spirit of defeated warriors lives there and their strength is transmitted to the one who defeats them and shrinks their heads to preserve their strength, it was a ritual of admiration”. And he adds another case: "in the Canary Islands they have Guanxe mummies on display. There is a very large collection in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, they exhibit them, for them it is part of their history”.
Faced with the wide range of cases, the new Secretary of State for Culture, Jordi Martí, has just commissioned a report from the General Directorate of State Museums to ensure that the museums that depend on the ministry comply with international protocols on the matter. "We will have it in two months, and based on that we will evaluate the situation and act quickly in case of non-compliance. There is an ethical code approved by ICOM, the International Council of Museums, which is very important, and with the study we will see if the museums that have human remains comply with it”. And he remembers that, although "it is a matter crossed by colonial issues, not necessarily always, we must remove it from this logic and that the human remains, wherever they come from, comply with the recommendations. If there are international reports that establish how it should be done, what we must do is comply with them. From issues of cultural context and dignity, to whether there are direct descendants who can feel represented by the remains and who must authorize their exhibition”. And he points out that "the Museum of Anthropology has done a very good job and is certainly more advanced, perhaps because it started from a worse situation, because archaeological museums have historically treated indigenous communities with a kind of superiority".
In this sense, Sáez concludes that it is about "building a new system of relations with other cultures. The museums played a role in legitimizing the status quo, Western superiority. We can turn the story upside down."
