Excerpts from
The Silver Thread
By Thomas Boberg
Tiwanaku
At the entrance to Tiwanaku, the half excavated and partially reconstructed pre-Inca ruin several hours´ drive from La Paz across the barren plateau, I promptly found myself ensnared in the brawny arms of a sun-baked mountain woman.
The idea was for me to buy some of her ceramic miniatures. There they were, arrayed on the table, in front of me.
- Cómprame, cómprame, señor. You buy, mister. Buy my figurines... El Chasqui, El Sol, Huiracocha, El Amuleto del Amor.
There were plenty to choose from. Fine workmanship too. This zealous saleswoman would happily have sold me the lot for next to nothing.
- See, here is the sun god, and here is a little model of the Gate of the Moon which you will find over there , at the back, muy bonito señor... very beautiful señor; oh, and you can´t go without this, a little amulet for your wife señor, your friends, your family señor...
A soft breeze set the dust swirling over El Altiplano; the sun glowed above the crests of the mountains, searing its way into face and retina.
- You buy, senor, another, only one boliviano ...
Such breathtaking desolation; a clear view for miles around. The remains of Kalasasaya lay sprawled across the centre of the plain, like some magic square. On all sides, though almost farther than the eye could see, loomed the mountains encircling the plateau.
How on earth did they manage to haul those immense blocks of stone down to this spot? Under the fierce gaze of which gods? Stone columns carved out of solid blocks, El Fraile and El Ponce, might they not put one in mind of Polynesia?
In the underground temple, set alongside the big temple and shaped like a square swimming pool, the walls were adorned with mouldering stone faces that looked to have been stricken by some disease. Penetratingly they studied one from the depths of a forgotten age. In the centre a monolith, called Kon-Tiki. Thor Heyerdal crossed the ocean on the raft Kon-Tiki.
He wanted to prove a theory regarding the link between Easter Island and certain pre-Incan civilizations in the Andes mountains.
Suddenly a tiny, underfed boy swathed in rags was standing right next to me.
He wanted to sell me a pottery figure and a potsherd he claimed had come to light during the excavation of the temple.
- I have plenty already. See for yourself; my bag´s full.
- A trade then, señor? You give me your pencil, I give you the figure.
- I´ll be needing this pencil myself, but I´ll give you some money. I ended up with the figure anyway. He obviously wanted rid of it, or simply had no idea what it was worth.
- The pencil, señor, the pencil?
- Here, have a mint.
- Gracias, señor, gracias, he stuffed the boiled sweet in his mouth and off he went.
Now, with the day drawing to a close, only the stones remained. Great ponderous rectangular lumps of rock, hewn out with care then buffed up; decorated with exquisite and mysterious geometrical patterns. Still there, half-buried. Work was under way to free from the clutches of oblivion and the earth Pumapunku the vast, constructed once upon a time out of 132 massive blocks of stone.
Half a kilometre from the ruins the little hamlet that now goes by the name of Tiwanaku turned out to be a veritable ghost town. Only at its centre, around the church, did some parts appear to be inhabited. The surrounding town consisted entirely of long since abandoned adobe houses, gradually being washed away.
- Can I get something to eat here? I asked in a deserted and dust-ridden establishment, its peeling walls hung with row upon row of shelves carrying a stock of bottles inches thick in the stuff. The sole wall decoration: that scantily clad calendar girl who is nothing if not well-travelled.
- There´s nothing here to get your teeth into, came the answer from some dim corner.
Outside, in the last of the sun I repeated my question. There was a kid slouching against a wall. No reply. No reply whatsoever. They sell us ceramic miniatures, stone figurines, and other than that they leave us alone, do not interfere. A kind of dumbness etched into their faces.
I sat down on a stone bench in the empty square and regarded the church. This church, a notice told me, dated from the sixteenth century and had been built out of stone from the old Tiwanaku. A doorway flanked by two monoliths similar in style to El Fraile and El Ponce. The same gravity. The same quiet mystique. Some iron railings had been driven in round about them, apparently in order to protect them. Or was it that people feared they might one day break out and go walkabout through the town?
There they stood, staring out of their absurd prisons, through one and beyond one. I had seen that same look before: in the figure of a man, just twenty inches tall, seen once long ago in a museum in Cairo.
Out from the church eaves jutted a number of stone monkey heads.
This Christian house of God, all but defying comprehension, risen out of the ruins of Tiwanaku.
The living had become the dead, and the dead the living. An Indian woman with a bundle on her back wending her way across the plain.
A silent boy with tough lips slouched against a wall.
A secret. An abyss of stone.
And the wind from the mountains driving all of us on our separate ways amid dust and silence.
Translated by Barbara Haveland
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