El Puestero

During the last couple of weeks I taught a graduate class on zooarchaeology in San Rafael, Mendoza, Argentina through the regional Museum of Natural History (http://www.arqueologiamendoza.com/). The week prior to the class my friends and colleagues showed me around much of central, western Argentina. There were many memorable experiences, all of which touched me personally in terms of culture, teaching, and research. I will share a few impressions from the trip and from the class in the next few posts. In my opinion, the social contrasts between contemporary Argentina and the United States suggest that we (in the US) can learn much from our Latin neighbors.

A puesto (photo above) is a small ranch owned by a goat/cattle herder whose position is analogous to that of a sharecropper. The rancher (el puestero) runs livestock in order to subsist and to rent the land he lives on. Often the puesto is occupied by a family, and many puesteros move seasonally to take advantage of plant growth at different altitudes for their livestock. The puestero who I met goes by the name Cupertino (the man on the left below), and he is a marvelously kind man. He lives in southern Mendoza on the foothills of a collapsed volcano in the desert. There are no springs for fresh water where he lives, and he draws his supply from large collection pools in basalt (photo below). For many times of the year his livestock animals (in the thousands) rely on dew and frost on desert plants for water.

Cupertino wages an ongoing war with ranging pumas that kill his livestock; he eats all kinds of wild game (including puma), and he collects herbs to add to his own brew of yerba maté, medicinals that calm the stomach, for example. For a time he kept a puma as a pet until it killed a bunch of his corralled livestock seemingly for its own entertainment.

Puesteros know the regional archaeology, and it is common practice for archaeologists to seek their help in finding prehistoric sites. We came to Cupertino with asado (beef) that he prepared for us in the traditional manner. We shared maté, and he helped us take some water samples to learn the regional stable isotope record for studying the environment (photo above). His puesto itself is an archaeological gold mine, an opportunity for learning how sites form in that he discards bones nearby and he keeps a pack of scrawny dogs from greyhounds to Jack Russell terriers that scrounge after bones.

The puesteros are slowly disappearing as their lifeway passes into history, and it shocks me that there has been very little anthropological interest in recording their culture in western Argentina. They are open and kind, and would most likely welcome an ethnographer seeking to learn their ways. Meeting Cupertino and spending a short time with him was a ‘lesson in contrast;’ he has what he needs and he wants for nothing. He knows the local desert intimately. His days are spent with the pleasure and satisfaction of intelligent, physical work, and with the desperation of survival in a harsh, arid environment—not for weeks or even years, for lifetimes.

As we left Cupertino’s puesto and his hospitality, we stopped to hike out to small deposit of basalt boulders (photo above); this place was quiet! One could see for a hundred miles to the northwest toward the Andes, and to the east through the foothills and desert. There was no sound. There were no jet contrails in the sky; my friends and I were alone, together. It is difficult to find such peace in the city. There are still some isolated places in the world, and Cupertino enjoys one of them; it may be why he brings such a kind hospitality to others who visit him. Perhaps we can learn something from the contrast with our busy lives; what do we really need, what do we really want, and what do we really have? These are not questions that we dwell on for much time in a society in which individuals are “driven.” The contrast is something to ponder.