The Coca Box

By Carol Miller

Funny and fanciful, this is a book about a Coca Box, and an unlikely travel foursome exploring the art and archaeology of Peru. Except that one member of the team likes to collect Precolumbian pottery. If trafficking in archaeological materials is unlawful, it seems to matter little, and in the end it appears her efforts were futile. Everything she bought was fake. Or was it? We may never know. Meantime we bounce over desert tracks along Perus North Coast, through the high canyons of the Central Andes, and across the windswept Altiplano where snow-capped volcanoes pierce the bright blue sky. An enchanting book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 20, 2003
• ISBN: 9781543429671

Carol Miller

Carol Miller is the author of three Moonshine Mystery novels, including Murder and Moonshine, which was named an Amazon Best Book of the Month and a Library Journal Starred Debut of the Month upon release. The Fool Dies Last is Carol's first novel with Severn House and the first entry in the Fortune Telling mystery series. Carol is an attorney and lives in Virginia.

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Copyright © 2003 by Carol Miller.

Library of Congress Number:   2003091704

ISBN:   Hardcover    9781413401547

             Softcover      9781413401530

            Ebook           9781543429671

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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BOOKS BY CAROL MILLER

Saudade (Poetry)

Politics and the Labor Movement in Latin America, by Victor Alba (translation)

The Unfinished Experiment, Democracy in the Dominican Republic, by Juan Bosch (translation)

Reindorf, by Alfonso de Neuvillate (translation)

El Profeta Alado (with Guadalupe Rivera Marin)

The Winged Prophet, From Hermes to Quetzalcoatl (with Guadalupe Rivera Marin)

Mundo Maya, Viajes

Mas Viajes en el Mundo Maya, la Peninsula de Yucatan, Belice y El Salvador

El Pilar, An Archaeological Reserve For Maya Flora and Fauna (with Anabel Ford) Travels in the Maya World

The Other Side of Yesterday, the China-Maya Connection

Training Juan Domingo: Mexico and Me

The Guttered Dog, A Compilation

Syria, A Selection of Reports

Travels in the Asian World

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: THE COCA BOX

CHAPTER 2: LIMA

CHAPTER 3: CHICLAYO

CHAPTER 4: CHOTUNA

CHAPTER 5: BATAN GRANDE

CHAPTER 6: TUCUME

CHAPTER 7: THE LORDS OF SIPAN

CHAPTER 8: ZANA

CHAPTER 9: EL BRUJO

CHAPTER 10: TRUJILLO

CHAPTER 11: CHAN CHAN

CHAPTER 12: THE MOCHE VALLEY

CHAPTER 13: SECHIN

CHAPTER 14: CALLEJON DE HUAYLAS

CHAPTER 15: CHAVIN DE HUANTAR

CHAPTER 16: THE RETURN TO LIMA

CHAPTER 17: AREQUIPA

CHAPTER 18: THE DEPARTURE

CHAPTER 19: COLCA

CHAPTER 20: THE RETURN TO AREQUIPA

EPILOG

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 1: Pipers and drummers in the atrium of the Church of San Francisco, Lima

Fig. 2: The Cathedral and Palace of the Archbishopric, Plaza de Armas, Lima

Fig. 3: Monkey in the Herb Market, Chiclayo

Fig. 4: Huaca Chotuna, with its parade of rescue crews

Fig. 5: A very eroded Huaca las Ventanas, Batan Grande

Fig. 6: Huaca I (Huaca el Mirador), Tucume

Fig. 7: Entrance to Huaca Rajada, Sipan

Fig. 8: Arches in the patio of the ruined Augustinian Church and Monastery, Zana

Fig. 9: The parade of The Prisoners, Huaca Cao, El Brujo

Fig. 10: Balcony of a Casona in Trujillo

Fig. 11: Administrative Sector, Tschudi Palace, Chan Chan

Fig. 12: Mural, Huaca de la Luna, Moche Valley

Fig. 13: Detail of a warrior on the lithographic mural, Sechfn …. 126

Fig. 14: Polleras and chompa in the Callejon de Huaylas

Fig. 15: Exterior masonry wall, detail of a tenoned demon head, The Castle, Chavfn de Huantar

Fig. 16: Votive ceramic from Chancay along the Central Coast

Fig. 17: The restless volcanoes frequently destroy the city of Arequipa

Fig. 18: Precolumbian pottery for an incipient collection

Fig. 19: A pet eagle at the Choquetico Lookout, Colca Canyon

Fig. 20: Cloister of the church of the Companfa de Jesus, Arequipa

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my dear friend

Karel Guefen, who is real,

and to Cuquis,

who is mostly fictional and who inhabits another planet.

In my young days, said an eminent Song critic of art, I praised the master whose pictures I liked. But as my judgment matured I praised myself for liking what the master had chosen to have me like.

CHAPTER 1

The Coca Box

The box sits on a table in my living room in Mexico City. The precious hardwood has been elaborately worked in patterns that suggest intricate Amazonian gardens populated by exotic songbirds and winsome jungle creatures, a reference perhaps to those rapturous paintings on the walls and ceiling of the Chapel of St. Ignatius of Loyola, in the Jesuit Church of the Compania de Jesus, whose cloister, furthermore, on a downtown street in Arequipa, has been outfitted with a selection of shops. One of these is a labyrinthine combination spanning various levels that sells jewelry, Peruvian crafts and antiques.

The sturdy body of the box is held aloft on little legs portraying battling archangels, fashioned in silver. The heavy clasp is also silver. The tall, rounded lid has been carved in the shape of an outsized scallop shell. The bands are outlined in silver. Silver and hardwood. Two chapters in the history of Spanish colonial Peru.

Visitors see that box and stare in disbelief. Such a magnificent piece of work, they exclaim. Such a lovely design. They reach out to touch it, gingerly, with great respect and awe. What is it?

This is an Andean coca box, I tell them. "A caja coquera. They have no idea what I mean. Andean for the Andes. The box came from an antiques dealer who keeps a shop in the cloister of a beautiful church in Arequipa, in Peru. This is a box for storing dried coca leaves."

My visitors, mystified by the explanation, perhaps gratified by the courtesy of my reply, return to their tea. The sound of their idle conversation begins to drift away. It fades into the background, while my gaze remains fixed on the box.

I am transported to the Altiplano, the high plateau, where shy brown vicunas with enormous dark eyes roam at five thousand meters— nearly twenty thousand feet—above sea level. Alpacas graze along the green watersheds. And the snowy white peaks of nine tall, bare volcanoes surround the pampas or plains, between proud Arequipa, The White City built of blocks of pale volcanic tufa, or tuff, and Colca, the world’s deepest canyon, twice as deep as Arizona’s Grand Canyon of the Colorado.

A bumpy, barely graded road crosses the silent, ashen plateau, until it passes an unmarked meeting of ways. The left side is bound for the once-upon-a-time Inca capital at Cusco, while the right side leads to Puno and Lake Titicaca. The wind is sharp and cold. There are barely any people. Life is hard on the Altiplano.

The peasants of the high peaks and the windswept plateau have no hand-carved coca boxes. They carry their precious dried coca leaves in pouches woven of alpaca or sheep’s wool. The alkaloids in the leaves, when chewed, fill the gaps in their cold and their hunger, weariness, the weight of their burdens, the distance of their journey.

The story of my coca box does not, however, begin on the bitter and barren plateau, nor even on the high peaks, or by the lakes the pale blue color of heavenly pools, or the potato fields planted on vertical plots too steep for an animal to plow.

The story begins in Mexico City, while we planned a trip to Peru. I had been to Peru a number of times, too many, perhaps, to count. But that was long ago. Long enough ago to plan another trip, and this time Tomas and I went alone.

Peru, divided like three vertically mounted strips of bacon into the world’s driest desert and the world’s wettest jungle, separated by among the world’s most formidable mountains, is by far the most interesting country in South America, and in fact, one of the most interesting in the world, yet on that trip, since it was Tomas’ first, we did the things most people do. We visited the Plaza de Armas—possibly the most beautiful plaza in Spanish America—and the famous museums of Lima. We flew to Cusco, we drove down onto the pampa, or plain, to the Wari, or Huari, site at Piqillakta, and we took the train to Machu Picchu. We went to the Sunday market in Pisaq, we walked whole sections of the last surviving major Inca roads, we trailed the scrambling cuy—the tiny guinea pigs with the sparkling eyes—through the dark mud-brick and stone house of the lady in Chinchero, in the sierra, who invited us inside.

We were telling friends about this trip. How the train slipped its rails in the Sacred Valley, how the Inca terraces rise above Ollantaytambo, how the Urubamba splashes and courses down the narrow canyon between steep and wooded cliffs, how the Incas locked their great stones in place, fitting the facet of one into the facet of another, and another and another, along the fortress walls at Sacsayhuaman, making the massive construction, if not entirely impervious to the conquering Pizarro brothers, at least indifferent to earthquakes.

Peru is the largest and most populous of the Andean nations, and the third-largest country in South America, after Brazil and Argentina. Its incalculable mineral wealth, particularly the vast stores of gold and silver—far in excess of anything discovered by Hernan Cortes in Mexico—and its Precolumbian mastery of metalworking—laminate, gilding, pearling, soldering, cut-out, repousse, casting of both base metals and alloys—made it especially attractive to the greedy Spanish conquistadors, who happened onto its northern coast at Tumbes and proceeded to overthrow its ruling hierarchy.

My friend Karel Guefen from Los Angeles, who used to live in Mexico and with whom we have traveled on a number of occasions— to Oaxaca, to Campeche, to Chiapas, to Belize, Guatemala and Honduras—was enthralled.

I’ve always wanted to visit Peru, she mused. She regularly attends UCLA’s archaeological lectures and exhibits, and is an avid collector of newspaper and magazine articles related to archaeology. I saw the display of the tomb offerings to the Lords of Sipan at the Fowler Museum, she said, bursting with enthusiasm, and I have all the information on the Moche digs along the entire North Coast of Peru.

We immediately began planning another trip. But not an ordinary trip. This time we intended visiting and revisiting, with all possible leisure, our favorite museums in Lima, beginning with the incomparable Larco Herrera collection in the beautiful house in the San Isidro district, of Precolumbian pottery and textiles. Its storage vault alone, open to the public, contains forty-six thousand pieces.

And the omnivorous Enrico Poli collection of colonial furniture, silver and painting, as well as Precolumbian pottery and artifacts, in the owner’s own home in the Miraflores district. His detractors allege that many of his pieces were looted, or purchased from looters, but the same could be said of nearly every collection in Peru.

There is the exquisite Amano museum of textiles and ceramic, also a private home in Miraflores. There is the grandiose palace containing the fine arts and folk arts collection amassed by a former president, in its Belle Epoque garden in downtown Lima. There is the remarkable anthropological and historical museum, founded by pioneer archaeologist Julio C. Tello in Simon Bolivar’s one-time home. There is the Pedro de Osma museum of colonial painting in the family’s nineteenth century mansion in the Barranco district. There is the enormous National Museum, with its didactic exhibits, housed in a monstrous concrete tower originally intended as one of the nefarious Alan Garcia’s ministries. And the former Franciscan monastery downtown with its somber catacombs; Santo Domingo with its grand tilework and the tombs of San Martin de Porres and Santa Rosa de Lima; the church of San Pedro with its gorgeous baroque altars; and the museum of the monumental Cathedral, among so many others.

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Fig. 1: Pipers and drummers in the atrium of the Church of San Francisco, Lima

And then we must fly up the Pacific, Karel insisted. We must visit the Bruning Museum in Lambayeque, the witchcraft market in Chiclayo, and all the Moche and Chimu sites along the North Coast. We must visit Tucume and Chan Chan, and El Brujo and Huaca de la Luna. We can stay in Trujillo, and visit the archaeological museum. Did you know the famous gaited horses of Trujillo were descended from the same war horses brought from Spain by the conquistadors? We can see all the wonderful churches. The Peruvian Colonial style is completely different from the Mexican.

Before I could agree, or contribute anything more, a small voice interrupted us. I want to go, said our friend Cuquis.

But you can’t, Karel, Tomas and I replied in unison. You just had surgery on both your feet, we reminded her, as gently as possible. Those plastic boots are not bedroom slippers. They are your cast.

I bought a folding seat in Houston, that is also a walking stick. Very good for museums. If I’m not well enough recovered by the time we leave I can take a wheelchair. I want to go with you.

The archaeological sites on the North Coast are enormous, and the temples are like adobe ziggurats built on drifting sand, I told her.

This is the middle of the desert, added Karel. "You can only reach the top of the huacas by climbing up long earth ramps. The wheel chair will be of no use."

You’ll see. It will. I won’t be any trouble at all. Cuquis is accustomed to having her way. The word no is unfamiliar.

Tomas, Karel and I looked at each other. We had already planned to arrange for a van with guide and driver. One more passenger, even with a wheel chair, would hardly make a difference. Or would it? You can push Cuquis, I told them, pouting, While I make my notes and take my pictures. And if she’s late she stays behind. The flight from Lima to Chiclayo leaves just once a week. We can’t wait for her.

The days and weeks passed. No more was said of turning the trio into a foursome. Tomas and I booked our flights for late September and arranged the details of a complex trip, which had been expanded, thanks to the advice of another friend, the archaeologist Anabel Ford, to include Huaraz in the Callejon de Huaylas where the Santa and the Maranon begin their descent into the Amazon, and Chavfn de Huantar in a deep valley between the Sierra Negra and the Sierra Blanca, under the highest peaks in the Central Andes.

In the meantime, then-President Alberto Fujimori was busy recovering the sequestered Japanese Embassy from the invading Tupac Amaru rebel group. He had, as it happens, dubbed his rescue operation Chavfn de Huantar. The ancient stone city, one of Peru’s earliest sites, was particularly celebrated for its tunnels. This only whetted our curiosity, while we praised Cuquis’ ostensible disappearance. We had heard nothing more from her in weeks. Imagine having to push a wheelchair up and down stairs through steep, narrow tunnels, and at that altitude!

Karel was to fly directly into Lima airport, landing just half an hour before our own arrival from Mexico City, so we could meet and drive into the city together. At midnight the famous Lima traffic is at a minimum. We would remain five days in the city and then fly out to Chiclayo, capital of the Lambayeque district, six hundred and seventy kilometers northwest of Lima.

Everything was confirmed, including appointments at the various private museums and archaeological sites, though many of the reservations had been difficult to obtain, and we were jubilant at every prospect. My research on the China-Maya Connection would be immeasurably furthered by a study of these essential North Coast sites, where at least two local versions of Quetzalcoatl, or Kukulkan, the Plumed Serpent, enriched by contact in Polynesia and southern China, had according to tradition founded the dynasties that ruled for centuries along the Peruvian Pacific.

As we arrived at the check-in counter at the Mexico City airport, however, on the specified day and hour, there was Cuquis, in her wheelchair, processing three large suitcases. I just bought new luggage, she chortled, delighted with herself. I went to Houston, got my doctor’s permission for the trip and bought a whole new wardrobe. I think Escada will be very nice for the archaeological excursions. I hope so, because I’ve never been to an archaeological site before, so had nothing to wear. Well, maybe once I think I went to the pyramids at Teotihuacan. I love Precolumbian sculpture. You’ve seen my collection, have you not? Isn’t it wonderful?

A reply was out of the question. Nor was one required. Cuquis, along with her luggage and her wheelchair, were flying first class. We only saw each other once during the five-hour flight. She suddenly appeared, leaning on her cane, beside our coach class seats with two packages under her arm. A gift for each of you, she smiled sweetly. Perfume from the Duty Free. I couldn’t resist. I hope you like the scents I’ve chosen. Then she vanished behind the curtain separating our cabins.

We saw her again after landing out on the tarmac in Lima. Airline employees had carried her down the floodlit stairs and were wheeling her through the crowded airport, while she waved gaily to us, and to Karel, who regarded us coolly from the corral in the reception area. Our local guide was with her. So, three more passengers? Not two? I thought you were three all together. Well, never mind. Plenty of room in the van. Do you have your vouchers?

Did you know she was coming? Karel whispered to Tomas, as discreetly as possible, while he maneuvered his luggage. He shook his head.

She glanced at me, but I just shrugged. We’ll have a wonderful time, I sighed. I refuse to let her ruin my trip.

With that