Day of the Dead Harvard Museums of Science & Culture
We will host our annual Celebración del Día de Muertos on Saturday! Visit the museum on Saturday, November 2nd from 1pm-4pm to watch a concert from Undergraduate Mariachi Véritas de Harvard and folk dancing from Harvard RAZA Folklorico, as well as:
• enjoy craft activities
• personalize a sugar skull (extra fee)
• savor traditional pan de muerto (extra fee)
• write a message to departed loved ones for the museum altar
• purchase alebrijes, Oaxacan wood carvings
• hot chocolate and beverages available for purchase
Leer en español: https://tinyurl.com/PeabodyDiaDeMuertos
Regular museum admission rates apply. Activities are free except where noted. Free event parking at the 52 Oxford Street Garage.
Presented by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology and the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture in collaboration with the Consulado General de México en Boston and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard
Moving Moshup wall mural to the Peabody
Our exhibits team recently moved a wall sized mural created by artist Andromeda Lisle from the Harvard Ed Portal to the Peabody. Her painting is inspired by the legend of Wampanoag folklore hero, Moshup.
Painted with an array of blues and greens in Lisle's colorful style, this mural of Moshup aims to highlight the importance of preserving the cultural significance of animals in the Americas as well as the Indigenous stories that surround them.
Andromeda will run a special painting workshop on Saturday, April 15th at the Peabody. Advance registration is required by April 12th, 5pm. If you would like Spanish interpretation please let us know on the workshop registration form: https://bit.ly/BearOtterPainting.
The campus looks so pretty in the snow. ❄️
These rare Nokota stallions are a living link to the horses that Sitting Bull and other Lakotas surrendered to the U.S. military in 1881. Although blue roan is a rare color, it is still dominant among Nokota horses. Learn more about these horses and their relationship with Plains warriors in the exhibition Wiyohpiyata: Lakota Images of the Contested West, co-curated by Castle McLaughlin and Lakota artist Butch Thunderhawk: https://bit.ly/Wiyohpiyata. Visit the museum 9am-5pm to see the exhibition. #NationalILoveHorsesDay
Watch a silent video from the "Rice: Seeds from Africa" mini-exhibit of master basket maker Mrs. Yvonne Grovner of Sapelo Island, Georgia demonstrating her technique.
Rice: Seeds from Africa examines the legacy of rice cultivation in the Americas. Set within the Resetting the Table exhibition, this new mini exhibit explores the essential African knowledge systems required to establish what became a thriving industry, the horrific human toll the Atlantic Slave Trade took to maintain it, and the vibrant, enduring culture of the Gullah Geechee, descendants of enslaved Africans whose basket making and coastal subsistence traditions continue today.
Listen to our latest podcast featuring an interview with Yvonne: https://bit.ly/HMSCconnectspodcast.
Marking #InternationalWorkersDay with a video from the Muchos Méxicos exhibit.
Watch Song for Cesar (10:34 minutes), about the labor movement led by Cesar Chavez.
For more information about the United Farm Workers, please visit www.ufw.org. Excerpts from the documentary Fighting for Our Lives appear in this video. Fighting for Our Lives is the intellectual property of the UFW and is used with permission of the United Farm Workers of America.
Visit the exhibit: https://bit.ly/muchos-mexicos.
Happy #SuperbOwlSunday! Whoooo are you rooting for? Enjoy this Moche culture ceramic stirrup spout bottle from Peru. De Milhau South American Expedition, 1906-1909, 09-3-30/75623.1. https://bit.ly/SuperbOwlMoche #SuperbOwl
This striking leather anquera, on view in our Muchos Méxicos exhibit, covered the rump of a horse. It is among the few rare surviving pieces of equestrian equipment that predate 1800 from the region once known as New Spain. It is an exceptionally fine example of Mexican craftsmanship.
Modeled on the medieval Spanish gualdrapa, the anquera was a symbol of status and power. This one was made for a man at the top of New Spain’s social hierarchy. It is richly embroidered in silk and silver thread with images of a formally dressed European man, surrounded by Indigenous men, who may represent the people and lands under his control.
The anquera is bordered in cast iron pendants that jingled as the horse moved. Called ruidos, they contain protective amulets that combine Islamic, Christian, and Indigenous influences.
Anquera
Probably Mexico City
c. 1750–1800
Gift of the Heirs of David Kimball, 99-12-20/52901
During the Toltec empire, plumbate ware such as this effigy vessel with an eagle warrior (850–1050 CE), was made near the source of the clay in eastern Chiapas, Mexico, and then traded far and wide. This example, now on view in our Muchos Méxicos exhibit, comes from the ancient Maya city of Copán, Honduras. Reserve your timed ticket and read our "Know, Show, Go" policies here: https://tinyurl.com/HMSCVisit.
Plumbate ware tripod jar
Copán, Honduras. 850–1050 CE, Early Postclassic. Peabody Museum Expedition, M. H. Saville and J. G. Owens, Directors, 1891-1892, 92-49-20/C276
Here is a throwback to when our exhibits and collections team were installing a 350-pound plaster cast of a statue in the newly opened exhibition Muchos Méxicos: Crossroads of the Americas. Reserve your spot to come see in person! https://tinyurl.com/HMSCVisit
One of the more challenging tasks was moving the statue from off-site storage, where it has lived for the past three decades. This plaster cast (PM 92-50-20/C1099) is a model of a chacmool statue originally found at the Maya site of Chichen Itza in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
The plaster is fragile and can break if not handled carefully, so transferring the chacmool from a wheeled metal storage container onto its exhibit mount required assistance from professional art handlers.
More about the statue:
Epiclassic to Early Postclassic, c. 900 CE
Chichén Itzá, Yucatán
Plaster cast of original, Désiré Charnay, 1882 Museum Purchase, Huntington Frothingham Wolcott Fund, 92-50-20/C1099
This distinctive sculpture is a Chac Mool—a type of statue made by peoples from northern Mexico to the Yucatán Peninsula, El Salvador and Costa Rica, beginning about 1,200 years ago. The statue depicts the reclining figure of a god of thunder, lightning, and rain holding an offering plate. The term “Chac Mool” was coined by French explorer and photographer Augustus LePlongeon. This is a plaster cast of the first of the statues he found in 1875 in the ruins of the Maya city of Chichén Itzá in southeastern Mexico.
The Chac Mool’s breastplate displays an icon of the “butterfly warriors,” popular in Chichén Itzá’s “sister city” of Tula in north-central Mexico, which is home to two other similar Chac Mool statues. These, and other cultural similarities, suggest close ties between these distant cities.
Video courtesy of Amanda Kressler. #ThrowbackThursday
Do you enjoy the ritual of preparing your morning coffee? Local teen Glendy created this animation to express her love of coffee as part of a companion to our exhibit Resetting the Table: Food & Our Changing Tastes.
The museum's Hear Me Out/Escúchame project invited Chelsea and Somerville teens to use the exhibit as a jumping off point to create their own images, animation, and commentary about Latino/a/x foodways. Take the #VirtualTour of the exhibit, populated with the teens’ unique interpretations: https://bit.ly/HearMeOutResettingTour (English; https://bit.ly/EscúchameEspanol (Español).
More about the exhibit: http://bit.ly/2rfEXAY, and more about the Hear Me Out/Escúchame project: https://bit.ly/HearMeOutEscuchame.
Mariachi Veritas de Harvard Performs La Llorona
We are getting excited for our first Virtual Día de los Muertos / Day of the Dead Celebration! https://bit.ly/HMSCDOD2020
We are pleased to invite back the Mariachi Veritas de Harvard student-run band to help us open the event. Established in 2001, they are are Harvard's one and only mariachi band.
Watch this video of their interpretation of La Llorona, a popular song originating from Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico, about a woman who falls deeply in love with a man and cannot bear to live without him.
The virtual #DayoftheDead event FREE, taking place on Sunday, November 1, 2020, from 3pm to 5pm ET. Advance registration required: https://bit.ly/3j2wqra. #MuseumFromHome #Harvard