The Key to Authentic Pre-Columbian Fakes: The Racial Myth of the Natural Man and Its Mise-en-Scene

Since the end of the nineteenth century, the Alzate family, of Medellin, Colombia, grasped the magnetism of the Natural Man (a malleable myth with porous edges that combines both the Edenic and the cannibalistic visions of indigenous peoples) and its economic potential and orchestrated a family craft business of fake pre-Columbian pottery. They created pieces that would engage in dialogue with collectors', anthropologists', museums', and tourists' desires and imaginaries, as well as authenticity criteria, about indigenous pre-Columbian peoples. This article shows the relationship between these forgeries' production, circulation, and consumption and the ways Latin American indigenous peoples have been conceived of by others. Moreover, this research stresses how authentic fakes, together with official and popular discourses and images, certain exhibition and validation rhetorics, and other mises-en-scene construct what is sacralized as uncontaminated, original, and traditional. Such fakes operate politically by undermining social hierarchies linked to essentialized race and identity.

Automated summary

This article explores the relationship between the Alzate family's fake pre-Columbian pottery business and the perception of Latin American indigenous peoples. It argues that through the production and circulation of these authentic fakes, along with various discourses and images, a constructed notion of uncontaminated, original, and traditional indigenous culture is created. These forgeries also challenge social hierarchies related to race and identity.