00:05.41 Alan Well welcome everybody this is Dr Alan Garfinkel and this is your rock card podcast on the archaeology podcast network and this is episode 70 and we're blessed and honored to have John professor john whoops who is going to share his insights wisdom and reflections on his career related to both archaeology anthropology the study of shamanism art and the implications for ritual ceremony and. The theological world of indigenous people johnny with us. Oh ah god bless you for coming on board and and bringing your your background and prestige. So john you, you just published a couple of books you were telling me tell the. 00:48.60 John Hoopes Yes, I am thanks so much for having me here on. 01:03.18 Alan So the listeners a bit about those would you. 01:05.60 John Hoopes Yes, it was it was ah I don't know whether the analogy of birthing a baby is is fair because I have never done and never will do that. But yes I just produced 2 books that were a long time in the making they took about 7 years from conception to publication. Um, and they've been published by Dumbarton Oaks in Washington Dc they're being distributed by Harvard University press um and they really represent labors of love in in the area that I specialize in the isthmo columbian area of Southern Central America and Northern South America um, the first book is titled pre-columbian art from central America and Columbia at Dumbarton Oaks it's the fifth in a series of catalogs of objects that are in the collection at Dumbarton Oaks and I can talk about that in a little bit but essentially the the core of the book is ah. Photographs and detailed descriptions and interpretations of over two hundred pre-columbian objects that were manufactured in the area between Colombia and Ecuador the vast majority of them coming from Colombia Panama and Colombia I'm sorry Costa Rica Panama and Colombia. Um, and most of these objects are made out of precious materials in particular jadite and gold as well as alloys of gold. Um, and in addition to the over ah 200 objects that we describe and and illustrate and interpret and and kind of place within their cultural context. Ah, there are also about 15 thematic essays that cover everything from methods of working jadite and methods of casting gold to interpretations of particular archaeological contexts in in Panama and and Columbia and and elsewhere. Um, the second book is titled Hex me has a very similar title and I I always have to check and see what the titles are to make sure I don't get them confused but the second one is called pre-columbian central America Colombia and Ecuador towards an integrated approach and it was originally conceived of as. Part of the first volume. But ultimately we we had so much content that we had to split it into 2 books together about 1200 pages in in total. Um and it contains as I said 20 thematic essays on the archeology of the area between. Actually the it it deals with Honduras all the way down to to Ecuador. 03:39.72 Alan Um, and what do those artifacts day 2 What do they? the beginning and sort of they work up to the contemporary times or historic period. 03:47.91 John Hoopes Well the they they cover a fairly long period of time um approximately two thousand years I would say the earliest objects that we have which are made out of jadite um, date back probably to about 500 bc 04:02.90 Alan Okay. 04:04.39 John Hoopes Um, the most recent objects which would be ones made out of gold are very similar to ones that were reported by spanish eyewitnesses when they arrived in Costa Rica and Panama so we know that objects like these were being made and used at the time of the arrival of the spanish. 04:10.79 Alan 3 04:22.60 John Hoopes In the early fifteen hundreds so that's about 2000 years of objects. Um the earliest being made out of preciousion stones and the more recent ones made out of gold. 04:32.90 Alan And I guess to the listenership of our podcast. The relationship of those to some of the subject matter that we deal with regularly here is these are often ritual ceremonial objects that have a great import. And character and are used by ritualists or religious adepts some use the term shamans or priests etc am I correct. 05:02.12 John Hoopes Yes I think that probably is correct. Um all of the objects are are are what we might put into the category of of jewelry. They're objects that are personal adorment things that are me that are made either to be worn around the neck or suspended from the ears or perhaps. 05:11.45 Alan M. 05:22.15 John Hoopes Placed around the waist or in a headdress or worn on the chest. All of them are are objects that are intended for public display as part of the Regalia worn by an important person. Um, and. 05:38.13 Alan And finally. 05:40.71 John Hoopes You know the term rituals quite broad I was just going to say that these persons um there. It's very difficult to put them into particular categories. They have can have political significance they could They could have been Warriors or they could be shamans. 05:53.77 Alan So There's certainly a range of religious personalities that are part and parcel of these objects and the objects themselves as I understand it and I think we spoke about this very briefly sometimes depict some of these superramundane beings. Part of the religious elements or deities or supernatural beings that would be part of the cosmology is is that correct to to describe this. 06:26.14 John Hoopes That's absolutely true. Um, the vast the vast majority of these objects are decorated with abstract to fairly realistic representations um of of animals that would have been very important. Um. 06:36.80 Alan M. 06:43.45 John Hoopes To think as well as to to look at and actually things that are good to think that's a good anthropological phrase. Um, and um so they're they're um, semi semiotically fertile um representations that include. 06:46.83 Alan Yes, no I like that? yeah I've used that before. But. 06:57.50 Alan Yes, yes I love it. Yeah. 07:03.29 John Hoopes Animals that would have been especially meaningful and because of that they give us some insight into what their cosmology might have been. 07:10.50 Alan Fantastic. So I always want to contextualize when I beat someone like you John to talk about at least how how do your your personal journey of how you ended up in this rather esoteric yet endlessly engaging subject. So. Perhaps you can give us at least the thumbnail picture of how you got to be a professor at the University Of Kansas specializing in this rather remarkable subject matter. 07:37.73 John Hoopes Well, it's interesting that you use the word esoteric Ellen because I think I was always in pursuit of of the esoteric I was a little I was I was a bit of a nerd when I was in ah, grade school and and and high school and for me reading about archeology and reading about. 07:44.98 Alan Um. 07:57.35 John Hoopes These exotic and distant and ancient peoples and places. Um I think it's probably fair to say it was kind of a form of escapism I was very much into science fiction and fantasy literature. Um, and I was also reading quite a lot of early 70 s um. But we might now refer to as pseudoareology including Eric Bandoniccan and Ignatius Donnelly on the Atlantis and and all kinds of things but I was very much in pursuit of the weird but the exotic of the unusual. Um and I found it really. Um, kind of wonderful for myself to know about things that nobody else knew anything about so I tended to pursue those things that seemed to be the the weird corners of knowledge that that that relatively few people went into just so that I could become nerdy about them. 08:50.44 Alan Yeah, so we major on the miners correct. We sort of deal with the esoteric the supernatural and and those areas of of interest that I think have. 08:58.86 John Hoopes Well, that's absolutely true and I read quite a bit I read I read quite a bit on on on on the occult and on the supernatural I really enjoyed reading a lot about religion. But I knew that I wanted to be an archaeologist even before I applied to college. 09:08.48 Alan Yep. 09:14.48 Alan Well. 09:16.26 John Hoopes Um, and I was fortunate enough to to to go to a place that actually had just created an undergraduate major in archaeology that was started by ah irving rous an archaeologist at Yale University who created a multidisciplinary major in archeology. 09:27.98 Alan So. 09:34.55 John Hoopes Because he was persuaded that archaeology was transdisciplinary. Um, which I I think many of us have have realized that it it drew upon expertise that ranged from anthropology to classics to near eastern studies to art history to history. And so my program was very much a multidisciplinary program and I really enjoyed that quite a lot. In fact I took lots more archeology classes than I did anthropology and then realized when I got to graduate school that I had some catching up to do so I actually studied. Ah. More broadly in anthropology in graduate school than I than I had as an undergrad which is kind of the reverse of what a lot of people experience but I did my graduate work at Harvard where I was fortunate to be able to work with some some truly inspirational individuals. Um, including Gordon Willie who is my. 10:19.59 Alan Gotcha. 10:31.30 John Hoopes Dissertation advisor and I had had the distinction of being being the last of Gordon Willie's dissertation at Bayes he had a ah very long and distinguished career I'm I'm sure his name is known to most of your listeners but it was really pretty remarkable to me. 10:39.37 Alan That's. Oh yeah. 10:47.51 John Hoopes Um, that some of his first students included some of my mentors like Michael Coe um and that he was still teaching on into the into the 1980 s I finished my ph d in 1987 10:51.12 Alan M. 10:59.46 Alan Fantastic. So given given that interesting academic journal where did you jump into it where was where was your field work concentrated and sort of how did you get involved with this particular geographical specialization. 11:16.27 John Hoopes Well it it may sound kind of odd Alan but it was it was kind of an accident in that I was I was very interested in um, in in the ancient mayas in particular and also very interested in Mesoamerica. Um. 11:21.61 Alan Join the club join the club. Yeah. 11:33.55 John Hoopes And we had the option as undergraduates to either enroll in an accredited archaeological field school or to join an archaeological research project and to complete our fieldwork requirement that way. So I went to my advisor ah and who at the time was Michael Co a specialist in the ancient mayas and. 11:51.47 Alan Um, sure. 11:53.25 John Hoopes And the olmec and Mesoerica um, and I said to him I'm really interested in doing field work in central America um, not realizing that for Michael Co and also for many other mesoamericanists when they think of central america it. They don't immediately think about. Guatemala and Honduras they they often think about areas farther to the south and so on that particular day Michael Coe said oh I just got this wonderful package in the mail from an archaeologist in Costa Rica and he's binding some amazing things. Why don't you. 12:21.81 Alan Ah. 12:27.41 John Hoopes Write to him and see whether he has an opportunity for you. Um, and I I really had had my heart set on working in the maya area but I for whatever reason but connecting with the right person and I wrote to Michael Snarskas who was an archeologist an american archaeologist working in Costa Rica 12:33.77 Alan Ah. 12:46.81 John Hoopes And he wrote back a ah, a wonderful invitation. He said if you can get an airfare to get down here I will pay for all of your other expenses. He said just just get here and I'll I'll house you and feed you and you can you can work on this project that I have in Costa Rica um so I thought that was great and I literally. 12:52.90 Alan Wow. 13:00.55 Alan Yeah, that's wonderful and and that's and that's and that's that's how you kicked it off. Yeah. 13:06.24 John Hoopes Headed I actually applied for well I had I had no savings at the time I applied for a um, nothing nothing I applied for ah, an an undergraduate research grant which gave me $800 and that was my total budget. 13:10.95 Alan Nothing. 13:24.45 John Hoopes What wound up being almost three months in Costa Rica um I think you could easily spend that in a couple of days in Costa Rica these days but but I live very much on the cheap out of a backpack literally out of a backpack. Um and it wound up being very much ah, an ethnographic experience as well because it turned out. 13:26.60 Alan Wow Yeah, yeah, well that's fit That's fascinating. 13:44.15 John Hoopes The the archeological site we that we were excavating the closest that you could get to it with a 4 wheel drive vehicle was about two kilometers away so we we drove this. We drove our our our our ah um. 13:53.26 Alan M. 14:01.22 John Hoopes Land rover as as far as we could and then parked it and then hiked for two kilometers into this location where basically there was no electricity no running water. Um a ramshackle shack that we we slept in. Um and I was just in heaven I thought it was the greatest thing. I was out in the middle of nowhere and and and and having someone on and actually I can admit this now because we're we're we're now almost at ubiquitous legality. Um, but 1 of the greatest things about it is that one of the guys on our work crew um was the local cannabis dealer. 14:21.45 Alan Fantastic. 14:37.85 Alan Ah. 14:39.45 John Hoopes Um, and and this was 1978 um and so we would we would kick back after a after day on the dig and you know just enjoy the rainfall but that was my introduction to my introduction to archaeological fieldwork. 14:52.30 Alan That's wonderful. What? Ah what? an amazing story. Well there you go? Yeah, we've led. We've laid the groundwork I think we've used up the first bit of our ah segment so in the next one I think we're going to segue on over and talk about the subject matter the excavation and the objects and what they might tell us. 14:59.10 John Hoopes I Thought this is great. This is fantastic. Ah. 15:15.76 Alan About the nature of the lifeways and the theology of the indigenous mind see on the Flip-flop gang. 15:21.25 John Hoopes That sounds wonderful.