The secret of Malingas

Confirmed! This community in Tambogrande District has more archaeological rests than initially suspected… and more.

 

By Franco Alburqueque Chinchay & Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo

 

    TAMBOGRANDE, Peru – Is this mount charmed?,” archeologist Daniel Dávila Manrique asks again. The tales of fantastic facts are not random to the specialist. In other places, those are clues to detect archaeological sites. We are at the base of Morán Mount, Malingas Community, Piura, just to begin a revealing hiking.

 

Hernán Palacios, one of the oldest locals, has been shepherd for lifetime. “The people say when they go to watch their cattle, this is not, but it appears after some time ignoring how,” he tells. Morán Mount, also known as Chico [pronounce Cheeco] Mount or Devil’s Mount, is a cone rising in the middle of a short range beginning at the west with Malingas Mount and diverting a little to the southeast for ending, about 10 miles, in Cerro de Loros (Parrots Mount).

 

It just overcomes 990 feet above sea level, and 627up from its base at Monteverde Bajo Village, but, according to Dávila’s survey, is the highest point of that mounts row. The tales of charming suggest to the archeologist, the existence of rests.

 

    La Reja

We go on the wide path. It’s rare because almost nobody wwalks on here but there are traces of bikes and cycles. Against the common sense says, Hernán Palacios, our guide, gets us into a path saved by carob trees both sides. If something happens us, the cellphones can take us out of any peril. We don’t try to cut the way but getting close to an archaeological site hidden by the forest that appears from anywhere.

 

“This is La Reja,” Hernán says pointing out many rocky blocks emerging from the soil, and have carved bowls oriented from west to east. Archaeological zone since November 2009, the Malingas Local Development Committee, FACTORTIERRA, and Daniel Dávila come researching many archaeological rests.

 

Initially focusing on the triangle of Guaraguaos Alto, El Carbón, and Platillos Villages, a dozen of new sites with millennial cultural evidences has appeared progressively. In this zone of Tambogrande District, up to now, carved bowls on the rock have been found. The most highlighting ones are in Platillos [Platiyos] Village, and like this place, they are oriented from south to north.

 

There are similar rests at the nearby Tejedores Community, to the north, and crossing the district’s border, in San Francisco de Paccha and Casanas, Morropón. Why does the pattern break in La Reja? There’s no answer yet but there’s actually evidences of a Stone path that seems to go in over the mount that the locals call La Bonifacia [La Bonifaseea], and that is not featured in any geographic chart.

 

    Blind

“What does your GPS say?,” we ask Daniel Dávila. “Its crazy!,” he screams us. True! The device seems to have blocked despite being open pit on one of the La Bonifacia’s slopes. The B-plan is the compass, but it’s the same like nothing because instead of signing to the north, straight before our eyes (looking at San Lorenzo Valley), it shows us the east as reference.

 

The memory of Franklin, one of our producers, will be our last resource because the medium wave doesn’t work neither and the cellphone is dead. We don’t mention the battery of our camera is lowest level. What’s happening here? There’s no answer. Is that the reason why this mount is not recorded yet?

 

Franklin locates the Stone path that the rains try to delete on the map. Now, the mystery bases upon instead of getting us close somewhere, the way ends in a today’s dry stream that was where we began to detect the anomaly. Amid the mess, the path seems going to south to north, but from where… to where?

 

    The wide path

At the middle of the Mor’an’s slope, we find a small vertical rock wall. No way – we’ll have to climb by using hands and feet. The top is near but… is it fair and necessary? Cruz Verde is located on the base of the mount’s southern slope. Founded mid-20^th century, it’s full of bowls in pairs, that seem to be oriented to Morán and Cerro de Loros.

 

A cripple old woman tells she used to graze her cattle on the slope. “That mount eats people!,” she warns us. It’s charmed tfor her, and her best evidence is the presence of a macanché or boa constrictor, a type of endemic snake which the locals fear much and she costed hard work to dominate.

 

Her eye-witness is the former councellor Juan Carlos García. When he was a boy, he helped the old woman to fight the animal, drowning it with holy stick. It was never clear who wan but the today-33-year-old man points us out his village is eventually the best place to hike the Morán.

 

In fact, the wide path that Hernán Palacios did not takefor leading us to La Reja comes out of his town. And the rest is trusting in our legs. But the old woman observes that the hiking to be easy “if the mount likes it.” Although even a cycle can ease the climb, this is a property of Malingas Alto Cooperative, so it’s better to apply for an authorization of the assembly to follow up forward. Miners –despite the metal is featured on the soil—are not welcome.

 

    The home of buzzards

Just before reaching the top of Morán, two things wonder us –broken pottery everywhere and buzzards flying over our heads. Daniel Dávila confirms that the rests are Pre-Hispanic. We don’t have to be worried of the birds because they eat prey, although their excrements are a serious threat to consider.

 

At the top, there are three monolyths full of petroglyphs. Although they’re the best conserved that we have seen, the excretions of buzzards plus the Sun and the water have begun to deteriorate them. But they are not free of human hands at all. Juan Carlos García and Hernán Palacios tell the people continue to leave giftsin this place and the nearby La Bonifacia.

 

The petroglyph of Morán Mount is oriented toward the east preceeded by the already known bowls… and a foot carved guiding to the west. For our fortune, the GPS, the compass, the médium wave, and the cellphone work without problems in here. The Morán is in the middle of the initial triangle to study, and like the rest of the rocky spaces, it was a ceremonial site linked to the water if we consider the nearby flows and springs.

 

The archeologist Daniel Dávila has reported preliminarly they may be 4000 years old, Amazonian origin. They are similar to other discovered in Samanga and Santa Rosa, both in Ayabaca. A FACTORTIERRA’s contributing reporter has found patterns of similar designs in El Naranjo, Frías District.

 

If all those points are put on a map, migratory flows predicted by Dávila appear, but why was this moving necessary? Patience – The secrets of this community are beginning to be revealed. Check out and comment more pics from this original story (references are in Spanish).

 

Executive producers: Luis Correa & Nelson Peñaherrera. Field producers: Franco Alburqueque,Franklin Nima, and Estany Tineo. Edited by Estaby Tineo. © 2011 Asociación Civil Factor Tierra. All Rights Reserved.