The First Congress on History of Archaeology in Latin América (México, 1984): between an Argentine tango and a Mexican corrido

Abstract

A tango is a type of traditional music that tells the story of a distressing and impossible love. Without a broken heart, a repentant macho, and without the narration of an unsuccessful love story, there is no real tango. A second usage of the word tango means an inadequate lie, that is, a lie about of some misfortune which is really an excuse for something else. The corrido, the contrary of tango, implies a violent altercation involving alcohol, with little opportunity for repentance or for the mourning of love, because when love is real, it is a matter of killing or dying. Corrido can also mean “to be thrown out, to be sent away”. The following account includes abundant questions that have remained unanswered because there were no answers in sight. It is a story with no bad or good guys because no one knows whom, or where they were, a story where no one is guilty of anything, where everything dissolves, despite the remaining facts. Where, in the traditional Latin American way (so difficult for the Anglo-Saxon mentality to understand) these issues are resolved by “what is your problem, my friend, if nothing has really happened here…!” This is a good story about a congress of archaeology that took place twenty years ago in Mexico, that was rich in tangos and corridos in their both respective senses.