{"id":170261,"date":"2026-08-19T18:03:04","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T16:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.humboldtforum.org\/?post_type=event-publication&p=170261"},"modified":"2026-08-20T12:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T10:20:18","slug":"eliana-hernandez-pachon-suspended-waters","status":"publish","type":"event-publication","link":"https:\/\/www.humboldtforum.org\/en\/programm\/publikation\/publication\/eliana-hernandez-pachon-suspended-waters-170261\/","title":{"rendered":"Eliana Hern\u00e1ndez-Pach\u00f3n: Suspended Waters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Suspended Waters is a poetic essay that connects four objects: a death raft woven from reeds that has come ashore in the wrong place, a gold Muisca raft that evokes the legend of \u201cEl Dorado\u201d, Amazonian flutes made of palm that can only be seen by men and a sheet of paper used for museum records.<\/p>\n

Colombian writer Eliana Hern\u00e1ndez-Pach\u00f3n explores how these objects sustain different worlds. Through a text pulsing with the life of more-than-human beings, with multiple voices solo and choral, Hern\u00e1ndez-Pach\u00f3n evokes worlds of ritual, sanctity, abundance. She asks: what does it mean to possess, to preserve, to let go?<\/p>\n

Yurupar\u00ed flutes<\/strong><\/p>\n

The so-called Yurupar\u00ed flutes came to what was then called the Royal Museum of Ethnology in Berlin, now the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, at the end of the nineteenth century through Franz Pfaff and at the beginning of the twentieth century through Theodor Koch-Gr\u00fcnberg. While very little is known about Pfaff, considerably more is known about Koch-Gr\u00fcnberg, who, as an anthropologist and explorer, wrote his own accounts of his expeditions to South America and thoroughly documented his collection.<\/p>\n

Each flute\u2019s interior consists of a piece of paxi\u00faba palm. Because their music plays an important role in male initiation rituals, the flutes remain concealed from women. For this reason, they are currently neither displayed in exhibitions nor shown in illustrations. One story about the Yurupar\u00ed flutes that continues to be told to this day recounts how they were once stolen by women and then recaptured.<\/p>\n

Published by Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss
\n56 pages, Paperback, Diaphanes Verlag, ISBN 978-3-0358-0910-7<\/p>\n

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