War of the Pacific – Page 3 – Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Not What It Seems

Prison Break

October 2, 2020September 13, 2020 MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

Touches of humanity soften the hard edges of Humberstone.

From a carefully hand-lettered sign….

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….to rebar (short for “reinforcing bar” — used to increase the tensile strength of concrete walls) repurposed for security….certainly from after the 1960 abandonment of the site, to deter looters.

A mysterious message, barely holding on. “Coopere con el, aseo” — can be translated as Keeping clean together — we could re-purpose this sign for COVID-19. The bench in background is slanted in the opposite direction.

Someone has a sense of humor: this was a door to the drill bit room, repurposed as a prison, complete with a ball and chain. In the background, a father photographing is wife and child.

References

Websites

Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page

The Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works site (Chile), removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger/

Apposite Abstraction

oxymoron

September 30, 2020September 30, 2020 MichaelStephenWills

As I write this post we remember is September 11, 2001, the 19th anniversary of the attack on the USA, the loss of the World Trade Center towers, 2,977 deaths, more than 25,000 injuries. The greatest loss of life, in a single event, of firefighters and police (343 and 72).

This morning a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck the Atacama desert. The photograph is a possible effect of the April Fool’s Day, 2014, 8.4 magnitude earthquake that rocked the desert, further damaging infrastructure throughout the region. The earthquakes are one reason Humberstone was (is?) on the list of endangered World Heritage Sites.

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References

Websites

Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page

The Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works site (Chile), removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger/

So Little Time

All In An Hour

September 29, 2020September 29, 2020 MichaelStephenWills8 Comments

Eighty eight years from founding to abandonment, beginning as “La Palma” works of the “Peru Nitrate Company,” and, from the time stamps of my photographic files, we had a little over sixty (60) minutes to explore them.

This meant displays such as “Tool Hall: Pampa Men’s Engineering and Effort” were passed by….

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Here is a forerunner of the colorful ribbon on the generic black suitcase, a mark as much for ownership as for identification. In this case ultimately abandoned or lost.

The wheel tipped the load…..

Distant hills can be alluring, as these were not.

Click Me for the first post in this series, “Iquique by Sea I.”

References

Websites

Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page

The Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works site (Chile), removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger/

So much depends…

note the small splash of red

September 27, 2020September 29, 2020 MichaelStephenWills

…/ upon / a red wheel / barrow / glazed with rain / water / beside the white / chickens ~William Carlos Williams

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Click me for the next post of this series, “So Little Time.”

Click Me for the first post in this series, “Iquique by Sea I.”

References

Websites

Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page

The Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works site (Chile), removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger/

Weights and Measures

*At each nitrate works there shall be a balance and a bar placed outdoors alongside the company store to compare weights and measures.”

September 26, 2020September 29, 2020 MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

Quoted above is a demand of the workers in the 1907 “18 Pence Strike.” This name referrs to the amount of a wage for a particular mining workers.

Another demand was *While the tokens are being abolished and pay is starting to be given in legal tender, each oficina, its Manager representing it and pledging compliance, shall agree to accept tokens from every other oficina on a par with its own, paying a fine of 50,000 pesos for every refusal to do so.”

The organization of workers is one of the patrimonies from Humberstone and other Saltpeter Villages referred to by the World Heritage committee.

The “bar and balance” of the quoted demand is a scale. The balance scale, below, is from our day visiting Humberstone.

Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.

Click Me for the first post in this series, “Iquique by Sea I.”

References

Wikipedia: “Santa María School massacre.”

Websites

Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page

The Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works site (Chile), removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger/

Humble and Worn

Handheld

September 25, 2020September 29, 2020 MichaelStephenWills3 Comments

Irreplaceable and well worn. Well worn for being irreplaceable by dint of access, distance and commonality.

Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.

Click Me for the first post in this series, “Iquique by Sea I.”

References

Websites

Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page

The Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works site (Chile), removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger/

Quern Stone

Neolithic technology

September 23, 2020September 28, 2020 MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

Neolithic peoples are the first known to use stones such as this to grind seed and grain into flower. The lower, stationary, stone is a quern. A pitted grinding surface is a required quern characteristic and this one has that, I cannot see how a rounded, unstable bottom, is helpful. The upper, called a handstone, well polished from use.

Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.

Click me for the next post in this series, “Humble and Worn.”

Click Me for the first post in this series, “Iquique by Sea I.”

References

Wikipedia: “quern” and “metate.”

Websites

Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page

The Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works site (Chile), removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger/

Stoves and Ovens

La Cocina

September 22, 2020September 6, 2020 MichaelStephenWills1 Comment

“Mesa” in Spanish translates to “table.” A tall, flat plateau is called a mesa for the similarity to a table. Mesa can also mean dining, as translated on this sign.

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Looking through my photographs, nothing for dining stands out. Neither, on the Humberstone map I cannot find either the dining or kitchen areas.

I find the wood floor in these photographs puzzling as wood is flammable and ashes fall. Stove and oven doors above and below both open directly to the floor. In the restoration, it is possible all the cooking apparatus was moved to one building with a wooden floor.

It appears these ovens were crafted from local material.

References

Websites

Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page

The Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works site (Chile), removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger/

Worker Homes

The token system

September 20, 2020September 22, 2020 MichaelStephenWills1 Comment

Ten on the map is listed as “casas obreros”, translated to English as “workers homes.”

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Abandoned since at least the 1960s, the homes are completely empty of furnishings and show the wear of sixty years.

We walked the dusty streets, grateful for the calm atmospheric conditions, imagining what life was like for the workers of Humberstone.

They had each other amidst the vast emptiness of the desert.

Click me for the next post of this series, “Stoves and Ovens.”

Click me for the first post of this series, “Iquique By Sea I.”

References

Websites

Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page

The Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works site (Chile), removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger/

A Look into Humberstone

The token system

September 16, 2020September 22, 2020 MichaelStephenWills

A spanish language map offers some insights into Officio Santiago Humberstone, what it was like to live there.

Number 14, “Pulperia” is translated by Google Translate into the English language as “Grocer’s Shop,” a term that does not catch the flavor of such establishments that are a combination convenience store and barroom.

In the world of the remote saltpeter mining of the Atacama desert, these were company stores and communal dining facilities serving the population of isolated settlements.

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Currency was not accepted by the pulperia, only tokens. Generally of wood, issued by the company as sole payment to workers, the token system. Each oficinas salitreras (Saltpeter Village) had it own token. More than 2,000 tokens from these systems are known and collected today.

The token system intended to provide goods and services to workers at a rate to avoid inflation as well as to tie laborers to a site. During the 1907 shutdown and massacre of workers and family tokens were one of the demands: *While the tokens are being abolished and pay is starting to be given in legal tender, each oficina, its Manager representing it and pledging compliance, shall agree to accept tokens from every other oficina on a par with its own, paying a fine of 50,000 pesos for every refusal to do so.”