Yes! These are the niños del volcán, or vulcano kids, found in 1999 in the Salta Province here in Argentina, near the Llullaillaco volcano. They’re so “very well preserved”, “mummified” because of the height, temperature and pressure, more than 6739 meters above sea level, or around 22000 feet above the sea level. I’ve heard that when they were found, the people who found them got the scare of their lifetimes because they just looked alive.
The indigenous diaguita calchaquí communities there in Salta have already made clear that taking the children away from the volcano was disrespectful as hell, since they were sacrificed back in the day, and that was their burial site (they had many offerings and more) and our belief is that they are to remain there, up the apu (major spirit of the volcano or mountain) to connect with other ancestors and protect us. Even if this kind of offerings aren’t done now, obviously, there is absolutely no valid reason to take them from their resting place. And it’s much more disrespectful because they’re in a museum exhibition and people are even paying to see them, and our indigenous communities get a grand total of 0 (cero) profit nor remuneration for being taken away. So there’s that. Quick reminder that these are indigenous children and indigenous people should have been given, and be given now too, the right to choose what to do with our people’s remains.
Another quick remark: you can’t drug someone with coca leaves. The coke plant is commonly chewed all day in the argentinean northwest, it helps cope with great pressures in height and doesn’t have any bad side effects, it’s even good for your teeth. It’s also a sacred plant (kokamama’s spirit resides in the coke leaves) and that’s why they were ingesting it. Kokamama is a spirit of divination and communication with apus and other major ancestral spirits, which is what the children were meant to do. The alcohol, on the other hand, was very likely chicha, a sacred drink aswell. So yeah, they weren’t “drugged”, they had ingested coke leaves, for both it’s spiritual and biological functions, and chicha or other sacred alcohol as well. Coca and chicha are both common offerings in our indigenous communities to this day.
