25 years from his death
In May 19 is the 25th anniversary from the death of one of the most famous personalities in the history of the San Pedro de Atacama people: Father Gustavo Le Paige, founder of the archaeological museum that has his name and manager of the patrimonial conservation of the zone.
"For many years I was involved in a work to highlight San Pedro de Atacama, because finally I found the reason of my life in this small and large oasis of the Chilean puna", confessed Father Le Paige years after his arrival to our country.
This work was shaping and consolidated with the idea of Father Le Paige to know the Atacamenian inhabitant from the oldest traces. First findings of excavations accumulated in the parochial house until the situation was unsustainable.
With aid of local population, Father Le Paige collected adobes and began to construct a premise to keep findings. Then, Universidad del Norte - at that time belonging to the Jesuit order- offered him academic support and material required to perform his yearning museum project, able to host indigenous treasures gathered in more than 300 archaeological sites, pucaras, housing sites and cemeteries.
Thanks to this important collaboration and the direction assumed by Father Le Paige, the Archaeological Museum of San Pedro is currently baptized in honor to his founder and became an important and noticeable regional museum in the American continent.
In the two decades he stayed in Chile, Father Gustavo Le Paige wrote four books on the Atacamenian past, in addition to near twenty articles for specialized magazines, comprising from Paleolithic to Tiahuanaco influence in this zone.
His published works were one of the first attempts in Chile to offer a pre-ceramic sequence with characters of Paleolithic way of life in a typical Andean region.
To remind his death, May 19, 1980, the Museum direction will celebrate a mass in his honor and a pilgrimage to the town cemetery were he was buried according to his will to rest in the lands of San Pedro de Atacama.
Biographical data
Father Gustavo Le Paige Walque was born on November 24, 1903 in Tilleur , Belgium , near of the Liege city. He was one of the 11 children of the marriage formed by Ubric Le Paige and Teresa de Walque. His family was closely related to intellectuality of Liege and his father was director of the Astronomic Observatory in that city.
Young Gustavo entered a Jesuit novitiate of Arlon in 1922 and later he studied Philosophy and Theology at the University of Lovaine . After ordaining priest, he performed in Belgium Congo as itinerant missioner from 1936 to 1952.
Le Paige arrived to Chile in September 1953 and was assigned to stay in a site of the Chuquicamata church in the north of the country. One year after he arrived to the San Pedro de Atacama church where he stayed until the end of his life. There he did not only developed as parish priest but he also dedicated to social order materializing development works for the region such as: roads, hospitals, sport courts, hostelries, water collection systems and many other works that have his seal.
In 1972, the Chilean Senate unanimously gave him nationality for grace. He was also awarded with the Doctor Honoris Causa of Universidad del Norte, Universidad Católica and Universidad de Chile.
Father Le Paige was also awarded with the Order to Merit of Bernardo O'Higgins in position of Nobleman, the Order of the Real Crown of Belgium and Isabel la Católica Order, this latter received from the King of Spain. He was member of the Chilean Academy of Natural Sciences and the Chilean Academy of History.
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veronica@sanpedroatacama.com
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