Chac Mool Activity

The Latin American Boom marks a moment when Latin America and its cultural production, especially its literature, came to global attention. The remarkable success of the Cuban Revolution  and the stark confrontations taking place in South America between military dictatorships and radical liberation movements, captured the imagination of Leftist movements in Europe and North America. While the Boom writers were deeply informed by their Latin American predecessors (Modernismo and the Vanguard poets, their work is a transition from a literary production which is still very much looking to Europe as a model, and the search for an innovative and authentic Latin American voice which can speak of and to different kinds of subjects. 

Carlos Fuentes (Panama, November 11 1928 - México, DF., May 15 2012) was a Mexican novelist and essayist. Among his works are The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962), Aura (1962), Terra Nostra (1975), The Old Gringo (1985) and Christopher Unborn (1987). In his obituary, The New York Times described Fuentes as "one of the most admired writers in the Spanish-speaking world" and an important influence on the Latin American Boom, the "explosion of Latin American literature in the 1960s and '70s", while The Guardian called him "Mexico's most celebrated novelist". His many literary honors include the Miguel de Cervantes Prize as well as Mexico's highest award, the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor. He was often named as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, though he never won.

Chac Mool is a story published for the first time in "Los Días Enmascarados" (Editorial Novaro, Mexico, 1954) anthology by Carlos Fuentes.

1. Who narrates the story/How is the story narrated?
The story is narrated by Filiberto's friend, at the start he narrates what happened to Filiberto, but then he found Filiberto's diary and the rest of the reading is based on it, which basically describes the process of his death as Filiberto wrote down everything that happened after buying Chac Mool.

2. Who is Filiberto? What does he do? What class is he from? What might he represent?

Filiberto is the main character and the victim of this story, he is a bureaucrat (upper class) and he might represent the fear of dealing with problems. He collects statues to feel "important".

3. What is a Chac Mool? (internet investigation)

Chac Mool is a type of sculpture denominated mesoamerican pre-Colombian which appeared at the beginning of the Postclassic period. This name was created in 1875 by Augustus Le Plongeon and he proposed a maya yucateco name, because he found them firstly in Yucatán. It represents a reclinated human figure with his hands around a cup above his tummy, which was used to place ritual offerings.

4. How does what you find coincide and not coincide with the descriptions given in Fuentes’ story?

The last answer coincides with the text because originally is made from different stones and the story says the same thing: "The stone is common, but that doesn’t lesson the elegance of the posture or the solidity of the block". Also, Fuentes refers to Chac Mool as the Mayan god of the rain, and in real life he is related to the rain.

5. Who was the Le Plongeon referred to on pg 5?

Augustus Le Plongeon (May 4, 1826 – December 13, 1908) was a French-American photographer, archeologist, antiquarian and author who studied the pre-Columbian ruins of America, particularly those of the Maya civilization on the northern Yucatán Peninsula. In the early 1860s, after spending time in Chile and northern California, Le Plongeon moved to Lima, Peru, where he practiced medicine and photography, and became interested in Peruvian archaeology. On a trip to London he met and married Alice Dixon, daughter of the photographer Henry Dixon. The couple returned to North America where they devoted their lives’ work to excavating, documenting, and interpreting the Maya ruins and culture of the Yucatan peninsula. They spent over a decade exploring Yucatan and Central America, excavating at ChicheÌn ItzaÌ and Uxmal. (Getty Research Library Catalog, 2012)

6. How can we interpret Fuentes’ re-telling of Le Plongeon’s act?

That Chac Mool did not like the idea of being discovered by people, as he "he knows about the imminence of the aesthetic fact", so it wants to take revenge against the modern world.

7. What does the line “El sabe de la inminencia del hecho estético” mean?

In English it literally means "he knows about the imminence of the aesthetic fact", and I think it refers to the fact of Chac Mool being exposed in light of the individual interests based on their avarice, which leads people to selfishness and obsession with the appearance rich or interesting, as Filiberto give Chac Mool a value when he buys it but because of the avidity.

8. Describe the Chac Mool. What is he like physically? What is his personality like?

Chac Mool is the antagonist character of this story and it is described as “a precious piece of natural size”, “erect, smiley, ochre and with its big tummy”. “It is sympathetic when it wants”. It is selfish because he asks for more and more water, it is never enough for it. He is dominant, as it converted Filiberto into its slave.

9. How do you interpret the description of the “indio amarillo” in the final paragraph? What does it mean?

My interpretation about the "Indio Amarillo" is that Chac Mool transforms into a human. As I mentioned previously, I think it wanted to take revenge against the modern world, so it in a way took advantage of Filiberto's death and take a human image. And I think Fuentes refers to it as Indio Amarillo, so we can have an idea of which form could Chac Mool have taken, maybe as his origins (Mayan).

10. Is this story an allegory? What allegorical readings might be possible?

Yes, it is. During the reading, Fuentes is trying to give us an idea of how Chac Mool looks like, of what it is and what it represents. For example, we could use the previous answer, as Fuentes mentions Indio Amarillo, we can imagine the new form of Chac Mool.

11. Do you find any relationship between this story and Paz’s essays?

Yes, I do. In this story Chac Mool wants to take power, as Paz mentions in his readings.

References:

• Getty, J. P. (2012, December 10). Getty Research Library Catalog: Record View 1. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from https://archive.is/20121210073519/http://library.getty.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=642873
• Fuentes, C., (1954). Los días enmascarados. México.