from aliens to african american creatures: two examples of monsters in ecuadorian short stories by...

8/10/2019 From aliens to African American creatures: Two examples of monsters in Ecuadorian short stories by Wladimir San

1/9

From aliens to African American creatures:

Two examples of monsters in Ecuadorian short stories

Wladimir Chvez V.

When the literary critics in general talk about Latin America, they often focus

their attention on a limited number of books. This group is usually included inan ambiguous category calledMagical Realism. Therefore, writers like GarcaMrquez on the one hand, and Isabel Allende or Laura Esquivel on the other,have obtained much popularity in Europe and the United States asdistinguished representatives of a literary trend.

This has produced horrible generalizations. In fact, manytheoreticians suppose that any supernatural event in a plot written by a LatinAmerican author is Magical Realism without doubt. They forget that therealready exist better ways to approach a novel or a story with certainsupernatural traits.

There are many monsters in the Literature of Latin America. It ispossible to find some of them in the pre-Columbian oral traditions or in thelegends during the Spanish domination or even in the Literature for children

and teenagers. And monsters also exist in the plots of the ContemporaryLiterature for adults.

In Ecuador there is a pioneering book: Profundo en la galaxia(1994)by Santiago Pez. In spite of the fact that it got excellent reviews, the book isalmost unknown abroad. Monsters of different types appear in Pezs stories,which are a strange mix between the science of the West and the Andeantradition. I am going to focus on one specific plot: Yachak.

Another text that deserves special attention is La entundada (1971),by the Ecuadorian Adalberto Ortiz. Maybe for the first time in EcuadorianContemporary Literature it is possible to find a monster from the afro-Ecuadorian oral tradition. It is a unique creature: it seems to generate a bizarre

psychological fear. At the same time, it seems to incarnate prejudices andignorance. And finally, I would like to show that in the Andean countries it is

possible to write Fantastic Literature that it is not necessarilyMagical Realism.

1. Magical Realism and Fantastic Literature

There is an abundant bibliography concerning Magical Realism since 1960:Pietri (his opinion was published in 1948), Carpentier (1949), Flores (1955),Irby (1957), Donahue (1966), Franco (1969), Valbuena Briones (1969),


2/9

2 From aliens to African American creatures

_______________________________________________________________

Barroso VIII (1977), etc. But what is authentically the Magical Realism? Theresponse is difficult. Juan Barroso VIII is sure that the term Magical Realismhas been used in an indiscriminated way.1Enrique Anderson Imbert agrees:What surprises is that while the historians of Art do not use it [the concept ofMagical Realism] anymore, historians of Literature exaggerate its use.2

Many specialists announce that the first one who used and

consolidated the concept with his works was Garca Mrquez. Others point tothe Mexican Elena Garro, the Ecuadorian author Jos de la Cuadra or even tothe Chilean Maria Luisa Bombal (from the beginning of the XX century).

There is a diversity of opinions and delimitation becomes imperious.For the present study we use the categories proposed by Enrique AndersonImbert in the book The Magical Realism and other essays(1976). At the sametime, Introduccin a la Literatura Fantstica(1972), by Tzvetan Todorov, isextremely helpful for an approach to the area of Fantastic Literature.

2. Yachak, a story of monsters in continual mutation.

The term yachak designates a wise person of the Andes. A yachakconsultsnature, sees partially the future, diagnoses with the help of cuyes(guinea pigs)and cure illnesses. Nowadays he is still an essential authority inside the

Andean communities. There is an equivalent category: the shaman. The onlydifference is that the shaman is the wizard of the jungle.

In this short story, the old yachak Jos Snchez wakes up one nightbecause he feels a sickness in Pachamama (the Mother Earth). The natureshows strange symptoms. His son, Lluntu, is a beginner of yachak and sleepsin the same hut. Both decide to go to the waterfall of Peguche to ask the stonesfor advice.

A parallel story is narrated: a space ship out of control looks for aplanet to land. The monsters (the crew members of the ship) are the TSKZZ,from the planet of Orkyyun:

[] they were creatures in continual mutation. The voice wasgoing out from the feet when his brain was located in one of

his eight tubular extremities, or from the green bulbous body,when his mind was resting in it.3

The inhabitants of the planet of Orkyyun are owners of an advancedtechnology. Their space ships, for example, are a mixture of alive creaturesand mechanical gadgets. Everything is accuracy and harmony on their planet.


3/9

Wladimir Chvez 3

_______________________________________________________________

But there is something that produces a complete chaos in the society: the fear.When the inhabitants of Orkyyun are dominated by fear, everything is lost.

In case of this story, the space ship is looking for a place to land.There is fear in its occupants and fear in the own ship. In fact, when the wordfearis mentioned in the story, it appears in capital letters. The inhabitants ofthe planet of Orkyyun know that they are going to die.

Meanwhile, the old Jos Snchez starts his ritual and asks for theillness of Pachamama. The nature answers with signs. Jos Snchez orders hisson to go to Quebrada Negra (Black Gorge) and obtain a shining stone. Lluntu,the son, prefers not to go because at night there is a mal aire(a spirit that stealsthe energy until the victim dies) who lives in Quebrada Negra. After theinsistence of the father, Lluntu leaves.

The old yachak, close to the waterfall of Peguche, protects his son,who finally obtains the stone and purifies it blowing spirit (alcohol) over it.Lluntu manages to return with the brilliant stone to his father.

Theyachak examines the stone and finds tiny creatures in its interior:they are the inhabitants of Orkyyun. The space ship, which has the size of astone, has landed on the ground in Quebrada Negra. The crew and the ship arenearly dead and only the pilot has not fainted yet.

-You have made my world ill - said the yachak - you havemade my son ill.-Forgive us -answered the pilot, almost fainted in the room ofthe control panel of the ship we are not used to damage other

beings, but we are sick now. We have infected your world.4

Curiously, theyachakhas considered the aliens as if they were spirits and hasasked them if they are from the world of heaven (angels) or from the interiorworld (demons). The pilot of the ship understands part of the question andanswers that they come from the sky, in a way. Nevertheless, because theintruders bring illness, the yachakdecides to call them demons. The yachakorder them not to damage with their illness Pachamamaand they are requiredto leave, but the pilot answers that this is impossible, that they are terribly sick:

- Who are you? - asked theyachak.- A traveler - answered the demon-. And you?- Ayachak, a healer.- Heal me.5


4/9


_______________________________________________________________

It is here that the plot gets into a critical point. A very common reason to visita yachakand healers in the Andean countries is to ask for a cure to mal delespanto(the disease of panic). It is an illness with its own symptoms: fever,diarrhea, vomits According to popular beliefs, the illness can be caused bymany factors: a furious dog that tries to attack, some unfortunate news, a fall...The patient remains terrified after any of these experiences. In fact, he/she hasthe disorder of the terror. A yachak treats the illness with prayers, secretwords, and blowing alcohol over the infected person. Some healers use also ared tie or a strip to diagnose the illness.

The yachak Jos Snchez notices that the demon (the alien) and hiscompanions have mal del espanto. He realizes the importance of his task andexecutes the ritual on the aliens as if they were human beings, with prayers inQuechuan (he begs the indigenous gods and the Christian God and saints) andfinishes by giving a shower of spirit over his patients. At the end of the rite,the small ship has recovered its vitality, its occupants are healthy again, andtogether they immediately leave the Earth.

So the first monster we meet comes from the alien's class. We havesaid that the monsters of Orkyyun are in continual mutation and that theirvoices can come out of any part of their body. At the same time, the historyitself shows many examples of mutation, change and adjustment. When the

yachakbegins his ritual and ask Pachamamafor its illness, what does he useduring the ceremony? First, there are elements linked to the nature: obsidians,quartzes, rocks of rivers, etc. Second, there are westernelements: a bayonetfrom the Independence War against Spain (beginnings of the XIX century),saints stamps, crucifixes, photographies, among others There are elements oftwo different ways of thinking. They are a miscellany that complements itself

perfectly in the mind of the yachak. It is a sample of crossbreed, and theyachakprays both to the Christian God and to the deities of his forefathers.

It seems to be impossible to find examples of pure characters orsituations in the story. In the same way as the yachak is a product of acrossbreeding, the aliens show a complex facet of adjustment. Their machinesare not pure metal. The people of Orkkyun, who come from such an advanced

planet, still allow themselves to be dominated by a feeling as basic as fear.

Besides, there is a paradox: the monsters with the tubular extremitiesdo not provoke fear. It is strange. Maybe because the yachakknows that hiswork potentially will lead him to speak with demons. Or maybe for the tinysize of the TSKZZ. There is also the explanation of the size: if the monster is

bigger, the fear increases too. In any case, these monsters are not too originalaliens (in other plots the form of aliens has been characterized as a disparatemass), though they are terribly attractive for their roll in the story.


5/9

Wladimir Chvez 5

_______________________________________________________________

Because the inhabitants of Orkkyun are monsters, they shouldprovoke a compulsory consequence: the appearance of the fear. The monstersand fear are an entity in the plots. But in contrast to the traditional stories, inthis one the monsters (tiny and in the process of dying) are also under theeffects of the terror.

The fear is the sensation which all the characters have to fightagainst: Jos Snchez, and the fear of the spirits at the waterfall of Peguche;his son Lluntu, and the fear of mal aire; the wife of Lluntu, who can notunderstand what is going on; and the extraterrestrials, of course. In the plot thefear is the axis, but dominates the monsters in addition. The monsters bring theterror, but at the same time they experience it.

The confusion between aliens and demons becomes remarkable too.For the yachak Jos Snchez, the word extraterrestrial does not meananything. He defines the inhabitants of the planet Orkkyun by way ofelimination: the intruders neither are humans, nor animals, plants, nor part ofthe tangible nature. So they are spirits. But since they bring illness, they cannot

be good spirits. They are demons. This sort of logic works perfectly.At the same time, all that is strange could become a monster: an alien,

a malignant spirit, a deformed face... We are scared of abnormality. Nobodyspeaks about the normal things, which are tacit. It is the rupture of normality

that also attracts us. This becomes evident inLa entundada.

3 La entundada

The story has a witness-narrator. It is a child (his name does not appear in theplot) who lives with a female cousin (just a few years older), his uncle and hismother. The two children play together. One day, Numancia (the femalecousin), who is becoming a teenager, is kidnapped by the Tunda. But, what isa Tunda? The narrator tries to explain us:

The Tundais an ignominious beast The Tundais a ghost...The Tunda is the Patica... The Tunda is the one with onefoot The Tundais the phantasm The Tunda is the Cuco

The Tundais the soul in the sorrow of a widow The Tundais smutty No one really knows No one knows.6

Numancia has been kidnapped by a monster who does not have a definiteform. Immediately, a group is organized to go to the jungle and rescue the girl.They take dogs, provisions, weapons and clothes. The expedition walks closeto the river. Nobody has seen either the Tundaor Numancia. The black women


6/9


_______________________________________________________________

listen terrified to the details of the new apparition of the Tundaand beg theirown children for prudence and care.

More people join in the crusade, but although they check caves andtravel a lot of time through the forest, they do not find any track. A fewmonths later, when the search has stopped, Numancia arrives suddenly at thefamily house. It is night time. The cousin and his mother are sleeping in aroom next to the room of Numancias father. Numancia embraces her aunt.The narrator notices that the stomach of his cousin was big, sure because shewas eating shrimps and small fishes7, thought the child.

Alerted by a sound, the father of Numancia appears. He looks into theeyes of his daughter with hardness. This behavior shocks the little narrator.

- Where have you been? - The father asked shortly.She did not answer, but she lowered the head.

No one was glad to see Numancia again [] I embraced herwith happiness and asked:- Is it true that the Tundatook you?She complied with her head.- Did it harm you?She denied with her head

His father continued looking at her fiercely and nastily []He shouted her with terrible voice:-You are like your mother! Go back to your disgustingTunda!8

The story finishes when Numancia leaves the house of her father crying.

The Tundais a mythical being from the African Ecuadorian culture.In addition to different indigenous groups, Ecuador has also a community of a

black population. They are descendants of slaves, who came to the countryduring the Spanish domination. Black people preserve their customs, music,dances and African traditions, but with certain changes. The Tunda, forexample, seems to come from a tradition of the Bantu tribe (a tribe in Africa)and of a mythical personage of this culture: the quimbungo. The goddess

Oshun is also mentioned inLa entundada.In Esmeraldas, the province in Ecuador where most of the blackpeople live, everyone has heard about the Tunda. It is said that the Tundacantake any form that it likes and keep its victims in the jungle. It seems also thatthe Tunda prefers to adopt the appearance of a woman. It is possible torecognize the monster because one of its feet is very small and the other one isa paw of stick in the shape of a cross. When a woman is kidnapped, she can


7/9

Wladimir Chvez 7

_______________________________________________________________

become a concubine of the monster. Some says that the Tunda feeds itshostages with shrimps (the witness-narrator of the story supposes it).

Sometimes the kidnapped can flee from the jungle and return tohis/her house. Then he/she becomes entundado (expression used by theAfrican Ecuadorian; it means the person is under bewitchery of the Tunda:he/she returns stupefied, confused forever).

The first contrast we find is the monstrosity opposed to theinnocence. There are many elements related to monsters and theirconsequences: the Tunda, the fear of the unknown, the fear of the loss of adear person, the endless walk through a place full of dangers like the jungle,the mentions to the Patica(the devil), the Cuco(a sort of monster), etc.

But the elements related to innocence are also important. Numancia isa girl who plays with her cousin until she was not interested anymore in ourgames and that made me very sad.9 She is involved into a transformation

process along the plot. Step by step she becomes a beautiful teenager.Numancia was illuminated by a pretty and rare color of toffee and she wasalready tall enough.10 Almost at the end the child says that [she] had grownup and in her face had a new, unknown and shimmering beauty.11

Numancia surpassed the childhood and forgot the innocence as well.But what happens to Numancia does not happen to her little cousin. The

narrator of the history is full of tenderness and innocence. He imagines himselftalking to the owls, to the parrots, to the plants, until the adults admonish: -Mad boy - they said to me - the plants do not talk.12

What happens at the end? Why has Numancia to leave the house?When she returns she has an inflated stomach (the narrator supposes it is

because the shrimps that the Tundaforced her to eat). But there is a process inwhich Numancia is not a child anymore. Maybe Numancia is pregnant now.

One possibility is that she has been a concubine of the monster. But Ihave not found anything in literature saying that a concubine of the Tundacould become pregnant. On the other hand, she is not entundada(stupefied bythe charm of the Tunda). It is true that she does not answer any question (she

just moves the head) but it seems that the shame is the cause of her silence(once she even lowers her head, in a very explicit gesture). She insists to her

cousin on the version of the Tunda, because he cannot understand the world ofadults. Anyway, she says in addition that the monster did not treat her badly.If it did not treat her badly, and Numancia is not entundada, we are

not talking about a monster. Numancia went away home with a lover. Thefather realizes of that as soon as he sees her. And he can not support that shedisrespected the paternal authority.


8/9


_______________________________________________________________

We know that there are elements of the oral tradition that support thestatus quo, to consolidate the power of the authority. In fact, in many parts ofEcuador there are some beliefs: to disobey a parent is punished by supernaturalforces with a violent death. The children are threatened with the Cuco, amonster that is going to appear in front of the disobedient kid who did not eatthe soup, etc.

In this case, the Tunda brings the monster of the prejudices.Numancia has left her house without saying anything to anyone, she had alover and now is pregnant. She has suffered, she needs help, but Numanciadoes not have the right to return home. She is a shame for her father and forthe adults. In fact, the monsters are created by the very adults, a world inopposition to the one of the narrator, crowded with innocence: No one wasglad to see Numancia again. And this situation disturbed me in excess. I wasfilled with indignation because of the indifference of adults.13

1.3 Conclusions

The sensation of fear goes inevitably with the monsters, like the sensualitymight accompany the image of the sirens in classic literature. Neverthelessthere is another perspective in Yachak. In addition, the story has two basic

elements: the technology and the ancestral knowledge. At first sight theywould be distanced by the basic opposition of science vs. superstition, but inthe plot they coexist in harmony. Santiago Pez writes about extraterrestrialsand computers, at the same time as mal aireand mal del espanto. Is this shortstory an example of Magical Realism? No. It is a Fantastic-Marvelous story: it

begins like a fantastic story, but at the end becomes a supernatural plot.With the argument of a monster that kidnaps a young woman, La

entundadahas some virtuous elements. One is the narrator: the story is told bya child, permeable to receive fantastic stories and unable to understand thecruel world of adulthood. And as a secondary effect, it helps us to understandthe African Ecuadorian culture, its credence, and the prejudices of the entiresociety (not only the black community).

Is La entundadaa story of Magical Realism? Some notions link the

Magical Realism to the mythology of indigenous groups. But The Tundais notrelated to Indians, it is related to the black community (even if the Indiansmight have equivalent creatures). And the story does not have magicalexplanation. It seems to be nearer to the category identified by Todorov asFantastic-Uncanny: the events seem supernatural in the beginning (even theadults believe in the Tunda) but finally they have a rational explanation.


9/9

Wladimir Chvez 9

_______________________________________________________________

Notes1. Barroso VIII, 1977. 9. All translations are mine.2. Anderson Imbert, 1976, 8.3. Pez, 1994, 10.4. Ibid., 14-15.5. Ibid., 15.

6. Ortiz, 1995, 1197. Ibid., 205.8. Ibid., 205-205.9. Ibid., 20010. Ibid., 199.11. Ibid., 205.12. Ibid., 204.13. Ibid., 205.

References

Anderson Imbert, Enrique. (1976), El realismo mgico y otros ensayos.Caracas: Monte vila Editores.

Barroso VIII, J. (1977),Realismo mgico y lo real maravilloso en El Reinode este mundo y El siglo de las luces. Miami: Ediciones Universal.

Flores, A. (1985), El realismo mgico en el cuento hispanoamericano.Mxico: Premia (la red de Jons).

Naranjo, M. (1996),La cultura popular en el Ecuador, Tomo IV. Cuenca:Centro Interamericano de Artesanas y Artes Populares. Quoted in Edufuturo,Cosmovisin, personajes mticos. 2004. (6 April 2004).

Ortiz, A. (1995), `La entundada`, in: E. Viteri (ed.) Antologa bsica delcuento ecuatoriano. Quito: Sistema Nacional de Bibliotecas. 199-207.

Pez, S. (1994), Profundo en la galaxia. Quito: Abrapalabra Editores.

Tzvetan, T. (1972), Introduccin a la literatura fantstica. Buenos Aires:Editorial tiempo contemporneo.
http://www.edufuturo.com/educacion.php?c=199http://www.edufuturo.com/educacion.php?c=199

from aliens to african american creatures: two examples of monsters in ecuadorian short stories by...

Documents