Chicano Identity:

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Chicano Identity:

Genre, Myth, and Folklore in Rudolfo A. Anaya’s Novels.

By

Joey Teussink 1614010

Masterscriptie Engelse Taal en Cultuur, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Supervisor: Dr. I. Visser

Date: 1 July 2011

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fundamental nature of the Chicano(a) experience. After earning his Master of Arts degree in 1968, Anaya became ‘professor emeritus of English at the university of New Mexico’ (Frazier) where he began teaching creative writing courses in 1974, before retiring in 1993. During –and after- this period he has published multiple novels, essays, poems, plays, and short stories which positioned him alongside prominent authors in the field of Chicano literature such as José Antonio Villareal, Tomás Rivera, Rolando Hinojosa, and Ana Castillo. His first and most eminent novel entitled Bless Me, Ultima, which has formed ‘the vanguard of modern Chicano prose’ (Márquez 33), is considered to be one of the most groundbreaking novels amongst Chicano(a) literature to date and has received the well-known Premio Quinto Sol National Chicano Literature Award. In addition, alongside his other award-winning novels Tortuga, Heart of Aztlán, and Alburquerque, this renowned novel has earned Anaya ‘laudatory epithets as “Godfather and guru of Chicano literature,” and “one of the founding fathers of Chicano literature”’ (Dick and Sirias ix). Ever since, Anaya has received numerous other awards ‘for [his] exceptional contribution to contemporary American literature [and] for bringing national recognition to the traditions of the Chicano people’ (Frazier). This illustrates Anaya’s significant position within the literary field where he promotes and raises the

awareness of the diverse cultural heritage of Latino(a) writers and their importance for literary study. Besides functioning as an important and influential writer, shaping part of the

‘American culture and thoughts’ (Dick and Sirias xiii), Anaya likewise serves as an

inspiration for young Chicano(a) writers today since his ‘persistence and talent have helped open the doors for a younger generation of Latino and Latina writers’ (Dick and Sirias xiii).

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bigotry”’(Dick and Sirias xii). As yet, Anaya remains one of the most acclaimed and universal authors in this field of literature, and according to Antonio Márquez, his ‘work is at the

vanguard that promises to liberate Chicano literature from the confines of “ethnic” or “regionalist” literature’ (Márquez 33).

Chicano(a) literature is a comparatively recent development in the field of literature and has only recently been acknowledged as a significant and worthwhile section of American literature.1 Nevertheless, as Rolando Hinojosa states in his essay “Mexican-American

Literature: Toward an Identification”, ‘there is a long literary tradition behind what is produced today’ (10). These traditions have shaped and developed into what currently is named Chicano(a) literature. Moreover, Chicano(a) literature has several intricate and diverse facets and ‘within its complexity are contained distinct strata and orientations’ (Rivera 22). Its main characteristic, fundamental for this body of literature, is that it deals with particular themes and issues related to Chicano(a) life and experience. Anaya’s works contain and revolve around these particular elements and, consequently, Anaya is considered a Chicano author. In Chicano Literature, Charles M. Tatum emphasises the importance of this branch of literature to contain a theme ‘that is an outcry against the oppression of the rural farmworker [sic] and urban barrio-dweller’ (preface). Furthermore, an additionally prevalent theme in these works is the life of the Chicano(a) individual in his/her homeland: The United States. Moreover, the Chicano’s cultural heritage and history are often inextricably intertwined with the novel’s narrative. Chicano author Tomás Rivera expands on this aspect of Chicano literature and states that ‘Chicano writers strive for … capturing a fast disappearing past’ and that this literature ‘conserv[es] past experiences … through articulation’(22). Additional elements that are constantly employed in Chicano literature, according to Rivera, are the recurring themes of ‘La Casa, el barrio, and la lucha’ (22).2 Moreover, after 1959 rapid changes appeared in the development of Chicano literature, for although authors ‘continue to reflect their socio-historical circumstances’ (Tatum, Chicano Literature 102) in contemporary Chicano literature:

they now do so with greater emphasis on fictional characters with individual destinies, not just flat sociological creations. Against a backdrop of Chicano

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The form Chicana is the female form of the word Chicano, used for female writers/critics belonging to this group. Thus, literature written by Chicana authors is often referred to as Chicana literature. Hence, the frequently used form Chicano(a). In the subsequent chapters, the term Chicano will be employed mostly.

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La casa means “the household” and ‘evokes a constant refuge…[and] it contains the father, the mother, and the child’ (Rivera 22-23).

El barrio means “neighbourhood” and ‘evokes a constant element in the lives of the Chicanos’ (26).

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traditions and institutions in conflict with an oppressive Anglo society, novelists depict with increasing artistic sensitivity and psychological dimensionality their characters’ dilemmas and choices. (102)

Themes and motifs from the Hispanic Mexican past and traditions also play a major role in Chicano(a) literature, for novelist often return to ‘pre-Hispanic myths and symbols’ (Pina 40), legends, and folklore to connect to their cultural roots. These elements are also predominantly present in the works of Anaya. Another key element in the works of Chicano authors, and also in Anaya’s writings of the more recent past, is the political aspect that ‘the literary expression of the Mexican people … became- at least in principle- a literature of resistance to Anglo cultural imperialism’ (Grice et al. 198).

As previously mentioned, myths, legends, and folklore constitute an important and integral part of Chicano culture and its productions. These stories are not merely significant and present in the literature sprung from this particular culture, but the impact of folklore and mythology is likewise extremely noteworthy in other areas connected to Chicano life and culture, for example in relation to the visual arts, theatre, politics, and films. In all these areas, mythology and folklore serve as powerful tools of inspiration. In the area of politics, for instance, the Chicano movement –‘a cultural as well as a political movement, helping to construct new, trans-national cultural identities and fueling [sic] a renaissance in politically charged visual, literary, and performance art’ (Castañeda)– used mythology and folklore of the indigenous past as instruments to reconnect people with their Mexican Indian heritage and, as María Herrera-Sobek notes in her book Chicano Folklore: A Handbook, ‘to instil pride in the Mexican American population’ (208). Similarly, it served as a powerful source to adjust the Mexican identity that was ‘devalued and marginalized’ (207) in the past as

proclaimed by the ‘Anglo-American hegemonic society’ (208), to something to be proud of. The myths and legends of the Mesoamerican indigenous residents –especially the Mayas and Aztecs– were perceived as powerful narratives ‘for the education and consciousness-raising of the Chicano people’ (208). Examples of myths and mythic figures that are frequently referred to are the myths of Aztlán, Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, and The Virgin of Guadalupe ‘as a symbol of justice’ (214). What should be noted, however, is that the Chicano(a)s did not ‘slavishly copy rescued images from the past but creatively transformed them to meet the needs of the new generation’(214). This point is also emphasised by Anaya when discussing his own personal works. His works were similarly inspired by mythology and folklore of the Mexican-American culture and he draws heavily on elements and symbols from it to

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the Roman Catholic faith. In an interview published by Dick and Sirias entitled Myth and the

Writer: A Conversation with Rudolfo Anaya, Anaya states that ‘man is a myth-making animal’ and that he sees himself ‘more in the process of re-creation’ (39). Anaya adds that he is not concerned with being truthful, but that he adapts the myths and legends to fit his stories without losing their underlying significance. All Anaya’s works are suffused with layers of myth and folklore because for him ‘myth is the truth in the heart’ (100) and this affects people when reading. According to Anaya, myths should not be considered static and ancient with no relevance to modern society, for they are ‘working in us even now because those same

archetypes that were discovered by the ancient people are in us today’(85). Consequently, as ‘in the community's rich storytelling tradition’, Anaya’s work fuses legend and history ‘together to create stories filled with mystery and revelation’ (Gale).

In this dissertation I will examine three novels written by Rudolfo Alonso Anaya with regards to his use of Native-Mesoamerican or New Mexican mythology and folktales. The central question of this dissertation is how Anaya uses themes and elements from these stories and traditions and the manner in which he connects these to the narrative’s plot and to the different genres he employs in these three novels. The three novels under discussion are 1)

Rio Grande Fall: a detective novel, 2) Jalamanta: A Message from the Dessert: a

philosophical novel, and 3) Serafina’s Stories: a didactic/historical novel. I have chosen these works as primary texts for this dissertation because even though they are completely different from one another in terms of genre, all three novels employ a wide variety of indigenous myths and folklore which Anaya connects to the narratives and the genres. This causes them to be incredibly interesting for comparison. Additionally, these novels have not been studied extensively in the past, for most research conducted on Anaya’s work and Chicano literature have focused primarily on Anaya’s widely appreciated and groundbreaking novels Bless Me,

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to the genre of this novel.3 Henceforth, the following chapter will examine Anaya’s novel

Jalamanta: Message of the Dessert and will concentrate on mythical elements concerning the images of light and transformation, focussing also on the theme of identity and the genre of the philosophical novel. Finally, the last chapter will revolve around the third novel Serafina’s

Stories, and will focus on the themes of identity and assimilation and the usage of folktales and myths. Each chapter will begin by focussing on elements taken from mythology and folklore and how they are presented in the novel. The last part of each chapter will focus on genre and the theme of identity. In my concluding chapter, by means of the analyses of the stories regarding the aspects discussed, I conclude in which way Anaya’s work uses

mythology and folktales as an integral part of his narratives and how he connects these to the different genres of his novels.

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Chapter 1 - Background

Several different terms are currently used in identifying Americans born from Mexican descent, and they all connote different political, ideological, or sociological notions.

Accordingly, selecting a label for this particular group of people is challenging because the multiple concepts that these names connote have to be taken into account. Most Americans from Mexican descent are predominantly called mestizos, signifying that they are of mixed European and native American, or Indian American, descent. Terms most frequently employed in recent articles and books when referring to this community and literature developed by/or concerning them are: Chicano(-a)s, Mexicans (Mexicano in Spanish),

Latino(-a)s, Latin-Americans, Hispanics, Mexican-Americans, and Spanish-Americans. The difficulty in labelling becomes apparent with, for instance, the term Hispanics. This label, frequently used to refer to the entire Spanish-speaking community in the United States, is mainly criticised because scholars ‘feel that it stresses the European legacy to the complete exclusion of indigenous roots’ (Gonzales 7). The term Mexican (or Mexicano), on the other hand, is often preferred by Latinos themselves, as became evident after a large scale study in 1989-1990 among the Latino public conducted by Rudolfo de la Garca et al.4 This study, named the “Latino National Political Survey” (LNPS), offers ‘empirical evidence about how Latinos see themselves’ (Gonzales 7). This is the most recent and elaborate study among Latinos in America on how they perceive themselves in an Age where multiple labels that refer to this ethnic community are in existence. Consequently, academic scholars increasingly have a tendency to employ this term when discussing the Latino community in America and abandon most of the other terms previously mentioned.

In this dissertation I will employ the term Chicano to refer to this community and the novels that I am going to discuss in the subsequent chapters respectively. Despite the

derogatory usage of the term Chicano in the past to refer to lower-class immigrants of Mexican descent, the term began to acquire a more positive connotation during the 1960s when activists ´began using the term proudly to identify themselves with their Mexican Indian ancestry’ (Tatum, Chicano Literature preface). Moreover, youngsters nowadays increasingly employ this term to refer to themselves as ‘Mexican-American[s] with a non-Anglo image of himself’(Gonzales 194). Additionally, established Chicano(a) critics and authors prefer this term as well. Famous political analyst and columnist Luis Davila claims that ‘Chicano literature is that which is written by Americans of Mexican descent “regardless of what they

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might prefer to call themselves”’(qtd. in Hinojosa 9). Likewise, Anaya states in an interview with Paul Vassallo that the word Chicano(a) appears to classify an image that ‘has to do with…understanding ourselves … as people who share in the Native American origin and the Native American heritage’, adding that ‘the Chicano Movement did not only prevent total assimilation into the cultural mainstream but attacked, and subsequently changed, the peripheral position Chicanos occupied in American society’(qtd. in Dick Xii-Xiii). What is important to note, as to why the term Chicano is preferred before the abovementioned term Mexican-American, is that not all Mexican-Americans are considered to be Chicanos, while all Chicanos are considered to be Mexican-Americans. Candida Hepworth concludes from the work of Edward Simmen that what distinguishes a ‘Chicano/a from a Mexican-American is a particular philosophical outlook’(Grice et al. 200) while expected to posses a Mexican

bloodline ‘to pass … the pruebla de sangre (test of blood)’ (Grice et al. 200).

When discussing Chicano literature, it is complicated to precisely specify its origin, for numerous discussions all introduce different dates and periods in history that could constitute the start of Chicano literature. This problem arises partially because Chicano literature has a complex history, even though it is a fairly new area of literary study among scholars, and partially because ‘even among the principal candidates themselves there is no clear consensus as to who the Chicano/a is’ (Grice et al. 191). Regarding its history, five historical stages are frequently mentioned as being significant phases in the history of Chicano literature, but Hepworth stresses that ‘Chicano(a) literature does not begin

until…after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848’ (198).5 Prior to this date Mexican Americans did not exist legally (Hinojosa 10) and Anaya states in an interview that, even though he is more interested in the writings from the 1960s onwards, he considers this Treaty ‘as a birth of the Chicano’ (Dick and Sirias 5). However, the literary traditions already existed long before this treaty, and these traditions have influenced ideas and themes present in contemporary literature. Nevertheless, according to Tatum it is from this date (1848) onward that ‘Chicano literature received (and has continued to receive) a constant cultural infusion from Mexico’ (Prose Fiction 48) and articulates a resistance against the ‘Anglo cultural imperialism’ (Grice et al. 198).

The writings in which Anaya is mainly interested, and which constitute an essential part of the more recent history of the Chicanos, were written during the political movement

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entitled the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, or El Movimiento, which strove to improve the socio-economical conditions of the Chicano population in the United States. This movement was founded in the 1960s, and was active with regards to issues concerning all aspects of Chicano life: politics, culture, education, and history. Its primary mission was for Chicano(a)s to be acknowledged as a new nation that deserved political inclusion for Mexican-Americans, and they wanted to regain their birthright and cultural bequest. Chicano expressions through art emerged, with as its primary goal the reconnection with the ancient cultural heritage that should instil feelings of pride regarding Mexican descent and ancestry. A reconnection with Chicano’s ancestral roots was established through the use of mythology and folktales that inspired the Chicano public. According to Maria Herrera-Sobek, the ‘emphasis on recapturing the Chicanos/as’ indigenous past, and Mesoamerican myths of the Aztec and the Mayas served as rallying point for the nationalist [Chicano] movement’ (22). Literature was one of these art forms that incorporated these mythological elements as a tool to reconnect Chicanos with their identity.

Anaya was part of this political movement, and accordingly his writing is imbued with imagery and symbolism taken from Mesoamerican mythology, folktales, and customs. As Keller argues,

Chicano themes revolve around a number of different loci, some of the major ones being social protest against Anglo, or more rarely, Mexican oppression, consciousness-raising of the “native” Chicano, usually a migrant worker and/or Mexican newly arrived in the United States, the recuperation of Chicano history … the creation or recreation of a Chicano mythos … the emancipation of the Chicana from both Anglo and Hispano male

dominance, and the quest for a personal identity within the bicultural Mexican-American milieu. (303)

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specific and unique; in its mythical sense, it is general and universal’ (Leal, The Problem 5). Anaya’s novels do not merely stress the Chicano heritage by using the myths of Mesoamerica and through the employment of universal themes, but they emphasise the theme of Chicano identity in a manner that captures the attention of readers across international boundaries.

Concerning its language, Chicano literature has a quite unique feature; namely that it can be written in Spanish, English, or a combination of the former two. Anaya, for instance, employs numerous Spanish words to underscore his cultural position and heritage whilst his novels are predominantly written in English. Moreover, certain Chicano(a) authors employ Náhuatl words and phrases in their texts to emphasise their cultural and historical legacy, traditions, and identity even more. Gary D. Keller states in his essay “The Literary Strategems Available to the Bilingual Chicano Writer” that ‘these Amerindian terms are essential to evoke the folkloric, Chicano themes…[and] serve as the mortar for the creation of a Chicano folklore with unique, distinguishable features’ (296). Additionally, Keller observes that ‘incorporating elements of additional languages such as Náhuatl … represents an effort to recuperate Chicano history and create or recreate a Chicano mythos based on the four essential ethnic progenitors of Chicanismo: the Indian, the Spaniard, the Mexican, and the Anglo’ (294). The Chicano heritage is complex, and by using all the elements of their

mestizos background writers strive to convey their cultural background in all its complexity. Two significant and biographical themes that recur in Anaya’s writing, and which are inextricably interwoven with elements taken from mythology and the theme of identity, are related to his Catholic education as a child and his life in rural New Mexico. Anaya’s novels continuously incorporate characters that are exiled form both these havens. Also, Anaya employs imagery associated with dreams, nature, and the unconscious world through an emphasis on folklore and mythology, and these are extremely significant elements in Chicano literature. Another feature of Anaya’s writing, according to Paul Beekman Taylor, is ‘the archetypical quest of the Chicano’ that consists of ‘a search for an ancestral blood strain hidden or lost in the confusion of geographical and genealogical displacements and diffusion’ (224). As an expression of the Chicano identity, art serves as an outlet for ‘the Hispano-mestizo minority, who for too long has struggled in the backwaters of American life’ (Testa 78), and Anaya –through the use of mythology and symbolism- revitalises ‘the cultural growth of his people and [verifies] the existence of an inner force and power in [the mestizos’] inner lives’ (Testa 78).

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denotations and connotations of the word myth compels critics to explicitly provide readers with a clear explanation of terms as myths, mythology, and folktales. According to Joseph P. Strelka in his introduction to Literary Criticism and Myth, there are at least three manners in which the concept of myth can be employed when discussing literature and literary criticism. First, the term ‘has the meaning of an often ancient concept pointing at some phenomena of nature, the origin of man, or costumes and rites of people, mostly involving the exploits of gods and heroes’ (vii). These ancient and sacred stories are frequently told in an indefinite time. The second meaning revolves around the ‘original Aristotelian meaning of plot or narrative scheme in a literary work’ (vii). The last meaning involves Roland Barthes’ third level of signification of a sign. This signification of the term myth is closely correlated with the dominant ideologies of a certain culture and ‘stands for a statement or concept with which many people agree or pretend to agree, although it does not hold true’ (viii). An example of this is the myth of Hollywood: a place where dreams supposedly all come true. In this dissertation the focus will be on the first point mentioned, specifically the mythological stories that feature gods and heroes, particularly in relation to Mesoamerican mythology. By investigating Anaya’s work from this angle, insight as to how he relates his cultural legacy and shapes it to underscore the theme of identity becomes apparent.

Anthropological, psychological, sociological, and structural analysis of myths are often intertwined to provide a deeper insight to mythological stories, their functions, worth, and structures. By studying Anaya’s novels in relation to cultural/anthropological values and ideas, and Mesoamerican myths and beliefs on which Chicano culture is based, a more profound understanding of Anaya’s work will emerge. According to Malinowski, these mythical stories are considered to be sacred and exist not merely for entertainment, ‘but are to the natives a statement of a primeval, greater and more relevant reality, by which the present life, fates and activities of mankind are determined, the knowledge of which supplies man with the motive for ritual and moral actions, as well as with indications how to perform them’ (qt. in Vickery 140). Lillian Feder stresses that myths should be perceived as ‘both historical and perennial structures’ which communicate ‘in symbolic form unconscious mental

processes that characterize the stages of human … development in which they were created’ (52). Feder continuous by stating that:

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involvement of heroes with gods and goddesses. In violating social prohibitions through incest, parricide , infanticide, and cannibalism, mythical figures symbolically express the efforts of human beings to test and come to terms with their own nature and the conditions of human life. (52)

However, there is a difference between the sacred, mythological stories as mentioned above, and folktales. Folktales are perceived differently from the abovementioned mythological stories in that they are ‘told only for fun, without any reference to truth’ (Vickery 140). As with mythological stories about ancient gods and heroes, folktales occur in periods of time of an indefinite nature. These stories always take place in ‘an undefined geographic area’ (Herrera-Sobek 26) and the protagonists are never gods or goddesses, but human beings, supernatural creatures like fairies and trolls, and/or animals. Folktales do not hold any sacred value and often, but not always, present moral values or warnings, whilst mythological stories are considered sacred and part of a specific history. Herrera-Sobek explains that ‘people are aware that these types of tales (folktales) are derived from the imagination as opposed to the corpus of myths belonging to a group of people who may believe them to be sacred stories which are true’ (26). In Rudolfo Anaya’s novels a clear distinction between folktales and mythology is present, but both are used to underscore identity-related questions or journeys.

Anaya is heavily influenced by the sacred mythological stories and folktales that originated from Mesoamerican cultures, and he incorporates its structures, themes, and wisdom in his contemporary novels. The symbols and imagery he employs in his novels are connected to, for instance, myths related to Aztlán –the mythical homeland of the Chicanos-, the Lords and Ladies of Light, the Priest-God Quetzalcoatl, the Moon Goddess Coyolxauhqui, the War God Huitzilopochtli, La Llorona, the Fifth Sun, shamanism, La Malinche, and

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mythical and the abstractly literary’ (138). In Anaya’s writing this can be observed also, for the three novels under discussion in this dissertation link mythical and folkloric elements with the time period that the narratives are positioned in, making the stories plausible for the audience. Moreover, Anaya connects the genres of the novels with aspects taken from mythology to create a credible story that makes sense to readers. Each of his novels combine important aspects from mythic and folkloric beliefs to ultimately underscore the theme of identity. As mentioned, searching for one’s identity through ancestral memories and beliefs is an important part of Chicano literature, and the subsequent chapters will show several links between Anaya’s work and Mesoamerican mythology and beliefs, the theme of identity, and the connection it holds with the different genres. The following chapter will link the search for identity of the main protagonist in Rio Grande Fall with shamanistic ideas and imagery, as they were significant in Mesoamerican cultures, and its connection with animals. Moreover, I will show how the detective genre of Rio Grande Fall is closely related to the theme of identity which is so important to Chicano authors.

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Chapter 2 – Rio Grande Fall: Shamanism and Identity

Rudolfo Anaya’s novel Rio Grande Fall, published in 1996, is a detective novel that features Sonny Baca, the main protagonist, as a private detective who attempts to uncover the

whereabouts of a murderer while trying to prevent a drug shipment from entering the town of Albuquerque, New Mexico. For this novel, Anaya employs conventional structures to create a typical detective novel. Peter Hühn mentions in his article “The Detective as Reader:

Narrativity and Reading Concepts in Detective Fiction” that ‘the arrangement of narrative elements is fundamentally the same in the majority of classical detective novels’ and these structures ‘were frequently canonized as explicit “rules”’ (453). Anaya’s follows these rules and patterns, but differs from classical detective stories in his ability to relate this genre to important elements that underscore the Chicano cultural legacy as derived from

pre-Colombian Mesoamerican cultures. In Rio Grande Fall, Sonny is introduced to the ancient tradition and practises of shamanism in an attempt to re-connect with his Chicano ancestors and beliefs. He possesses the innate ability of shamans ‘if only [he] could see within’ (89) and accept his full potential. Only when he is able to connect with his cultural Chicano roots will Sonny be capable of stopping his enemy who aims at destroying Sonny’s soul. Anaya portrays these Chicano roots using ancestral knowledge derived from myth and folklore.

Anaya employs a great variety of imagery and symbolism related to shamanistic beliefs and rituals that are anchored in the mythical and cultural heritage of pre-Colombian Mesoamerican societies. On a cultural note, shamanism has been accepted by researchers ‘as both an ancient and a universal phenomenon’ (Walter and Fridman xxii) that is still practised in various cultures around the world. Roberta H. Markman and Peter T. Markman elaborate on this in their book The Masks of the Spirit: Image and Metaphor in Mesoamerica by affirming that archaeological research in, for example, Mesoamerican history recovered evidence of ‘a strong shamanistic leadership’ (103) that was present as early as 6000 B.C. in the Tehuacán valley. Elements of these practices and beliefs are still present in Mexican customs and principles today, and constitute an important role in the writing of Anaya’s Rio

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In this novel, a feature that is extremely significant and is rooted in shamanistic

practises is the flight of the soul. Shamans are considered important religious individuals who are capable of travelling to the three different worlds of existence, namely the human, the natural, and the spiritual world. Shamans are capable of connecting these separate worlds with one another for various purposes, granting him/her a special status within a community. Three of the main characters who possess these shamanistic abilities are Sonny, Lorenza, and

Raven. They are all capable of travelling to the world ‘behind the veil of nature’ (Campbell, Masks of God 291) for different purposes. Markman and Markman explain that it was the ‘shaman’s ability to break through the normally impenetrable barriers that separate the planes of matter and spirit … bridging the gap between the mundane lives … and mysteries of the invisible world which could give those lives purpose, direction, and meaning’ (101). Lorenza serves as a teacher and helps Sonny embrace and control his innate shamanistic abilities. Lorenza, moreover, teaches the ancient shamanistic practises and values and mentions that ‘the world of nature is our world … our nature is linked to that of our ancestors, to their beliefs. The surface changes for us, but we know that beneath the surface lies the true world, the world of the spirits’ (121). Through visions and clear guidance from her, Sonny is able to enter this world of the spirits and acquire the strength necessary to locate and overcome his enemy Raven, whose strong shamanistic powers are used for the sole purpose of bringing chaos and destruction to the world. Sonny’s innate ability to visit the world of the spirits and his inner shamanistic powers are exhibited at the start of the novel when he unknowingly displays the capacity of divination, an ability inherent in most shamans: ‘[Sonny] opened his eyes … the images of his journey to the world of the spirits returned and one in particular didn’t make sense … he had seen someone falling from the sky’ (4). A few pages further we discover that someone has died falling from a hot-air balloon, affirming Sonny’s vision of someone ‘falling from the sky’ (4).

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brujo complete.6 Sonny experiences a similar transformation once he is able to connect entirely with his inner shamanistic powers after his final battle with the powerful Raven. Sonny slips into a coma after he is attacked and, while leaving his body, mentions that ‘death was in the room’ (352). Similarly to Lorenza, Sonny ‘return[s] to the world’ (356) of the living after a while, reborn.

Animals take flight!

Animal imagery plays a prominent role in Anaya’s narrative and can be linked to shamanistic beliefs and Mesoamerican mythology. Shamanistic beliefs incorporate animal spirits in their religion and the transformation of the shaman into his animal spirit is

considered to be ‘the most striking manifestation of his power’ (Markman 104). In Anaya’s novel, Sonny flies with his animal spirits the coyotes, under strict guidance of Lorenza. These spirits accompany him in his flight and reveal to him what he needs to understand:

The coyotes stood around [Sonny], east, north, west, south. Quiet sentries marking the sacred directions, and he at the center. Their energy flowed to him, filling him with lightness, exuberation [sic]. He was running, close to the ground, close to the scents of the other animals, running with the coyotes, free, flying. (129)

Shamans are required to travel from the material world into the realms of the spiritual and supernatural that are solely available to them. Here they are capable of flying with their animal spirits in their vision quests in search for the truth, future knowledge, medicinal purposes, or to harm a person. Walter and Fridman explain that ‘a shaman is an inspired prophet and healer … with the power to control the spirits, usually by incarnating them … [and] he is also likely to have the capacity to engage in mystical flight’ (xxii). In addition, Walter and Fridman stress the importance of animal imagery in shamanic beliefs by arguing that animals ‘are thought to embody human spirits’ (3). The connection with these ‘Animal people’ (7), as these spirits are usually referred to, is a partnership that was believed to be created at the beginning of time (7). According to shamanistic beliefs everyone has an animal-spirit connected to him or her personally which serves as a protector. The term

employed for these animal-spirits is nagual, a word from the Nahuatl language spoken by the Aztecs in what is now central Mexico, and is ‘embodied in an individual animal whose life is

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intimately connected with the life of the protected person’ (14). The shaman is able to

temporarily utilize the power of his animal spirit when in trance. Accordingly, the power of a shaman depends on ‘how his animal guardian spirit is categorized within the larger

worldview of his society’ (9). Animal imagery also functions as prominent and significant feature of social life in these societies, for ‘animals…consistently symbolize recurrent themes inherent in social and psychological life’ (3).

Anaya emphasises the importance of the theme of flight in this novel by creating a story that takes place during a hot-air balloon event. The entire narrative transpires during the large “Hot-Air Balloon Fiesta of Albuquerque” ‘drawing people from around the world and bringing millions of dollars into the city’s coffers’(9). These colourful balloons rising and filling ‘the air with the bright globes’ (9) serve as an implicit reference to the shaman’s ability to fly. When Sonny ascends with Madge in a balloon to draw out Raven in order to capture him, ‘a rush of freedom coursed through him’(143), a feeling similar to the sensation he feels when flying with his animal spirits in his vision quests. This element of flight also refers to the importance of bird imagery Anaya employs throughout this narrative to link with ancient cultural ideas.

One of these important bird images that is striking is that of the raven, because it has strong roots in mythology upon which Anaya bases his villain character. Here, Raven is the villain and, as a shaman, has the ability to use the power of the mythological raven, his nagual, for himself.7 Lorenza emphasises this power explicitly in the narrative by stating that ‘Raven can become a raven’ (127). The raven is considered a deceiving spirit that ‘will have you in fits of laughter while he distracts you from the fact he is tricking you into doing something for him you may not actually want to do, and which may cost you dearly’

(Fleming) and its powerful shape shifting ability is utilized ‘to aid him in deceiving others to do as he wishes’. In the narrative, Raven uses his abilities to trick women and trap them in his circle of power to capture or devour their souls to grow more powerful. Lorenza cautions Sonny not to be drawn into Raven’s circle of power, for ‘Raven uses the circle as the center of his power. But it’s a cemetery. He holds lost spirits in captivity, sucks their energy. It’s the place where he enters the world of his nagual’ (314). The raven is frequently associated with negative aspects of life, for they are often employed in myths as symbols for bad omens, ill luck, power, war, death, and destruction. In Norse mythology, for example, the God Odin has two ravens ‘Huginn (thought) and Munnin (memory)’ (Stookey 131) that serve as his

messengers that bring news from the battlefield, and are directly associated with the

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Underworld. Moreover, the raven is black, the colour of destruction and gloom, because it is regarded as a messenger of bad news. In Mesoamerican myths, the raven is perceived as a deceiving creature of paradox that can be perceived of either a hero or villain, but constantly acts on his own behalf. In this respect, the raven is likened to the coyote in mythology, for both are ‘driven by greed’ (Fleming). However, where the coyote’s greed is for carnal pleasures, the raven’s greed is for food and power. Fleming comments that the raven ‘is a creature of need, of want, of greed and gluttony, and can also demonstrate a possessive and jealous nature… seeking to sate his hunger on the dead [which] link[s] him with the

Otherworld’.

Anaya employs more bird symbolism that has important links to myths and folkloric beliefs rooted in pre-Colombian Mesoamerican cultures, and connects their traits to the main characters. Throughout the novel, Lorenza is often associated with the owl, suggesting that Lorenza’s nagual is an owl. When she assists Sonny in his final battle with Raven, Sonny observes ‘her owl eyes shining…she, too, was becoming her nagual of the spirit world’ (318). Lorenza serves as a protector and wise advisor for Sonny and helps him in his quests. This is the typical role of the owl in mythology, for ‘the owl was a protector’ (Lewis). In mythology, owls occupy a wide range of associations and functions. Similar to the raven, owls are

perceived of as messengers in the Mayan tradition. For instance, the lords of death who reign the underworld according to Mayan beliefs –‘the dark kingdom of Xibalba’ (Stookey 131) – employ owls to carry their messages to the earthly world. Moreover, Alexander Burr Hartley states in The Mythology of all races Vol. XI American (Latin) that ‘death is occasionally shown as an owl-headed deity, and is also associated with…the god of war, and with a being that is dubiously identified as a divinity of frost and of sin’ (139). However, in early Native American folkloric beliefs, the ‘owls represent wisdom and helpfulness, and have powers of prophecy’ (Lewis). Lorenza’s prophetic powers are portrayed when, previous to the actual kidnapping, she has a vision in which she ‘saw Raven take Rita’ (213).

Equally, the hummingbird is an important symbol in connection to Aztec and Mayan traditions, and myths and legends surrounding the hummingbird in ‘ancient Mesoamerican art … are manifold’ (Mazariegos 58). Anaya connects this symbol of the hummingbird in the novel to Sonny’s girlfriend, whose nagual is the hummingbird. According to Aztec culture, the hummingbird was connected to their god Huitzilopochtli –which translates to ‘Humming-Bird of the South’ (Hartley 59)8 – who represented not only the sun and light, but was

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considered to be the God of War. When Huitzilopochtli learned of a plot to kill his mother Coatlicue, the Earth Goddess, by Coyolxauhqui and her four hundred brothers,

‘Huitzilopochtli jump[ed] out of Coatlicue fully dressed for battle and kills Coyolxauhqui, dismembering her in the process’ (Herrera-Sobek 209). Additionally, Huitzilopochtli is connected to the Chicano(a)’s spiritual and ancestral homeland Aztlán. It was Huitzilopochtli who instructed the Aztecs to migrate from Aztlán to the ‘south to found their city and empire in Tenochtitlan’ (Herrera-Sobek 208), and he became the symbol and embodiment of the ‘aspirations and accomplishments of the Aztec’ population (Aztec Gods and Goddesses).

Identity and genre

The ancient religious shamanistic ideas inherent in Pre-Colombian Mesoamerican cultures are employed by Anaya in this novel to underscore the central theme of identity regained from ancestral knowledge. As mentioned above, shamanism is an ancient religion that is deeply rooted in Mexican culture and the knowledge accompanying it constitutes a direct link with their cultural identity. Paul Beekman Taylor notes that ‘the archetypical quest of the Chicano…is a search for [this] ancestral blood strain [which is] hidden or lost in the confusion of geographical and genealogical displacements and diffusion’ (224). These ‘displacements and diffusions’ resulting in the lost connection with ancestral knowledge is to a certain extent due to the assimilation process undergone by the people to assimilate to the Anglophone Americans, who considered themselves superior to the Chicano population formerly. Anaya, however, uses the shamanistic religion and beliefs to unite the main

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prays to the saints’ (3), while observing a crucifix, a rosary, and statues of the saints stalled at Lorenza’s altar.

Raising the awareness of a personal or cultural legacy, moreover, acts as a device in connecting with one’s cultural and/or personal identity. Taylor suggest this as well by stating that ‘social identity can be defined as the categorical product of the cognitive awareness’ (185). Shamans are not only aware of the world around them, but realise that everything is connected and that deities drawn upon from their indigenous history ‘come to share a

common identity’ (Walter and Fridman 112), which is innate. To access this innate ancestral knowledge and communicating with his animal spirits that are part of his personal and cultural identity, Sonny starts to sing a song and remarks that ‘the words just came to me’ (37). The words flow from him effortlessly because they come from an inner identity that is still connected with ancestral beliefs inherent within. Another manner in which Anaya connects his ancestral mythological beliefs with this story is through the description of the landscape, linked to shamanistic principles. Not only humans and animals are related to shamanism and spirits, for Campbell comments that ‘the shaman need not appear as a human being’ but can likewise be a natural force. Markman and Markman continue on this note stating that ‘All phenomena in the world of nature are [also] animated by a spiritual essence’ (101). In Anaya’s novel this cultural beliefs of the ancestors are presented in the description of the Rio Grande river. Anaya’s links the river with the image of the snake. In a cultural sense this parallel is significant because the snake has many connotations related to Aztec mythology. One of the most important Gods in their religion was Quetzalcoatl who was often called the “plumed serpent”. He is described by Rafaela G. Castro in Chicano Folklore as the deity of creation for the earth and its people; as a priest and teacher who brought food, art, peace to the world; and as protector of mankind from Tlaltecuhtli (193): ‘the primordial monster whose rapacious appetite for flesh threatens the creation’ (Stookey 215).9

The underlying theme of recapturing ancestral beliefs and (re)establishing the

connection with the character’s personal and/or cultural identity is presented by Anaya within the genre of a detective or mystery novel. Hühn indicates that ‘the plot of the classical

detective novel comprises two basically separate stories’: the crime and the investigation of it (452). In Anaya’s novel the crime is first presented by the main murder that sets the story in motion, and later by the kidnapping of Sonny’s girlfriend Rita with whom the readers became acquainted during the story. However, these are not the only crime elements presented in the novel, for there is also a secondary crime element in the novel, namely the drug shipment that

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Sonny needs to prevent from entering the country. Accordingly, there are two different crime elements present in this book, and both these crime “stories” have a different investigation story. Locating the drug shipment and preventing it from entering the city is one part of the book, which is merged with typical conventions used in most detective novels as explained by Hühn, like uncovering the truth by means of clues and the suspense of not knowing who is responsible.10

However, the second investigation story revolves around Raven and is significant for the discussion with regards to identity. The plot of this story is not simply needed to complete Sonny’s investigation of the more conventionalized story that involves locating the drug shipment mentioned above, but it is an essential part to achieve Anaya’s goal to convey important elements of Chicano culture by interweaving it with a spiritual quest for identity. To accomplish his primary goal (stopping Raven), Sonny first needs to be educated on his ancestors and their beliefs in order to reconnect with his cultural identity. Only then will he be able to find and stop Raven, for Raven is completely in touch with his inner shamanistic powers and that of his nagual. Through the spiritual quests, Sonny is able to establish a deeper connection with his ancestral roots which allows him to use his animal spirit the coyote, vital to fight Raven. Once Sonny understands his strong inner bond with his ancestors he is able to overcome Raven. It is not until this part of the story is resolved that Sonny is able to locate the drug shipment and solve the conventionalised crime presented in this book. So, while this story contains clear conventionalized characteristics belonging to the genre of the detective, an additional plot is provided to link this genre to Anaya’s heritage of indigenous

Mesoamerican beliefs to underscore the cultural identity of the Chicano population.

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Chapter 3 – Jalamanta, Message From The Desert: Light and Identity

The second novel under discussion in this dissertation is Anaya’s novella Jalamanta, A

Message From The Desert, published in 1996. This philosophical book presents truth-seeking questions concerning religion, love, and –most importantly- the nature of the soul. Offering fundamental and religious views regarding the nature of life, this book is inextricably tangled with mythological views and elements, for the line separating religion and mythology is an extremely thin one. Moncure D. Conway, for instance, elaborates on this by stating in his article “On Mythology” that ‘religion sprung into activity coeval with the origin of mythology’ (212), and while ‘[m]ythology is a dramatic expression of religion …

mythologies themselves … must be regarded as the later strata of religions’ (212). In Anaya’s novel, the title character Jalamanta returns to his wife after a 30-year exile. A changed man, Jalamanta teaches the people about his religious convictions and preaches about the nature of the soul and the act of becoming God by focussing on ancients beliefs and convictions from his Mesoamerican ancestors.

Jalamanta can be linked to the prior examination of Rio Grande Fall because it similarly places a strong emphasis on identity through the use of myths and folkloric beliefs. The flight of souls as discussed in Rio Grande Fall is a prominent feature of shamans to help cure or damage other individuals, and Jalamanta equally presents this flight of souls in relation to the spiritual belief of shamans as demonstrated in Mesoamerican mind-set. The soul is capable of a mystical flight to unite with the source of creation –the ultimate life force- and after death these souls return to the pool of souls from which they have sprung at the moment of creation: ‘the soul is gathered into the cosmic wind, a gentle breeze of souls celebrating their source’ (Jalamanta, 129). The main character Jalamanta further elaborates that there is a communal destiny for all that lives for all are equal and all souls are capable of partaking in this mystical flight. He exemplifies this by mentioning the different people that participate in, or deal with, this flight of the soul to connect with the ultimate life-force. Healers, for instance, are guides who ‘know that injury to the souls means the soul has taken flight … [while] the prophet’s or saint’s flight to join the ecstatic union with God [is] the flight of the mystic soul’.11 Also, frequently ‘lovers [feel] their soul take flight’ (167) and are able to connect to the ultimate life-force. The importance of this connection with the ultimate life-force is rooted in Mesoamerican beliefs where, according to Markman and Markman,

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‘everything is alive and all life is part of one mysterious source of life –the life-force. Thus, each living being is in this sense merely a momentary manifestation of that eternal

force…both covering and revealing the mysterious force of life itself’ (102). In the novel, Jalamanta preaches this and proposes a way of life drawing on imagery and symbolism derived from these Mesoamerican mythic and folkloric ideas which threaten the dominating regime. This regime attempts to repress and govern society through violence and orthodox Christian belief and they regard Jalamanta’s preachings as heresy. The authorities use ‘sacred books to oppress’ (29) the people and keep them confined by teaching mistrust, while anyone who revolts against them is banished and forced to live as an outcast outside the city walls. By preaching that people’s souls are capable of flight and are part of the eternal light of the life-force, Jalamanta teaches people that they are able to ‘become one with the Universal Spirit’ (93). The elements that Jalamanta employs here to strengthen his views are ideas based on themes concerning death, rebirth, and transformation. These are expressed in the novel via imagery of the heavenly body of the sun and its light that pervades all.

The themes of death and rebirth (or renewal) that recur in Jalamanta’s teachings are recurrent motives in Mesoamerican mythology. In the novel discussed here, these themes are employed to present philosophical views encompassing the nature of life and the soul as taught by Chicano ancestors. These ideas are in contrast to Christian ideas shared by, and taught to, the general public by the authorities. Through his main character, Anaya presents the view that life is never-ending, an ongoing process or cycle to which all living beings are bound. Jalamanta explicitly states to the villagers during one of his teachings that:

everything is bound to a cycle of time that brings birth, growth, and death, … [and] what we call death is a cycle of time completing itself, a season of the soul. The body dies, but the soul lives on, returning to the cosmic wind and the light that sweeps around the universe. (129)

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Jalamanta’s convictions that ‘man cannot become God’, for ‘the worm we call man’ is ‘unworthy’ (111).

The view that there is no real end to life as described by Jalamanta, but is part of a cycle, is an important element in mythology. Northrop Frye remarks on this feature as being essential in worldly myths by claiming in his Theory of Myths that ‘[i]n the divine world the central process or movement is that of the death and rebirth’ (157) which is closely related to the cyclical processes presented in nature. The cycle of the seasons, for example, is an ongoing sequence that is described in myths as a process of birth and rebirth. This cycle of birth and rebirth is famously exemplified with the fertility myth of Demeter and Persephone in Classical Greek mythology (Stookey 98). In these kinds of fertility myths a cultivation deity responsible for the existence and fertilization of plants and trees has to travel to the underworld and has to remain there for about six months as a consequence of an incident, resulting in a period during which ‘the earth grows sterile’ (Stookey 99).12 After a few months the deity in question is able to return again for the rest of the year, reborn, making it possible for trees and plants to grow once more. This cycle of birth and rebirth is likewise presented in Indian, Mexican, Roman, Norse, and Australian mythology and portrays an ongoing sequence of birth and rebirth symbolised in earthly life. This cycle is illustrated by the changing ages as described in Mesoamerican creation and apocalyptic myths (Campbell, Masks of God). In Jalamanta, the creation and destruction of the world is linked to this process of death and rebirth as presented in Mesoamerican myths. Jalamanta preaches that the violent and chaotic era is ending but that ‘a new birth may come even from the chaos around us … [for] out of chaos peace may be born’ (20-21). As Stookey explains in her book, in Aztec mythology ‘the world is created and destroyed several times over, but each new world that is born is different from the others’ (27). Thus, Anaya links the religious view on the cyclic nature of life to mythological elements that form a significant part of his

Chicano identity to stress his cultural legacy.

Light and transformation

The themes of death and rebirth are closely connected to images of the sun, light, and the act of transformation as portrayed by Anaya in this novel. The creation myths in Aztec

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mythology that describe the different eras of the world’s existence are characterized by the ‘various suns that govern them’ (Stookey 27). In Anaya’s novel, this belief is explicitly set forth and Jalamanta discusses that the end of the fifth sun era is drawing close. Jalamanta preaches to the rest of the villagers during one of his sermons that ‘[f]our prior ages have existed on Earth … they call this age the Fifth Age, and they call the Sun, the Sun of

Movement. Now this age moves towards fruition’ (74). Graulich et al. explain that ‘[a]n era was called a “sun” because the history of a life, of a people identified with its god- protector, or of a civilization is like the course of a day’ (46). Consequently, a relation between the end of an era and the daily cycle of the sun exists because the solar cycle can be perceived as a period of death and rebirth where the sun ‘dies’ every day when it sets and is reborn the next day when it rises once more. Jalamanta preaches these same ideas by stating that ‘the sun obeys a cycle that reflects the dying and the renewal’ (128). The four (or five) suns according to ancient Mesoamerican culture always end (or die) violently, but the birth of a new sun also involves a transformation of life, the construction of a new society which can be either for the better or worse.13 Laurence Coupe comments that these apocalyptic myths ‘envisage a

dramatic break between the present order and a new existence, [causing] a total

transformation of the world’ (67). In Mesoamerican culture, moreover, the sun and other heavenly bodies occupy a central place in their daily life by playing a significant role in social rituals, and are calculated into the agricultural cycles. According to Davíd Carrasco, ‘this orientation toward a complex ordering system was periodically threatened by an assertion that the sun was unreliable, unstable, and wobbled at the original creation’ (284). The eras all end and new suns come about after a certain period. By incorporating these beliefs in his novel

Jalamanta, Anaya reveals the profound link with his ancestral roots and demonstrates how he connects these ancestral ideas with philosophical debates to emphasise his personal cultural identity.

Teaching the cultural values of the Chicano ancestors, then, is also expressed through images of the sun and light that occupy the most central place in Jalamanta’s teachings, based on ancient myths. Jalamanta preaches the ‘Path of the Sun’ (7) meaning that the sun should be seen as the creational force, the all encompassing force that suffuses all. It is this life-force that should be contemplated upon every day because it is the source of all beings on earth. Jalamanta teaches this principle of life by stating that ‘the light penetrates everything’ (16). He continues by referring to this universal and creational light as ‘the Lords and Ladies

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of light, the male and female energy of the parent Sun speeding across the dark space to dissolve the night. Everything they touch joins in a dance of life’ (16). The duality of this light, the male and female aspects that constitute it, is important for it lies at the heart of Mesoamerican myths where all deities were considered being part of one God, reflecting either its female side or its male counterpart. Mexican anthropologist and leading authority on Nahuatl ideas Miguel Leon-Portilla argues that in pre-Colombian Mesoamerica in the Valley of Mexico:

the belief in an all-begetting Father and a universal Mother, as a supreme dual deity, came into being. Without losing his unity in that the ancient hymns always invoke him in the singular, this deity was known as Ometeotl, ‘The Dual God,’ He and She of our flesh, Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacíhuatl, who in a mysterious cosmic coition originated all that exists. (qtd. in Markman 137)

What is important in Jalamanta is that all ‘souls reflect the light of the First Creation’ and that their ‘soul’s energy emanates from the First Creation, as does the vital energy of the Universe’ (74). Jalamanta positions the soul of men on the same level as the creational life-force which some call God, and states that we are becoming this God after we die because we travel back to the ‘cosmic wind’ (129) of souls. This original force of life never ceases to exist but ‘moves in a cycle from ancestors to descendants’ (Markman and Markman 117). This is also made clear in a passage of the Codex Matritensis as presented by Markman and Markman:

For this reason the ancient ones said, he who has died, he becomes a god. They said: “He became a god there,”

Which means that he died. (qtd. in Markman 117)

Spatial descriptions function here as a tool to underscore Jalamanta’s convictions as related to the ancient myths. The city, for instance, is described by Anaya as a place of darkness and gloom. When Jalamanta is summoned by the inquisitor in the city, he walks the streets that ‘seemed foreign to him … [while] gray smoke rose into the pale sky. In front of him rose the tall, ominous tower of the citadel’ (105). The whole description of the city connotes negative images and it is here that the faith Jalamanta preaches imbued with

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preach these beliefs ‘the prison and its tortures awaits [him]’ (113). On the other hand, Anaya presents the countryside and the natural world as a place of light and spiritual growth. It is here, outside the walls of the city, that Jalamanta preaches the Path of the Sun and tries to convince the people of his religious beliefs concerning the light of the soul and the act of spiritual rebirth, while ‘the Lords and Ladies of the Light infused the Earth with shining light. Trees, water, birdsong, the call of the sheep and the goats, the fish in the river, mountain, and stone, all shimmered in that ecstatic moment … of contemplation’(151). Anaya incorporates Mesoamerican beliefs in these descriptions to underline his cultural heritage, for in

Mesoamerican mythology, nature plays an important unifying role. In her article “Myths of Mesoamerican Cultures Reflect a Knowledge and Practice of Astronomy”, Roxanne V. Pacheco states that in Mesoamerican mythology ‘man is just a part of nature, and not at the center of nature. He takes his place alongside the plants, animals, stars, planets, moon and sun’, and by linking the inner souls of man with that of nature, ‘man lives in a sanctified universe’. So, by portraying the Seventy City negatively, because it is a place where man occupies a leading and central position as opposed to the natural world, Anaya uses ideas from mythology to present religious views that are different from mainstream ideas.

The desert is presented as a dark labyrinth, an underworld through which Jalamanta had to travel to come to the true Path of Light. Here, Armando has died and is reborn again.14 Before his exile, Armando still was filled with doubts about his beliefs. It is after his

wanderings through the desert, during which he contemplated on his own spirituality and confronted his own doubts and demons, that he becomes Jalamanta: ‘he who pulls away the veils that blind the soul’ (26). He has become a preacher who brings people to the path of light and leads them away from the ideas of the government that tries to instil fear.

Jalamanta’s transformation becomes evident when Clepo, a ferryman that ‘had ferried souls across the river as long as he could remember’ (4), mentions that a transformation has occurred within Jalamanta.15 So, when Jalamanta introduces himself as Armando, ‘the same man you rowed across the river thirty years ago’ (6), Clepo replies: ‘No, not the same man’, since Clepo notices that Jalamanta had ‘changed by time and the teachings of the desert’ (6).While being in exile for 30 years, Jalamanta had to battle his own inner demons that stood in the way of him truly learning and accepting the path of light. The desert became the place of transformation for him, a place of death and rebirth, a place where Armando was reborn as

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The main character’s name first was Armando, but after returned from exile he is called Jalamanta, for he is transformed, a new person.

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Jalamanta like the sun is reborn after its daily cycle. Campbell illustrates the point of the importance of transformation in Mesoamerican views by stating that ‘to the Mesoamerican mind … there is no death in the world, only transformation, and there is no end to life, only changing forms, changing masks placed on the eternal and unchanging essence of life’ (Introduction Xiv).

Identity and Genre

In Jalamanta, Anaya creates a strong and explicit link with ancestral beliefs by writing a novel in the philosophical genre. By creating a novel in a philosophical genre, the theme of identity ultimately becomes the most important, for religious questions concerning life and its purpose all refer back to personal and communal identity and religious beliefs. Anaya

expresses his identity through the beliefs of his Chicano ancestors and their attitude towards fundamental contemplations on the soul, life, and nature. Jalamanta, in his sermons to the people living in the rural countryside outside the city walls, continues to refer to the ancestors that have paved the way before them and mentions that ‘the ancestors whose spirits have departed become guides in the cosmic wind that sweeps the universe. They have returned to the clarity of the First Light … [and] in our dreams and hopes, they return as guides to fill us with light’ (142). Yolotl González Torres strengthens the need to return to ancestral values by claiming that particularly ‘among lower class people…from rural communities who, faced with the dominant culture, sought a form of identity and defense through a link with the past’ (22). In Jalamanta, Anaya takes it a step further by not merely referring to mortal ancestors, but by referring to the force of all creation, ‘Father Sun’ (16), as a ‘kind ancestor’ (16). In Jalamanta, exactly those lower class people mentioned by Torres are struck by Jalamanta’s teachings and are receptive to it. In “A Reconsideration of Chicano Culture and Identity” Carlos H. Arce expands on this by stating that:

minority persons need to feel as one with their group’s heritage and culture. All individuals need to share with others some kind of essential character to build a strong sense of personal identity. Minority status magnifies this need of group identification. (182)

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alone in this age of darkness that is almost drawing to its end. Jalamanta preaches that the people of the Seventh City should all help each other reconnect with ancestral ideas to create a new era that is peaceful.

Through this novel, Anaya himself becomes a preacher of Chicano identity and religion. Where Jalamanta preaches his ideas to the people of the seventh city, Anaya

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Chapter 4 – Serafina’s Stories: History, Land, and Assimilation

Of the three primary texts examined in this dissertation, the subsequent chapter concerns

Serafina’s Stories, published in 2004. Similarly to the previous novels, Anaya implicitly and explicitly refers to Native-Mesoamerican myths in this novel, except that for this didactic novel Anaya additionally draws from an extremely various pool of folk narratives (fairytales). According to María Herrera, ‘Chicanos have a rich repertoire of folktales from numerous cultural traditions’ which are the legacy of Spanish, indigenous-Mexican, Anglo-American, and Native-American cultures (28). The main narrative in Serafina’s Stories attempts to build a bridge between two completely different cultures: the Spanish colonisers with their catholic religion, and the Pueblo population with their ancestral beliefs. When twelve Native-Pueblo Indians are arrested and ‘accused of conspiring to incite revolution’ (7) against the Spanish throne, they are imprisoned and put to trail by the Governor. One of the prisoners is revealed to be a ‘young woman no older than fifteen’ (9) named Serafina. Akin to the legend of Persian Queen and storyteller Scheherazade, Serafina makes a deal with the Governor; each night she will narrate a story, and if the Governor enjoys it he will free a prisoner the next morning.16 By narrating twelve folktales (cuentos), Serafina is able to free all prisoners while teaching the Governor about her cultural background and the influence both cultures have on each other, which emphasises the novel’s didactic nature.17 In his Glossary of Terms, M. H. Abrams states that didactic literature embodies ‘in imaginative or fictional form, a moral, religious, or philosophical doctrine or theme’, and can similarly ‘add a dimension of pleasure in the artistry of the representation’ (65). Where Serafina’s Stories offers teachings for assimilation between opposing cultures for a more peaceful coexistence and

understanding, Anaya himself teaches readers not only the historical background of his cultural heritage, but also endeavours to reconnect Chicanos with their ancestral past and identity.

History and Land

Anaya incorporates multiple Mesoamerican myths as well as historical and spiritual knowledge that is significant for Chicano culture in this novel. The myth of Aztlán is one of

16

In Persian legend Scheherazade tells the king an exciting story every night to postpone her death that is scheduled for the next morning. This she continues for one thousand and one nights (Encyclopedia Mythica).

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the most prominent and most referred to Chicano myths in Chicano culture. In Serafina’s

Stories, Anaya refers explicitly to this myth via the character of the Governor, who states that the region of which he is Governor –‘the northernmost frontier of Nueva España’ (59)– is considered to be of most importance to the Native Indians because it is perceived as ‘the land of legend … [t]he land the Aztecs of Mexico called Aztlán, their homeland’ (59). The

spiritual and mythical homeland of the Aztecs is considered the ‘foundational myth of origins for the Chicano population’ (Herrera-Sobek 208). Historically, the Náhuatl speaking Native Americans migrated around 1100 AD from their home Aztlán, positioned somewhere in Southwest America, and headed for Tenochtitlan located in the valley of Mexico.18 Present-day Chicano(a)s ‘claim Southwest ancestry to the[se] original settlers of the Southwest’ (209) and, consequently, they have started believing that they deserve a rightful place in society by perceiving themselves as ‘descendents of the original peoples of the Southwest’ (209) as opposed to outcasts or inferior intruders. The mythical Aztlán has an even more eminent function. Mexican-American writer Luis Leal asserts in one of his essays that Aztlán:

Symbolize[s] the existence of a paradisiacal region where injustice, evil, sickness, old age, poverty, and misery do not exist … [and it] symbolize[s] the spiritual union of the Chicanos, something that is carried within the heart, no matter where they may live or where they may find themselves. (Leal, In Search Of Aztlán 8)

Anaya also refers to this land in this book as ‘the tierra adentro’ (4), meaning as much as “the land that is located within”. At the core of this belief rests the Mesoamerican myth of

Chicomóztoc, meaning ‘place of the seven caves’ (Pina 19),19 and one of their most central gods, Huitzilopochtli.20 This place has been identified as the place of origin for seven tribes from which the Aztecs were considered the last-remaining ones. Their god Huitzilopochtli advised them to leave this place and search for ‘the promised land, which they would know by an eagle sitting on a nopal devouring a serpent’ (Leal, In Search of Aztlán 8).21 Thus, it was Huitzilopochtli who encouraged the Aztecs to embark fearlessly on this journey, ultimately resulting in the founding of the great city of Tenochtitlan, which ‘with between 150,000 and

18

As early as the fifteenth century rulers were trying to locate this mythical place, when ‘Moctezuma

Ilhuicamina (ruler from 1440 to 1469) sent his priests in search of Aztlán’ (Leal, In Search of Aztlán 8). Many scholars today have also tried to position Aztlán, but it remains unsure where this ancient and mythical city was positioned precisely.

19

According to Micheal Pina in “The archaic, Historical and Mythicized Dimentions of Aztlán” ‘Aztlán, [was] also referred to as Chicomóztoc, place of the seven caves’ (19).

20

‘The Aztec god of war and of the sun, chief god of the great Aztec city Tenochtitlan’ (Encyclopedia Mythica). Also see the second chapter on Rio Grande Fall.

21

Chicano Identity:

Chicano Identity:

Genre, Myth, and Folklore in Rudolfo A. Anaya’s Novels.

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