“Juan Darién” – The “Jaguar” Boy

“Juan Darién” is the tale of an orphaned tiger cub. To justify the inclusion of this story in a discussion of the figure of the jaguar, we need to consider the context. Although the Spanish word used by Quiroga is “tigre” (tiger), in Misiones, where many of Quiroga’s stories are set, the animal that likely inspired “Juan Darién” would have been a jaguar, as the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris) is not indigenous to that region.1 This is parallel to the case of another Quiroga, Juan Facundo, a nineteenth-century Argentine military leader, as told by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in Facundo o Civilización y barbarie en las pampas argentinas. Juan Facundo Quiroga earned the nickname “El Tigre de los Llanos.” While this might seem mere metaphor for his fierce nature in battle, in Chapter V of Sarmiento’s biography of Facundo, the section “Infancia y juventud,” recounts how he obtained this moniker after killing a tigre cebado (cebado refers to an animal who has tasted human flesh). Some sources indicate that for people in the regions of northern Argentina, the word “tigre” when applied to a human would have had other mythological allusions to the myth of the uturuncu or magical jaguar-man (Uturuncu 2024). The tiger cub is taken in by a woman whose biological son died in an epidemic. She becomes a surrogate mother to the cub, secretly feeding him from her breast, but fears he will be killed by the villagers when discovered. A snake speaks to the woman, reassuring her that because she has saved a life from the universe, where all lives have the same value, her son will have human form in order to not be recognized as a beast – unless, the serpent warns her, a mother accuses him of being an animal, demanding that he pay with his blood what she has given him. And so, he miraculously becomes a boy. He grows to be disliked by his classmates, who resent his dedication to his studies and his coarse hair. When the mother dies, he is left to the mercy of the villagers and subjected to cruel torture by a school inspector and an animal tamer who suspect that, deep down, he is a tiger. Left for dead, he manages to escape to the jungle and is transformed into a feline, returning to the village to exact revenge on those who abused him. The text evokes a remarkable undecidability regarding Juan Darién’s identity – throughout the entire story, it is difficult to pinpoint whether Darién is an animal turned human or vice versa.

In “Blurring Boundaries Between Animal and Human: Animalhuman Rights in ‘Juan Darién’ by Horacio Quiroga,” Bridgette W. Gunnels examines this story from an ecocritical perspective. She observes that, from the very beginning of the story, the woman adopting the tiger cub as her son shows that “the boundaries typically accepted between human beings and animals are tested” (Gunnels 2006: 351). The essay contends that the story illustrates how both animal and human rights are violated. Most interesting for my argument is the suggestion that the characters in the story exhibit features that belong to both the human and the animal realms, with the roles at times being reversed:

I further suggest that Indigenous notions such as nagualismo and perspectivism illuminate the portrayal of these characters, particularly Juan Darién. From the very start, there is evidence that these Indigenous concepts could be invoked as categories of analysis. The story begins with a dramatic revelation that very much suggests a parallel with perspectivism:

The story clearly exemplifies the theme of bodily appearances versus inner soul that pervades tonalismo and perspectivism. One day, an inspector arrives at the school and, suspicious of Juan Darién’s true nature, questions him about the jungle. Juan’s responses reveal insights that only a feline in the jungle could see and feel – a view of rocks at eye level and the sensation of dampness on his whiskers. These sensory details Juan relates to the inspector convinces him that Juan is really a tiger and not human. After their conversation, the inspector tells the schoolmaster:

In this passage, Quiroga explicitly points to the ambiguity of Juan Darién’s human form and animal body. The inspector, like a shaman, has the ability see beyond bodily appearances, and so he summons the tamer, who also claims that he can recognize Juan Darién’s nature. The tamer roars, “¡Te reconozco bien! ¡A todos puedes engañar, menos a mí! ¡Te estoy viendo, hijo de tigres! ¡Bajo tu camisa estoy viendo las rayas del tigre! ¡Fuera la camisa, y traigan los perros cazadores! ¡Veremos ahora si los perros te reconocen como hombre o como tigre!” (Quiroga 1993: 596). The tamer references Juan’s human clothing, the shirt that hides his “true” feline nature. This contrasts with how Juan perceives himself as a human, and a gentle one at that: “¿Cómo podía creer que él no era hombre, cuando jamás había sentido otra cosa que amor a todos, y ni siquiera tenía odio a los animales dañinos?” (595).

The real shaman in the story, though, is Juan because, after suffering cruelly at the hands of the tamer and the villagers, and despite being left for dead, he recovers from his wounds, returns as a tiger, and kills his aggressor.2 Quiroga describes in detail the cruelty Juan Darién suffers at the hands of the tamer and the entire village. Although, to the tamer’s chagrin, the dogs do not react to identify Juan as a tiger, he is still flogged by the mob and driven away. A mother in fear asks for Juan Darién to be killed, and thus the prophecy is fulfilled. Juan Darién must die. The torturers spare no savagery, “¡Marquémoslo con rayas de fuego! ¡Quemémoslo en los fuegos artificiales!” and the mob howls “¡Muestra las rayas de tigre!” (Quiroga 1993: 597). As he burns, his body begins to change form and is abandoned for the jackals to devour. Yet, he does not die but rather returns to the jungle to heal. Before doing so, he pronounces a speech to his fellow tigers: “Hermanos: Yo viví doce años entre los hombres, como un hombre mismo. Y yo soy un tigre. Tal vez pueda con mi proceder borrar más tarde esta mancha. Hermanos: esta noche rompo el último lazo que me liga al pasado” (Quiroga 1993: 599). When the tamer dies, consumed by the flames, Juan Darién returns to his mother’s grave one last time to pray: “Tú sola supiste, entre todos los hombres, los sagrados derechos a la vida de todos los seres del Universo, Tú sola comprendiste que el hombre y el tigre se diferencian únicamente por el corazón” (600). Juan writes his name in blood on a cross at his mother’s tomb before leaving the village with the words, “Ahora, a la selva. ¡Y tigre para siempre!” (601). Quiroga omits the article “un” before “tigre,” suggesting identification not just with a concrete, individual animal (“un tigre”), but also with the species.

The story is enthralling for the way Juan Darién’s true nature is utterly ambiguous as he undergoes repeated bodily transformations. At times, he is perceived by himself and by others as a human; at others, as a tiger – it all depends on one’s perspective. Bodily appearances become secondary to one’s true inner nature, but the repeated transformations problematize what is inner and what is outer. The many references to Juan Darién’s shirt (“camisa”) as being what at times identifies him as a human and other moments conceals his being a tiger bear a remarkable similarity to perspectivism’s notion that bodily appearance is but a garment hiding one’s true nature. The shamanistic power to change oneself at will is also present, as is tonalismo and nahualismo’s conceptualization of linked destinies. The tamer, who can be seen as a kind of shaman, attempts to kill Juan (his “other,” his alter-ego) and dies as a result. This shows how the destinies of human and more-than-human nature are inextricably linked.