The Jaguar Eulogized, Hunted, Trapped
The theme of human dominance over the jaguar is also present in Homero Aridjis’s poetry. Aridjis (b. 1940), one of Mexico’s foremost living poets, is also a novelist, environmental activist, and journalist who has lobbied tirelessly on behalf of the environment, particularly endangered species such as the grey whale, the Monarch butterfly, and the sea turtle.
1 For a comprehensive collection of Aridjis’s journalistic writings on nature see his book with Betty Ferber, Noticias de la Tierra (2012). In
Poemas solares: Solar Poems (2010), “El jaguar” and “La cacería del jaguar rojo” feature the feline in ways that very much recall and elaborate on Cuadra’s portrayal. “El jaguar” is a poem in five parts that alternates between descriptions and references to the mythology of the jaguar alongside images of his current diminished status:
Aquel que era la imagen de la lluvia
ya no hace caminos en la selva,
los discos de oro de sus ojos
ya no rutilan.
Bajo el sol de la mañana
no se le ve recorrer en un tronco
el Río de los Monos.
Su piel solar es un tapete. (Aridjis, Poemas 2010: 48)
Like Cuadra, Aridjis specifically mentions the jaguar’s mythical aspects (for example, created by rain, with eyes of gold), only to point out immediately how those features no longer function or exist (“los discos de oro de sus ojos / ya no rutilan”), and even more sadly, how the jaguar has become the victim of human greed (“Su piel solar es un tapete”). In some ways, the poem is an elegy that refers both to jaguars as mythical animals as well as endangered species:
Triste jaguar de las mitologías,
que al devorar al Sol se devoró a sí mismo,
que al convertirse en Tierra devoradora
devoró su sombra en el cielo nocturno.
Dios huérfano del inframundo,
que al seguir los senderos del hombre
fue engañado por sus máscaras
y cayó en sus trampas.
Pobre jaguar de los esplendores,
en su piel llevó la Muerte. (Aridjis 2010: 48)
Parallel to these laments about its extinction (“su grito mudo / retumba en mi extinción” Aridjis 2010: 48), the poem also subtly conveys Amerindian notions of animal souls. The poem carries the epigraph, “
Tepeyollotli, el corazón del monte,” which the anthropologist Bernd Fahmel Beyer calls “[u]no de los
numina más enigmáticos del panteón mesoamericano tardío” (2013: 11). The anthropomorphic view of nature (“heart of the mountain”) was typical for Mesoamerican peoples and reveals a proto-environmental ethic, since “la mente prehispánica lo percibía como sagrado en un ecosistema determinado” (12). The “heart of the mountain” is also associated with the deity Tezcatlipoca, whose human figure evokes numerous names and capacities that influenced the life and destiny of humans (12). This clearly echoes Mesoamerican
nahualismo, where human destiny is tied to the destiny of other (animal) beings. Traditionally, Tepeyollotli was pictured in the figure of the jaguar,
océlotl, or at other times as “un dios disfrazado de jaguar” (17). This playing with disguise recalls Viveiros de Castro’s perspectivism. These details show that Aridjis’s poem displays a profound understanding of these concepts: the poet portrays the jaguar as a primordial being inhabiting the heart of darkness prior to the existence of other beings and whose roar
2 Beyer notes that “cabe recordar que en Mesoamérica el jaguar fue un símbolo de fertilidad y que al igual que otros felinos emite fuertes rugidos cuando se aparean” (Beyer 2013: 19, n4). was associated with fertility: “Antes de la palabra / cuando en las entrañas de la noche / aún no había ave / ni árbol / ni pez / ni río / ni sol / en el cielo nocturno / maullaba / el jaguar” (Aridjis 2010: 48).
Other aspects of Aridjis’s poem more clearly emphasize the human-animal connection, almost to the point of blurring any distinction between them: “el jaguar de los dos / dentro de ti / desde fuera me mira” (2010: 48). Perspectivism again comes to mind in this exchange of gazes and identities, wherein the human exterior might hide a jaguar within, or vice versa. Following this mutual contemplation, the poem ends with a reference to strife that can be interpreted, given the association of the jaguar with fertility, in both erotic and ecological terms: “Nuestros cuerpos / dos jaguares solares / enfrentados en la noche / acabarán desgarrados / en el alba total” (48). Whether Aridjis is speaking of human sexual encounter as a fight between two jaguars or of a literal face-off between the human and the animal, with the predator being preyed upon, the outcome for both is destruction.
Furthermore, “La cacería del jaguar rojo” is a twelve-stanza poem that straightforwardly addresses not just the literary demythologization of the jaguar but also his literal destruction. The poem depicts humans hunting the jaguar, who initially manages to avoid capture:
Seguimos al jaguar toda la noche.
A ratos se detenía para observarnos.
Con sus ojos de sol ebrio. Elusivo.
Cuando nos acercábamos había escapado. (Aridjis 2010: 54)
The speakers (as the poem is written in the first-person plural) reveal their fascination with the jaguar’s mythical status, which drives the chase. The poem also betrays the human desire to dominate nature and displays a certain nostalgia about its end:
Íbamos detrás de él como detrás de un mito.
Todos los animales habían muerto.
Los que no habían muerto estaban enjaulados.
Sólo nos faltaba el jaguar rojo. (Aridjis 2010: 54)
In this pursuit, the jaguar has become a preyed-upon predator. This inversion of roles brings to mind perspectivism because the animal once feared as a predator of humans has become its prey. Hunted through woodland and savannah, through mangrove and mountain, the jaguar and his soul travel through the Milky Way; ultimately, in the act of devouring his prey, he is captured: “Allá, mientras devoraba a su presa, / lo apresamos. Lo trasladamos a un zoológico” (Aridjis 2010: 60). The jaguar thus suffers the fate of other endangered animals who, unable to live in the wild, must ironically be captured and put in zoos to ensure their survival. The contrast between the jaguar’s mythical past and his eventual loss of “status” could not be more dramatic:
El provocador de los eclipses,
el señor de la noche estrellada,
el dios Jaguar, ahora
está encerrado en una jaula. (Aridjis 2010, 60)
Both Cuadra and Aridjis reference the jaguar’s role as a powerful creature from pre-Columbian mythology, but only to juxtapose it to his current vulnerable status due to human activity.
3 Aridjis’s poem hints at the reason for the hunt, which goes beyond conservation efforts. He suggests that the jaguar is also endangered due to human encroachment on his habitat: “Delirábamos en voz alta. / Teníamos proyectos en las manos: / ‘Construir un hotel aquí, una carretera allá, / un campo de golf, una discoteca’” (Aridjis 2010: 56). An undercurrent of foreboding and lament is present in the realization that a part of us (humans) dies with the caged and dead jaguar. Once more, this recalls
nahualismo’s mutuality with our animal companions.