Chicanonautica: Quetzalcoatl Attacks

by Ernest Hogan

I was recovering between cataract surgeries, going through movies on my YouTube list. There was Q: The Winged Serpent (1982). Beloved by some -- someone once compared it to my novel Smoking Mirror Blues. I had heard that it gets everything about Aztec culture and mythology wrong. 

On the other hand, it was written and directed by Larry Cohen, a master of schlocky movies.  I also love schlocky movies and the John Waters meme goes: “Get more out of life. See a fucked up movie.” 

And it turns out, it ain’t that bad.

Yeah, Cohen spent no time researching the Aztecs and Quetzalcoatl—he doesn’t know Aztec from Maya, from Huastec from Olmec from Kwakiutl. At one point the plot about a winged serpent being worshiped as a god by the Aztecs and used by a killer is explained in an actual museum using Pacific Northwest First Nations artifacts as a backdrop.

 

That sort of thing makes me grumble, but this ain’t no big deal high culture Academy Awards statement of Hollywood’s collective self-consciousness, it’s a low budget horror flick cooked up to wrangle quick cash from the Great American Public. They don’t know about PreColumbian civilizations, and don’t care. And those of us who do care are a, if you pardon the expression, “minority.”

Maybe someday my sense of humor will become so warped that I’ll find that sort of thing funny.

As it is, Q delivers the goods of the classic monster movie formula. There’s a monster flying around NYC, swooping down between the skyscrapers, killing people. The pre-digital special effects are charming, but we don’t see a lot of them, because they were expensive, so we get a lot of gritty cops and robber action on crowded Big Apple streets. 

The cops are David Carradine, who starred in the original Kung Fu TV show, and Richard Roundtree, the first blaxploitation hero in the Shaft movies. In keeping with the genre’s traditions, the black guy is killed, and the white guy gets the girl. 

There is one brown character. They must have cleared the Puerto Ricans off the streets for the filming. He’s the bad guy sacrificing New Yorkers and gets less screen time than the monster and comes off more like a raging psychopath than a religious/political fanatic. His motivations are glossed over.

 

Old school monster movie stuff.

I was reminded of another movie, 1946’s The Flying Serpent. I wouldn’t be surprised if Larry Cohen was “inspired” by it.  In this Producers Releasing Corporation, PRC for short, AKA Poverty Row production, second string horror star, George Zucco, plays a mad scientist who sends a serpentine feathered creature that looks like a cheap souvenir from a border tourist trap to kill people. The twist is he’s an archaeologist, and his victims are getting in the way of proving his theory that the Aztec came from New Mexico. Yes, the Aztlán theory!

The story features Azteca, New Mexico. Matte paintings show ruins the villain thinks prove his theory. There is no such town. There is an Aztec, NM, that does have ruins, but they don’t seem to be Aztec. There are places all over the Southwest/Aztlán named after the Aztecs and Montezuma, because the folks doing the naming couldn’t imagine the local tribes building them.

 

To give the mad archaeologist credit, a people named the Sinagua by the Spanish left Arizona after the eruption of Sunset Crater in Arizona about a thousand years ago. A couple of centuries later–after all they were on foot–the Nahua/Mexica/Aztecs arrived in the Valley of Mexico. I wonder if they were the same people . . .

Also, it’s been a few decades, so maybe there should be a 21st century version of this story. A Chicano archaeologist with Aztlán nationalist sympathies finds a winged serpent and offers its services to the cause. Of course, there will Latinx law enforcement agents to save the day. 

Or maybe the archaeologist could be the hero . . .

Ernest Hogan is a Chicano science fiction writer who dabbles in guerrilla archaeology/anthropology.

Chicanonautica: Among the Aztecs on an Electric Air Yacht

 by Ernest Hogan

I was hooked just reading the long, awkward title: Frank Reade Junior and His Electric Air Yacht; Or,The Great Inventor Among the Aztecs. Luis Senarens, the Cuban-American Jules Verne takes his hero, and crew, not only into the lost world of Pre-Columbian culture, but takes a whack at the classic “lost race” subgenre.

Turns out it’s another action-packed read with some food for thought on American views about the worlds (yeah, I meant the plural) south of the Border.

There’s the usual formula, Frank had finished another invention–this time, an air “yacht” with electric propulsion (the kind of batteries used are never mentioned) and two balloons in case one bursts. It also has a diabolical defense system–arrays of Winchesters that one man can fire in instant fusillades–the idea of a Gatling gun, or machine gun machine having not occurred.

There’s the usual bickering between his sidekicks Pomp and Barney, and their wives, and a stranger comes with a mission in which the new inventions would come in handy. This time it’s Captain Calavaras, the Man of Mystery (which is also the title of the first chapter), who is described as a white man, accompanied by two “dark men with rings in their ears.”

The swarthy fellows turn out to be from a lost city/colony of Aztecs somewhere in Central America. Seems a sinister white man had overthrown the rightful king and put his puppet on the throne. Captain Calavaras has offered to help them set things right in the colonial attitude that outsiders are always getting dark people into trouble, and this can only be set right by white saviors.

They are also accompanied by Felix Frolix, a journalist described as a “little dude” who writes a version of the story in which he is the daring hero.

I must also point out that this differs from the typical lost race novels of the time, like H. Rider Haggard’s She and Edward Bulwar-Lytton The Lost Race–it features dark skinned Aztecs, rather than elvish, whiter-than-white people that inspired the Nazi and other white supremacists.

On the way south they have trouble with the Apaches, have to stop in Mexico for repairs, and they have to fend off some local villagers who are able to summon an army to their aid. Reade and crew don’t use the Winchester-arrays, which would have resulted in a bloodbath worthy of Sam Peckinpah, but some cleaner electric weapons.

When they make it to the lost city of the Aztecs,who are relatively “civilized,” though sacrifices to “Chacmool” (which is the name of a Mayan statue) are mentioned. The dark men with rings in their ears, whose names are Tamos and Mora, and aren’t really developed as characters, help in infiltrating and starting a revolution. There’s also more use of electric weapons, even an all-terrain electric road wagon. All those Winchesters were apparently just along for the ride.

The rightful handsome prince and his beautiful consort are made king and queen. Lots of golden treasure is recovered, and distributed to people of the kingdom, a touch of socialism in this series which is mostly a love-letter to capitalism. In Frank Reade Junior Exploring Mexico in His New Air Ship a Mayan treasure is looted and taken back to New York. 

It ends with the establishment of a wealthy Aztec “Wakanda” in Central America, which is a very interesting idea.

Ernest Hogan finished teaching Papí Sci-Fi’s Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom and is feeling enlightened and empowered.

Chicanonautica: The Mirror is Smoking . . .

by Ernest Hogan

I don't usually read YA. Maybe it's because I'm old. I remember when the category first appeared, and I wasn't impressed. It all seemed to be the bullshit stuff they had in the school library that was approved by church and municipal authorities. Why should I bother with that when I could read underground comix, Vampirella, and Harlan Ellison?

David Bowles' The Smoking Mirror is different, right up my weird artifact-littered alley – we've got hero twins (a boy and a girl), nagualism (shape-shifting in gringospeak), and all kinds of pre-Columbian mythology that dovetails in with gritty realities of modern life on the border, like drugs and gangs. Not only is this an exciting page-turner that will tear the kids away from their video games, but it could be used by clever teachers – and other gurus – as an introduction to our mythology for the new generation.

If there were books like this in my school library, I would have gone for them.

Bowles really knows his stuff, being a scholar who translates Nahuatl poetry. He also knows how to tell an exciting story. There are places in the book where I could smell Mexico.

Kids will love this Orpheus-like journey of a brother and sister, as they discover their shape-shifting nagual-powers, into an Aztec/Mayan underworld to find their mother. And they have fantastic adventures among places, things, and creatures the likes of which Harry Potter never encountered. And Tezcatlipoca himself showes up.

It's cleverly packaged with manga-like art. Not my cup of pulque, but the target audience will dig it.

It's subtitled Garza Twins: Book One, so more are in the works. Who knows, after a few years the young readers might prefer this to Harry what'shisname . . .

Ernest Hogan owes it all to Tezcatlipoca. His books are not recommended for childern. Please don't confuse  David Bowles' The Smoking Mirror with Ernest Hogan's Smoking Mirror Blues (to be republished as Tezcatlipoca Blues, but that's another story . . . and Tezcatlipoca is probably responsible for that, too).

The Grandest Gardener of Texcoco – part two

On June 25 of this year I posted half of the first chapter of a novella MS I call "The Enigma of the Grandest Gardener of Texcoco." It's an historical fantasy set against the background of what is known of the history, culture and peoples of the Valley of Anahuac, fifty years before el pinche Columbus started the illegal European immigration. It's got nagual animal-spirits, gardeners who use enchantment, a tragic princess and, yes, Tezcatlipoca--one of Ernesto Hogan's favorites. Monsters and mayhem, demons and deities, and even a strange bit of romance.

That posting received a flurry (to me) of publishing possibilities, one of which is still in the works. To whet whatever appetites are out there for this story, I thought I'd share the rest of the first chapter. It introduces the unnamed female co-protagonist who aids Gardener Menq in his quest. You'll learn her name only when the story gets published, one way or another. Let me know here if your appetite does get whetted. Or not. And if you never read the first installment, click here. – Rudy Ch. Garcia

The Enigma of the Grandest Gardener of Texcoco (cont.)

The Princess had been born into a life most people would have died for. She'd never wanted for any luxury, much less necessity; servants and sycophants had surrounded her from birth, showering her with attention and extravagant gifts.

"None of them are here with me now," she said, shifting herself on the floor of her darkened confinement, wondering how soon her captors would return.

In the room adjoining her first nursery, a queen's ransom of jewels, feathers and gold had piled up, later expanding to more rooms filled with tribute from the ever-widening Aztec conquests.

"I remember frolicking with my nagual bear cub in the warm furs and brilliant-feathered ornaments and clothing," she said, not forgetting the dismay of nursemaids and waitpersons charged with caring for her and her belongings. Within a handful of years, glittering yellow teocuitlatl nuggets and sparkling fire opals or treasured turquoise would lose their infantile allure. But the Princess had always most loved the exotic animals and plants from all the three continents. "Strange--I don't miss them as much now as I once did," she murmured, a half-lie to hold onto her sanity.

She'd been destined to miss nothing in life. Born under the sign One Flower typically meant that such a person was destined to love life, and their time on Earth would intertwine with that of Xochiquetzal, goddess of love.

The Princess had lacked almost nothing, save meaningful time with her parents--and the loving care that came with that--the Emperor and Empress themselves busy running the expanding Empire. Early on, she came to comprehend this, this vacuum unsated by objects or servants, no matter their value or devotion.

She'd attemped to alleviate her longing for companionship with sheets cut from amate, on which she painted scenarios or fashioned elaborately costumed figures, or flowers and wildlife. But the largest, most colorful were of a family of four, her spirit-bear included. She'd labored at her art like a shunned, foster child, with no sibling at her side to ever hold her hand.

Her everpresent tutors from the Arts of the Regal Court had instructed her in the skills and knowledge a future queen needed to rule, to survive the burden of royalty. And she was more than bright enough to nudge them into instructing her in studies like zooology and medicine, normally reserved for males and not taught in her females-only calmecac. Her intellectual and artistic talents, admitted by every teacher, grew as rich as her treasure rooms.

Unfortunately, of all the blessings in her life, her physical features proved most onerous. Wherever she went in the palaces or realm, sincere-to-fawning comments engulfed her. Had she believed them, then there never had been a female child to compare. Poets vied to describe her fairness; painters competed to portray her exquisitive features. Pages and parchments about her wondrous eyes, spellbinding smile and later, her goddess-like physique, made her parents prideful, the envy of royalty, but not sufficient to draw her closer to them.

Now recalling a stanza from one idolizing poem, into the hollowness she yelled,

"But whose joy

serves raven-haired beauty,

growing empty

in the darkest sleep?"

Her question echoed, unrequited. She ran her fingers through her hair, combing what had once shone like threads of obsidian.

Near the end of her time on Earth, her allurement had naturally attracted the most wondrous hero of the Valley. And then, unnaturally, the most despicable of gods. Which had landed her here. Alone.

"Better I had been born a bear, or at least homely." Her remark made her regret again having to part ways with her nagual-spirit bear, when her death had broken their bond. In sillier moments, she'd pretended she was playing with her little black brother.

Here and now, the maiden Princess sat, waiting, struggling to defer her apprehension with daydreams. Not of how it had been, but how it might have been.

#

"The verdant splendor I created in my mind these past thirty years can reach fruition"--he chuckled at his pun--"only with the acreage, terraces and irrigation systems of the royalty, like here in Prince Nezahualcoyotl's gardens." That he could never be the lord of a large estate bothered Menq not one gnat's worth. He simply wanted to be the best at nurturing one of the Middle Continent's finest gardens, and to reach that, he'd adhered to the Elders' Precepts of duty, temperance and self-discipline. Following that regimen had brought him this far, in his own inimitable fashion.

"Just so long as I can become a--," he whispered, absentmindedly brushing aside what they hadn't shorn off of his neck-length hair. With its abbreviated bangs, his usual hairstyle typified those who hadn't secured a profession. Despite being an experienced gardener, he'd worn his that way to symbolize he hadn't attained his life-long goal.

He watched other gardeners peering toward the massive, carved double doors that captured everyone's attention whenever another candidate entered. Directly above the second-story roof there, with its raised walls protected by inconspicuous cotton awnings, the Prince himself might stand to contemplate his gardens or the heavenly bodies. Only the highest nobility and most valiant warriors earned the right to erect two-story buildings. At the moment, Menq could hear buffered sounds of excited discussion emanating from uptop. Rooroot's perked ears and quizzical look indicated it might be more than parlor chatter.

Higher up, to the southeast, the volcano Popocatépetl's gray-pink plumes rose, a lover's sorrow beckoning the gods, hence its name, Smoking Mountain. Two or three times a day he rained flaming rock and volcanic soot on nearby mountain villages. Popo, he was endearingly called, by the many tribes who commiserated with the legendary prince's loss of his beloved Iztaccíhuatl. On especially active days like today some called it Chain-Smoking Mountain.

As if awakened, Popo released a medium tremor loosening crumbles from the walls, until it passed and people shrugged it off. Life in the Valley. Though lately, much more eventful.

"At least Popo has his Sleeping Woman . . . at his side for eternity," Menq said, referring to Popo's legendary love Iztaccíhuatl, the more expansive, snow-covered peaks to the left of Popo.

Menq grimaced, averted his gaze downward and brushed at a moyote buzzing his face. Apparently the last Grand Gardener hadn't planted sufficient moyote-luring bushes around Tezcozinco's immense perimeter. Menq would remedy that, first thing, if he secured the position.

Actually, almost nothing he'd seen on his way in merited criticism. How could it be otherwise? The Gardens belonged to the greatest man of the mid-continent, respected as the intellectual center of the all-conquering Triple Alliance. These Gardens would forever be the Valley's most magnificent. Menq leaned against the wall and shut his eyes to again savor his bliss when traversing the flourishing paradise this morning.

Dawn had just broken when the queue of applicants entered Tezcozinco Gardens. Sunshine flooded and unveiled the Valley with a view that heated everyone's anticipation into excitement.

Situated near the base of Mt. Tlaloc, Tezcozinco yet overlooked the capitol Texcoco and, further below, the largest of the Five Lakes. The summit garden's hundreds of acres poured westward, landscaped with nitlapan terraces flowing north to south, surfeiting the mind and senses with their jade-to-viridian greenery punctuated by clusters of massive coniferous ahuehetl cypress, cedar or spruce, some reaching two hundred feet, as if supplicating rain from the god Tlaloc. Shorter though no less impressive carved stone stelae of the gods guarded three streams meandering toward the Lake, accented with white churning cascades fed by stone aqueducts that channeled cool sweet alcecec from high, melting snows. A gigantic tapestry woven of thousands of plant species.

As they descended the five hundred stone steps, past heavily scented manicured beds of gilted marigolds and capuli bushes scantily adorned with red berries, the candidates noticed few xitómatl, ahuácatl or other cultivated crops stocked the oasis, but they did pass fabulous horticultural beds of medicinal, spiritual and other practical plants, annuals, evergreens, grassses, perennials, shrubbery and vines of every variety. It required more a thousand workers and slaves to maintain the verdigris retreat with its multiple nurseries where the Prince himself was known to study his revered plants.

The zenzontle, the bird that mockingly serenaded visitors with its four hundred voices, the migratory atototls dipping slender legs into the garden's pristine marshes and ponds, and of course the "most precious" rainbow-rich quetzaltotolin bird, as well as innumerable other avians, inundated visitors with musical greetings. An integrated zoological park where many non-threatening species freely roamed.

"All this could be--." Menq had tempered his enthusiasm by letting his eyes and mind fill like a child in a chocólatl shop; he was in a horticulturist's Tollan, and would've believed he'd died and gone there.

The final stepping-stones--chiseled of plum-streaked porphyry quartz--guided them through the bottom, stark passageway carved through solid rock, a landscape version of life's last stage when only glorious achievements ameliorated one's passage into the underworld. The god Tezcatlipoca's sudden tremors while walking in the tunnel had reminded everyone of the devastating earthquakes seventy years ago, and rattled more than their strides.

#

Now, as his old acquaintance Reaper Icacam scampered by, Menq felt guilty about instinctively shading his face with his hand. His friend wore maxtlatl clothing tied around his waist to skirt his hips, and a smile that brightened more than it delivered, like a saguaro's topmost flowers attempting to distract a harvester from the stems' prickly spines. The Reaper's carrot-top hairstyle protruded in any crowd. Upon noticing Menq, Icacam halted to retrace his steps.

"Menq, what luck! I got a good one for you." He spoke to insure everyone on the bench heard. "It'd even make Tezcat howl. You remember I got a measly job transplanting some Bimini reeds, on that peninsula across the Inland Sea? Well, turned out the oracles foretold barbarians will invade from across the Great Ilhuicaatl, and they wanted the plants protected. A useless assignment if I ever heard one, since everybody knows there's nothing on the other side of that ocean. It's so big anyway, why would anybody be dumb enough to cross it?" The Reaper checked the others' faces and continued despite finding few who acknowledged his exhortations.

Icacam had always been a talker, a wannabe comedian incessantly seeking audiences. Probably came from his day-sign being so close to the Trickster God's. It bothered Menq, too, that he had used the profane version Tezcat, instead of the god's full name. Had the usage been spreading recently?

"Anyway, let me know if you need any of those plants to set up a fountain of youth. I got enough to fill one of Tezcat's teopans, minus all the horrid altars and mesmerized worshippers. Of course, the stuff does invigorate the body and immunize against diseases. Turns you into the worst, robust-est womanizer, though most of the complaints I get are from the males, if you can believe that! But, don't like the name myself--'fountain of youth.' Sounds like it'd give you eternal life. Ha! Imagine what'd happen if the invaders landed here. I can hear them now: Where's the fountain of youth?' Answer: in everybody's backyard. They'd never believe it. Ha, ha!"

After Icacam left, satisfied his not-so-hilarious telling had lifted everyone's spirits, Menq wondered, "At what point might abusing the god Tezcatlipoca's name bring repercussions?" Menq recalled the earth tremors the past week and decided that when he was done here, he'd better take this to the attention of one of his contacts on the Council. It would be his minor contribution to keeping the balance of the Close and the Near. "Gotta remember Tezcat. Gotta remember Tezcat," he repeated softly, to make sure he wouldn't forget.

[end of chapter one]

Of course, if you know of an editor or publisher or agent looking for a unique 20k-word cross-over story, let her or him or me know. There is an editor who has exclusive review of it at the moment, so if you want to see more, cross your dedos because this is the last Internet posting of any more of the tale.

es todo, hoy,

Rudy Ch. Garcia