Imitation Incas

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Imitation Incas: representation of the magical in The Adventures of Tintin

The element of the fantastic is a discernible presence through-out the series, The

Adventures of Tintin. Beginning with Tintins conflict with the witch-doctor in the

highly controversial Tintin in the Congo, the series goes on to depict rituals of the

Rumbabas (The Broken Ear), Indian magic (Cigars of the Pharaoh), extra-

terrestrial life (Flight 714), and several other supernatural speculations.

This paper will focus primarily on the magic of the Incas, as it is represented in

The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun. The primary inspiration for these two

works, Lerouxs The Bride of the Sun, has hardly any reference to Inca magic. Why

did Herg depict the Incas as practitioners of occult arts?

For a colonizing power, the different culture (literature, science, visual arts, etc.) of the

colonized sometimes illustrates their otherness, and therefore serves as an excuse for

domination. Perhaps a different set of magical practices can serve the purpose just as

neatly. Is Inca magic merely a fanciful detail Herg adds, or can we detect in it an

attempt to alienize the Incas who are initially hostile towards the protagonists?

Greenblatt talks about Sir John Mandevilles refusal to occupy on his travels. Tintin is

no different, when at the end ofPrisoners of the Sun he refuses (though not for spiritual

reasons) the gold and precious stones which the Prince of the Sun offers him.

This essay will endeavor to analyze whether, despite the apparent cosmopolitan nature

of the series, we can detect imperialistic undertones in the representation of the

magical; or whether we can look upon the magic as innocently adding to the wide-

eyed wonder that adventures excite.


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Imitation Incas: representation of the magical in The Adventures of Tintin

In a recently published book, Naming the Witch:magic, ideology, & stereotype in the

ancient world, Kimberly B. Stratton examines the social background of and

motivations behind powerful and enduring stereotypes of the magician, sorceress, and

witch. She claims that magic serves as a major point of difference, used by the culture

employing the rhetoric to marginalize the Other. In this paper I will try to examine the

representations of magic in the Adventures of Tintin by Herg in light of this argument.

I will be referring to Cooper and Turners translations.

From the very early adventures magic and encounters with the occult feature

frequently in Tintins adventures. In the highly controversial Tintin in the Congo there

is mention of a Congolese witch-doctor, from whose hands Tintin frees the tribe. Tintin

goes on to be deified as a great juju man. I will not even begin to explore the

despicable racism that runs through this album.


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Tintins next encounter with the magical comes in another early adventure: Cigars of

the Pharaoh. The Fakir, working in league with drug-dealers, has hypnotic powers

which he misuses. The depiction of the Maharaja of Gaipajama and his men is

extremely orientalist, but they are distinguished from the villains by the latters

employment of magic.1

The motif of magic (or other occult practices) being employed by the Other is carried

on in The Broken Ear, when

the Rumbabas, sworn enemy

of the Arumbayas, are

depicted as practitioners of

head-shrinking. The only

Arumbaya member who

claims occult powers is the evil witch-doctor, who tries to kill Snowy. The Rumbabas

are fooled by the white explorer, Ridgewell, who is a ventriloquist.

Probably the most interesting depiction of magic in the Tintin series is found in the two

part Inca adventure: The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun. There are

references to magic right from the

beginning of the adventure.

Captain Haddock tries his hand at

it. At the variety show at the

1The Fakirs magic is not merely utilitarian. Herg makes it a point to reinforce the magical by throwing

in the Indian Rope Trick even when a simple step ladder would have sufficed to reach the windowthrough which the Fakir tries to hit the Maharaja with a poison dart.


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Hippodrome Madam Yamilah, the clairvoyant, reports the deadly sickness which has

struck down Mr Clarkson, whose wife is a member of the audience. Michael Farr,

renowned Tintinologist, draws attention to another prominent use of the trope of the

music hall in a thriller, i.e. in Hitchcocks 1935 film, The Thirty Nine Steps. The

beginning foreshadows all that is to come.

Herg made use of Weiners Bolivia and Peru (published in 1880), from which he

borrowed details liberally. The plot out-line was inspired by Gaston Lerouxs

Lespouse de Soleil (The Bride of the Sun), which he had read some years earlier.

Maria-Teresa, Lerouxs heroine, is chosen as the sacrificial bride of the sun, as a token

of which she is given a golden bracelet. She is kidnapped and her trail leads her fianc

Dick Montgomery, her uncle Christobal de la Torre, and a few others, to the forgotten

kingdom of the Incas.2

Apart

from several minor details, such

as a flute made out of a persons

tibia or the description of the

sacrificial procession, the main idea of the association of the golden bracelet with death

is taken up by Herg.

However, neither is there any magic in Lerouxs novel, nor

could I find any mention of the use of voodoo dolls or

poppets by the Incas except in this 1985 newspaper

advertisement. This alone, for me, is not sufficient proof that

Herg tried to use magic to distance the Other in Prisoners of

2

Her uncle is named after two of the Famous Thirteen led by Pizarro, Cristbal de Peralta and Juan de laTorre, and the name Christobal appears in Prisoners of the Sun as well, as the name of a hotel.


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the Sun. It seems Herg uses the element of magic to replace practice of ritual sacrifice

as shown in Lerouxs work. Bernal Daz, Greenblatt suggests, excludes the Aztecs and

Mayans because of a native practice that does not fall in the category of familiar

European vicesan absolute difference between his culture and the culture of the

otherpractice of human sacrifice. This crucial point of difference is replaced with

something that is more likely to excite the wonder of Hergs readership, rather than

turning them away from the Other. Tintin and Haddock are being put to death because

they have violated the sacred temple of the sun, while Calculus is punished for wearing

the sacred bracelet. The implication of wearing the bracelet is changed remarkably by

Herg from one of marking out the sacrificial victim, as inBride of the Sun, to a form

of sacrilege in Prisoners of the Sun.

This magic is represented

not as something sinister,

as in the earlier

adventures, but it has a

certain degree of self-conscious theatricality to it. Professor Calculus mistakes it for a

performance. Ah, the cinema! Good, I quite understand. Some historical drama no

doubt. Those people there are dressed like, like Aztecs, I think, Or rather I should say,

Incas. He goes on to admire their make-up and the natural acting of the dancers,

promising later never to be a part of a Hollywood film, no matter how glittering the

contract offered be. The theatricality is further emphasized by a parallel Michael Farr

points out between panel 4, p. 16 in The Seven Crystal Balls and panel 1, p. 47 in

Prisoners of the Sun' (below).


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Theatrical as it maybe the detailing is truly extra-ordinary and even though he is

representing a vanished civilization, Hergs reality claim is extremely strong.

Like in the previous adventures, here too the Other is outwitted by the magic of the

white man. In Tintin in the Congo, Tintin draws admiration by placing an electro-

magnet behind a tree, which attracts all the arrows that are aimed at him.In The Broken

Ear the Rumbaba fetish serves as Ridgewells ventriloquial figure. Explanations of

these acts are reserved only for Europeans: in the first case, for Snowy, and in the

second, for Tintin. Like Ridgewell in The Broken Ear, in Prisoners of the Sun, Tintin

appropriates a pagan deity. Interestingly he does not call upon any deity from his own

religious system, preferring rather to command sublime Pachacamac. He pretends

that the sun is

under his

command, and

even after the

Inca Prince reveals the secret of their magic, Tintin cannot, of course, afford to let slip

that he is human after all.

Tintin claims a very dubious lineage when he foretells an eclipse and thereby misleads

the Inca. Probably the earliest known exponent of this trick was Christopher Columbus,

who in 1504 subjugated native Jamaicans by foretelling a lunar-eclipse. The men of the


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Kukuanas are tricked into submission in a similar manner by Allan Quatermain, Sir

Henry Curtis and Captain Good in H.R. HaggardsKing Solomons Mines, which, like,

Prisoners of the Sun, belongs to the genre of the Lost-World novel, which rose to

popularity in the early 20th

century. The change to a solar eclipse had to be made

because Herg had to account for the burning of the pyres, leaving a gaping hole in

plausibility. The Incas possessed one of the most advanced systems of astrology known

to the ancient world.

I would like to argue that consciously, Herg tries to construct Tintin in this adventure

as what Greenblatt calls a knight of non-possession. Much like Greenblatts own

referent, Sir John Mandeville, for Tintin in Prisoners of the Sun, the language of the

marvelous is part of a renunciation of possession. Greenblatt writes: he and his

companions entered the Vale Perilous where they seemed to see gold, silver, and

precious jewels all around them. But whether it were as it seemed, or it was but

fantasy, I wot not. He gives up the possibility of knowledge the ability to distinguish

between truth and illusionbecause he will not reach out to possess any of the alluring

things he sees around him. Likewise, Tintin refuses the riches that are offered him

towards the end and promises not to let out the secret of the Inca civilization. Tintin is

familiar with the kind of magic the Incas practice even though he would never have

believed it to survive in the modern world. The magical power which Tintin claims to

possess is shown as being beyond the comprehension of the Incas. Suppression of his

own wonderment at the Inca magic gives him a position of superiority, even though it

seems truly magical as opposed to his own scientific knowledge which the Incas

misconstrue.


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Towards the end when the Prince of the Sun tries to justify the punishment meted out,

Tintin claims that the purpose of the expedition was not to plunder but rather to make

known to the world your ancient customs and the splendours of your civilization.

Herg does not mention the mummy of Rascar Capac which the explorers had stolen.

In Tintin in Tibet the supernatural powers of the Blessed Lightning come to Tintins

aid. Magic reappears in the unfinished Tintin and the Alph Artin the form of Endaddine

Akass, a pseudo-Oriental guru, who is in fact Rastapopoulos, but even then, the plot

does not involve the supernatural.

Michael Farr claims that Tintin in Tibetis the only Tintin adventure without a villain. I

would argue that even the Inca adventures have no villain. Hergs claim is that it is

based on, as Tintin says towards the end, a misunderstanding of the explorers

intensions. While Hergs early days are marked by the xenophobia that pervades

almost all his works from the pre-Second World War, and the War period, I believe that

he was moving towards a relatively better understanding of other cultures. Even though

his later work is not entirely devoid of racism, I would suggest that the xenophobia is

replaced by a degree of tolerance. Tolerance, Greenblatt argues is only genuinely

possible with those with whom one has to live; the customs of those at a vast distance

in space or time or of imaginary beings may be admired or despised, but such responses

are independent of tolerance. The change in Tintins response to Otherness reflects

fairly accurately Hergs own changing nature, from xenophobia to, for want of a better

word, tolerance. This movement I feel is fairly well reflected in Hergs changing

attitude towards representation of the magical or the supernatural.


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References:

Kimberly B. Stratton, Naming the witch: magic, ideology, & stereotype in the ancient world. Columbia

University Press, 2007. New York. p. ix.

Herge, Tintin in the Congo. Egmont Books, 2005. London. p. 28

Herge, Seven Crystal Balls. Mammoth, 1991. London. pp. 7 - 9, 16

Herge, Prisoners of the Sun. Mammoth, 1991. London. pp.47, 57 - 61

Herge, The Broken Ear. Methuen, 1990. London. p. 53

Michael Farr, Tintin: The Complete Companion. John Murray, 2001. London. pp. 114125

Stephen J. Greenblatt,Marvelous Possessions. University of Chicago Press, 1991. Chicago.

Facts:

Herg: Georges Prosper Remi (22 May 19073 March 1983)Prisoners of the Sun26 September, 1946 to 22 April, 1948

Seven Crystal Balls - 16 December, 1943 to 3 September, 1944

Bride of the SunGaston Leroux. McBride, Nast & Co. 1915

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Imitation Incas