José María Arguedas’ short story “The Pongo’s Dream” was inspired by a story he heard from a peasant from Cusco. Arguedas was born in 1911 to wealthy mestizo parents, and spent much of his childhood in the care of Indigenous servants, through which he became fluent in Quechua. As the editors of the second edition of The Peru Reader write:
[T]he novelist and anthropologist was perhaps more responsible than any other Peruvian for the impassioned defense of the Incan tongue and cultural autonomy for millions of Quechua speakers, challenging the powerful ideologies of ‘modernization’ and ‘national integration’ predicated on the erasure of Peru’s indigenous past. (Starn et al. 273)
“The Pongo’s Dream” follows the relationship between a small Indigenous man “who had to perform the duty of a pongo, a lowly house servant” and his (likely mestizo) master, who mistreats him horribly (a small note, but I think it is important that Arguedas first describes the small man as having to perform the duty of a pongo, rather than necessarily being a pongo himself—it shows he is greater than his role) (Arguedas 273). The master regards the pongo with a special contempt and constantly dehumanizes him, calling him “offal,” making him act like a dog and a hare, shaking him vehemently “like a piece of animal skin” and asking him: “What are you? A person or something else?” (Arguedas 273-275). Yet the pongo only speaks to affirm his subservience: “Yes papacito, yes, mamacita” (Arguedas 274).
Until one day the pongo asks: “Great lord, please grant me permission. Dear lord, I wish to speak to you” (Arguedas 275). The master cannot not believe his ears, and prompts the pongo with uncertainty: “Talk … if you can” (Arguedas 275). The pongo then tells of his dream the previous night, in which both the pongo and the master died and were met by Saint Francis, their hearts subjected to his judgement. Saint Francis called the most beautiful angels to gloss the master in honey from a golden cup, and “[a] worthless, old angel with scaly feet, too weak to keep his wings in place” to smear the pongo with human excrement from a gasoline can (Arguedas 277). Then, just when the master thinks things are as they should be, Saint Francis tells the the master and the pongo to lick each other’s bodies for all eternity (I found a hilarious rendition of this on YouTube: https://youtu.be/cb-zshqW4dE?si=O_rEUfDE_wj0HUv1&t=597).
The pongo’s dream can be read as a sort of wish fulfillment, as it establishes an unrealized equality between the master and pongo that grants each an (infinite) taste of the other’s lot. It also seems to be in dialogue with an “asymmetrical duality” said to be central to the Andean worldview, in which reality is built by forces that are different and compromised but need each other to be complete. One force is slightly larger or more powerful than the other, leading to a disparity that is the foundation of reality and all change. As Saint Francis is described as having “eyes that reach across the heavens, I don’t know to what depths, joining night and day, memory and oblivion,” bringing the relationship between the master and the pongo back into balance, I wonder whether this is an example of a Catholic figure being used to express a concept central to pre-Columbian Peru, or whether the pongo’s depiction of Saint Francis is actually congruent with Catholicism (Arguedas 277-278).
I was also left with a certain ambiguity at the end of the story as to whether the pongo can be represented by the old angel. At the very moment the master and pongo were condemned to lick each other for eternity, the old angel “became young again. His wings regained their blackness and great strength. Our father entrusted him with making sure that his will was carried out” (Arguedas 278). Before his transformation, the old angel is described as having “scaly feet,” perhaps analogous to how the pongo was dehumanized. The restoration of order allows the old angel to regain his “blackness,” construed as something strong and essential rather than deficient, as night can be seen as the counterpart to day. Perhaps the pongo conceives of himself as a servant of God like the old angel, and dreams that if he does his duty correctly, he too will become necessary and beautiful.
This story puzzles me and I would love to hear other interpretations of it. To what extent do you think the pongo speaking his dream works as an act of defiance?
5 replies on “III: “The Pongo’s Dream””
Indeed, it is an intriguing story. I have my own interpretation, but it’s actually pretty boring. Saint Francis in the Catholic tradition is seen as the extreme example of humility, of whom he humiliates himself to the point of hurting himself without mercy in favor of others… and of God above all. There are interesting conceptions about the body and its function in the economy of salvation. On the one hand, it is despised, but on the other it is a means to achieve eternal life.
Hi Adam! You provided a great recap of the story. I enjoyed reading your interpretation of the story and admire how succinctly you weaved in quotations from the text. The ending of the story caught me off guard as I was expecting the Pongo’s dream to describe ways in which the Pongo would reach salvation and the master would be condemned to a terrible fate. However, the story left me with greater feelings of sadness for the Pongo which I thought illustrated the powerlessness of indigenous servants to their rich landowners.
We might just have to show that video at one of our movie screening nights; it’s an absolute masterpiece. Great blog. I really appreciated what you said near the end: “…dreams that if he does his duty correctly, he too will become necessary and beautiful.” This line really touched me, and I think that feeling of wanting to be needed and seen is pretty universal to a lot of people.
I’m not sure about the act of defiance, I think the catch about eternal licking was funny. But also the quote you included was striking: ~”impassioned defence of culture” I wonder how these stories hold teachings about modernisation and national integration.. is there a moral being presented?
Hi Adam,
What a dense story you’ve picked out! This might be something which fits into the framing of the master slave dialectic (you already know, continental phil gang rise up). There’s something very vulgar about the dream, which I consider inherently subversive. More recently we’ve started talking about the punk-subaltern connection, and I think this story is an instance of punk resistance.