It doesn't Chaaq me
The Poseidon adventure in Mexico
You may have noticed that Poseidon is in the news.
That shouldn’t make sense, since the Earthshaker is an ancient Greek god who has long since seen his heyday.
But Greek Mythology keeps on inventing itself, over and over again.
This time, Poseidon’s presence in the headlines should intrigue not only mythology buffs but also those interested in cultural diversity.
In brief, here is the situation, as far as I can tell:
Someone (it isn’t clear to me who—see pull quote) sculpted in fiberglass an oversized, cartoonish statue of Poseidon, complete with bare, muscled chest, sweeping beard, and menacing trident, and placed it in the water near a beach in Progreso, Yucatan, Mexico.
“…the creator of the statue, Chapa Balam Díaz, revealed his role in the work on Facebook… an industrial welder, he was responsible for the structure that supports the figure in the sea. In his posts [to Facebook], he denied having been hired directly by the mayor and explained that he only carried out the request that was made to him, so he is not directly responsible for what happened.”
—Infobae, a Mexican news website (translation and emphasis mine)
According to reports, the statue was meant by the municipal authorities in Progreso to be a tourist attraction, but it stirred up a viral hate spree when first Hurricane Alberto, then Beryl, hit the Yucatan Peninsula. To some, the hurricanes appeared because Poseidon, the foreign god, was set up in the territory of Chaaq, the Mayan god of rain, and Chaaq was doling out punishment for the offense.
Someone on social media determined it would be a good idea to create a meet-up where participants would destroy the statue. Although ostensibly started as a joke, the event drew large numbers of sign-ups, and it had to be explained that the event was never going to happen.
A brief tempest in a teapot, after the actual tempests passed?
It’s worth noting—to me, at least—that the impulse to see Poseidon as an interloper, and to blame him for what, scientifically at least, he couldn’t cause, is indicative of something deeper and more universal than just the incident itself.
Greek culture has taken on the stature of European (and now, increasingly with superhero films, American) culture. It used to be only Greek, 2500 years ago. Then the Romans liked it and wrote about it in Latin, and it went viral throughout Europe, and it came along with Europeans when they colonized the world.
In the meantime, there were always other civilizations, religions, mythologies, and the divinities that went with them. The Mayan civilization perished, but then again, so did the Greek. Why should Poseidon be privileged over Chaaq?
Part of the thinking seems to be that if something is going to be a tourist attraction, you need to make something that’s going to attract tourists.
Did whoever in the municipal government of Progreso who commissioned the statue think that Poseidon would be the best choice, based on the global dominance of Greek mythology in popular culture?
But wouldn’t Chaaq have been an excellent choice, indigenous as he is and no doubt intriguing in his own right?
Or isn’t there a Mayan god of the sea who would be an equally good choice?
I, for one, would love to know more about Chaaq (or as he is spelled in Wikipedia, Chaac).
But, as I have often said in my queries to agents concerning the book I am currently at work on, Greek mythology has never been hotter, from Amazon commercials featuring Medusa to Percy Jackson on Disney Plus to Russell Crowe as Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder.
Somehow it doesn’t shock me that Chaaq would lose out to Poseidon in this environment.
But put me down as the first one to go see a movie called Chaaq: Tears and Rain. A movie where the god punishes a town for putting up a statue of Poseidon is guaranteed to be a winner.