Setting of Place Inside Peru Lima
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narrator clearly stated that there were lots of vehicles contributing the crowd on a corner of this city.
But there were some other places in Peru that were also significant and described in the story.
ii. Quillabamba
Quillabamba is part of Cuzco region in Peru. This city is well-known for its vast area of higher jungle. In the story, Quillabamba was mentioned when Saúl
visited this place for a trip. He was invited by his uncle to spend his holidays there Llosa, 1989: 17.
The fact that part of Quillabamba was jungle could be seen from how Saúl‘s uncle adjusted to living there. This place seemed to provide raw materials
such as land and wood to cultivate. It was described on how Saúl‘s uncle explored
the jungle to find mahogany and rosewood for making a living Llosa, 1989: 17. From the story of Saúl‘s uncle, it can be understood that Quillabamba
itself was one of places in which the natives of America, Indians, dwelled and survived. It was told that some Indians
Saúl‘s uncle hired to help him in timber cultivation lived in an area of camps. The location was surrounded by two big
river, Alto Urubamba and Alto Madre de Dios, and also some other bayous. Through his encountering with the Indians, Saúl had a chance to visit their camps.
Saúl had to ride a raft to reach the camps area since it was one of transportations used for river. This geographical condition in Quillabamba apparently provided
Saúl a chance for adventure. Not only did the Urubamba challenge him with its torrent but also its canyon, Pongo de Mainique, and some whirlpools. It was
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described how he felt excited when the journey forced them to meet canyon of Pongo de Mainique, part of Urubamba River, which was challenging due to its
whirlpools. It was seen through the below quotation. He spent an entire night enthusiastically telling me what it was like to ride
a raft hurtling through the Pongo de Mainique, where the Urubamba, squeezed between two foothills of the Cordillera, became a labyrinth of
rapids and whirlpools Llosa, 1989: 17.
The jungle of Quillabamba, for Saúl, was challenging not only in terms of transportation but the geographical condition also forced anyone dwelling in that
place to survive in wildlife. It was then explained that the jungle of Quillabamba offered whatever available there to eat and drink. They ate animals such as
monkey, turtle, and insects, which actually were considered strange for those who had never consumed them. Saúl himself seemed to complete his adventure by
trying to eat and drink the way the Indians did. He also tried traditional alcoholic beverage made from cassava called masato
, ‗Saúl had eaten monkey, turtle, and grubs, and gotten incredibly soused on cassava masato,‘ Llosa, 1989: 17-18.
In short, Quillabamba for one of the setting places in The Storyteller is depicted as a typically wildlife place. This is due to not only the domination of
jungle and some rivers but also the way people there survive. For the people or the community originated from that place, wildlife seems to be very common to face.
However, it turns out differently when someone like Saúl coming from another place with its modernity visited this place. It becomes such an adventure for him.
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iii. Alto Marañón
Alto Marañón is another region located in Peru. It is in the surrounding of Marañón
River, one of Amazon‘s tributaries. Alto Marañón appears in the story when the narrator was offered a chance to visit Amazon jungle. This was several
years after he listened to Saúl‘s experience. ‗I first became acquainted with the Amazon jungle halfway through 1958, thanks to my friend Rosita Corpancho,‘
Llosa, 1989: 70. The chance was an expedition conducted by a linguistic institute called Summer Institute of Linguistics. It was being done in Alto
Marañón. ―There‘s a place available for someone on an expedition to the Alto
Marañón that‘s been organized by the Summer Institute of Linguistics for a Mexican anthropologist,‖ she said to me one day when I ran into her on
the campus of the Faculty of Letters Llosa, 1989: 70.
The narrator then decided to take the chance. For it was a research on languages and dialects, he and the other researchers had to encounter with certain
Indian tribes. In this region, the narrator met other Peruvian indigenous communities different from the one Saúl had told him.
We went first to Yarinacocha and talked with the linguists and then, a long way from there, to the region of the Alto Marañón, visiting a series of
settlements and villages of two tribes of the Jíbaro family: the Aguarunas and the Huambisas. We then went up to Lake Morona to visit the Shapras
Llosa, 1989: 72.
Previously in the discussion about Quillabamba, Machiguenga is mentioned as one of Indians Saúl encountered. In the above quotation, some other
tribes with whom the narrator encountered in Amazonian jungle were the Aguarunas, the Huambisas, and the Shapras. The Aguarunas, Huambisas, and
Shapras are scattered through the jungles in Alto Marañón. The narrator, then,
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went on describing how he reached one of villages in Alto Marañón in which the Shapras dwelled.
We traveled in a small hydroplane, and in some places in native canoes, along river channels so choked with tangled vegetation overhead that in
bright daylight it seemed dark as night. The strength and the solitude of Nature−the tall trees, the mirror-smooth lagoons, the immutable
rivers−brought us to mind a newly created world, untouched by man, a paradise of plants and animals Llosa, 1989: 72-73.
Along the way to reach the village, the narrator seems to feel amazed by what the nature offered him to see. The dense of foliage made him feel as if it was
night although it was noon. He described the jungles and the river as newborn world, home for plants and animals. It is all about a pack of wildlife.
The pack of life and atmosphere in Alto Marañón the narrator described are similar to what Saúl had experienced in Quillabamba. The jungles, the river,
the creatures, are all the impression that they got from their first visiting to those places. Not only did the narrator encounter with the nature in Alto Marañón but
also he finally understood how Peruvian indigenous communities survive in wildlife when he and the other researchers arrived at the Shapra village.
When we reached the tribes, by contrast, there before us was prehistory, the elemental, primeval existence of our distant ancestors: hunters,
gatherers, bowmen, nomads, shamans, irrational and animistic. This, too, was Peru, and only then I did become fully aware of it: a world still
untamed, the Stone Age, magico-religious cultures, polygamy, headshrinking in a Shapra village of Moronacocha, the cacique, Tariri,
explained to us, through an interpreter, the complicated technique of
steeping and stuffing with herbs required by the operation−that is to say, the dawn of human history Llosa, 1989: 73.
The narrator was, again, amazed by another part of Alto Marañón. The nature had impressed him first with its pure and untouched wildlife. When he
visited the Shapras, he was astonished by the human life in that settlement. The
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community lived in an extremely traditional way. The narrator contrasted the way the community lived with his own life which seemed to be far from the term
‗traditional.‘ He even said that the community lived as if it was prehistoric period. He described how those people represented ‗primeval existence of our ancestors.‘
Among them were some people hunting and gathering foods. The other ones might be shamans. They still hold local beliefs which the narrator considered as
‗irrational and animistic.‘ He then realized that in other parts of his country were there people still mingling with nature. They relied on what the jungle in Alto
Marañón provided. They narrator, then, went on telling about another settlement he visited. He
went to Urakusa village, the settlement of Aguaruna community. For this visit, he sensed similar atmosphere to the Shapras settlement.
In an Aguaruna village, Urakusa, where we arrived one evening, we saw through the portholes of the hydroplane the scene which had become
familiar each time we touched down near some tribe: the eyes of the entire population of men and women, half naked and daubed with paint, attracted
by the noise of the plane, followed its maneuver as they slapped at their faces and chests with both hands to drive away the insects Llosa, 1989:
74.
After some visits to several settlements, the narrator became ‗familiar‘ with the things he saw. The communities are quite alike also in the way the
members let their bodies covered with almost no dress but paint. They were distracted by the sound of the hydroplane and felt curious with it as the narrator
and the researchers were approaching them. The things amazed the narrator were sort of description of Alto Marañón.
This region is depicted in the story as a place with natural atmosphere. The jungle,
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the river, the plants, and the animals create the impression of wildlife. Besides, it is seen from how the communities dwelling in that place survive.
iv. Yarinacocha
Yarinacocha is one of significant places in the story since it includes in the moment when the narrator went to Alto Marañón with the linguistic institute. This
place is the base camp for the research. It is located on ‗the banks of Ucayali,‘ a river with which Marañón River form Amazon River Llosa, 1989: 71.
Yarinacocha is mentioned several times in the fourth chapter for it is the location where the researchers made several transits and discussion before the narrator and
the other researchers started the expedition. We went first to Yarinacocha and talked with the linguists and then, a long
way from there, to the region of the Alto Marañón, visiting a series of settlements and villages of two tribes of the Jíbaro family: the Aguarunas
and the Huambisas. We then went up to Lake Morona to visit the Shapras Llosa, 1989: 72.
The narrator in that quotation mentioned that they went to Yarinacocha and had a talk with the linguists before they went to Alto Marañón and Lake
Morona. It describes that this place is significant for the researchers and the linguists to have discussion. Yarinacocha as the base camp for the research is then
emphasized when the narrator told that it was also a place for the natives to be educated in this place so that they could be bilingual teachers.
The cacique was a quick-witted and determined man, and the Institute linguist working with the Aguarunas encouraged him to take a course at
Yarinacocha so as to become a bilingual teacher. This was a program drawn up by the Ministry of Education with the aid of the Institute of
Linguistics. Men of the tribes who, like Jum, seemed capable of setting up an educational project in their villages were sent to Yarinacocha, where
they took a course−a fairly superficial one, I imagine−given by the
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linguists and Peruvian instructors, to enable them to teach their people to read and read and write in their own language. They then returned to their
native villages with classroom aids and the somewhat optimistic title of bilingual teacher Llosa, 1989: 75.
The quotation shows how a cacique from the Aguaruna community was taken to undergo process of language learning at Yarinacocha in order to make
him be able to be a bilingual teacher when going back to his village. Thus, Yarinacocha is described in the story as a place functioning not only for the
linguists and the researcher for gathering but also to give education for the natives so that they can share their knowledge to the other members of the community.
Still at Yarinacocha, the narrator and the other researchers discussed not only about linguistic groundwork but also characteristics of some indigenous
communities they visited. Once they had a discussion at Mr. and Mrs. Schneil‘s
house, a couple of linguists. It was about Machiguenga community which was different from other Peruvian indigenous communities. It is described by the
narrator when they were sitting together having a talk at the Schneils‘.
Yarinacocha at dusk, when the red mouth of the sun begins to sink behind the treetops and the greenish lake glows beneath the indigo sky where the
first stars are beginning to twinkle, is one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. We were sitting on the porch of a wooden house
contemplating, over the Schneils‘ shoulders, the horizon line of the darkening forest. It was a magnificent sight Llosa, 1989: 81.
Despite the domination of the depiction of Yarinacocha as a setting a place in which the narrator and the researchers did the project, the above quotation put
little side of beauty of this place. The narrator described that he enjoyed the twilight he spent at the Schneils‘ house. He mentioned that he could see the
reflection of glow from the surface of a lake. Similar to the description of
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Quillabamba and Alto Marañón, forest is one of the main content of these three places. The narrator depicted that by saying that he could see ‗the horizon line of
darkening forest‘ behind Schneils‘ shoulders.