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The Birth of Science Fiction in Spanish America

Author(s): Aaron Dziubinskyj
Source: Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Mar., 2003), pp. 21-32
Published by: SF-TH Inc
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THE BIRTH OF SF IN SPANISH AMERICA 21
Aaron Dziubinskyj
The Birth of Science Fiction in Spanish America
In sf scholarship to date, relatively little has been written about the origins of
science fiction in Spanish America.' This is perhaps due, at least in part, to a
perception that there are very few pre-modern Hispanic texts that are truly
science-fictional in nature (as opposed to, for example, those belonging to the
literary tradition of magical realism). Yet although admittedly rare, works of
early Spanish-American proto-sf do exist. In this essay I will discuss a short tale
of space flight and lunar exploration written in the year 1775 in the Spanish
colonial town of Merida, in the Yucatan Peninsula, by a Franciscan friar named
Manuel Antonio de Rivas. Framed as a prologue for his astronomical almanac
of the same year, Rivas's imaginary journey to the Moon bears a striking
resemblance in theme and style to the more well-known lunar voyages by
European writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such as Johannes
Kepler, Francis Godwin, and Cyrano de Bergerac. Virtually unknown except by
a very small group of scholars who have attempted to explore Mexico's science
fiction tradition, Rivas's extraordinary narrative deserves more attention than it
has received. In all probability, it is not only the first sf text in the history of
Mexican literature, but also the first sf text to be written in the Americas.
The rediscovery of Rivas's manuscript is owed to the Mexican historian
Pablo Gonzalez Casanova. In his book La literatura perseguida en la crisis de
la colonia (1958, Persecuted Literature in the Crisis of the Colony) he
mentioned a loose-leafed booklet that he found hidden among the dusty volumes
of the National Archives in Mexico City. That eleven-folio booklet was Rivas's
tale of an imaginary voyage, whose full English title is Syzygies2 and Lunar
Quadratures3 Aligned to the Meridian of Merida of the Yucatdn by an Anctitone4
or Inhabitant of the Moon, and Addressed to the Scholar Don Ambrosio de
Echeverria, Reciter of Funeral Kyries in the Parish of Jesus of Said City, and
Presently Teacher of Logarithm in the Town of Mama of the Yucatdn Peninsula,
in the Year of the Lord 1 775.5 It had been lost for almost two centuries.6 In 1977
Ross Larson made a brief reference to Rivas's story in his pioneering study
Fantasy and Imagination in the Mexican Narrative, in which he describes it as
the earliest known work in Mexico that could be regarded as science fiction.
Despite the significance of Ross's comments-a statement of that magnitude
should have immediately caught the attention of sf scholars and brought Syzygies
to the forefront of sf scholarship-Rivas's Syzygies was not mentioned again
until 1994, when it appeared with a short introduction written by Ana Maria
Morales.7 In 1995 Miguel Angel Fernmndez Delgado-historian and the first
serious Rivas scholar to make a significant contribution to modern Mexican sf
scholarship-published the first of several historical studies of Rivas's
manuscript and other inquisitorial documents surrounding the history of Rivas'
22 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 30 (2003)
turbulent relationship with the Franciscan community in the Yuca

In June of 2001, Delgado published (with critical notes) the definitive modem
transcription of Rivas's tale. To date, however, there has been no scholarly
attempt to identify the textual sources of Syzygies. If this work is to be
recognized as an important foundational text in the history of Spanish-American
sf, then such a comparative reading seems more than warranted.
An analysis of Rivas's speculative tale of a Frenchman's voyage to the Moon
and his encounter with an advanced lunar society reveals that the author had
undoubtedly read a number of European science-fictional texts of the previous
century including Bacon's New Atlantis (1629), Kepler's Somnium (1634),
Godwin's The Man in the Moone (1638), John Wilkins' Discovery of a New
World (1640), Bergerac's The Voyage to the Moon (1657), and Bernard le
Bovier de Fontenelle's Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (1686) as well
as their literary ancestor, Lucian of Samosata's A True Story (c. 120). Not only
was Rivas familiar with these works, but I will also demonstrate through textual
comparisons-and in some cases through identifying the very passages that seem
to correlate directly to Syzygies-that he was also influenced by their language
and borrowed heavily from their thematic innovations.
Syzygies begins as a letter addressed to the scholar Don Ambrosio de
Echeverria8 from the secretary of the Lunar Congress. The Anctitones, or Moo
inhabitants, are impressed by the scientific erudition contained in an anonym
letter they had received from Earth but perplexed as to how the letter even has
arrived on the Moon. As a way to celebrate the achievements, candidness, and
humanity of its author-one "of the few Earthlings who are the least careless and
most well-bred" -the Anctitones inform Echeverria that they have been studying
Earth's history and possess a fine library in which they keep records of all the
important events that have occurred during the last few thousand years (since an
unfortunate catastrophe destroyed their records from earlier centuries).9 The best
and most knowledgeable Anctitone compilers of Earth's history have assembled
from the different lunar regions to demonstrate the veracity of their claim and
to confirm that what they know of Earth's history is identical to "what you
[Earthlings] should know, since it deals with your mythology." The secretary
questions the chronology of certain Biblical events, casts doubt on the
mythological return of the Messiah, briefly mentions Don Sebastian, (the
legendary king of Portugal), and recounts the story of Phaeton, whose
carelessness caused the great fire-a catastrophe that destroyed the silver tablets
upon which the Anctitones had recorded their history. The fire marked the
beginning of a new Lunar Era, of which 7,914,522 years have passed. The
secretary tells Echeverria that just as the Lunar Congress was about to adjourn,
the Anctitones observed that "two and a half miles away (who would have
thought!) a chariot or flying vessel equipped with two wings and a rudder ... was
bursting through our atmosphere at an incredible speed."'0 Out of the flying
vessel emerges Onesimo Dutalon, a native of Baylliage d'Etampe, France. The
Lunar Congress is quite surprised, thinking at first that it "was all an illusion,
since there was no memory or tradition of having ever seen on our planet a man
of body and soul. " "
Dutalon explains to the Anctitones that, as a young student, he had gone to

Paris in order to devote himself to "the untiring study of experimental physics,
the true science." After some time he returned to his hometown, where he
"contacted and cultivated a friendship with an ecclesiastic, named Monsieur
Desforges, a man who knew how to appreciate the merits of wisdom regardless
of faculty, authority, or power." The friendship quickly deteriorated when
Dutalon informed Desforges of his intentions to construct a flying machine.
Fearing the Inquisition, which "upon seeing me [Dutalon] pass through the air
would have lit a fire to burn me as a magician in public," Dutalon decided to try
out his invention on an island near Libya.12 On his first flight he crossed all of
Africa. On the second, "tempted by a geographic curiosity, " he discovered a sea
of ice joining Asia and the American continent. During the third flight he
reached the peaks of Earth's two highest mountains, "that of Tenerife, on one
of the Canary Islands, and that of Pichincha, in Peru.""3 It was at the peak of
Mount Pichincha that he had "the pleasure of seeing that agua regia, free from
gravity and barometric pressure, did not dissolve gold, not even a little; and
how, for this same reason, spicy foods, such as pepper, or pungent foods, such
as salt, aloes, etc., had no taste whatsoever." During these terrestrial flights
Dutalon conducted experiments to confirm or refute various scientific theories
of his time.14 Satisfied with the outcome of his experimental flights, Dutalon
then decided to embark on a journey to the Moon. Along the way he made
several scientific observations, such as the gravitational force created by the
rotation of the earth, as well as
a reflection worthy of public notice at the right moment, to strengthen the

opinion of a certain modern philosopher, on the order of the cause of the cold at
high elevations above sea level. I had safely gone twenty-five thousand leagues,
when I had to laugh out loud, remembering the terrestrial whirlwind of Monsieur
Descartes, who, in a sudden fit of extravagant imagination, had the moon
revolving around the sun, of which I found no evidence. And to further assure
myself, I threw into the fluid a tube filled with water from the Letheo River, and
it stayed motionless in that pure ether.... [I]n the middle of that celestial material
I felt neither cold nor heat, nor was I harmed nor were various materials placed
at convenient distances burned or liquefied by direct sun rays, which I
concentrated at the focal point of an exquisite burning mirror, without a doubt
because of the lack of heterogeneous air.... Thus, messieurs, said Dutalon the
machinist, after the precautionary assistance that I took in the use of inhaling and
exhaling in a space where it cannot exist because of its rarity and unlikeliness,
you don't have to ask yourselves, when you see me, how without loss of life I
landed here on this orb unharmed. I guarantee you that any Earthling can make
the same trip with the same good fortune.15 (21)
The Anctitones are intrigued by the Frenchman's accomplishments, and as

the president of the Lunar Congress is about to welcome Dutalon, they are
interrupted by the appearance of a legion of space demons that swoops down
upon the Yucat'an to carry off the soul of a materialist to the sun. The leader of
this legion "is very ugly looking" and explains that
by order of our prince, we are going far from here, the solar globe being a long
way off; we are taking the soul of a materialist who, at the moment of separating
from his body, was dragged to the gates of Hell, where Luzbel didn't want it,
saying that he was informed by his henchmen, who are all over the Earth, that
it was a restless soul, turbulent, an enemy of rational society and of spirituality.
He said that, in his opinion, the mother who gave birth to it was no better than
a fox, a porcupine, a beetle, or any other foul insect of the Earth whose soul dies
with its body and that he didn't want to increase the disorder, the confusion, and
the horror that dwelled eternally in his republic, such that it was, with another
impious soul.... [A]n Anglican, a native of London named Sevidin, 6 placed hell
in the Sun, and in a dissertation, with verses 8 and 9 of chapter 16 from
Apocalipsis, he endeavors to persuade [the reader] that the place of the
condemned souls is in the middle of the Sun, where the devil placed his throne,
and that is the reason why so many nations of the terrestrial globe have
worshiped the Sun as a god. 17 (22)
After this brief interruption, Dutal6n politely asks for advice on traveling arou
the Moon. The lunar president suggests the best routes to follow, provides som
mathematical and topographical data, and recommends several points of
geographical interest.18 Dutalon departs on his exploratory journey, and the
Lunar Congress returns to the dilemma of how to send their letter to Echeverria.
Upon Dutalon's return he shares with the Anctitone Congress his impressions
of his four-month lunar exploration and of their utopian society. He declares that
in all of the universe there is not a more comfortable, more agreeable, nor more
delightful place to live for those who worship and praise the Creator. I will bet
that if anyone who condemns as absurd the opinion that here on the Moon can
be found Paradise-from which the good father Adam was thrown for having
given pleasure to a woman (let us pray that his posterity was not subdued by this
easy submissiveness!)-were to travel throughout any of these regions, they
would perhaps change their mind. What marvelous and beautiful wonders of
nature, that here seem ordinary and yet are not contemplated without a sense of
astonishment and awe! What a government, refined and accommodating to the
condition of the Anctitones!'9 (25)
As Dutalon departs, he declares that he will write a work of great scientific

merit based on his experiences.20 The Frenchman also agrees, at the request of
the president of the Lunar Congress, to personally deliver their letter, written
on silver tablets, to Echeverria, and vows to bring him along on his next voyage
to the Moon. The date of the letter is 7,914,522,21 suggesting a technologically
advanced extraterrestrial culture that predates Earth's own scientific
consciousness by millions of years.
The existence of Syzygies as an early proto-sf text illustrates that European
scientific and pseudo-scientific literature had found its way to Spanish America
by the second half of the eighteenth century. While Rivas's treatment of such
themes as the plurality of inhabited worlds, space travel, and the virtues of the
scientific method may allow his Syzygies to be considered the first work of
proto-sf in Spanish America, the major works from Europe-with which Rivas
was undoubtedly familiar-had already solidified these as common literary
tropes of the genre. Nonetheless, Syzygies is a unique example of the spirit of
speculative imagination that allowed enlightened individuals to utilize science as
a means to see beyond the boundaries of eighteenth-century Christian dogma.

Never before had a comparable work of speculative fiction, containing such
modern European scientific and literary erudition, been produced in Spanish
America. In this sense, Casanova notes that Rivas's tale represents a literary
novelty in the Spanish colonial literature of the period, since it deals in a
fantastic way with the major themes of scientific speculation (97). In spite of its
importance as the first work of Spanish-American sf, however, the historical
events surrounding the composition, disappearance for almost two centuries, and
eventual discovery of Rivas's Syzygies clearly suggest that it had no direct
influence on the development of science fiction as a genre in Mexico or any
other country in Spanish America.
Although not adding any significant contributions to the scientific knowledge
of its day, Rivas's tale does reveal the historical period in which it was written.
When Syzygies first appeared, Rivas's relationship with the Catholic Church in
Merida was precarious. On several occasions the Franciscan community had
threatened to bring him before the Holy Inquisition to stand trial for heresy.
Subsequently, the almanac and its prologue were condemned and all but
forgotten until they were discovered, as-- I mentioned earlier, by Casanova in
1958. These events suggest that eighteenth-century Mexico was an unlikely
setting for the emergence of an enlightened scientific consciousness. It was a
time when speculative scientiflc thought, especially among the clergy, was
considered dangerous by those in positions of power. Such free thinking would
have been seen as undermining the orthodoxy of the Church and threatening the
legitimacy of Spain's political control as it sought to enlist the Church as an
instrument of power and control in Spanish America (Farriss 4). By the end of
the eighteenth century, however, a certain lethargy and incompetence had begun
to pervade the Holy Inquisition, which had been the Church's main weapon
against heresy and witchcraft. By the time the Jesuit order was expelled from
Spanish America in 1767, the Inquisition's effectiveness had been reduced
considerably (Farriss 131). Philosophical and scientific works of the European
enlightenment began to enter Mexico during this period, at the same time that
the relationship between the Spanish crown and its colonial institutions in the
New World was deteriorating. Despite the Inquisition's earlier attempts to
prohibit works deemed dangerous to the health of the Church and the Spanish
crown's claim to power, by the eighteenth century the Real y Pontificia
Universidad de Mexico had become an arena for studying the theories of
mechanics. This, along with a stream of scientific journals that began to appear
in Mexico in the 1720s, guaranteed the continuity of scientific speculation in
Spanish America (Delgado, Cuasar 36).
Munioz has suggested that Syzygies can be read as an allegorical response to
the unfavorable intellectual climate that predominated in the city of Merida,
where Rivas lived, during the second half of the eighteenth century (Los confines
22). That is, although Rivas uses the lunar inhabitants to distance himself from
the critical tone of his tale, he does not disguise the fact that the Franciscan
community of the Yucat'an is the subject of his scrutiny. While the Anctitones
enjoy a more evolved sense of social order based on their dedication to
technological progress, Dutalon admits that Earth has not yet embraced an
enlightened ideology, since here "the luck of those who rule is the most
unhappy; because if the leader governs badly, he displeases all; if he governs
well, he can please only a few, being few those who love justice and equality"
(Rivas 25). While an enlightened society is an imperfect if not impossible
construction, as Rivas's protagonist concludes, what he (and the reader) come
to understand-as did Bacon, Bergerac, and Wilkins-is that science is only the
doorway to progress, and it is up to humanity to decide how best to put it to use.
In other words, along with scientific progress comes the obligation to develop
a more sophisticated political philosophy and social consciousness. This process
can be severely challenged by an opposing force, however, and that force-as
Rivas saw it-was the Franciscan community. Delgado has shown that by
Rivas's own accounts his progressive intellectual activity made him the target
of intimidation, and even death threats, by the Franciscan community of
Merida.22 Rivas was openly critical of his Franciscan brothers, citing their
immoral practices and religious hypocrisy. Through mathematical calculations
and scientific observation, the Anctitones in Syzygies attribute the Yucatan
inhabitants' corrupt behavior to the rotation of the Earth:
And since from up here we see that the Earth revolves from west to east on its
axis, in proportion to the movement of the equinoctial earth this corresponds to,
according to its parallel, [a rotation ofl four Spanish leagues per minute for the
peninsula [Yucatan]. It is truly a miracle of the Almighty that all of its
inhabitants are not hurled through the air with a force much more impetuous than
that of a stone from the circular tangent of a shepherd's sling. With this in mind,
you [the inhabitants of the Yucatan Peninsula] must suffer from vertigo or
permanent dizziness, which impedes the functions and reflections of a rational
soul, allowing you, people without wits or brains, to give in to every kind of
profanity, luxury, swindle, fraud, treachery, profound make-believe, squalid
greed, violent ambition, even to shamelessly trampling that which is sacred. (24)
Such a relationship dismisses the possibility of any theological relationship

between the Church and God, given that the actions of the Franciscans are
driven not by an adherence to metaphysical laws or spiritual devotion, but rather
are influenced by the unseen-and uncontrollable-forces of Earth's rotation.
Rivas's desire to elevate the virtues of empirical science and natural
philosophy-ironically, he does this through his portrayal of a French, rather
than a Mexican, scientist-is set against the dark realism of his historical
moment. In this sense, the Moon becomes for Rivas a counterpoint from which
he contemplates the social, political, and religious institutions found on Earth.
Syzygies was thus inspired by the ideological confrontation between the colonial
religious climate and the enlightened spirit of scientific inquiry that defmed
Mexico at the end of the eighteenth century. The lengthy title of Rivas's story
further exemplifies this dialectic by connecting the religious occupations of an
anonymous inhabitant of the Yucatan Peninsula to a strong sense of scientific
inquiry (contradictory behaviors that most certainly would have been labeled
heretical) and finally to contact with an advanced alien culture. In doing so,
Rivas-in a way reminiscent of Wilkins's Discovery of a New World in the
Moone (1683) and, in particular, his second proposition, which states that the
belief in a plurality of worlds does not necessarily contradict any principle of
reason or faith-challenges the narrow world-view that was predominant in
Mexico during his lifetime while not necessarily contradicting the principles of
theological reason or religious faith. This attitude is nothing new, and can also
be found as an underlying theme in Fontenelle's Conversations on the Plurality
of Worlds.23 Unlike the Franciscan community of the Yucatan Peninsula, the
lunar Antictone society in Syzygies has embraced science (rather than religion)
as the mechanism through which universal laws, and perhaps even divine truths,
become known. Dutalon's oscillation between the two portrayals helps to
establish an empirical realism that would have allowed the educated eighteenth-
century reader to more readily accept the potential existence of an
extraterrestrial enlightened society.
The real significance of this Spanish-American tale is that it reflects Riva
attempt to legitimize the deep curiosity that he shared with his European
contemporaries for scientific inquiry and speculation in the service of social,
intellectual, and cultural transformation. Unfortunately, Syzygies is the only
known example of Rivas's science-fictional literary writing.24 The direction of
his development as an author of speculative fiction or what contributions he
might have made to the dissemination of the sf genre in Spanish America had he
continued to produce sf works will never be known. Nonetheless, while modem
scholarship has traditionally placed Spanish America in the category of
"consumer" of sf, or even as "victim" of technological advances,25 the
discovery of Rivas's Syzygies proves that there was at least one pioneer of early
science fiction who-knowingly or not-produced a foundational text for the
genre in Spanish America.
NOTES
1. Most scholarship devoted to Spanish-American sf has been quite recent. Migu
Angel Fernandez Delgado is the most notable historian and scholar of Spanish-Am
sf in Mexico. His work, along with that of Gabriel Trujillo Mutioz and others, is
primarily historical and relates to the origins of sf in Spanish America. See the Works
Cited for a list of their works. Andrea Bell and Yolanda Molina Gavilan have also done
pioneering work on the origins of Spanish-American sf. Bell, for example, has published
articles on what she considers to be the earliest Chilean sf novel by Francisco Miralles
(Desde Jupiter: Curioso viajede un santiaguino magnetizado, 1878). Braulio Tavares and
Maurico-Jose Schwarz dedicate less than four full pages (693-97) of John Clute and Peter
Nicholls's Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993) to a brief historical overview of the
development of sf in Spanish America. In this essay, all translations from the Spanish are
by me unless otherwise attributed.
2. A syzygy occurs when either of two points in the orbit of a celestial body,
especially the Moon, is in opposition to or aligned with the Sun.
3. A quadrature occurs when the position of one celestial body is at a right angle to
another celestial body as measured from a third.
4. According to Ana Maria Morales, Rabelais uses this same term to refer to the
antipodes (557 fn.3)
5. The title in Spanish is Sizigias y cuadraturas lunares ajustadas al meridiano de
Merida de Yucatdn por un anctitona o habitador de la Luna, y dirigidas al Bachiller Don
Ambrosio de Echeverria, entonador que ha sido de kyries funerals en la parroquia del

Jesus de dicha Ciudad, y al presente professor de logarftmica en el pueblo de Mama de
la Peninsula de Yucatdn, para el afio del sefior 1775. For the sake of brevity, from this
point I refer to the work as Syzygies, the abbreviated title in English.
6. Contrary to what is stated in 7he Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (694), the title
of Rivas's imaginary voyage has not been lost.
7. While Delgado relies extensively on Morales's footnotes in his own transcription,
Morales's version seems to show some lack of attention to detail. For example, she
suggests that Rivas wrote the prologue around 1772, but certainly before 1773. Upon
careful inspection, however, the date of the text is clearly indicated as 1775. Fernandez
Delgado has also assured me of the correct date of authorship. These differences could
be the result of the less-than-perfect condition of the original handwritten manuscript
which, due in part to its age, is at times nearly illegible.
8. Delgado suggests that Don Ambrosio de Echeverria was probably one of the
learned men in Merida with whom Rivas regularly conversed; and is the one described
in Syzygies as "a man of solid reason, very skilled in the elegance of modern music and
in the workings of the trigonometric canon, whom you can learn about as soon as you
wish" (23).
9. In his A True Story, Lucian describes a large looking glass positioned above a
shallow well that allows anyone who enters the well to hear and see everything on Earth
"just as if he were standing over it" (281). While the technology that the Anctitones
utilize to observe the events on Earth is not explicitly described, it demonstrates that
Rivas was undoubtedly familiar with the idea of a plurality of inhabited worlds capable
of advanced scientific inventions. That this idea came to Rivas through his reading of
Lucian cannot be determined with absolute certainty. However, it does suggest an
important intertext for the reading of Syzygies as a work that was inspired by a corpus
of well-known European and Old World sf texts. The vast library collections that Bacon
describes in his New Atlantis (181-90) are perhaps the model for the fine library in which
the Anctitones keep their records of Earth's history.
10. That the Moon had an atmosphere was an idea long established in the Classical
and European sf canon, from Lucian onward.
1 1. This is, perhaps, in contrast to more "spiritual" visitors to the Moon such as the
dreaming Duracotus in Kepler's Somnium or the Daemon of Socrates in Bergerac's
Voyage to the Moon.
12. Domingo Gonzales, the protagonist of Godwin's 7he Man in the Moone, also
invents his flying machine on an island off the coast of Africa, St. Helena. During his
time on the island Domingo trains his gansas and conducts several experimental flights
(11-14).
13. The peak of the mountain of Tenerife, referred to as "el Pico" ("the peak"), also
serves as the point of departure for Domingo Gonzales, the traveler of Godwin's The
Man in the Moone who trained birds to carry him to the Moon. This common point of
departure suggests that Rivas had read Godwin's tale, or at least was sufficiently familiar
with certain details of The Man in the Moone.
14. In contrast to Lucian's fantasies, for example, Kepler's Somnium was the first
imaginary lunar exploration based on the principles of real science. In the words of
Majorie Hope Nicolson, "We find ourselves not in Utopia or Arcadia but in the
telescopic moon. Our guide is no romancer but a scientist.... Kepler transformed the old
Lucianic literary tradition into the modern scientific moon voyage" (45-47). During his
own voyage to the Moon, Godwin's protagonist also counters the arguments of traditional
philosophers and mathematicians on such matters as the nature

motion (19). These learned men, according to Gonzales, have blindly
made the world to beleeve hitherto, that the Earth hath no motion. And to make that good they
are fain to attribute unto all and every of the celestial bodies, two motions quite contrary each
to other; whereof one is from the East to the West, to be performed in 24 howers; the other
from the West to the East in severall proportions. (22)
Wilkins's Discovery of a New World consists of thirteen propositions in which he

presents the prevailing scientific arguments of his time and then refutes them by offering
scientific evidence to support his own arguments. Among these propositions are that the
Moon may be a world (#1), that the plurality of worlds does not contradict any principle
of reason or faith (#2), and that there are high mountains, deep valleys, and vast plains
on the Moon's surface (#13). Wilkins added a fourteenth proposition to the third edition
of The Discovery of a New World that was inspired by Godwin's The Man in the Moone
(42). This fourteenth proposition addresses the issue of space flight, and suggests that a
self-propelled chariot is more practical than imitating winged flight or relying on birds
themselves. He also includes a lengthy discussion of the nature of gravity. Cyrano de
Bergerac's narrator in Voyage to the Moon, after reaching French Canada from France
in less than a day's travel (using bottles of dew to lift him into the sky), cites the theories
of Copernicus to support his argument that the Sun sits at the center of the universe and
that the Earth revolves around it; the stars are other suns with inhabited worlds around
them. Rivas's continual references to Dutal6n's and the Anctitones' use of the scientific
method of observation and experimentation-like those in the above texts-strongly
suggest that he was influenced by the literary conventions of these early European
"lunar" writers.
15. Kepler describes both a terrific cold and difficulty in breathing in space: "The
former we [Duracotus and his companions] counter with our innate power, the latter by
means of moistened sponges applied to the nostrils" (90). Godwin's traveler discovers
that the air of space is "neither hot nor cold, as where neither the Sunnebeames had any
subject to reflect upon, neither was yet either the earth or water so neere as to affect the
ayre with their natural quality of coldnesse. As for the imagination of the Philosopher
attributing heat together with moystnesse unto the ayre, I never esteemed it otherwise
than a fancy" (21). Eventually he finds that, once freed from the
attractive Beames of that tyrannous Loadstone the earth, I found the Ayre of one and the
selfe same temper, without Winds, without Raine, without Mists, without Clouds, neither
hot nor cold, but continually after one and the same tenor, most pleasant, milde, and
comfortable, till my arrivall in that new World of the Moone. (24)
Wilkins, offering a less scientific explanation, describes the air of the earth's "second
region" as being created cold "as may make it fit for the production of meteors" (55),
while the air in the regions above it is more mild and temperate. To counter the effects
of the difficulty in breathing, Wilkins argues that, contrary to Aristotle's arguments that
the air on some mountaintops, such as Olympus, is too thin to breathe, "moistened
sponges might helpe us against its thinesse" (57). The modern scholar may conclude
from these references that Rivas probably had access to these texts-which show a high
degree of intertextual borrowing among themselves-and synthesized their various ideas
into his own tale.
16. According to Delgado, this is a reference to the Anglican M. Swinden's
Investigation of the Nature of the Fire of Hell and the Place Where it is Found (Leiden
1733).
17. In A True Story, Lucian tells of how the protagonists are bound and carried off
to the Sun after the Moonites are defeated by Phaethon's Sun legion (271). Commenting
on the laws under which the lunar inhabitants live, Domingo Gonzales in The Man in the
Moone notes that, since 'it is an inviolable decree amongst them, never to put any one
to death, perceiving by the stature, and some other notes they have, who are likely to bee
of a wicked or imperfect disposition, they send them away (I know not by what meanes)
into the Earth" (34). A more compelling source for this scene, however, is Bergerac's
Voyage to the Moon:
I do not know what he meant to say but at that moment there was a knock at the door of
our room and a large, black, hairy man came in. He approached us, seized the blasphemer
by the middle and carried him off up the chimney.... And now I was so near that I could
not lift my eyes beyond Italy, when my heart told me that this Devil was no doubt
carrying my host to Hell, body and soul, and that he was passing by way of our Earth,
because Hell is in its center. (150-51)
While Rivas alters the scene slightly-the blasphemer is carried to the Sun rather than
to the center of the Earth-the language in both Syzygies and Voyage to the Moon seems
too similar to be mere coincidence.
18. Speculations about the composition and geography of the Moon's surface and the
appearance of its inhabitants are standard themes of lunar voyages throughout history.
Lucian describes a land that is "inhabited and cultivated.... [A]s night came on we began
to see many other islands hard by, some larger, some smaller, and they were like fire in
colour" (259). Kepler includes detailed descriptions of the geography of the Moon ("it
has high mountains as well as very deep and wide valleys.... [Ilt is all porous and, so to
say, perforated with caves and grottoes everywhere" [27]), including its relationship to
the sun and stars, its eclipses, and the appearance and customs of its inhabitants.
Godwin's Gonzales details the physical appearance of the lunar inhabitants, as well as
their customs, and (like Bergerac's later traveler) even learns their language so that he
may communicate with them and learn from them.
19. When the narrator in Cyrano's tale first crashes on the Moon, he discovers that
he has fallen into the Garden of Eden:
From this I supposed I was descending upon the Moon.... After I had been falling, as I
supposed, for the violence of my fall prevented me from observing it, I remember no
more than that I found myself under a tree.... As you shall know very soon, the place was
happily the Earthly Paradise and the tree I fell on precisely the Tree of Life. (58)
Rivas is probably not borrowing directly from Cyrano here-both texts were referring
to a fairly common belief of the time that the Moon was home to Paradise.
20. From the Moon, Godwin's Gonzales proclaims that "May I once have the
happinesse to returne home in safety, I will yeeld such demonstrations of all I deliver,
as shall quickly make void all doubt of the truth hereof" (35). Similarly, Bergerac
pledges to the philosopher that "as soon as I return to the Moon [ironically, the Moon
is the Earth, which the lunar inhabitants believe to be a moon] ... I will disseminate your
fame by relating the fine things you tell me" (126). At the conclusion of Bacon's New
Atlantis the father of Solomon's House gives permission to the travelers to publish what
they have seen and been told, saying "I give thee leave to publish it for the good of other
nations; for we here are in God's bosom, a land unknown" (191).
21. The year 7,914,522 marks the time that has passed since a great fire reduced the
surface of the moon to ashes, destroying the silver tablets upon which were recorded the
memories of a previous lunar civilization. The source for this story, according to
Delgado, is the fable of Phaeton, with which Rivas would have been familiar from
Ovid's Metamorphoses. It should be noted here that the secretary of the Lunar Congress
informs Echeverria in the letter that a lunar year is 437 days. Thus, 7,914,522 lunar
years would correspond to the year 9,475,743 on Earth (see Rivas 19).
22. Cf. Delgado, "Fray Manuel Antonio de Rivas...."
23. In his conversation with the Marquise, Fontenelle's narrator tells her that,
although I see the Moon as inhabited, I still live on good terms with those who don't
believe it, and I keep myself in a position where I could shift to their opinion honorably
if they gained the upper hand" (24).
24. Delgado talks about other forms of writing by Rivas, such as published pamphlets
attacking the Franciscan community in the Yucatan, as well as a large number of letters
defending himself against his attackers and criminal charges while under house arrest in
Merida ("Manuel Antonio de Rivas: Hereje y Profeta Mexicano" 4).
25. Schwarz and Tavares, 693.
WORKS CITED
Bacon, Francis. "New Atlantis." 1626. Essays, Civil and Moral and The New Atlantis.
New York: Collier, "The Harvard Classics," 1909. 152-91.
Bell, Andrea. "Desde Jupiter: Chile's Earliest Science-Fiction Novel." SFS 22.2 (July
1995): 187-97.
and Moises Hasson. "Prelude to the Golden Age: Chilean Science Fiction, 1900-
1959." SFS 25.2 (1998): 285-99.
, Roger Bozzetto, and Elana Gomel. "Current Trends in Global SF: Roger
Bozzetto on France, Elana Gomel on Russia, and Andrea Bell on Latin America."
SFS 26.3 (November 1999): 431-46.
Bergerac, Cyrano de. Voyages to the Moon and the Sun, 1656, 1662. Trans. Richard
Aldington. New York: Orion, 1962.
Casanova, Pablo Gonzalez. La literatura perseguida en la crisis de la Colonia. Mexico:
SEP, 1986.
Clute, John and Peter Nicholls. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York: St.
Martin's, 1993.
Delgado, Miguel Angel Fernandez. "A Brief History of Continuity and Change in
Mexican Science Fiction." The New York Review of Science Fiction 9.3 (November
1996): 18-19.
. "Fray Manuel Antonio de Rivas: El Caso de un Franciscano Lector de Libros
Prohibidos y Autor de un Imaginario Viaje Lunar en Yucatan a Finales del Siglo
XVIII" (unpublished manuscript).
. "Las Sizigias y Cuadraturas Lunares y el Nacimiento de la Ciencia Ficci6n en
el Nuevo Mundo. " Cuasar: Ciencia Ficcion, Fantasia, Terror 32 (December 2000):
32-40.
. "A Moon Voyage Inside an Astronomical Almanac in Eighteenth-Century
Mexico." 7he New York Review of Science Fiction 9.1 (September 1996): 17-18.
"Manuel Antonio de Rivas: Hereje y Profeta Mexicano." Preface to Fray
Manuel Antonio de Rivas, Sizigias y cuadraturas lunares ajustadas al meridiano de
Merida de Yucatdn por un anctitona o habitador de la Luna, y dirigidas al Bachiller
Don Ambrosio de Echeverria, entonador que ha sido de kyries funerals en la
parroqufa del Jesu's de dicha Ciudad, y al presente professor de logaritmica en el
pueblo de Mama de la Peninsula de Yucatdn, para el afio del sefior 1775. Ed. Miguel
Angel Fernandes Delgado. Mexico: Goliardos, 2001. 3-16.
Farriss, N.M. Crown and Clergy in Colonial Mexico 1759-1821: The Crisis of
Ecclesiastical Privilege. London: Athlone, 1968.
Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de. Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds. 1686. Trans.
H.A. Hargreaves. Berkeley: U of California P, 1990.
Godwin, Francis. The Man in the Moone, or a Discourse of a Voyage Thither by
Domingo Gonzales the Speedy Messenger. 1683. The Man in the Moone and Other
Lunar Fantasies. Ed. Faith K. Pizor and T. Allen Comp. New York: Praeger, 1971.
3-40.
Gove, Philip Babcock. The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction. 1941. New York: Arno,
1974.
Kepler, Johannes. Somnium seu opus posthumum de astronomia lunari. 1634. Rpt. in
English as Somnium: The Dream, or Posthumous Work on LunarAstrononmy. Trans.
Edward Rosen. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1967.
Larson, Ross. Fantasy and Imagination in the Mexican Narrative. Tempe, Arizona:
Center for Latin American Studies, 1977.
Lucian of Samosata. A True Story. Ed. E. Capps, T.E. Page, and W.H.D. Rouse. THE
LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY. Vol. 5. London: Heinemann, 1927.
Morales, Ana Maria. "Un viaje novohispano a la luna (ca. 1772), de fray Manuel
Antonio de Rivas, franciscano." Literatura Mexicana. 5.2 (1994): 555-68.
Nicolson, Majorie Hope. Voyages to the Moon. New York: Macmillan, 1960.
Mufioz, Gabriel Trujillo. Los Confines: Cr6nica de la Ciencia Ficcion Mexicana.
Mexico: Grupo Editorial Vid, 1999.
.La ciencia ficci6n: literatura y conocimiento: ensayo. Mexicali: Instituto de
Cultura de Baja California, 1991.
. Biograflas del Futuro: la Ciencia Ficcion Mexicana y sus Autores. Mexicali:
Universidad Autonomade Baja California, 2000.
Pizor, Faith K. and T. Allen Comp, eds. The Man in the Moone and Other Lunar
Fantasies. New York: Praeger, 1971.
Rivas, Fray Manuel Antonio de. Sizigias y cuadraturas lunares ajustadas al meridiano
de Merida de Yucatan por un anctitona o habitador de la Luna, y dirigidas al
Bachiller Don Ambrosio de Echeverria, entonador que ha sido de kyries funerals en
la parroquia del Jesus de dicha Ciudad, y al presente professor de logaritmica en el
pueblo de Mama de la Peninsula de Yucatdn, para el afio del sefior 1775. Ed. Miguel
Angel Fernandez Delgado. Mexico: Goliardos, 2001.
Schwarz, Maurico-Jose and Braulio Tavares. "Latin America." The Encyclopedia of
Science Fiction. Ed. John Clute and Peter Nicholls. New York: St. Martin's, 1993.
693-97.
Wilkins, John. The Discovery of a New World in the Moone with a Discourse Concerning
the Possibility of a Passage Thither. 1640. The Man in the Moone and Other Lunar
Fantasies. Ed. Faith K. Pizor and T. Allen Comp. New York: Praeger, 1971. 41-58.
ABSTRACT
This essay explores the origins of science fiction as a literary genre in Latin America,
specifically in Mexico. In 1775 in the colonial town of Merida, Yucatan, the Franciscan
monk Antonio de Rivas wrote a curious tale describing a voyage to the moon. While
borrowing from such European sources as Johannes Kepler's Somnium, Francis
Godwin's The Man in the Moone, Cyrano de Bergerac's Voyage to the Moon, and John
Wilkins' The Discovery of a New World, Rivas's original treatment of the sf themes
established by these better known works suggests that the Latin American intellectual
community was perhaps not as disconnected from the scientific dialogues occurring in
Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as has been traditionally believed.
The discovery of Rivas's Syzygies proves that there was at least one pioneer of early
science fiction in the New World who-knowingly or not-produced a foundational text
for the genre in Spanish America.

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SF-TH Inc

The Birth of Science Fiction in Spanish America

The Birth of Science Fiction in Spanish America

turbulent relationship with the Franciscan community in the Yuca

Dutalon explains to the Anctitones that, as a young student, he had gone to

a reflection worthy of public notice at the right moment, to strengthen the

The Anctitones are intrigued by the Frenchman's accomplishments, and as

As Dutalon departs, he declares that he will write a work of great scientific

a means to see beyond the boundaries of eighteenth-century Christian dogma.

Such a relationship dismisses the possibility of any theological relationship

Ambrosio de Echeverria, entonador que ha sido de kyries funerals en la parroquia del

philosophers and mathematicians on such matters as the nature

Wilkins's Discovery of a New World consists of thirteen propositions in which he

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