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<b>Korea</b> Divinities and spirits - Divindades e Espiritos Coreia by Hugo Carriço

Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet and Vietnam

english

Religion in Korea encompasses a number of different traditions. Traditional Buddhism, Mugyo with a background of Korean Confucianism and later Christianity all play a role in Korea's religious tradition. The modern separation of Korea into North and South Korea has also shaped religious practice, especially in the communist North.

Religion in South Korea

Just over 53 percent of South Koreans profess religious affiliation. That affiliation is spread primarily among three traditions - Buddhism (43 percent), Christianity (55 percent), and Mugyo (0.2 percent).[6] These numbers should be treated with some caution, however, as (with the exception of Christianity) there are few if any meaningful distinctions between believers and nonbelievers in Buddhism and Confucianism, which comprise more of a set of ethical values than a religion. The cultural impact of these movements is far more widespread than the number of formal adherents suggests. A variety of "new religions" have emerged since the mid-19th century, including Cheondogyo. Very small Muslim and Bahá'í minorities also exist due to the emigration of South Asians.

Religion in North Korea

Traditionally, Koreans have practiced Buddhism and observed the tenets of Korean Confucianism. Besides a number of practicing Buddhists (about 11.4 million, under the auspices of the official Korean Buddhist Federation), the population also includes some Christians (about 10,000 Protestants and 4,000 Roman Catholics, under the auspices of the Korean Christian Federation) and an indeterminate number of native Cheondogyo (Heavenly Way) adherents. However, religious activities in North Korea are almost nonexistent. North Korea has 300 Buddhist temples, but they are considered cultural relics rather than active places of worship. Several schools for religious education exist, including three-year religious colleges for training Protestant and Buddhist clergy. In 1989 Kim Il Sung University established a religious studies program, but its graduates usually go on to work in the foreign trade sector. Although the constitution provides for freedom of religious belief, in practice the government severely discourages organized religious activity except as supervised by the aforementioned officially recognized groups. Constitutional changes made in 1992 allow authorized religious gatherings and the construction of buildings for religious use and deleted a clause about freedom of anti-religious propaganda. The constitution also stipulates that religion "should not be used for purposes of dragging in foreign powers or endangering public security."

Mugyo

Koreans, like other East Asians, have traditionally been eclectic rather than exclusive in their religious commitments. Their religious outlook has not been conditioned by a single, exclusive faith but by a combination of indigenous beliefs and creeds imported into Korea. Belief in a world inhabited by spirits is probably the oldest form of Korean religious life, dating back to prehistoric times. There is a rather unorganized pantheon of literally millions of gods, spirits, and ghosts, ranging from the "god generals" who rule the different quarters of heaven to mountain spirits (sansin). This pantheon also includes gods who inhabit trees, sacred caves, and piles of stones, as well as earth spirits, the tutelary gods of households and villages, mischievous goblins, and the ghosts of persons who in many cases met violent or tragic ends. These spirits are said to have the power to influence or to change the fortunes of living men and women.

Shamans, most of whom are women, are enlisted by those who want the help of the spirit world. Female shamans (mudang) hold kut, or services, in order to gain good fortune for clients, cure illnesses by exorcising evil spirits, or propitiate local or village gods. Such services are also held to guide the spirit of a deceased person to heaven.

Often a woman will become a shaman very reluctantly—after experiencing a severe physical or mental illness that indicates "possession" by a spirit. Such possession can allegedly be cured only through performance of a kut. Once a shaman is established in her profession, she usually can make a good living.

Many scholars regard Korean shamanism as less a religion than a form of medicine in which the spirits are manipulated in order to achieve human ends. There is no notion of salvation or moral and spiritual perfection, at least for the ordinary believers in spirits. The shaman is a professional who is consulted by clients whenever the need is felt. Traditionally, shamans had low social status and were members of the ch'ommin class. This discrimination has continued into modern times.

Korean folk beliefs are strongly associated with the culture of fishing villages and are primarily a phenomenon found in rural communities. Shamans also treat the ills of city people, however, especially recent migrants from the countryside who find adjustment to an impersonal urban life stressful. The government has discouraged belief in shamanism as superstition and for many years minimized its persistence in Korean life. Yet in a climate of growing nationalism and cultural self-confidence, the dances, songs, and incantations that compose the kut have come to be recognized as an important aspect of Korean culture. Beginning in the 1970s, rituals that formerly had been kept out of foreign view began to resurface, and occasionally a Western hotel manager or other executive could even be seen attending a shamanistic exorcism ritual in the course of opening a new branch in Seoul. Some of these aspects of kut have been designated valuable cultural properties that should be preserved and passed on to future generations.

The future of shamanism itself was uncertain in the late 1980s. Observers believed that many of its functions in the future probably will be performed by the psychiatric profession as the government expands mental health treatment facilities. Given the uncertainty of social, economic, and political conditions, however, it appears certain that shamans will find large numbers of clients for some time to come.

Buddhism and Confucianism

Buddhism was the dominant religious and cultural influence during the Silla (668–935) and Koryo (918–1392) dynasties. Confucianism also was brought to Korea from China in early Three Kingdoms period, but it occupied a subordinate position until the establishment of the Choson Dynasty where it became the state ideology.

Christianity

Roman Catholic missionaries did not arrive in Korea until 1794, a decade after the return of the first baptized Korean from a visit to Beijing. However, the writings of the Jesuit missionary, Matteo Ricci, who was resident at the imperial court in Beijing, had been brought to Korea from China in the seventeenth century. It appears that scholars of the Sirhak, or practical learning, school were interested in these writings. Largely because converts refused to perform ancestor rites, the government prohibited the proselytization of Christianity. Some Catholics were executed during the early nineteenth century, but the anti-Christian law was not strictly enforced. By the 1860s, there were some 17,500 Roman Catholics in the country. There followed a more rigorous persecution, in which thousands of Christians died, that continued until 1884.

Protestant missionaries entered Korea during the 1880s and, along with Catholic priests, converted a remarkable number of Koreans. Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries were especially successful. They established schools, universities, hospitals, and orphanages and played a significant role in the modernization of the country. During the Japanese colonial occupation, Christians were in the front ranks of the struggle for independence. Factors contributing to the growth of Protestantism included the disorganized state of Korean Buddhism, the efforts made by educated Christians to reconcile Christian and Confucian values (the latter being viewed as purely a social ethic rather than a religion), the encouragement of self-support and selfgovernment among members of the Korean church, and the identification of Christianity with Korean nationalism.

A large number of Christians lived in the northern part of the peninsula where Confucian influence was not as strong as in the south. Before 1948 P'yongyang was an important Christian center: one-sixth of its population of about 300,000 people were converts. Following the establishment of a communist regime in the north, however, most Christians had to flee to South Korea or face persecution.

New religions

Ch'ondogyo, generally regarded as the first of Korea's "new religions," is another important religious tradition. It is a synthesis of Confucian, Buddhist, shamanistic, Daoist, and Catholic influences. Ch'ondogyo grew out of the Donghak Movement (also called Eastern Learning Movement) established by Choe Je-u, a man of yangban background who claimed to have experienced a mystic encounter with God, who told him to preach to all the world. Ch'oe was executed by the government as a heretic in 1863, but not before he had acquired a number of followers and had committed his ideas to writing. Tonghak spread among the poor people of Korea's villages, especially in the Cholla region, and was the cause of a revolt against the royal government in 1894. While some members of the Tonghak Movement-- renamed Ch'ondogyo (Teachings of the Heavenly Way)--supported the Japanese annexation in 1910, others opposed it. This group played a major role, along with Christians and some Confucians, in the Korean nationalist movement. In the 1920s, Ch'ondogyo sponsored Kaebyok (Creation), one of Korea's major intellectual journals during the colonial period.

Ch'ondogyo's basic beliefs include the essential equality of all human beings. Each person must be treated with respect because all persons "contain divinity;" there is "God in man." Moreover, men and women must sincerely cultivate themselves in order to bring forth and express this divinity in their lives. Self-perfection, not ritual and ceremony, is the way to salvation. Although Ch'oe and his followers did not attempt to overthrow the social order and establish a radical egalitarianism, the revolutionary potential of Ch'ondogyo is evident in these basic ideas, which appealed especially to poor people who were told that they, along with scholars and high officials, could achieve salvation through effort. There is reason to believe that Ch'ondogyo had an important role in the development of democratic and anti-authoritarian thought in Korea. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ch'ondogyo's antecedent, the Tonghak Movement, received renewed interest among many Korean intellectuals.

Apart from Ch'ondogyo, major new religions included Taejonggyo, which has as its central creed the worship of Tangun, legendary founder of the Korean nation. Chungsanggyo, founded in the early twentieth century by Chungsan Kang, emphasizes magical practices and the creation of a paradise on earth. It is divided into a great number of competing branches, the largest being Jeungsando and Daesun Jinrihoe.[7] Wonbulgyo, or Won Buddhism, attempts to combine traditional Buddhist doctrine with a modern concern for social reform and revitalization. There are also a number of small sects which have sprung up around Mount Kyeryong in South Ch'ungch'ong Province, the supposed future site of the founding of a new dynasty originally prophesied in the eighteenth century.

Several new religions derive their inspiration from Christianity. The Chondogwan, or Evangelical Church, was founded by Pak T'ae-son. Pak originally was a Presbyterian, but was expelled from the church for heresy in the 1950s after claiming for himself unique spiritual power. By 1972 his followers numbered as many as 700,000 people, and he built several "Christian towns," established a large church network, and managed several industrial enterprises.

Because of its overseas evangelism, the Hold Spirit Association for the Unification of the World Christianity, or Unification Church (T'ongilgyo), founded in 1954 by Reverend Sun Myong Moon (Mun Son-myong), also a former Christian, is the most famous Korean new religion. During its period of vigorous expansion during the 1970s, the Unification Church had several hundred thousand members in South Korea and Japan and a substantial (although generally overestimated) number of members in North America and Western Europe. Moon claimed that he was the "messiah" designated by God to unify all the peoples of the world into one "family," governed theocratically by himself. Like Pak's Evangelical Church, the Unification Church has been highly authoritarian, demanding absolute obedience from church members. Moon, for example, has arranged marriages for his younger followers; United States television audiences were treated some years ago to a mass ceremony at which several hundred young "Moonies" were married. Also like Pak, Moon has coupled the church's fortunes to economic expansion. Factories in South Korea and abroad manufacture arms and process ginseng and seafood, artistic bric-a-brac, and other items. Moon's labor force has worked long hours and been paid minimal wages in order to channel profits into church coffers. Virulently anticommunist, Moon has sought to influence public opinion at home and abroad by establishing generally unprofitable newspapers such as the Segye Ilbo in Seoul, the Sekai Nippo in Tokyo, and the Washington Times in the United States capital, and by inviting academics to lavish international conferences, often held in South Korea. At home, the Unification Church was viewed with suspicion by the authorities because of its scandals and Moon's evident desire to create a "state within a state." His influence, however, had declined by the late 1980s.

Islam

The number of Muslims in South Korea is estimated at about 35,000 mainly consisting of people who converted during the Korean War and their descendents and not including migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia. The largest mosque is the Seoul Central Mosque in the Itaewon district of Seoul; smaller mosques can be found in most of the country's major cities.[8]

In addition to native Korean Muslims, there are some 100,000 foreign workers from Muslim countries,[9] particularly Bangladesh and Pakistan.[

Judaism

The Jewish presence in South Korea effectively began with the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. At this time a large number of Jewish soldiers, including the chaplain Chaim Potok, came to the Korean peninsula. Today the Jewish community is very small and limited to the Seoul metropolitan area. There have been very few Korean converts to Judaism.

NEDERLAND, NETHERLANDS, HOLLAND, PAYS-BAS, HOLANDA, PAISES BAJOS, Barendrecht, Un pueblo llamado Barendrecht, A town called Barendrecht, Une ville appelée Barendrecht, LAGARTIJAS, LEZARDS , LIZARDS, HAGEDISSEN, ECHSEN, LAGARTO, Sauriens, Lacertidae, by LATINOS AMERICANOS EN HOLANDA

NEDERLAND, NETHERLANDS, HOLLAND, PAYS-BAS, HOLANDA, PAISES BAJOS, Barendrecht, Un pueblo llamado Barendrecht, A town called Barendrecht, Une ville appelée Barendrecht, LAGARTIJAS, LEZARDS , LIZARDS, HAGEDISSEN, ECHSEN, LAGARTO,

AXOLOTIS.-

There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls. I went to see them in the aquarium at the Jardin des Plantes and stayed for hours watching them, observing their immobility, their faint movements. Now I am an axolotl.

I got to them by chance one spring morning when Paris was spreading its peacock tail after a slow wintertime. I was heading down tbe boulevard Port-Royal, then I took Saint-Marcel and L'Hôpital and saw green among all that grey and remembered the lions. I was friend of the lions and panthers, but had never gone into the dark, humid building that was the aquarium. I left my bike against tbe gratings and went to look at the tulips. The lions were sad and ugly and my panther was asleep. I decided on the aquarium, looked obliquely at banal fish until, unexpectedly, I hit it off with the axolotls. I stayed watching them for an hour and left, unable to think of anything else.

In the library at Sainte-Geneviève, I consulted a dictionary and learned that axolotls are the larval stage (provided with gills) of a species of salamander of the genus Ambystoma. That they were Mexican I knew already by looking at them and their little pink Aztec faces and the placard at the top of the tank. I read that specimens of them had been found in Africa capable of living on dry land during the periods of drought, and continuing their life under water when the rainy season came. I found their Spanish name, ajolote, and the mention that they were edible, and that their oil was used (no longer used, it said ) like cod-liver oil.

I didn't care to look up any of the specialized works, but the next day I went back to the Jardin des Plantes. I began to go every morning, morning and aftemoon some days. The aquarium guard smiled perplexedly taking my ticket. I would lean up against the iron bar in front of the tanks and set to watching them. There's nothing strange in this, because after the first minute I knew that we were linked, that something infinitely lost and distant kept pulling us together. It had been enough to detain me that first morning in front of the sheet of glass where some bubbles rose through the water. The axolotls huddled on the wretched narrow (only I can know how narrow and wretched) floor of moss and stone in the tank. There were nine specimens, and the majority pressed their heads against the glass, looking with their eyes of gold at whoever came near them. Disconcerted, almost ashamed, I felt it a lewdness to be peering at these silent and immobile figures heaped at the bottom of the tank. Mentally I isolated one, situated on the right and somewhat apart from the others, to study it better. I saw a rosy little body, translucent (I thought of those Chinese figurines of milky glass), looking like a small lizard about six inches long, ending in a fish's tail of extraordinary delicacy, the most sensitive part of our body. Along the back ran a transparent fin which joined with the tail, but what obsessed me was the feet, of the slenderest nicety, ending in tiny fingers with minutely human nails. And then I discovered its eyes, its face. Inexpressive features, with no other trait save the eyes, two orifices, like brooches, wholly of transparent gold, lacking any life but looking, letting themselves be penetrated by my look, which seemed to travel past the golden level and lose itself in a diaphanous interior mystery. A very slender black halo ringed the eye and etched it onto the pink flesh, onto the rosy stone of the head, vaguely triangular, but with curved and triangular sides which gave it a total likeness to a statuette corroded by time. The mouth was masked by the triangular plane of the face, its considerable size would be guessed only in profile; in front a delicate crevice barely slit the lifeless stone. On both sides of the head where the ears should have been, there grew three tiny sprigs, red as coral, a vegetal outgrowth, the gills, I suppose. And they were the only thing quick about it; every ten or fifteen seconds the sprigs pricked up stiffly and again subsided. Once in a while a foot would barely move, I saw the diminutive toes poise mildly on the moss. It's that we don't enjoy moving a lot, and the tank is so cramped—we barely move in any direction and we're hitting one of the others with our tail or our head—difficulties arise, fights, tiredness. The time feels like it's less if we stay quietly.

It was their quietness that made me lean toward them fascinated the first time I saw the axolotls. Obscurely I seemed to understand their secret will, to abolish space and time with an indifferent immobility. I knew better later; the gill contraction, the tentative reckoning of the delicate feet on the stones, the abrupt swimming (some of them swim with a simple undulation of the body) proved to me that they were capable of escaping that mineral lethargy in which they spent whole hours. Above all else, their eyes obsessed me. In the standing tanks on either side of them, different fishes showed me the simple stupidity of their handsome eyes so similar to our own. The eyes of the axolotls spoke to me of the presence of a different life, of another way of seeing. Glueing my face to the glass (the guard would cough fussily once in a while), I tried to see better those diminutive golden points, that entrance to the infinitely slow and remote world of these rosy creatures. It was useless to tap with one finger on the glass directly in front of their faces; they never gave the least reaction. The golden eyes continued burning with their soft, terrible light; they continued looking at me from an unfathomable depth which made me dizzy.

And nevertheless they were close. I knew it before this, before being an axolotl. I learned it the day I came near them for the first time. The anthropomorphic features of a monkey reveal the reverse of what most people believe, the distance that is traveled from them to us. The absolute lack of similarity between axolotls and human beings proved to me that my recognition was valid, that I was not propping myself up with easy analogies. Only the little hands . . . But an eft, the common newt, has such hands also, and we are not at all alike. I think it was the axolotls' heads, that triangular pink shape with the tiny eyes of gold. That looked and knew. That laid the claim. They were not animals.

It would seem easy, almost obvious, to fall into mythology. I began seeing in the axolotls a metamorphosis which did not succeed in revoking a mysterious humanity. I imagined them aware, slaves of their bodies, condemned infinitely to the silence of the abyss, to a hopeless meditation. Their blind gaze, the diminutive gold disc without expression and nonetheless terribly shining, went through me like a message: "Save us, save us." I caught myself mumbling words of advice, conveying childish hopes. They continued to look at me, immobile; from time to time the rosy branches of the gills stiffened. In that instant I felt a muted pain; perhaps they were seeing me, attracting my strength to penetrate into the impenetrable thing of their lives. They were not human beings, but I had found in no animal such a profound relation with myself. The axolotls were like witnesses of something, and at times like horrible judges. I felt ignoble in front of them; there was such a terrifying purity in those transparent eyes. They were larvas, but larva means disguise and also phantom. Behind those Aztec faces, without expression but of an implacable cruelty, what semblance was awaiting its hour?

I was afraid of them. I think that had it not been for feeling the proximity of other visitors and the guard, I would not have been bold enough to remain alone with them. "You eat them alive with your eyes, hey," the guard said, laughing; he likely thought I was a little cracked. What he didn't notice was that it was they devouring me slowly with their eyes, in a cannibalism of gold. At any distance from the aquarium, I had only to think of them, it was as though I were being affected from a distance. It got to the point that I was going every day, and at night I thought of them immobile in the darkness, slowly putting a hand out which immediately encountered another. Perhaps their eyes could see in the dead of night, and for them the day continued indefinitely. The eyes of axolotls have no lids.

I know now that there was nothing strange, that that had to occur. Leaning over in front of the tank each morning, the recognition was greater. They were suffering, every fiber of my body reached toward that stifled pain, that stiff torment at the bottom of the tank. They were lying in wait for something, a remote dominion destroyed, an age of liberty when the world had been that of the axolotls. Not possible that such a terrible expression which was attaining the overthrow of that forced blankness on their stone faces should carry any message other than one of pain, proof of that eternal sentence, of that liquid hell they were undergoing. Hopelessly, I wanted to prove to myself that my own sensibility was projecting a nonexistent consciousness upon the axolotls. They and I knew. So there was nothing strange in what happened. My face was pressed against the glass of the aquarium, my eyes were attempting once more to penetrate the mystery of those eyes of gold without iris, without pupil. I saw from very close up the face of an axolotl immobile next to the glass. No transition and no surprise, I saw my face against the glass, I saw it on the outside of the tank, I saw it on the other side of the glass. Then my face drew back and I understood.

Only one thing was strange: to go on thinking as usual, to know. To realize that was, for the first moment, like the horror of a man buried alive awaking to his fate. Outside, my face came close to the glass again, I saw my mouth, the lips compressed with the effort of understanding the axolotls. I was an axolotl and now I knew instantly that no understanding was possible. He was outside the aquarium, his thinking was a thinking outside the tank. Recognizlng him, being him himself, I was an axolotl and in my world. The horror began—I learned in the same moment —of believing myself prisoner in the body of an axolotl, metamorphosed into him with my human mind intact, buried alive in an axolotl, condemned to move lucidly among unconscious creatures. But that stopped when a foot just grazed my face, when I moved just a little to one side and saw an axolotl next to me who was looking at me, and understood that he knew also, no communication possible, but very clearly. Or I was also in him, or all of us were thinking humanlike, incapable of expression, limited to the golden splendor of our eyes looking at the face of the man pressed against the aquarium.

He returned many times, but he comes less often now. Weeks pass without his showing up. I saw him yesterday, he looked at me for a long time and left briskly. It seemed to me that he was not so much interested in us any more, that he was coming out of habit. Since the only thing I do is think, I could think about him a lot. It occurs to me that at the beginning we continued to communicate, that he felt more than ever one with the mystery which was claiming him. But the bridges were broken between him and me, because what was his obsession is now an axolotl, alien to his human life. I think that at the beginning I was capable of returning to him in a certain way—ah, only in a certain way—and of keeping awake his desire to know us better. I am an axolotl for good now, and if I think like a man it's only because every axolotl thinks like a man inside his rosy stone semblance. I believe that all this succeeded in communicating something to him in those first days, when I was still he. And in this final solitude to which he no longer comes, I console myself by thinking that perhaps he is going to write a story about us, that, believing he's making up a story, he's going to write all this about axolotls.

Il fut une époque où je pensais beaucoup aux axolotls. J’allais les voir à l’aquarium du Jardin des Plantes et je passais des heures à les regarder, à observer leur immobilité, leurs mouvements obscurs. Et maintenant je suis un axolotl. Le hasard me conduisit vers eux un matin de printemps où Paris déployait sa queue de paon après le lent hiver. Je descendis le boulevard Saint-Marcel, celui de l’hôpital, je vis les premiers verts parmi tout le gris et je me souvins des lions. J’étais très amis des lions et des panthères, mais je n’étais jamais entré dans l’enceinte humide et sombre des aquariums. Je laissai ma bicyclette contre les grilles et j’allais voir les tulipes. Les lions étaient laids et tristes et ma panthère dormait. Je me décidai pour les aquariums et, après avoir regardé avec indifférence des poissons ordinaires, je tombai par hasard sur les axolotls. Je passai une heure à les regarder, puis je partis, incapable de penser à autre chose.

À la bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève je consultai un dictionnaire et j’appris que les axolotls étaient les formes larvaires, pourvues de branchies, de batraciens du genre amblystone. Qu’ils étaient originaires du Mexique, je le savais déjà, rien qu’à voir leur petit visage aztèque. Je lus qu’on en avait trouvé des spécimens en Afrique capables de vivre hors de l’eau pendant les périodes de sécheresse et qui reprenaient leur vie normale à la saison des pluies. On donnait leur nom espagnol, ajolote, on signalait qu’ils étaient comestibles et qu’on utilisait leur huile (on ne l’utilise plus) comme l’huile de foie de morue.

Je ne voulus pas consulter d’ouvrages spécialisés mais je revins le jour suivant au jardin des Plantes. Je pris l’habitude d’y aller tous les matins, et parfois même matin et soir. Le gardien des aquariums souriait d’un air perplexe en prenant mon ticket. Je m’appuyais contre la barre de fer qui borde les aquariums et je regardais les axolotls. Il n’y avait rien d’étrange à cela ; dès le premier instant j’avais senti que quelque chose me liait à eux, quelque chose d’infiniment lointain et oublié qui cependant nous unissait encore. Il m’avait suffit de m’arrêter un matin devant cet aquarium où des bulles couraient dans l’eau. Les axolotls s’entassaient sur l’étroit et misérable (personne mieux que moi ne sait à quel point il est étroit et misérable) fond de pierre et de mousse. Il y en avait neuf, la plupart d’entre eux appuyaient leur tête contre la vitre et regardaient de leurs yeux d’or ceux qui s’approchaient. Troublé, presque honteux, je trouvais qu’il y avait de l’impudeur à se pencher sur ces formes silencieuses et immobiles entassées au fond de l’aquarium. Mentalement, j’en isolai un, un peu à l’écart sur la droite, pour mieux l’étudier. Je vis un petit corps rose, translucide (je pensai aux statuettes chinoises en verre laiteux), semblable à un petit lézard de quinze centimètres, terminé par une queue de poisson d’une extraordinaire délicatesse - c’est la partie la plus sensible de notre corps. Sur son dos, une nageoire transparente se rattachait à la queue ; mais ce furent les pattes qui me fascinèrent, des pattes d’une incroyable finesse, terminés par de tout petits doigts avec des ongles - absolument humains, sans pourtant avoir la forme de la main humaine - mais comment aurais-je pu ignorer qu’ils étaient humains ? c’est alors que je découvris leurs yeux, leur visage. Un visage inexpressif sans autre trait que les yeux, deux orifices comme des têtes d’épingles entièrement d’or transparent, sans aucune vie, mais qui regardaient et qui se laissaient pénétrer par mon regard qui passait à travers le point doré et se perdait dans un mystère diaphane. Un très mince halo noir entourait l’oeil et l’inscrivait dans la chair rose, dans la pierre rose de la tête vaguement triangulaire, au contours courbes et irréguliers, qui la faisaient ressembler à une statue rongée par le temps. La bouche était dissimulée par le plan triangulaire de la tête et ce n’est que de profil que l’on s’apercevait qu’elle était très grande. Vue de face, c’était une fine rainure, comme une fissure dans de l’albâtre. De chaque côté de la tête, à la place des oreilles, se dressaient de très petites branches rouges comme du corail, une excroissance végétale, les branchies, je suppose. C’était la seule chose qui eût l’air vivante dans ce corps. Chaque vingt secondes elles se dressaient, toutes raides, puis s’abaissaient de nouveau. Parfois une patte bougeait, à peine, et je voyais les doigts minuscules se poser doucement sur la mousse. C’est que nous n’aimons pas beaucoup bouger, l’aquarium est si étroit ; si peu que nous remuions nous heurtons la tête ou la queue d’un autre ; il s’ensuit des difficultés, des disputes, de la fatigue. Le temps se sent moins si l’on reste immobile.

Ce fut leur immobilité qui me fit me pencher vers eux, fasciné, la première fois que je les vis. Il me sembla comprendre obscurément leur volonté secrète : abolir l’espace et le temps par une immobilité pleine d’indifférence. Par la suite, j’appris à mieux les comprendre, les branchies qui se contractent, les petites pattes fines qui tâtonnent sur les pierres, leurs fuites brusques (ils nagent par une simple ondulation du corps) me prouvèrent qu’ils étaient capables de s’évader de cette torpeur minérale où ils passaient des heures entières. Leurs yeux surtout m’obsédaient. A côté d’eux, dans les autres aquariums, des poissons me montraient la stupide simplicité de leurs beaux yeux semblables aux nôtres. Les yeux des axolotls me parlaient de la présence d’une vie différente, d’une autre façon de regarder. Je collais mon visage à la vitre (le gardien, inquiet, toussait de temps en temps) pour mieux voir les tout petits points dorés, cette ouverture sur le monde infiniment lent et éloigné des bêtes roses. Inutile de frapper du doigt contre la vitre, sous leur nez, jamais la moindre réaction. Les yeux d’or continuaient à brûler de leur douce et terrible lumière, continuaient à me regarder du fond d’un abîme insondable qui me donnait le vertige.

Et cependant les axolotls étaient proches de nous. Je le savais avant même de devenir un axolotl. Je le sus dès le jour où je m’approchai d’eux pour la première fois. Les traits anthropomorphiques d’un singe accusent la différence qu’il y a entre lui et nous, contrairement à ce que pensent la plupart des gens. L’absence totale de ressemblance entre un axolotl et un être humain me prouva que ma reconnaissance

était valable, que je ne m’appuyais pas sur des analogies faciles. Il y avait bien les petites mains. Mais un lézard a les mêmes mains et ne ressemble en rien à l’homme. Je crois que tout venait de la tête des axolotls, de sa forme triangulaire rose et de ses petits yeux d’or. Cela regardait et savait. Cela réclamait. Les axolotls n’étaient pas des animaux.

De là à tomber dans la mythologie, il n’y avait qu’un pas, facile à franchir, presque inévitable. Je finis par voir dans les axolotls une métamorphose qui n’arrivait pas à renoncer tout à fait à une mystérieuse humanité. Je les imaginais conscients, esclaves de leur corps, condamnés indéfiniment à un silence abyssal, à une méditation désespérée. Leur regard aveugle, le petit disque d’or inexpressif - et cependant terriblement lucide - me pénétrait comme un message : "Sauve-nous, sauve-nous." Je me surprenais en train de murmurer des paroles de consolation, de transmettre des espoirs puérils. Ils continuaient à me regarder, immobiles. Soudain les petites branches roses se dressaient sur leur tête, et je sentais à ce moment-là comme une douleur sourde. Ils me voyaient peut-être, ils captaient mes efforts pour pénétrer dans l’impénétrable de leur vie. Ce n’étaient pas des êtres humains mais jamais je ne m’étais senti un rapport aussi étroit entre des animaux et moi. Les axolotls étaient comme témoins de quelque chose et parfois ils devenaient de terribles juges. Je me trouvais ignoble devant eux, il y avait dans ces yeux transparents une si effrayante pureté. C’était des larves, mais larve veut dire masque et aussi fantôme. Derrière ces visages aztèques, inexpressifs, et cependant d’une cruauté implacable, quelle image attendait

son heure ?

Ils me faisaient peur. Je crois que sans la présence du gardien et des autres visiteurs je n’aurais jamais osé rester devant eux. " Vous les mangez des yeux ", me disait le gardien en riant, et il devait penser que je n’étais pas tout à fait normal. Il ne se rendait pas compte que c’était eux qui me dévoraient lentement des yeux, en un cannibalisme d’or. Loin d’eux je ne pouvais penser à autre chose, comme s’ils m’influençaient à distance. Je finis par y aller tous les jours et la nuit je les imaginais immobiles dans l’obscurité, avançant lentement une petite patte qui rencontrait soudain celle d’un autre. Leurs yeux voyaient peut-être la nuit et le jour pour eux n’avait pas de fin. Les yeux des axolotls n’ont pas de paupières.

Maintenant je sais qu’il n’y a rien eu d’étrange dans tout cela, que cela devait arriver. Ils me reconnaissaient un peu plus chaque matin quand je me penchais vers l’aquarium. Ils souffraient. Chaque fibre de mon corps enregistrait cette souffrance bâillonnée, cette torture rigide au fond de l’eau. Ils épiaient quelque chose, un lointain royaume aboli, un temps de liberté où le monde avait appartenu aux axolotls. Une expression aussi terrible qui arrivait à vaincre l’impassibilité forcée de ces visages de pierre contenait sûrement un message de douleur, la preuve de cette condamnation éternelle, de cet enfer liquide qu’ils enduraient. En vain essayai-je de me persuader que c’était ma propre sensibilité qui projetait sur les axolotls une conscience qu’ils n’avaient pas. Eux et moi nous savions. C’est pour cela que ce qui arriva n’est pas étrange. Je collais mon visage à la vitre de l’aquarium, mes yeux essayèrent une fois de plus de percer le mystère de ces yeux d’or sans iris et sans pupille. Je voyais de très près la tête d’un axolotl immobile contre la vitre. Puis mon visage s’éloigna et je compris. Une seule chose était étrange : continuer à penser comme avant, savoir. Quand j’en pris conscience, je ressentis l’horreur de celui qui s’éveille enterré vivant. Au-dehors, mon visage s’approchait à nouveau de la vitre, je voyais ma bouche aux lèvres serrées par l’effort que je faisais pour comprendre les axolotls. J’étais un axolotl et je venais de savoir en un éclair qu’aucune communication n’était possible. Il était hors de l’aquarium, sa pensée était une pensée hors de l’aquarium. Tout en le connaissant, tout en étant lui-même, j’étais un axolotl et j’étais dans mon monde. L’horreur venait de ce que - je le sus instantanément - je me croyais prisonnier dans le corps d’un axolotl, transféré en lui avec ma pensée d’homme, enterré vivant dans un axolotl, condamné à me mouvoir en toute lucidité parmi des créatures insensibles. Mais cette impression ne dura pas, une patte vint effleurer mon visage et en me tournant un peu je vis un axolotl à côté de moi qui me regardait et je compris que lui aussi savait, sans communication possible mais si clairement. Ou bien j’étais encore en l’homme, ou bien nous pensions comme des êtres humains, incapables de nous exprimer, limités à l’éclat doré de nos yeux qui regardaient ce visage d’homme collé à la vitre.

Il revint encore plusieurs fois mais il vient moins souvent à présent. Des semaines se passent sans qu’on le voie. Il est venu hier, il m’a regardé longuement et puis il est parti brusquement. Il me semble que ce n’est plus à nous qu’il s’intéresse, qu’il obéit plutôt à une habitude. Comme penser est la seule chose que je puisse faire, je pense beaucoup à lui. Pendant un certain temps nous avons continué d’être en communication lui et moi, et il se sentait plus que jamais lié au mystère qui l’obsédait. Mais les ponts sont coupés à présent, car ce qui était son obsession est devenu un axolotl, étranger à sa vie d’homme. Je crois qu’au début je pouvais encore revenir en lui, dans une certaine mesure - ah ! seulement dans une certaine

mesure - et maintenir éveillé son désir de mieux nous connaître. Maintenant je suis définitivement un axolotl et si je pense comme un être humain c’est tout simplement parce que les axolotls pensent comme les humains sous leur masque de pierre rose. Il me semble que j’étais arrivé à lui communiquer cette vérité, les premiers jours, lorsque j’étais encore en lui. Et dans cette solitude finale vers laquelle il ne revient déjà plus, cela me console de penser qu’il va peut-être écrire quelque chose sur nous ; il croira qu’il invente un conte et il écrira tout cela sur les axolotls.

Julio Cortázar (1914-1984)

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