The reference in Traven's work to "tigers" never bothered me
because I assumed it was a colloquial reference and, somehow
to me, the word "tiger" fit better than "jaguar" as it
carried with it a touch of the fable.
When I read Etienne's comment, I did a bit of research and
discovered that in Central and South America the Jaguar is
called "El Tigre" and most likely this is the name given the
animal by the people living in the jungles of Chiapas, the
southern Mexican state Traven visited often from the
mid-1920s on and in which he set many of his stories.
In various references, "El Tigre" and "Tigre Americano" are
listed as alternate names for the jaguar, much as "Mountain
Lion" is used in the western United States for the Cougar
(also known as the Puma and in Florida as Panther).
Richard Moore
> In TREASURE… there is even a gross error. One of
common knowledge,
> if it comes not from a wrong translation. The story
takes place in
> Mexico and in the early pages of the novel a local
character fears
> to sleep in the open nature because of … tigers. And
this is
> repeated many times. I found it in the English
version as well
(see
> Amazon where you can browse the first chapters).
Tigers, that's
> Asia. It's a detail of course but it signals the
care that was
given
> to the text… and IMO Traven, well travelled and
having lived in
> Mexico, could normally not do such an error. But
even if so, what
> about the rest of the chain: publishers,
translators, revisers…?
> Also: you must know that in German, Tiger is only
used for …tiger,
> and does not combined to other German words to name
other animals…
> So far for zoology (see note hereunder giving
further comment).
>
> But I admit that even under those conditions, I
enjoyed the novel.
>
> *Tiger*: a very good explanation of what is a
mistake in French
> (=tigre- and it names only one feline), is given by
Richard Moore,
> after he read my comment on it. In Mexican Spanish
the colloquial
> word "tigre" can be used to name the North American
big cats:
> jaguar, under others. Then the use of the word in a
Spanish text
> makes sense, and as I've already mentioned it, a lot
of
translations
> of Traven's texts were done from Spanish
versions…
> On the other side, the big cat explanation was what
I suspected
when
> I searched for German words which could derive from
tiger
> (combination words -and there was none), hence my
above remark
about
> German words. German was the mother language of
Traven.
> But the conclusion remains that a lot of Traven's
texts were often
> mistreated during translation.
>
> E.Borgers
> POLAR NOIR
> http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir
>
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