Chapter 7
The Discovery of Bonampák
In January of 1946, Carlos returned with Bourne, and yet again flew into El Cedro and trekked into the Lacandón area. Again, they convinced Chan Bor to accompany them in search of ruins.
The two even brought a wind-up phonograph to give him if he would show them some especially interesting ruin. He was quite taken with most of the records they brought to play and agreed to go.
On February 9, Can Bor led them to what was later called Bonampák. This was a Classic Maya site, which was abandoned in the collapse of the early ninth century. While not a huge city, it possessed beautiful murals in one of its buildings which are unique and gave a vivid picture of the classic Maya. These particular murals celebrate a victory and sacrificial rites. They are particularly significant in that they flew in the face of the then current credo that the Maya were a peaceful people led by a priestly class.
Because of the dense vegetation, and possibly due to having to leave very quickly, Carlos missed seeing the interior of the most important building with the three rooms housing the murals. However, he did examine the rest of the site along with Bourne. They also poked around the buildings and large stelae, taking photographs, measuring and mapping for several days. It is possible that they may have also done some digging, because the chicleros at the nearby camp run by a man named Acacio Chan, decided that the gringos had found buried treasure and were about to make off with it.
Confronted with this accusation, the two immediately opened up their packs to show that there was no treasure. This might have worked quite nicely, but one of the chicleros came up with another theory. He suggested:
"The gringos are very clever with these instruments of theirs, and now they know where the treasure is. When we leave they will return, and carry it off on mules."
Bourne became very frightened, and asked how much they wanted to leave them alone. With Carlos as translator, they demanded $750, but with some dickering, the extortion fell to an agreed on $200. Frey and Bourne left the scene quite hurriedly after that, although they stayed in the general area.
The next day, another chiclero led them to yet another ruin. It was only a few kilometers away from where they were camped and though not as impressive as the previous one, it was still another hidden gem of the forest. Soon, Bourne became ill with dysentery, so they returned to El Cedro. He got well fairly soon, however.
One night, another chiclero burst into their camp. He had news that he had found a lost ruin known as "La Lucha," named after a former chiclero camp it was near. Feeling somewhat better, Bourne suggested heading out to see it the next day.
They traveled on mules, and found a minor site with five ruined stone buildings. They looked it over, and started back.
Along the way, Bourne became ill with malaria. On the long ride back, he fell off his mule many times, and Carlos had to keep helping him get back up. With these fevers, a person feels so dreadfully tired that nothing else seems to matter, so eventually, Bourne asked Frey to go on without him. Carlos assured him that if he would just hang onto his mule, he would make it back. Thus, they finally returned to what is called civilization.
Later, the two were to have coordinated a presentation regarding their discovery, but according to Frey, Bourne kept finding excuses for not doing it. Finally, Carlos scheduled a meeting with two archaeologists at the National Institute of Anthropology and History, in March, but according to him, his former comrade left the country just before that date, still owing him money.
The presentation took place with only one discoverer present. Carlos presented them with a site map of what would later be known as Bonampák. He told them of his findings, and encouraged them to sponsor an expedition, but his words had no effect. Since he had not found the murals, to them it was just another ruin in the jungle.
Obviously, Frey and Bourne were not the first to see the ruins. The Lacandons certainly had been there before, as well as the group of chicleros. In fact, because Bonampák lies within yards of the former boundary between two local mahogany concessions, it is more than likely that some surveyors also saw it in the 1880's. Still, Frey was the first to notify authorities of the site.
In May of that year, Healey returned to the area, and convinced Chan Bor to take him to see more ruins, one of which turned out to be Bonampák. While there are a number of different stories about it, it appears that Healey saw the murals first among nonnative people. Ironically, on departing, he ran into the returning Carlos, and told him about the paintings.
Healey headed back to the United States. The United Fruit Company later called a press conference, and introduced him as the "discoverer of Bonampák," and no one mentioned Frey at all. It is not clear what Healey gained financially from this. Probably, he received some speaking fees in addition to his normal salary. However, it is certain that he sped into a temporary spotlight as a discoverer.
In all fairness, Healy's subsequent writings only refer to his discovery of the murals at Bonampák. His main interest was in lost Maya cities, and he claimed to have seen twenty one of them during his expeditions of 1945, 1946 and 1947. .He was a cultured man and an avid violinist, although his overriding interest during this period was for the ruins. Probably the worst that can be said of him is that he played along with United Fruit on this. He remained silent about Frey.
Based on United Fruit's assertion, the Carnegie Institute agreed to fund an expedition with that company in 1947 and later another one in 1948. These trips began with Healey coming along briefly on the first one.
It was shortly after Bonampák became known that Carlos came back from a trip to find his farm devastated by his neighbors and from his own neglect. Most of his pigs were dead, and some neighbors had allowed their livestock to destroy his fields.
He was virtually penniless. Between this and the belief that Healey was raking in money from his presumptuous discovery, Carlos decided he had had enough of farming. He placed his wife and son temporarily with missionaries, and headed for the jungle to spend some time with the Lacandons.
After a month in the jungle, Carlos was visiting a lumber camp to get mail and medicine when he received word that someone who had come all the way from San Francisco was looking for him. He found this intriguing, and sent word of where he could be located.
The visitor, John Hart, was a nephew of a friend of Carlos. He was fascinated by his aunt's stories about Frey's adventures and wanted to meet him. On arrival, the fellow took a look at Frey, and insisted on having him go to town to see a doctor. The diagnosis was anemia, intestinal parasites and some unnamed tropical skin disease.
Hart also wanted Carlos to stay in Oaxaca at an aunt's house to write about his adventures. Certainly, it rarely took much to bring out the dreamer in Carlos, and he liked the unassuming but aggressive army veteran who had also had it rough in the Depression. Soon Frey was in Oaxaca.
In his maddening way, Carlos never mentioned why nothing came of this idea. Possibly Hart was not prepared to do the extensive rewriting that would have been necessary to make any such book readable. He may not have realized that Carlos' writing was poor in spelling and sentence construction, and may have backed out when problems became apparent. However, we will never know for sure why nothing came of Hart's plans.
It became more and more obvious that Giles Healey was going to be considered the discoverer of Bonampák. Carlos decided to go to Mexico City to press his claim and also to press for an expedition.
Carlos, himself, always made it clear that it was the aborigines who found Bonampák. However, he felt that if some outsider were to get credit for the ruins, it should be him and not Healey. Frans Blom called the resulting furor a disease, dubbing it "Bonampaquitis," and kept a scrapbook of the many newspaper articles about it. While not terribly contagious, the condition certainly made for considerable animosity between Healey, Frey, and Blom, as well as their partisans.
Oddly enough, while Blom had no claim to Bonampák discovery, still, because he had been so close to finding it, he felt that Healey had a jealousy which verged on a "pathological" hatred of him. With Blom, it is also possible that he baited Healey in this matter, and it is unlikely that he had any sort of good opinion of the photographer. The only thing certain is that Blom did wish that he himself had discovered those ruins.
During an interview concerning this period, Chan Bor laughed about all the fuss. He explained that it was during the visit with Healey that he, himself, found the painted walls. According to his account, he had gone after a deer and it led him into the thick brush around the edifice. After finding the three rooms of murals, he returned to camp, and brought Healey back.
This seems to have a ring of truth to it. If he did not know of their existence, it certainly would explain to Frey why Chan Bor could not have shown the famous murals to his supposed friend, Carlos, but was able to lead Giles Healey to them. On the other hand, perhaps, this was merely a story to get Chan Bor off the hook with Carlos. Perhaps, Healey had paid more.
In Mexico City, Frey managed to make an impact despite problems with his appearance; he was dreadfully thin, and his teeth were falling out. He had to borrow clothes at first to even try to look respectable.
His first radio appearance in Mexico City was a disaster. He was nervous, and it showed. In later efforts, however, he became more confident, and gave better interviews.
He also spent the next several years meeting people in power and high society. It seems most likely that people were fascinated with this modest and easy going fellow, who had adopted Mexico, and certainly had good stories to tell.
Early in this time period, he attended a conference held by the National Institute of Archaeology and History, where a fellow who helped paint a copy of the murals gave a talk, and attributed the discovery of the ruins to Giles Healey. After the presentation, and to Frey's great surprise, Frans Blom asked for the floor, and rose to explain that it was Frey who took Healey to the area the first time, and it was Frey who first discovered the ruins known as Bonampák. Following this, Frey was asked to stand up and be recognized.
After the talk, the famous painter, Diego Rivera, came over to chat with Carlos. Apparently, they got on well, because Rivera later contacted him, requesting that he take a party of his to Bonampák. While the plan never took place, the ice was broken.
During this time, Frey met a number of the Mexican elite, often at parties given by Diego Rivera. His circle of new friends also included the great Mexican muralist, David Siqueiros. Rivera described Frey as a better "amigo" than many others claiming his friendship.
Carlos did a number of interviews in which he called the United Fruit Company and Giles Healey "piratas," or pirates. This certainly must have played well in Mexico to the multitudes then, as now, seriously concerned by foreign influence. He got a lot of publicity from numerous Mexican magazines, newspapers, as well as radio stations.
During this period, Carlos' letters say very little about his family. He also must have never talked about them with his friends in Mexico City, because they only first heard about his family after his death.
It appears, though, that he was sending money to his family as it was available. Through most of this time, Frey's wife and child lived with her parents.
During a visit home to Chiapas, he became concerned about his little son, Carlos. He described him as being too thin and having a protruding belly. To generations who have had television, that sounds like starvation and possible child neglect.
However, Carlos probably never saw a picture or scene of starving children, and had no idea what was going on. He made sure that his wife had enough vitamin C to keep the child healthy, and went back to his quest.
In the spring of 1948, it really looked as though he was on his way to an expedition. Four days after funds were available, however, he started to become ill. Following a barbecue at Diego Rivera's house in Mexico City, he went off with some of the others to tour some nearby Indian villages. It was then that his bones began to ache and his head and eyes hurt terribly.
Back at his inexpensive hotel that night, he believed he had malaria. He thought it odd that after a year and a half away from malaria areas, he would come down with it again. That night he had a chill, followed by a high fever.
However, with the upcoming trip, he just could not allow himself to be ill. The next day, he started with quinine and for the next ten days was sick with chills and fevers, sometimes beginning in the afternoon and ebbing in the early morning.
Still trying to arrange purchases for the expedition, Frey sometimes found himself almost fainting in the street and once had to grasp a lamp post for support. Finally, after lurching forward mostly on will power, the chills and fever were constant. He was virtually unable to get out of bed, and did not care whether he lived or died, or much less, went on some expedition.
Finally, a friend insisted on calling a cab, and got him into a hospital for tropical diseases. They discovered that he had typhoid fever. He stayed there for three weeks, and was released when on the mend. At this point, he still had to go back for injections from time to time, but the rainy season was in full bloom, so the expedition was not to be.
He hung around for a bit despite the trip being canceled, but, as he described it, his "nerves were shot." Another of his friends offered him a place to stay in Acapulco, where all he had to pay for was his food. This was surely a location to soothe his mind, and give him a chance to recuperate.
His first week there was marred by an intestinal infection, so that he did not even see the ocean during that time. Once he began to recuperate, he started to take advantage of the beautiful ocean and sun. He began to go out and do things with other people. While it is unlikely that he actually met her, he described himself as a neighbor of Esther Williams, the movie star.