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The Chachapoyan Fertility Idol was a solid gold statue, six inches tall, representing Pachamama, the Chachapoyan goddess of fertility. The idol was hidden by the tribe's priests in a temple deep within the jungles of Peru. Braving the temple's deadly traps to stare into the idol's eyes became a rite of passage for young Chachapoyan warriors.

History

Indy6

The idol in its temple.

A Princeton archaeologist named Forrestal disappeared in the jungles of Peru while attempting to recover the fertility idol of Pachamama from the Temple of the Chachapoyan Warriors in Chachapoyas in 1935.

In 1936, Indiana Jones, on commission from the National Museum and working from Forrestal's notes, managed to locate the temple and extract the statue, only to have it immediately stolen by rogue archaeologist René Emile Belloq. Belloq promptly unloaded the artifact in Marrakesh, where Jones later re-appropriated it from the shop of antiquities dealer Saad Hassim.

Goldenidol

Sallah and Indiana Jones flee Marrakesh with the idol.

The National Museum celebrated the idol's arrival with a lavish banquet at the Diamond's Eye nightclub in New York City. Among the guests was a band of angry Hovitos led by Xomec, alleged descendant of the Chachapoyans. Xomec swiped the idol from curator Marcus Brody and fled to the jungles of Brazil. Jones gave chase, and after defeating Xomec and his Nazi co-conspirator Ilsa Toht, once again reclaimed the idol for the museum.

Behind the scenes

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the original idea for the scenes with the idol was to have its eyes following Indiana Jones as he moved around the room. As such, one of the props built featured mechanical moving eyes. Evidence of this can still be seen in the archival footage on the film's DVD. Ultimately, the idea was abandoned though one shot remains in the final film -- the one where Indy is pouring sand out of the bag.[1]

During the early development of the fourth film, Frank Darabont's script featured Indiana Jones stealing the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol from the National Museum in a drunken state after unfairly losing his job at Barnett College.

In the game LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, Indy extracts the statue and leaves the temple with Satipo. Once in the jungle, Belloq confronts Jones, and Indy tries to give him other things (first a diamond, a rubber duck, and then C-3PO's head, which is very similar to the Idol) but Belloq isn't fooled and takes the real deal. Although the Peru sequence is omitted from the sequel, it appears that Indy extracted the Idol successfully as he gives it to Marcus Brody, having been chased by the giant rolling boulder from Peru to the United States.

There were plans by Icons in the mid-1990s to create a Chachapoyan Fertility Idol prop replica for a proposed Indiana Jones licensed product-line called The Treasures of Indiana Jones, so some concept art was made. However, Icons' plans ultimately didn't go ahead.[2]

Appearances

Sources

Notes and references

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