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Hardly any American kid growing up in the 1950s was left untouched by Yma Sumac. I don't mind admitting she scared the living crap out of me. I begin with this: I had never, between the ages of six and ten, when grudgingly permitted to attend the first half hour of my parents cocktail parties, seen or heard anything so exotic. And the fact that she blew the adults in the room away meant something; I didn't know what, but it was profound enough to stay their hands midway to their gaping mouths, a Vienna Sausage swinging on a toothpick held aloft but forgotten in the gravid and revealing moment, and a look of amazement plastered across their faces. It was, I later learned, the call of the jungle that had them so enthralled.
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The woman shrieked like a bird and growled like a panther. And such an air of mystery about her--the unsmiling face, the repertoire from some far off land of savages, she seemed to me to be doing some covert thing that we would soon regret, like summoning the devil. She carried herself like a princess and marketed the royal posture, too. Said to be descended from the last Incan emperor, Sumac caused a sensation wherever she performed. Until The Beatles, there
was no better Ed Sullivan Show than Yma Sumac and Topo Gigio..
Yma personified the animal in us and I was so curious about and afraid of her that she nearly consumed me one year. It was thrilling to know that a woman like her existed somewhere in the world as opposed to the dull white women of my parish church. Even when she lost her magic, when I became an adult and at last understood what the elemental force was that gripped her, I remained fond of her and I was saddened to learn she'd died.
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