Pantheon Fantastic Story Can Be Used for Carnival Theme

Young says the story he wrote for the Pantheon Fantastic competition was inspired by memories of road trips with his father. He shared more of the story he crafted and said interpretation of our Sleeping Giant lore could be used by Carnival bands in September.

Dr. Harold Young

Dr. Harold Young, organizer, Pantheon Fantastic Competition

“The story is about a mythical giant, who moves around the world and creates features around the world – the oceans and mountains – so he goes around the world and he ends up in the Yucatan Peninsula and finds this corner and likes the corner and creates the Blue Hole, the Barrier Reef, the mountains, the rivers and the mangrove plains along the coast and then he gets tired and decides to go to sleep, take a nap. And he’s been napping ever since and that’s what we call the Sleeping Giant in the mountains. When I was growing up my dad pointed out the Pecary Mountains by Rockville and he told me that was the Sleeping Giant. I might have been eight or nine years-old. So in my mind, there has always been two, so the story ends with us not being sure of which one is the real one that’s sleeping. But it’s a call to Belizeans to preserve what the giant called Chakchango has created. So it’s a call to preserve the natural environment because we don’t know when he’s gonna come back. The artwork could inspire carnival costumes and carnival themes. I think that’s an excellent connection and link to make.”