I downloaded the 4.11.0 tarball, edited config.make to set PLATFORM and PREFIX, and typed "make" on an ordinary RHEL 7 Linux box.
It did a bunch of gcc compiles, and failed with this:
chicken build-version.scm -optimize-level 2 -include-path . -include-path ./ -inline -ignore-repository -feature chicken-bootstrap -no-warnings -specialize -types ./types.db -explicit-use -no-trace -output-file build-version.c
make: chicken: Command not found
make: *** [build-version.c] Error 127
There is indeed no 'chicken' on my path, or anywhere in the installation tree where I untarred it. The README file says that building from 'git' requires 'chicken' already installed on the build machine, but it says nothing about needing one when I install from a tarball.