Latin American Folktales Read online

  Fortunately, over the years, enough women have entered the field for there to have accumulated nearly as many versions from women narrators as from men. Male fieldworkers have often found it difficult to obtain stories from women, especially in conservative Indian communities. A notable exception was Father Martin Gusinde, who worked among the Yamana of southern Chile in the early years of the twentieth century. Gusinde went so far as to observe, “It is my impression that since they are less anxious than the men to display themselves by recounting their deeds and startling accomplishments, women find it easier to unravel the basic theme of a myth with fewer distractions and greater logical consequence.”

  Women, not surprisingly, have had much less difficulty in obtaining stories from men. The folklorist Elaine Miller tells of ringing doorbells in the Los Angeles area, asking for stories in Spanish. Some of her best informants were men, one of whom gallantly prefaced his recital, as the tape recorder rolled, “I dedicate a story to Señorita Miller, for her to include in her books.” The story he then began to tell is no. 10, “Buried Alive.”

  Stories transcribed from tape are more likely to preserve the naturalness of live storytelling, the hesitations, the self-corrections, and the little asides. These features, not as numerous as might be wished, have been kept in the English translations given here.

  Most of the translations have been newly made, largely because so few Hispanic folktales have been published in English. The reason, evidently, is that Spanish is one of the two principal languages of the Western Hemisphere, and serious authors can assume that the serious reader, even in North America, does not want translation. Glancing at the bibliography, one notices such English-language titles as Wheeler’s Tales from Jalisco Mexico or Andrade’s Folk-Lore from the Dominican Republic, implying that the contents are in English. Instead they are in Spanish, and in many cases a highly authentic Spanish, transcribed from the living speech with all the changed vowels and consonants and dropped syllables that give the live performance its flavor. For readers accustomed to standard Spanish a translation is not without value. Needless to say, the charm of localized Spanish washes off in translation. The temptation to compensate by peppering the English version with Spanish terms has been resisted, though certain words have been retained, especially if they have already been imported into English or, in a few cases, if there is no satisfactory English equivalent.

  If Hispanic folklore in English has been relatively rare, the opposite is true of Latin American Indian lore, which has almost always been published in translation and very plentifully in English. The present collection includes English versions by the anthropologist Ruth Benedict, from the Zuni (no. 113); and by the poet Langston Hughes, from the Zapotec (III, following no. 84).

  Idiomatic features of Indian speech can sometimes survive translation. Among these is the coupling found especially in Nahua and Maya storytelling. A clear example is the Nahua, or Aztec, account of the eight omens, no. 1/III. Another is in no. 96, “The Bad Compadre,” where the beginning of the second paragraph has coupled phrases that stand out if printed as poetry:

  His compadre, Juan, heard about it.

  Then Juan said to his wife,

  “Do me a favor, do me an errand.

  Go see our compadre, maybe talk to his wife.”

  The woman went, she talked to the man.

  In addition to the wake, or all-night vigil, stories during the twentieth century have been told in a variety of settings. After-dinner storytelling at home, storytelling at the grocery store on Sunday mornings (while other people are at church), and storytelling during work breaks at large plantations are often mentioned. But the wake has been the principal occasion, at least for public storytelling, whether in Cuba, Panama, Mexico, Chile, or elsewhere. This is not to say that the custom has been universal. The Mexicanist Stanley Robe tells of extensive folktale collecting in the region east of Guadalajara, where no one ever mentioned storytelling at wakes. Robe was suspicious, however, and stated that he “would hesitate to declare that it does not occur.” The point is that folklorists have found storytelling at wakes to be widespread, typical, and always to be looked for.

  The selections that follow are identified by country, Indian culture (if applicable), and informant (if known). The name of the country stands alone or comes first if the text is of Hispanic origin. Thus “Mexico” indicates Hispanic, from Mexico; “Mexico (Nahua)” means basically Hispanic but from a Nahua source in Mexico; and “Nahua (Mexico)” means Nahua, or basically Nahua, from a Nahua source in Mexico.

  PROLOGUE

  EARLY COLONIAL LEGENDS

  People say the dead are dead, but they are very much alive.

  proverb / Cora (Mexico)

  The story of the Conquest is the essential story of Latin Amer-ica, centered on Mexico and Peru but shared across national boundaries as a common heritage. World history itself has no comparable story of the clash of cultures and its aftermath of irreparable loss. In the later years of the sixteenth century the conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who had participated in the events, could recall that when Cortés and his men had entered the Aztec capital with its towers and temples, “We said that it seemed like the things of enchantment that were told in the book of Amadis” and wondered if this were a “dream.” Half a world away and after two more centuries had turned, the English poet Alexander Pope in one of his philosophical ruminations could ask, for the sake of world harmony, that confident that readers would grasp the significance. Told and retold by documentarians, the tale has an independent life in native legendary lore that is not nearly so well known as the more plausible, if none the less colorful, memoirs of European eyewitnesses. The folkloric accounts are noteworthy for having taken shape so soon after the fact, even more so for the way in which they remove the Conquest from Western history, placing it within the realm of American Indian prophecy. The native raconteurs invite us to see that the entire disastrous episode was foreordained. Whether this is viewed as an act of resignation or defiance, it evidently puts the matter under native control.

  Peru once more a race of kings behold

  And other Mexicos be roofed with gold,

  For comparison, a few historical signposts from the European side of the divide may be offered here.

  In 1502 a Maya trading canoe was contacted in the Bay of Honduras during the fourth voyage of Columbus, the same year Montezuma ascended the throne of Mexico. In 1518 the expedition of Juan de Grijalva touched the mainland at Cuetlaxtlan, an outpost of the Aztec empire, and reports of strangers on the coast were carried to the court of Montezuma. Hernán Cortés and his army put ashore in 1519 and began making their way inland, reaching the capital on the morning of November 8, when the famous meeting between Cortés and Montezuma finally took place. Several months later the Spaniards were driven out; they returned and laid siege to the city, conquering it in May of 1521. Afterward, Cortés was rewarded by the Spanish Crown and made Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca. In native accounts Cortés is spoken of as the “marquis” or sometimes the “captain.”

  As background, it should be mentioned that the Aztecs—that is, the sixteenth-century Nahua—did not consider themselves an ancient people. According to their own traditions, they were latecomers to the Valley of Mexico, replacing the Toltecs, who had ruled from the old capital called Tula, fifty miles to the north. The last or near-to-last king of Tula, the hero-god Quetzalcoatl, was said to have gone away to the eastern coast, where he disappeared over the sea, promising one day to return. Possibly the Spaniards, now appearing on the eastern shore with firearms and various marvelous accoutrements, were returning Toltecs. Thus Montezuma, taking no chances, addressed Cortés as though he were Quetzalcoatl, coming back to reclaim his kingdom—an event made all the more probable in that Quetzalcoatl was supposed to return in a year 1 Reed according to the Aztec calendar, and 1519 was indeed 1 Reed.

  In Peru the events unfolded on a slightly later schedule. In 1514 an epidemic of European origin, possi
bly typhus, arrived in the Caribbean and began making its way from Panama down the coast toward Inca territory. Huayna Capac, the eleventh Inca (king), died in 1526, and his son Huascar was installed as twelfth Inca in the capital city, Cuzco, in the southern highlands. Atahualpa, another of Huayna Capac’s sons, was deputy ruler in the important regional capital of Quito, a thousand miles to the north. By the time the conqueror Francisco Pizarro and his men reached the highlands, Atahualpa had seized control of the empire and had arranged the murder of Huascar. In 1533 Atahualpa himself was executed by Pizarro’s army at Cajamarca, approximately halfway between Quito and Cuzco, near the old religious center of Huamachuco. With no Inca at the helm the empire fell swiftly under Spanish control.

  Like the Aztecs of Mexico, the Incas were upstarts in the long history of civilization in Peru. They are first noticed in native annals as a small tribe of the early 1200s in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca, where they claimed to have emerged from the underworld through cave openings. From there they made their way to the site of their future capital, Cuzco. Over the generations they added territory until by the 1500s they controlled a vast empire, which they called Tahuantinsuyu, “land of the four quarters,” stretching from Ecuador through Peru and deep into Chile. The names and deeds of their kings were carefully kept by native chroniclers, and even as late as the twentieth century it was the duty of every schoolchild in Peru to memorize at least the bare list. The superior achievement was to rattle it off in a single breath:

  Manco Capac (probably legendary)

  Sinchi Roca (ruled about A.D. 1250)

  Lloque Yupanqui

  Mayta Capac

  Capac Yupanqui

  Inca Roca

  Yahuar Huacac

  Viracocha Inca

  Pachacuti (ruled 1438–71)

  Topa Inca Yupanqui

  Huayna Capac (died 1526)

  Huascar (died 1532)

  Atahualpa (died 1533)

  The eighth king, Viracocha Inca, is not to be confused with the god Viracocha, also called Coniraya or Coniraya Viracocha, often mentioned in Peruvian narratives. The Incas’ own special deity, however, was Inti, the Sun. Over the years the Incas adopted the gods of tribes they conquered, including the god Viracocha, eventually developing a sizable pantheon, as can be seen in the story “The Storm.”

  It is probable that the great deity referred to in both the Aztec and Inca legends as “the Creator,” “the Lord of Creation,” or even “our lord who created the sky and the earth,” is not a native deity but a latter-day reflection of Christianity. In the account entitled “Bringing Out the Holy Word” this figure is called God or Only Spirit, and the entire content is inarguably Christian. Nevertheless, the diction and the style of delivery are native. First performed in 1565, this “bringing out” song was chanted to the accompaniment of a two-toned log drum played with rubber-tipped mallets. Similarly, the Peruvian narratives, especially those recorded in the 1500s, are said to have been chanted by professional recordkeepers.

  1. Montezuma

  I. THE TALKING STONE

  Montezuma loved nothing more than to order great monuments that would make him famous. Beautiful things, it was true, had been commissioned by the kings who had gone before, but to Montezuma those works were insignificant. “Not splendid enough for Mexico,” he would say, and as the years went by he grew to have doubts about even the huge round-stone where prisoners were sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli. “I want a new one,” he said at last, “and I want it a forearm wider and two forearms taller.”

  So the order went out to the stonecutters to search the countryside for a boulder that could be carved into a round-stone a forearm wider and two forearms taller. When the proper stone had been sighted, at a place called Acolco, haulers and lifters were summoned from six cities and told to bring ropes and levers. Using their levers, they pried the stone from the hillside and dragged it to a level spot to be carved. As soon as it was in position, thirty stonecutters began to chisel it with their flint chisels, making it not only bigger than any round-stone that had been seen before, but more unusual and more beautiful. During the time that they worked, they ate only the rarest delicacies, sent by Montezuma and served by the people of Acolco.

  When the stone was ready to be taken to Mexico, the carvers sent word to the king, who ordered the temple priests to go bring incense and a supply of quails. Arriving at the stone, the priests decorated it with paper streamers, perfumed it with the incense, and spattered molten rubber. Then they twisted the necks of the quails and spattered quail blood. There were musicians, too, with conch horns and skin drums. And comedians also came, so that the stone could be entertained as it traveled along.

  But when they tried to pull it, it would not be moved. It seemed to have grown roots, and all the ropes snapped as if they had been cotton threads. Two more cities were ordered to send haulers, and as they set to work, shouting back and forth, trussing it with fresh ropes, the stone spoke up and said, “Try what you will.”

  The shouting stopped. “Why do you pull me?” said the stone. “I am not about to turn over and go, I am not to be pulled where you want me to go.”

  Quietly the men kept working. “Then pull me,” it said. “I’ll talk to you later.” And with that the stone slid forward, traveling easily as far as Tlapitzahuayan. There the haulers decided to rest for the day, while two stonecutters went ahead to warn Montezuma that the great stone had begun to talk.

  “Are you drunk?” said the king when they gave him the news. “Why come here telling me lies?” Then he called for his storekeeper and had the two messengers locked up. But he sent six lords to find out the truth, and when they had heard the stone say, “Try what you will, I am not to be pulled,” they went back to Mexico and reported it to Montezuma, and the two prisoners were set free.

  In the morning the stone spoke again. “Will you never understand? Why do you pull me? I am not to be taken to Mexico. Tell Montezuma it is no use. The time is bad, and his end is near. He has tried to make himself greater than our lord who created the sky and the earth. But pull me if you must, you poor ones. Let’s go.” And with that the stone slid along until it reached Itztapalapan.

  Again it halted, and again they sent messengers to tell Montezuma what it had said. Just as before, he flew into a rage, but this time he was secretly frightened, and although he refused to give the messengers credit for bringing him the truth, he stopped short of jailing them and told them to go back and carry out his orders.

  The next morning, as the haulers picked up their ropes, they found that the stone once again moved easily, sliding as far as the causeway that led to Mexico. Advised that the stone had reached the other side of the water, Montezuma sent priests to greet it with flowers and incense, also to appease it with blood sacrifices in case it might be angry. Again it started to move. But when it was halfway across the lake, it stopped and said, “Here and no farther,” and although the causeway was made of cedar beams seven hands thick, the stone broke through them, crashing into the water with a noise like thunder. All the men who were tied to the ropes were dragged down and killed, and many others were wounded.

  Told what had happened, Montezuma himself came onto the causeway to see where the stone had disappeared. Still thinking he would carry out his plan, he ordered divers to search the bottom of the lake to see if the stone had settled in a place where it might be hauled back to dry land. But they could find neither the stone itself nor any sign of the men who had been killed. The divers were sent down a second time, and when they came back up they said, “Lord, we see a narrow trace in the water leading toward Acolco.”

  “Very well,” said Montezuma, and with no further questioning he sent his stonecutters back to Acolco to see what they might discover, and when they returned, they reported no more than what the king already knew. Still tied with its ropes and spattered with incense and blood offerings, the stone had gone back to the hillside where it had originally been found.

  Then Montezuma turned
to his lords and said, “Brothers, I know now that our pains and troubles will be many and our days will be few. As for me, just as with the kings that have gone before, I must let myself die. May the Lord of Creation do what he pleases.”

  II. MONTEZUMA’S WOUND

  Near the town of Coatepec in the province of Texcoco, a poor man was digging in his garden one day when an eagle swooped out of the air, seized him by the scalp, and carried him up toward the clouds, higher and higher, until the two of them were only a speck in the sky that quickly disappeared. Reaching a mountain peak, the man was taken into a dark cavern, where he heard the eagle say, “Lord of all power, I have carried out your command and here is the poor farmer you told me to bring.”

  Without seeing who spoke, the man heard a voice say, “It is good. Bring him here,” and without knowing who took his hand, he found himself being led into a dazzling chamber, where he saw King Montezuma lying unconscious, as if asleep. The man was told to sit next to the king, flowers were put in his hand, and he was given a smoking tube filled with tobacco.

  “Here, take these and relax,” he was told, “and look carefully at this miserable one who feels nothing. He is so drunk with pride that he closes his eyes to the whole world, and if you want to know how far it has carried him, hold your lighted smoking tube against his thigh and you will see that he doesn’t feel it.”