Latin American Folktales

by John Bierhorst

  Folk Prayers. I and VI, tr. from Vázquez de Acuña, pp. 38 and 35. II, tr. from Laval 1916, p. 25. III, IV, and V, tr. from Olivares Figueroa, pp. 85, 86, and 84–5.

  These are not canonical prayers, and no. III is actually a curse. The Reichel-Dolmatoffs have written that death is almost always taken to be the result of black magic; and during the wake “suspicions are voiced concerning the dead person’s enemies, but a name is never mentioned” (Reichel-Dolmatoff and Reichel-Dolmatoff 1961, p. 381).

  The brief ensalmo (incantation) to St. Anthony, patron saint of courtship, has been included as a bridge to the story that follows.

  24. The Mouse and the Dung Beetle, tr. from Rael, no. 32. Robe type 559 Dung Beetle (Colorado, Mexico). The similar tale from which this one has evidently been derived, AT type 559 Dung Beetle, is widespread in Europe and known also from Mexico and New Mexico.

  St. Anthony, who finds lost objects and helps lovers, is probably the most frequently mentioned saint in Latino folktales. It is said that in New Mexico, if the saint refused to grant a petition, his image used to be hung upside down in a well with the head submerged until he changed his mind (A. M. Espinosa 1985, p. 74).

  25. The Canon and the King’s False Friend, tr. from J. M. Espinosa, no. 3. AT type 883A The Innocent Slandered Maiden (New Mexico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  Well known in medieval literary sources, including the Gesta Romanorum, but evidently rare in Latin America.

  26. The Story that Became a Dream, tr. from Laval 1920, no. 19. AT type 1364 The Blood-brother’s Wife (Argentina, Chile, Europe, Middle East).

  The Chilean storyteller brings the old tale down to contemporary reality. The two knights who swear blood brotherhood in the old European versions are now a pair of idlers making their daily rounds through the city streets.

  27. St. Theresa and the Lord, tr. from Wheeler, no. 40. AT type 759 God’s Justice Vindicated (Argentina, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  The incidents vary, but the situation is always the same. An incredulous companion travels with an inscrutable master, who perpetrates injustices, finally explaining their hidden meaning. The old version given in Islamic scripture is a parable on the virtue of unquestioning faith (Koran 18:65–82). A flippant Cuban version turns the story into a joke about the battle of the sexes (no. 8).

  Gorda: a bulky tortilla, about the thickness of a finger, carried as food for the road by rural people in Mexico.

  28. Rice from Ashes, tr. from Chertudi 1960, pp. 138–42. AT type 510A Cinderella (Argentina, California, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  The familiar story, but with some unusual details. Here it is the prince, not Cinderella, who has the fairy godmother; and instead of the glass slipper, a gold cup from the belly of a lamb (motif H121 Identification by cup). The tasks required by the stepmother at the beginning of the story are common folkloric elements, though not usually attached to Cinderella (motifs H1091.1 Task: sorting grains: performed by helpful ants, and H1091.2 Task: sorting grains: performed by helpful birds).

  29. Juan María and Juana María, tr. from Recinos 1918a, no. 8.

  Strictly speaking not a folktale, but the kind of story folklorists today would call an urban legend. Despite the label, the setting does not have to be urban, but it must be contemporary. The tale should have a suspenseful story line and sensational, even grisly details. There may be an element of the supernatural. Nevertheless the account is passed along as a true recent happening. An example that has long been popular in North America is “The Vanishing Hitchhiker,” in which the spirit of a young woman tries to hitch-hike home every year on the anniversary of her death (Brunvand, pp. 165–70).

  30. The Witch Wife, tr. from Reichel-Dolmatoff and Reichel-Dolmatoff 1956, no. 83. Hansen type 748H [Witch Wife Who Visits Cemetery Changes Spying Husband into Dog] (Colombia, New Mexico, Puerto Rico).

  The story of the wife slipping out of the house and spied on by her husband, who discovers she’s a witch, is one of the most characteristic of Latin American folktales (see also nos. 9 and 98). However, this version, which has the wife’s alarming rice diet, the graveyard scene, the husband changed into a dog, the dog-loving baker, and, finally, the wife’s comeuppance, can be traced to the Thousand and One Nights, as noted by Laughlin, who found the same story among the Tzotzil Maya of Chiapas State, Mexico (1977, pp. 75–6).

  31. O Wicked World, tr. from Chertudi, vol. 1, no. 92. Boggs type 1940E [The Widow’s Dog Named World] (Argentina, Cuba, Spain). The Cuban version is in Feijóo, vol. 2, p. 142.

  Buñuelos: doughnuts, fritters.

  32. The Three Sisters, tr. from Reichel-Dolmatoff and Reichel-Dolmatoff 1956, no. 79. AT type 707 The Three Golden Sons (California, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, New Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  One of the best-known international folktales. As is often the case with Latin American folklore, the Colombian version is remarkably close to the version in the Thousand and One Nights.

  33. The Count and the Queen, tr. from Rael no. 487. AT type 1418 The Equivocal Oath (Colorado, Europe, India).

  34. Crystal the Wise, tr. from Saunière, pp. 260–8. AT type 891 The Man Who Deserts His Wife and Sets Her the Task of Bearing Him a Child (Chile, Europe, India, Middle East).

  Versions in which the heroine starts out as a schoolteacher, as here, are especially popular in southern Europe. The Chilean variant has the teacher serving the national beverage, mate, here translated “tea.” But the geographical hints (train to Paris, betrothal to a Spanish princess) suggest an Italian origin for this story. In fact it is very close to a variant in the great Sicilian collection of Giuseppe Pitrè, summarized by Saunière in her comparative notes and translated into English in Calvino (no. 151, “Catherine the Wise”).

  35. Love Like Salt, tr. from Wheeler, no. 54. Subtype of AT 510 Cinderella, indexed separately as AT 923 Love Like Salt (Arizona, California, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  The heroine of the tale is one of the pluckier Cinderellas, like the heroine of no. 11, in contrast to the long-suffering stepdaughters of nos. 28 and 91. The King Lear motif (M21), which has the father rejecting the youngest and most honest of his three daughters, is a regular feature of Love Like Salt in both the Old World and the New. If the emphasis placed on salt seems odd to the modern reader, it may help to remember an old saying recorded for Latin America: The Devil will come to a table without salt (Redfield, p. 131).

  36. The Pongo’s Dream, tr. from Arguedas and Carrillo, pp. 127–32.

  The story of the dream in which a great man is covered in honey and a poor man in excrement, whereupon the two lick each other, has been recorded for India (Shulman, pp. 199–200) and presumably made its way to Peru via the Middle East and Spain. It is not indexed for either Europe or Latin America, however. Arguedas obtained this version in Lima from a Quechua-speaking comunero, who had come from the region of Cuzco. Subsequently Arguedas learned that two Peruvian colleagues had heard versions of the same tale (Arguedas, p. 9).

  Pongo: An Indian menial of the lowest order, charged with kitchen and stable work, traditionally a kind of doorman whose more or less permanent station was the vestibule. Hence the name “pongo,” from Quechua punku, “door” (Luna).

  37. The Fox and the Monkey, adapted from the Aymara-English text in La Barre, pp. 42–5.

  Animal tales depend for their effect almost totally on body language and vocal manipulation and thus defy translation. But because of their wide popularity the anthologist cannot in good conscience ignore them. In Latin America, as elsewhere, the little stories are often told in sequences of two or more. The trickster and his companion dupe are generally Rabbit and Coyote in Mexico and Central America, Fox and Tiger in parts of South America. Armadillo, Lion, Monkey, Squirrel, and other creatures may be substitute
d. The sequence at hand joins these elements:

  Motif W151.9 Greedy person (animal) gets hand (head) stuck in food jar (Bolivia, Brazil, India).

  Motif K841 Substitute for execution obtained by trickery (Americas, Europe, India).

  AT type 1530 Holding Up the Rock (Argentina, Chile, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe).

  AT type 34 The Wolf Dives into the Water for Reflected Cheese (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe).

  38. The Miser’s Jar, adapted from Gordon, pp. 134–6. AT type 1536B The Three Hunchback Brothers Drowned (Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  The story is also told of Pedro de Urdemalas, with Pedro as the fool who keeps burying the cadavers (Lara Figueroa 1982, no. 31).

  39. Tup and the Ants, adapted from J. E. S. Thompson, pp. 163–5.

  Stories about slash-and-burn agriculture, often minutely descriptive, belong to the Indian side of Mexican and Central American storytelling. But the various narrative elements in this particular tale—the three brothers, the unpromising hero, the helpful ants, the literal fools (who in this case cut trees instead of cutting them down)—suggest Hispanic models. Motif J2461.1 Literal following of instructions about actions.

  40. A Master and His Pupil, tr. from Recinos 1918a, no. 6. Robe 1712 (Guatemala).

  Not indexed for Europe or Latin America except Guatemala. But a Tries-tine version is in Pinguentini (no. 30); English translation in Calvino (no. 44, “The Science of Laziness”).

  “Drydregs” translates Pososeco, “Idler” is Jaragán. Recinos’s anonymous informant evidently had a weakness for Dickensian surnames. Compare the “Don Jesús Nutmeg” and “Scholar Corncob” of no. 89.

  41. The Louse-Drum, tr. from Riera-Pinilla, no. 57. AT type 621 The Louse Skin (Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, New Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  42. The Three Dreams, tr. from Lara Figueroa 1982, no. 39. AT type 1626 Dream Bread (Argentina, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  The Guatemalan narrator allows himself to describe the Indian as “this something or other that might be human.” And in the somewhat similar tale from Peru, “The Pongo’s Dream” (no. 36), the Indian is asked, “Are you human or something else?” In both cases the Indian triumphs, discreetly, by means of a dream. But who might tell such story? An Indian? Or, to use the Guatemalan term, would it be a ladino? The answer is the former, in the Peruvian case; the latter, in the Guatemalan. Our narrator, here, is an agricultural worker with two years of schooling, born in the tiny hamlet of La Juez in the community of La Montaña, municipio of Sansare, departamento of El Progreso, northeast of Guatemala City.

  43. The Clump of Basil, tr. from Ramírez de Arellano, no. 29. AT type 879 The Basil Maiden (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Dominican Republic, New Mexico, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe).

  The opening, “Well, sir,” is a formula that may be used by either a man or a woman and has nothing to do with who happens to be listening.

  Riddles. I, tr. from Mason 1916, no. 322. II, VI, VII, VIII, X, XXV, tr. from Ramírez de Arellano, nos. 452a, 512, 391, 529b, 430, 396. III, IV, V, XIV, XV, XXII, XXIII, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, tr. from Lehmann-Nitsche, nos. 551, 186, 196, 66, 60a, 656d, 284, 608a, 57a, 677b. IX, XI, XII, tr. from Recinos 1918b, nos. 12, 10, 38. XIII, tr. from the Nahuatl-Spanish text in Rámirez et al., p. 62. XVI, tr. from the Spanish in A. Espinosa 1985, p. 166. XVII, XIX, XXIV, tr. from the Quechua-Spanish text in Kleymeyer, pp. 21, 17-8, 23. XVIII, XX, tr. from Andrade 1930, nos. 276, 172. XXI, tr. from Dary Fuentes and Esquivel, p. 117. XXIX, tr. from the Cashinahua in Abreu, no. 5908. XXX, tr. from the Yucatec Maya and Spanish text in Andrade 1977, folio 1648.

  Hispanic riddles vary little or not at all from nation to nation; and many have been taken into Indian languages without change, including even so venerable an item as the riddle of the Sphinx (no. XXIV). Others deserve to be called native American (nos. XVII, XXIX). Whether riddles were originally native to the Western Hemisphere is a question folklorists have debated. An eighteenth-century Maya manuscript contains riddles of unquestionable Indian content, for example:

  Son, go bring me the girl with the watery teeth. Her hair is twisted into a tuft. Fragrant shall be her odor when I remove her garments. [Answer:] It is an ear of green corn cooked in a pit (Roys, p. 130).

  A sizable collection of Nahua riddles is preserved in Sahagún’s sixteenth-century Historia, including:

  What is it that says to itself, “You go this way, I’ll go that way, and we’ll meet on the other side”? [Answer:] loincloth (Sahagún 1979, libro 6, cap. 42, fol. 198v).

  Even so, it could be argued that such riddles, while they may be called native—and as old as they are—were inspired by Spanish models.

  44. The Charcoal Peddler’s Chicken, tr. from Mason 1924, no. 36. AT type 332B Death and Luck (California, Chile, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain).

  45. The Three Counsels, tr. from A. M. Espinosa 1911, no. 4. AT type 910B The Servant’s Good Counsels (Chile, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  The earliest recorded European version of the House of Death episode is in the Gesta Romanorum: A certain prince, who lived in an isolated country house, met a merchant while out hunting one day and invited him home. When they arrived, the merchant marveled at the richness of the place and congratulated his host on his good fortune. The prince’s wife joined them at supper and ate from a human skull. That night in his sleeping alcove the merchant saw two cadavers hanging by their hands from the top of the partition. In the morning the prince explained that his wife had been unfaithful to him and was being punished by having to eat from the skull of her lover, whom the prince himself had put to death. The two corpses were the prince’s brothers-in-law, murdered by the lover’s son. Finally, as the merchant took his leave, the prince advised him not to judge good fortune on appearances (A. M. Espinosa 1946–47, vol. 2, p. 279).

  46. Seven Blind Queens, tr. from Laval 1968, pp. 180–7. AT type 462 The Outcast Queens and the Ogress Queen (Chile, India).

  Widespread in India but not indexed for Europe or elsewhere in Latin America. In another Chilean version the outcast women, blinded, are the king’s nieces; the jealous queen sends their brother for lion’s milk, drinks it, and dies, whereupon the king lives happily with his nieces and nephew (Hansen, p. 58).

  47. The Mad King, tr. from Boggs 1938, no. 5. AT type 981 Wisdom of Hidden Old Man Saves Kingdom (Florida, Mexico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  The story was collected in the Tampa area in the 1930s, at which time Tampa had by far the largest Hispanic community in Florida, centered around a cigar industry that had been moved south from New York to avoid organized labor. Most of the workers were from Cuba, some from Mexico.

  In Old World versions of the same tale the king’s reason for executing the old people is to save food in time of famine. In a Mexican variant the king is overthrown and the boy who has hidden his old father becomes ruler and governs wisely (Wheeler, no. 3).

  48. A Mother’s Curse, tr. from Ramírez de Arellano, no. 89. Motif C12 Devil invoked appears unexpectedly.

  49. The Hermit and the Drunkard, tr. from Carvalho-Neto 1994, no. 25. AT type 756 The Three Green Twigs (Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe). The Ecuadorean variant is closest to the subtype 756B The Devil’s Contract.

  In European versions the sinner must do penance by wandering aimlessly or carrying a sack of stones until his staff sprouts or three green twigs grow on a dry branch. Here, quite simply, he gets to Heaven by pounding his chest with a stone.

  50. The Noblewoman’s Daughter and the Charcoal Woman’s Son, tr. from Hernández Suárez, pp. 260–4. Hansen type 930B [Noble Daughter and Coal Seller’s Son] (Cuba)—a subtype of AT 930 The Prophecy (Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle Ea
st).

  51. The Enchanted Cow, tr. from Saunière, pp. 308–17. Motifs B411 Helpful cow, F841 Extraordinary boat, N512 Treasure in underground chamber, E30 Resuscitation by arrangement of members.

  The naming of each character and the realistically defined locales (a small village near Constitución, a fair in Chillán) give this story the quality of a novella, as with no. 5, “Antuco’s Luck.”

  52. Judas’s Ear, tr. from J. M. Espinosa, no. 21. AT type 301A Quest for a Vanished Princess (Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  53. Good Is Repaid with Evil, tr. from Olivares Figueroa, pp. 48–9. AT type 155 The Ungrateful Serpent Returned to Captivity (Argentina, California, Chile, Cuba, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Mexico, New Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Europe, India, Middle East).

  Versions of this ancient fable are found in the Panchatantra, the Gesta Romanorum, La Fontaine, and other literary sources. Perhaps the oldest is the Aesopic variant recorded in Greek by the second-century author Babrius. According to Babrius, “A farmer picked up a viper that was almost dead from the cold, and warmed it. But the viper, after stretching himself out, clung to the man’s hand and bit him incurably, thus killing the very one who wanted to save him. Dying, the man uttered these words, worthy to be remembered: ‘I suffer what I deserve, for showing pity to the wicked’ ” (Perry, p. 187).

  The title by which the fable is most commonly known in Latin America, “Good Is Repaid with Evil,” is itself a proverb: Un buen con un mal se paga.

  54. The Fisherman’s Daughter, tr. from Reichel-Dolmatoff and Reichel-Dolmatoff 1956, no. 71. Motif S241 Child unwittingly promised: “first thing you meet” + AT type 425A Cupid and Psyche (California, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Mexico, New Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  A wild ride through European motifs and American Indian symbolism. The unintended sacrifice to the water spirit is purely Old World (motif S241), and the sequence of bedroom scenes, culminating in the broken prohibition, follows the story of Cupid and Psyche (AT 425A). But the suggestion of paradise lost (“your easy days in this house are finished”), despite the biblical parallel, has an Indian flavor (with hat, sandals, and machete); and the means of redemption—the magical hair from the “mother” who dwells high in the mountains—rests on the old Indian mythology of northern Colombia. The story is discussed in the introduction, p. 11.