55. In the Beginning, Laughlin 1971, pp. 37–8. Genesis 1:1–2:3.
Depending on context, the stories that make up the folk-Bible cycle may be called legends or folktales; legends if regarded as true, folktales if treated as fictional (as in a Tepecano version of the Nativity story that ends with the folktale formula, “I pulled my tale from a basket, tell me another if I ask it” [Y entro por un chiquihuite roto, y cuéntame otro]—Mason 1914, p. 166). Some, like no. 55, are folk versions of Scripture. Others, like 67, are entirely noncanonical. At least two, 61 and 68, are pre-Columbian myths adapted to a new religious climate.
56. How the First People Were Made, Parsons 1932, pp. 287–8. Genesis 2:5–25 + motif E751.1 Souls weighed at Judgment Day.
Revising the doctrine of original sin, the teller has Adam cultivating his field from the first day, even digging a ditch in the Garden.
57. Adam’s Rib, adapted from Foster, pp. 236–7. Genesis 2:21–24.
Here again, as in the preceding tale, Adam is at work in the Garden, unmoved by the scriptural distinction between paradise and the world east of Eden. Cf. Genesis 3:23–24, “Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”
58. Adam and Eve and Their Children, A. M. Espinosa 1936, p. 119. Genesis 3:1–24 + motifs A1650.1 The various children of Eve and F251.4 Underworld people from children which Eve hid from God.
Unlike the tellers of the two preceding stories this narrator accepts the theory of work as punishment for original disobedience—yet promptly turns the tale into an American Indian emergence myth. First, however, a detour through strictly noncanonical European folklore. The digression, which serves as a bridge, comes from a story well known in the Grimm’s version (no. 180), where Eve has seven pretty children and twelve who are ugly; out of shame, when the Lord comes to visit, she hides the ugly ones. The Lord blesses the seven, giving each an enviable destiny (king, prince, etc.). Thinking to secure comparable blessings for her remaining twelve, she brings them out of hiding, only to have the Lord anoint them as servants, laborers, and tradesmen. In Isleta hands, the tale accounts for the unequal destinies of whites and Indians as well as the origin of Indian nations, believed to have emerged from within the earth.
59. God’s Letter to Noéh, adapted from Parsons 1936, p. 350. Genesis 6:5–13.
60. God Chooses Noah, tr. from Lehmann 1928, pp. 754–6. AT type 752C* The Discourteous Sower (Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Europe).
The tale is usually told of Christ, who meets the discourteous sower while fleeing his persecutors; or it is told of Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem. It is the only story in the folk-Bible cycle that can still be found in Hispanic communities, though it is much more popular in Indian settings, especially in Mexico and Guatemala.
Phalluses: explicitly phallic stones are found at archeological sites in the Maya area; in Oaxaca, naturally occurring stones regarded as phallic have ritual significance, though in the present story the reference evidently signals little more than the farmer’s contempt.
61. The Flood, tr. from Lehmann 1928, pp. 753–4.
This twentieth-century Mixe version from Oaxaca is very close to a sixteenth-century Aztec account that derives from pre-Columbian pictographic sources (Bierhorst 1992, pp. 143–4). The resemblance to the biblical version, slight in any case, would appear to be coincidental. But God, angels, the ark, and pairs of animals are introduced in other versions of the same story collected from Indian narrators in central and southern Mexico (Horcasitas, pp. 194–203). A recurring theme in these basically native flood stories is the prohibition against work. The saved man is ordered not to work as the flood approaches; and, similarly, he must not make fire after the waters have subsided. For his disobedience he is punished, suggesting a comparison not with the ordeal of Noah but with the predicament of Adam, who disobeys, then finds he has no choice but to work. To explicate this cause and its effect, whether relating to Adam or to Noah, has been the uncertain work of theologians and mythologists.
62. A Prophetic Dream, Laughlin 1971, pp. 38–9. John 19:41–20:31.
The story of Christ’s appearance following the Resurrection is here changed into a prophecy of his coming. In the biblical account Mary Magdalene enters the garden where Christ was entombed and finds him standing beside the sepulcher. He warns her, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father.” The disciples are informed, but the one named Thomas doubts.
63. The White Lily, tr. from Howard-Malverde, p. 211.
The conception is not always immaculate. According to a Nahua account, Mary met Joseph while washing her father’s dirty clothes; the couple eloped, Mary riding a donkey (Taggart 1983, p. 103). In a Mazatec version, Joseph impregnates Mary. But since she has other suitors as well, a test is required; Mary hands each a dry reed, and only Joseph’s sends forth roots (Laughlin 1971, pp. 39–41). According to a Tepecano story, Mary was Joseph’s helper in the woodworking business; at the same time there were devils who wanted to marry her on account of her beauty. When she became pregnant, though she was a virgin, Mary’s father decreed that the man whose staff sprouted flowers would be her husband. The devils competed against Joseph, and Joseph was the winner (Mason 1914, p. 164).
64. The Night in the Stable, adapted from Tax, pp. 125–6. Luke 2:1–20 and Matthew 2:2, with motif H71.1 Star on forehead as a sign of royalty.
Though it does not appear in modern indexes, the Nativity tale of the rewarded cow and the punished mule has a long history in European folklore (Dähnhardt, pp. 12–16), with Indian variants from Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and New Mexico (Howard-Malverde, p. 199; Incháustegui, pp. 212– 13; Laughlin 1977, pp. 331–2; Parsons 1918, p. 256; Siegel, p. 121; Williams García, p. 73).
65/I. Why Did It Dawn?, Taggart 1983, p. 103.
As early as the mid-sixteenth century Jesus was identified with the sun in Christianized Nahuatl writings (Bierhorst 1985b, p. 367). By the late twentieth century the idea was widespread in Mexico and Guatemala. “To the Nahuas it is absolutely self-evident that [ . . . ] Jesus Christ is a manifestation of the sun” (Sandstrom, p. 236).
65/II. That Was the Principal Day, Laughlin 1977, p. 332.
66. Three Kings, A. M. Espinosa 1936, pp. 118–19. Matthew 2:1–12. Stories explaining how Indians became poor are widely distributed in Latin America, though the events are usually linked to the Creation rather than the Nativity. Among the Seri of northern Mexico it is said that Indians and other groups were originally in a giant bamboo, each at a node, peering out. At the top were the Seris, next the Gringos, then the Chinese, the Apaches, the Yaquis, and, lowest, the Mexicans. Each in turn came out to meet God and received presents. The Mexicans, who were made the richest, got money, guns, houses, clothing, and food. Too proud to take gifts, the Seris ended up with nothing but seaweed to cover their nakedness and had to pull it out of the ocean themselves (Coolidge and Coolidge, pp. 107–8; Kroeber, p. 12).
67. The Christ Child as Trickster, tr. from Howard-Malverde, pp. 199– 201.
This is rare lore indeed. Remotely similar stories are to be found in the Infancy Gospels, influential in the late Middle Ages, especially the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, where we may read, “A bed of six cubits was ordered of Joseph, and he told his lad to cut a beam of the right length, but he made it too short. Joseph was troubled. Jesus pulled it out the right length” (James, p. 78). But neither in Pseudo-Matthew nor elsewhere in the apocryphal scriptures is there clear evidence of the child as trickster.
68. Christ Saved by the Firefly, Redfield, p. 65.
The same is told in the Popol Vuh, regarding the twin heroes Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Imprisoned by the lords of death, the two boys are given cigars and ordered to keep them lit through th
e night. Cleverer than their guards, the heroes escape after attaching fireflies to the ends of the unlit cigars (Tedlock, p. 119). Evidently the story has deep pre-Columbian roots, judging by a scene painted on a Maya vase from northern Guatemala, dated A.D. 600–900, in which the firefly is shown holding the lighted cigar (Coe, p. 99). In a modern variant, also from Guatemala, the prison guards see the firefly and think Jesus is “sitting there smoking a cigarette” (Tax, p. 126).
69. Christ Betrayed by Snails, J. E. S. Thompson, p. 161.
One of the most unusual incidents in the story of Christ’s persecution and flight. We are not told what punishment the snails received.
70. Christ Betrayed by the Magpie-jay, Laughlin 1977, p. 26.
Laughlin points out that the magpie-jay is an extremely noisy bird; and in a Guatemalan version that has a rooster noisily betraying Christ, the rooster is punished by being made the bird of sacrifice.
71. The Blind Man at the Cross, Laughlin 1971, pp. 47–8. Matthew 27:1–56 + motif D1505.8.1 Blood from Christ’s wounds restores sight.
Thompson’s Motif-Index mentions only a medieval French source. According to a modern Nahua version, the blind man regained his sight and immediately wailed, “God save me! I have stabbed my compadre” (Ziehm, p. 159). In a Laguna account from New Mexico the spurting blood not only heals the blind man but becomes the agent of a new Creation: “From the spattered blood all living beings came, horses and mules and all creatures” (Parsons 1918, p. 257).
72. The Cricket, the Mole, and the Mouse, Laughlin 1971, pp. 48–50. Matthew 27:57–66, Luke 24:1–3.
The unusual tale of how the sepulcher was opened is evidently known in Ecuador as well as in Mexico. Among the Quichua of Imbabura in the Ecuadorean highlands it is told that once in the month of harvests, when all the grains were gathered, Jesucristo came to give each creature its proper grain. A mouse presented himself and said, “I will open the sepulcher so you may get out when the enemies kill you and bury you.” Jesucristo replied, “If you do me this favor, you shall live forever as the master of every grain and hidden almost always in the house of man” (Parsons 1945, p. 147).
73. As If with Wings, Laughlin 1971, p. 52. Mark 16:19, Acts 1:9.
74. Slowpoke Slaughtered Four, tr. from Ramírez de Arellano, no. 22. AT type 851 The Princess Who Cannot Solve the Riddle (Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Europe, India, Middle East).
Also known as The Shepherd’s Riddle, the tale has an easily recognizable variant in the Thousand and One Nights: A young man down on his luck sells his parents for a suit of fine clothes and a horse. While on the road, thirsty, he drinks the horse’s sweat. Arriving at the palace of a king who has promised his daughter to anyone who proposes a riddle she cannot solve, he offers, “The water I drank was neither of earth nor of Heaven.” The princess is stumped. That night she comes to his bed and sleeps with him in exchange for the answer. She leaves her nightclothes, and the next day he catches her once and for all with the riddle, “A dove came to visit me and left its feathers in my hands.”
75. The Price of Heaven and the Rain of Caramels, tr. from Wheeler, no. 158. Robe type 1341E [The Money in the Coffin] (Mexico) + AT type 1381B The Sausage Rain (Mexico, New Mexico, Panama, Europe, India).
The two tales are dissimilar, though in each case the trickster ends up with the money. The technique of doubling, or telling complementary tales in tandem, is a feature associated more with Indian than with Hispanic storytelling. Coincidentally, the money placed in the coffin recalls the actual custom of putting money on the chest of the corpse during a wake to help pay for food and drink (Carvalho-Neto 1961, p. 313).
76. Pine Cone the Astrologer, tr. from Riera-Pinilla, no. 58. AT type 1641 Doctor Know-All (Argentina, Chile, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Europe, India, Middle East).
77. The Dragon Slayer, tr. from Wheeler, no. 57. AT type 300 The Dragon Slayer (Argentina, California, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India) + AT type 510A Cinderella (see no. 28).
Heroines in trouser roles, though not unheard of in Old World lore, are a frequent and striking feature of Latin American folk narrative. Among these, the female dragon slayer who rescues a prince in distress is surely the most unexpected. The widow who liberates three princesses and becomes general of the king’s armies (no. 52) ranks as a close second. Others are to be found in nos. 11, 25, 33, 34, 84, and 97.
Quiquiriquí: literally, cock-a-doodle-doo, the never-never land of Hispanic folktales.
Ruddy ruddy red, / My story is said (colorín colorado, este cuento se ha acabado): a formulaic closing of Spanish origin. Colorín means “ruddy” and by extension denotes the linnet (in Spain) or the bright red seeds of the coral-bean, Erythrina coralloides (in the Americas). A Spanish variant is punto colorado, cuento terminado (red dot, the story is over—Taggart 1990, p. 180).
78. Johnny-boy, tr. from Peña Hernández, pp. 222–3.
Twenty-two Roman popes: The story was collected before the reign of Pope John XXIII.
John of God (Juan de Dios), 1495–1550, founder of the Brothers Hospitalers of St. John of God, canonized 1690.
79. The Rarest Thing, tr. from Lara Figueroa 1982, pp. 20–21. AT type 653A The Rarest Thing in the World (Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe).
In a version from New Mexico the princess is to wed the man who offers her the best gift, but when three suitors arrive, each claiming his gift is the best, she tells them to shoot arrows and bring them back to her. They’re still looking (Rael, no. 223).
80. Prince Simpleheart, tr. from Noguera, pp. 105–14. AT type 566 The Three Magic Objects and the Wonderful Fruits (Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).
The tapir switch adds a tropical American touch to this essentially Old World tale.
81. The Flower of Lily-Lo, adapted from A. Paredes, no. 41. AT type 780 The Singing Bone (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, New Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).
One of the world’s most popular folktales. Typical Old World versions have the murder revealed by a flute, harp, or other instrument made from the victim’s bones. In Spain and Latin America the crime is usually signaled by a flower, often called the Flower of Lily-Lo or Lililón.
82. My Garden Is Better Than Ever, adapted from Foster, p. 218. AT type 175 The Tarbaby and the Rabbit (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Africa, Europe, India). The Salvadoran variant is in Schultze Jena, p. 133.
The most familiar of the Brer Rabbit stories. Widely diffused in Indo- and Hispano-America, it is generally believed to have been brought to the New World from Africa. The more elaborate (and controversial) theory of Aurelio Espinosa postulates an Indic origin, and from India two parallel routes of diffusion to the Americas, one through Africa to the Antilles and Brazil, the other through the Middle East and Spain to Mexico and Spanish South America (A. M. Espinosa 1946–47, vol. 2, pp. 163–227).
83. Juan Bobo and the Pig, tr. from Ramírez de Arellano, no. 114. Hansen type 1704** [The Fool as Babysitter] (Cuba, Puerto Rico).
A great many Puerto Rican versions have been recorded. In most, the chicks are replaced by a baby that won’t stop crying. The fool quiets it by sticking a pin in its head.
84. The Parrot Prince, tr. from Laval 1920, no. 9. AT type 432 The Prince as Bird (California, Chile, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East) with the addition of motif H1125 Task: traveling until iron shoes are worn out (Chile, Mexico, New Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Europe).
The remedy overheard in a conversation of animals (motif N452) is a narrative trick deeply entrenched in Old World lore and evidently known in the N
ew World since at least the turn of the sixteenth century. It makes its American debut in a Quechua manuscript of 1608 from the province of Huarochirí in the central highlands of Peru. A rich man, according to the story, had been stricken with an incurable illness. “Wise men and sages were called in, just as the Spaniards consult learned sages and doctors, but not a single one could recognize the disease.” At that moment a poor beggar was coming over the mountain and took it into his head to lie down and rest. As he was falling asleep, two foxes arrived, one from the valley, the other from the high plains. The one from the valley said, “Brother, how are things up above?” “Just fine, just fine. But there’s a gentleman in Anchicocha [ . . . ] who is very sick, and he’s called in all the sages to tell him what the illness is and not a one can diagnose it. But I tell you, the trouble is that . . .” And having overheard the cause of the disease, the beggar comes into town, asks if anyone is ill, and proceeds to work the cure. The remedy includes removing a snake from the roof of the house and a two-headed toad from beneath the grinding stone (Trimborn and Kelm, pp. 33–7). See comment to the Mexican variant, “What the Owls Said,” no. 15, above.
And put it in ships for John, Rock, and Rick . . .: discussed above in the introductory note, p. 47.
Peumo: a small evergreen tree (Cryptocarya alba ) native to Chile.
The walls have ears and the bushes have eyes: a formulaic expression widely used in European folk narrative whether or not there are walls or bushes in the story.
Chain Riddles. I, adapted from Scott, p. 239. II, tr. from Cadilla de Martínez, p. 252. III, tr. from the Zapotec by Langston Hughes in Covarrubias, pp. 346–7. IV, tr. from A. M. Espinosa 1916, p. 516. V, adapted from Bernard and Salinas 1989, p. 103. VI, Burns, p. 18.
Latin American Folktales Page 36