Latin American Folktales

by John Bierhorst

  The first of these six patter-chants is said to be a riddle. The second, third, and fourth are nonsense rhymes used in children’s games. The fifth is recited as a story; the sixth, at the end of a story to break the spell of enchantment.

  85. A Dead Man Speaks, tr. from Pérez, pp. 94–5. Motif E235 Return from dead to punish indignities to corpse.

  Latin American folklorists would call this little story a caso, or happening. The term used in English is “memorate,” meaning a reminiscence, especially one that includes a brush with the supernatural. A memorate is told as a factual occurrence by someone who claims to have witnessed it or, second hand, by a person who knows the person who witnessed it. Distanced from the original narrator, it might eventually become an “urban legend” (see no. 29).

  86. The Bear’s Son, adapted and tr. from Chapman, pp. 215–33.

  One of the most popular and most variable Hispanic folktales, also known as Juan Oso (John the Bear). This gritty Honduran version is unusual for its labor-oriented reworking of narrative elements, avoiding the usual swashbuckler-wins-princess motifs, and for its poignant sociological undercurrent—a native American bildungsroman created almost entirely from Old World folkloric materials. The main elements may be summarized:

  Motif B635.1 The Bear’s Son (Bolivia, California, Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe).

  Motif B600.2 Animal husband provides characteristic animal food (see note to no. 112, below).

  AT type 157 Learning to Fear Men (Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  AT type 38 Claw in Split Tree (Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  Motif J1758 Tiger mistaken for domestic animal.

  AT type 326 The Youth Who Wanted to Learn What Fear Is (Bolivia, Chile, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  Guaruma: a large tree of Mexico and Central America, Cecropia peltata, with leaves like fig leaves.

  87. Charity, tr. from Chertudi, vol. 1, no. 54. AT type 841 One Beggar Trusts God, the Other the King (Argentina, Mexico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  88. Riches Without Working, tr. from Boas and Arreola, pp. 1–5. Robe type 545G [The Mouse as Helper] (Mexico).

  Perhaps a remote variant of the familiar Puss-in-Boots tale (AT type 545 The Cat as Helper), which has been collected repeatedly in Mexico. The creativity of American Indian storytelling is at work here.

  Hacendado: the owner of a hacienda.

  89. Let Somebody Buy You Who Doesn’t Know You, tr. from Recinos 1918a, no. 5. AT type 1529 Thief Claims to Have Been Transformed into a Horse (Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Europe, Middle East). The Honduran variant is in Ortega.

  Chiantla: a town just north of Huehuetenango, in Indian country.

  Chús: short for Jesús.

  Scholar Corncob: Pascasio Taltusa, literally, “a vacationing student, a man called corncob,” in other words, a rustic intellectual. Compare the students who try to outwit the Indian in another tale from Guatemala, no. 42, and the similarly Dickensian surnames in yet another Guatemalan story, no. 40.

  90. The Mouse King, tr. from Anibarro de Halushka, no. 39. AT type 555 The Fisher and His Wife (Bolivia, Cuba, New Mexico, Europe, Middle East).

  In the usual story a grateful fish, in exchange for being thrown back, grants all the wishes of the fisherman’s wife until she wishes to be God. Only in the Bolivian and Cuban versions are the wishes granted by a mouse. With an unusually fine-pointed moral the Bolivian narrator turns an ordinary parable into a miniature psychological drama.

  91. Mariquita Grim and Mariquita Fair, tr. from Hernández Suárez, pp. 264–9. AT type 480 The Spinning-Women by the Spring (Cuba, Mexico, New Mexico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  The contrast between the kind and the unkind, who treat a stranger courteously or with disrespect, is one of the commanding themes in these folktales. Here it forms the basis for one of the lesser known Cinderella stories.

  92. The Compadre’s Dinner, tr. from Andrade 1930, no. 294. Hansen type 1545** [The Reluctant Hosts] (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Spain). The Cuban variant is in Feijóo, vol. 1, pp. 76–7.

  Majarete: a native dish of Cuba and the Dominican Republic (a sort of a custard made from cornmeal, honey, and other ingredients, served as a dessert).

  93. The Hog, tr. from Rael, no. 54. AT type 1792 The Stingy Parson and the Slaughtered Pig (New Mexico, Europe).

  94. Two Sisters, tr. from Mason 1924, no. 10. AT type AT750F The Old Man’s Blessing (Argentina, Puerto Rico).

  95. The Ghosts’ Reales, tr. from Andrade 1930, no. 270. AT type 1654 The Robbers in the Death Chamber (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, New Mexico, Panama, Europe, India, Middle East).

  Wakes are normally held at home. But in a note to the Ecuadorean variant of this tale Carvalho-Neto writes, “It was formerly the custom to hold wakes in church in front of the high altar” (1994, pp. 11–12).

  96. The Bad Compadre, tr. from the Cakchiquel Maya by Robert Redfield, in Redfield, pp. 243–51. AT type 531 Ferdinand the True and Ferdinand the False (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Europe, India, Middle East) + AT type 554 The Grateful Animals (Argentina, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  Rarely do we learn the provenance of a particular version or the storyteller’s own evaluation of the tale. But the anthropologist Robert Redfield supplies some information: “Story told by Francisco Sanchez, Nov. 18, 1940. He said that his friend Antonio Perez told it to him and that it had been told to Antonio by his mother-in-law. Francisco said it was a true story, and he interrupted himself several times to make sure I was understanding its significance. He dwelt on the bad conduct of Mariano, who tried to prevent his own compadre from making money. ‘Business is free to everyone. It was a sin to do this to his compadre.’ He also spoke of the evil nature of Mariano’s magic. ‘This power was not of God but of the Devil.’ Before he had told all the story in Cakchiquel, he told me the conclusion in Spanish; he wanted me to know that Mariano was going to get his just deserts.”

  97. Black Chickens, tr. from Mason 1914, no. 17. AT type 1380 The Faithless Wife (Mexico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  Widely known in the Old World but apparently recorded for Spanish America only in this Tepecano variant from Mexico. It is remarkably close to peninsular Spanish versions, in which the faithless wife, seeking to make her husband blind, consults the statue either of St. Anthony or of Christ. Her husband, speaking from behind the statue, advises her to feed him ham, chops, and wine; or, in another version, black chickens and red wine. Somewhat different but still recognizable is an ancient Indic version recorded in the Panchatantra: A woman spends all her time making biscuits, which she secretly feeds to her lover with butter and sugar. Her husband asks why she makes biscuits, and she says she offers them to the local goddess. When she goes off to bathe, her husband follows and hides behind the statue of the goddess. Hearing his wife ask the statue, “What can I give my husband to make him blind?” he answers, “Biscuits with butter and sugar!” She returns home and feeds him accordingly. He pretends to be blind, using the opportunity to catch the wife with the lover, whom he thrashes soundly (A. M. Espinosa, vol. 1, nos. 33 and 34; vol. 2, pp. 160–2).

  98. Doublehead, tr. from the Pipil-German text in Schultze Jena, pp. 23–6.

  The witch wife who leaves the house at night, having removed her head or her skin, is the subject of tales reported from El Salvador, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. The husband uses ashes, or more often salt, to prevent her from getting back into her skin or to keep her head from rejoining her body; and in some versions the head is carried off by an animal. This much is perhaps of Hispanic origin, though the folklorist Elsie Parsons suspected African influence. The El Salvador versions, in a decidedly Indian touch, have the widowed husband becoming the father of
innumerable children; and from this flow further tales, forming a mythological cycle in which the children’s adventures lead to the origin of corn.

  Similar Witch Wife stories of possible Hispanic origin are in Hartman pp. 144–6; Laughlin 1977, pp. 65–6, 72–3, 179–82; Mason 1926 (summarized in Hansen, pp. 82–5); Parsons 1936, p. 364; Preuss 2000; Redfield and Villa Rojas, p. 334; and J. E. S. Thompson, p. 158. Further variants are cited in Laughlin 1977, p. 66. For African-American versions see Dorson, p. 246. Two other subtypes of the Witch Wife tale are represented by nos. 9 and 30 in the present collection.

  Observe that the widower’s myriad children are not average-sized humans. Like the Aztec rain dwarfs and the diminutive war gods of Zuni mythology, they are little people. And in fact, the whole mythology (of which the tale at hand is merely a portion) reveals that the widower’s children are none other than the mischievous “rain boys,” who will eventually bring corn into the world (Schultze Jena).

  99. Littlebit, tr. from Laval 1968, pp. 187–93. AT type 700 Tom Thumb (Chile, Dominican Republic, New Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Europe, India, Middle East).

  Known everywhere in Europe, including Spain, the tale of the thumbling first appears in European literature in R. Johnson’s The History of Tom Thumbe (1621) and in a subsequent treatment in verse, also published in England, the anonymous Tom Thumbe, His Life and Death (1631). In the latter version a married couple wishes for a child, and with the aid of Merlin a boy, the size of a thumb, is born. His adventures begin when he falls into a food dish and is eaten by a beggar. Passed as waste, he is recovered by his mother, who ties him to a leaf. Eaten by a cow, he is again passed as waste. His mother cleans him up, and he goes off to plow a field. He is swallowed by a giant. Passed into the sea, he is swallowed by a fish. The fish is caught, Tom is rescued, and he lives out the rest of his days at King Arthur’s court.

  Valdiviano: stew made from jerked meat (a Chilean dish).

  100. Rosalie, adapted from J. E. S. Thompson, pp. 167–71. AT type 313 The Girl as Helper in the Hero’s Flight (Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, New Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Europe, India, Middle East).

  The name Rosalie is an unusual feature of this Yucatec Maya version. In Spain as in Latin America the heroine is usually Blancaflor. She is Rosella in the variant given by Basile in the Pentamerone (ninth story of the third day).

  101. A Day Laborer Goes to Work, adapted from Bernard and Salinas 1976, pp. 1–17.

  Life portrayed as a descent into hell. Though the story echoes folkloric motifs, it cannot be reduced to a handful of formulas. The plantation owner, encountered in so many of these Hispano-Indian tales, has become the Devil. The Virgin, now in the role of a dutiful wife, sends food to the fields, enabling the laborer to carry out his penance. The stereotypical witch wife, identified by her transformation into a mule, has become simply the woman next door, as the homely, folkloric moral articulated by the Virgin—“Don’t always believe what people tell you”—is buried beneath the larger reality of hardship and crisis.

  Though it has not been indexed, the tale evidently has variants. In a similar story from the Ixil Maya of Guatemala, a poor man leaves his wife in search of money and is led into hell. There the patrón, identified as a ladino, instructs him to perform labor with the aid of a stubborn mule. The poor man beats the mule, who turns out to be his own comadre, sentenced to hell for a sin she had committed. When the man returns home, he learns from his wife that the comadre is in her own house, all black and blue from the wounds the man had given her in the afterworld (Colby and Colby 1981, pp. 188–94).

  102. The Moth, tr. from Arguedas and Carrillo, pp. 78–9.

  The redemption earned by the distraught husband in the preceding tale is not in store for his counterpart in this typically harsh Peruvian story. Again, there are no type or motif numbers by which the tale can be pigeonholed.

  103. The Earth Ate Them, tr. from Jijena Sánchez, no. 30.

  Finally, in a less serious vein, another original tale, original at least so far as European lore is concerned. A variant of this Argentine story has been recorded from neighboring Paraguay: A rich widow tells her niece to put all her jewels in her coffin when she dies. After the burial, following an entertaining and well-attended wake, a rogue sneaks into the cemetery to steal the jewels. While he is yanking at one of the combs, he unintentionally pulls the dead woman’s hair, and the corpse opens its eyes. Terrified, the thief tries to get away, snags his poncho on the coffin, and thinks the corpse is reaching for him. When he finally runs off, he has lost his mind, and his hair has turned white (Carvalho-Neto 1961, p. 195).

  Epilogue: Twentieth-Century Myths

  [Epigraph]: Hay que temer a los espíritus, a los dioses, a los antepasados, pero no a los hombres vivos (Otero, p. 233; the English translation is in Fox, p. 289).

  104. Why Tobacco Grows Close to Houses, tr. from Reichel-Dolmatoff 1951, p. 60.

  The Mother: The creative spirit in Kogi religious belief, said to be “mother of the world.” See also no. 108.

  105. The Buzzard Husband, a composite drawn from three versions translated from the Tzotzil Maya by Robert Laughlin, in Laughlin 1977, pp. 50–1, 246–51, 342–3.

  The story is widely told in Mexico and Guatemala, especially among Maya groups but also among the Nahua and as far north as the Yaqui of Sonora and Arizona (Laughlin 1977, p. 51; Bierhorst 1990, pp. 119, 217; Peñalosa 1996, pp. 87–8).

  106. The Dead Wife, adapted from Conzemius, 159–60. Motif F81.1 Orpheus.

  Here in a variant from the Mískito of Nicaragua is the so-called Orpheus myth of native America, widely told throughout the hemisphere (Hultkranz; Bierhorst 1990, pp. 119, 217; Wilbert and Simoneau, p. 565). The four-hundred-year-old version from Peru, no. 2/III, “The Vanishing Bride,” is more in keeping with the general type in that it has the hero breaking a prohibition and thus losing the wife or bride he is attempting to bring back from the afterworld—as in the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. In the opinion of folklorists the parallel between Old and New World versions is coincidental.

  A motif index fully attuned to native America might include the following additional items characteristic of Mexican and Central American Indian lore: Souls of the dead as moths or butterflies; Dog as ferryman to the afterworld; Tree of breasts suckles infants in the afterworld (Bierhorst 1991, pp. 155–6). The first two are similar to Stith Thompson’s motifs E734.1 Soul in form of butterfly (Europe, Asia); and A673 Hound of hell (Europe, India, Middle East). Yet the various American tales in which these motifs appear, including the Mískito “Dead Wife,” suggest an independent origin.

  107. Romi Kumu Makes the World, Hugh-Jones, p. 263. Motifs A1010 Deluge and A1030 World-fire.

  Though freely distributed in both hemispheres, the idea of a world fire belongs particularly to South American Indian mythology. The Revolt of the Utensils, discussed in the introductory note, p. 303, is an American Indian specialty, cropping up here in the fourth paragraph of the story.

  Pirá-paraná: river in southeastern Colombia, part of the Amazon basin.

  108. She Was Thought and Memory, tr. from Reichel-Dolmatoff 1951, p. 9.

  There are nine preliminary worlds, one above the other; the Mother resides in the first and lowest, with human life gradually taking shape in the second through ninth worlds (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1951, pp. 9–18, 60).

  109. Was It Not an Illusion?, tr. from the Witoto-German text in K. T. Preuss 1921, pp. 166–7.

  Had he no staff?: Note that in the myth that follows, no. 110, the Creator has a “staff of authority.”

  Iseike (EE-say-ee-kay): a mysterious adhesive described by one of Preuss’s native informants as something “like tobacco smoke, like cotton flocking.”

  110. The Beginning Life of the Hummingbird, tr. from the Mbyá Guaraní and Spanish text in Cadogan, pp. 13–15.

  The first in a cycle of creation myths known by the general name ayvu rapyta (origin of human speech). The mann
er in which Cadogan came to record these stories is of interest, since for a number of years he had been able to obtain only the non-esoteric lore of the Mbyá and had no inkling of any further, secret lore. His relationship to the tribe changed, however, after he secured the release of an important tribal member who had been incarcerated by Paraguayan authorities on a murder charge. When the tribal cacique came to the city of Villarrica to receive the prisoner, the freed man turned to the cacique and asked if he had ever discussed with Cadogan the ayvu rapyta. The chief said no. Then the freed man proposed that Cadogan be regarded as “a true member of the seat of our hearthfires,” and following that pronouncement interviews were set up with knowledgeable elders, including the freed man and the cacique himself, who dictated the myths (Cadogan, pp. 9–11).

  Ñamanduí: another name for the First Father.

  Hummingbird: synonymous with the First Father.

  The primal time-space: winter.

  A new space in time: spring.

  111. Ibis Story, tr. from the German in Gusinde, pp. 1232–3 (with help from the English version in Wilbert, pp. 25–6).

  An unusual myth, told among the Yamana of Tierra del Fuego and apparently nowhere else. The underlying thought, typically Indian, is that the cataclysms of the formative era might yet be revisited. Reason enough to “hush up the little children” when the ibis woman appears.

  112. The Condor Seeks a Wife, tr. from M. R. Paredes, pp. 65–7. Motif B600.2 Animal husband provides characteristic animal food.

  The unpleasantly realistic setting of the condor colony with its daily fare of carrion identifies the tale as a typical native American myth, concerned with the fine distinctions between nature and culture. The sentimentalizing tone and the mention of sheep may be regarded as modern growths. The key motif, B600.2, is registered by Thompson only for Greenland and Canada; and for Argentina, Colombia, and Paraguay by Wilbert and Simoneau. Many other New World locations could be added—including Honduras (see “The Bear’s Son,” no. 85). Compare the similar treatment of food in “The Buzzard Husband,” no. 105.