Latin American Folktales (38 page)

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 East).

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.

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 the 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).