Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz 9781934536636

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MAYA FOLKTALES FROM THE ALTA VERAPAZ

Children are the most avid audience for folktales. These shy inhabitants of the village of Chama in the Alta Verapaz, paused only long enough for the author to take their photo, and then scampered off, giggling, before I could ask their names.

MAYA FOLKTALES FROM THE ALTA VERAPAZ Edited by

Elin C. Danien

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Philadelphia

Copyright © 2005 by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology 3260 South Street • Philadelphia, PA19104 First Edition All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Maya folktales from the Alta Verapaz / edited by Elin C. Danien. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-931707-77-4 (alk. paper) 1. Mayas--Guatemala--Alta Verapaz--Folklore. 2. Kekchi Indians--Guatemala--Alta Verapaz-Folklore. 3. Tales--Guatemala--Alta Verapaz. 4. Alta Verapaz (Guatemala)--Folklore. I. Danien, Elin C. II. University of Pennsylvania. Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. F1465.3.F6M39 2005 972.81--dc22 2005005576

FOR LESLIE

who loved books and honored tradition Printed on acid-free paper in the United States of America

CONTENTS Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Importance of Folklore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guatemala Myths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Le Poo (The Moon) I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Le Poo (The Moon) II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Horned Serpent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Boy and the Sword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Duende Gifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Duende Girl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Miser, the Girl, the Jar, and the Fool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Envious Farmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wee Rabbit Sells a Bag of Maize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teniendo la Pena (Holding the Stone) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Hills and the Corn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Thing That Happened in Ancient Times Through the Stealing of Xucaneb’s Daughter Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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PREFACE

S

ome people like to shop. Others like to cook. I am never happier than when I’m turning over old letters and documents in the Penn Museum Archives. There’s that tantalizing feeling that I may discover something long forgotten, something that answers a nagging question or adds the final piece to a puzzle. One of those small, satisfying moments came when I found a letter that refuted a longheld belief about the author of “Guatemala Myths,” those tales that form one part of this volume. These vignettes had come from Mary Owen, not Robert Burkitt, as we all had thought. A minor correction to the record, true, but an addition to the scholarly whole. I shared my discovery with Alex Pezzati, Museum Archivist and fellow reveler in following paper trails down unknown paths, and with Walda Metcalf, Penn Museum Assistant Director for Publications. As she heard more about the stories themselves, Walda suggested that these tales, long out of print, should be made available to a modern audience, and that I should edit them. That brief suggestion could never have resulted in the book you hold without the generous help of a number of people, and many departments. The months of preparation began during the closing months of Jeremy Sabloff ’s term as Director of Penn Museum, and the early months of Richard Leventhal’s tenure in that position. They both were enthusiastic supporters of the project. Jane A. Hill of the Museum Library and doctoral candidate in the Egyptology Department at Penn used her expert abilities to scan the old folktale publications, saving days of drudgery (how did we ever exist without computers!). John Weeks, Museum Librarian, friend, and colleague, brought me articles and books, gave encouragement and a willing ear, and prodded when necessary.

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Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

viii

The Archives became my second home. Alex used his prodigious memory to prize out hidden letters and forgotten scraps of memos. He provided cotton gloves, sharp pencils and conversation. All the letters quoted in the Introduction are from the Archives’ files, those rows of acid-free dull grey boxes that open to reveal unending treasures. Alex found the old photographs and Head Photographer Francine Sarin and Assistant Photographer Jennifer Chiappardi did a superb job in giving them new life. As the manuscript took shape, Karen Bassie, Liza Grandia, and Judith Storniolo read, critiqued, and improved the content. Robert Laughlin and Allen Christenson, brilliant ethnographers and insightful critics, were generous with their constructive comments. I hope that I have incorporated all their advice to good effect. Whatever flaws remain, are mine alone. Matt Manieri, the Publications Production Editor, turned the many pieces of the manuscript into a beautifully cohesive design. His creative abilities are matched by his patience and good humor. He made what could have been the most trying part of putting the book together into a smooth and pleasant ride. One of the decisions I made early on, was to adhere to the old orthography. Today, the name of those Maya who told these tales is written as Q’eqchi’ (an apostrophe is the symbol used by linguists to indicate a glottal stop). Since the original publication used the then accepted spelling of Kekchi, it seemed to me the historical flavor would be lost by changing it. I hope that this explanation will satisfy any who may have been disturbed by this reversal of currently agreed upon spelling precepts. The book went from first idea to print in record time. Walda Metcalf was the goad, the cheering section, the teacher and friend who made it all possible. Lunch in the Publications Department was business as entertainment. But next time I’ll think twice before I share any discoveries!

Preface

Nothing I do would be possible without the support and encouragement of my husband. Bud puts up with my erratic hours, my hysteria as deadlines approach, my flailing attempts to master the computer. He encourages me, laughs with me (and at me when I need it), and makes me better than I am. For everyone who had a hand in bringing this project to a successful conclusion, I thank you all!

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Simon Martin, Senior Research Scientist at the Penn Museum, generously contributed this drawing of an ancient Maya glyph. It can be interpreted as meaning “wise man” or “scholar” and those who told these tales are truly the wise men who transmit their traditions to the next generations.

THE IMPORTANCE OF FOLKLORE

A

mong those many people for whom myths, legends, and folktales reflect the underlying truth of a culture, the folk tales of the Maya offer a fascinating avenue to cultural understanding. The stories that follow are tales from the isolated region of Alta Verapaz in Guatemala, home of the Kekchi Maya. These examples of traditional tales were collected and first published in the Museum Journal in 1915 and 1918, several decades before the general surge of interest in the Maya and long before the influx of tourists and scholars who tend to taint such oral traditions. While some evidence of foreign motifs may be present, these stories reflect oral traditions within the Kekchi Maya community, handed down through the generations relatively free of the outside influences of the past century. During the last half of the 20th century many folktales emerged from Yucatan, Chiapas, and the Guatemalan highlands, sought out, studied, and analyzed by folklorists, ethnographers, historians, and linguists. But almost none have come from the Alta Verapaz, home of the Kekchi Maya a region that lies as a buffer and connection between the mountains to the west and the lowlands in the east. This lack of attention was due originally to the geographic isolation and lack of any easy means of travel, and later to the civil wars of the 1980s.

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Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

The Kekchi Maya

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The Kekchi have lived in the Alta Verapaz for centuries, reaching back to pre-Columbian times when this area was part of the great Maya civilization. When the Spanish Conquistadores invaded in the 1520s they conquered the central and southern highlands of Guatemala with relative ease, but in the interior they encountered unyielding resistance. In the following pages, Gordon discusses the unusual means by which this hostility was overcome. The centuries of Spanish rule came to a close with the early 19th century wars of independence. Decades of political intrigue and civil unrest were followed by the rule of a series of dictators, beginning with Justo Rufino Barrios in 1873. Barrios immediately began a drive for modernization and economic development, and he invited many Europeans and North Americans to come to Guatemala. Vast tracts of fertile land—much of it taken without compensation from communal Indian holdings—were made available to the foreigners at nominal cost. The energetic immigrants created huge profitable coffee plantations, farmed by the Kekchi and other Maya groups in a system of peonage little changed from the days of colonial servitude. Barrios was followed by Estrada Cabrera and then Úbico, for a total of more than 60 years of dictatorship interspersed with civil unrest, with little or no improvement in the treatment of the Maya. The more recent history of the country gives no indication of any serious movement for change in the government’s approach to the Maya. Despite the hardships of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Kekchi population has shown significant growth. Once confined only to Alta Verapaz, the Kekchi have settled in the bordering provinces of Baja Verapaz, Quiché, Petén, and Izabal and in several towns in the country of Belize. While still among the most traditional of Maya groups, the rate of change increases daily, and the folktales of the Kekchi are in danger of being lost within the next few decades. They have been heard

'

PETEN

BELIZE MEXICO Caribbean Sea

ALTA VERAPAZ

'

QUICHE

Coban

IZABAL Lago de Izabal

BAJA VERAPAZ

HONDURAS Guatemala Department boundary

Guatemala

National capital

PACIFIC OCEAN

0 0

25

50 kilometers 50 miles

25

Map of Guatemala, showing the province of Alta Verapaz, traditional home of the Kekchi Maya, and the provinces of Baja Verapaz, Quiché, Petén, and Izabal, along with the neighboring country of Belize, into which they have expanded.

Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

and recorded by very few outside the village enclaves. The tales in this book were among the earliest to be published in English, and decades passed before others appeared. A few tales have been included in general anthologies of Maya folklore such as a 1971 volume by Mary Shaw; others were published as children’s stories (see Jessup and Simpson 1936; Bierhorst 1986). A Spanish-language collection was published in California (Teny Maquín 1995). The stories that were published in 1915 were translated into Spanish and included in a Guatemalan publication about the country’s legends and folklore (Osborne 1965). Those few volumes that focus on the Kekchi that are published in Guatemala are not easily obtained outside that country.

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Folktales and the University of Pennsylvania Museum George Byron Gordon was the first to carry full responsibility as director of the Free Museum of Science and Art, now the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. From all accounts, he was a man of decided opinions and overweening ambition (Madeira 1964, Danien 1999). When he was appointed in 1910, his goal was to create an institution that would rival the British Museum, with galleries displaying objects from every culture and every century. He encouraged public visits to the Museum through exhibits and lectures. He arranged with the Philadelphia school board for class visits. To reach a broader audience, he increased the role of the publications department and contributed to the Museum’s quarterly journal. Gordon had excavated archaeological sites in Central America and in several field seasons had studied the language and traditions of many of the native peoples of Alaska. His intellectual interest in the way in which cultural continuity is expressed, as well as his more worldly aspirations that the Museum be a leader in every aspect of anthropology led to his desire to acquire and publish folktales.

George Byron Gordon, from 1910 to 1927 Director of the Free Museum of Science and Art, today known as the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

The Collectors: Mary Owen

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While still a student at Harvard in the 1890s, Gordon had begun his archaeological career at the ancient Maya site of Copán, in Honduras. Among those he met then were Captain William Owen, manager of the Northern Transportation Company in Livingston, British Honduras (now Belize), and his wife Mary, who were very helpful to a young man new to the country and its customs. When Gordon became director of the Museum, he and Mary Owen renewed their friendship. Gordon was interested in having her assistance in collecting folklore as well as acquiring archaeological objects for the Museum. Owen’s letters, housed in the Museum Archives, reveal an intellectual curiosity about the Maya among whom she lived and a recognition that time was an enemy. In a letter dated August 3 (no year given, but probably 1913), she wrote, “I feel timid about taking up this work [the collection of folk tales]—as there are so many much better qualified to do it. But much of the lore is passing away—and unless one saves it, it will be lost forever. If the loss is as great in the next thirty years as it has been in the past thirty years—there will soon be nothing to garner.” When Gordon proposed publication of some of the stories she had sent him, he asked permission to use her name. In a letter to Gordon of October 14, 1915, she demurred, saying, “I am still of the opinion that doing so would interfere with any work. Suppose we agree to look upon the notes I have sent you—as suggestions for future study. In which case of course I would not expect you to pay for them. An intimate knowledge of what might be done here—makes me aware of the imperfection of my work.” Gordon sent her a check for $50, and followed her wishes regarding the use of her name. In the quarterly Museum Journal dated September 1915 (but not printed until the end of that year) in referring to the identity of the transmitter of the tales, he lamented the “name I regret to say I am not permitted to use.”

The old house at Sepacuité, a ranch in the Alta Verapaz. From left to right: Robert Burkitt, resting on the bannister; seated: David Sapper, Mrs. Owen, Captain Owen, Jesse Bird, and Kensett Champney. Captain and Mrs. Owen and Jesse Bird were the owners of the ranch and later sold it to Kensett Champney (de la Cruz 1978:66).

Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

From time to time over the years that followed, Mrs. Owen sent other tales, which Gordon declined, feeling that they were not of the caliber of the earlier stories. In 1938 a collection of tales gathered by Mrs. Owen was published by Marie Hendrick Jessup and Lesley Bird Simpson as a children’s book. In their Preface the editors said of her, “Mrs. Owen lived for forty years, off and on, in the Vera Paz [sic] country and came to know the people very intimately. As time went on the Indians told her many of their stories, some of which were undoubtedly their own, while others must have been told them by the missionaries, and still others, such as the rabbit stories, they learned from runaway Negro slaves from the sugar plantations” (Jessup and Simpson 1938:vi).

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The Collectors: Robert Burkitt Gordon had asked one other person for folklore manuscripts. Robert Burkitt had been a fellow student at Harvard and Gordon’s assistant in Copán. He remained in Central America when Gordon returned to the States, collecting and excavating for the Museum after Gordon became director (Danien 1985, 1999). Gordon sent Burkitt a copy of the Museum Journal with Mary Owen’s tales, along with a letter dated January 27, 1916: I have sent you a copy of the Museum Journal containing some myths which were sent by Mrs. Owen. You may remember that some time ago I wrote you on this subject of the folklore, mythology, medicine practices, witchcraft, superstition and customs of the Kekchi and other Indians. It is a matter of very great interest for us and I have been wondering whether you have been able to collect any data of this kind. The stories which Mrs. Owen sent seem to be very fragmentary,

The only known photograph of Robert Burkitt that shows his face clearly, it was taken in 1891, to mark his graduation from Harvard.

Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

especially those that are of undoubted Indian origin. The best way possible would be to get these stories, incantations, etc., written in the native tongue with an English translation.

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Burkitt was delighted by his copy of the Museum Journal, and recalled that Mrs. Owen had told him the tale of the Sisimite (sic) “az long ago az when she waz living in Isabal” (quotations from Burkitt’s correspondence retain his peculiar phonetic rendering of English spelling). He was unfamiliar with some of the other stories, but well remembered telling Mrs. Owen the tales of the toothache, and of the moon-–a story he had broken off at “the point where the deer comes in: which seems to be where your journal story ends. The story at that point became ov a nature not adapted to ears polite,” as he noted in a letter to Gordon of February 27, 1916. He promised to seek out more of these “fairy tales” and have them recorded in the native idiom by an Indian, to assure authenticity. “The Hills and the Corn” is the result of Burkitt’s tenacity in pursuing two Kekchi Elders, persuading them to record the tale, combining their efforts, translating their efforts himself, and then presenting both Kekchi and English versions of the tale. Some of the difficulties he encountered may be gleaned from these comments by Mary Owen, in a letter to Gordon of October 4, 1915: “In a letter dated Sept. 23rd recently received from a friend who lives in Cajabon there is the following. . .Mr. Burkitt was here during the fiesta of the 15th, after a famous hoodoo man [sic] from Chaal—but could not learn anything from him as he was drunk, and while still in that state returned to his home. Then Mr. Burkitt offered 300 pesos to anyone who could bring him back and keep him sober.” Burkitt’s explanation in the pages of his “Preface” of the way the story was obtained provides a clear example of his determination to record, in the most precise manner possible, the exact language and intent of the storyteller, and to provide the closest possible translation. His interest in language colors

The Importance of Folklore

his introduction to what he terms a “fairy tale,” as he discusses the various spelling techniques he used to approximate the Kekchi spoken word and in the voluminous footnotes in which he provides further explication and alternate translations. During his years in Guatemala Burkitt studied the Maya language so assiduously and successfully that those Kekchi who worked with him on his many trips of exploration considered him to be the only non-Indian to have mastered their tongue (Mateo K’ok Ca’al, personal communication, 1980). Whenever he came across a word or phrase that was unfamiliar, or required clarification, he would visit Kekchi-speaking villages to verify their meaning. Bernard Kummerfeldt, a Guatemalan who knew Burkitt, recalled in 1979 that he would “get on his mule and ride ten days just to check on the meaning of a word, or to know how it meant one thing in this town and something a little different in that town.” A self-taught linguist, he developed his own diacritical marks and phonetic transcription for Kekchi, and considered that his system was far superior to any used by other linguists since “no letter is used ambiguously,” as he noted in a letter of October 6, 1901, to Charles P. Bowditch, now in the Archives of the Peabody Museum of Harvard University. Franz Boas, then editor of American Anthropologist, agreed with this rather lofty self-assessment, and published Burkitt’s “Notes on the Kekchi Language” (1902). The original publication of “The Hills and the Corn” was as an article in English in the Museum Journal of 1918. In 1920, the story was again published, this time as a separate publication of the Museum, and it included both Kekchi and English, along with Burkitt’s footnotes. Burkitt’s idiosyncratic spelling stems from a movement at the turn of the 20th century to simplify English by spelling it phonetically. The movement had gained celebrity and momentum, with Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, and Theodore Roosevelt among its more noted champions. It is not clear

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Ernesto Tené with the author, in 1979. He recalled Burkitt as one who spoke Kekchi “like one born to it” (Wilton R. Danien).

The Importance of Folklore

when or how Burkitt first became aware of this reform movement, but he was using his own version of phonetic spelling by 1913 and continued to use it to the end of his life.

The Folktales The survival of Maya culture in the face of conquest, colonialism, acculturation, and civil wars is echoed no less in the survival of their folklore. In 1913, Mary Owen doubted it would survive another thirty years. More than fifty years later, Lilly de Jongh Osborne, a European immigrant to Guatemala and noted collector of textiles and folktales, repeated that lament (Osborne 1965). There is no doubt that these tales, collected a century ago, have been touched by European and African motifs. From the 1870s onward, many Maya worked in the sugar and coffee plantations, where they heard tales not too dissimilar to their own. Some of these foreign themes, filtered through a Maya world view, may have become part of their traditional stories. After 500 years of colonization, it would be extraordinary if some syncretism had not occurred. But these narratives have strong Mesoamerican roots, and as we see in the following discussion, many of the actors can be identified in the pre-Columbian art that survives on painted pottery and murals, in figurines, and in the pages of the four surviving pre-Columbian books, called codices. These books are formed of long strips of barkcloth paper made from the inner bark of the fig tree, coated on both sides with a fine white lime plaster to provide a base on which text and pictures are recorded; the long strip is then folded, accordion style. Two points should be stressed here. First, the discipline of anthropology was in its infancy when these stories were collected, and neither Owen nor Burkitt was a trained anthropologist. Burkitt was able

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Robert Burkitt (1869–1945) worked with Gordon in Copán and stayed on in Guatemala until his death. Known as “the man who came to tea and stayed for thirty years,” his eccentricities were famous. This photograph, with his face completely in shadow, was published with “The Hills and the Corn” in 1918.

The Importance of Folklore

to do his own translation from the Kekchi, but Owen heard the stories in Spanish and sent them on to Gordon twice removed: from Kekchi to Spanish to English. The second point to be noted is that everyone involved in the original publication was born in the th 19 century and adhered to concepts we today designate as colonial or racist. Some of the language and attitudes strike us today as less than acceptable, but at the time they were spoken and written, these were considered the norm by the general, educated public. The stories that follow fall into two groups: those collected by Mary Owen and published in the Museum Journal 6, in 1915, and Robert Burkitt’s story “The Hills and the Corn,” published in the Museum Journal 9 in 1918. I make no attempt here to analyze the stories, but a few comments may add to the reader’s enjoyment and understanding. The Sisemite (also spelled Sisimite) is the Mesoamerican version of the universal ogre who has many names. Similar creatures are known as Cax-Vinic in Chiapas, Mexico, and as El Peludo (the hairy one) in other parts of the country; his name is Itacayo in Honduras, Uluk in lower Central America, Mapinguari along the Amazon, and Ucumari in Argentina. He is known to seek out the embers of village fires, in order to eat the charcoal. The descriptions are all fairly uniform: a body covered with matted hair, standing more than seven feet tall, with large feet and a frightening visage. The description is reminiscent of Sasquatch of British Columbia Indian legends, Bigfoot, as the ogre is known among the tribes of Western North America, the Yeti of Asia, the Abominable Snowman in the Himalayas, and the Australian Aboriginal Yowie, but the results of encountering the Sisemite are much more frightening. The anecdote about the enchanted bull, while perhaps a borrowing from the Old Testament tale of the Golden Calf, also carries echoes of the story told of Cortés’s horse, left behind during his march through the Petén, and worshipped by the Maya. They plied it with all manner of inappropriate foods,

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This 2,000-year-old stone mask from the Pacific Coast of Mexico conveys an ominous power reminiscent of the fearful visage of the Sisemite (#66-30-23).

The Importance of Folklore

until the horse died. They then carved a statue of the animal, and continued to worship it. The women’s haircut mentioned in the story echoes that seen on ancient figurines from the region; the braiding of heavy wool cord as part of the headdress is still in use today. The incantation to remove the toothache includes the couplet style found in many of the ancient Maya inscriptions. The use of slightly varied repetition, such as “A little of thy might. . . a little of thy power. . . from a green hill, from a pleasant valley. . . spirit of the thirteen valleys, spirit of the thirteen mountains” occurs in traditional Maya discourse today, as it did in antiquity. The ancient inscriptions contain phrases such as “It is finished, his white wind, his bad wind” to describe a ruler’s death, and, from a vase from the pre-Columbian site of Xcalumkin, “It was said in the day, it was said in the year.” , According to a translation by Kerry Hull in 2001, the inscription on Stela A in Copán states that it “was erected the great stone, it was stood up, Precious Stone was its name.” The story of the sun and the moon has many versions throughout Mesoamerica and may be part of one of the oldest folktale traditions, as described by J. Eric S. Thompson (1939). Some episodes have been lost to oral tradition but their outlines can be detected in the art of the Classic Maya (A.D. 250-900), with scenes and actors that reflect similar narrative motifs. The scene painted on one vase shows a human hiding beneath a deerskin; a figurine shows an old man cuddling and seducing a young woman. Episodes involving the sun and the moon resonate among the many figurines, vessels, and murals painted by the Classic era Maya more than a millennium ago, and we see them in the 16th century text of the Popol Vuh, the creation myth of the Quiché Maya. Recent translations of this epic (by Dennis Tedlock in 1985 and Allen Christenson in 2003) make the legendary tale accessible to the modern reader. The Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh rise to become the sun and moon; other folktales describe how the sun’s wife is seduced or abducted; the sun disguises himself as deer or turtle in order

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Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

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to find her; the moon’s light is dimmed by the sun as retribution for her adultery; the sexual pecadillos are sometimes quite blatant. In the tale of the Duende, the young girl attempts to give her betrothed a cup of chocolate. This use of chocolate to seal the marriage vows is attested in the pre-Columbian Mixtec Codex Nuttall, in 16th and 17th century reports, and in 20th century ethnographies (Tedlock 2002; see also Coe and Coe 1996:95). Equally ancient is the belief in the rabbit as a trickster. Although Gordon thought the rabbit tales originated in Africa, the rabbit appears in pre-Columbian art in scenes that indicate he is a quickwitted participant in the story. In the Popol Vuh, the rabbit helps to confound the Lords of Xibalba, the Underworld, thereby allowing the severed head of one of the Hero Twins to be recovered in a supernatural ball game; he thus helps the Hero Twin regain his head and his life (Tedlock 1985:143-47; Christenson 2003:172-76). In scenes painted on Classic Maya pottery, the rabbit takes the hat and clothing of God L, one of the gods of the Underworld, for reasons still not understood; on a vessel in the collection of the Princeton Art Museum he acts as scribe to the Lords of Xibalba. The rabbit is also the symbol of the moon, and is frequently shown with the Moon Goddess in Classic era art. The rabbit is a character deeply ingrained in Mesoamerican folklore. The ancient belief in mountains as living deities is still very much alive among the Kekchi who live in the region around Cobán. The Elders say that only people and mountains have the quality of “personhood” (Wilson 1993:126). The concept of nature deities, mentioned in the brief anecdotes about the storm and the river gods, takes center stage in the “fairy tale” collected by Burkitt. Xucaneb, the mountain that looms over Cobán, is the father and king of the mountains, still the center of worship by Pocomchi and Kekchi Maya (personal communication, Karen Bassie). Xucaneb is lord of the thirteen Tzultakaes, or mountain deities, who are named by one Guatemalan anthropologist as Raxon Tzunun,

The rabbit in this scene is engaged in a discussion with the unseen figure on the other side of the offering basket. Unfortunately, that portion of the vessel with the second figure was never recovered. Polychrome vessel from Chamá, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, Late Classic (AD 700900) (#NA11185).

Xucaneb, the high mountain that looms over Cobán, is the father and lord of the thirteen mountain deities, or Tzultakaes, mentioned in “The Hills and the Corn” and many other Kekchi tales.

The Importance of Folklore

Shucubyuc, Chajcoj, Tzunkim, Tac’caj, Chisguajagua, Cubilgüitz, Chajmaic, Chijaal, Siab, Belebjú, Cojaj, and the only female mountain deity, C’ana Itzam. Some of Burkitt’s mountain deities have different names. C’ana Itzam, or Itsam, carries a variant of Itzamná, the name of the ancient Maya creator god. Each town is “owned” by its particular mountain lord and makes offerings to the mountain spirit in the caves that pock their mountain. The Kekchi are unusual in including a female as a mountain spirit. In “The Hills and the Corn” the mountains all behave like humans, and the story encompasses several themes common throughout the Maya region. Echoes of the “sun and the moon” stories are there, as is the concept of the mountain as guardian of corn and other ritual foods. The length and detail of the story suggest that it may be a remnant of much longer and now lost episodic legend of the Alta Verapaz.

The Kekchi Today The Kekchi are subsistence farmers in a country where half the people work in agriculture, yet about 70% of the farmland is owned by about 2% of the population, mainly descendants of the original Spanish conquistadores and the English and German immigrants of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The population is growing at almost 3% a year, leading inevitably to increasing conflicts over arable land. In 1960, the government of Guatemala opened the Petén—a vast rainforest covering many of the great pre-Columbian Maya cities—to migration and colonization. This led to rapid environmental degradation of the fragile ecosystem and the loss of half of the forest. In an attempt to remedy the situation, and in response to environmentalists’ outcries, the government created a national park service (CONAP)in 1989 and the Maya Biosphere Reserve (MBR) in northern Petén the following year (Schwartz 2000).

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Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

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The Kekchi have moved into the Petén in ever-growing numbers, ignoring the boundaries of CONAP and MBR in their need for land to grow maize for their families. Frequently this puts them in opposition to archaeologists, who decry the devastation to ancient sites wrought by the milpas, the corn fields. Their settlements are also under pressure from continuing migration into the region. While the Petén is under siege, in other areas villages that were abandoned during the civil unrest of the 1980s and 1990s are coming back to life, as whole families return and rebuild their communities. One such village, Chamá, occupies what was once a large coffee plantation that in turn sat on a preColumbian site. The 200 families in the village are not interested in and in some cases will deny the existence of an ancient site under their houses and their fields (personal communication, Darron Collins, May 1999). Indeed they fear that archaeologists coming into their valley would destroy their tenuous stability. Although less than 40 miles from Cobán, the rugged terrain means that they are isolated and must rely on small planes to bring supplies. They have a school; water comes from the nearby mountains through a new pipe system; the villagers built a new health center to house the doctors who visit every two months, and a small private foundation has enlarged the school building. The church sits on a preColumbian platform, and the men and boys play soccer on grass covering a pre-Columbian plaza. They grow maize and cardamom, speak Kekchi among themselves, and are pleased that their children are learning Spanish. They fear outsiders even as they become haltingly adept at Spanish, adopt some of the food patterns, clothing, and customs of the larger world, and turn to it for work and a cash economy. Unfortunately, as the people of Chamá and other Kekchi villages come into more and continuous contact with ladinos (those of Maya or partial Maya parentage who speak Spanish and adopt European culture), and as radio, television, and cinema become part of their daily lives, the result is a loosening of traditional customs and the loss of much oral history and folklore.

The Importance of Folklore

In 1969, a Kekchi Elder in the village of Senahú, after giving a Guatemalan anthropologist several folktales, bemoaned the passing of tradition. It is sad to be all of us gathered at a ranch and not to have anyone who can ask the gods, who can speak to the gods for us. Our young men walk on another path. Before, we were masters of the earth and we lived together. And now . . . the young men go to work at dawn in the plantations and return at night, very tired. Now they don’t want to hear the good words of the ancestors. Now they don’t even acknowledge them. They have lost the good will of the ancients, they are turning into animals. They only think about getting rich. When they want money they go without our permission to look for work like beggars . . . but the Mountain Lord punishes them. They have to die far from home. They are lost, Father. For their foolishness the earth now no longer gives of its abundance, the waters have dried up, the animals are dead. Now we, the Elders, are dying . . . and the traditions also are dying. Yes, Father, all is dying. (De la Cruz Torres 1969:293; English translation by ECD) Only these stories remain unchanged. They are presented anew so they may live, to bring joy to those who read them and retell them. Here then is a small portion of the folklore of the Kekchi, who live in a little-visited corner of Guatemala. The beliefs and customs they have preserved through the centuries are retreating under the onslaught of the computer age. Where once whole villages turned out for communal rituals, now only the Elders and a few individuals follow the old ways. May these stories bring them comfort, and help spark a renewed interest in tradition.

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GUATEMALA MYTHS Preface 24

I

n Guatemala are many high mountains and many fertile valleys with beautiful lakes and running streams. Nowhere in the world is there a fairer land and no part of it is more fair than the region known as the Alta Verapaz or the High True Peace. In earlier times this region was called Tierra De La Guerra, the Land of War, because the Kekchi Indians who inhabited these highlands resisted the Spaniards so bravely that the invaders could make no progress against them. Then the great priest, Las Casas, said that if the soldiers were withdrawn, he would agree to conquer the Indians with a company of monks. The plan succeeded so well that the name of the country was changed from the Land of War to the Land of Peace. The victory which was thus peacefully achieved has left its mark upon the Indians to this day, for in most of their villages there is to be found a cross and a shrine to the Virgin. At the same time, the religious rites observed in these villages are often more pagan than Christian. Moreover, the

“Nowhere in the world is there a fairer land.” A view of the fertile Polochic river valley in the Alta Verapaz. The river is formed by streams that rise on the flanks of Xucaneb (Wilton R. Danien).

Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

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Indians of the Alta Verapaz retain their own language, and the men and women wear the same costumes as did their ancestors. The native arts and industries have not been affected by the peaceful conquest of the 16th century. In their manners and customs and in all that pertains to their domestic life, the Indians of the Alta Verapaz scarcely differ today from their ancestors at the time of Las Casas. They are a gentle folk, leading an industrious and altogether wholesome existence in the peaceful land of their fathers. Guatemala is a land which in its beautiful and romantic scenery may be said to resemble Greece. Like the ancient Greeks, the people of Guatemala have, from the most remote times, peopled their mountains and valleys and forests and rivers and plains with gods and demigods, demons and spirits. In other ways, too, the Guatemala people resemble the ancient Greeks. I have been so fortunate recently as to receive from a friend in Guatemala, whose name I regret to say I am not permitted to use, a number of notes relating to the native customs, together with a collection of tales related by members of the Kekchi tribe. Among the beliefs which the Kekchis share with all their neighbors, none is more common or persistent than the belief in El Sisemite. This is the name by which he is most commonly known. Among the Kekchis he is known as Li Queck.

El Sisemite There is a monster that lives in the forest. He is taller than the tallest man and in appearance he is between a man and a monkey. His body is so well protected by a mass of matted hair that a bullet cannot harm him. His tracks have been seen on the mountains, but it is impossible to follow his trail because he can reverse his feet and thus baffle the most successful hunter. His great ambition, which he has never been able to achieve, is to make fire. When the hunters have left their camp fires he comes and sits by the

Guatemala Myths

embers until they are cold, when he greedily devours the charcoal and ashes. Occasionally the hunters see in the forest little piles of twigs which have been brought together by El Sisemite in an unsuccessful effort to make fire in imitation of men. His strength is so great that he can break down the biggest trees in the forest. If a woman sees a Sisemite, her life is indefinitely prolonged, but a man never lives more than a month after he has looked into the eyes of the monster. If a Sisemite captures a man he rends the body and crushes the bones between his teeth in great enjoyment of the flesh and blood. If he captures a woman, she is carried to his cave, where she is kept a prisoner. Besides his wish to make fire, the Sisemite has another ambition. He sometimes steals children in the belief that from these he may acquire the gift of human speech. When a person is captured by a Sisemite the fact becomes known to his near relations and friends, who at the moment are seized with a fit of shivering. Numerous tales are told of people who have been captured by the Sisemite. The following incident is related by a woman who had it from her grandmother. A young couple, recently married, went to live in a hut in the woods on the edge of their milpa (corn field) in order that they might harvest the maize. On the road Rosalia stepped on a thorn and next morning her foot was so sore that she was unable to help Felipe with the harvesting, so he went out alone, leaving one of their two dogs with her. He had not been working long when the dreaded feeling, which he recognized as Sisemite shivers, took hold of him and he hastily returned to the but to find his wife gone and the dog in a great fright. He immediately set out for the village, but met on the road the girl’s parents, who exclaimed, “You have let the Sisemite steal our child, our feelings have told us so.” He answered, “It is as you say.”

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Children bathing in the Guatemala highlands. Because bathing in the swift river currents may be dangerous, children are told tales of the Sisemite to encourage them to be cautious.

“They went to live in a hut . . . on the edge of their milpa.” This traditional Maya house, made of woven branches, twigs, and clay, is little changed from those of pre-Columbian times (Wilton R. Danien).

Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

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The case was taken up by the authorities and investigated. The boy was cross-examined, but always answered, “The Sisemite took her, no more than that I know.” He was, in spite of the girl’s parents’ protests, suspected of having murdered his young wife, and was thrown into jail, where he remained many years. At last a party of hunters reported having seen on Mount Kacharul a curious being with hairy body and flowing locks that fled at sight of them. A party was organized which went out with the object of trying to capture this creature at any cost. Some days later this party returned with what seemed to be a wild woman, of whom the leader reported as follows. “On Mount Kacharul we hid in the bushes. For two days we saw nothing, but on the third day about noon this creature came to the brook to drink and we captured her, though she struggled violently. As we were crossing the brook with her, a Sisemite appeared on the hillside, waving his arms and yelling. On his back was a child or monkey child which he took in his hands and held aloft as if to show it to the woman, who renewed her struggle to be free. The Sisemite came far down the hill almost to the brook; he dropped the child and tore off great branches from big trees which he threw at us.” The young man was brought from his cell into the presence of this wild creature and asked if he recognized her. He replied, “My wife was young and beautiful; the woman I see is old and ugly.” The woman never spoke a word and from that time on made no sound. She refused to eat and a few days after her capture she died. Felipe lived to be an old man and the grandmother of the woman who told this story remembered him as the man whose wife had been carried away by the Sisemite.

Guatemala Myths

The Enchanted Bull On Sactzicuil, a hill in the Alta Verapaz, there was once an enchanted bull made of pure gold. The Kekchis held fêtes in honor of this bull and worshipped him. At stated seasons all the people turned out to adorn his home with flowers, to fan him with the fragrant smoke of burning copal and to dance about him to the accompaniment of music. At last, however, the bull sank down into the hill. When this happened a wizard, mighty in magic among the Kekchis, ordered one half of the women of the tribe to wear the tupuy in memory of the bull’s tail and the other half to cut their hair in a certain fashion in memory of his ears. And to this day some of the women of this tribe smooth their hair down to the nape of the neck and then wrap it round and round with a cord of red wool until it is as thick and as long as a bull’s tail. The other women of the tribe cut a lock of hair on each side of the forehead and these locks hang down like the two big ears of the bull.

The Storm Reponcace, the lightning, is a big fish with dazzling fins that lives deep in the sea. Cace, the thunder, is a very old man whose voice is harsh and loud and who dwells in thirteen green hills. Sometimes the big fish comes up from the depths of the ocean to sport and play, and when by chance one of his fins rises above the water its brilliancy illumines earth, air, and sea. This angers the old man of the hills, who roars till the earth and air tremble. These two, the flash of the fish’s scales and roar of the old man’s voice, bring down the rain, but when it is over all is once again calm and beautiful, for the fish returns to the deep sea and the old man of the thirteen green hills falls asleep.

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Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

The River Gods

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The Indians never drink cold water. When asked to explain this, they say, “Water when it is cold is bad for our stomachs.” About an Indian’s house there are always small earthen pitchers or jars that can be filled with water and set against the fire that constantly smoulders in the middle of the floor. No Indian starts on a journey without a small bundle of dry twigs for starting a fire and a little jug for heating water. In the Alta Verapaz there are numerous streams; some are cool, some are warm, and some are salt. These streams often become rushing torrents during the rainy season. Between Teleman and La Tinta, two small towns, there is a stream crossed by a road much frequented by the Indians. Being warm, the water of this stream is much loved by the Indians, who usually take a draught in passing to quench their thirst. An Indian arriving at this stream during the rainy season invariably casts his bundle of dry fagots in the stream, which rapidly bears it away, but if the time of his passing takes place in the dry season when the current is not sufficient to bear the bundle of fagots away, he carefully deposits it in some convenient spot on the bank and every Indian who comes after him does likewise, thus increasing the pile until it is often six feet high. When the rain falls and the stream rises it carries this pile away. When the Indian casts his fagots on the water he is sending them to a man and a woman who, according to his belief, live at the source of the stream and who never grow old because their youth is yearly renewed. The object of casting the fagots in the stream is that these spirits may not want fuel to keep the water warm. When the river rises and bears the pile on the bank away, the Indian says, “The young people have taken the fagots so we shall have warm water all this season.”

Guatemala Myths

The Toothache When a Kekchi Indian has toothache he says he has xul-he, which means that the mouth maggot is troubling him, and he goes in search of the medicine man who alone can drive it out. The patient seats himself, the medicine man stands behind him, gently rubs over the seat of pain and he addresses the xul-he in the following incantation. I know thee, thou insect, thou xul-he. Thou thinkest no man knows by whom thou wert begotten; Nor from whence thou comest. But I know, For great snakes are sons of mine. I have power. I have poison to quench thy fires; to annul thy power. I am thy father and thy mother. I know that thou comest from an ear of corn on the highest stalk in the biggest milpa around here. As I am thy father and thy mother, I have authority over thee. And I bring three remedies the like of which thou has never seen before. Any one of these will quiet— will quiet thee by casting out thy vexation: By driving out thy sweetness and thy wrath. [The medicine man here places the bruised leaves of an herb called quejen in the patient’s mouth and continues,] I drive thee to the bottom of the great lake. Here thou shalt go into a cave.

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Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

Behind the largest stalactite in this cave there lives a monster crab. He will bind thee to a red water plant. Failing this he will bind thee to a rotting twig near a rock at the bottom of the lake. A little of thy might—a little of thy power, Shall I borrow from a green hill, from a pleasant valley. Oh! mighty spirit of the thirteen valleys. Oh! mighty spirit of the thirteen mountains. Aid me in casting out this pain-giving mouth insect.

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The medicine man then gently passes his hands over the patient’s face while he whistles softly. “Depart ! Go forth!” he says, as he blows on the seat of pain. The xul-he departs, and the relieved patient must take his leave without looking back. It will doubtless strike many readers that the belief that the toothache is caused by a worm pertains to Chinese medicine and that the medicine man’s performance suggests a borrowed custom. That such should be the case is not credible. The belief itself and the method of cure are clearly native to America and furnish an example of native medicine and magic. This may be illustrated by reference to a famous Indian document. The Popol Vuh is the sacred book of the Quichés, another great Guatemala tribe living southwestward from the Kekchis. The Popol Vuh was written a few years after the Conquest, by a member of the royal family of the Quichés who had learned to use the Roman alphabet in writing his own language. It was translated from the Quiché language into Spanish in the 17th century by Father Ximenez, a Dominican priest. The book relates the doings of the gods and the creation of the world. In

Guatemala Myths

one passage it tells of the battle between a giant and two demigods during which the giant has his teeth broken. Afterwards the demigods come to him disguised as medicine men. “What ills do you cure?” asks the giant, holding his aching jaw. “We extract maggots from the teeth to make them stop aching,” answered the false medicine men. “Then cure my toothache,” said the giant. “That we will do,” replied the others, “for it is only maggots that cause the pain. We can even pull your teeth and give you new ones of ground bone.” Then the false medicine men pulled all the giant’s teeth and put out his eyes. In the story called “The Horned Serpent,” there is again a reference to a maggot as the cause of toothache. The tales which follow, like the beliefs already described, are not an exclusive possession of the Kekchis, but seem to be the common property of all the tribes of Guatemala, of which there are no less than eighteen. They are also well known among people of Spanish descent or of mixed blood. In reading these tales it has occurred to me that they contain elements from three different sources: some are purely aboriginal, others appear to present European characteristics and to be derived from European sources, while a third group has a flavor so distinctly characteristic of African folk tales that they would seem to be African in their origin. It is necessary, however, to be cautious in reaching such a conclusion, for it is not always easy to classify these myths and assign them with certainty to their several origins. Some of those which at first sight appear European in character are found to contain allusions to native beliefs and to reflect the native mind. It must be remembered that they were related in the Kekchi language and the versions which I give were rendered first into Spanish and then into English.

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Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

Without attempting any analysis of these myths, I give the readers of the Journal several selections which illustrate the three types to which I refer. The first myth, which has the moon for its subject, has been received in two versions which are so interesting that I present them both. These I believe to be entirely aboriginal. The same is true of “The Horned Serpent.” The five that follow belong to the group in which European influence is suspected and the last two appear to be African. G. B. G.

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LI POO (THE MOON) I

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here was a great cacique [chief] in the land and he had a beautiful daughter. He loved her so much that he would never allow the sun to shine on her. When the sun heard this, he was so angry that he decided to steal the girl and make her his wife. When the cacique went to the forest to shoot wood pigeons with his blowgun, the sun borrowed the turtle’s shell and held it in front of his face in such a way that it cast a shadow. While the girl was sitting in this pleasant shade, the sun threw the shell over her and sent one of his rays down to fetch her. When the cacique came home he was so angry at the loss of his daughter that he decided to shoot the sun. The best gun maker was ordered to make the biggest and the finest blowgun ever seen. So he went to the pubche tree, which grows like the bamboo, and cut off the largest stalk. He worked so diligently that he had all the pulp out of this stalk before the boys he had sent to bring the bark of the sandpaper tree returned. Then he rubbed the gun most carefully with the bark of the sandpaper tree. The gun maker could not do all this work by himself, because it was a great big gun and he had many people

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This pre-Columbian relief of the face of the sun was originally part of the 8th century Hieroglyphic Staircase in Copán, Honduras (#20987).

Li Poo (The Moon) I

to help him. After the gun had been rubbed until it was perfectly smooth inside and out, it was laid away to season. All this time the shot makers were busy forming great balls of clay and putting them to dry, while the cacique was just as busy saving all the breath he could to send one of those balls through the long straight tube of the blowgun clear to the sun. At last the gun maker pronounced the gun ready. Then the weavers wove a network of bark around it. The rope makers tied thick ropes made of vines to this network, and the strongest men took hold of these ropes, and pulled, and hauled, until the mouth of the great gun rested on the top of the highest mountain in the land. When the shot maker put the hard round ball of clay in the gun, the cacique came from his palace, puffed out with saved-up breath. Just as he put his lips to the gun and drew a deep breath to send the ball forth, the sun threw a handful of red pepper into the muzzle of the gun which made the cacique cough, and he coughed and coughed until all his admiring subjects coughed too, and this is how whooping cough came to Guatemala. As soon as the cacique got well he said, “Now indeed, my faithful subjects, shall we shoot the sun.” Of course the sun threw more red pepper into the muzzle of the gun, but this time the cacique did not cough, for you know one may have whooping cough only once in a lifetime. So instead of coughing as before he sent the ball forth and it struck the sun so hard that he dropped the girl, but she didn’t fall at her father’s feet. She fell into the sea, miles and miles away and broke into many pieces. Each little piece of her mourned and cried for the beloved sun in such a distressing manner that all the tiny silver-scaled fish felt sorry; so they went to work and gathered up all the little pieces and patched the poor girl together as best they could. They were such kind-hearted little fish that each one put some of his silver scales over

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Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz

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his own particular patch. Then these good little fish gathered around the girl and tried to lift her up to the sun, but they couldn’t do so, until one of them said, “Let each of us take his neighbor’s tail in his mouth and form a long rope of which we can weave a mat.” The great shiny mat swam under the girl and gave a big jump up to the sky. The heat of the sun was so great, his light so strong, that the little fish could not take the girl right to him as they wished, but they stuck her up in the sky and were hurrying home when they lost their way and had to stay up there too. Any clear night if you look up at the sky you can see them, for they form the great white streak [the Milky Way]. Now these little fish didn’t do what they started out to do--that is, take the girl back to the sun, but they did the very best they could and so we have the silver moon to shine at night. For the girl and the moon are one and she continually follows the sun and no doubt still hopes to overtake him some day. Have you never noticed that she sometimes nearly catches up with him and they go down in the west almost together? The sun may really want to wait for the moon, but no matter how much he wants to wait he is not going to, for he knows that if he loitered he might not be on time in the morning to wake the birds.

This 9th century Maya figurine, from the island of Haina off the coast of Yucatan, may represent the Moon Goddess (#62-11-1).

LI POO (THE MOON) II

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O

ne day the sun (Li Cagua Saque) fell in love with the daughter of a great man (Hun Nim Li Cagua) and in order to get possession of her he transformed himself into a hummingbird (Pap Zunun) and flew among the flowers of the tobacco plants that grew about her father’s door. Soon the girl, whose name was Matactin, observed the bird and begged her father to shoot it for her. So he brought his blowgun and shot the bird with a ball of clay and it fell to the ground as if dead, but great was Hun Nim Li Cagua’s surprise when he picked it up to find that it was not even wounded. Matactin greatly admired the bird, and her father, yielding at last to her entreaties, gave it to her. It sat for a while on her outstretched finger and then walked up her arm to her shoulder, where it began caressing her. Towards evening, when the girl was alone in the house, her father having gone out, the hummingbird suddenly disappeared and the sun stood in its place. “Thou art mine and must ever follow me,” he cried, caressing Matactin in a manner that filled her with fear. “I cannot go with thee,” she answered trembling, “for the anger of my father would be more than I could bear.”

Li Poo (The Moon) II

“Fear him not!” exclaimed the sun, continuing to caress her, “for I shall take thee to a place where he cannot find us.” “It matters not where we go,” declared the girl, “he can see us with his far-seeing glass and shoot us with his great blowgun.” “Show me the far-seeing glass and the great blowgun,” demanded the sun, and when Matactin led him to where they were, he blacked the glass with smoke, put powdered chile into the blowgun, and went away taking his beloved with him. When Hun Nim Li Cagua returned, not finding his daughter, he cried, “To be sure, the hummingbird was some ardent lover come in that form to woo her and he has won her and taken her away.” Then his anger was great and he went in search of his glass. Great was his surprise when he could not see with it, but he soon discovered the reason, and freeing it from smoke, he looked and saw Matactin and Li Cagua Saque, her lover, down by the sea. His anger now knew no bounds and he hastily took up his blowgun to shoot them, but no sooner did he put it to his lips than he fell down writhing with pain because of the chile that entered his lungs. He coughed and continued to cough, for he had whooping cough and all the people about him coughed. As soon as the great man was better he again took up his gun to shoot the lovers, but just as he was about to send the ball forth, the lightning (Cagua Kauac) appeared to him and offered to kill them. But the sun heard this talk, so he came with the girl from the sky again to the edge of the sea at a spot where there was a turtle (Kuk). “Give me here thy shell,” demanded the sun of the turtle. “I cannot do so,” replied the turtle, “because my shell is useful to me, and,” he continued, “may you not forget to return it to me?”

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“I shall give it back to thee when I no longer need it,” angrily replied the sun, and drawing near the turtle he took off its shell and putting himself into it disappeared in the deep sea. At the same moment the lightning struck Matactin and she fell dead, bathed in blood. Soon Li Cagua Saque came up out of the deep water and returned the turtle his shell. Then seeing the rich red blood of his beloved mingling with the water of the ocean, he ordered the dragon flies to gather it up and put it in thirteen tinajas [water jars]. Then he commanded the masons to make a big fountain and disappeared, but at the end of thirteen days he returned and seeing the fountain completed he poured the first tinaja of Matactin’s blood therein, and there came forth from the fountain the terrible snakes called icbolay. When he threw the contents of the second tinaja into the fountain, swarms of the chupil, a poisonous worm, crawled out. The blood of the third tinaja called into being great hordes of the snake called bacuel. The blood of the other nine tinajas when poured into the fountain likewise produced horrible reptiles, but when the contents of the thirteenth tinaja fell into the fountain Matactin came forth in all her youth and beauty. Thereupon Li Cagua Saque called a stag and commanded him to conduct her to the sky.

THE HORNED SERPENT

O

n a certain day long, long ago there was a great trembling of the earth and all the people said, “The old witch is troubling the Horned Serpent under the ground, and in moving about he causes the earth to tremble.” So they begged their cacique to have the old witch burnt in the market place. When the cacique’s messengers went to the old witch’s cave to get her she said, “Yes, dear people, I will go with you, but first I must bid my boatmen good-bye,” and going to the picture of a boat she had outlined with ashes on the floor of the cave, she stepped into it and was rowed away. The messengers heard the splash of the oars in the water. Then all was quiet. The cacique was very angry when the messengers told him how the old witch had embarked and disappeared before their very eyes, but as the earth trembled no more his anger cooled and he said, “Perhaps she may drown on her voyage and be thus killed by water instead of by fire.” Before long, however, the earth began to tremble again and it trembled so violently that the birds, beasts, and serpents forsook their mountain homes and went to the towns. Rivers left their beds and

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overflowed the plains, and the great Horned Serpent belched up smoke, flame, and ashes through a big hole he made in the side of a mountain. Again the people sought the cacique and this time they cried, “Oh, great cacique, our master! The mighty spirit of the Thirteen Hills to which we pray is powerless to save our milpas unless you burn the old witch.” So the cacique again sent his messengers in search of the old witch and when they had found her, she said, “Yes, dear people, even now I go with you. Do but allow me to find my ball of maguey thread.” When she had found it she went peaceably with them to the great square where a crowd of people had collected to see her burned alive. When the death sentence was proclaimed she said, “It is true, oh great cacique! than whom there is none greater, that I can quiet the Horned Serpent of his restlessness, for it comes from a maggot in his fang, but I must go to the clouds for the remedy that will kill this xul-he, this mouth worm, by casting out its sweetness and filling it with fear.” The cacique, feeling that what the old witch said was true, gave her leave to go to the sky, so she drove a three-pronged stick into the ground, tied the loose end of the maguey thread to it, threw the ball into the air and climbed up the slender rope and never came down.

THE BOY AND THE SWORD

T

here was once a poor man who lived by tilling the soil. This man had one son who from his earliest infancy had expressed a desire to leave home and explore other lands. “You are too little and too tender to leave me and wander about alone,” said the father. “Wait until you grow taller and your sinews are hard, for then will I give you my great sword and permission to go forth and wander where you will.” Hearing this, the boy went every day to the big sword and put forth all his strength to lift it but he could not. However, he did not despond, and straining his muscles day after day so increased his strength that at last he was not only able to lift the sword but to swing it around his head, and his father, seeing this, said, “Now, indeed, you have a man’s strength and a man’s right to go forth in search of adventure.” So the boy took the sword and joyfully set out. After he had walked for some days he came upon a giant throwing over great hills and said to him, “I go in search of adventure. Come and join me.” And the giant, whose name was Bota Cerros [Hill Thrower], went gladly with him. After these two had walked for some time they met Bota Palos [Tree Thrower], who was running about uprooting trees and throwing them from him.

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“Come with us,” said the boy to this giant, “for we walk towards the East in search of adventure.” Bota Palos gladly went with them, and the three walked on until they came to the foot of a live mountain. In this mountain was a great treasure which no one could reach, because none had been able to find the door that gave access to it. At the foot of this live mountain the three rested at a spot where a great herd of bulls and cows was peacefully grazing. “Tomorrow,” said the boy to Bota Cerros, “you shall go with me to search for the door and Bota Palos shall stay here, kill a bull, and prepare a soup for us when we return.” Bota Palos killed a fat bull and when the rich soup was bubbling and boiling, a great Hobgoblin drew near and said, “Give me of what is in the olla [cooking pot], for I hunger.” Bota Palos gave him a big gourdful of boiling soup and flesh and bone, which he took at one swallow and demanded more, and he kept on asking for more and more until there was none left in the olla. Then he caused a deep sleep to come over Bota Palos and went away. The boy and Bota Cerros, returning, found Bota Palos still sleeping, so they awakened him and when he related what had befallen him, the boy said, “Tomorrow you shall go with me and Bota Cerros shall remain here to prepare our soup.” On the next day the Hobgoblin returned, drank all the soup and put Bota Cerros to sleep. Then the boy said, “Tomorrow I shall remain here, and you two shall go in search of the door.” When Bota Cerros and Bota Palos returned without having discovered the door, they found the boy wide awake and the olla full of soup. And after they had eaten and were resting, the boy said to them, “The Hobgoblin came to visit me and I gave him a gourdfull of soup, but when he demanded more I drew my sword and cut off one of his buttocks and then he ran howling away.”

“. . . a spot where a great herd of bulls and cows was peacefully grazing.” Cattle at the ranch of Sepacuité, Alta Verapaz (Wilton R. Danien).

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“And where is the great ugly buttock?” asked the giants. “In your bellies,” answered the boy, “for I threw it in to replenish the olla.” “It is well,” said the giants, and then they slept. When they awoke, the boy said to Bota Palos, “Now you must follow the drops of the Hobgoblin’s blood, enter the door of the mountain, and slay him. Bota Palos set out, but at nightfall he returned, saying, “It is true that I have slain the Hobgoblin, but beyond him is El Sombrero [The Big Hat] that I dared not attack.” Then the boy said to Bota Cerros, “Tomorrow you shall go into the door of the mountain which is alive, kill El Sombrero, and bring forth the treasure.” Bota Cerros set off, entered the door, passed the dead Hobgoblin, and came to the place where El Sombrero dwelt, and after a mighty fight slew him, but beyond El Sombrero was El Sisemite that Bota Cerros dared not attack, so he returned to his companions and said, “El Sombrero I have slain, but El Sisemite I dared not attack, for fear of him weakened my arms.” Then the boy said to Bota Palos and Bota Cerros, “You two remain here and I shall go and slay El Sisemite, for with my good sword I am without fear.” The boy slew El Sisemite, that in dying so screamed and yelled that the hills trembled, but beyond El Sisemite in a great deep cave dwelt a giant, the owner of the live mountain. So the boy called Bota Cerros and Bota Palos to him, and seeing the dead Sisemite they said one to the other, “This boy is mightier than we and only by artifice may we slay him and get possession of his sword.” “Now,” said the boy, “we shall make a great rope.” So the three set to work and twisted a rope of roots and bark—and the boy let down by the giants came to the bottom of the cave where Dientes Grandes [Big Teeth] lived. His eye teeth reached his belly, and his stomach teeth touched his eyes, and his sinews stood out in great knobs all over his body.

Maya charcoal carriers. The importance of charcoal to the local villagers undoubtedly figures in the belief that the Sisemite is said to love the taste of charcoal. Whenever he finds the embers of a fire, he enjoys nothing more than to engage in a feast of “charcoal crunching,” an image designed to evoke terror in the listener.

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With one stroke of his sword the boy cut off this monster’s head. Then he freed a beautiful princess, the daughter of a mighty cacique, that had been held in captivity, and filling his bag with jewels and treasure, slung it over his shoulder. Then he took his great sword and the beautiful princess in his arms and having tied the rope about his waist called to Bota Palos and Bota Cerros to draw him up. “The flesh of the Hobgoblin has so weakened our stomach that we have no strength,” answered these giants, “to lift such a weight. You alone, the sword, the princess, or the treasure we can haul up, but any two of you are too much for us.” “So be it,” said the boy, who then tied the rope around the girl, who was drawn up by the giants. They also drew up the treasure and after it the sword, but when they had done this they hurled a great boulder into the door of the live mountain and prepared to depart. Bota Palos took up the princess, Bota Cerros the bag of treasure, but not even their combined strength could raise the sword from where it lay. The boy, finding himself a prisoner, walked about the cave of the dead giant Big Teeth until he came to a place where an old witch lived and when he had told her his trouble she said, “I will lend thee my magic horse which will take thee out by my own door.” The horse of the witch took the boy from the cave, but left him lost in the woods not knowing which path to take. So he wandered about until he came to the place where the Duende [a smaller, less fearsome version of the Sisemite] lived, who told him that Bota Palos and Bota Cerros by shouts and yells had called the other giants about them to see if among them there might be one stronger than they who could lift the sword. Then the Duende pointed out the road to the blocked-up mouth of the live mountain and changed him so that the giants would not know him when he arrived there. “I am come,” cried the boy, “to lift up the sword.”

The Boy and the Sword

And the giants, seeing him so little, said, “Lift it then,” and he lifted it and swung it round and round until he had cut every giant in two. Then he picked up the bag of treasure, took the princess by the hand, and they walked towards the east until they came to her father’s palace, where they were married.

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DUENDE GIFTS

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he Duende can grant any request no matter how extravagant, if one takes the trouble to go alone to the forest and ask him in good faith. Of course one must be able to recite the proper incantation without leaving out a word. The moon must be just right, and above all the Duende must be in a good humor. But even then his gift often brings about some unaccountable change that defeats the very purpose for which it was asked. A long time ago there lived in the hill-encircled town of Tzalamha a poor young man who was so hospitable that his door always stood open and his only regret was that the smallness of his hut would not permit him to entertain the whole town at once. So he learned the incantation and went all alone to the forest on the dark of the moon, and the Duende must have been in a very good humor, for he immediately granted his request for sufficient money to build a castle big enough to accommodate all his friends at once. This happy young man then selected a beautiful site for his castle, and while the first stones were being laid his heart swelled with joy at the thought of the pleasure that other people should find under

Duende Gifts

his roof, but when the walls were about half done he began to like to be alone and long before they were finished he felt such dislike for his fellow men that he even went out of his way to avoid them. And when the castle was finished even to the last stone on the turret he lived there entirely alone except for his sadvoiced wood pigeons. One night a poor old man overtaken by a storm knocked at the well-bolted door of the castle and asked for hospitality. The owner of the castle told him, “Begone, go away from here! Some fool in the village below will give you shelter.” But the poor old man was tired and wet, so he said, “Surely, master, you will not drive me forth in such a storm! Do but give me some little corner,” he pleaded, “for I shall go on my way as soon as the moon rises and drives away the clouds, from which the rain is pouring.” But the owner of the castle still said, “Begone, begone from here!” and seeing that the old man lingered, he angrily added, “I wish the road to this castle would grow up, so that no man could find his way to my door.” Then the old man, who was the Duende under one of his many forms, walked sorrowfully away under the pouring rain, and immediately the castle began to sink. Slowly, slowly it went down and it kept on going down until only the turret was visible. At last that too disappeared. Though today no sign of the grand castle that stood on the top of the beautiful pine-covered hill is to be seen, the people of Tzalamha know that it once was there, for their fathers told them so, and they know that it still exists intact in the heart of the hill, for if one pauses at high noon any day as he walks along the road that lies at the foot of the hill he can hear the owner of the castle begging him most piteously to come in and visit him, and it is known that he still keeps wild pigeons, for the flutter of their wings as well as their gentle coo-ru-co is distinctly heard.

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The people know all these things, but they also know that the Duende set a great big horned serpent to guard that sunken castle, and that if one takes so much as a spadeful of earth from the hill around it this serpent will come out of the ground and go into the river. His great size will cause the river to overflow its banks and inundate the town, and the people who escape drowning will die by pestilence.

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THE DUENDE GIRL

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nce there was a little girl. One day this little girl, who had been playing down by the brook, ran into the hut where her mother was grinding corn and cried, “Nana! Stop grinding and look at all this nice new money I bring.” When the mother looked she saw only leaves in the child’s hands, so she said, “Not nice new money I see, but dry leaves of the ec tree.” Then the little girl sat on the earthen floor and cried. The mother had finished grinding and was sitting at her loom when the little girl again came in from play calling, “Nana! Stop weaving and look at my beautiful rings.” Now the mother’s heart was troubled when she saw that each of the child’s fingers bore rings of corn husk and she sighed as she said, “Yes, yes, little sweetheart, rings of corn husk.” Then the little girl sat down again on the floor and cried until she fell asleep. When the little girl’s father came home after his day’s work in the milpa was over, the mother told him what had happened and he was as troubled as she, for they knew that their little daughter was

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loved by the Duende and that unless they could free her from his attentions, she would never be able to distinguish the false from the true and would die young. The little girl wore the Duende rings and played with the Duende money until she was a big girl, and all this time her parents were sad and uneasy. One day as the girl sat weaving she said, “I wish I had some nice sweets.” Immediately a shower of sweets fell about her from the rafters of the hut, but when she offered some of them to her mother, they changed to dry shells of the corozo nut. Years passed. The Duende always gave the girl just what she asked for, but his gifts seemed destined for her alone, for whenever she attempted to share them with anyone else they changed to something worthless. At last a young man, a strong, straight, bright-eyed, red-skinned lad, fell in love with the girl, and his parents sent presents to her parents and in due time the young man was accepted as the girl’s suitor. It was understood that when the harvest was over the young people should drink the betrothal cup and be married. One beautiful evening after the last ripe ear had been stored in the corn house, the girl met her lover just as he was about to cross the threshold, and after placing the guacal [gourd] of chocolate to her own lips, offered it to him, but just as he was about to carry it to his mouth the foamy chocolate changed to muddy water. Casting the guacal from him he exclaimed, “Thou art then a Duende girl.” There were four sad hearts in the hut that night, but before the young man wrapped himself in his blanket and went to lie down in his own corner he said to the girl’s parents, “I really and truly love your daughter and with your permission I shall go out even at daybreak to seek the old wise man of the mountain, for he, if anyone, can tell me how to free her from the Duende.”

The Duende Girl

The old people gladly consented and they as well as the girl were up to see him start on his long journey. The Duende was there, too, for when the lovers were taking leave of each other he threw dust in their eyes and scratched their faces. The young man was gone many moons, and when he returned he said never a word. When night came they all retired as usual, but hardly had they fallen asleep when they were awakened by such music as was never heard before. First it sounded like the song of a bird and then like the laugh of a maiden, then like the breeze playing with the palm leaves. The patter, patter of the rain drops on the grass while the sun still shines was next heard, then the sunlight went out and there was only the drop, drop of the rain. The breeze came back and sighed for a while, then the wind rose and moaned and complained, to be quickly followed by a wailing that made the blood of the listener run cold. All at once there was a sound as of someone breaking a reed, then all was silent. “Now,” cried the young man springing up, “we are rid of the Duende at last.” Then he said to the girl and her parents that the wise old man of the mountain had given him a flute and told him to lay it at the door of the hut when night fell and that the Duende would play it, then break it, and go away never to trouble his beloved again. Stepping outside, the lad picked up the pieces of the flute and showing them to the girl said, “I am thirsty. Give me to drink.” And when the maiden brought the guacal full of foamy chocolate he drank their marriage draught.

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“The wise old man of the mountain had given him a flute.” Greenstone carving of a flute player. Guerrero, Mexico, 300 BC-AD 500 (#NA5916).

The haunting notes of the flute figure in many Mesoamerican legends. The 15th century pottery flute has four notes. The 20th century chirimilla, of wood, reed, and string, has six holes. The player inserts the smaller tube with its reed of split palm leaf into the larger one. These two instruments, separated by more than 500 years, continue the ancient Mesoamerican musical tradition. Central Mexico, Aztec, 15th century (#L-83-244); Guatemala, Maya, 20th century (#48-8-1a, b).

THE MISER, THE GIRL, THE JAR, AND THE FOOL

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nce upon a time there was an old miser who had a beautiful jar. Now this jar was so very beautiful that everyone who saw it wanted to buy it, but the old miser thought no one offered enough for it. One day when the old man came home from his work in the milpa, his daughter, who was grinding corn, said, “Three people—a gentleman, a man and a priest—came to see the jar this morning.” “And what didst thou tell them?” asked the old man. “I told them to come back this afternoon,” replied the girl. “Thou art a wise girl and thou hast made good use of thy wisdom,” declared the old man, “and when these three return, as they surely will,” he continued, “thou must say to each that thou hast decided to sell the jar for five hundred pesos without my knowledge. Tell the gentleman to come for it at eight o’clock tonight, the man to come at half-past eight, and the priest to come at nine.” The girl did as she was told and at eight o’clock the gentleman arrived, but just as the girl had finished counting the money he brought, there was a noise at the door of the hut, and throwing the money into one corner, she cried, “Go up in the loft, gentleman, for my father comes and if he finds you here he will kill you.”

“Once upon a time there was an old miser who had a beautiful jar.” Rollout painting by Mary Louise Baker of the polychrome pottery cylinder vase known as the “Chamá Vase.” Made in Chamá, Alta Verapaz, during the Maya Late Classic (AD 700-900) (#38-14-1).

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So the gentleman hurried up to the loft, and the man came in, but before he could get off with the jar there was again a noise at the door and the girl with the same words sent the man after the gentleman. The priest arrived at nine and was in a great hurry. He actually had the coveted jar in his arms when the voice of the miser was heard outside and the girl, seeing that the priest trembled with fear, said, “Put down the jar and go up in the loft.” When the miser entered he asked, “Where is the gentleman’s money?” “There in the corner,” answered the girl. “And the man’s money?” “There in the corner.” “And the priest’s money?” “There in the corner.” After a pause the old man asked, “And the gentleman, where is he?” “Up in the loft,” answered the girl. “And the man?” “Up in the loft.” “And the priest?” “Up in the loft.” “Thou art indeed a wise girl,” said the old man, and putting the bag he carried on his back in the middle of the floor he set fire to it and soon the people in the loft died of suffocation, for the bag was full of dry pods of the red pepper plant. “Well, well,” chuckled the old man, “we still have the jar and three times five hundred pesos as well.”

The Miser, the Girl, the Jar, and the Fool

“But we also have a dead gentleman, a dead man and a dead priest up in the loft,” said the girl. “The Fool will dispose of them for us,” chuckled the old man. “Tomorrow morning early,” he continued, “ I shall go in search of him and tell him that thou hast sent me to ask him to eat breakfast with us.” Now the girl knew that the Fool loved her so much that he would do whatever she asked, so when they had eaten she told him that she and her father were sore troubled because a priest who had come to sup with them the night before had choked to death on a bit of tortilla and that, being frightened lest it should be found out, they had put him in the loft where he still lay, as they dared not take him out for burial. “Don’t worry over a dead priest,” said the Fool, “for I’ll dispose of him if you solemnly promise to marry me when he is out of the way.” The girl agreed to the Fool’s proposal, but no sooner had he set out with the dead priest on his back than she sewed a cassock and put it on the gentleman. When the Fool returned and claimed his reward, the girl laughed and said, “Now don’t think to deceive me, for full well I know that while I went to the brook to fetch water you sneaked in and lay the priest again in the loft.” When the Fool saw the gentleman in the cassock, he scratched his head and said, “I buried you once and I’ll bury you again.” When the Fool had set out with the gentleman on his back the girl sewed another cassock and put it on the man. And when the Fool came back and said, “He’ll lie where I put him this time, for I piled great stones on his grave,” the girl frowned and said petulantly, “Why do you try to deceive me, for I know that while I was out gathering brushwood to bake the tortillas, you crept back and put the priest upstairs.” All the Fool said when he saw the man in the cassock was, “Well, I’ll wager he doesn’t come back after I bury him the third time.”

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As soon as the Fool set off with the man on his back the girl called her father who was hiding near by. He came in and strapped the jar now full of money on his back. She strapped the grinding stone on her back and they set fire to the hut and walked towards the east. But they had not gone far when the old man caught his foot in a root, and stumbling, fell into a dark pool that lay alongside the road. The girl plunged in to try to save him, but with the weight of the grinding stone she sank too, and that was the end of them. The Fool, coming back and not finding the hut, followed the tracks of the miser and the girl to the edge of the pool, where he sat down and wept. The Duende came along and taking pity on him changed him into the donde bird. And to this day the donde bird may be seen haunting the margins of pools crying, “donde, donde,” “where, where.”

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THE ENVIOUS FARMER

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here was once an old witch who lived in a cave and whenever she wanted to go anywhere she said, “Little cave, little cave, take me to such or such a place,” and the cave immediately came out of the rock and took her there. In fact, this old witch could do as she pleased about everything, and for this reason people did all they could to keep on friendly terms with her. There was once, however, a man who lost her good will. This man owned a beautiful hacienda with a plain covered with green grass, for no matter how often the cattle ate this grass, it grew up again in a single night. Through this grass-covered plain flowed a stream, but the farmer wanted a lake, because his neighbor had one of which he was always boasting. So this discontented man went in search of the old witch, who readily agreed to move the lake to his place. Arriving at the lake the old witch filled two gourds with water and set off towards the spot which the man pointed out to her, but when she was halfway there she slipped, fell, and spilled the water, which immediately formed a lake. The man was very angry then, because that was not the place he wanted the lake, so he spoke angrily to the witch, calling her a careless, awkward old woman. To all this the witch

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answered never a word; she just got up, took her gourds, and went back to her cave. That night two of the farmer’s calves fell into the lake and were drowned. The next night the same thing happened, so the man said, “I must fill up this lake, for if all the little calves get drowned, I shall soon have no strong oxen or patient cows.” So he set to work and dug and dug, until he had made a great hole and though he threw all the earth he took from the hole into the lake, it never filled up, for as the hole grew the lake grew and it kept on growing until there was no hacienda left. And all the time it was growing cattle fell into it every night until at last the man owned a beautiful lake full of fish, but not one head of cattle nor a foot of dry land. The poor farmer was so sad at his loss and so sorry for his rudeness to the old witch that she at last relented and changed him into a blackbird that always goes with the cows and sometimes sits on their backs.

WEE RABBIT SELLS A BAG OF MAIZE Wee Rabbit one day found himself without money to buy food for his loving wife and numerous children. In vain he racked his brain for a scheme that might put him in funds. He lost so much flesh from worrying all day that his clothes were too big for him and his bright eyes became dim from loss of sleep, for he often lay awake most of the night thinking, busily thinking. Wee Rabbit, knowing the scarcity of maize, said over and over to himself, “If I only had a bag of maize, I could sell it for a big price.” Then he would rub his hands together, scratch his head, slap his thigh and ask, “How can I get this bag of maize?” One bright moonlight night as he lay wide awake, the idea of selling a bag of maize he didn’t have occurred to him, and it seemed so easy that Wee Rabbit wondered why he had not thought of it before. At the third crowing of the cock he rose and, hastily dressing himself, went forth in search of customers. First he came upon the hen busily looking for worms. “Good day, Aunt Hen!” he cried, then added gallantly, “I kiss your feet.” But not until he had inquired for each member of her family did he offer to sell her a bag of hard yellow maize.

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The rabbit is a central figure in many Mesoamerican tales. A potter from the Mixtequilla region of Mexico, Totonac culture (AD 250-900), made this pottery effigy vessel. The rabbit’s floppy ears have a deeply incised design that ends, near the top of the ear, with a feathered crest (#68-30-1).

Wee Rabit Sells a Bag of Maize

“To be sure I’ll buy it,” said the hen, “and glad of the chance to do so, for though this morning I left a warm white egg in the nest and cackled as no hen ever cackled before, the woman gave me only three grains of maize, not enough to support one who like me always does her duty; so please excuse me if I go on scratching, for I’m very hungry.” “Excuses are needless,” said Wee Rabbit, bowing low, “for I am only your humble servant.” The hen cackled her thanks for the polite talk and asked Wee Rabbit when she might go to his house for the maize. “I have an engagement this morning,” answered the rabbit, “but I shall be pleased to see you at my house—No! No! Not my house,” he hastily added, “but yours, whenever you choose to honor it by your presence—at three o’clock this afternoon.” The hen said she would be there on time and willingly gave the rabbit half the price of the maize, as he declared he needed the money urgently, being on his way to the village to make some very necessary purchases. Then the hen began again her interrupted search for worms, singing merrily all the while, and Wee Rabbit went in search of the coon, who also paid something in advance on the maize, and the rabbit after telling him to call at his house for it a little after three o’clock said good-bye and walked away, and he walked and walked until he came upon a dog lying in the road. “Good day to you, Uncle Dog,” said Wee Rabbit in a hearty happy voice. “I’m at your feet.” Good day to you, Wee Rabbit,” gruffly answered the dog, “I’m at your feet also, though I can hardly stand on my own.” When Wee Rabbit asked what was the matter the dog said, “I am just back from a successful hunting expedition with my master. We went to the pleasant plains beyond the big mountains, but this morning the woman who grinds the maize gave me instead of my usual liberal allowance, only three small very thin tortillas, so I’m hungry as well as footsore.”

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This was just the moment to offer the maize and the dog was so delighted at the idea of having a bag full of it all for himself that he gave Wee Rabbit half its price almost before he had finished asking for it, and Wee Rabbit, after telling him to go to his house to receive the maize between three and four o’clock, said good-bye and walked away listening to the jingle of the coins in his bag until he came to the river Hux, where a tiger was sharpening his claws on a great big stone. “Well, well, Uncle Tiger!” joyfully exclaimed Wee Rabbit, “of all the people in the world you are the one I most wanted to see and all because it lies in my power to do you a favor.” The tiger was hungry too, just as hungry as the hen, the coon, and the dog, and consequently not in a good humor, so he asked in a gruff voice, “To do me a favor or to practice some more of your little pranks?” “I regret most sincerely,” declared Wee Rabbit, “if my little jokes of the past caused you the slightest inconvenience and I am now come in all sincerity to offer you a big bag of hard yellow maize at a very low figure.” “And gladly will I buy it,” said the somewhat mollified tiger, “for I have not a grain of maize left.” Then the tiger went on sharpening his nails and Wee Rabbit, seating himself on a little stone that lay near by, took the coins from the netted bag that hung from his shoulder and placing them in a row on the ground at his feet counted them over and over, and after each count he sighed so deeply and looked so sorrowful that at last the tiger asked, “What’s the matter, Wee Rabbit?” “Oh! nothing, really nothing,” answered the rabbit carelessly, as if he were not thinking of what he said. Then hastily gathering up the coins and dropping them into the bag he added sorrowfully, “That is, nothing that can be remedied.” The tiger was so delighted to see the rabbit in trouble and his curiosity was so excited that he insisted on knowing the cause of so many sorrowful sighs. “Well, if you must know,” said Wee Rabbit, getting up as if about to depart, “I sighed because—”

Wee Rabit Sells a Bag of Maize

Here he paused a long time, so long in fact that the tiger with ill-concealed interest said, “Because is no reason.” Then Wee Rabbit repeated, “I sighed because—” and waited until he saw his uncle was ready to speak again, when he hastily added, “because I’m sad.” “Sadness is the usual cause of a sigh,” said the tiger, giving an extra touch on the stone to his longest and sharpest claw. “I always sigh when I’m sad. What I want to know is why you are sad.” Here Wee Rabbit put his hand in his bag and jingling the coins said, “The truth of the matter is, uncle, that I may not, after all, be able to let you have the bag of hard yellow maize and the thought of your disappointment made me sad.” “Well, you are a nice fellow!” growled the tiger. “And why can’t you let me have the maize? That’s what I want to know, and quickly, too.” “Now don’t get angry, dear uncle,” pleaded Wee Rabbit in his most winning voice, and reseating himself on the small stone he said that Mrs. Rabbit, like all the womenfolk, was so fond of dress that in spite of the hard times he had promised to buy her a new one of a very expensive kind. “But, dear uncle,” he added, “I am in a bit of a fix, for I found on counting my coins that I lack a peso of having enough to pay for the dress, that is, for the particular one that Mrs. Rabbit wants, unless you give me a peso in advance.” Here the tiger stopped sharpening his claws and looked very grave, for he didn’t want to lend Wee Rabbit one quartillo, much less the sixteen that go to make up a big round peso, so after thinking a while he asked, “Well, suppose—just suppose, mind you—that I do not care to advance you the peso?” “Dear uncle, I have not asked you to do so,” responded Wee Rabbit, making a sweeping bow, “nor is it necessary that you should do so, for I am sure that if I go to the hut of the hunter and offer him the

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maize he will advance even two pesos.” “To the hut of the hunter, indeed,” growled the tiger. “To the house of a fool who does not know enough to lay a snare for a cub, much less an old wise one like me. This fool keeps a trap set for me all the time, for he wants my beautiful skin!” Here the tiger looked over his shoulder at his nice black and yellow coat. “It would not be very good for you if at last he got it,” remarked Wee Rabbit carelessly as he chuckled to himself. “Perhaps not,” consented the tiger, “but as these hard times have forced many to live without eating, some of us might learn to get on without skins.” Wee Rabbit liked to hear his dear uncle talk, so he sat down on the little stone again and kept quiet while the tiger said, “To the hut of the hunter you will go then and offer him a bag of maize just as if you did not know that he is the greatest enemy of all us folks. I know full well that he would like to skin me, and no doubt even your ugly little fur would not come amiss and I hope he gets it if you go there.” “Be that as it may,” said Wee Rabbit, “I must run the risk,” and rising, he was just about to say goodbye, when the tiger took a peso out of his pocket and said, “Don’t go there; here’s the amount you require and I’ll call for the maize at four o’clock.” But Wee Rabbit waved his hand and said, “Put up your money, uncle, for you took it grudgingly from your pocket, and it is a rule of mine never to accept what is unwillingly offered; so goodbye, I must be off!” and he walked briskly away, but before he had gone far the tiger ran after him and begged him to take the money. “Take it,” he urged, “if only to please me, for I cannot bear the thought of the cruel hunter getting that bag of hard yellow corn.”

Wee Rabit Sells a Bag of Maize

“Just to please you, just to please you, then,” said Wee Rabbit, taking the coin from the tiger’s extended hand and dropping it into his bag. “Just to please you,” he repeated, “whom I would do anything to oblige, indeed I would,” he added. “Until four o’clock, then,” said the tiger, turning to depart. “That hour will suit me admirably,” declared Wee Rabbit, “but don’t come before that time,” he added, “for I can’t get back sooner from the village.” But Wee Rabbit didn’t go to the village. He went to the hunter’s hut and before he left there he had another peso in his bag and the hunter had agreed to go to his house a little after four o’clock to kill a great big tiger. Wee Rabbit had to hurry to carry out his plan, so he took a shortcut to the nearest of his many houses and he ran so fast that he was there in time to fill a bag with gravel, tie it up with a bit of bark and stand it by a big hollow log that lay in one corner of his house before the hen arrived. “Well! Well! You are just on time!” said Wee Rabbit greeting her, “but I was waiting for you. See,” he continued, pointing to the bag, “there is your hard yellow maize.” The hen was filled with delight which changed to dismay when the rabbit added, “but there is a little complication, for Uncle Coon, whom I know to be an enemy of yours, has just sent me word that he is coming immediately to visit me and if you start home with the maize now you’ll be sure to meet him.” “To be sure I shall,” said the disturbed hen. “And next to the opossum he is the one I most fear. Where shall I hide?” she continued, completely losing her head. “Fly up on a beam and sit quietly there until he goes,” said Wee Rabbit. “No! no!” cried the hen, “for each of my feathers would stand on end the moment I caught sight of him and from sheer fright I should fall into his clutches.” “Even now he comes,” cried the rabbit, looking down the road and wringing his hands. “Hide! hide

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quickly, Aunt Hen,” he implored, and the hen, seeing the hollow log, ran into it just a moment before the coon entered. “You are punctual,” said the rabbit, greeting the coon, “but not more so than I, for there is your bag of hard yellow corn,” but just then the deep barking of the dog was heard and the coon rushed into the hollow log, where he was glad to find a nice fat hen. Before the rabbit and the dog had time to exchange greetings the tiger came roaring along and the dog too sought safety in the hollow log much to the coon’s dismay. When the tiger entered and demanded his maize, the rabbit; pointing carelessly to the bag, said, “There it is, Uncle Tiger, and as you see it is good measure, for the bag is full to bursting.” But just as the tiger was about to take it on his back, he lifted his great nose into the air and sniffed. “What is the matter, uncle?” asked Wee Rabbit, just as innocently as if he did not know that the tiger smelt the hunter who was so near that the tiger lost no time in getting into the log too. “Well, Wee Rabbit, where’s the tiger?” asked the hunter. “Over there in the log,” answered the rabbit. While the hunter was sharpening his machete the rabbit with the netted bag hanging from his shoulder ran away to the one of his many houses where Mrs. Rabbit and the children lived and he was so well supplied with funds that he not only bought Mrs. Rabbit a new dress but a beautiful tupui [headdress] as well and sandals for all the children, and there was still so much money left that the whole family had cheese and white bread to eat with their black beans for ever so long.

TENIENDO LA PENA (HOLDING THE STONE) When two are working together and one shirks, leaving the burden to the other, the people say of the worker, “He was left holding the stone.” This is an everyday expression. When the rabbit left the wolf one beautiful morning, he started over the mountains to visit his brother and he should have been with him early in the afternoon, but it was sunset before he arrived. It happened in this way. It was very hot about noon and Wee Rabbit stopped in the cool shade of a great stone that hung over the road to eat his luncheon. This stone, called Li Nim Pec, or the great stone, looked as if it might break loose from the almost perpendicular mountainside and fall with a crash at any moment. Whenever Wee Rabbit was going off on a trip, Mrs. Rabbit would put a good supply of thin hard tortillas in his netted bag, and she always saw that his palm leaf umbrella was in good condition during the rainy season. But fair weather or foul, the last thing she asked him when they said good-bye was, “Hast thou thy little pitcher?” for without the little pitcher he could not heat drinking water, and if he took it cold he would be sure to have cramps in his stomach.

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So this noonday he gathered together a few twigs, struck fire with his flint and steel, and put his little earthen pitcher of water to boil before he sat down to eat. He most carefully chewed his corn cakes, and after he had quite finished eating, he took a big drink of warm water. Then he put all his things back into the netted bag, slung it over his shoulder, and really intended to continue his journey immediately, but the shade of the stone was so cool and inviting, the sunshine so hot, and the insects were singing so sweetly that he decided to have a siesta. So he lay down and slept until he was awakened by the roar of a tiger. Now Wee Rabbit knew the tiger was too near for him to escape by running, so he jumped up, and putting his shoulder to the edge of the great stone, stood as if exerting all his strength while he cried piteously, “What a hard fate is mine! For here I must die of weariness and thirst and all the world must perish with me. Oh! Oh!” he continued, “I’m tired, so tired.” The tiger stopped a few paces off and asked, “What’s the matter with you, Wee Rabbit?” But Wee Rabbit, pretending not to hear, redoubled his cries, so the tiger drew nearer and repeated his question. “I’m almost too tired to talk,” gasped Wee Rabbit, pretending he was going to fall, and with the tears streaming down his face, he sobbed, “Yes, even my loving wife and helpless babies must perish when my strength gives out.” Here the tiger insisted on knowing the cause of such deep distress, and the rabbit between sobs and moans said, “Unless this great stone is held in place it will fall and kill all the world, and as I am dying of thirst and must soon fall down, the destruction is near at hand.” The tiger thought silently for a while then said, “Let me hold the stone while you go to the brook and quench your thirst.”

Teniendo La Pena (Holding the Stone)

“You are very kind, dear Uncle Tiger, indeed you are,” said Wee Rabbit, “but I cannot allow you to hold this stone,” he continued, “for you might let it fall and if you did—” Here Wee Rabbit stopped abruptly and trembled so violently that his dear uncle expected to see him drop down at any moment, and he was so terrified that he insisted on taking the burden on his own shoulder and he kept on insisting until the rabbit said, “Well, if you are not ready to die and sincerely wish to save the world, come this side and put your shoulder under the stone as I slip mine out.” As soon as the change was effected Wee Rabbit fell as if exhausted at the tiger’s feet and for a few moments his dear uncle thought he was dead, but after a while he revived a little and feebly said, “Do be careful, dear uncle. Stand just as you are until I come back, for I won’t be gone long.” Then Wee Rabbit hobbled off, but he did not stop at the brook—he jumped over it, made a big turn to regain the road, and, as I said before, reached his brother’s house about sunset. When the rabbit didn’t come back, the tiger feared he had fallen in the brook from excessive weakness, but being afraid to leave the stone lest death claim him too, he faithfully continued to hold it until he fell from sheer exhaustion and went to sleep. He was surprised when he woke to find that the great stone was in place and that the beautiful earth still existed. He lay still for a long while thinking, but at last he stretched, got up, and said, “I always knew Wee Rabbit was a fool,” and added, “if he’s dead it’s hard on him but good perhaps for some other people.”

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THE HILLS AND THE CORN

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A Legend of the Kekchi Indians of Guatemala Put in Writing By the Late Tiburtius Kaal and Others and Translated into English By Robert Burkitt

Preface When you try to get hold of a fairy tale in Indian, you have two principal difficulties. One of the two is to get an Indian who can tell a fairy tale. Many Indians, in my experience, can’t tell fairy tales. Some Indians have never heard fairy tales: and those that have, very often don’t remember what they have heard. They have heard some tale, told by an old woman at the fire, perhaps, when they were half asleep, or told by an old man at a feast, when they were half drunk: and they remember scraps of the tale, very likely, and know the tale again when they hear it; but when you ask them themselves to tell the tale, they are very likely to be floored. That is the first difficulty.

The Hills and the Corn

And then comes the other, and more vexatious one. When you do find a man who can tell a tale, you still can’t get the tale down on paper. You can’t get down the actual Indian. You can’t get down the man’s words. You can’t get a man’s words down in English without shorthand, much less in Indian. Of course you might remember some of the man’s expressions and in the end no doubt you could put something together that would be intelligible Indian, and might, in fact, be very good Indian—but it would be your Indian. It might be as good as the real thing. It might be as good as Indian’s Indian. But it could not profess to be anything but your Indian. You might as well, I should suppose, write the thing in English at once. The Indian of this little tale is the real thing. The difficulty about getting Indian’s Indian was got over, by having the tale written by Indians themselves. There are not many, but they are Indians, here and there—mostly about the towns of Cobán and Carchá—who can read and write, in some fashion, in their own language. The writing they can do, as you may suppose, is not apt to be anything very fine. The men are more used to grasping a bush knife than a pen, and besides, even to Indians themselves, writing in Indian is not such plain sailing as you might think. The men have learned reading and writing, not in connection with Indian, but as something that belongs to Spanish. In writing Indian, they have no models. Each man spells and divides his words or joins them together according to his notion at the moment: and he is lucky if he gets through many moments without leaving some word altogether out. Each man is a pioneer. An Indian writing Indian is exploring his own language. However, it is his own language. And I thought that if anything worth looking at, in Indian, was to be got at all, it would have to be through some of those men. I made the experiment. I t happened that two of the men that I got hold of, one of them a Cobán man, and the other a Carchá man, each knew

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something of this tale—it was a tale I had heard something of before—and I got each man to write out for me what he knew. The two writings, when they were done, of course were not alike. And it turned out that one of the two. men, the Cobán man, not only wrote much better than the other, but knew much more of the story. At the same time that other man, who knew less of the story, knew an interesting part of it that the Cobán man didn’t know. What I did then, I had the Cobán man read the other man’s story, and incorporate the other man’s story with his own. Some paragraphs of his own were dropped and new paragraphs were added. And throughout the tale, at the same time, the correctness of the language was closely examined. Finally, as a check on slips of the pen, more than as anything else, I had the revised tale written out afresh by a third man, who knew nothing about the tale, but who had learned reading and writing in my alphabet. The man found nothing of the nature of a mistake, whether in words or in pronunciation: but he made some slight improvements of phrase. The result of the process is the tale as it now stands. You will find plenty of faults of composition in the tale. The telling is uneven. Some points are brought plainly before you, and others seem to be unduly slighted. You are struck by abrupt transitions. Possibly there are points left out. And so on. But on the whole, considering the writers, I think the tale is not a bad job. The Cobán man, who ended by doing nearly all the writing of the tale, was a certain Tiburtius Kaal. He was much the most competent man that could be found: and he is now, I am sorry to say, dead. I am able to present you with his picture. Tiburtius was a pure Indian, with features, as you may see, of that somewhat Jewish cast, which is not at all uncommon among these Indians, His hair was still black, but he was now a man of over sixty. For a long time past, he had been one of the chief men, in fact was the

Tiburtius Kaal, who recorded the story of Xucaneb.

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chief man—the father of the town, as they say—among the Cobán Indians. He was a man of sharp wits, of course—too sharp, his enemies said, and he was that uncommon bird, an Indian of what you might call a literary turn. He read and wrote in Spanish as well as anybody, and he had made a hobby of reading and writing in Indian. He had even invented an alphabet for Indian. He wrote, in the form of a speech, a life of Saint Dominic, the patron saint of Cobán, and a life of Saint John Baptist, the patron of another Kekchi town, and he wrote pieces to be spoken by the mummers at feasts, and various other things, all in Indian. This fairy tale that I am sending you, which Tiburtius had promised to follow with others, turned out to be his last writing. He had a stroke of palsy at the beginning of the year and he died in July. This little picture is a view at the foot of the calvary hill, in the town of Cobán. The hill which is to the right is where Tiburtius is buried. Tiburtius belonged not to this present day of progress, and liberalism (as the name is), in Guatemala, but to a day a little before it: when the country was still out of the world: when the landowners were not yet planters, when the jolly labor recruiter, and the draggle-tail school mistress, were objects still below the horizon, when the Indian was oppressed, without also being continually dragged about and interfered with, and Indian society and customs, and Indian learning, such as it was, still flourished under the shadow of the church. That day is gone. Whatever the present day may produce, it will probably produce nothing resembling Tiburtius Kaal. To come back to the fairy tale—or to the tale (there are no precise fairies in it)—the tale is entitled by Tiburtius, “A thing that happened in ancient times, through the stealing of Xukaneb’s daughter,” but I suppose it might as well be entitled “The Hills and the Corn.” The main business of the tale is a hiding and recovery of corn. The persons are hills and animals. Quare populi meditati sunt inania? [Why have people practiced useless things?]

Tiburtius Kaal is buried to the right of the copse in this cemetery at the foot of Calvary Hill in Cobán.

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Those who make a science of fairy tales will be able, I suppose, at once, to declare the interpretation of the tale, and to identify the tale with any one of a dozen others. For my own part, I find the tale dull. And I should suppose that the chief interest of the tale would lie, not in the tale itself, but in the fact of its being presented in authentic Indian. The tale would be interesting, I should suppose, not so much to those who for any reason were interested in fairy tales, as to those who were interested in the Maya languages. And that is why it is that I have made the translation the sort of translation that it is. You will see at once that it is not a free translation. It is a translation meant to be of use especially to readers who wish to follow the Indian. It is meant to be as nearly as possible a translation of that slavish kind that schoolboys call a key—I say, as nearly as possible, because anything like a word-for-word translation, from a Maya language into English, is not as a rule possible. The two languages are so differently put together, they step with such unequal steps, that any intelligible translation from one to the other is bound to be a loose translation. But there are degrees of looseness, and I have taken pains, in my translation, to make the looseness a minimum. Many translators, including Indians themselves, have a propensity to what you might call, heighten the Indian, to make it say more, or speak finer, or more sophisticatedly, than it really does. That is very easy to do: and it is something that I have particularly avoided. I think that readers of the translation only, will yet get a right impression from it, not merely of the matter of what the Indian says, but what I suppose may be thought more important, of the level of the words in which the Indian says it. This preface of mine is done. I leave you to the main thing, though the preface has come to such a length that I’m afraid the main thing, now, may begin to look like a mere appendix.

A THING THAT HAPPENED IN ANCIENT TIMES1 THROUGH THE STEALING OF XUCANEB’S2 DAUGHTER

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there.

ucaneb, having risen very early, saw that his daughter was not in her sleeping place. He asked his servants whether they had seen her since her waking. The servants said that they had not. They made a complete search for her everywhere, and not a bit did they find her. She was no more

Exceedingly angry at the loss of his daughter, Xucaneb sent to call the worthy counselors, of whom these are the names: Mount Pansuh, Mount Kekwah, Mount Master3 Puklum, Mount Chitsuhay, Mount Chichen, Mount Master Flint.4 And the counselors at once came. Xucaneb went out to receive them, with his heart upset, in pain of mind. He informed them that his cherished daughter had disappeared, without his having a notion where she had gone. “And that is the reason that I have sent and called you,” he says, “so that you may say what I ought to do.” Answer was made by Master Puklum, an old hill, wily, sick, dropsical, an old man, his back bent with age, one that was wise from his birth.

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The Xucaneb range of hills, with a Cobán street in the foreground (Elin Danien).

The Thing that Happened in Ancient Times

He said to Xucaneb, “Command to have loosed and led out two of the fine dogs that you have. Say to them that they are to go to the place of the neighbor, who is between the sun and the wind.5” “If the dogs come back, your daughter is not there. If the dogs do not come, it is a sign that there your daughter is.” Xucaneb advised again a second time with the other hills. These others unanimously approved the thing that Master Puklum said. Accordingly Xucaneb called his two dogs (not mere dogs, one was a puma, and the other a leopard), and sent them to do as the dropsical old man previously said. When these dogs got to the hill they were sent to, they did not start back until the second day. And on the second day, before Xucaneb had risen from his bed, the dogs were already waiting for him. Xucaneb rose, and called his two dogs, to ask what they had seen where they had been. The dogs said to him: “Your daughter Basket grass6 we have found sitting on the knees of the hill Thorn broom.7 We did not come at once, because the whole day we were tied up by Thorn broom, and he did not let us loose til during the night, being afraid of your knowing, where your daughter was.” Xucaneb when he fully understood how this was, what did he do but send and gather together the whole of his goods. He called the scissortail,8 he called the hawk: Go to the hill Saklech,9 he says. Say to him, that I beg of him, that he would receive and put by, in one of his stony repositories, the whole of my goods, the first and foremost being the corn seed. “All my creatures,10 he says, flying animals, and those with four feet, which feed on that corn, let them be there loose at Saklech’s for the magnification of his forest places, til such time as I send again and get them.” The hawk went, along with the scissortail, to tell their message. Saklech answered favorably. Whereupon Xucaneb gathered all his animals, so that between them all they should take to Saklech’s the

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five kinds11 of corn seed.12 They went, those many animals, they carried the five kinds of corn seed, and Saklech stored it. Saklech who was the first suitor13 for Basket grass, daughter of the great Xucaneb, willingly complied with what was asked of him. But he did not know that Basket grass was stolen by the circumventer Thorn broom. Xucaneb having become tired of waiting for his daughter, who did not come near him, sent his younger brother, Little Xucaneb, to get her. But Thorn broom was unwilling to give her. Little Xucaneb, seeing the pride of Thorn broom, sets his fierce dogs on him. The dogs obeyed, they bit Thorn broom all over but neither for that did he let out Xucaneb’s daughter. Little Xucaneb returned, and told his elder brother. Xucaneb on hearing this, was exceedingly angered. He commanded Mother Abaas,14 a neighbor of Thorn broom’s, whether by civil means, or by uncivil means, to go and get out his daughter. And this wise old woman, the wife of Master Puklum, made herself ready, and threw herself with a rush on Thorn broom. And Thorn broom at once surrendered. Nothing else was he able to say, excepting to beg of the old woman that she herself would bring them in before the great hill Xucaneb. So the smart old woman did. And Xucaneb’s heart was set at rest when he saw that his lost daughter came near to him. He forgave Thorn broom who stole her. He recognized him as a good son-in-law. After that, Xucaneb called again the scissortail and the hawk. “My anger against Thorn broom is past, he says. Go to the hill Saklech. Say to him, that by conveyance of those same beasts of mine, let him return the various looking sorts of corn that were given into his keeping.” The hawk and the scissortail went and did their errand. But the hill Saklech was confounded, and said, “What has happened, that he says, My anger is slackened against Thorn broom?”

A spur of the Xucaneb range, called “Little Xucaneb” in the story.

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The hawk and the scissortail answered, “Sir, what has happened, Basket grass was stolen, and since that has married the hill Thorn broom and they are living15 with Master Xucaneb.” “O! how can it be that Thorn broom has married my dear16 Basket grass? How has Xucaneb practiced this deceit on me, and meanwhile I the first asker for his daughter? O! insufferable act! Nothing else does it need, but only a requital. “Say to Xucaneb that it is very much better to die cut in pieces, than to deliver up what he put into my keeping. The corn that he put into my keeping, I will hide forever. All his animals, let them die of rage and famine. Never again shall he see with his eyes a single grain of the corn.” The scissortail and the hawk came and gave their message to Xucaneb. And Xucaneb sent and called the counselors, that they should say what he might do. On that same day they began a great famine among all the animals. Already they are distressed by hunger, the peccary, the wood pig, the paca, and all their companions: they went to look for food, and they did not find it. The only thing was, they met with the fox. [The fox was making a great stink, he was farting, he was belching, and they saw that his belly was swollen. “What have you been and eaten, they said to him, that your belly is swollen, and you are making a stink?” The fox answered, “If my belly is swollen, and I am breaking winds at both ends, it is on account, I suppose, of the famine, the fact being that I have made a meal of my little nuts.”]17 The questioners began to laugh. They proposed among themselves that they should secretly follow this liar, just to know what it was that he ate. And they saw that the fox went to the hill Saklech, to the base of a cliff where there was a nest of leafcutter ants. And the leafcutters, by scores, and by four hundreds, were coming out and going in at

The Thing that Happened in Ancient Times

a crack in the cliff. And those that came out, came out with loads of corn. They were taking the corn to their nest. There the fox seated himself beside the leafcutters’ paths and began to snatch away the corn from the carriers that came out from the junction in the cliff. There the others found him. “Now we have found you out, where it is that you find your food,” they said. They comprehended that nothing whatever was the fox eating but the corn which the leafcutters had gone and found, in the place where it was hidden by the hill Saklech. Happy at what they had discovered, the animals went scampering to report it to Xucaneb.18 What did Xucaneb do, but appoint three bachelor hills, Chitsek was their name, to torment the hill Saklech, the thing being that he wished them to rend the stone repository where the corn was shut up. And the first young hill came, and he flashes his fire19 against the cliff. He put his wits, he put his heart to it, he put out all his strength, in order to break the rock, and not a bit could he do it. Again came the second bachelor hill, no more could he. Lastly came the third, and so again it happened to him. Not the least does the cliff break for them. Although it was a shame to them, they resolved to tell Xucaneb that their strength was not sufficient. They related how many times they had tried, and how many arts they had employed. Xucaneb seeing that those who had been there were not fit to face the hill Saklech, determined to send Master Puklum. He quickly explained to him the nature of what he was to do. As soon as the old man understood what was imposed on him, he said, “How shall it be possible that an old man like me, exceedingly sick as I am, dropsical, swollen in my face, swollen in my feet, shall possibly smite the strong hill Saklech? If the three big youths have not been able to do it, much less can a bent old man such as I.

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be.

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“However, to make an end of it, only perhaps because I am poor, I will try. If I die, why, dead I shall

“Come with me, neighbor Master Flint,20 let me borrow your sandstone, also your firestone, to whet my ax with, and to strike my fire. Beat somewhat loudly your great drum at my going out, so likewise do again at the time of my coming in. “Come here, you my woodpecker. Go and perch yourself against the cliff of Saklech. There you will begin to tap at the cliff with your beak, until you find a part that is hollow. That is the direction in which the corn is hidden. When you hear that, that has the hollow sound, there you will take your stand, until I make ready my fire and my thunder. “When I come, fear nothing. Fly away head downwards. Do not fly away upwards, because so I might burn you.” The woodpecker went to the cliff of Saklech, and did all that had been told him. Having at length found the hollow stone of the cliff, there he remained: then he opened his mouth and cried, so that the old hill might hear him. Master Puklum stirred himself strongly. He flung himself forward with all his fury, his thunder flashes out21 against the hollow stone where the woodpecker stands, and the stone was shivered to bits. The stony storehouse being smashed, the corn of many colors22 came out of it like a spout of water. The corn was spilled on the ground. Master Puklum returned, accompanied by the many animals carrying the corn. Xucaneb awaited his animals at the main entrance that leads to his dwellings. And that entrance place is called the Wild men’s23 cave. There the animals went in, there they left their loads in a magnificent room. And there remained forever the five kinds of corn seed.

The Thing that Happened in Ancient Times

Master Xucaneb was glad, and so were the counselor hills. They celebrated the entry of the corn with an extremity of loud rumblings and claps of thunder, shafts of lightning,24 and snake lightnings, that crossed each other in the air. Before the worthy counselors withdrew, Xucaneb gave corn seed to all of them: so that it being scattered over their woodlands, their animals should not be left without food. And to the stouthearted wise old Master Puklum, he offered to give whatever he should wish, and he put into his charge the oversight and minding of his animals that had come from Saklech. But the woodpecker, something happened to him. When Master Puklum let loose his thunder, the woodpecker lost his senses. Instead of making off head downwards, as commanded to him beforehand, he made off instead upwards. Hence he was not able to save himself from the old man’s bolt. The top of his head was a little burned by the lightning. And so it is that the wood pecker has ever remained with the top of his head red.25 And here ends the record of the ancient hills: Master Xucaneb, Pansuh, Kekwah, Master Puklum, Mother Abaas,26 Thorn broom, Basket grass, Master Flint, Chitsuhay, Chichen, Little Xucaneb, the first Chitsek, the second Chitsek, the third Chitsek, also the worthy stout Saklech, who was left with soreness of heart, with anger against Xucaneb, together with his wicked daughter.

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1. In the belief of Tiburtius and the Indians, of course, the tale is a true tale. It may not be exact, but it is an account that has come down, of things that did anciently happen, and might happen now. 2. Xucaneb is a conspicuous mountain to the southeast of Cobán. It is the highest part of the range of mountains that separates Cobán country from the basin of the Polochic, and is the highest mountain of Alta Verapaz. All the mountains in the story, except one, belong to the Xucaneb range. 3. I say “Master” only to avoid saying “Mister.” The title is often given to hills. 4. Flint is the only one of these names that has a clear meaning. Some of the other names suggest meanings. For instance, Puklum might be fancied to mean “earth smasher.” Puk means to smash, in Kekchi, and in some Maya languages (though not in any neighboring Maya languages), lum means Earth. 5. Tiburtius could not explain this. He told the tale as it was told to him. Most likely what the expression signifies is some point of the compass between the rising sun and a wind blowing probably from the south. The neighbor, as you see later, is another hill, perhaps about southeast of Xucaneb. 6. The name of a hill. 7. Another hill, the hill the dogs were sent to, the neighbor between the sun and the wind. I don’t know the plant “thorn broom” from which the hill is called, but the Kekchi use this tough weed for brooms. In the Indian the hill Basket grass is styled with the prefix x, signifying a female, and Thornbroom is styled with the prefix aj, signifying a male. 8. A bird with a forked tail, a bird smaller than the frigate bird, it comes about the beginning of the rainy season. 9. Saklech is the one hill that does not belong to the Xucaneb range. Instead of being southeast from Coban, Saklech is about northwest, and far out of sight. Saklech is about two days north of Chamá, on the way to the salt springs. The name Saklech, like Xucaneb, has no meaning in Kekchi.

Notes

10. Pigs, turkeys, and so on, animals kept by man. The wild animals belong to the household of the hill and he so speaks of them. 11. I don’t know how many kinds of corn there may be. Each region almost has its own kind. But in the story no particular kind is thought of. Five is merely a representative number. 12. Or seed corn, literally: mother of corn. 13. Asking for a girl has its formalities and is usually a protracted affair, not conducted by the suitor himself. Hills farther apart than Saklech and Basket grass may yet be husband and wife. In the Alta Verapaz, near Cahabon, there is a mountain called Itsam which is wife to Seven ears, a mountain away on the Pacific side of the country. Mother Itsam, as they call her, used to eat people and stopped eating them when her distant husband scolded her. 14. Another hill of the Xucaneb range. Abaas is the name of a useful timber tree. 15. It is the usual thing for a son-in-law to go and live with his father-in-law and work for him. 16. The expression sounds a little sloppy, and an Indian, in the circumstances, would hardly use it, but you must consider here that it is put in the speaker’s mouth by the story teller. 17. The passage enclosed in brackets was omitted from the original publication of the tale in 1918 as being too indelicate for the Museum Journal readers. In its place, the editor commented “At this point the narrative is concerned with the coarse manners and false character of the fox. The others suspect from his appearance and behavior that he has been eating. They question the fox who answers sardonically. The passage is necessarily omitted from Burkitt’s translation” (Burkitt 1918:285.) Ed. 18. All this about the fox, and the other animals meeting him, and the discovery of the corn through the ants, though I should say it was the best-known part of the story, was precisely the part that Tiburtius himself did not know. It might strike you as a curiosity: here is the fox appearing in his European character of a trickster. And you might fancy that the Indians had possibly got that European character of the fox from something they had heard from Europeans, that

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is, from the Spaniards. You may dismiss that fancy. The Central American fox is a small grey animal which the Spaniards have never called a fox. They have always called it a bush cat. There is an animal of the country, which the Spaniards do call a fox, and have always so called, but that animal, strange to say, is the skunk. If the Indians had got the European character of the fox from the Spaniards, they would have put the character on the skunk. 19. The fire natural to the hill is lightning. Thunder and lightning is understood to be an affair of the hills. Thunder is the voice of the hills. The echoing of thunder among the hills is the speaking and answering of the hills. In another version of this same tale, the chief persons of the tale are not called hills, they are called thunders. Instead of the sick old hill, there is a sick old thunder, and the three bachelor hills are three bachelor thunders. 20. That hill was mentioned as one of the counselors. It is a hill at about the west end of the Xucaneb range, near the village of Tactic. 21. The flashing out of thunder is lightning. 22. That is, black, white, yellow, and red, the colors of Indian corn. 23. The words wild men do not express the whole idea. The whole idea is a confused idea. The Cholgwinks were the former inhabitants of the country. They built the stone ruins that the country is sprinkled with. The Cholgwinks whistled and the stones came in place. The Cholgwinks were magicians. At the same time they are imagined as hardly human. When you show an Indian a caricature portrait, he will be likely to ask whether it is a human being or a Cholgwink. It is supposed that Cholgwinks somewhere still exist and they are sometimes identified with the Lacandons. 24. Mam is the Kekchi word for the rumbling and earth shaking of thunder, and is also said for distant thunder. My friend Mr. K. Champney, a long resident of the Alta Verapaz, and a most accurate authority on things Indian, informs me that an Indian of his district speaks of the mam, vaguely, as an earth-shaking “animal in the hill.” There you have another expression of the belief I’ve mentioned, the person—or “animal” or god—of the thunder, inhabits the hill. See note 19.

Notes

25. According to another version of the story, the top of the woodpecker’s head is red because Puklum put a red napkin on the woodpecker’s head when he sent the woodpecker to the cliff, the red napkin being something visible at a distance. Most Indians now wear straw hats, but the proper headdress of an Indian man is a napkin, tied in some way round the top of the head. And a bird’s topknot is often called its napkin. 26. This Mother Abaas, according to one account, afterwards turned into a snake. A mountain may be a snake. Some say that Mount Xucaneb is a snake. They say that he was formerly coiled up and afterwards, I forget on what occasion, sprang out. The mountain has a long waving outline.

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READINGS

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Ajmac Cuxil, Concepción. 1975 Cuentos, leyendas y casos recopilados en la región indígena de Guatemala. Tradiciones de Guatemala 4:205-20. Bierhorst, John. 1986 The Monkey’s Haircut, and other Stories Told by the Maya. New York: William Morrow. Bunzel, Ruth. 1959 Chichicastenango: A Guatemalan Village. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Burkitt, Robert. 1902 Notes on the Kekchi Language. American Anthropologist, n.s. 4:441-63. 1918 The Hils and the Corn. Museum Journal 9,3-4:273-89. 1920 The Hills and the Corn. Anthropological Publications of the University Museum 8,2:181-227. Christenson, Allen J. 2003 Popol Vuh. The Sacred Book of the Maya, The Great Classic of Central American Spirituality, trans. from the original Maya Text. New York: O Books. Coe, Sophie D., and Michael D. Coe. 1996 The True History of Chocolate. New York and London:Thames and Hudson Ltd. de la Cruz Torres, Mario Enrique. 1965 Rubelpec: cuentos y leyendas de Senahu, Alta Verapaz. Guatemala: Ministerio de Educación. 1969 Las Leyendas, Mitos, Fábulas y su influencia en la vida actual del indígena kekchí. In Anales de la Sociedad de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala 40, 1-2: 273-93.

Readings

Danien, Elin. 1999 “Robert James Burkitt and George Byron Gordon: An End and a Beginning.” In Assembling the Past: Studies in the Professionalization of Archaeology, ed. Alice Kehoe and Mary Beth Emmerichs, pp. 25-35. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. 1985 Send Me Mr. Burkitt, Some Whisky and Wine: Early Archaeology in Central America Expedition 27, 3:26-33. Danien, Elin, and Eleanor M. King. 2003 “Unsung Visionary: Sara Yorke Stevenson’s Role in the Development of Archaeology in Philadelphia.” In Philadelphia and the Development of Americanist Archaeology, ed. Don D. Fowler and David R. Wilcox. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Gordon, George Byron. 1915 Guatemala Myths. Museum Journal 6,3: 103-44. Jessup, Marie Hendrick and Lesley Bird Simpson. 1936 Indian Tales from Guatemala. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Hull, Kerry. 2001 A Comparative Analysis of Ch’orti’ Verbal Art and the Poetic Discourse Structures of Maya Hieroglyphic Writing. Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies Research Report. Madeira, Percy C. Jr. 1964 Men in Search of Man: The First Seventy-Five Years of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Osborne, Lilly de Jongh. 1965 Folklore, Supersticiones y leyendas de Guatemala. Comision Permanente de Folklore, Etnografía y Etnología de la Sociedad de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala.

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Peñalosa, Fernando. 1996 The Mayan Folktale: An Introduction. Rancho Palos Verdes, CA: Yax Té Press. Schwartz, Norman. 2000 “Applying Anthropology in the Peten: Saving the Rainforest?” Paper delivered to Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists, Washington, DC., March 7. Shaw, Mary, ed. 1971 According to Our Ancestors: Folkloric Texts from Guatemala and Honduras. Guatemala: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Tedlock, Dennis. 1985 Popol Vuh. New York: Simon and Shuster. 2002 How to Drink Chocolate from a Skull at a Wedding Banquet. Res 42,166-79. Teny Maquín, César Augusto. 1995 Sahil ch’oolej sa’li hoonal (Momentos alegres). Leyendas q’eqchíes de El Estor, Izabal. Rancho Palos Verdes, CA: Ediciones Yax Té. Thompson, J. Eric S. 1939 The Moon Goddess in Middle America With Notes on Related Deities. Washington, D.C. Contributions to American Anthropology and History,29-5,Carnegie Institution Publications 509. 1967 Maya Creation Myths, II. Estudios de Cultura Maya 6:15-43. 1970 Maya History and Religion. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. (Civilization of the American Indian Series, 99). Wilson, Richard. 1993 Anchored Communities: Identity and History of the Maya-Q’eqchi’. Man (n.s.) 28:121-38.