The Singing Mountaineers: Songs and Tales of the Quechua People 9780292762251

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THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

THE SINGING The Quechua Songs were collected by JosE: MARiA ARGUEDAS, taken down while they were sung in Quechua, then later translated into Spanish by him. The Threshing Songs of Angasmayo were collected in the same way by MARIA LoURDES VALLADARES, and translated by her from Huanca, a dialect of Quechua, into Spanish. The Quechua tales were collected by FATHER JoRGE A. LIRA, and were translated into Spanish by JosE: MARiA ARGUEDAS.

The tales were translated from the Spanish into English by KATE AND ANGEL FLORES. The songs and the essays were translated from the Spanish into English by RuTH STEPHAN.

COLLECTED BY

JOSE

MARiA ARGUEDAS

EDITED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

RUTH STEPHAN DRAWINGS BY DONALD WEISMANN

MOUNTAINEER S Songs and Tales of the quechna People

AUSTIN

•

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS

~

Copyright © 1957 by Ruth Stephan Copyright © renewed 1985 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to:  Permissions   University of Texas Press   P.O. Box 7819   Austin, TX 78713-7819  www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/bpermission.html

Library of Congress Catalog Number 57-008825 isbn 978-0-292-70994-2

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Editor is grateful to the Peruvian poets Emilio Westphalen and Manuel Moreno Jimeno and to the Peruvian artist Judith Westphalen for checking the consistency of the English translations of the songs with their Peruvian nature. Appreciation is due, too, for assistance and for the use of books in the following libraries: Yale University Library, The Hispanic Foundation and the Music Reading Room in the Library of Congress, the Library of the Pan American Union in Washington, D.C., the Latin-American Collection of the University of Texas, the American History Room in the New York Public Library, Columbia University Library, and the Greenwich Public Library in Greenwich, Connecticut.

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1

BY RUTH STEPHAN

ON ANDEAN FIESTAS AND THE INDIAN BY

JOSE

23

MARIA ARGUEDAS

QUECHUA SONGS To Be Wandering The Fire that I Have Started That She May Not Find Dew I Nurse a Fly You Were Crying Alone, Little Duck Ay Purple Flower! A Wandering Hummingbird In this Growing Darkness The Bird that Hides Itself The Black Water Without Anyone, Without Anyone Crystalline River Leave-taking Divided Herb Flying High in the Air Celso Medina Emerald Hummingbird

37 39 40 41

42 44 46

47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57

vii

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

The Sand of the River When You Find YourseH Alone The lschu Is Weeping Snow Storm Like Two Doves Carnival Song Tambobamba Carnival Tell Her that I Have Wept The Sweet Water What Sorrow Will She Dream Falcon of the Heights Like a River My Weeping Yunca THE THRESHING SONGS OF ANGASMAYO First Song Second Song: Guavas Third Song: Green Olive Tree Fourth Song: Little Lizard Fifth Song: The Bagre Fish Sixth Song: Cerbaschay Seventh Song: Bachelor Eighth Song: Lima Lima Flower Ninth Song Tenth Song: Majordomo Eleventh Song QUECHUA TALES The Hail The Youth Who Rose to the Sky The Little Bull with the Shiny Skin The Flour Dealer The Head of the Town and the Demon The Condor's Lover Miguel Wayapa The Snake's Sweetheart Isicha Puytu ON THE SONGS AND TALES

58 59 60 61 62 63 65 66 67

68 69

70

71 73

75 77 79

80 81 82 84 85 87 89 90 91 93 96

105 109 113

126 139 147 156 171

BY JOSE MARfA ARGUEDAS

EDITOR'S NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

viii

185

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

INTRODU~TION

BY

RUTH

STEPHAN

To READ these songs and tales only as living folklore would be to lose a good part of the excitement of their presentation, charming as they are within themselves, for in their background, like brilliant steady stars, or, perhaps, like the mountains the Quechua people live upon, are the centuries of civilizations from which they have emerged, civilizations which were among the highest Indian cultures on the American continents. One of the greatest of these was the Inca, and, although the Incas are renowned for the highly organized administration of their vast mountainous empire, for the engineering of their roads and architecture, for their genius in agriculture, for the opulence of their art in ceramics and weaving, an art that contemporary artists still copy, they are distinguished, too, in our wonder at their history because they had no written language. To us, the heirs of a civilization with a passion for naming, for listing, and for preserving facts and fancies in writing, the circumstance that the Incas did not develop a written language is astonishing, nor would it be so astonishing if they had not ex-

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

celled intellectually in other ways. When we remember their schools and widespread teaching with no textbooks other than the quipus whose knotted strings recorded numbers, we must respect the exact memories demanded and the flexible libraries their minds had to become. Andean Indian legend has an answer for this. The seven· teenth century Spanish historian Fernando Montesinos recounts as history the story of how the knowledge of letters was lost in Peru and why it never was recovered. He had it, he claimed, from the amautas, or learned men, whom he met during his travels in Peru, but it is more probable he read it in the library of the college at La Paz in the manuscript of Bias Valera, the sixteenth century Jesuit priest whose words, said Carcilaso de la Vega, were pearls and precious stones. Since Bias Valera was half Peruvian and spoke Quechua as his native tongue, he would have been able to collect a great deal of valuable information on the living habits, legends, poetry, all that had preceded, and it is a misfortune that his writings disappeared long ago, making it impossible for modem historians to read and evaluate his records. According to Montesinos, in pre-Inca times, over a thousand years ago by our calculations, "confusion was caused in Cuzco by the entrance of strange peoples in Peru," and when the King, Tito Yupanqui, was killed in battle by the ferocious enemies, the government of the Peruvian monarchy was "lost and destroyed. It did not come into its own for four hundred years, and the knowledge of letter~ was lost." There must have been a resurgence of some kind of letters, however, for several pages and several kings later, Montesinos tells about the troubled King, Tupac Couri Pachacuti, who came to believe that communication in writing was the source of the pestilences, superstitions, and vices spreading among his people. The use of quilcas, parchments or leaves of trees with writing on them, was banned effectively by a death penalty, and the law became 4

INTRODUCTION

so ingrained in the nature of the land that many years afterwards when an amauta again invented written characters he was burned alive. This, of course, is legend, even, some say, a fancy by Montesinos, not proved history, and it is assumed that neither the Incas nor the tribes preceding them ever conceived of the art of writing. The people of the Peruvian Andes have lived by oral traditions from earliest known times to the present day, through the long glory of the Inca reign, and the four hundred years since the Spanish conquered the country and began to impress their customs, their religion, and their language upon it. They have persisted in their traditions, moreover, in spite of the attempts of the Spaniards to substitute their own, and in spite of the changing culture of the coastal cities and plains just over the seaward ridges of their mountains, even after Peru became an independent nation. This deep adherence to their own ways is appreciated by anyone who becomes intimate with the conventions of the Andean Indians, seeing how many of them maintain ancient practices of magic in the seclusion of their houses and in mountain retreats, how they have kept their own religions within the cloak of Spanish Catholicism, joyously celebrating the Catholic ceremonies which fall so conveniently close to the agricultural rituals of the Inca calendar, letting their early religious festivals exist in modem Indian "games." Further, the Quechua language, which derives from the court language of the Incas, is spoken more extensively now than at the end of the Inca reign in the sixteenth century. The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, one of the fortunate products of the Spanish conquest, his father a Spanish captain and his mother an Inca princess bequeathing to him the passions and intelligences of each side, urged the Spaniards, in his interesting history, Comentarios Reales, to learn the court language and to teach with it in order to win the Indians' fuller understanding of Christianity. He did not add that the Indians were not apt to

0

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

learn Spanish, as the social writers of today do in advising that the Quechua language be used to bring the education of the western world to Andean communities. Few of the Indians speak Spanish, even now, while Quechua has come to dominate all the previous dialects. We can call this the tenacity of the Inca tradition, or, more ideally, the insistent independence of a racial soul. Since the Andean people always have been a singing, a poetically disposed, race, the songs have their own proud past. During the reign of the Incas it was the duty of the wise men, the amautas, to recite short narratives and allegories, and, in this manner, generation after generation, to instruct the children and remind the elders about their traditions as a people. The most notable events were put into verse by the poets, the haravecs, or "inventors," to be sung at their festivals and at their celebrations after a victory. These ballads were short, lively, and traditional in form, and appropriate new songs were composed after each triumph. Garcilaso described how the soldiers came marching back into Cuzco, their weapons in their hands, divided according to provinces, "singing songs to celebrate the deeds of the Incas in war. These songs declared the greatness and excellence of the Incas, their courage and bravery in battle, their skill and perseverance in arranging the movements of their troops, their patience and kindness in suffering the insolence of the enemy, their clemency and charity to the vanquished, their liberality to the captains and soldiers, their prudence and wisdom in all acts. They repeated the names of the Incas many times, declaring that their virtue richly entitled them to such good and exalted names." It is well to remember that by "Inca" Garcilaso meant "king" or "chief' and certain close members of his family, as it is only in recent times that "Inca" has come to stand for the previous race and civilization as a whole. Then each tribe carried its own designation, while the empire, being divided into four

6

INTRODUCTION

parts with a road running out of Cuzco, the "navel," to each part, was called Tahuantinsuyu, the "four quarters of the world." The festivities in the plaza that followed the triumphal entrance and the proper worship in the Temple of the Sun, a temple whose lower walls still are standing, were impressive occasions for songs and dancing, to the accompaniment of drums and flutes, clay or shell trumpets, gongs, clappers, seed rattles, bronze rings, and various kinds of pipes, whatever the people of each province had brought, and the merriment, the singing, dancing, eating, drinking, would continue according to the importance of the victory, from several days for a lesser one to, for the greatest, a month. Hearing this, no one can doubt the stamina of these people. At these celebrations, too, there were dramatic presentations, tragedies on military matters, the feats of past kings, and other heroic themes, and comedies with agricultural or homelife themes. These dramas have been described as narratives, or dialogues, sung by one or two persons with an assisting chorus, and interposed as part of the public dances. The parts were played, or sung, by nobles and military officers, sometimes by the Incas themselves. There were more songs and dances at the religious fiestas when the marvelous masks were worn and which lasted many days, and at the agricultural rites. Of these dances Luis E. Valcarcel estimates that almost two hundred survive and are used in present fiestas throughout the Andean countries. No one has tried to count the number of songs. Jose Maria Arguedas, describing the harvest rites in theregion of Cuzco, gives a picture of a ceremony that may have been taking place for hundreds of years. It is in May, the harvest month, when the sky is always clear. The workers, called the "guests" of the farmer, go to the harvesting as to a fiesta, arriving long before dawn. The first guest to appear becomes

7

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

the Ccollana, the ''best," or ''boss," and will direct the harvest. He also is supposed to be first in doing the most work. "When all the guests have arrived at the farm, they get together at the end of the wheat field from where they will begin the reaping. The Ccollana directs the first ceremony. Raising his arms towards the sky, he gives thanks to the earth for having made the seed germinate, for having nourished it, for having ripened it, and he thanks, too, the sky because it moistened the soil with rains, because it gave its fecund watering to the seeded fields; he calls to the great mountains, watchtowers of the land, renders them homage, and then gives the signal to begin. The deli, cate light of the dawn illuminates the profile of the cordilleras; in this light, smooth and cold, the yellow tassels are stirred softly by the wind; on the stretch of rolling ground the wheat fields are seen like great glittering stains because the auroral light rises and is inflamed on the pale gold of the tassels. The Ccollana sings first, and alone, the faychaya; afterwards all the harvesters repeat the song, tool in hand, with fervor, beginning to cut off the tassels while they sing. The meaning of the faychapa is incomprehensible, it has no significance. Perhaps earlier, in a very primitive epoch, these words had significance, but now they serve only to intonate the music: !aycharaya faycharayucha jaycharayara jaycharaya

Or perhaps this song does not require words, does not need them, because its force, its expression, is in the voice of the man, in the unutterable emotion that the Indian feels at harvesting, at receiving the fruit of the earth." Later, when the wheat has been cut and carried to the threshing floor where cows and bulls are made to run to separate the grain, the harvesters "all shout in falsetto as strongly as B

INTRODUCTION

they can, 'baila! baila! waay! yauu! birrrt These shouts are heard at distant kilometers, and, as the whole piece of ground is for the harvest, the shouts fill the air." The interpolation of the Spanish word "baila," "dance," not only suggests that at one time a dance was connected with the ceremony, but also shows how the Quechuas sometimes adopted a foreign word for their own phrasing. In Angasmayo there is continual dancing at the threshing floor, and it is believed that the rites of the harvest there have descended, too, from the days of the Inca empire. The songs attending the threshing, translated for this book, may or may not be old, or, most probably, have been constantly renewed with the tendency of such lore to be freshened into an eternal youth· fulness. The Peruvian folklorist J. M. B. Farfan found a startling example of the preservation of an ancient song when he was collecting songs in Ancash a few years ago. The seventeenth century Indian chronicler, Felipe Waman Pomade Ayala, gave a fragmentary song, I Tinyachishun, which was said to have been sung in a popular drama as an encouragement to the defenders of the Inca: Aucap umanuan upyason quironta ualcarisun tullunuan pinkullusien carampe tinyacusun taquecusun

The song Farfan heard and wrote down is: Quaranta tinyachishun Kirunta wallqakushun Tullunta pinkullushun Umanchu upyashun

Farfan translated both versions into Spanish, which, translated exactly into English are, first, Pomade Ayala's version:

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

We shall drink with (in) the head of the enemy we shall carry necklaces (of) his teeth we shall make flute with his bone of his skin drum and we shall sing

while the living Ancash song is: Of his skin we shall make drum Of his teeth necklace Of his bone flute And we shall drink in his head

This is particularly interesting since the two songs were heard by their collectors three hundred and fifty years apart, nor could there have been any way the later one derived from the earlier except orally. Poma de Ayala, called the "First Americanist," wrote and illustrated his work, El Primer Cr6nica y Buen Gobierno, during the latter years of his life, between 1584 and 1614, with the purpose of sending it to the King of Spain to win better legislation for the Indians. By the time he finished his work he was eighty-eight years old, a man ready to close his life with the closing of his work. As far as is known, his manuscript never reached Spain, nor was it seen again until the beginning of the twentieth century when it was discovered in the Royal Library in Copenhagen by a visiting historian. It still was many years before it was printed and generally known, so the Indians in Ancash could not have had the song suggested to them, even indirectly, from an outside source. The Incaic religious hymns were said to be of an extraordinary poetic quality, but, since the early missionaries disliked the poems anrl songs imbued with the Inca's religion, they neglected their preservation, and the surviving examples are rare. Judging by the large body of Quechua Catholic hymns today, these ancient hymns must have been numerous, although there is not agreement among contemporary Quechuists on the actual 10

INTRODUCTION

relationship between the two, whether or not the Indian Catholic has grown out of the lncaic. In answer to an assertion by one writer that they have, Arguedas says, "It is naturally perturbing to study anything with a predetermined prejudice, and it is even riskier to forward categorical judgments about documents that are not known." Another collector of hymns, Fray Jose Pacifico Jorge, writes, "We do not know completely the origin of the major part of these songs, but we have utilized the known practice of some persons who sing the religious songs with admirable precision, translating as much as we have seen possible their illimitable rhythms and pathetic cadences." To trace the form, the music, and the ideas of these hymns, about which everyone, at least, agrees as to their beauty, has become a major Quechua study in itself, but the proof of their antique identity does not seem as important as the confirmation, once again, of the Indians as original personages and as poets. They may have assumed the Spaniard's religion, but they are not singing his hymns. These they compose themselves. In the choice of a favorite subject for their fo1k songs, the haravecs of the Incas and the Indian singers of today are similar to poets of every time and place: love-lonesome love, wayward love, disappointed love, seductive, protesting, protecting, and teasing love. In Comentarios Reales Garcilaso printed an Inca love song he recalled, putting it into Spanish thus: Al cantico Dormiras Media noche Vendre

which, translatec., simply, can be: To the song

You will sleep At midnight I will come

II

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

In its original Quechua, or court language, the poem was in lines of four syllables each, the syllabic structure being a favorite with haravecs, although there were several other kinds of verses. The love poems were short, said Garcilaso, because it was easier to play them with the flute. The living folk songs are not as strict in their syllabic form as those of antiquity were said to be, but they tend to a regularity in their rhythm to fit the tenacious beat of the music, which, once heard, cannot be forgotten. To hear the songs sung, even by one singer, is a remarkable experience in melody and expression. The sounds move as in a dance of their own, leaping from consonant to consonant in a lively, yet haunting, sweetness. Their phrases are neither crude nor primitive; on the contrary, they have a grace and sensibility that mark the songs as poetry, and carry them out of the ethnological and into the aesthetic sphere. While the threshing songs are peppery, bubbling with images which seem to be thrown in, one on top of the other, for the mere joy and humor of it, the shorter songs are pure and unconfused, their tenderness pervasive; and when they are plaintive, it is not with the elaborate self-pity many western poets mistake for tragedy, it is with the natural sighing sound of a spring wind moving through leafy trees. Most of the symbols have to do with nature, for these are people with an amiable relationship with the earth. Their race is noted for its ancient skill in catching and taming animals instead of killing them, and birds and animals exist as possible friends, as integral living relations in the Indian world. One is not alone on a mountainside or pampa if an eagle, a falcon, a vicufia, even a little duck, hovers nearby. Then love or sorrow can be shared. Flowers, too, have understan:2ing. All, like the singers, are struggling members of a fraternity sometimes called the universe. Certainly they are a singing people, these mountaineers. The young men and women sing as they walk, swingingly, down J2

INTRODUCTION

the mountain paths to market and church on Sunday mornings, and all ages sing as they work in the fields. When several are plowing together, they move in unison, leaning on their tools, pushing, digging, to the rhythm of their song. And the work is done with amazing quickness. The folk tales have an entirely different tone from the songs, and an obviously different purpose. The Inca myths and legends recorded by the early chroniclers were concerned with the origin of the race, with magic beings, with mighty kings, and tales such as the ones in this book were not included. These, probably, were the kind of fables told by the amautas whose task it was to implant morality in the people, for they are tales touching the activities and emotions of everyday living, using birds and animals, their familiar symbols, to point out the virtuous road for Indian conduct. They bear warnings of fantastic fates due those who transgress the family rules and customs. Reading them, an outsider is aware of the fear and distrust of the stranger in the community. Take care, daughters, they say, not to love a stranger, handsome and beguiling as he may appear, for he is, actually, a snake who will suck away your family's riches, or a vulture who will carry you off to undreamed unhappiness. There is no hesitation in using terms physically repugnant to illustrate a meaning, for, to them, the physical is not vulgar, neither does it pose as a good or bad moral, because it is a commonplace fact. The tales are careful to show, moreover, that virtue is for the leaders of a town and for the wealthy as well as for ordinary people. There is no double thinking. The language is singularly rich and imaginative, many of the pithy words indicative of a complicated sensation, observation, or happening. It is acknowledged as being the most elegant of South American dialects, and the most widely spoken of any Indian language on either American continent. Garcilaso, in urging its use, said, "The Indians who speak this language have their intellects more clear and apt for comprehension, and J3

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

the language itseH possesses more scope and a greater variety of elegant and figurative modes of expression." Garcilaso went on to tell how the language came to be widespread in the Andes, writing that the Inca "appointed very learned masters for the sons of princes and nobles, not only for those in Cuzco, but also for those throughout the provinces.... thus it was that in the whole empire of Peru one language was spoken.... The Incas established for the good government of their empire ... a rule that all their subjects should learn the language of the court, being that which is known now as the general language. It should be understood that the Incas had another special language which they spoke among themselves, but which the other Indians did not understand, nor was it lawful for any to learn it. They write me word from Peru that this language is entirely lost. ... Those Kings ordered the general language to be learned for two reasons, one was that there might be no need of a multitude of interpreters to explain the language of all the tribes in their empire. The Incas desired that their people should speak to them without the necessity for a third person, knowing how much more satisfactory it must be to have one word from the prince himseH than from his minister. The other reason was that the strange peoples (who had looked upon each other as enemies because they could not understand what they had said) by speaking and opening their hearts might love one another as if they had been of one family and parentage. By this means the Incas civilized and united a great variety of diverse nations .... The general language ... in the time of the Incas was used from Quito to the Kingdoms of Chile and Tucma.... The order was given that all should learn the court language and teach it to their children." It has not been easy, however, for outsiders to learn the language. There is, first, the unique enunciation. Since most Quechua words are accented in the same place, that is, on the next to the last syllable, and since the words generally are long,

14

INTRODUCTION

there is a definite rhythm, a beat to the speaking as well as to the singing, which is comparable to the pounding of soft drum music. This can be heard in a sentence of only three words, as in H inaspatakkya warminkka niskka (The woman answered him). Then, while there is a great freedom and variety in forming words, each sound counts for the exactness of the expression. For example, there are several different ways to sound the k, and Osgood Hardy tells how "the absence of a slight click turns 'a gentleman' into 'a lake of grease,' or 'a gate of the rainbow' into 'the door of a pigpen:" And John Howland Rowe relates that "The precision of feeling and emotion that is possible in Quechua was so frightening to the Spanish priests, whose theology was carefully thought out in the broad and matter-offact terms of Latin, that many of them hesitated even to catechize the Indians in their own language." It was, curiously, because of one of the early churchmen that the name Quechua came to be used as a name for the language, and, eventually, for the people who speak it. The general language in Inca times was known as Runa Simi. The man who christened it Quechua, a Dominican monk, Fray Domingo de Santo Tomas, was a frail grammarian, the first person to receive a doctorate at the University of San Marcos in Lima. He compiled and published the first grammar and vocabulary the country ever had known, the Lexicon o Vocabulario de la Lengua General del Peru, printed in Valladolid in 1560. Since the University had just been founded in 1551, this probably was the work which gained him his title of doctor, but its more utilitarian aim must have been to aid his brother Dominicans in talking to the Indians and pursuing conversions, for his book is small and light, one that easily could be slipped into the pocket of a traveler. The immense value of the Lexicon can be understood when it is realized that the various tongues spoken in Peru were numbered in the hundreds. In each district, however, there were some who spoke the general language. 15

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

Fray Domingo de Santo Tomas gave no reason for suddenly calling the general language Quechua in his book, still every grammarian from that day to this has copied him. There is no way of knowing if he intended the name or if it was one of those historical accidents when a seemingly innocent decision on a seemingly minor matter establishes a precedent simply because it is followed. According to some historians, Quechua was the name of a tribe whose chief, around A.D. 1200 in our calendar, claimed divine ancestry as the son of the Sun and became the first Inca. Other historians say that Quechua never was used by the Indians themselves as a tribal designation, but that it meant "mountaineers." It has been pointed out, further, that early spellings of the word signified "temperate region," which could be stretched to include the inhabitants. Sir Clements Markham, the nineteenth century Englishman who was dedicated to Peruvian studies, wrote of Santo Tomas that "it only can be conjectured that he learnt the language and composed the grammar while residing in the Quichua district and so adopted the name." This district was in the Andes of central Peru in the valley of the Pachachaca River. One fact all agree on is that the language originated in the area of Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital. Some have called it the language of Cuzco. Whatever the buried reason for the name of the language, Fray Domingo de Santo Tomas earned an immortal title as the discoverer of Quechua. In his lifetime he earned a title, too, that of Bishop of La Plata. Surely this pious Catholic could not have intended his grammar to have the eventual effect it did of being a link between the Inca rulers and their Indian posterity. How could he have foreseen that, as the Spanish missionaries used Quechua to spread the Catholic faith, persevering into as many comers of the land as they could reach, they were assisting the life of the language itself? For four hundred years the language has developed rather than sickened and died as the tongue of a conquered empire, and it has come to be proof to 1.6

INTRODUCTION

the race that they were not, and never could be, entirely vanquished. The Andean Indians today probably never heard of Santo Tomas, nor even, perhaps, of the name Runa Simi, but the Quechua language has become, to them, the symbol of their unity as the Inca kings desired. There are almost two million Indians in Peru who do not speak any other language, another million who speak Quechua and some other dialect, and, without any political organization whatsoever, they realize themselves as a spiritual nation. They carry on their traditions, their agricultural rites, their fiestas, their dances, their songs. They are the Quechua people. The rarity of a knowledge of their folklore, however, does not depend only on the barrier of their language and customs. The world of the Quechua people, the Andean highlands, a series of wide valleys stretching for over a thousand miles from Lake Titicaca south, is enclosed by a jagged fencing of mountains. Beyond these mountains to the east are the lush, almost impassable jungles of the central part of South America, through which winds the Amazon from its headwaters in the highlands, and to the west are hundreds of miles of arid ranges and plains gradually declining to the sapphirine Pacific. It is, within these natural walls, a world of peculiar radiance. Indeed, the beauty of the Central Andes is so startling that it turns scholars into poets, and into their statistical records and measured geographical descriptions slip pictures of snow-capped peaks and jade valleys, of waterfalls gushing over precipices, of golden wheat fields and orchards of pears, peaches, and apples, of luscious strawberry beds and alligator pear and breadfruit trees, of amazing gorges, of crystal-clear rivers, of gardens of roses, lilies, and brilliant unknown flowers, of pale eucalyptus trees against a blazing, blue sky, and, in every direction, designs of mountain acclivities and high, sharp, rock ridges. A train runs from the town of Mollendo on the Pacific coast up and over the western border of mountains to Puno on Lake

17

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

Titicaca, then down a long, green, fruited valley, a valley whose altitude is 12,000 feet, to the beautiful city of Cuzco, curled, at the end, against Andean slopes. It is possible to fly, too, by airline, to this heart of the Quechua country, to pass over the margin of western ideas and habits in a few hours and alight at Cuzco, to walk in an Indian world brushed by Spanish colonialism, to encounter the shrouds of Inca magnificence. Beyond, however, travel is increasingly hard. There are a few short branches of the railroad, a few roads that can be traversed by car or truck in good weather, and that is all. The communities scattered for hundreds of miles through the succeeding valleys must be reached by horseback, by muleback, or by foot, the famous road system of the Incas not having been made for vehicles but for runners, their ancient discoveries not including that of the wheel. Collectors of folklore, thus, not only must be indefatigable intellectually and humanly to gain fluency in the language and win friendliness among the people, they must be adaptable physically, and familiar with the country. During the years when he was a boy growing into young manhood, Jose Marfa Arguedas, who is responsible for the songs and tales in this volume, traveled by horseback with his father, a judge, to the remote towns and districts in the Andes. His birthplace and home was in the city of Andahuaylas, in the Department of Apurfmac. It was, Arguedas says, three days by horseback to Cuzco, twelve days to Coracora, and to Huaytara, five days by horseback and one day by truck. His mother having died when he was three years old, he had lived, until he was old enough to accompany his father, with various relatives in different parts of the highlands, and had been a great favorite with the Indians at the haciendas where he stayed. He enjoyed taking part in their fiestas, and learning their songs to sing with them. Although Spanish was the language of his home, the sound of Quechua was in his ears throughout his childhood and

IB

INTRODUCTION

youth. In Apurimac, for example, ninety percent of the population spoke only Quechua. Fortunately his affection for the Indian did not vanish at the touch of European culture when he moved, at the age of twenty, to Lima to attend the University of San Marcos; instead, seeing the spasmodic knowledge in Peru concerning such a major portion of their inhabitants, his interest increased, so that he decided to devote his life to their folklore. He had the obvious advantage, moreover, of a good start in the Quechua tongue, as well as the invaluable confidence of many of the Quechua people. Since then, he has watched and noted their rites and customs, he has collected music and lore, he has written down their songs in Quechua while listening to the Indians sing them, all with meticulous care. It is in the songs, he says, that the truest clue to the Quechua nature is found. In them, the Indian speaks for himself, from his heart. It was while Arguedas was teaching in the Andes, as Professor of Spanish and Geography at the Colegio Nacional "Mateo Pumacahua" in Sicuani, a town between Puno and Cuzco, that he stopped to listen one day to a sermon being given to the Indians in the plaza by the parish priest of Marangani. This sermon was, he tells, the most beautiful he ever heard. He immediately made friends with the priest, Father Jorge A. Lira, and begged him to turn his talents, his evident understanding of the Quechua people and his ease in their language, to collecting folklore, to put down the living Indian culture before it disappeared. He also urged him to compile a dictionary of contemporary Quechua. Father Lira was persuaded to dedicate himself to these studies, and, because of his confidential relationship with the Indians, he has been able to gather tales not generally known. In the essay by Arguedas near the end of this book, he tells how he and Lira collected the songs and tales from the lips of the Indians, of the infinite patience needed, and 19

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

of how they worked together to bring the lore with its oral flavor into written Spanish. The difficulty in translating from Quechua into Spanish was to preserve the special singing quality, the diffuse meanings, and the characteristic intonations of the Indian. Since there were no written forms to follow, only the sounds in the air, and since one word in Quechua with no equivalent might indicate a long description in Spanish, the translated versions of the songs have had to acquire a certain free form of their own. The Indian character, the mood, the image, and the meaning has been kept absolute, while the pronounced beat of Quechua was not always transferable. The How of the songs from Spanish to English had no such hindrances, and the translations are the closest possible literal renderings. Wherever there were Quechua or Peruvian words and terms that were not translatable into English, such as flowers and birds native to the Andes, they have been left intact in the text and defined in the notes at the end of the book, where, too, a few explanations have been added on the background of locally conceived images. The tales, of course, without the limitations and clipped lines of poetry, could be exact from the Quechua through Spanish into English, as exact, that is, as any translation can be. In spite of the traveling from language to language, there has been no attempt to dictate a style, since true style never is superimposed, but rises from within the nature of a work. This book, being confined to the literary aspect of the folklore, has excluded an analysis of the music of the songs, which will be found by enquiring readers in La Musique des Incas et ses Survivances by Raoul and Marguerite d'Harcourt, who traveled extensively in Peru for that purpose. For those who prefer a listening rather than a discussion or description, a list of the few available recordings of Quechua singers and musicians has been added to the bibliography. In them, the pulsating Incaic rhythms beat out of the past and through the present, the years

20

INTRODUCTION

between unresisting, as if time were an amusement, an invention, a fable told by an amauta. Happily for the curious outside world, the realizations of Quechua folklore are just beginning to expand. Since 1953 AIguedas has been head of the Instituto de Estudios Etnol6gicos del Museo Nacional de Historia in Lima, where Father Lira and such devoted Quechuists as J. M. B. Farfan collaborate with him to collect, preserve, and publish folklore and studies of the Quechua people. Other eminent writers, many of whose names and works are included in the bibliography, have traced, and continue to trace the history, habits, and culture of the Andean Indians. Their scholastic expositions are invaluable for a comprehension of a remarkable civilization. Meanwhile, within their harboring mountains, are the living individuals, the women moving about in wide homespun skirts, the striped handwoven shawls about their shoulders pinned with silver tupus, felt hats decorated with glistening braiding balance on their heads like large shallow pans, the men in knee breeches reminiscent of those of European courtiers at the time of the Conquest, patterned ponchos drooping below their waists, bright knitted chullus pulled over their ears against the crisp air of the high altitudes, the children running about barefoot, whatever the weather. Their chests are huge, their legs strong from climbing, their skin bronze, as if reflecting the sun on the earth. They seem realistic, unsentimental people, concerned with their llamas, their fields, their Sunday markets, and their church parades, but in them is a streak of untamed artistry. Let them speak for themselves.

21

ON ANDEAN FIESTAS AND THE INDIAN

ON ANDEAN FIESTAS AND THE INDIAN

BY

.JOSE

MARfA

ARGUEDAS

I IN THE great patio of the Hacienda Viceca the women, boys and peons used to sing at night. The owners of Viceca let us sing. On a clear night when the moon was full, the people of the hacienda gathered together in the center of the patio; men, women and children, we seated ourselves on the dry manure and sang happy songs of all kinds. At times, the owners of the hacienda came out into the passageway and listened to us; once in a while they, too, sang, the landlord played the guitar and his wife sang happy songs and sad songs. The peons never danced on those nights. These songs were not for dancing. Viceca is a deep, narrow ravine. The settlement borders on the river; at night the river sounds strongly. Near the settlement is a cascade; between the stones the water froths white and makes a brisk noise. At night, when all was hushed, this cascade raised its sound and seemed to sing. In a little while the people of the hacienda would become silent; Don Sararaura would tell us: ..Now the river, too ...." Everyone would lower

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

his eyes and listen, we seemed to hear the voice of a woman; surely it was the wind whistling in the peach trees in the garden in the thickets of broom, but we thought the river was singing. And we alternated, the river and the chorus of peons. Don Sararaura made us believe that the river answered us. At the fiesta in Utek and K'ochapata the townspeople sang other songs, huaynos. They danced at the majordomo's house, and on the corners of the plaza; we boys followed the huifaleros. At corn-harvesting time and when the large town canal was being dug, the farmers also danced and sang. Close by the corn plantings the harvesters had large bonfires every night and sang in chorus, men and women; the larger children joined the chorus, the smaller ones slept on the green cornhusks. At times, men and women joined hands, and, as in a game, danced in a circle. From the other fields were heard almost the same huaynos, some sung with the charango and guitar, others with the flute. And, at times, the owners of the chacras, and boys and girls, also sang with the cholos. The moon illuminated the ravine, the shadow of the hills was spread over the cornfields, and the stars shone in the sky. At the hour we sang on the farms, the children came closer, little by little, and followed the song. Afterwards we made hollows in the green cornhusks and slept, smelling the ripe cornstalks and the dry grasses. The children waited all year for the arrival of the corn harvest. During the digging of the large canal, the women cooked for the laborers and at noon climbed the hill carrying lunch and chicha to the farmers. At nightfall everyone came down to the town, singing in the huifala. They went through the streets chain dancing, the musicians leading, and arrived at the plaza where they made several turns around the tall eucalyptus tree singing, shouting and stamping. The children followed the dancers, and at times also grasped each other's belts and made up another huifala in back of the farmers. At those times, I believe that no one remembered his sufferings. The young fellows took women im26

ON ANDEAN FIEST AS AND THE INDIAN

mediately for themselves on those days, going off for a short while or forever. At twelve years of age I left the ravine. My father took me to visit other towns. One year at Abancay, another at Pampas, another at Chalhuanca, Cangallo, Ayacucho, Huaytara, Yaunos, Andahuaylas. In all these towns there were small, clean, wellpaved streets with two-storey houses, stores, restaurants, billiard parlors; these streets smelled of new merchandise, of wine. In these houses lived the leading people and the town authorities; the judge, the sub-prefect, mayor, military chief, priest. All the rest of the town was Indian. These towns, like mine, had two or three big fiestas a year. On the morning of the great day, the Indians filled the principal streets; they entered the shops, or strolled about in the middle of the street. At the pealing of the church bell, the Indians entered the church and filled it completely, from wall to wall; at times the church could not hold them all, and the people heard mass from the plaza, in front of the main door. The important townspeople crowded together at the main altar. Afterward the Indians began the fiesta; they came out dancing huaylias and machok's with rapa and violin, clarinet or flute. They danced at the street comers and in the plazas; the townspeople followed them, Indians, mestizos, and even young gentlemen. Only the most important principals of the town watched the dancing from the balconies of their homes. The dancers wore practically the same costumes as in my town: clothes made of velvet, flannel, or silk, adorned with feathers, mirrors, gold and silver money. In all these towns, as in mine, the big fiestas were made and prepared by the Indians, the entire fiesta, with native music, native dancers, native customs; only the mass and the men's clothes were "foreign"; even the pealing of the church bells was like a huayno accompaniment. The throne of the saints was decorated in Indian fashion, with striped hangings, wild flowers and twisted tapers; the procession marched with a band of Indian musicians: flute, bass

27

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

drum, chain drum, and clarinet, or a pipe band. All, as in my town. In these towns, too, I learned new songs. And in all the towns I found huaynos different in words and music. But one year I came to the valley of Apurimac. There a distant relative of my father owned haciendas. There were four large haciendas with sugar cane fields. The owner sent me to one of these, so as not to observe me at his side. He lived at the hacienda Karkeki. This ancient place "kept four hundred Indians" on the land. The Indians lived in the heights of the cane lands; they came down in rotation to work on the haciendas in groups of forty. The Indians were old-fashioned, like pack mules, like gnarled fruit trees. They feared the owner as the devil, and trembled when the old man shouted. One time a cholo workman was found stealing a bunch of bananas in the field; within the hour, in the patio of the main house, the manager knocked him to the ground and beat him for a long time. This Indian had no town, no house, nor even a small piece of land; everything belonged to the old man. When they came down to the hacienda the Indians brought their families; they lodged in small rooms of clay and reeds, near the main house, and there the peon's children were a meal for the ticks and lice; I worked all day removing ticks from the little boys; many of them were still almost sexless; there the ground ticks made their nest. These Indians did not know how to sing. Hacienda Indians never made any noise. They came in from work at nightfall, each peon with a load of wood for the oven, wood that was chopped after their day's work. They entered the plaza of the hacienda in a group, very seldom laughing, and came into the passageway of the main house where they sat in a row on the wall seats, and waited. The manager counted them with his finger and then sent them away. On this ranch there was not even an Indian flute nor a little brass band. On arrival they had some lawa, soup made from frozen potatoes, and a drink of whatever there happened to be, and then went to sleep, whether 28

ON ANDEAN FIEST AS AND THE INDIAN

they were single or married. "Why is it they do not sing?" I asked. I was distressed. Some nights I visited them and sang the huaynos of Ayacucho, Abancay and Coracora. But they hardly seemed to hear. "Pretty, little fellow!" they said, but it made them sleepy. And I would go away. Afterwards, the manager's cook told me that one night the old man had heard a flute being played in the main house at Karkeki and went to the ranch, concealing himself until he came to the door of the room where the flute was being played, and he entered the house saying, '1ndians, this is the hour for prayer!" He demanded the flute and trampled it on the floor. Every morning while it was still dark, the peons went first to the chapel of the hacienda, where they prayed with the manager, and then went off to work. All this was the regulation of the old man. During the carnival season, all the Indians came down to the hacienda. The manager gave them several barrels of cheap rum, and both men and women drank gourds full of liquor; they got drunk right there. By nightfall almost all the Indians were fighting, throwing stones at each other, kicking and punching. The women fought among themselves or mixed in with the men fighting. The manager watched them, tranquilly, from the corridor. At night they fell asleep on the ground, men and women together without remembering who was the husband, brother, or sister. An Indian carnival without tinya, without flute, without song! But only in that place! In the other towns where I have lived, the Indians always had a song whether for sorrow or happiness. When I arrived at the coast cities, I found that the people still scorned the mountain folk. In these cities huaynos could not be sung, everyone looked on a singer of huaynos as an inferior being, as a servant, and laughed at him. Therefore, all the students from the mountain districts who went to study there tried to learn as quickly as possible the coastal ways in speaking, walking, and dressing, and when they heard a huayno, they,

29

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

too, laughed. "That is sung only by Indians," they would say. And when they returned to their towns they tried to flaunt the "elegance" which they had learned on the coast; they did not want to listen to the huaynos of their towns; they sang tangos, one-steps, jazz. They were convinced that whatever is European is superior, that everything native is bad and shameful. And so in the small streets where the mistis live, the phonographs play coast music, and in the streets the youths whistle tangos and one-steps. In all the rest of the town, the Indians sing their huaynos and almost every year they create new songs.

II But when I came to the capital, the movement in defence of the Indian had grown a great deal and was becoming a national force. In Lima I found a group of writers and artists working on the Indian problem, some studying its political and economic aspects, and others only interested in the Indian as a creator of art. The rest continued to maintain the same idea of the native town as the principals in the mountain towns and the coastal city people-that the Indian is only good for rough work, either as a peon or servant. But already in Lima there was an appreciation of the art in popular native industry. Huancayo jugs and the production of Ayacucho fabrics were considered as real works of art. But even among the same people who highly value native art, the majority still establish a difference between the work and its creators; for them an Indian is an inferior being, a race with no future. I can prove the contrary: in the mountains of Peru, the greater part of the native population lives by constant production of art, popular art, in music, ceramics, fabrics. And this production has a profound influence in moulding the spirit of the mestizos and of the landowners themselves. Almost all the art in the mountains is the work of Indians.

30

ON ANDEAN FIEST AS AND THE INDIAN

And the mestizos-those who administer the work of the Indians, those who are engaged in business or law, or are office clerks, and even the landowners-at heart, they feel very much this native art. And this art affects them because it is the most exact expression of their own sentiments. I refer, principally, to the smaller towns, and not to the few large cities in which there is now a minority-but always a minority-of landowners and people who follow foreign customs and live for the tango, jazz, and rouge. The greatest part of the population though racially mestizo remains Indian, in customs and social condition; their life is native in all its manifestations, and all are called Indians. Certainly, then, the Indian population constitutes the majority in Peru. The artistic production of this population is native. I refer to the nature of this production, to its soul, to what we might call its "aesthetic content," because it is superfluous to say that the proximity of the semi-westernized person-the misti-and his relationship with the Indians, signifies for the Indian new elements of expression on one hand, and new emotional inducements on the other, and, in this way, influences the native arts. The mestizos-properly speaking, half mestizos, taksa k'alas, cholos-constitute a social class superior to the Indian in the sierra of Peru, although his economic condition may not be better in every case. The artistic expression of the mestizo is of the purest native ancestry. In some regions of the countryJunin, Huanuco, the Lima sierra-all the artistic production is mestizo. The popular mestizo art is of the clearest native origin, such as their songs; for example, the mestizo sings the native huaynos as his own, except those that are the purest native folklore. In the mestizo's songs it is easy to find the Spanish element; the theme, in the absolute majority, is the same as in the Quechua songs from which it arises; nearly always it is the same native song, the verses of which have been partly enriched or sup-

31

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

planted by Spanish elements, both in words and intention; the music has also undergone changes in accordance with mestizo psychology. The native huayno is epic and simple, and the mestizo makes this same huayno more melodious and smooth. In large cities having a big Indian population, such as Ayacucho, it is easy to follow the evolution of the native huayno; moving from Indian districts, such as Caremenk'a, until reaching the center of the city-this town being a mixture of mistis and mestizos-it will become evident how a huayno has been converted into a mestizo song, taking on with each change more Spanish words according to the greater or lesser western influence, until it is found, at times, in the house of a misti without one word of Quechua, all in Spanish, but having suffered less change in the music than in the literal meaning. In these different forms of the huayno can be studied the expression of mestizo psychology, whatever the mixture of the breeding may be. In the mestizo population, the Indian element dominates. It is because, in addition to the racial influence and atmosphere, the mestizo is much closer to the Indian in his everyday relationships and in every aspect of life. In their affiliations all the mountain people fit the Indian art, with the exception, as I have said, of the minority in the large cities. Even though they deny it, the mestizos of the upper classes in the towns find in the Indian art expression of their own deepest sentiments. For the carnival days in the small towns, the town government has an "official program." First, a queen is elected by vote. The first day, the queen parades through the main streets of the town. The queen's throne resembles that of the saint's; they construct the base with an antique arm chair; they cover it with colored materials and adorn it with flowers and ribbons. Eight Indians carry the throne. Only in towns that have roads do they put the throne on a truck. And the queen, dressed in white, passes through the streets, smiling with "elegance" from the

32

ON ANDEAN FIEST AS AND THE INDIAN

throne. The little girls and boys follow the queen; they throw confetti streamers at her and little squirts of ether. And the mistis believe that now they are like the people in Lima. Part of the Indian population watches this procession between laughter and admiration, while others are dancing with tinya and flute in the fields and in the streets of the Indian districts. In the afternoon there is a masked ball in the town hall; some come in costumes and others as they are. In some towns they are able to get together an amateur orchestra; in others, they dance tangos, one-steps, and rumbas that the cachimbo bands play in their own fashion, and as a last resort, in other towns, they dance to Victrola music. But on Tuesday nights is heard, suddenly, the carnival huayno played by many guitars and sung by a great chorus. From the four comers of the plaza long chains of men and women enter, stamping and kicking, singing in loud voices. At the head of the huifala come three, four, and, at times, eight and ten guitarists. They are singing the song of carnival in Quechual The chains cross each other, come close together and separate, the people in one huifala passing another. All are dressed as cholos and cholas; they are singing the cholo carnival; they are singing in the town's plaza their happiest dance. A hundred, two hundred voices of men and women; "Chayrak'mi, chayrak'mi, Chaykamuchkani" or "Imaykiwanmi difindikunki pukacha clavel waytar whether it might be in Andahuaylas or in Talavera. The mestizos and the children of the town are just completing their carnival. Later the townspeople, too, arrive at the plaza, with tinya and flute. The tinya and flute make a concert from afar with the guitars in the plaza. All the people of the town are singing. The plaza is the heart of the town; now it is full of happiness. And there they are, mistis, mestizos and cholos, singing with the same voice, the same happiness! But on the following day, the gentleman, the little girl, and the little boy will look with disdain at the Indian passing in the street. It will weigh

33

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

heavily on their consciences that they danced and sang with so much joy at the people's carnival. At family fiestas the girls and young men dance tangos, twosteps, one-steps, rumbas and other foreign dances to Victrola music: but this is only at the beginning of the fiesta when they all are keeping the "etiquette" and "elegance" learned on their trips to the coast or during their college years, but when the fiesta has worked into a fervor, whether from the wine or just from the environment itself of the party, then someone dares to ask for a guitar or harp; immediately everyone starts shouting for the same thing, and if the host does not have a guitar, they send out to find an Indian harpist or to look for guitars. With harps and violins played by Indians, or with guitars played by some of the guests, the tempo of the fiesta increases; all are really happy, they feel in their element; men and women dance the Indian huayna with zest, with art, with real affection. As if they suddenly had recovered their liberty, as if some very serious and intrusive gentleman had left the room, the people clap hands and shout with enthusiasm. Those that are not dancing begin singing the huayna played by the harp and guitars. And the fiesta is Indian from then on; everyone sings, dances, claps hands and shouts like the townspeople at their fiestas. This is the Peru of the Andes. But if the head of the bank should arrive, or the sub-prefect, or the judge, who nearly always are foreigners, the fiesta once again will freeze up, and the mirth stops all at once; everyone greets as a stranger the authority who arrives, and all return to the tango and jazz, unless the visitor is a mountain man also, and ends by preferring the native huayna. Why this shame? The huayna is art, as music and as poetry. It only needs to be seen done well. The native is not inferior. And the day that the mountain people, who even are ashamed of the Indian, discover in themselves the great possibilities of creation from their native spirit, that day, sure of their own values, the mestizo people and the Indian will be able to show 34

ON ANDEAN FIEST AS AND THE INDIAN

definitely the equivalent of their creative capacity in relation to the European which today displaces and disdains it. And such a day will come anyhow. That which is native is what is innermost of all the mountain people of Peru. The disdain for the Indian created by the Spanish agents and maintained by their heirs until today will be broken when those who direct the country understand that the wall which egotism and selfinterest have raised to impede the transcendence of the Indian people and the free overflow of his soul must be precipitated for the benefit of Peru. That day will come to flower, powerful and sweeping, a great art, national in theme, native in surroundings, in music, poetry, painting, literature: a great art that through its own national genius will have the most pure and definite universal value.

35

qUE£DU A SONGS

QUECH UA SONGS

TO BE WANDERING

Oh perhaps my mother was the vicuna of the pampas or my father was the mountain stag to be wandering, to walk without rest through the mountains and the pampas hardly wrapped by wind, in the creeks and on the hills clothed by wind and cold. Oh I was born in the nest of the pukupuku to cry out in the day, to cry out in the night like the pukupuku chick hardly wrapped by wind.

39

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

THE FIRE THAT I HAVE STARTED

The fire that I have started on the mountain, the ischu that I lit upon the summit must be blazing, must be burning. Oh look if the mountain is still ablaze! And if there is fire, walk, girl! with your pure tears quench the fire, weep upon the fire and turn it to ashes with your pure tears.

40

QUECHUA SONGS

THAT SHE MAY NOT FIND DEW

Vicufia of the hills, deer of the mountains, tell me if the ungrateful dove passed here, the dove that left her nest, that forgot her love. Vicuna of the hills, taruka of the mountains, come see how my eyes are crying, thus she left me, with my eyes crying, thus she left me, with my heart wounded. Oh that she may be thirsty on the road! and that she may not find dew on the haystacks, that she may not find dew on the grasses, that she may be thirsty on every road, the dove that forgot her love!

41

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

I NURSE A FLY

I nurse a fly of wings of gold, I nurse a fly of inflamed eyes. It carries death in its eyes of fire, it carries death on its hairs of gold, on its beautiful wings.

In a bottle of gingerale I nurse it, nobody knows if it drinks, nobody knows if it eats. It roams in the nights like a star, it wounds mortally with its red splendor, with its eyes of fire.

In its eyes of fire it carries love, 4:1

QUECHUA SONGS

its blood flashes in the night the love that it carries in its heart. Nocturnal insect, fly bearer of death in a green bottle, I nurse it loving it very much. But there! there! nobody knows if I give it drink if I feed itl

43

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

YOU WERE CRYING ALONE, LITTLE DUCK

From the summit I saw you crying, eagle of the sky, you were crying alone, in your solitude you were crying, eagle of the sky. Ay, to be an eagle and to cry alone! From across the river I saw you crying, little duck, you were crying alone on the bank of the river, it was cold and you were crying, little duck, on the other bank of the river. Then I talked to you about making a nest together, not to be so alone, we two. My father comes first, you said to me, even my mother. You were lying, little duck, your father has died and is resting, your mother cries in strange towns. Little duck, 44

QUECHUA SONGS

leave, now, your solitude on the other bank of the river! You were crying alone on the rock, sorrowful eagle. You were crying alone on the bank of the river, little duck.

45

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

AY PURPLE FLOWER!

Why should I love that stranger, why did my heart choose him without knowing the name of his parents nor the road by which he came nor the day when he arrived! Ay thorn of the mountains! Ay purple flower! I should have loved the little vicuna that cries on the edge of the lakes, upon the summit and on the hillsides. I should have loved, ay thorn of the mountain! ay purple flower! the deer that eats the sweet herb of the hills. The little vicuna would cry out my sorrows, the deer would carry me to the shade of the mountains, I would not be alone, ay purple flower! I would not have a wounded heart. Ay purple flower of the fields! Ay thorn of the mountains!

46

QUECHUA SONGS

A WANDERING HUMMINGBIRD

My kkantu flower, my beautiful flower of the mountain, how the hummingbird wounded you, how the hummingbird poisoned you, kkantu flower, that now you cannot blossom! Since the hour when it was wounded the flower of the mountain, the purple flower, has withered, the purple flower has fallen. Now the kkantu has no flower, the flower of the kkantu died. Moving its golden wings a hummingbird, a wandering hummingbird, bled it.

47

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

IN THIS GROWING DARKNESS

Oh my Sun, my Moon! where are you rising, where do you give light, becoming morning? To that bay I will go. Oh my Sun, my Moon! as long as you are there I weep in this growing darkness, waiting in so much night. Oh my Sun, my Moon! where do you give light, becoming morning? By that bay, by that ridge of the mountain I will return, I will return.

48

QUECHUA SONGS

THE BIRD THAT HIDES ITSELF

The bird that hides itseH when we call on the great barren plains is crying, is moaning, it seeks the tall grass and it cries, poor pukucha! And night is approaching, dark clouds are galloping, presently the great snow comes, ay poor pukucha!

49

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

THE BLACK WATER

The little fish from the clear rivers play in the backwaters looking for shelter in the low branches of the willows. The first flush of the flood comes, the black water, the black water! Gushing out, it carries away willows and fish. In the cold hills the pukupuku sings, it makes its nest among the grasses, under the waylla ischu of the high peak. The wind comes burdened with snow, destroys the nest, roots out the waylla, in the wind the nest dies, all is dying.

GO

QUECHUA SONGS

WITHOUT ANYONE, WITHOUT ANYONE

How alone I see myself without anyone, without anyone, like the flower of the barren plain, no more than itself and its sad shadow. I have tightened my flute with the nerves of a bull so that its voice would be clear, today it is so hoarse that I have wept. What is then this life! The roads have been lost, they have died, those who gave aid, everything, everything, is ended!

51

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

CRYSTALLINE RIVER

Crystalline river of the alders, tears of the fish of gold, flood of tears of the great precipices, Deep river of the tara forests, that which is lost in the bend of the abyss, that which shrieks in the cleft where the parrots have their haunt, Far, far, beloved river, carry me with my young lover in the midst of the rocks among the clouds of rain.

52

QUECHUA SONGS

LEAVE-TAKING

Today is the day of my departure, today I will not go, I will go tomorrow. You may see me leave playing a flute of fly bone, carrying for banner a spider web, my drum will be an egg of an ant, and my capl my cap will be a hummingbird nest.

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THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

DNIDED HERB

Ay my nujcho Hower, beautiful flower! When I am gone who will love you, for whom will you bel Ay, for whom will you Hower when I am gone!

Raki-raki, herb of the summits, one branch on this side, the other branch towards another sky, divided herb of the summits! Because you cannot join your arms, because you cannot watch only one sky, you have separated me from my love. Raki-raki, daisy herb, now you can laugh! One branch on this side, the other branch towards another sky, one herb only I am with my love, one herb only I am, like raki-raki, she beneath another sky, I watching other stars, like the divided herb of the summits! Little duck of the high lagoon, you do not cry now, little duck, with the voice of my love you are singing from your nest, you are bleeding my heart.

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QUECHUA SONGS

FLYING HIGH IN THE AIR

It is falling on my village, the rain, she is weeping, my love, behind the mountain.

It is falling on my village, the rain, her sky is dark with the storm, behind the mountain.

If I could be a kestrel! I would fly over the rain, I would pass by the mountain, from the clouds I would call to her, Do not cry now, love! If I could be a falcon! Flying high in the air, from the sky I would call, Do not cry now, love!

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

CELSO MEDINA

Where did you meet him, traveler, Don Celso Medina? Abandoning his love he has gone away alone. I met him on the summit, close by the sanctuaries, he was calling to be buried under the snowflakes and the hail, he was calling to be buried in the great snow, beneath the ice floes. Did he not question you for his sweet love, for she who, in the wind and in the cold, helped him to mourn, for she who, in the wind and in the cold, wept with him? In his sad eyes the tears are finished now, within his heart the suffering has dried, like funereal winds he must keep traveling, not knowing where he goes.

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QUECHUA SONGS

EMERALD HUMMINGBIRD

Oh Sun, oh Moon, shed light on my road! Do not sink so early, Sun, shed light yet. Be a little late, Moon, my destination is far, I am afraid of the dark. Emerald hummingbird, hide your golden wings, do not keep me, emerald hummingbird, like the dove that has lost its young; she is looking for me, my mother. Oh cilili, cilili, beautiful flower! now you see how I weep, crying out like the rivers, like the winds, ay cilili, beautiful flower!

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THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

THE SAND OF THE RIVER

I would like to be a tree, a stone by the road, in rain and in sun, for my lost love what shade I would give! Black sparrow hawk that flies in the skies, you saw her when she lay in my arms, when she slept on my breast. Powerful W arpa river that runs, gushing, in the gorge, let your wealth grow with my tears, and that she may not pass, stop her on your banks, the love who has gone away. -Tell me what you do, dove of the river bank. -I gather sand for my love. She flew behind the mountain, she flew behind the gorge, I was left alone, and by the sweet sand of the river another dove will come.

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QUECHUA SONGS

WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF ALONE

When you find yourseH alone on the river island your father will not be there to call to you alau, my daughter! your mother cannot reach you there with alau, my daughter! The royal drake alone is there to walk at night with you with the rain in his eyes, with his tears of blood, the rain in his eyes tears of blood. And the royal drake, even, must go away when the waves of the river become strong, when the waves of the river rush headlong. But then I will go to walk at night with you, singing: I will rob you of your young heart on the island, your young heart I must steal.

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THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

THE ISCHU IS WEEPING

The rain falls on the hills, it leaves frost on the tall grasses. The rain passes, the wind shakes, from the ischu the water drops, the clean water drops. The ischu is weeping! Ay, like eyes weep in another's town! They weep, the eyes, like the ischu weeps when the rain passes and the wind blows. When the wind blows the ischu is bowed down, the tall ischu of the hills is bowed down when the wind blows. Ay, like the heart is bowed down in another's town, like the tall ischu when the wind blows!

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QUECHUA. SONGS

SNOW STORM

You will say whether now is the hour to return, storm of water and of snow, you will say whether now is the hour to return by the way we came, storm of water and of snow. Bull with eyes of blood, cat-like bull, storm of water and of snow, you were the one that bled my horse, storm of water and of snow. And I myself separated you from the mountain, storm of water and of snow, and you yourself bleed me, storm of water and of snow. And who is that skillful horseman? storm of water and of snow, he has passed like the wind, he has conquered me, storm of water and of snow. He is owner of the cat-like bull that killed, storm of water and of snow, he asks that they give him the white packsaddle, storm of water and of snow. Carry me from here, pull me on to our parents' home, storm of water and of snow, it is the hour to return, drag me now! storm of water and of snow.

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THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

LIKE TWO DOVES

Like two doves we left my town, we were two doves who flew from their nest. In my town we were happy, in my house we were happy, like two doves we left my town. Ay, what will I say now when they ask me where is your little dove, why do you return alone! How shall I enter, alone, my town, having left with my love like two doves who flew from their nest?

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QUECHUA SONGS

CARNNAL SONG

With the wind I have arrived, with the rain I have come, with the hail I enter the town, singing! with the rain and with the wind.

]akakllito, pretender, idler, upon the rocks you shriek all the day ifiul afau! From the rocks you shriek ifiul afau! all the day disturbing people,

fakakllito. How much you question me, from where do I come, from where am Il Look at that orchard on the hillside, there I was hom among roses and wild pinks and among flowers I have lived. You look at me on the sly from my feet up to my hat.

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In the town everyone knows that I buttoned your underwear on you, everyone knows our life, look right at me, do not pretend. Tuesday carnival, I want to question you, by what way now comes the Easter God? If he shall be near, if he shall be far, by what way now comes the Easter God? Tuesday carnival, I still want to dance. With the wind I have arrived, with the rain I have come, with the hail I enter the town, singing! with the rain and with the wind.

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QUECHUA SONGS

TAMBOBAMBA CARNIVAL

A river of blood has dragged down the young man of Tambobamba. He has died. Only his flute is floating along the current, only his poncho is floating along the current, only his small guitar is floating, is floating. H uifalitay huifala! H uifalaldlay huifala! And the girl whom he loved weeps on the banks. His idolized sweetheart, his adored is weeping, is weeping on the banks, only his small guitar floats along the current, only his flute floats along the current, now he does not exist. Hu£falitay, hu£fala! Huifala, huifala, huifala! A condor watches from the skies, wheeling around, he looks for the young man of Tambobamba, he will find him never. A river of blood has dragged him down, a bloody river has enwrapped him. Huifalitay huifalal Huifalaldlay huifalal fiG

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

TELL HER THAT I HAVE WEPT

Emerald hummingbird, one that flies the highest, one of the golden plumes, emerald hummingbird that shines in the sun, that trembles in the air, thrusting into flowers, I want to give you a charge: my love is far away, emerald hummingbird, carry this letter to her. I do not know if she still will weep when she reads my name, or if she will have forgotten me and now will not cry, but if she should be sad, tell her that I have wept, tell her that I weep, too, remembering my beloved, Siwar hummingbird, one that flies the highest, one of the golden plumes.

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QUECRUA SONGS

THE SWEET WATER

Vicuna of the pampa, five springs quench your thirst, little vicuiia of the kkasu pampas, five springs, five springs for your thirst. We are thirsty, little vicuiia, I come with my love. Give me a spring of your five springs! Give me the sweet water of your watering places, little vicuiia. Present me with a spring, little vicuiia, for my love. We are thirsty for your clear water! I want to drink with my love the sweet water of your springs.

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WHAT SORROW WILL SHE DREAM

Her hair is her pillow, on her hair she is sleeping, the child. She is weeping blood, her weeping is not tears, she is weeping blood. What will the child dream, what sorrow will she dream! Ay, who has hurt her, who has so hurt her heart! Whistle, whistle, whistle to her, little parrot, so she awakens, so she awakens now! Whistle, whistle to her, little parrot.

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QUECHUA SONGS

FALCON OF THE HEIGHTS

Sparrow hawk of the sky, falcon of the heights, come down a little while, I am lost in these mountains, carry me on your wings to the road. I am lost in these mountains, sparrow hawk of the heights, I only want you to carry me to the road, come down a little while, sky falcon. Leave me on the road, falcon. From there I could go on with the travelers, with the crowd of villagers. Sparrow hawk, come down a little while!

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THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

LIKE A RIVER MY WEEPING

Star of the dawn, I am waiting for you! The recollection of parting has wounded my young love, help me to detain her. After she is gone, after she slips away from the indignity of being loved, presently we shall see her turn, of her own accord, we shall see her turn back without being called. Oh my love, my heart! calm your unrest at parting, my heart will fall to you like a big stone on the roads where you may walk, like a river my weeping will stop you on the roads where you may walk. Star of the dawn, do not be so late! the recollection of parting has wounded my love, help me to detain her!

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QUECBUA SONGS

YUNCA (Funeral Song)

Where are you going, my father? I am going to the great forest, I am going walking. To what place do you go, who calls to you? I will reap the sweet coca, I am going alone. Come back soon, come back soon! I will wait for you weeping, I will wait for you grieving. In the mountain by the way you should pass a black flag is fluttering, in the gorge that you should cross the broken grass flowers in mantles. What a heart, what a bitter heart! to say good-bye to the beloved dove. Little bell of Paucartambo, the farewell tolls for me. I am going to the great forest, now I never will return.

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THE THRESHING SONGS OF ANGASMAYO

THE THRESHING SONGS OF ANGASMAYO During the harvest of the wheat, barley, green peas, and broad beans, it is the custom in this place to have a threshing party with girls and young men. Once some of the cereals have been transported from the small farms to the threshing floor, the proprietor makes a mincay, which may be translated as a kind of contract, with the best young people to perform the expected labor. Getting together at seven or eight o'clock in the evening, the young people, foining hands, begin to run across the straw. One of the young men chases one of the girls, while she keeps running without letting herself be caught. Others change places with them so that they all alternate, and thus the play goes on. Meanwhile the rest continue running, their hands foined, singing the first song to the accompaniment of guitars.

FIRST SONG (Which they sing as they join hands and run across the straw)

Let us go around, let us go around, Clap hands Let us follow the crowd, let us follow the crowd, Clap hands Beside this threshing floor, Clap hands Beside this threshing floor we will have a circle, Clap hands Let us have rods of ribbons, Clap hands Let us have armfuls of ribbons, Clap hands Let us increase, let us stretch out with the shawl, Clap hands We will spread out with the matting, let us spread out, Clap hands Like rain let us shower down, let us shower down, Clap hands

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

Like rain let us spread out, let us spread out, Clap hands To clap, to run, is to learn how, Clap hands Like rain let us shower down, let us shower down, Clap hands Like rain let us spread out, let us spread out, Clap hands Let us shower down, let us shower down, Clap hands Strike at it, strike at it, Clap hands Dance more, dance more, Clap hands Beside this threshing floor, beside this threshing floor, Clap hands.

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THE THRESHING SONGS OF ANGASMA YO

SECOND SONG: Guavas (Which they sing once they have turned over the straw with their forked poles)

Guavas, guavas, guavas, unmarried girl would you like, guavas, guavas, guavas, unmarried girl would you like, Ay sweet lime of my memories you have talked with another in my absence, in what ravine have you talked, in what ravine have you conversed. By night we will meet one another, when it shall be black, we will meet one another, may God grant you shall want for us to meet by night. You have spoken with a knife, you have spoken with a razor, just here, just here, we will go around, just here, just here, we will tumble down, We will tread on it, we will tread on it, we will strike, we will strike, face, with our face, until the finish, we will tread on it, we will tread on it.

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Like dust, we will make it like dust, thus, so that they say of us, we make an evening of dust, we make an evening of dust, thus, so that they say of us. Like a branch we will be burdened, like a branch we will fall down, like an earthquake we will shake, like a thunderbolt we will sound.

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THE THRESHING SONGS OF ANGASMA YO

THIRD SONG: Green Olive Tree (When they are turning the straw anew)

We will turn around, we will turn around, with your painted forked pole, it is true what you say, from your mama your trimmed pole, beating, we will let ourselves go, we will join the dull bull talk, boasting, boasting, with your mouth of roses, that is true, to say it is roses, your hole of a mouth, boast, boast, with your sweet stem of a throat, it is true to say that it is a bragging stem of a throat, we will turn around, we will beat, with the talk of an unmarried girl.

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

FOURTH SONG: Little Lizard (While they dance on the straw, their hands interlocked)

Stone, stone, it is your house, little lizard, little lizard, thorn, thorn is your house, little lizard, little lizard, Paint labors in a book of silver, little lizard, little lizard, paint the S in a book of gold, little lizard, little lizard. Mask of cabbage, walking cane of onion, coriander your head-piece, parsley your claw-piece, cut-out wood your tail, look, take care, little lizard, little lizard.

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THE THRESHING SONGS OF ANGASMA YO

FIFTH SONG: The Bagre Fish

In the depths of the river, there is a bagre, in the depths of the river there is a bagre, look, look, how I warn you, bagre, look, look, how I speak to you, bagre, The old guitar is coming, the old guitar is sounding, look, look, how I warn you, bagre, look, look, how I speak to you bagre. In the depths of the river, there is a bagre, in the depths of the river, there is a bagre.

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THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

SIXTH SONG: Cerbaschay

We will go to Tarma, running, running, Cerbaschay We will go to Tarma, running, running, Cerbaschay Seize me, seize me, Cerbaschay At the side of the threshing floor, Cerbaschay Threshing, threshing, Cerbaschay Like the sparrow hawk, we will flap wings, we will flap wings, Cerbaschay Like the sparrow hawk, we will hover, we will hover, Cerbaschay Like the condor we will turn around, Cerbaschay At the side of the threshing floor we will turn around, Cerbaschay

By the edge of the ribbon, Cerbaschay Seize me, seize me, Cerbaschay By the brim of the sombrero, 82

THE THRESHING SONGS OF ANGASMA YO

Cerbaschay Seize me, seize me, Cerbaschay Seize me by the hand, seize me, Cerbaschay.

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THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

SEVENTH SONG: Bachelor

Spring at the foot of the quishuar, weaver of belts, bachelor, spring at the foot of the quishuar, weaver of belts, bachelor, Choose, if you say I will choose, bachelor, weave, if you say I will weave, bachelor, at the side of this threshing floor, bachelor, at the side of this threshing floor, bachelor, like the painted gourd, we will paint, bachelor, like the gourd not painted, we will not paint, bachelor, a shawl of colors we will carry, bachelor, white silver we will carry in the pocket, bachelor, half unfastened we will leave the girdle, bachelor, a ten cent piece we will put at the girdle, bachelor.

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THE THRESHING SONGS OF ANGASMA YO

EIGHTH SONG: Lima Lima Flower (The lima lima, or talk-talk, is a flower that grows in the frigid regions, next to the snow-capped mountain peaks. The Indians believe that it has the virtue of curing the mute.)

Ay, lima lima flower, Talk with him, you have told me, in what cove have we been talking, in what hollow have we been talking. At this hour he may appearto pound him like jerked mutton! At this hour he may appear, we will tread on him like a frozen potato! At this hour he may appear, like ground chili we will leave him! Ay, lima lima rose, Talk with him, you have told me. with me, you have not talked, with me you have not conversed, (perhaps you have a knife placed for me?) (perhaps you have a razor placed for me?) with me you have not talked. From Lima a letter has come, who can answer? When my mother comes to know about it

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THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

she will say it is from your sweetheart, when my father comes to know about it he will say go to the convent, who can answer? If I could answer, I would answer, if I could respond, I would respond. When there is paper, there is no one who can write, when there is someone who can write, ink will be lacking, when there is ink, penholder will be lacking, when there is penholder, pen I will not have, when there is pen, envelope will be lacking, when there is envelope, stamp will be lacking, when there is stamp, there will be no post office, when there is post office, there will be no train, when there is train, I will deliver it. Ay, lima lima flower, Talk to him, you have told me.

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THE THRESHING SONGS OF ANGASMA YO

NINTH SONG (As they have been singing and dancing the straw has been ground. During this song the girls sing louder and the boys beat time faster with their feet.)

Continue the round, continue the round, continue the round, continue the round, continue the round, continue the round, like a wheel we will revolve, like a wheel we will revolve, at the edge of the threshing floor, they are telling us, at the edge of the threshing floor, they are telling us, like a wheel we will revolve, at the edge of the threshing floor we will revolve, beat your feet, bachelor, strike, bachelor. Like dust, like dust we will make it, like cornmeal, like cornmeal we will leave it. Why are you frightened, bachelor? why are you afraid, bachelor? you being free, your partner feels lost, you being one, your partner feels lost, where she is, I would not feel lost, where she is, I would not feel lost. We will form, we will form, like a file we will file, how ugly you are, boy, how ugly you are, young man, 87

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

why do you weep, why do you feel sad? Ay, poor boy, ay, poor bachelor! what is your heart saying, what is your heart saying to me? As for me, my heart is palpitating, as for me, my heart is palpitating. Ay hummingbird, hummingbird, we will sing, hummingbird, ay hummingbird, hummingbird, we will whistle, hummingbird, how pretty, how pretty, heavenly little poncho, how pretty, how pretty, little poncho like the dawn, ay hummingbird, hummingbird, son of a hummingbird, ay hummingbird, hummingbird, daughter of a hummingbird. Higher than the graveyard the shepherd's horn, it cries, higher than the house of Samaniego, the shepherd's horn moans, what says your heart, what says your heart does it not palpitate, your heart, does it not palpitate, your heart, ay poor boy, ay poor bachelor, for you, for me, too, it will be our star, ay poor boy, ay poor bachelor, these people have been the cause, the sons of these people have been the cause of our meeting each other on this threshing floor.

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THE THRESHING SONGS OF ANGASMA YO

TENTH SONG: Mafordomo

Majordomo, majordomo, you are worthless, majordomo. Captain, captain, you are worthless captain. Where is it, where is your bull, where is it, where is your cow? This is bull, this is cow, it is worthless, this your cow, good bull, you have said to me, good cow, you have said, is this good bull, is this good cow? The bull of mine, it is son of good bull, of good cow, it is son of a good milch cow. You are worthless, steward, of dirty water you made chicha, you give only one cigar, the leaves of the tanquis is your coca, you are worthless, steward, let us gather at your place, let us all get together. Black, we will be black, we will be dark, you are worthless, steward.

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THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

ELEVENTH SONG

Traveler to another town, what says your heart? As for me, my heart trembles, as for me, my heart palpitates. Trumpet of the countryside, trumpet that cries, trumpet that moans, trumpet that cries. Ay poor boy, what says your heart? Ay poor boy, what says your heart? Like the street of Concepcion, black, we will be black, like the street of Concepcion, dark, we will be dark, like the bridge of Mejorada, rocking, we will be rocking, like the street of Huancayo, black, we will be black, like the bell of Huancayo, ringing, we will be ringing. We are not going to love a widower man, if you like, a field working man will like you, a widower man, he is like a barn of green peas, which are spilled, a widower man, he is like a barn of broad beans, which are spilled, like the cook stove of the blacksmith, he is black, he is dark like the cook stove of the traveler. A widower man you are not going to love, in the plaza of Chupaca his coarse face, in the plaza of Huancayo without a cent.

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qtJECDlJA TALES

QUE£DUA TALES

THE HAIL

THREE brothers were the hail. One of the brothers was lame, another was blind, and the third brother was sound. The mother of the three brothers was a ragged little old woman, dressed in yellow. One day a mail carrier went on a trip. He walked, two, three, four days. One nightfall caught him on a silent plain. In the darkness he could not find any shelter; he looked for a house in which to protect himself from the weather. Then in the distance he saw a light shining. And he turned his steps in that direction, thinking that the light must be shining in some house. "There must be a barnyard there," he said to himself, while walking. When he reached the place, he found two huts, one beside the other. The little old woman was seated by the door. It was the mother of the hail. The man spoke to her: "Little mother of mine, give me shelter." "Very well, I will give you shelter," replied the little old woman.

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The little old woman was cooking for her three sons in several huge pots. "Come in, sir," she said, inviting the traveler in. The man entered the hut. Then the little old women said to him: "Now my sons are coming. What shall I tell them, what shall I do? They are very wicked; they will kill you if they find you." At that moment the hail was thundering on the horizon, "Tunrun ... tunrun ..."; just as when it announces a storm. The little old woman spoke: "One of my sons is lame, another is blind, the other is sound. The lame one and the blind one are wicked. They are not afraid to kill anyone. If they find you they will kill you. Just sit in the comer, just in the comer." And she served him some broth in a huge bowl. The man began to take the broth. Huge pieces of meat were in the bowl, meat from all kinds of animals. The man ate. He was very hungry, but the food did not fill him up; on the contrary, it made him hungrier. This was because the hail killed the animals and the people which he found on the roads. And this was the meat which he brought to his mother to cook. Accursed meat which did not satisfy the hunger of anyone. While the man was eating, the hail went on sounding, each time closer: "Tunrun ... tunrun . . ." It circled the hut, it dragged around the hut; already its cold drops were pounding the door. "Hurry, hurry, finish eating!" cried the little old woman. The man ate up the food quickly. The hail shook the door, danced with fury: "Tunrun ... tunrun ..." The woman asked her guest: "Do you have any kkaftiwa Hour?" The man gave her his cold lunch made of kkaftiwa. Then the little old woman covered the man with an earthenware pot. The

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QUECHUA TALES

three brothers, the hail, arrived, they entered the hut next door, one after the other. The little old woman brought them supper. And she warned the mail carrier: "Now they will smell your scent." Soon the voice of one of them was heard: "Mother, there's a strange smell. Where does it come from?" "I don't know," answered the little old woman. "There's nothing here." But they asked again: "Mother, tell us where that smell is coming from." '1t must be this, it must be this that smells like that," said the little old woman. And she went to the brothers' hut carrying the bag of kkaiiiwa. "Oh! Wonderful! This is the sweet we were wanting!" cried the three. And they ate the kkaiiiwa Hour. Then the hail, the three brothers, lay down to sleep. The man, too, fell asleep. But the mail carrier slept till very late. When he awoke, the sun was high. He woke up and looked around him. The huts, the little old woman and the hail had disappeared. And he saw that he had been sleeping on the edge of a quagmire. He stood up and began to walk. There was nothing, only the silent plain.

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THE YOUTH WHO ROSE TO THE SKY

ONcE there was a couple who had an only son. The husband planted the most beautiful potatoes in a piece of land that was far from their house. In that land potatoes grew luxuriantly. He was the only one who possessed that wonderful kind of seed. However, every night thieves would uproot the plants from that field, and rob the beautiful fruit. Then the father and the mother called their young son and told him: "It cannot be that with a son young and strong like you, thieves should take away all our potatoes. Go and guard our field. Sleep near the farm and stop the thieves." The youth went to guard the crop. And three nights went by. The first one, the youth spent awake, watching the potatoes, without going to sleep. Only at the streaking of dawn did sleep overpower him and he fel1 asleep. It was at that moment that the thieves entered the field and dug up the potatoes. In view of his failure, the lad had to go to his parents' house to tell them what had happened. On hearing the story, his parents answered him:

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QUECHUA TALES

"We forgive you this time. Go back and watch better." The youth went back. He guarded the field with his eyes wide open until dawn. But, exactly at midnight, he winked for an instant. During that instant, the thieves entered the field. The lad woke up and kept vigil until the morning. He did not see any thieves. But at dawn he had to go to his parents and tell them of the new theft. And he said to them: "In spite of my vigilance all night, the thieves deceived me only during the instant that I shut my eyes at midnight." On hearing this story, his parents answered: "Aha? Who can believe that they stole while you were watching? You probably went looking for women, you probably went to have a good time." Saying this, they beat and insulted him for quite a while. And so, on the following day, they sent him back badly beaten, to the field. "Now you know how we want you to watch!" they told him. The youth returned to his task. From the moment that he reached the edge of the field he watched it, motionless and attentive. That night the moon was brilliant. Until dawn he was watching the environs of the potato field; thus, while he watched, his eyes flickered and he dozed off for a few minutes. In this instant of sleep while the youth's eyes blinked, a multitude of very beautiful young women and little white maidens filled the field. Their faces were like flowers, their hair glistened like gold; they were women dressed in silver. All together, very hurriedly, they applied themselves to digging up the potatoes. Assuming the appearance of princesses, they were the stars that had descended from the very lofty sky. The youth awakened then, and on contemplating the field, exclaimed: "Ohl how could I seize such very beautiful maidens? And, how is it possible that being so very beautiful and radiant, they can devote themselves to so low an occupation?" 97

THE SINGING MOUNTAINEERS

But, while saying this, his heart was almost bursting with love. And he thought to himself: "Couldn't I, perhaps, keep just a pair of these beauties?" And he threw himself at full speed upon the beautiful thieves. Only at the last moment, and with difficulty, did he capture one of them. The others rose to the sky, like dying lights. And to the star which he captured, he said angrily: "So you were one of those who robbed my father's fields?" Saying this he took her to his hut. And he did not speak to her any further about the theft. But then he added: "Stay with me; you shall be my wife!" The maiden did not accept. She was full of fear; and she begged the lad: ' "Let me go, let me go! Have pity! My sisters will tell my parents. I will return to you all the potatoes that we have stolen from you. Do not force me to live on this earth." The youth paid no attention to the entreaties of the beautiful girl. He detained her with his hands. But he decided not to return to his parents' house. He remained with the star in the hut that was next to the field. Meanwhile, the parents were thinking: "They have probably stolen the potatoes again from that good-for-nothing; there can be no other reason for his not coming here." And as it was getting late, the mother decided to carry some food for him to the field and find out about him. From inside the hut the lad and the girl were watching the road. As soon as they saw the mother, the maiden said to the lad: "Under no circumstances must you show me to your father or your mother." Then the youth ran to meet his mother, and he shouted to her from afar: "No, mother; don't come any closer! Wait for me back there, back there." And receiving the food at that spot, behind the hut, he took 98

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the victuals to the princess. The mother returned home as soon as she had delivered the food. When she arrived at her house, she said to her husband: "And so our son has captured a potato thief who descended from the skies. That is how it happens that he is taking care of her in the hut. And he says that he will marry her. He does not permit anyone to come near his hut." Meanwhile, the lad tried to deceive the maiden and he told her: "Now that it is night, let us go to my house." But the princess insisted: "Under no circumstances must your parents see me, nor must I meet them." Nevertheless, the youth deceived her, saying: "I have a different house!" And during the night he took her down the road. In this way, against her will, he made her enter his parents' home and showed her to them. Astonished, the parents received this creature, so luminous and beautiful that words fail to describe her. They took care of her and educated her and gave her their love. Nevertheless, they would not let her go out. And no one met her or saw her. And the princess lived with the youth's parents for a long time. She became pregnant and gave birth. But the child, without anyone knowing why, died mysteriously. The luminous garments of the maiden were locked away. They dressed her in ordinary clothes; and thus they brought her up. One day the youth went to work far from the house; and while he was away the maiden was able to go out, pretending that she was only going nearby. And she returned to the sky. The youth arrives at his house. He asks for his wife. He does not find her. And seeing that she has disappeared he bursts into tears.

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It is told that he roamed through the woods, weeping with madness, dazed, distraught, wandering everywhere. And on one of the solitary mountain tops he met a divine Condor. The Condor then asked him: "My lad, why do you weep so?" And the youth told him of his life. "You see, sir, that mine was the most beautiful woman. Now I do not know by what paths she has departed. I am at a loss. I fear that she has fled to the sky where she came from." And when he said this, the Condor answered: "Do not weep, young man. It is true; she has gone back to the high sky. But, if you wish and if your misfortune is so great, I will carry you to that world. I ask only that you bring me two llamas. One to eat here and the other for the trip." "Very well, sir," the youth answered, "I will bring you the two llamas which you ask of me. I beg you to wait for me at this same place." And immediately he headed for home in search of the llamas. As soon as he arrived he said to his parents: "My father, my mother: I am going in search of my wife. I have found someone who can take me to the place where she is. He asks only for two llamas as payment for so great a favor; and I am going to take them to him right away." And he took the two llamas to the Condor. The Condor devoured one immediately; down to the marrow of the bones, tearing out the meat with his beak. He had the youth behead the other one, in order to eat it during the trip. And he made the youth put the beheaded animal on his shoulders; then he ordered him to climb upon a rock; he lifted the youth and gave him this warning: "Close your eyelids tightly and under no circumstances open your eyes. And every time I say 'Meat!' put a hunk of the llama in my beak." Then the Condor took to the air. 100

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The youth obeyed and did not open his eyes for one instant; his eyelids were tightly shut. "Meat!" the Mallku would demand and then the youth would cut large hunks of llama and place them in his beak. But in the course of the journey, all the food was finished. Before taking off, the Condor had warned the youth: "If when I say 'Meat!' you put no meat in my beak, wherever we may be, I shall drop you." In the face of that fear, the boy began to cut off pieces of flesh from the calf of his leg. Each time the Condor asked for meat, he would serve him small portions of his own flesh. In this way, at the cost of his blood, he succeeded in getting the Condor to take him to the sky. And it is told that it took them a year to reach such great heights. When they arrived, the Condor rested for a while; then he lifted the youth once more and Hew to the shore of a distant sea. There he said to the lad: "Now, my dear fellow, bathe yourself in this sea." The youth bathed himself immediately. And the Condor also bathed himself. Both had reached the sky dirty, black with beard, old. But when they came from their bath they were handsomely rejuvenated. Then the Condor said to him: "On the other shore of this lake, in front of us, there is a great sanctuary. A ceremony is to be celebrated there. Go and wait at the door of that beautiful temple. The maidens of the sky will be present at the ceremony; they are many and all have the same face as your wife. As they file past you, you are not to say a word to any of them. Because she who is yours will be the last to come, and she will give you a shove. At that moment you will grab her, and do not release her for anything in the world." The youth obeyed the Condor. He arrived at the door of the great temple and waited, standing. And an infinite number of maidens with identical faces arrived. They entered, they entered one after another. They all looked at the youth impassively. He could not recognize his wife among so many. And as the last

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ones were coming in, suddenly one of them gave him a shove with her arm, and also entered the great temple. It was the resplendent temple of the Sun and of the Moon. The Sun and the Moon, father and mother of all the stars and all the splendor of the sky. There, in that temple, all the celestial beings assembled; there the bright stars went to worship the Sun, day after day. They sang melodiously for the Sun, like white maidens, the stars, like innumerable princesses, the sky's splendors. ~en the ceremony was over, the maidens began to leave. The youth continued to wait at the door. They looked at him agam with the same indifference as before. And again it was impossible for him to distinguish his wife from the others. And, as before, suddenly one of the princesses gave him a shove with her arm, and then she tried to flee, but soon he was able to seize her and he did not release her. She led him to her house, saying to him: "Why have you come all the way here? I was going to return to you anyway." When they reached the house, the youth's body was cold because of hunger. Seeing him thus, she said to him: "Take this bit of quinua and cook it." She gave him scarcely a spoonful of quinua seeds. Meanwhile the youth was watching everything and he saw the place from which she took the quinua. And when he saw the few grains that he had in his hands, he said to himself: "What a stingy portion she has given me! How can this satisfy my hunger of a whole year?" And the maiden told him: "I have to go to my parents for a minute. You must not show yourself before them. While I am gone, make a soup with the quinua which I have given you." As soon as she left, the youth stood up, went to the granary and picked a generous portion of quinua and dumped it into a 102

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kettle. Soon the soup rose, boiling, and overflowed copiously. He ate all he could, he gorged himself to the full and buried the rest. But even from under the earth the quinua began to sprout. And at this moment the princess returned, and she said to him: "Our quinua is not to be eaten in this fashion! Why did you increase the ration I gave you?" And she applied herself to helping the youth hide the quinua which had overflowed in order that her parents might not discover it. Meanwhile she warned him: "My parents must not see you. I only can keep you in hiding." And so it was he lived in hiding, and the beautiful star would bring food to him in his hiding place. For a year the young fellow lived in this hazardous condition with his wife. And as soon as the year was fulfilled, she forgot to bring him food. One day she went out, saying to him: "The hour has arrived when you must leave"; and never again did she appear at the house. She abandoned him. Then, with his face full of tears, the youth headed once more towards the shore of the sea of the sky. When he arrived there he saw the Condor rising in the distance. The youth ran to overtake him. The Condor Hew down to perch beside him, and so he observed that the divine Mallku had aged. The Condor, in his turn, noticed that the young fellow looked oldish and seedy. When they met, both shouted at the same time: "What has happened to you?" The youth repeated the story of his life, and complained. "Thus, sir, in this sad manner my wife has abandoned me. She has left forever." The Condor lamented the luck of the young fellow. "How could she have acted that way? My poor friend!" he said to him. And getting closer he stroked him with his wings, gently. 103

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As at their first meeting, the youth begged him: "Sir, lend me your wings! Take me back to earth, to my parents' home." And the Condor answered: "All right, I will take you. But first we must bathe in this sea." And both bathed and they were rejuvenated. And in coming out of the water, the Condor said to him: "You will have to give me two llamas once more for my work of carrying you again." "Sir, when I reach my house I will give you the two llamas." The Condor accepted; he placed the youth on his wings and took to the air. For a year they Hew towards the earth. And when they arrived, the young fellow kept his promise and gave the Condor two llamas. The youth entered his house and found his parents very old, covered with tears and sorrow. The Condor said to the aged couple: "Here I am returning your son to you, safe and sound. Now you must bring him up with affection." The youth said to his parents: "My father, my mother, now it is no longer possible for me to love another woman. It is no longer possible to find a woman like the one which was mine. Thus, alone, I shall live until death comes." And the aged couple answered him: "It is well. As to your wish my son, we shall rear you, alone, if it is not your will to take another wife." And so he lived in this way, with a great agony in his heart. I have here this heart that loved a woman so much I have wandered about suffering every pain, and I have to surrender myself to a Hood of tears.

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THE LITTLE BULL WITH THE SHINY SKIN

ONCE there was a young married couple. They lived by themselves in a community. The man owned a little cow, just one little cow. They used to feed her all kinds of food: farina porridge or corn mush left-overs. They raised her right by the kitchen door. Never did they take her away from the side of the house and never was she bred with any male. Nevertheless, she suddenly became pregnant. And she gave birth to a little ivorycolored calf, with shiny skin. As soon as he dropped to the ground he mooed lustily. The calf learned to follow his master; like a dog he followed behind him everywhere. And neither of them was accustomed to walking alone; they were always together. The calf began to forget his mother; he went to her only for suckling. As soon as the man would come out of the house the calf would follow him. One day the man went to the shore of a lake to cut wood. The calf accompanied him. The man gathered his wood on a hillside near the lake; he made a bundle, placed it on his shoul-

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der and started for his house. He did not remember to call the little bull. The latter remained by the shore munching on the cattails which grew on the beach. As he was eating the cattails, out came a black bull, old and tall, from the bottom of the water. He was enchanted, he was the Demon who was taking this form. Between themselves they arranged a fight. The black bull said to the calf: "You must fight me right now. We must know which of us two has more power. If you conquer me, you will be saved; if I conquer you, I will drag you down to the bottom of the lake." "Today I cannot," answered the little bull. "Wait while I ask my master's permission and bid him farewell. Tomorrow we will do the fighting. I will come early in the morning." "All right," said the old bull. "I will come out at noon. If I do not find you at that hour, I will go to look for you in a litter of fire, and I will drag you down, you and your master." "Very well. At sunrise I will appear in these hills," replied the little bull. Thus it was that the pact was arranged, solemnly. When the man reached his house his wife asked him: "Where is our little calf?" Only then did the master notice that the little bull had not returned with him. And he said: "Where can he be?" He left the house to search for him down the path to the lake. He found him in the mountain, on his way back, mooing from moment to moment. "What did you do? Your mistress scolded me on your account! You should have returned at once," the man told him, very angry. The little bull answered: "Ay! Why did you not take me with you, my master? Now I do not know what will happen to you!" "What has occurred? What can happen to me?" asked the man. 106

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"After today we walk together no more, my master. Our common road has to end." "Why? For what reason?" again asked the man. "I have met the Powerful, my great Master. Tomorrow I must go to fight him. My strength cannot come up to his strength. Today he has a great vigor. I shall not return! He must submerge me in the lake," said the little bull. On hearing this, the man wept. And when they reached the house, the man and his wife wept together. "Ay, my little bull! Ay, my child! With what life, with what soul do you have to leave us?" And from so much weeping they fell asleep. And so, at daybreak, when there still were shadows, many shadows, when there was still no light of dawn, the little bull got up, and went to the door of his owners' house, and spoke to them thus: "I am going now. Stay together, then." "No, no! Do not go away!" they answered, weeping. "Even if your Master, your Enchanter should come, we will smash his horns to bits." ''You could not," answered the little bull. ''Yes, we could! Stay!" But the little bull left, bound for the mountain. "Climb to the top, and hide carefully; you will see me from there," he said. The man ran after him, he overtook him and hung from his neck, hugging him tightly. "I can't, I can't stay!" the little bull said. "We will go together!" "No, my master. It would be worse, he would conquer mel Perhaps alone, somehow, I will be able to save myself." "And what is my life to be like if you go away?" the master said, weeping. At this moment the sun rose, ascending in the sky.

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"Together you will live, you will help one another, my master. Do not keep me back any longer-see how the sun already is coming up. Go up to the top, and watch me from there. No more," begged the little bull. "Then there is no more to do," said the man; and he stood in the road. The little bull departed. The master climbed up the hill and reached the top. There he lay down; hiding in the tall grass, he watched the lake. The little bull reached the shore; he began to bellow loudly; he pawed the ground and scattered the dust in the air. Thus heremained a long time, mooing and scattering dust, alone, very white, on the big beach. And the water of the lake began to move, rippled from one end to another, until from its depths came a bull, a black bull, large and tall as the rocks. Pawing the earth, scattering dust, he approached the little white bull. They met and the fight began. It was noon and they continued fighting. Now up there, now down there, now toward the mountain, now toward the water, the little bull was fighting; his white body trembled on the beach. But the black bull was pushing him, little by little, pushing him, pushing him, toward the water. And finally he forced him to the brink of the lake, and with a mighty thrust heaved him to the bottom; then the black bull, the Powerful, jumped in and sank behind his adversary. Both were lost in the water. The man wept aloud; bellowing like a bull he came down from the mountain; he entered his house and fell in a faint. The wife wept disconsolately. The man and the woman nourished the cow, the mother of the little white calf, with great care, loving her dearly, in the hope that she would give birth to a little bull equal to the one they had lost. But years went by and the cow remained sterile. So the owners spent the rest of their lives in sadness and tears.

lOB

THE FLOUR DEALER

ONCE there was a flour dealer. When he went on a trip he would always go to a certain customer. Both gave their word: they agreed that the dealer would not go anywhere else for lodgings nor trade with strange people. One time the flour dealer left on a business trip in the company of a man from Sicuani. It was his first trip in a long time. For almost half a year he had not gone to his customer. In violation of his agreement he had sold his flour in distant towns. But on this occasion he told his companion: "We must go to my customer." And he took his companion along the road which led to the house of his old friend. It grew dark while they walked; the sun set and it was the hour of rest; then the man from Sicuani said: "It seems that your customer's house is very far." The dealer answered him: "No. We are near now, very near the house of my customer." And he led on his companion. He did not want to rest in any 109

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other place. Very far, very far away, they discerned a house. And the merchant said: "There it is; now one can see the house of my customer." His companion was feeling a strange fatigue. And without any reason he began to feel afraid. "Let us not go on. In any one of these places let us leave our bundles and rest," he said. "What? How can you want to rest in the fields when we are near a house? No, let us go on. Now we are about to arrive," answered the dealer. And while he was talking, a phantom voice shouted from the top of a hill. "Oh my salesmaaan ... my salesman!" The customer had died; and as he was damned he had sunk into hell. "See? My customer is calling me. My customer is magnanimous and good," said the merchant. But his companion was frightened. He knew in his heart that this was not the voice of a man. His shout had been nasal. Then he asked the Hour dealer: "What kind of a man is that who has been able to climb such a steep hill, to that peak?" "It is because my customer has cattle. Perhaps his animals have run off to the hill and he has gone to look for them." And again the shouting was heard: "Oh my salesmaaan ... my salesman!" The man from Sicuani told the merchant again: "No sir. Impossible; that voice is not a human voice." At this moment they were already arriving at the house of the one who was calling. And the phantom also was coming, descending the hill, stumbling over his shroud, entangling himself, entangling himself, at every moment. Overcome with fear the companion entered the house of the customer together with the Hour dealer. As soon as they arrived 110

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they took off the bundles which they carried on their backs, and unloaded the bags of flour from the animals. The house was uninhabited, empty; all the doors remained closed. The dealer tore down the stone wall which blocked the entrance to one of the rooms, jumped inside, stretched out on the floor, and went to sleep. In the meantime, the other man tied up the llamas, lined up the bundles in a corner of the courtyard, and waited, in a squatting position, full of fear. Very near the house the shout was heard again: "Oh my salesmaaan ... Now you have come ... Now I am on my way ... !" The man looked toward the mountain, and saw that the phantom was already rolling down the foot of the hill, getting entangled and always tripping over his shroud. Then he ran toward the room where his companion was and tried to wake him up; he shook him, but the merchant went on sleeping; he slept like a stone. "The Damned One is coming now! Wake up!" he shouted to him. But the man did not hear. And from the slope near the house the phantom cried out again: "Oh my salesmaaan ... I We must join our mouths!" And the last shout re-echoed as far as the boundaries. Since he was unable to wake up the merchant, the man fled far away from the house carrying his bundles with him. But he left well blocked the door of the room in which his companion was sleeping; he made him a wide wall of stones. Once in his shelter, he tied up his llamas, lit a fire and sat down. The Damned One delayed. Far in the night, when the moon was coming out he arrived; he sneaked into the house, and began to undo the wall which protected that room; stone by stone he tore down the wall. No sooner had he entered than he seized the merchant and began to devour him. Only once did the victim shout: "U aauuu!'' Ill

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After that only the noise of the jaws of the Damned One could be heard, the crunching of the bones and the meat which he was grinding. The companion was praying and smoking; he was imploring; shivering he was saying: "This minute he is coming to devour me." At the break of dawn everything was silent. The Damned One did not come. The noise of his jaws ceased. When the sun came out and the day was well advanced; the man ran toward the house. "The Damned One must have devoured him, or what could have happened to him?" he said. Very slowly he approached the door of the room; he looked in through a crack and saw that in a corner the Damned One was stretched out, he was sleeping, he was snoring ferociously; of the flour dealer only a few pieces of bloodstained clothing remained and a few bits of his scalp scattered on the ground. Then the man, quietly and with the greatest care, again blocked up the door with a very hard and solid wall. And then, he set :fire to the house. There he made the Damned One burn. Then he loaded his llamas rapidly, and went full speed to Sicuani. When the Damned One felt the :fire on his body, he woke up, knocked down the wall away from the door and hopped away. Burning, bedecked in flames, he fled through the mountain, uphill, towards the summit. He returned to his place of origin, and to this day he has not come back.

112

THE HEAD OF THE TOWN AND THE DEMON

Tms young woman lived in a community. On a certain occasion she managed to enter the service of the senor, the adviser of the town; she was hired as a kitchen helper. After that she did not return to her community. She was orphaned of father and mother; and she had the habit of scheming in order to have the cooks of the town dismissed by their masters, and she would replace them, one after another. The young woman did not return to her community because she became her master's lover. But after some time she returned to her ayllu. Before departing, she said to her lover: "Come to my house at night." And when the master asked for the address of her house, she told him where it was and what road to follow. At night the man saddled his horse and went. From then on he would always go to spend the night with his sweetheart. At dawn he would return to the town. Every night he would make this trip. But once his sweetheart told him: "You are not to come on Tuesdays and Fridays." The master accepted this condition. But when he was alone J.J.3

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he thought it over and said: "Why doesn't this woman want me to go to her house on Friday and Tuesday nights? Could it be that she saves those days for other lovers, and for that reason forbids me to go?" And the forbidden day arrived: "I shall go secretly," said the man. He saddled his horse and left. He arrived; he secured his horse behind his lover's house, and spied through a window. The young woman had undressed. And she was bathing, first in green water, then in red water. She had lit a light in each corner of the room. When she finished bathing, she took from a hole a small, new earthen pot; in that pot there was a snake; she lifted out the snake with her hands, she kissed it; then she struck her nose, received blood on one of her hands, and made the snake lap it up. Again she kissed the serpent, put it back in the pot, covered it and placed it again in the hole in the wall. As soon as this was done, the woman went outside, and shook herself; then feathers appeared on her body; and she again entered the room. She placed a light in each of her nostrils, one in her anus, and the other she held with her teeth. There was a very fine red cloak in the room; she tied the cloak around her neck, and took flight; she disappeared behind a mountain peak. That young woman had a pact with the Demon; she had to go on Friday and Tuesday nights in search of the Demon. She had to go flying at night. Those who arrived in this way at the Demon's residence went to kiss his buttocks; in return, the Demon defecated gold and silver to each of those who rendered him homage. And many were those who went to receive gold and silver in this way. The young woman was one of them. The man saw his sweetheart rise in the air, watched her as in a dream, and said: "Where could she be going? All the things this woman knew how to dol" And then he thought: "Could I not follow her, flying the same as she?" And he entered the house. The woman lived alone, no one ll4

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kept her company. At that time the room was empty and silent. As soon as he entered the master took off his clothes until he was naked; then he started to do everything that he had seen his sweetheart do; he bathed in the red water and in the green water; he removed the snake from its hiding place, kissed it, and striking his nose, made his blood How on his hands and gave that blood to the serpent to drink; then he went outside and shook himself; and feathers grew on his body. He entered the room again; he placed a light in each of his nostrils, another in his anus, and the last he held with his teeth. There was a very fine and light cloak in the room, green in color; he wrapped that cloak around his neck. And from the place where the young woman had flown, from there, the man took flight. He flew as if someone were guiding him in the sky. From afar, the man saw an immense, an immense and very tall mansion; he saw that its big doors were open. A blue, blue light glowed in its interior. Gently, slowly, the man arrived there as if tender hands were receiving his body. In the mansion he found his friend. She became frightened when she saw her lover arrive. The great mansion was full of people, men and women, all of them feathered. They were waiting in line. Upon seeing his friend's fright, the man spoke to her: "I came because you came." Then the woman told him: "I am going to introduce you as a neophyte. You are new. Inside is the sefior, the patron. He is lying down. Now he is going to fart. We must smell his stench. Do not in any way show that you feel disgust-do not say pufl nor utter any other exclamation." Ten times his lover repeated to him the same recommendation. "Withstand the stink," she told him "and at that moment do not think of God. Only thus will we be able to return to our house-otherwise we never shall return. I will have to approach him first. Then you will go."

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"All right," replied the man. The people were filing into the room of the senor's house, and leaving one after another. Hanging from their necks were big bundles full of money; there were brightly colored blankets, yellow, red, green; inside these blankets they carried the money. And as they came out they started the return flight; they flew in all directions. The young woman's turn and her lover's turn arrived and they went in. The Demon was lying down; his buttocks were huge and fatty; his legs, plump and stodgy. He was naked and farted disgustingly. "Who is that man?" he asked. "It is a new man, sir," the young woman replied. "Are you new?" the Demon asked directly. "Yes, sir, I am new," he replied. And according to the agreement the young woman approached the Demon's rump first. And she kissed his buttocks. At this moment the Demon expelled a filthy gas into the young woman's countenance. But she remained undisturbed; she breathed in the gas calmly. Then she stood up, untied the red blanket which she was wearing around her neck and spread it out under the Demon's buttocks. The Demon defecated a huge quantity of gold and silver upon the blanket. The woman made a bundle, threw it on her back and returned to her place. Now it was the man's turn. He approached the Demon. He spread out the green blanket next to the Demon's buttocks. And at the moment he was kissing his buttocks, the Demon expelled a filthy gas, an impossible stench. And the man was not able to withstand it. He turned his face to one side and exclaimed Pufl Then the Demon sat up, grabbed the man by one of his feet, turned him several times in the air and threw him off into space. The man fell into a deep ravine, into a rocky abyss. A precipice from which it was impossible to get out. But he fell smoothly, as if gentle hands were receiving him. Thus, he sud116

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denly found himself in this savage place. And he was not able to flnd any road whatsoever. It was already dawn in the world. Then, this gentleman, a principal personage of the town, began to weep. He was carrying with him a small prayer book; only that book accompanied him, and he prayed in it. The feathers which used to cover his body fell off. And he remained naked. Three days and three nights he was in the abyss, praying in his book. And during these three days hunger, cold and thirst overtook him. "I shall have to die here. I never shall get out," he said. At the beginning of the afternoon of the third day a little parrot came down to the precipice; it alighted upon a rock and began to sing mockingly as it watched the man: "Jajau! Jajau! K'aj, K'aj, K'aj! ..." It seemed to be laughing from the heights. Then the man contemplated the little parrot with a pitiful expression and spoke to it: "Ay little parrot! Can't you take me out of this precipice?" "Jaujau, jayau!" the little parrot replied. "Are you paying for your sins? Are you suffering for being fond of women? And now you wish to save yourself!" "Yes! I want to get out of here!" replied the man. "I will inform the bear. He is very strong, he can take you out of there." And he flew away. In a short while the little parrot returned, bringing in his claws a yellow fruit; he threw it towards the place where the man was, and spoke to him: "Drink, at least, the juice of this fruit. I found only a male bear and I did not say anything to him because the male bear would take you out of the precipice to devour you. Now I am going to look for a female bear, she will not devour you." "Very well, little parrot," said the man. The little parrot disappeared again behind the top of the rocks. The man began to drink the juice of the yellow fruit.

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This time the little parrot delayed much longer in returning. But it arrived very happy and told him: "I found her and informed her. She's coming; she's coming, and she's bringing you food." The female bear arrived in a short while. She looked at the man from the top of the rock and called to him: "Naked man! Wretched man! I don't even have bread for you! And what is left, is only that in the barnyard! Big cow dungs! And what there is upon the windows, hard, hard grains of barley!" "Little bear, little bear, take me out of here!" shouted the man. "Right now, right now! I'm going to send food to you first!" The she-bear had cooked especially for the man and had put the food into a small earthen pot. She tied the pot with a rope and lowered it down to the bottom of the precipice. "Recover your strength with this! Eat quickly!" she said as she let out the rope. The head of the town received the pot and devoured the food hurriedly. Then he tied the pot to the rope again, and the she-bear gathered up the rope. And again the she-bear dropped the rope down the precipice and said to the man: "Tie the rope well around your waist. Now you are going to pay dearly for being fond of women! Naked man! Wretched man!" The man listened in silence to the she-bear's insults. The bear went on shouting. "Hold tight, hold tight to the rope! I'm going to pull the rope!" The gentleman grabbed the rope tightly. The she-bear pulled up the rope with only one pull. Seujl and the man was already at the top. Then the she-bear said to him: "Little gentleman, little gentleman! I have pulled you out for me! Now you have to follow me to my house." And she took him away. llB

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The bear's den was a big cave in the rock. The door of the cave was covered with a huge piece of granite. The bear took away the stone, led the man to the inside of the cave, and closed up the den again with the big stone. Immediately she went away in search of clothes for her guest. She brought him gentleman's clothing. And she had him dress. The man was grateful and asked: "Where is the road to get out of here! I must go now." But the she-bear had her own schemes. "If you plan to go away I shall devour you," she said to him. ''You must live with me. I took you out of the precipice so that you might be my lover." Fearing to be devoured by the she-bear the man was resigned to remain. And he lived in the cave. He became the shebear's lover. And many years went by. The she-bear became pregnant. The father was the gentleman from the town, the man whom she had saved from the precipice. Whenever the provisions were exhausted the she-bear shut up the man in the cave, and she went to steal in the town. She would return three or four days later. She came back loaded with all kinds of objects and foods. The she-bear stole all she could. And thus they lived. For she brought to her lover everything that could be useful to him. The she-bear gave birth. She gave birth to three: to three males. The children had the body of a bear from the waist down, but the feet were those of an ass. From the waist up they were men. Their legs were of fleece. In the upper part of the body they had human skin. When they were born the man baptized them. For a month the she-bear raised her children in the interior of the cave. The children grew rapidly. At the end of a month they knew how to eat. Then the mother was able to leave them alone and go out to steal in the fields. Before leaving she would shut the cave with a big piece of rock. After three or four days ~~9

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she would return. The children went on growing, they became powerful; now they were walking. On a certain occasion, when the provisions were exhausted, the she-bear went in search of prey. As was her custom, she left the cave door closed. The children asked their father: "Where are we from, father? Which is our town?" The man told them from what town he was and the children asked: "How were you able to reach this place?" "The Demon threw me here," replied the father. "We must return," the children said. "In three months we shall be big enough." "And how will we be able to leave, my children," asked the man, "when the cave is shut with such a large rock?" "We three can throw it down," said the little bears. "Try it," replied the father. The children pushed the rock, and then put it back in its place so their mother would not know that they had moved open the entrance to the cave. And the she-bear came back. She did not realize that her sons had moved the stone. The little bears loved their father dearly and were careful not to discuss what had happened during their mother's absence. The old she-bear kept going out in search of food from time to time. While she was absent, the children spoke with their father and planned the escape. Three months went by. The little bears became young men. They were very strong. Every time their mother left, they used to push the rock and go outside of the cave. The father also used to go out to warm up in the sun. His sons played and jumped among the rocks. Finally, the she-bear suspected that her sons were opening the entrance to the cave, and told them: "Be careful not to open the door." 120

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"How can we move the stone which shuts up our cave?" asked the children. And the father added: "The children do not even touch that stone with their hands. They play right here, on the inside." But the she-bear continued to be restless. She used to come back very hurriedly and the same day. And the father and the sons could not escape. Then the little bears told their father: "Command our mother to go far away, very far away. Tell her that you need something that she can find only in a very distant place." And the man spoke to the bear, his sweetheart: "I have nothing with which to teach our childen how to read and write. You see that there is nothing here. Even if you have to travel for a whole month you must bring something with which I can instruct the children." The she-bear fastened the rock onto the door of the cave, she wedged it as firmly as she could, and went away in search of school supplies for her children. She had hardly left the cave when the man and his three sons devoted themselves to cooking all the provisions that were in the den. They stuffed themselves. Then the little bears spoke! "Now we can go away. Our mother must be far away." And they pushed away the rock which blocked the door of the cave. They chose the best things, the most necessary, among those in the cave; they made of them two big bundles. Two of the little bears threw them on their backs; the other bear carried the father. And they left. Before leaving they closed the den's entrance again. They walked in great haste. Now they were a great distance from the cave. The she-bear saw them; she was walking by a nearby mountain. From the summit she shouted: "Naked man! Where are you going? Now I am going to devour you!" 121

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"Our mother has already seen us," said the young bears. "We cannot conquer her. Our mother is much more powerful. She can conquer all three of us together." Shaking with fear they dug out a wide deep hole. There they buried the father and the bundles of food. In the meantime the old she-bear arrived. One by one she punished her sons. "Why did you free your father?" she was saying. And she struck heavy blows upon the bears. But the three young ones were able to imprison the mother. They uprooted a tree and with it they beat the she-bear. They struck her until they killed her; then they crushed her with a big stone. They dug up their father; one of them carried him again, and they left. They walked a great distance. Now they could see the father's native town; now they were near. In the meantime the she-bear had revived. She was running up the hill. The sons saw her. They hid the father among the provisions and the objects which they were carrying in the bundles. The she-bear reached them. And again they struggled with her. They struck her, they pushed her down, they crushed her head, they shattered her body and threw her away in the fields. They arrived at the father's native town. The town was empty and sunk in silence. They looked for the father's house, and there unloaded their bundles. Then they went to see the other houses. All were empty and the doors open. And they returned to the paternal house. It was a big mansion. They entered the parlor where the master used to receive the town's folk. It was a spacious, ornamented room. No people were there either; it was silent and dark. Hardly had they taken a few steps when three cats jumped from the inside meowing away desperately as they fled, one behind the other. The gentleman was afraid, and he said to his sons:

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"What could have happened to this town? It was well populated, it had lots of people and now it is empty." And while he was speaking, the cats reappeared in the parlor. The three young bears surrounded the cats and hurried them into a little room which stood at the end of the parlor. They captured the three cats. They were three condemned ones with the appearance of felines. When they had grabbed them tight, the gentleman asked them: "Why have the people fled from this town? For what reason have you taken possession of my house?" Then the three condemned ones spoke: "We were sent by the Lord. The adviser of this town, the head, its caretaker, has entered the house of the Demon. 'Go, and devour all the inhabitants of this town,' the Lord told us And we have fulfilled his orders: we have finished with all the people of the town, we have devoured them." Then, the man and his three sons tied up the condemned ones; they took them to the center of the public square and burned them there. While the bodies of the condemned were burning, three white doves flew out of the flames. The people, who had escaped the fury of the condemned ones by hiding in the outskirts of the town, fled on seeing the fire in the public square. Thus the town remained still more depopulated from one end to the other. The gentleman and his three sons lived by themselves in the city. Now they had lived there about a month. They walked in the silent streets, they crossed the empty town from one end to the other. And often they climbed to the top of the hills which surrounded the town, and from there they called to the people. They would call them as one usually does to get the people together at harvest time. And it is not known how the men who had fled far away learned that from the hills of the town the man with his sons 123

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were proclaiming, calling to the people. And the word went around: "An arariwa is calling our people together. Is it because someone has come into town? Or perhaps the condemned ones have left now." It was said: "Let us go, let us climb to the top of the highest mountain and listen." The people went in a tumult. They scaled the mountain and all day long, until nightfall, they looked towards the town: three young men entered the gentleman's house and in a short while came out. In the patios they saw people walking. And from the hilltops they cried out, they called. And they gathered together, they began congregating, and afterwards they presented themselves in the town. They entered furtively, still hiding in the streets. Thus they reached the central plaza of the town. At the door of the big mansion of the head of the town they saw again the just and righteous man, he who had been the adviser of the people; he was there, standing, watching the square. Three young fellows were around him. Then the men of the town approached the house walking resolutely. "Where have you been, sir? Where did you go?" they asked. "The Demon instigated me. I have suffered under the Demon's power; I have paid for my guilt," he said; and then went on: "Now, tell me what happened after I left; how was the town left vacant?" "First we searched for you in your house and did not find you. Afterwards, in the next community, in the house of a young woman, your horse appeared and we discovered your clothes. The entire town blamed that woman for your disappearance; later they brought her to the town and secluded her forever. 'You are the one who knows where the protector of the town may be found,' they told her and they locked her up. And when the condemned ones arrived we left her imprisoned; the condemned ones probably devoured her. The town went to such J24

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extremes because you abandoned it; that is why our Lord threw those condemned ones against us. And we were forced to flee leaving all our belongings behind. Those who were caught by the condemned ones are finished. Thus the town fell into silence." Then the adviser of the town spoke: "Come back then, all of those who were able to flee." The men returned to the fields. They climbed to the top of the hills and shouted: "Now the protector of the town has returned! Now has he cast out the Demons! Come, come back!" The people heard the cry. They passed on the word one by one and one by one they arrived, returning to the town, only a few remaining. They took possession of their houses, and they lived again like a big family. The head of the town said to his men, referring to the young bears: "These were the ones who took me out of the Demon's kingdom. That is why I call them 'sons.' " The young bears covered their fleecy legs with special clothes. The oldest one was elected governor; the second one became town crier, and the youngest was elected song teacher. The father continued to be the Amachakke, protector of the town. These were the only ones obeyed and feared in the community. And all lived well thereafter. The gentleman died; the town buried him; and thus ended all this story.

J2G

THE CONDOR'S LOVER

ONCE there was a young woman whose parents were still alive. She was a girl with a beautiful face. One day her parents sent her out to tend the cattle. And from then on they ordered her every day to fulfill this task. On a certain day when she was watching the cattle, a gentleman approached her. He was a gentleman elegantly attired, dressed in riding clothes. His trousers gave him an energetic and very masculine air; he wore leggings which protected his legs, like the cattlemen of the steppe. He wore a collar of gold tight to his throat; and the most beautiful woolen knitted cap covered his head. The elegant traveler said to the young woman: "Be my lover." "All right," answered the young woman. And the maiden received the word of the traveler. Thus they arranged their love. From then on, for many days, the young man came to seek her in the same spot. But she did not tell her father nor her mother of the visits that the unknown gentleman 126

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paid her. Only in her heart she kept her story. And in this way, without anyone realizing her plight, she became pregnant. The man dressed as a traveler was the Condor, who assumed the appearance of an elegant gentleman in order to conquer the maiden. For that reason, the young woman saw in him only a gentleman, a werakkocha. But, :finding herself in such a serious condition, she told him: "I have conceived a child of yours. Now we must go to your house or to mine. I cannot reveal my condition to my parents, nor can I make you known to them because I have lived with you without their knowing it." On hearing the news the gentleman answered her: "We will go to my house. Tomorrow I will carry you there. Now go to your house. Tomorrow you will bring along your things, without letting your parents know. You'll come driving the cattle, as on any other day." "All right," said the young woman, and she left, going down the mountain, toward her house. It was nightfall. Silently, and taking away all her things, the young woman drove the cattle, at daybreak, toward the mountain where her lover was waiting for her. Furtively, without letting her father or her mother know. And thus, loaded with all her personal objects, she waited at the summit of the mountain. Until noon the Condor delayed; at that hour he appeared with his gentlemanly air. And he asked the young woman: "So you came already? And did you remember to bring all your things?" "Yes, I have come here; and I have brought all that I have." Then they agreed to go away. "Chase the cattle toward your house now. Your parents will see the animals and they will drive them on. Do it at once! Do as I tell you, and come back soon," commanded the Condor. The young woman obeyed, ran to the cattle and took them to the foot of the hill within sight of her paternal home; there 12?

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she chased away the animals and ran back. As soon as she returned, the Condor told her: "Now I am going to carry you." He took her toward some rocks and there admonished her: "You are not to open your eyes; shut them tightly. If you should open them, I will drop you." And so, shutting her eyes tightly, the young woman threw herself on the back of her lover. Then the Condor Hew up. She did not feel anything that would make her think that she was walking. But they had already climbed very high in the air. Now only a soft rocking could be perceived, as if suggesting that her lover was floating in a dream. And they Hew, they flew in the sky; at nightfall, they reached a frightful abyss of rocks. There the Condor had his nest. When the lover unloaded the young woman, and she opened her eyes, she found herself in a solitary cave. She looked upward and saw that the summit was far off, a precipice of granite; when she gazed at the bottom of the ravine, she saw that it was a dark abyss, a black and silent depth, heavy with horror. Seeing herself alone at the entrance to the cave, in such a place, she wept! "Why did I come!'' she said. There were but half-gnawed bones and chunks of meat scattered about in the inside of the cave. There they slept. The following morning the Condor told her: "Wait for me, sitting right here." He soared up and flew away. Left alone, in the great silence, she wept disconsolately. She had nothing to cook nor to eat in that cave. And she had to remain seated, waiting. "What will become of mel Had I known this, I should never have come!" she said. Late in the evening the Condor arrived bringing meat; and she had to cook. Near the cave there was a small rivulet; it fell

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in a crystalline stream and formed a very clean pool between the rocks. From there the Condor's lover drew water. And all the days were alike. The Condor always went away; often he would not return for three or four days, then bringing meat from dead animals, decayed meat. The young woman lived weeping. Until she gave birth. She used to wash the diapers and the clothes of the child in the little fountain, at the foot of the crystalline stream. She would cook the meat which the Condor brought; and on some days she did not even get the left-overs of the dead animals which her lover brought her. In the meantime the parents of the young woman also were crying. "What has become of our daughter! Where, where has she gone?" they said. No one knew that the traveler, the Condor, had abducted her. "The earth must have swallowed her; or else someone has lost her," lamented the parents; and they wept. Until one day, when the mother was sobbing behind the garden of her house, a Hummingbird appeared; he began to fly around her head: Reuu flying, reu ... kkenti hummingbird! The daughter of whom of whom will be weeping upon the rocks. The daughter of whom of whom will be weeping upon the rocks.

He was singing and returning and turning. Then the woman answered it: "Hummingbird: no one knows how and how much I have cried and suffered for my daughter; and you come to me with these stories." And picking up a stone she threw it at the Hummingbird and broke one of its tiny legs. Now wounded, the Hummingbird flew away over the housetops. 129

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Thus, forever saddened and weeping, the mother waited for her daughter. And the Hummingbird came back again. Turning to and fro, it sang:

Reuu ... flying, reuu ... kkenti hummingbird! The daughter of whom will be weeping upon the rocks. The daughter of whom of whom will be weeping upon the rocks. Then the woman thought: "Perhaps it knows where my daughter is." And she asked it in a loud voice: "Hummingbird, emerald Hummingbird, do you know, perhaps, in what place my daughter will be found?" The Hummingbird answered her: "Of course I know where she will be found! If only you had not broken my little leg ... I However, if you cure me with molasses and present me with some sweets, I might tell you!" "I will give you what you ask; I will give you molasses that you may cure your little broken leg." The woman brought molasses and some sweets, and placed them upon a stone. The emerald Hummingbird flew onto the stone, drank the sweets, anointed his little leg with molasses, and bandaged it. Then it spoke: "Your daughter is weeping on some high rocks, above the precipice." "Bring her to me, Hummingbird, carry her here," the woman begged it. "If you give me more sweets I will bring her to you tomorrow, I will carry her to you," answered the kkenti. "Yes, Hummingbird, I shall give you a lot of honey, until you are satiated," the mother offered. "Very well, I shall go right now." And saying this he flew away over the rooftops. He flew into the big cave and waited for the Condor to leave. And the Condor rose into the air; his black body was lost 130

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in the faraway horizon. After the Condor disappeared, the Hummingbird flew toward the young woman, singing: Reu flying, reu kkenti hummingbird, The mother of whom, the father of whom, Will be weeping in their desolate house.

And it turned and circled: The mother of whom, the father of whom will weep! "Hummingbird save my daughter," begging. If you should wish, if you should wish, I, Hummingbird, flying reu kkenti flying, Would carry you, would take you. And he went on flying, circling over the abyss near the cave. Then the young woman spoke to him: "Emerald Hummingbird, save me! Will you be large enough to carry me to my parents' home?" "Yes, I will save you; I must carry you, you and your son. Come! Get ready quickly!" The young lover made a little bundle of her things and flung it on her back; upon the bundle she carried her son. The Hummingbird soared up carrying the girl and the child. He reached the home of her parents and sang over the housetops: "Reu Hying, reu kkenti hummingbird, I am arriving with your daughter!"

"Emerald Hummingbird, great Hummingbird! You have brought our daughter back to us!" cried the parents. And they gave it sweets and honey. "Lock up your daughter. Your son-in-law will come. Do not permit him to see her. Confine her, together with her son," ordered the Hummingbird. "Tomorrow I shall come back before the Condor arrives. I shall bring you news." "We shall do what you order," said the parents. They confined the young woman. And they asked her to tell 131

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them how and where she had lived, how and with whom she had traveled, and how and by what means she had had her son. She confessed everything to them: "A man deceived me and took me to his house; there he kept me, and there I gave birth to this creature. It was the Condor who taking the appearance of a man seduced me and carried me to his cave. He is the father of my child." In the meantime, the Hummingbird flew again to the Condor's cave. He looked for the Frog who lived in the crystalline spring of the rocks, and he said to him: "When the great Condor arrives, you will convert yourself into a woman, and by the edge of the spring you will pretend to be washing the clothes of his son." "Very well," said the Frog. And as the Frog accepted the assignment, the Hummingbird went on with his instructions: "As soon as he arrives he will ask you: 'What are you doing there?' and you will reply: 'I am washing'; then he will tell you: 'Hurry up, hurry up!' And when.he asks: 'Are you finished washing yet?' you will reply: 'Not yet, not yet,' and when he calls you: 'Come here quick, come at once!' you will dive into the water. You will hide, and you will not come out again." After saying this, the Hummingbird jumped upon the rocks and the Frog changed himself into a woman. The woman began to wash. The Condor was coming now. The Hummingbird was watching from the rocks, hidden in a hollow of the rocks. The Frog seemed very busy, washing away. The Condor alighted by the spring. "What are you doing?" he asked the woman. "I am still washing, my seiior,'' she answered. "Hurry up, hurry up," said the Condor. "Yes!" the woman replied. The Condor betook himself to his hide-out and entered the cave. He looked into every corner and did not find his son. Then

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he thinks: "And where can she have taken the child?" He comes out and asks the woman in a loud voice: "Where is the child?" "He must be there," she answers. "Hurry up, hurry up! I have brought meat, come and cook it." "Right away, this minute," the woman answers. "Now! Now!" the Condor shouts at the top of his voice, and he lifts his neck in order to observe. "Now! Now!" he calls again. "I hardly am beginning the wash," replies the woman. The Condor jumps into the air and shouts: "I am going to kick you!" The Frog dives into the water, his body makes a noise in the crystalline spring. On the shore neither the clothes nor diapers of the child remain; only a small stone remains. But the eyes of the Condor had seen the woman washing. Motionless, the Condor's eyes watched the spring. "She will come out soon, she will come out soon," he said. But nothing appeared in the water. From his hiding place the Hummingbird was watching the Condor attentively. On seeing him perplexed and confused, he sang to him: ]afaullal Reuu Kkenti, I am the Hummingbird flying. What a fool, what a fool you have been! Reuu flying, reuu flying! ]ajaulla! Your woman is in her house now, she is in her town now. Ajaujaullal ]ajaulla!

The Condor replied, enraged: "You have carried her away, you have kidnaped my wife. Here I come, here I come! I am going to swallow you whole, I am going to gobble you up." ]ajay! That Hummingbird could have carried away a woman! Singing, the Hummingbird disappeared in the air. The Con-

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dor Hew after him. He pursues him, he tries to surround him, he turns and turns around him, but he does not succeed in catching him; the Hummingbird slips away and disappears. And since he cannot catch the Hummingbird, since it escapes him, the Condor Hies toward the house of his wife. He arrives at the door changed into an elegant and handsome gentleman. A golden cord adorns his neck; his scaly and dirty legs are hidden by big shining leggings. He enters the house, saying: "Seiior, senora, allow me to come in. If your daughter has returned, restore her to me, for she is mine." "No, sir. No one has come here, no one has arrived at our house," the mother answers him. Then the Condor goes away, objecting. On the following day the Hummingbird came to the house of the lover. "It is going to be difficult to save your daughter," he said to the mother. "Tomorrow, also, your son-in-law will come. But tomorrow you are to boil some water, and fill to the brim with boiled water a large earthen jar. When your son-in-law reaches the door of the house, you are to cover the earthen jar with a shawl. And now let me have some chili. I shall return." He took the chili and went away. The Condor was searching the sky for the Hummingbird. The Hummingbird was Hying towards the Condor's cave carrying the chili. They met on the way. The Condor shouted to him: "Now! I am going to eat you up!" And he pursued him, making circles around the Hummingbird in order to catch him. Thus they came to the big precipices of rock. The Hummingbird crossed the air and got himself into a little hollow. Then the Condor stuck in his beak as far as he could: "I am going to get him out," he said. But he did not reach him. 134

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"Come out, Hummingbird! Come out at once!" he was shouting at him from outside. "Right away, right away, my great master. Wait for me a minute, I'm finishing putting on my stockings," the Hummingbird answered him. The Condor was waiting, with his beak half-opened, ready to swallow up the morsel at once. The Hummingbird spoke to him from his hiding place: ••rught away, right away! I'm about to come out now! Open your beak, and also your anus; both things, great sefior." The Condor opened his beak more; and thus with his mouth wide open, he was waiting. The Hummingbird came out, suddenly; he inserted himself into the Condor's mouth, and slipping down his gullet, escaped through the anus. And he flew away swiftly, disappearing into the air. The Condor was left stunned. ••I should have chewed him, how is it possible that he slipped out of me like that, in a flash?" he lamented. And he soared up, pursuing the Hummingbird once more. "I must chew him," he was saying. And seeking, seeking in the heights, he was able to overtake him. "So this is how far you got! Now you will not be able to escape. I'm going to eat you up right now!" "Of course, of course! I should say sol You are going to eat me," replied the Hummingbird, but he went on flying and escaping. The Condor turned about, he pursued him. He circled around him. Thus he led him towards the rocks. And again the Hummingbird enclosed himself in a little hollow in the rocks. "Where have you gone? Come out, I will eat you no matter what," shouted the Condor. "Right now, right now, great sefiorl I do not object to your eating me. Yes, you shall eat me, my lord. Wait for me a minute. I am going to grind a little chili to lick." J:JG

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"Now! Now! Quick!" the Condor was calling, and watching, vigilant, the exit of the hollow. "Ay, little mother ... takk . .. takk . .. takk! Ay, little father ... takk ... takk ... takk!" The Hummingbird was grinding the chili inside the hollow; he was grinding away busily. And he said to the Condor: "I can escape; see that I can escape; open your eyes well, Sr. Condor; open them wide, and watch me well, do not stop watching." The Condor opened his eyes; and thus, with dilated pupils he was keeping guard over the hollow. At that moment the Hummingbird hurled the ground chili violently into his eyes; and after having shut the Condor's eyes with the hot chili, he Hew away to the house of the young lover. In the meantime, the Condor rolled about in the air, rubbing his eyes; and for a long time he was shuddering all over. The Hummingbird reached the young woman's house. He called her mother: "Reuu Hying reu Kkenti Hummingbird!" he sang. "What can you say, what are you going to say? I have burned with chili your son-in-law's eyes! Now you must boil the water I told you about. Your son-in-law is coming now, now he is coming. It is time to kill him. Now you will kill him. Let the water frisk to the brim of the big earthen jar. And you will cover the water with many garments. When your son-in-law comes he will question you: 'Your daughter must be here, I know she has come.' You will answer him: 'Senor, I have not seen my daughter.' But he will go on asking: 'Where is your daughter, where is she? You have to hand her over to me.' Then you will say to him: 'Come in, Sir, rest a while, take a seat beneath the shade of my roof.' And you will invite him to come in, you will escort him. And when he is about to sit down on the stone bench, you will take him to the earthen jar and let him sit down upon it, because he

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will do so. And when he falls into the jar, you will help him with a big stick to sink in; and you will even pour boiling water over his body. And there you will drown your daughter's husband. You will pluck him like a hen. Remember that when he comes in he must not see your daughter by any means. He is coming now, now he comes! Put the water to boil now," said the Hummingbird, and he went away. The woman obeyed the little bird. She filled an earthen jar with boiling water. Then she covered the jar with a shawl. And the jar looked like a comfortable seat. At that moment the Condor was entering the house. And it was true, his eyes were irritated, red and inflamed. But he was arrogant, pompous and elegant. "Permit me to come in, to visit you," he said. "Has your daughter arrived yet? Now do you know that she has come?" he asked. "No, Sir. No daughter of mine has returned to this house, nor has she arrived," she replied. "No!" insisted the Condor. "She is here! I know that she has arrived!" he insisted. He made her responsible. The woman agreed amiably and told him: "Yes, senor. It is true. I will hand her back to you immediately. But come in anyway, rest and sit down for a minute," and saying this, she guided him toward the room. And the Condor entered the house. Thus she led him to the earthen jar, and told him: "Sit down on this humble bench, upon this shawl." The Condor sat down. He sank into the jar; his body made a sound in the water. Then the woman pushed him still farther with a big stick; she crammed him into the bottom of the jar. And she poured over him several jars of boiling water. The Condor was now like a poor hen, now his feathers were not even feathers. The body bare and whitish, the legs, the wings,

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the neck and stomach featherless, he resembled an old naked rooster. His look of elegant gentleman had been only a resemblance. However, he was in truth a Condor. The parents, the daughter and the grandchild now could live together tranquilly. Their anguish and their sorrows turned into joy, into real happiness. And thus, to this very day, joy persists in a town very remote, very remote.

138

MIGUEL WAYAPA

ANn THERE was a man called Miguel Wayapa. This man had a hard, wicked heart. He was very wealthy. He owned cattle. He was owner of vast farmlands and of large granaries. This man was, furthermore, a usurer, an implacable usurer. He forced his debtors to work for him for nothing on the pretext that they owed him interest. He fleeced the poor, stripped them of all their possessions by means of usury. His, therefore, was the vilest and meanest heart. And thus he died. And in a whole, flesh and bone, he dropped into hell. In the same town there lived another man, the father of three sons, very poor, very poor. And this man, one day when he had drunk a great deal, agreed in his drunkeness to be the alferez at a principal fiesta which demanded money and a great squandering. This man went directly to his wife and told her: "I have agreed to be the alferez of the big fiesta." Then his wife reproached him: "If you have accepted such a burden, you may have to go to the house of the Devil to get money." 139

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When he heard his wife's reproof, the man began to weep bitterly. And thus, with tears in his eyes, he had some people help him grind corn for Hour. And loading sacks of Hour on a drove of llamas he set out in the company of his three sons. "Yes; I will travel and search, even if I arrive in hell itself," he said before departing. He wandered along the roads without any fixed goal, driving along his llamas. And he trod on and on for forty days and forty nights. Until he met a gentleman, a gentleman who was riding on a white horse. And the gentleman asked the man: "Son, where are you going?" "Down this way, sir," answered the man. "I agreed to be the alferez of a very big day, a fiesta impossible for me. And my wife reproached me: 'It may be you will have to go to hell itself to get money,' she told me. For this reason I am hustling along, even if I have to arrive at the house of the Devil. Which way is the road, sir?" And then the gentleman answered him: "No, my son. You need not go to such an extreme. Go to the city that is behind these mountains; the road is that which you see in the distance. In that city you will be able to convert your sacks of Hour into hundreds of coins. There is the road, my son." And he pointed toward a path in the mountains. "That is the road you must take, not the other one, that appears near the first one, because the latter is the one that arrives in hell." And the gentleman spoke no more. It is said that he was our Lord Santiago. But the road which the traveler had to take was still very far. And thus, weeping, the four men directed themselves toward the mountain. And when they reached the road pointed out by the gentleman, the father asked his three sons: "Which one is the road which the gentleman told us to take?" As his eyes had become clouded because of his tears, he was unable to recognize the road. 140

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The youngest of the sons answered him: "He did not tell us to take this road, but the other." And so saying he led his father on to the true path. But the eldest son was in error and led them astray. Interrupting his brother he said: "No. That is not the road; this is the one." And thus it was that they all took the wrong road, the road towards the Devil. In this way they reached the summit at nightfall. There they tied the llamas, unloaded the sacks of flour, and then lay down to spend the night. While they were sleeping the Devil came, drove on the llamas and stole them away; he led them to his town. When the man woke up, he looked for his llamas; and as he did not find them, he thought that thieves had stolen them. Then, accompanied by one of his sons, he began to look for them, leaving behind the youngest son to take care of the sacks of flour. Following the tracks of the llamas, the man came to a distant hill. There he met the ghost of Miguel Wayapa. He was cutting r6'ke wood for kindling, and tying it together with a rope. It looked like a rope woven of leather strips, but actually it was a snake; only to the eyes of ordinary men did it seem like a rope. It was Wayapa, but his neighbor did not recognize him; he saw in him only his ghost. Miguel Wayapa, however, identified his townsman; and spoke to him in this manner: "Sir, don't you recognize me? I am Miguel Wayapa. For all the tears which I caused men to shed our Lord now torments and afflicts me." The man replied only to the ghost: "My llamas have wandered up to these thicknesses. I am after them, and their hoofprints lead here." "Yes, that is true. He brought them. Your llamas are now looking at one another's faces, tied by their necks in a circle of ropes, in the middle of the playground. Now I shall be able to save myself with you! I will teach you much." 141

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And thus he taught him much, saying to him: "Enter the playground right now, at a run. And pulling off the ropes from the llamas' necks, throw them on the ground. Once you have thrown down the rope, brandish your halter of woven leather, and striking the llamas with it, drive them off at full speed. Then a crowd of gentlemen and matrons will try to reach you, showing you plates and trays laden with victuals and delicacies and glasses of chicha: 'Come and drink, seiior!' they will tell you, and then they will beg of you: 'Take a rest, stop a while; sell us your herd.' But do not listen to them, do not accept their offers. Then some wild dogs will fall upon you, barking and biting. But you will strike them with your leather rope, you will frighten them, dispersing them all over the square, till they go to the comers. I will run under cover of the noises, and, in the confusion, I will be able to reach the road which starts at the town. There I will wait for you. In that way I will be able to jump into the middle of your herd of llamas. And then, you, brandishing your rope, running and flying, making a great deal of noise, will drive on the herd; and with the llamas you will take me away from here, you will save me." Thus instructed, the man entered the town. He ran directly to the herd of llamas; and tearing off the ropes he threw them to the ground. As soon as he had thrown down the ropes, he looked upon the ground and he saw a bunch of mutilated snakes struggling and boiling in their own blood. Immediately the man drove on the llamas, full gallop. Whereupon gentlemen and matrons ran after him, bearing plates of food and glasses of chicha, and saying: "Rest a bit more, seiiorl Sell us your llamas!" But he did not accept the offers, nor receive anything. Then a pack of dogs hurled themselves upon him, barking and rushing him; the man whipped them with his leather rope in such a way that the dogs were thrown to every comer. Thus he succeeded in driving the llamas to the outskirts of the town. And, as prom-

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ised, there indeed was Miguel Wayapa, waiting for him by the roadside. When he saw the herd of llamas appear he slipped quietly among the animals. He trotted with the llamas, swinging the leather rope, led the herd along the roads, brought them to safety. Thus it was that they reached the valley of a mountain. In the valley sat our Father Santiago. He was armed with a sword. He stood up and told them: "The demons are coming on horseback to catch up with you. Now I will make them go back, I'll cut them up and smash their horns. You go ahead, and wait for me by the sacks of flour." When they were quite far away they turned their eyes toward the road and saw the demons, in a huge cavalcade, galloping towards them. But at this moment our Lord Santiago appeared, and with blows from his sword broke the demons' legs, lashed their backs, and made his horse trample them under foot. Once they reached the place where the man had left his sacks of flour they rested in order to wait for our father Santiago. There they found the youngest of the sons, who was waiting for his father, weeping desolately in the silence. When our Lord Santiago arrived he went to Wayapa and recriminated him for all the deeds of his life, telling him: "You were the one who made men weep; you were the thief; you are the murderer." And Wayapa found no place in which to hide his face. Our Father Santiago went on: "Now you will arrive at your town, but not at your house. Directly you will go to the temple of prayer. You will address no one. You will not visit your wife, nor anyone else." And writing a letter, he commissioned the man to hand it to the priest of the temple of prayer. In the letter he said: "The great sinner is returning; he will become good. Sing a mass for his soul. Now he is being born again. He is not going to be a dead man any longer. Behind the grounds where the corpses are buried you will have a house built for him. But do not permit

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him to live with his wife. You will have to sing three masses for this sinner. And when you are celebrating the second mass, the middle one, a hornet will come and drip its blood upon his forehead; this blood will sink into the bones of his forehead. As soon as the hornet dies, the soul will enter Wayapa's body, will return to his being. This done, he will live in the house which you will have built for him." Then, addressing the man, our Father Santiago ordered him: "Empty your sacks of flour upon the ground." But the man refused to obey. "How can that be, Lord?" he answered. "With what will I be able to buy something to bring home? In any event I must sell my sacks of flour." The Lord insisted: "Empty them, I tell you! And then go and pick up those pieces of earthen pots." And he made him pick up the fragments of pottery which lay by the roadside; and commanding him to break the edges, he told him to make large circular pieces out of them. Then he had him refill the empty flour sacks with the pieces of clay. He had them sew up the openings; and then he had him load the llamas. And he told him: "Now go away; now return home. But do not try to pry into the sacks until you reach home." The man started the journey, in accordance with the command. And he drove on his llamas. At first the animals walked very fast; but afterwards the loads became heavy as lead. Likewise at the beginning of the journey the man used to load and unload the sacks with ease, as if they were light, but during the later stages the sacks seemed to increase in weight; with the help of his three sons and of Wayapa the man scarcely could load the Ilamas. And the llamas eventually could not bear the weight; their backs curved towards the ground. The reason was that the clay had turned into silver. However, with the com-

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bined strength of animals and men, they succeeded in reaching the house of the traveler. And upon arriving they unloaded the bundles, opened up the sacks and saw that the pieces of clay had turned into coins. Then the man carefully swept one of the corners of his house, and there emptied the money until it formed a mound of silver. When the wife entered the room she was filled with joy, and she scented the coins with perfumes. Thus, jubilant, she praised her husband and her sons, and adorned them with her compliments. Now it was less than a year to the great fiesta. The alferez and his family began to make themselves new clothes. All of them were to wear for the first time the most beautiful attire. Soon the great day arrived. And this man celebrated the fiesta with a pomp and splendor never seen before, offering that which others did not offer, doing that which his ancestors had not done. And in spite of all the squandering and expense of the great day, still he had thousands upon thousands of coins left. He became a powerful personage for having celebrated the town's great event. Then, after the fiesta days he went daily to visit Miguel Wayapa; the wife of this man revered the man who had saved her husband from ruin and damnation, and brought him again to the town. Finally, the savior took Wayapa's wife to her husband; for, having received all the ceremonies in the temple of prayer, Wayapa became a new man, of beautiful and purified soul. Thus Wayapa was reborn to the world of good. And that very morning he received his wife and told her: '1 have done penance in hell for all our sins." Then he recounted to her all the sins of his life, and he went on: "For having been saved, in the name of my resurrection, distribute some of our wealth among the orphans and the wretched." The woman obeyed with a good heart, and there was no

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kindness left undone; she made her charity reach not only the orphans and destitute, but also the poor, those who had but little. But Wayapa was not one of those who eat and drink. And thus he lived, his wife on one side and he on the other, each forever apart. And all these things took place long, long ago.

:146

THE SNAKE'S SWEETHEART

SHE wAS the only daughter of a married couple. Every day she used to go to the hills looking after the cattle. Her father and her mother had no other children. Therefore, they used to send her day after day to pasture the cattle. The girl was already marriageable, well developed and handsome. One day, on the hilltop, a very refined, very thin youth approached her. "Be my love," he said. And he went on talking to her about love. As he was tall and vigorous, the young woman assented. From that day on they used to see each other on the hill; there they made love. "I want you always to bring me toasted flour," said the youth to the shepherdess. She fulfilled her lover's request. And she brought him toasted Hour every day. They ate together, each serving the other. Thus they lived for a long time. The youth walked and ran

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face downward, crawled, as if he had many tiny feet. This was because he was not a man. He was a serpent. But in the eyes of the girl he appeared always a thin, tall, young man. The girl became pregnant and said to the youth: "I am with child. When my parents learn of it they will scold me and will want to know who is my child's father. We must decide whether to go to my house or to yours." The youth replied: "We must go to your house. And I will not be able to enter it freely-that is not possible. Tell me whether there is a hole in the wall next to the millstone of your house. Isn't there always a hole near the millstone where the rag for cleaning the stone is kept?" "Yes; there is such a hole near the stone." "Take me there," said the youth. And the young woman asked: "What will you do in that hole?" "There I would live by day and by night." ''You could not fit in it. It cannot be; it is a very tiny hole." "I shall go into it. And it will serve me as living quarters. Now I want to know in what place you sleep: in the kitchen or in the granary." "I sleep in the kitchen," said the girl. "I sleep with my parents." "And where is the millstone?" "Our millstone is in the granary." "When I go there you shall sleep on the ground next to the millstone." "And how can I separate myself from my parents? They will not want me to sleep alone." "Pretend to be afraid of thieves robbing the granary. 'I shall sleep there to watch it; tell them. And enter by yourself to grind the millstone; do not let your parents do it. Every time you grind Hour throw a little into the hole in which I will be living. I will 148

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feed only on this. I will not eat anything else. And so that they do not see me, cover the opening carefully with the cleaning rag." Then the girl asked: "Can you not present yourself freely before my parents?" "No, I cannot," he replied. "Little by little I will make my appearance before them." "And how are you to live in that hole? It is very small; a chunk of wool barely fits into it." "You will have to enlarge it from within." "Very well," she said. "You probably know how to fix yourself up in there." "But you will have to take me there. And you will leave me behind the wall of your house. During the night you will take me to the granary." "All right," answered his sweetheart. That night the girl went to her house alone; she sneaked into the granary and enlarged the opening near the millstone. The next day she left for the hill to pasture the cattle. She found her lover in the usual place. "I have already enlarged the hole for the cleaning rag," she told him. At nightfall they went together to the sweetheart's house. She left the youth in the corral, behind the house. And she came for him in the night. She took him to the hole near the millstone. The youth glided noiselessly into the hole. The maiden said to herself as her lover moved into the hole: "Impossible! He will be unable to enter!" That same night she told her parents: "My father, my mother: it is possible for thieves to steal everything we have in the larder. From now on I am going to sleep in the room where we keep the food." "Go ahead, my child," assented the parents. The girl moved her bed to the larder and placed it on the 149

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floor, near the millstone. The snake glided to the bed and the lovers slept together. From then on they used to sleep together every night. When there was need to grind the millstone the young woman would let no one else do it; she would go, and throw handfuls of flour into the cleaning rag hole. Before leaving she would cover the hole with the piece of rawhide which was used to clean the millstone. In that way, neither her parents, nor anyone, could see what was in the hole. Her parents suspected nothing; it did not occur to them to uncover the hole and look inside. Only when they realized that their daughter was pregnant did they worry and decide to speak. "It looks as if our daughter is pregnant," they said. "We had better ask who the father is." They called her and questioned her: "You are pregnant. Who is the father of your child?" But she did not answer. Then the father and the mother each asked her, first the one, then the other. But she remained silent. Until she felt the pains of childbirth, one night, and then another night. Her parents attended her. And the serpent could not slide during those nights into the maiden's bed. The serpent no longer lived in the hole. He had grown a great deal, he had become enormous, and could no longer enter the hole in the wall. Sucking the young woman's blood, he had grown fat and was swollen and reddish. He dug under the base of the mill, made a hole there and transferred his living quarters. It was a kind of cave under the mill, a big nest, the new home of the serpent. He had grown fat, round and wider; he was bloated. But in the eyes of his lover, he was not a snake, he was a youth. A youth who had grown rapidly. The lovers could no longer cover the hole which they had dug under the millstone. That is why every morning the girl would fold the covers of her bed and hang one on top of the 150

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other over the stone foundation. Thus they were able to hide the serpent's nest from the eyes of her father and her mother when these two entered the granary. Faced with their daughter's stubborn silence, the parents decided to find out; they asked the people of the ayllu: "Our daughter has appeared to become pregnant from nothing. Have you not seen her speak to someone somewhere? Perhaps in the fields where she was pasturing the cattle?" But all would answer: "No, we haven't seen anything." "Where do you make her sleep?" some asked. "At first she used to sleep with us, in the same room. But now she insists on sleeping in the larder; she has her bed there next to the millstone. And she alone wants to grind; she permits no one to go near the millstone." "And why does she object to your coming near the millstone? What does she say?" they asked. " 'Do not go near the millstone, dear parents; you might soil my bed; I will grind by myself,' she says," answered the parents. "And why does she not want you to go near the mill?" they asked. "She has already suffered the first pains of childbirth," the parents replied. Then they said: "Go to the sorcerer. Ask him to seek and find out. We common folk cannot know what is happening. What could it bel" The father and the mother went in search of the sorcerer. They took with them a small bunch of coca leaves. They asked him to look into their daughter's case. "My daughter doesn't feel well. We don't know what ails her," they said to him. The sorcerer asked: "What is wrong with your daughter? What hurts her?" "She has become pregnant. We do not know by whom. It's IIJI

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been a long time since she began to suffer pains, night after night. And she cannot give birth. She does not want to tell us who the father is," the woman said. The sorcerer consulted the coca leaves, and said: "Something, there is something under the millstone in your house! And it is the father. Because the father is not human, it is not a man." "And what can it be?" the aged couple replied fearfully. "Divine everything, divine well, we beg you." Then the sorcerer continued to speak: "There, inside is a serpent! It is not a man!" "And what are we to do?" the parents asked. The sorcerer thought for a moment, then continued to speak, addressing the father: "Your daughter will oppose your killing the serpent. ·Kin me first before you kill my lover,' she will say to you. Send her far away, to any place that will require a day's journey to reach. She will object even to that order. Say this to her, mentioning some town: •I know that in that town there is a remedy for giving birth. Go, buy that remedy and bring it to me. They tell me that with that remedy you will be able to give birth. If you do not obey me this time, I will beat you up, I will beat you to death,' say to her. Only thus will you get her to go. At the same time hire people armed with cudgels, machetes and heavy sticks. Then make your daughter go and carry out your order. And when she is far away, everyone enter the granary and push the millstone. There, underneath, there is a big serpent. Beat it to death. Beware of the snake leaping towards you, because if it leaps, it will kill you all. Behead it well; dig a grave, and bury it." "Very well, sir. We shall carry out your instructions,'' the father said, and he left; his wife followed him. Immediately he went looking for people, strong men to help I.S:l

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him kill the beast. He hired ten men, well armed with cudgels and sharp machetes. "Tomorrow, when my daughter has left, come to my house, walking without letting anyone see you," he told them. The next morning they ordered the young woman to cook her food. They made her get up early. They gave her money to make the request seem real, and told her: "With this money you will buy the remedy for giving birth. In Sumakk Marka, that town on the other bank of the river, you will find the remedy." But the girl refused to obey. "I cannot go," she said, "I don't want to." Then the parents threatened her. "If you do not go, if you do not bring the remedy, we will beat you to death. We will beat you until we destroy the fetus that you carry in your womb." Frightened, the girl left. They saw her walk until she was out of sight. When she had disappeared into the distance, the hired men went to her father's house. They all gathered in the yard. They divided their ration of coca among themselves; they chewed for a while, and then entered the granary; they transferred to the yard all the things that were there; finally, they removed the woman's bed. And they armed. With their cudgels on their shoulders and gripping their machetes, they entered the granary; they surrounded the millstone and waited. They pushed the millstone aside; a thick serpent was stretched out there; it had a large head, similar to a man's; it was getting fatter. 'Wat'akk!" On finding itself discovered, the serpent leaped, its heavy body made a noise as it straightened out. The ten men struck it and wounded it. They divided it into several pieces. Its head was hurled out, on the pampa. And there it began to struggle; it wriggled and rolled on the ground. The men followed and ~G3

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pounded it, they went to wherever it fell and tried to finish it up. They struck it from above; its blood ran all over the ground; it gushed out in spurts from the mutilated body. But it could not die. And while they were beating the serpent's head, at that moment, the woman arrived, the sweetheart. On seeing people gathered in the yard, she ran to the granary, to the millstone. The stone was covered with blood. The serpent's nest was empty. She turned her head to look at the yard; several men were pounding the head of her lover with cudgels. Then she let out a deadly scream. "Why, why do you destroy my lover's head? Why do you kill him?" she exclaimed. "He was my husband! He is the father of my son!" She screamed once more; her voice filled the house. She contemplated the blood and was horrified. And due to the effort she had made in screaming, she had an abortion; a multitude of little snakes wriggled on the floor, they covered the ground in the yard, leaping and crawling. They finally killed the big snake. They also killed the little snakes. They pursued and trampled all of them. Then, some of the men dug a pit in the earth and the others swept up the blood. They swept the blood from the whole house, they gathered it near the pit, and buried the serpents and the blooddrenched mud. And they led the maiden to her parents' room. There they cured her. They returned the things from the granary to their original place. They cleared and put the house in order. They carried the millstone to a waterfall; they placed the stone under the fall and left it there. And when everything was in order, the young woman's parents gave each man his just reward for the work he performed. They received their wages and left. Later the parents asked their daughter:

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"How, in what manner could you live with a serpent? Your husband was not a man; he was a demon." Only then did the maiden confess her story; she told of her :first meeting with the serpent. And everything came to be known, and was clarified. The parents cured their daughter, they took care of her and made her whole and sound of body and soul. And then, much later, the young woman married a good man. And her life was happy.

IGG

ISICHA PUYTU

IN ONE community there was a beautiful woman, whose beauty was dazzling. Her name was lsicha Puytu. Her turn came for her mita, for her enforced service in the house of the senor of the region, the Governor. She went to serve her turn, and she did not return. The Governor made her stay, he did not want to let her go; he said to her: "You shall live with me." "All right," she said. And she remained in the senor's house. She lived with him. The Governor ordered that all the clothes of his new lover, lsicha Puytu, be removed. He had her dressed in the clothes of the matrons, the principal ladies. She had braided hair. And her tresses he had combed as the hair of sovereigns is combed. With great silver brooches he had her hair adorned; the Governor carried his love to an extreme in these matters. He made her dress in clothes of the finest weave, he made her wear san-

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dais. All of her he adorned and clothed like the principal ladies. Upon the llikllas, upon the shawls which were to cover her back, he had doves woven. All her clothes were woven with wide borders upon which were painted the flowers of the earth. Thus he loaded her with ornaments like a blossoming plant, and transformed her. In this way they lived and time passed. She did not occupy herself with anything; her master did not make her work. They spent the day abandoned to amusement and play, closing themselves in the sleeping room. They ate together. He had her in his arms, upon his knees, while they ate. The sefior had many young women servants. They all hated lsicha Puytu and spoke evil of her, behind her back. And when they served her and brought her meals they grumbled. This did not matter to the sefior, nor did anything else. But the people of the town knew, and they, too, murmured. But this did not worry the Governor either; he did not fear the judgment of the town. Day and night he was with her, with his love. With her he ate, with her he slept, with her he waited for nightfall. lsicha Puytu knew how to play a quena, made of human bone. These quenas are played underneath a long narrow-mouthed pitcher. Intensely and beautifully she played the quena and because of this she was called lsicha Puytu. The Governor bought her a quena and a pitcher. She puts her hands inside the pitcher and plays the quena. He sings! It is the Governor who sings! Thus they lived every day. Meanwhile, her parents were waiting for her. And when the time passed and she did notreturn, the mother said to the brothers of lsicha Puytu: "Where can my daughter be? What has become of her? She has not returned since she went to serve her turn. Or has she been kept to serve her mita forever? Go and ask about your sister."

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Then they prepared abundant cold victuals and they sent two of the brothers to the town. Both arrived at the house of the master and inquired of the young servants. One of the brothers said: "Isicha Puytu, my sister, came to serve her turn in the mita. And she has not returned. What is it that she is doing in the house of the master?" The servants answered him: "Your sister is now the W ayru. She has become the matron." "Tell her that her brothers have come to find out about her." The servants went into the house to carry out the order. They said to the lady: "Isicha Puytu, your brothers have come to ask about you." "Who can my brothers be?" she answered. "There at the door are your two brothers. They say that they have come at the request of your parents." Isicha Puytu replied: "I have no father or mother." "Why look, look over there." But she did not wish to look. Very tranquil, seated upon the bed of the Governor, she played her quena, she made the instrument moan. Nothing more. The young servants went back to the brothers and told them: "She says that you are not her brothers. She says that she does not recognize having father or mother. She does not wish to leave. She says of you: 'What persons rich in excrement are those who would claim me as sister?'" Nonetheless the brothers waited outside, seated, conversing with the servants. "She is with the master, she lives with him," the servants said. And they told them the story of Isicha Puytu. Everything that had happened to her, from the beginning. 15B

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And while the brothers were seated among the servants, Isicha Puytu came out, of her own accord. The brothers stood up, went toward her and said to her: "How do you find yourself, sister? Where are you? You did not return to our house. Whatever your fate may have been, you should have advised us, sister. Our parents sent us with these cold victuals for you." "You, filthy youths, you are not my brothers," she replied. "Where and why would you be my brothers?" "Our mother is weeping for you," they answered. "And who has my mother been?" Isicha Puytu asked again. "Do you not remember our parents?" the brothers asked. "Where and why do you pretend to recognize me? Am I perhaps of your class? Because you see me in a high position, you wish to pass yourselves as my relatives," she said with great haughtiness. She took the victuals which her parents had sent her and flung them into the faces of her brothers. "Why did you bring me this? Am I perhaps of those who eat these things?" she shouted at them with the utmost contempt. On hearing these words the brothers went away, they returned to their house. They arrived where their parents were. "You sent us to inquire about your daughter," the oldest of the brothers spoke. "She received us with scorn. She did not wish to recognize us. 'Such filthy youths trying to make yourselves pass as my brothers?' she said to us." "It is not possible that my daughter could have spoken in this way," answered the father and the mother. "Even the food which you sent to her she flung in our faces. She does not remember our house." And thus, in detail, they told of their visit to Isicha Puytu. "Your daughter lives with the Governor," they said.

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But the parents did not wish to believe what they were hearing. "No. It cannot be that our daughter is of that kind," they replied. "You hate our daughter. You do not want her to return, and for that reason you make up these stories." They did not believe the words of the brothers. And thus it was. Much time passed in the life of lsicha Puytu. She conceived a son; she was pregnant. Then, once more, those of her house wished to know about her. And the mother sent the father. As the first time, they prepared victuals. "I wonder whether it is true that your daughter is as her brothers tell of her. Go and see for yourself," said the mother to her husband. The father arrived at the house of the Governor. He asked for his daughter. The servants recounted to the father the story of lsicha Puytu, as they had recounted it to the brothers. "Do me the favor of calling her," said the old man. "Tell her that her father has come." The servants announced this to lsicha Puytu. And she replied: "Who can my father be?" And as they told her: "It is your father who has come," she came out murmuring: "Ohl Who, who was my father?" As soon as the old man saw his daughter he went to her; beaming with joy he exclaimed: "Oh my daughter! How are you?" And with his heart warm with love, he went on: "How is it that you have not returned until now? What has been happening to you?" And she answered him: "Listen, old dog, how can I be your daughter? How, in what way, could you have been my father?" J60

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Isicha Puytu was pregnant. And her father answered sweetly: "No, daughter mine, do not say that to me. It cannot be. It is not possible that you answer me in this way. Receive, at least, the gift which I have brought to you." And untying the little pack which he was bringing, he offered her the victuals which the mother had prepared. But she rejected them. "Listen, old dog," she said to him. "Am I, perhaps, of those who eat these things? Get out of here! Do not pretend you know me." And she drove him out of the house. Weeping, the father departed. He arrived where his wife was and he said to her: "It was true. Your daughter has turned into somebody else whom it is not possible to recognize. She is pregnant. She answered me with contempt, and she drove me from her house." The old man spoke with tearful voice. Nevertheless, the mother did not wish to believe. "Her father and her brothers, all hate her," she said. "Your daughter has denied us, her father and her mother," the old man insisted. And he wept in the presence of his wife. In spite of everything the mother did not believe; she went on speaking: "Old man, hear, you did not arrive at the house of the Governor." "Well then, you go, go and find out," replied the father. The mother did not go. And time passed. "Perhaps she will come back, slowly, little by little," she would say. And she did not go. Isicha Puytu gave birth. They had the child baptized and chose for godfather a man who lived in a house near that of the Governor. But the child died. The Governor tended and nursed Isicha Puytu; he tended her with all love and devotion. 161

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And they went on living by themselves. And they loved greatly the godfather of the child. And time passed. The mother kept on waiting. Isicha Puytu did not appear. Then she decided to prepare her victuals and the dishes which she would take as a gift: She made biscuits out of quinua flour and kkaiiiwa, she stewed corn and boiled chufio. "These were the dishes she used to prefer. How she will long to taste them!" she said, while preparing her bundle of victuals. "My daughter must be the servant of the Governor," she said. And, filled with sorrow, she threw the bundle over her back. "One with one story, another with another story, they come to me to talk to me about my daughter. Now that I go, I will see for myself if it is as they say." And she began to walk toward the town. She reached the house of the Governor. At that hour, her daughter was taking the sun in the courtyard, stretched out on a rug. On her head she had beautiful combs of silver. She was a supreme matron, impossible to be recognized. And the old woman doubted; she could not recognize her daughter. Isicha Puytu was splendidly dressed. "Is this my daughter, or is it not she?" she asked herself, and she looked at her with amazement. Then her daughter spoke to her: "Listen, old woman, what is it you want?" The mother recognized her by the sound of her voice. And she spoke to her quickly. "Oh my daughter! How are you?" And she rushed to embrace her. But Isicha Puytu repulsed her. Still, the old woman offered her the bundle of food which she had brought. Isicha Puytu received the gift, and said: "Why do you come, each of you, bringing me filthy food and trying to make yourselves pass for my relatives? Do I, perhaps, know you, ill-smelling woman?" 162

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And she threw the food at her head. Then the mother exclaimed: "What is happening to you, oh creature? Do not tum against good, my daughter! I sent you to serve your turn in the mita; we did not send you to change in this way." "Get out of here, old woman! Do not address another word to mel" shouted Isicha Puytu. "Do you no longer remember that I am your mother?" asked the old woman. "Is it true that you threw my gift in the face of your father and that you did the same with your brothers? Let us go now!" commanded the mother. "Where am I to go, dirty old woman?" replied Isicha Puytu. "To our house. Or do you not remember your home?" "Get out of here, old woman! Do not speak to me any morel" shouted Isicha Puytu, determined to throw the mother from her house. The old woman picked up the food from the floor. And thus, kneeling in the middle of the courtyard, she wept. Isicha Puytu was watching her. "Forever after this day she will not be my daughter," said the mother. "Take care that some day you do not wish to say: 'You were my father and my mother.' That will no longer be possible, at any time. Never will you be able to call me!" And pronouncing the last phrase she was leaving the house. But the daughter answered her: "Who could call you 'Mother'-you?" Then the mother uncovered her breast, she made as if she were nursing towards the ground and pronounced the supreme curse: "With this you must find eternal life!" Then she left the house and took the road toward her community. She was weeping on the way. "How could my daughter have done to me what she has done? Even the victuals which J.63

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I made for her she threw in my face!" she said. And her tears rolled down like big drops of rain, like heavy hail. "I who did not wish to believe either my husband or my sons! But they were speaking the truth. My daughter is as they were saying!" she went on talking. And she arrived at her house, weeping. And she said to her husband and her sons: "It was true. Your sister has been perverted, as you said. Now I believe." Then they all agreed among themselves: "We will not return to her house. And when we enter the town, we will not go where she lives. That is the way that it must be forever." And they forgot her. The day after Isicha Puytu had thrown out her mother, the Governor had to make a sudden and long trip. He had to sleep one day at the place where he was going. Before leaving, the Governor admonished his servants many times; he told them: "Be sure to take good care of your mistress. Serve her devotedly and spread her bed well." And he left. Before going he ordered the servants to keep their mistress company while she slept, to keep watch over her sleep. But the servants did not obey. As soon as the Governor left they murmured: "Who should take care of that woman? Who will want to bring her anything?" And they devoted themselves to amusement, to diverting themselves. No one went to keep guard over lsicha Puytu's sleep. On the following day, in the morning, they went unwillingly to serve her breakfast. And they found her dead. She was dead in her bed. Then the servants were afraid. "What could have happened to this woman? She is dead!" they exclaimed. "The master will punish us for not keeping her company." 164

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And they pondered a way to justify themselves. "How are we going to explain her death?" they said. " 'Why didn't you go into her bedroom to keep watch over her sleep?' the master will ask us." Finally, they agreed to say that Isicha Puytu had died during the morning, and not in her bed, but outside, already arisen. They dressed up the corpse of Isicha Puytu. They combed her hair as she used to comb it every day. Then they laid the corpse upon the bed. In a little while the Governor came and asked: "Where is the mistress? Where is my dove?" "She is dead," they said. "How? How is it possible? In what way?" "This morning she got up very early. Seated on a rug she was looking at some writing. At the threshold of the house she was warming herself in the sun. And suddenly she trembled, she fell backward, motionless. Then we did whatever was possible. But she could not revive. We barely carried her to her bed." The Governor had bought during his trip the most beautiful objects for Isicha Puytu. And carrying the gifts he entered the bedroom and closed the door violently. Weeping, he lifted up his lover and made her sit on the bed; he began to call her: "Come back to life, Isicha Puytul Come back to life!" He sat by her side; and he was weeping. He wept all night long by the side of his lover. At daybreak he dressed her in the new garments he had brought to her; he adorned her and he called to her again. "Isicha Puytu: play the flute of the pitcher!" When the servants entered, they found the corpse sitting up, beautifully dressed and arrayed; they saw that the Governor was speaking to it as if Isicha Puytu were alive. Thus he gazed upon her for three nights and three days. He did not even remember that Isicha Puytu had to be buried. And 165

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at that point, while he was gazing upon her, Isicha Puytu revived; she lifted the flute and began to play it. It was like death, the song of the flute; under the pitcher the instrument wept torrents; it evoked weeping and death. The Governor was overjoyed: "lsicha Puytu has revived!" he exclaimed. She was alive, but she no longer knew how to dress herself or to comb herself. She was no longer the same. He had to comb her. And each time he dressed her in new dresses. He served her food in her hands; but she did not eat. Neither hunger nor thirst came to her anymore. She did not speak any longer as she used to. Only now and then she caused her flute to sob under the pitcher. And she slept. And then, one night, the Governor wanted to sin with her. And when he was consummating the sin, from within the bed a beast arose. lsicha Puytu was converted into an ass. But, the Governor exclaimed joyfully: "Now it's fine! Even though she has been converted into an ass, she will be with me, I shall go with her everywhere. Now I shall not have to bury her!" Dawn found him with the animal in his room. On the following day the Governor took the ass to the house of the godfather of his son. And he said to him: "You who brought my son to the baptismal font, you, my fellow being, my senor, see that I have now this beast for myself. I have brought it for my journeys. So that it may always be with me." The godfather, this man, was skillful at shoeing and fixing the hoofs of animals. The Governor told him: "Take care of the hoofs of my burro, shoe them now." "Why should I not do it, for you, a father like myself, my Governor?" he replied. "We shall shoe your animal, at once.'' And he forged some horseshoes to measure. Then they pulled down the animal; they tied its legs; they fit on the horseshoes and began to nail them down. With the first blow the animal shouted: 166

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"Ayl Ay, sefiorl How can you drive nails into my feet, you, you who were the godfather of my little son!" And speaking thus, she arose, she changed again into the matron, into Isicha Puytu, into the beautiful lady. The man, the godfather, was filled with terror. "Oh, my Governor! What have you ordered me to do?" he exclaimed, looking at his friend. And he asked Isicha Puytu: "What happened to you? How, by what fate could you convert yourself into an animal, having been the mother of a child of my Governor, of my sefior?" Then Isicha Puytu spoke: "To my mother, to my father, to my brothers, I spoke with scorn. For that our Lord punishes me. To have thrown at the faces of my brothers the food which they brought to me as a gift, is not a great offense. A great offense is to have confronted my father and my mother with the same sin." "And why did you behave in that way?" Isicha Puytu replied: "For having been the lover of a master like you. For that I offended my father and my mother. I have fallen now into the tears of my father and of my mother. My mother cursed me by expelling her breasts. And that same night death overtook me. Never will I be able to find my redemption. And when I was dead, this Governor tried to make me sin; that is why I became an animal. It was a horrible sin which he wished me to commit. And I became an animal. Seeing that I was dead he did not respect my rigid body, and he profaned me. Moved by his demoniacal joy he caressed me, put his hands on me; and then he wished to make me fall into the horrible sin. But I am not able to sin any longer, because I am dead. He defiled my corpse without shame. That is why I was changed into an animal.'' Isicha Puytu finished saying these words and fell backwards. She died completely; she became a corpse.

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As far as the town was concerned, Isicha Puytu died in the house of the godfather. "She died here," he said. And he began to arrange the burial of the corpse. The Governor objected: "I will take her to my house. There I will take care of her," he said. But the godfather replied: "What do you mean, my Governor? What you propose is inconceivable! We have to bury her." And he prevented the Governor from taking away the corpse of Isicha Puytu. And they buried her. They had a splendid funeral, the kind they have for respectable matrons, consorts of those who command. The Governor attended the funeral rites. He sang by the side of the mourners, repeating their weeping. But he did not repeat the words of the mourners; he sang with his own words: "Isicha Puytu: go on, go on!" he was saying. "Wherever you go I will be with you, together, always together." While he wept with these words, they buried her. When the funeral was over, everyone went away. They accompanied the Governor to his house. At midnight the Governor arose and went to the cemetery, carrying with him the clothes of Isicha Puytu. He reached the place where they buried her; he dug down in the earth until he found the body of his lover; and she came back to life, she came out from where she was buried. The Governor dressed her beautifully. And they started to walk together. At the cemetery gate, the Governor shouted: "Isicha Puytul It's all right now! I am going with her eternally! With Isicha Puytu!" And they went away, we know not where. Then the dogs barked from town to town. They say that a carriage of fire came, and that the Devil took both of them away. The next morning the neighbors came to ask for the Gover168

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nor. But he was not in; and all the garments of Isicha Puytu had also disappeared. Then they went to the cemetery, to see. They found the grave of Isicha Puytu dug up. The two lovers were no longer there. That was all. The house of the Governor sank into silence. Later it turned to ruins. A desolate plain.

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ON THE SONGS AND TALES

ON THE SONGS AND TALES

BY

.JOSE

MARfA

ARGUEDAS

songs of this collection, except the threshing songs, are of a character of huaynos which pertain to the folklore of the Departments of Cuzco, Apurimac, and Ayacucho. These Departments constituted in antiquity the center of the diffusion of Quechua culture; actually, all their inhabitants are of the Quechua speech, and in no other region is the survival of the ancient Peruvian culture denser or more profound. The huayno is the popular characteristic dance of the Andean region of the center and south of Peru; its absolute predominance extends to the Department of Huancavelica. The Central Railroad, inaugurated more than fifty years ago, was changed into a powerful means of diffusion for western culture in the Andes. Like a broad river, the region supplied by this railroad now is breaking the continuation of the Quechua predominance in the Andes, which is turning up again with absolute seigniory in the densely populated mountains of Ancash. The huayno is diluted in Junfn and Cerro de Pasco, as in both Departments the predilection of the people is divided equally .ALL THE

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with other dances of modern origin. But in the towns of the south and center the huayno is universal. Only very few persons in some principal cities, such as Cuzco and Arequipa, neither sing nor dance it. The music of the huayno is of pre-Columbian origin, and in the cross-breeding of its character and music can be found the faithful reflection of all the grades of mestizo culture in Peru. Indian huaynos exist whose language and music seem to demonstrate pre-hispanic antiquity, such as for example, those that figure in this collection with the names of "The Fire That I Have Started" and "The Ischu Is Weeping"; others, on the other hand, of totally Spanish character, like that which begins with the verse "On a smooth lake the sea gull sings," (well known in Peru and not in this book), belong to the exclusive repertory of the classes whose process of cultural transformation has concluded. Certain Indian songs and dances are characteristic of fixed fiestas and ceremonies: of the nativity, of cattle-branding, of betrothals, of bullfights; agricultural songs, which in the region of Cuzco are called huanca; the funeral songs which the Indians of Anta and Paucartambo ( Cuzco) call yunka; sacred Catholic songs; and songs to receive the arrival of the rains. Excepting the funeral songs of adults, the other commercial or private fiestas are celebrated finally with singing and dancing the huayno. The other songs are rituals; the huayno is the dance in which the merriment and popular voluptuousness are freely released, and that which recognizes the inspiration of the Quechua people in all its blendings. The Indians call a dance performed by many persons k'aswa; the huayno is danced by couples. "K'aswasiata tusuyusunchis," "K.:achuachata tusuykusunchik," they say, respectively, the Indians of Cuzco and Ayacucho for 'We will dance a k'aswa." Traditionally, the word k'aswa has had a diffusion vaster than the term huayno; it is used in the Andes of the north; and 174

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even in the Deparbnents of Amazonas and Moyobamba, of the northeast region of Peru, the word "cachua" continues, naming the favorite dance of the people. All the huaynos in this collection are Indian. In their original Quechua some words figure of Spanish origin incorporated by Quechua, and a lesser number of pure Spanish terms which the Indian employs with disconcerting aesthetic dexterity; then there are, in the background of the Quechua context, terms untouched morphologically, but transformed to the Quechua semantic with the absolute rigor of chemical conversions, conserving their elements and virtues but forming part of another function, another universe. It is the model case of the cultural phenomenon that ethnologists call integration and retranslation. The Quechua overtakes the Spanish term, incorporates it, dilutes it, until the objective idea of the precedence of the term is lost in the consciousness of the one who employs it. The foreign word scarcely has left a slender footprint; the level of the water has been made to rise without changing either its color or its naturalness. The translations of these songs conform with great purity to the contents of the Quechua text. In the majority of cases it has been possible to realize translations verse to verse, image by image. In others the interpretive force had to be intense. In such force the memory of the countryside and the music of each huayna aided me with twofold virtue: opening the doors of the imagination, and conserving it within the purest and most incorruptible Quechua spirit. Except one, they are original songs of the temperate regions; songs of the valleys of Ayacucho, Cuzco, Apurimac, and Huancavelica, regions denuded of trees, transversed by deep gorges where snow and warm plants are perceived. In April little red and purple flowers embellish these places, smiling luminously in the black hard abysses. Birds of suave colors sing among the shrubs. Crystalline river ... of the alders ... tears ... of the fish 176

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of gold ... flood of tears ... of the great precipices says one of the songs, and another: Ay purple flower of the fields, ay thorn of the woods/ The one titled "Snow Storm" is an original epic song of a village on the high, arid tableland. The men of Chumbivilcas harmonize it in chorus after the bullfights. In Chumbivilcas, as in other towns of Ayacucho and Huancavelica, the bull goes out to the plaza with a living condor fastened to its back; the condor spurs the enraged bull into a wild beast. The bulls always kill some bullfighters. Later, to dim this, at the edge of the town, on the Path of Farewells ( Kacharpariy pata), they adorn the condor with colored ribbons and wild flowers, and let it loose. While the immense bird turns sorrowfully, the Indians and mestizos sing and dance in a kind of intoxicated distress. It is like the great dusk of the plateau which reddens with sadness and growing blindness a light that bathes and inspires its human sons: Storm of water and of snow . .. it is the hour of return, drag me there! The last song is a yunka, a farewell to the dead; it belongs to the folklore of Paucartambo. At three o'clock in the morning the relatives, and all the persons who accompany them to keep watch over the body, move to the door of the pantheon, and there they sing the yunka. They call the forest yunka. From the mountains of Paucartambo the forest is seen as a black and infinite sea. The Indians of this province believe that the dead go away to the ]atun Yunka, to the "Great Forest." The threshing songs of Angasmayo worthily represent the folk poetry of the Indian region in Peru that has assimilated more western culture. Angasmayo is a rural settlement situated about fourteen miles to the west of the Mantaro River in the Province of Jauja. It occupies the high bank of the Chupaca River, a tributary of the Mantaro. Angasmayo is a country of wheat fields and small cultivated fields of broad beans, peas, 176

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potatoes, oca, and mashua. A noted educator born in the vicinity of Angasmayo tells us this village is composed of independent, conservative, stubborn, and war-inured mestizos. The native idiom of the Mantaro valley, Huanca, is a dialect of Quechua; the most noticeable difference consists in the conversion of the R into L: limay (to talk) for rimay, luntu (egg) for runtu, huacla (hom) for huacra. The difference makes the comprehension of the oral language difficult, but not the translations of the text, which can be found in bilingual form,. with other songs of Angasmayo and the valley of the High Mantaro, in the Folklore Archives of the Direcci6n de Educaci6n Artistica in Lima. These songs were collected and translated into Spanish by the schoolteacher Maria Lourdes Valladares, Director of School 5078. They keep, with purity and intensity, the rude captivating beauty of the language, as well as the content of the Huanca threshing songs. It is not the case, here, of translations realized with clear, poetic finality. They are translations made by a village teacher, free of literary intention or of any re-created aesthetic foreign to the world brimming with the sweet epic beauty of the Andes in its most fecund region. At an altitude of almost 12,000 feet, among the gensiana flowers, soft yellow and velvety, the flowers of the tankar and the bean, purple and blue, and the dark quishuar trees, the murmur of the wheat fields enters like a universal magic into the soul of a sojourner. The harvesting of the wheat in all of the Peruvian sierra conforms to a tradition still very respected. Only at some haciendas, which surely are not representative, not having a thousandth part of the cultivated land, is the harvest a purely economic activity. The harvest is always a fiesta in the sierra, but especially that of wheat and com. The threshing of albarejo, a variety of wheat, and of beans requires a song and a dance since, being little sown, the threshing is done by men and not by beasts as it is for wheat. The threshing of wheat is performed in

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the field on a threshing floor, a circular space with hard flooring. The sheaves of grain are carried around the threshing floor and thrown onto it while the beasts, which are running in a circle, are managed by men with whips standing along the course. The grain is separated from the straw by the hooves, then the sheaves thus ground are blown upon, and the wheat appears, clean and golden, on the floor. In the Mantaro valley, however, where the songs in this book are sung, the wheat is threshed by foot in the dancing. The Peruvian folk stories published up to the present time belong to the type we call "classic." They are animalistic stories, amusing, very similar to the tales of other people of equivalent grades of culture. The compilation of this kind of story is relatively easy for they constitute the patrimony of the whole, or of almost the whole, of the villages or precincts where they were found. They are in the area and are the fruit of ancient forms, native or incorporated and extensively diffused, which have suffered some alternations through the vast diffusion. Owing to particularly happy circumstances, Father Jorge A. Lira, who was parochial priest of Marangani, in the Province of Canchis, of the Department of Cuzco, made, during various years, a folklore compilation of profound monographic character in the region of the Vilcanota elevation, or, more concretely, in the District of Marangani, which occupies the valley of Vilcanota on its rising course, between 11,800 and 15,000 feet in altitude. Gifted with an unmistakable vocation for folklore and an intense love for the Indian people and their culture, Father Lira made use of his situation as priest and the unlimited confidence which one might know he inspired among his Indian flock to realize a compilation, which became almost complete, of the folklore of his parish. The collection of tales which are the fruit of this investigation come to around sixty narratives. The District of Marangani occupies, as it has been said, the J7B

ON THE SONGS AND TALES

highest region of the Vilcanota valley, bounded by the region of Kolla-the plateau of the Titicaca- and by the Kana region, or K'ana, as some write it. The Kanas people inhabit the actual provinces of Canas, Espinar, and part of Chumbivilcas, all of these being situated in the mountainous prolongation of the Kalla plateau. The geographic location of the District of Marangani has for this reason, an especial importance. The Quechua conquest took place primarily along the Vilcanota, and then was extended, after cruel struggle, into the territory of the warlike Kanas, but the Kanas vigorously preserved the character of their personal culture. On the other side, the region of the Vilcanota elevation has been subjected intensively to the influence of the plateau towns. During the conquest and the colony and through the first decades of the republic, the Kanas and the people of the high region of the Vilcanota assimilated, with triumphal energy, certain elements of western culture, profoundly retranslating it. In actuality, these are the settlements most densely Indian, which had not been reduced to a state of servitude like the majority of the populations in both the hot and temperate valleys of Cuzco, and like the Indians of the farming and cattle-grazing regions of the plateau. When the high point of the mining development had passed, the Kanas and the neighboring towns where men collected for the mines recovered a relative liberty, remaining in ownership of some grounds for sowing and for pasture, which allowed them to develop with independence. The results of this we can appreciate in their literary folklore. The tales in Father Lira's collection were taken word for word, with rigorous fidelity, from the lips of Indians of the District of Marangani. The fidelity is so pure that the text of the stories is clear of the least mark of literary elaboration. The Quechua of the tales is eminently oral, the silent reading of the text being almost impossible, for the text itseH is obliged to realize the voice inflections which are such a powerful force in 179

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Quechua, as in other languages not alphabetized. A single reading of any of these tales instils the certainty that the Quechua in which they are interpreted is the typical, the individual, and inimitable tongue of the Indian people; the Quechua of the learned, of the missionaries, and of the admirable Cuzcoan Quechuologies is different indeed. The religious songs of the same region, gathered in the same manner by Father Lira, are words of missionaries, of singers, of veritable poets, some of whose names have been preserved. The Quechua of these hymns is literary, with the particular beauty that Quechua gains when it is converted into an instrument of a lettered person's expression. The tales, on the other hand, are full of turns, of exclamations, of original and subtle inflections, and succeed in giving Quechua a richness and phonetic multiplicity with which they attain an imponderably intense expression of the psychic dangers of animals and men. They describe the attitudes of their lives, the landscape, the least worldly circumstance in which the personages move, and, in such a way, with such astonishing exactitude and depth, that physical nature and the living world, animals, men, and plants, appear with a ligature so intimate and vital that in the world of these stories everything moves in a kind of musical commonness. One cannot pick up in the alphabet one such imponderable capacity as certain of these idioms possess. Only a person who since childhood has heard Indians speak can discover behind the alphabetical indexes part of the unique richness of the oral language. Father Lira has done a truly powerful thing by annotating the phonetic richness of popular Quechua, even though to do this he had to force the manner, perhaps excessively, of the Spanish alphabet. I have translated in company with Father Lira seventeen of the stories of his collection. The nature of the language, which has been pointed out, signifies the complex task of the translation. We followed what we shall call the oral method. Father Lira read in a high voice, like one who relates a story, and I

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translated with the greatest exactitude possible. How could we construe the intention, the true content of the purely phonetic language? The interpretation, more with approximation than without, held the danger of an adulteration of the exact feeling of the original voice; however, in the majority of cases, I was obliged to search for a Spanish phrase, and, on rare occasions, an equivalent speech or image. In other cases I was precise in preserving the pure Quechua voice, which, by virtue of its onomatopoeic significance, has an especial universal value. An example of the first case we can cite in the translation of "The Flour Dealer," and of the second in "The Snake's Sweetheart." In "The Flour Dealer," in the description of the march of the phantom from the summit of the mountain towards the valley, the Indian narrator uses a word containing a complexity of images. It describes the form of this march, the vehemence and frightful rhythm with which the dread being descends the peak, the moving of its clothes and of the mass, between the incorporeal and the horrendously strong and ferocious, of its body, the air which is displaced around it, the deep, apprehensive emotion of the listener, the continuity which this intricate image has in the nocturnal countryside impregnated with the terrifying nature of the phantom's march, all this with a single word repeated: laufin ... laut'in ... laufin ... nispa. And there are many words such as this in the collection of tales. In the present case we tried to translate the difficult word with a phrase, but the result, in spite of our effort, is lamentably weak, as the reader will find. In the version of "The Snake's Sweetheart" we have kept the Quechua term "Wat'akk!" which describes the powerful and sudden leap that the snake launched when discovered by his killers; such a word is pure onomatopoeic sound. This type of speech, similar to the two we have cited, is created by the narrator in the course of his tale. For this reason the words are not treated as being spoken for their own sake, but as the very personal resources of the narrator; thus

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the Quechua idiom concedes an unlimited freedom of creativity for this kind of composition, and offers what we shall call a magnetic path, in its structure, for elaborations. The translations we offer, then, are hemmed in by the limits of the Quechua character. An example is in the sudden changes in the time of the verbs which the reader will observe in the texts of "The Snake's Sweetheart," of "The Youth Who Rose to the Sky," and of "Isicha Puytu," changes that injure, in a certain way, the fluidity of the narrative, maintaining, on the other hand, the purity of the theme's conception. It is a pity that all of the seventeen tales we have translated do not appear in this book, nor the Quechua version of many famous European and oriental tales we unfortunately did not have time to translate. Father Lira has gathered some of the latter, and the Indian adaptation of the European and the oriental constitutes, itself, an original literature of ethnological value. The story content of Father Lira's collection is of exceptional importance. It does not deal with narratives more or less amiable, beautiful, and significant, or animalistic adventures, or tales of the marvelous, but with narratives in which man is the principal personage, and whose intention and content, in the majority of cases, is the fruit of deep cultural readjustments, caused by the integration and retranslation of foreign cultural elements. These cultural phenomena have been reflected by means of the stories in new interpretations of the ancient forms, as in 'The Snake's Sweetheart" and, probably, "Isicha Puytu," or in newer pieces like "The Flour Dealer." The persistent preoccupation with the soul's survival, irritated by the Catholic concept of the problem, is one of the themes which has troubled most the minds of the communities. The complex and diverse forms, that are conceived to support such survival and to demonstrate it, frequently are exhibited in expressions that could not be more amazingly contradictory: re-

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pugnant, ferocious, and monstrous images facing others of a touching, insuperable ingenuity and tenderness. The influence of the catechist literature is notable in a like manner. Some tales, such as "Miguel Wayapa" and "Isicha Puytu," have a biblical, transcendental tone. As the songs will have created in the reader a subtle aesthetic comprehension of the Quechua people of Peru and of the victorious survival of their creative capacity, so the tales will complete this vision and will carry it to the knowledge of some of the most complex aspects of the actual culture.

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EDITOR'S NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

NOTES

THE SPELLING of Quechua, as the name of an unwritten language, still varies among historians and writers. If it were spelled as it sounds, it probably would be Ketchwa. Without making an exhaustive search for spellings, this editor has come across eleven variations, some of which are due to being in different languages, such as Kichua in an 1886 Paris grammar, Keshua in a Bolivian book, and Qfchua in an Argentine grammar. The Library of Congress in 1914 adopted Kechua for its catalog entry, with cross references to other spellings; the Comisi6n Alfabetica of 1935 decided on Kkechua; Hiram Bingham in his books used Quichua, as did William Prescott in his Conquest of Peru; Webster lists it as Quechua, and it is Quechua, too, in the Handbook of South American Indians published in 1946. In the first group of songs Jose Maria Arguedas published in 1938 he spelled it Kechwa, which he changed to Quechua in the enlarged edition of 1949. Quechua is preferred for this book, not only because of the choice of recent American authorities and the decision of Arguedas, whose work has been translated, but also because it is better to choose between Quechua and Quichua, the two forms most commonly used by writers in the English and Spanish languages ever since the first Lexicon, rather than to resort to any of the phonetic spellings. In his article in 1941, Quechua o Quichua, the Pe-

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ruvian folklorist and linguist J. M. B. Farfan settled the question nicely by pointing out that "The tongue Runa Simi ... of Cuzco is currently known in Peru with the Spanishized and adopted name of Quechua. The term Quichua is used in vernacular dialects of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Argentina." There are a number of Quechua terms in the text which have been left untranslated since there are no equivalents in English, and, also, images with special meanings which it is interesting to note: ON ANDEAN FIESTAS AND THE INDIAN PAGE 26: huaynos: popular songs for dancing. huifaleros: those who dance the huifala, a popular dance. charango: a little guitar. chacras: small isolated farms. cholos: persons who are part Indian and part European. chicha: the beer made of corn, a common drink of the Indians. It has been used in Peru since the time of the Incas, when it was a drink for festivities and sacred libations. huifala: the popular dance wherein a large number of men and women form chains in the streets and plazas for singing and dancing. PAGE 27: huaylias: popular dances of the big fiestas. machok's: dances, also of big fiestas, in which the men and women masquerade as ancients. PAGE 29: tinya: a small drum. mistis: the name given by the Indians to wealthy townspeople of western, or European, culture. Not only those of the white race are so called, but also mestizos and even Indians. If a man is powerful because of his economic riches and his culture, he is a misti. PAGE 31: taksa k'alas: another name given by the Indians to the mistis. It is an ironic denomination since k'ala, which means "naked," is the word from which calato, used very much in Peru to signify "poor," or "lacking in riches," is derived, while taksa means "little"; therefore taksa k'alas stands for little mistis, persons of western culture with minor influence in the towns.

J.BB

EDITOR'S NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

QUECHUA SONGS 33: cachimbo bands: bands of popular local instruments, as differentiated from military bands. There is a great fondness for these bands in the mountain regions, and no good fiesta there would be without these cachimbos. PAGE 39: pukupuku: a nocturnal bird of the puna, the high regions. It is brown in color and has a grave voice with which it sings magnificently, hour after hour, across the bare silence of the night. PAGE 40: ischu: the straw-like grass that covers the whole puna and serves for pasturing. Sometimes it is burned for regermination. PAGE 41: taruka: an Andean stag. PAGE 46: Ay Purple Flower: Behind the lament of the girl is the attitude of the Quechua community to strangers, who are unwelcome and greatly feared. Children are taught from their early years to distrust them. Still, a girl easily might meet and love a stranger while herding sheep or llamas on some lonely pasture ground, one of the favorite places for courtship. Young persons are free to choose their own sweethearts and marriage partners, although they are expected to do so within their own group. Frequently, like lovers everywhere, they love impulsively at the sound of a voice, the grace or strength of a gesture, bright brown eyes, or any number of sweet intangibles. Love at first sight has captured many young Quechua hearts. PAGE 47: kkantu: a shrub with a dark reddish-purple Hower. PAGE 49: pukucha: another name for the pukupuku bird. PAGE

PAGE

50:

waylla: a variety of ischu. PAGE 51: The flute of this song, as of others, is the quena the Indian has played since ancient times, probably the most common instrument in the Andes. PAGE 52: tara: a species of tree.

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54:

iiufcho: a shrub with a red flower, abundant in the fields near

Cuzco. In the procession of the Senor de Los Temblores in Cuzco the Indians scatter iiufcho through the streets of the city and on the bier of the crucifixion. raki-raki: an herb of the mountain tops whose branches stretch to both sides. PAGE 57: cilili: a herbaceous plant whose flower is small and blue. PAGE 61: Snow Storm: In this song the images of the horseman and the bull could have come from the supernatural beliefs of the Indians, which are closely interwoven with their lives. Among their spirits are the Apus, guardian divinities, who stay with the Aukis, agricultural divinities, in the mountain peaks surrounding the region they guard. It is thought that the A pus and Aukis have palaces and haciendas hidden in the mountains, and that they keep, there, herds of animals. The most notable of their pets is the Ccoa, a malevolent cat-like animal with phosphorescent eyes who brings lightning and hail, and who usually is seen with hail running out of his eyes and ears. The Ccoa is an active, angry spirit, and greatly feared. The intimation of this song may be that the singer, believing the cat-like bull is a form of the Ccoa and that he has caused the storm, is calling out to the Apu, the hull's owner, appearing as a horseman, to carry him to a place of safety. "Our parent's home," to which he asks to be taken, is not an entirely satisfactory translation for the words used in the song, as the Spanish term, "nuestra querencia," is defined as being "the tendency of man and animals to return to the site where they were raised or where they were accustomed to go," but it seems the closest phrase to use without breaking the rhythm of the song. PAGES 63 and 65: Carnival songs: These are two of the songs sung at the Indian fiesta which is celebrated on the same dates as the Catholic carnival of Latin countries which precedes the beginning of Lent, excepting that the Indian fiesta continues for eight days or more after Ash Wednesday. The intention can be seen in the lines, "Tuesday carnival, I still want to dance." The Indian was just beginning to enjoy himself on the supposed last day

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of the carnival and had no wish to stop, so he did not. In many Indian towns these fiestas actually begin on Ash Wednesday. PAGE 66: siwar: an emerald-like color. PAGE 67: kkasu pampas: the icy, or very cold, low lands. THE THRESHING SONGS OF ANGASMAYO These songs have many symbols obscure to everyone but the singers in Angasmayo, and, perhaps, to them, too, but it is not necessary to know the background of the images to enjoy the songs, for their delight and spontaneity skip along to a dance rhythm that might be hampered with a burden of meaning. PAGE 75: The "shawl" in this song is the castilla, a woman's shawl which is a blanket in the form of a square, made of a loosely woven type of combed wool, and always in a solid color. It is worn around the shoulders. The phrase "let us stretch out with the shawl," or castilla signifies that the circle is enlarged by stretching out their arms covered by the castillas, the boys' and girls' arms all beneath. PAGE 78: The phrase "we make an evening of dust" has the meaning that each couple will be dancing so hard and so fast and will raise so much dust it will be especially noticed. Then their energy will be talked about. The Spanish phrase is "haremos la tarde." PAGE 82: cerbaschay: a name, according to Jose Maria Arguedas, pertaining to something gramineous, with the Quechua double ending of cha, the diminutive form, andy, the possessive. Literally, it may be translated as cervacito in Spanish, or "my little beer." Since there is some doubt, the Quechua word is left, particularly since it is used as a refrain. PAGE 84: quishuar: an ornamental native tree with silvery leaves, similar to the alder. It can be used for wood. PAGE 89: Majordomo: the major office in a fiesta. Usually it is for a religious fiesta. The Majordomo is not only the leader, but also the host, and he is responsible for the expenses, including the food and

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drink for his neighbors who come to take part and to celebrate, for as many days as the fiesta lasts. There is so much prestige attached to this office that many men are willing to ruin themselves financially in order to undertake it, and to shine in the community. Captain: sec.ond in command at a fiesta, a friend who assists the Majordomo. In this song the guests are having a good time teasing their hosts. coca: the dried leaves of the coca plant, which are carried by the Indians in a small pouch hanging from the waist, and are chewed for stimulation. tanquis: an herb which grows in the wheat fields. PAGE 90: trumpet: In the song the trumpet probably is the one made from the horns of a bull. In the valley of the Mantaro the threshing is done to the music of this trumpet, accompanied by the little drum, tinya. QUECHUA TALES It will be noticed how in a number of the tales having to do with love affairs the moral concern is that the daughter or son did not confide in the parents rather than that the love affair took place. This is because the importance to the Quechua people is the family unit and its loyalties, while a pre-marital sexual relationship is common in many communities. If a girl has too many lovers, she is told to choose one of them for a husband, and, then, may become a model wife. There is a custom, in fact, of trial marriage, called sirvinacuy, for one to six months, or even as long as two or three years, during which the couple lives with the husband's family, and may have children; consequently there is no stigma attached to two persons living together and having children, as in "The Head of the Town and the Demon" and "The Snake's Sweetheart," as long as the community's ideals are recognized and fulfilled in the end. Characteristic, too, of the Quechua people from antiquity to the present day is their sense of living with birds and animals, seeing in them the personification of unselfish friendship or of subtle enmity. PAGE 94: kkaniwa: a native cereal of Peru, with a small, round fruit. It is

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grown in the cold regions, and is usually eaten in Hour which is mixed with sugar. PAGE 101: Mallku: the greatest among its species, or chief, with a certain magical significance. In the way it is used in this tale, it means chief, or head, of the condors. When these birds, flying in a group, find a dead animal, the Mallku sweeps down first and eats the eyes, after which the other condors begin the feast. PAGE 102: quinua: a cereal similar to kkaiiiwa. It, too, is cultivated in the cold regions, but its use is more widespread, and the ways of cooking it more varied. PAGE 113: ayllu: the term for "community." It may signify either the dispersed Quechua community or a grouping by family relationships. Tuesdays and Fridays: believed, by many, to be unlucky days. PAGE 124: arariwa: the one who voices orders so that they may be heard by the community, and who calls the people together for reunions. PAGE 130: molasses: popularly used to cure the fractures of domesticated birds. PAGE 139: alferez: usually meaning second in command at a fiesta, in this tale the man seems to have accepted the obligations of Majordomo rather than of Captain, since he speaks of the great expenditure involved. PAGE 141: ro'ke wood: an especially strong type of wood. PAGE 151: the sorcerer: an integral part of the Quechua community. He is consulted as a diviner and as a physician, and one of the worst things that can happen to a stranger is to have the town's sorcerer perform black magic to induce him to leave. PAGE 153: Sumakk Marka: an ancient town whose ruins still exist. PAGE 156: he made her wear sandals: this phrase shows the elegance which

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the Governor insisted upon for Isicha Puytu, as the majority of Indians go barefoot. PAGE 157: quena: the Indian flute. PAGE 162: chuno: dehydrated potatoes, commonly eaten by the Indians. PAGE 177: gensiana: a species of lily. tankar: a thorny bush with a purple Hower.

J.94

BIBLIOGRAPHY

THis BOOK is composed of the material in two of Jose Maria Arguedas' collections, Canto Kechwa, Lima, 1938, and Canciones y Cuentos del Pueblo Quechua, Lima, 1949, to which have been added several songs and a story, sent in manuscript by Mr. Arguedas, which have not appeared previously in any volume. The bibliograpliicar oackgrouna for tlie lntroauction ana Notes, the basis of knowledge gained through reading rather than through personal experience or information from Mr. Arguedas, is given with a cautionary word. In folklore the importance of the work in the field cannot be overemphasized, as no book of secondary information nor accumulation of books with repetitions of earlier books can take the place of the man who was there to listen to the song or tale and see and feel the singer or the teller. Scholarship, for its own sake, must fall aside. It only can be realized in its widest sense of being a study of life. The delicate task of moving the folklore from the field into a book, however, indicates a certain amount of description of the people and situation to bring the lore into a full sound and color; and, since the Quechua people stand in a clearer light against their rich historical tapestry, and since history involves scholarship, a presentation of their folklore must bear the touch of bookshelf disclosures. For this volume, scholarship has been used where it would

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support or enlighten the humanism. There has been an added care to keep it from overburdening the natural aestheticism of the beautiful songs. Those who have pursued Inca history and Quechua culture to any degree will realize the difficulties of such a position. Once begun, the problem in this research is not so much how to discover the facts as how to stop, how to resist the magic of the civilization, how to keep from being swept from curiosity to complete fascination, how to check the impulse for an unstinted sharing. From the books and articles listed here only a skimming of information was used, almost the least possible, in order not to speak for or about the Quechua people, but to let them sing and talk for themselves. Discussions of myths and legends, the ancient ceremonies, the Indians' fears, joys and humors, their music and handmade instruments, the varieties of Incaic poetry and drama and its derivations, the blending of Indian and Spanish thought and the attempts to write in Quechua, all, and more, has been left for each reader who chooses to explore for himself. The hardest to omit was a study of the Quechua language and its inherent concepts of the universe, opening, as it does, new fables of vision. It is for readers with a further interest that a bibliography is provided, as an aesthetic work, otherwise, should not have a bibliography, should not show the bone beneath the iridescent feathering. Authorities on Peru, of course, will be familiar with the sources, and will recognize that this is not a complete bibliography on the subject, but a listing of one reader's pursuit. Angeles Caballero, Cesar A.: Bibliografia de "Peru Indigena." Instituto Indigenista Peruano. Lima, 1956. Arguedas, Jose Maria: Canto Kechwa. Ediciones "Club del libro peruano." Lima, 1938. - - : "Ritos de Ia Cosecha," La Prensa, 27 de Julio de 1941, Buenos Aires. - - : "La Literatura Quechua en el Peru," Mar del Sur, Vol. I, setiembre-octubre, 1948, Lima. pp. 46-54. - - : Canciones y Cuentos del Pueblo Quechua. Editorial Huascaran. Lima, 1949. - - : "Cuentos Magico-Realistas y Canciones de Fiestas Tradicionales," Folklore Americana, Afio I, No.1. Lima, 1953. pp. 101-293.

196

EDITOR'S NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

- - : Himnos Quechuas Cat6licos Cuzqueiios. Colecci6n de J. A. Lira y J. M. B. Farfan. Estudio Preliminar por Jose Maria Arguedas. Separata de la Revista, Folklore Americano, Aiio III, No. 3, Lima, 1955. - - : Apu Inca Atawallpaman. Recogida por J. M. B. Farfan. Traducci6n de Jose Maria Arguedas. Juan Mejia Baca & P. L. Villanueva. Lima, 1955. Arias-Larreta, Abraham: "Inca Literature," Poet Lore, Vol. LV, No.1. Spring, 1950.pp. 21-35. - - : Literaturas Aborigenes: Azteca, Incaica, Maya-Quichi. Colecci6n Sayari. Los Angeles, 1951. Arona, Juan de [pseud.]: Diccionario de Peruanismos. Desclee, de Brouwer. Paris, 1938. Basadre, Jorge: Literatura Inca. Desclee, de Brouwer. Paris, 1938. - - : "El Torno a la Literatura Quechua," Sphinx, Aiio III, Nos. 45, marzo-junio, 1939, Lima. pp. 7-37. Baudizzone, Luis M., ed.: Poesia, Musica y Danza Inca. Editorial Nova. Buenos Aires, 1943. Bennett, Wendell C.: "The Andean Highlands," Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. II, Smithsonian Institution. U.S. Gov't Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 1946. pp. 1-142. Bingham, Hiram: Lost City of the Incas. Duell, Sloan and Pearce. New York, 1948. Buitron, Anibal, and John Collier, Jr.: The Awakening Valley. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1949. Burga, Napoleon M.: La Literatura en el Peru de los Incas. Libreria e Imprenta Gil, S.A., Lima, 1940. Casas, Bartolome de las: De las Antiguas Gentes del Peru. Los Pequeiios Grandes Libros de Historia Americana. Lima, 1948.

Cieza de Le6n, Pedro de: Parte Primera de la Chronica del Peru. En Casa de I. Steelsio. Anvers, 1554. Coho, Bernabe: Historia del Nuevo Mundo. 4 volumes. Imp. de E. Rasco. Sevilla, 1890-95. Cometta Manzoni, Aida: El Indio en la Poesia de America Espanola. Joaquin Torres, Editor. Buenos Aires, 1939. Cornejo Bouroncle, Jorge: Por el Peru Incaico y Colonial. Sociedad Geogranca Americana, S.A., Buenos Aires, 1946.

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Domingo de Santo Tomas: Lexicon o Vocabulario de la Lengua General del Peru. Edici6n Facsimilar. Con un pr6logo, por Raul Porras Barrenechea. Edici6n del Instituto de Historia. Lima, 1951. Dorsey, George H.: "A Ceremony of the Quichuas of Peru," The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. VII. Houghton MifBin and Company, Boston and New York, 1894. pp. 307-309. - - : A Bibliography of the Anthropology of Peru. Publication 23, Anthropological Series, Vol. II, No.2. Field Columbian Museum. Chicago, January, 1898. Ellis, Robert: Peruvia Scythica, The Quichua Language of Peru. Triibner & Co., London, 1875. Farfan, Jose Maria Benigno: "Poesia Folkl6rica Quechua," Revista del Instituto de Antropologia de la Universidad Nacional de Tucuman, Vol. II, No. 12. Tucuman, 1942. pp. 525-568. - - : "El Quechua Bibliognlfico," Revista del Museo Nacional, Torno XII, No.2. Lima, 1943. pp. 228-234. - - : "Cantos Quechuas de Ancash," Revista del Museo Nacional, Torno XIII. Lima, 1944. pp. 145-152. - - : Colecci6n de Textos Quechuas del Peru. Instituto de Estudios Etnol6gicos, Secci6n Lingiiistica. Lima, 1952. Fernandez Baca de Merell, Rebeca: "Aspecto Literario de Ia Ideografia Quechua," Revista Universitaria, Afio, XXIII, Torno II, No. 67. Cuzco, 1934. pp. 55-108. Garcia, Jose Uriel: El Nuevo Indio. Editorial H. G. Rozas, Sucesores. Cuzco, 1930. Garcilaso de Ia Vega, El Inca: Primera Parte de los Commentarios Reales. En Lisboa, En Ia officina de Pedro Crasbeeck, Afio de M.DCIX. - - : The Royal Commentaries of the Yncas. Hakluyt Society. 2 vols. London, 1869, 1871. - - : Antologia de los Commentarios Reales. Con una introducci6n critica por D. Jose de Ia Riva-Agiiero. M. AgUilar. Madrid, 1929. Grig6rieff, Sergio: Compendia del Idioma Quichua. Talleres graficos de Ia Editorial Claridad. Buenos Aires, 1935. d'Harcourt, Raoul and Marguerite: "La Musique Indienne," Encyclopedie de la Musique et Dictionnaire du Conservatoire. Librairie Delagrave. Paris, 1922. pp. 3337-3371.

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- - · La Musique des Incas et ses Survivances. 2 vols. Librairie Orientaliste Paul Genthner. Paris, 1925. Hardy, Osgood: The Indians of the Department of Cuzco. Publication 47, The American Anthropologist, Vol. 21, No. I. JanuaryMarch, 1919. pp. 1-27. Hewett, Edgar Lee: Ancient Andean Life. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis and New York, 1939. Kubler, George: The Indian Castes of Peru. Publication 14. Smithsonian Institution. Washington, D.C., 1952. Lara, Jesus: La Poesfa Quechua. Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica. Mexico and Buenos Aires, 1947. Markham, Clements Robert: Cuzco: ... and Lima. Chapman and Hall. London, 1856. - - : Contributions Towards a Grammar and Dictionary of Quichua. Triibner & Co., London, 1864. - - : Vocabularies of the General Language of the Incas of Peru or Runa Simi (called Quichua by the Spanish grammarians). Williams & Norgate. London, 1908. Mead, Charles Williams: The Musical Instruments of the Incas. Supplement to American Museum Journal, Vol. III, No.4, July, 1903. Guide Leaflet No. 11. - - : Old Civilizations of Inca Land. American Museum Press. New York, 1924. Means, Philip Ainsworth: Some Comments on the Inedited Manuscript of Poma de Ayala. Reprinted from The American Anthropologist, Vol. 25, No. 3, July-September, 1923. pp. 397-405. - - : Ancient Civilizations of the Andes. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York and London, 1931. - - : A Re-examination of Prescott's Account of Early Peru. Reprint from The New England Quarterly, Vol. IV, No. 4. The Southworth Press, 1931. Medina, Jose Toribio: Bibliografia de las Lenguas Quechua y Aymara. Museum of the American Indian. Heye Foundation. New York, 1930. Mishkin, Bernard: "The Contemporary Quechua," Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. II. Smithsonian Institution. U.S. Gov't Printing Office. Washington, D.C., 1946. pp. 411-470. 199

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Montesinos, Fernando: Memorias Antiguas Historiales y Politicas del Peru. Impr. de M. Ginesta. Madrid, 1882. - - : Memorias Antiguas Historiales del Peru. Translated and edited by Philip Ainsworth Means with an introduction by the late Sir Clements R. Markham. The Hakluyt Society. London, 1920. Murdock, George Peter: Outline of South American Cultures. Behavior Science Outlines, Vol. II. Human Relations Area Files, Inc., New Haven, Conn., 1951. Nestarez, Francisco H.: Cuentos, Tradiciones, Leyendas y Costumbres Quechuas. Talleres Gn1ficos de la Penitenciaria. Lima, 1929. Noll, Arthur Howard: The Peruvians (Indian Races). Honeyman & Co., Plainfield, N.J., 1905. Osborne, Harold: Indians of the Andes: Aymaras and Quechuas. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Mass., 1952. Pacifico Jorge, Fray Jose: Melodias Religiosas en Quechua. Imprenta de Herder & Cia., Friburgo de Brisgovia (Alemania), 1924. Palma, Ricardo: Tradiciones Peruanas. Selecci6n y Reseiia de la Historia Cultural del Peru, por Raul Porras Barrenechea. W. W. Jackson Inc., Buenos Aires, 1945. Pomade Ayala, Felipe Huaman: La Obra de Phelipe Guaman Poma de Ayala: Primer Nueva Cor6nica y Buen Gobierno. Facsimile Edition. Editor: Prof. Ing. Arthur Posnansky. Editorial: Instituto "Tihuanacu" de Antropologia, Etnografia y Prehistoria. La Paz, Bolivia, 1944. - - : Las Primeras Edades del Peru. Con un Ensayo de Interpretaci6n por Julio C. Tello. Publicaciones del Museo de Antropologia, Vol. 1, No. I. Lima, 1939. Prescott, William Hickling: The History of the Conquest of Peru. The Modern Library. New York. Radin, Paul: Indians of South America. Doubleday, Doran & Company. Garden City, New York, 1942. Reyniers, Fran~ois: Douze Poemes Inca'iques. Traduits du Quechua, avec 4 dessins de Ricardo Grau. Lima, 1945. Rivet, Paul, and Georges de Cn3qui-Montfort: Bibliographie des Langues Aymara et KiCua. Vol. I ( 1540-1875). Institut d'Ethnologie. Paris, 1951.

200

EDITOR'S NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rojas, Ricardo: Himnos Quichuas. Imprenta de Ia Universidad. Buenos Aires, 1937. Rowe, John Howland: "Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Conquest," Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. II. Smithsonian Institution. U.S. Gov't Printing Office. Washington, D.C., 1946. pp. 183-330. Salomon, Ballivian Jose: "Por que los Incas Prohibieron la Escritura?" Revista Universitaria, Torno I, marzo de 1934, Cuzco. pp. 207214. Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui, Juan de, and el Lie. Fernando de Santillan: Tres Relaciones de Antigiiedades Peruanas. Imprenta y Fundicion de M. Tello. Madrid, 1879. - - : Historia de los Incas y Reiaci6n de su Gobierno. lmprenta y Libreria Sanmarti y Cia. Lima, 1927. Tello, Julio Cesar: Origen y Desarrollo de las Civilizaciones Prehist6ricas Andinas. Reimpreso de las Aetas del XXVII Congreso de Americanistas de 1939, Libreria e lmprenta Gil. Lima, 1942. Torres Rubio, Diego de: Arte y Vocabulario de la Lengua Quichua. Que compuso el Padre Diego de Torres Rubio de Ia Compafiia de Jesus y Afiadio el P. Juan de Figueredo de la misma Compafiia, en 1609. Reimpreso en Lima. En Ia Imp. de la Plazuela de San Christoval, 1954. Valcarcel, Luis Eduardo: De La Vida Inkaica. Editorial Garcilaso. Lima, 1925. - - : Historia de la Cultura Antigua del Peru. Imprenta del Museo Nacional. Lima, 1943. - - : "The Andean Calendar," Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. II. Smithsonian Institution. U.S. Gov't Printing Office. Washington, D.C., 1946. pp. 471--476. - - : "Indian Markets and Fairs in Peru," Handbook of South American Indiaf'I,S, Vol. II. Smithsonian Institution. U.S. Gov't Printing Office. Washington, D.C., 1946. pp. 477--482. Van Den Bergh, Henry: The Incas and Their Industries. Second Edition. Revised in collaboration with J. H. Rus. George Routledge and Sons, Ltd. London, 1934. Verger, Pierre: Fiestas y Danzas en el Cuzco yen los Andes. Prologo de Luis E. Valcarcel. Editorial Sudamericana. Buenos Aires, 1945.

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- - : Indians of Peru. Photography by Pierre Verger. Text by Luis E. Valcarcel. Published by the Pocahontas Press. Distributed by Pantheon Books. New York, 1950. Vidal Martinez, Leopolda: Poesia de los Incas. Empresa Editora Amauta. Lima, 1947. For further references, both in book and periodical form, for contemporary material: Handbook of Latin American Studies. Francisco Aguilera, Editor. An annual publication prepared by the Hispanic Foundation of the Library of Congress. 1936-1949. Vols. I-XIII, Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Mass. 1950 to date. Vols. XIV on, University of Florida Press. Gainesville, Florida.

RECORDS

CURRENT:

Music of Peru Ethnic Folkways Library, P415, 1-12" 33 1/3 RPM LP Cancionero Incaico, Volume 1 Spanish Music Center, Pro-Arte, SMC-518, 1-10" 33 1/3 RPM LP Cancionero Incaico, Volume 2 Spanish Music Center, Pro-Arte, SMC-557, 1-10" 33 1/3 RPM LP OUT OF PRINT:

Cacharparihuay Danza Incaic Victor 30331-A, 10" 78 RPM En Arica Murio El Diablo Victor 30331-B, 10" 78 RPM Serenata Incaica Victor 32571-A, 10" 78 RPM Huambra Ingrata Victor 32571-B, 10" 78 RPM Al Pie Del Capuli Victor 32572-A, 10" 78 RPM La Canci6n Oltima Victor 32572-B, 10" 78 RPM

202

EDITOR'S NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDUSTRIA CHILENA, CONJUNTO FOLKLORICO PERUANO MOISES VIVANCO: Wifalitay Odeon 15000 A, 10" 78 RPM, Canta la Soprano I. Sumack acomp. en Guitarras por Moises Vivanco. Amor Odeon 15000 B, 10" 78 RPM, Canta la Soprano Imma Sumack. Picaflor Huayno Cuzqueiia Odeon 15006 A, 10" 78 RPM, Canta la Soprano Imma Sumack. W araka Tusuy Danza India del Cuzco, Odeon 15006 B, 10" 78 RPM, Canta la Soprano lmma Sumack. Virgenes Del Sol Odeon 15010 A, 10" 78 RPM, Canta la Soprano Imma Sumack. Un Picaflor La Desangro Poesia Keshwa, Jose Maria Arguedas, Odeon 15010 B, 10" 78 RPM, Recitada por Rosita Vivanco acomp. en Guitarra y Charango por M. Vivanco y M. Nunez.

203

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