My Land Sings: Stories from the Río Grande

Preface

Dear Reader,

As a boy, I loved to hear people tell stories. In the evening, after the supper dishes were done, we would sit around the kitchen table and listen to the elders. Storytelling time was always magical. I had a favorite uncle who really knew how to spin a yarn, and when he came to visit, the evening became a storytelling feast.

To become enraptured in a story means you truly believe what happens in it. You feel as if you’ve fallen into the narrative. That’s what I felt as a child, and this still happens to me today when I read or hear a good story.

Let me give you an example. It’s a tale my father told a long time ago. When he was young, he was a vaquero, herding cattle on the llano, the eastern plain of New Mexico. One dark night, he and a friend were riding home on horseback when a ball of fire came bounding onto their path. Of course we knew that in the folklore of the Hispanic people of New Mexico witches were said to take the form of these bolas de lumbre. My father said he fired his pistol at the glowing apparition and it leapt away, disappearing into the darkness, leaving behind two very frightened cowboys.

I shivered as I listened, picturing the darkness on the plain, the rearing horses, and feeling my father’s fear as he reached for his pistol and fired. They had come in contact with the unknown, and from that adventure his story evolved. My father’s tone was serious, so I knew the story was true, and if it was true, then I, too, might one dark night run into a ball of fire when I played late along the river. I huddled closer to my sisters.

Outside, the brilliant New Mexican sunset colored the western clouds in red and gold; then dusk fell. Bats and nighthawks flitted in the dark, and an owl called by the river. Inside, our house, nestled near the Pecos River, was a safe haven. My hometown of Santa Rosa lay across the river; on this bank there were only our house and a couple of neighbors. In that world of stories told around the kitchen table, my imagination was nurtured.

I spent most summer evenings outside, playing with my friends. When it got late, someone might hear a strange noise and, half-joking, cry out, La Llorona! Many stories were told about this ghostly woman who appears at night along the river. Long ago, in a fit of rage and jealousy, she had murdered her children. Now she searches for them eternally, crying as she wanders the dark river paths. As children, we believed she was real. Feeling her presence made our hair stand on end, and we bolted and raced for home.

My imagination was nurtured in other ways. I loved the Saturday afternoon movies, and I read my share of comic books as a boy. But listening to a storyteller or reading a good book allows your mind to create images to fit the story; on the movie or television screen, they are provided for you. Your interaction with a story is personal, bringing into play your own imagination.

The stories I listened to as a child instilled in me a sense of belonging to a community and a knowledge of its values. Any event could become a story as the teller enhanced it with drama, and the beliefs of our people were woven into each tale. We may scoff at some beliefs and call them superstitions, but we must respect the body of knowledge each culture incorporates into its folk wisdom.

One evening, my uncle Pedro told of a man from Pastura who fell from his horse while rounding up cattle. As Uncle Pedro described the event, he embellished it, mentioning that the horse had been frightened by a whirlwind. Suddenly, the story came alive, for we all knew the devil rode the whirlwinds of the llano. The cowboy who was thrown from his horse, added my uncle Pedro, hadn’t made the sign of the cross to ward off the evil in the whirlwind.

You don’t have to believe this particular story, but you do have to understand that each community has its own folklore. You can believe parts or all, but either way folktales have a lot to teach about the world. And stories are continually being added to the pot. The tale my uncle told about the whirlwind began to spread, and each person who passed it on added new details. By the time it got back to the man who actually fell from the horse, he barely recognized himself. If that man’s story is still being told today, I bet it’s changed and grown even more elaborate.

In New Mexico, we have a rich Spanish and Native American folktale tradition. Spanish and Mexican settlers came to live near the Pueblo Indians of the Río Grande in 1598. From that meeting, a remarkable blending of culture and stories was born.

In Spanish, we call these stories cuentos. Among them are groups of stories about animals, riddles, humorous tales, and those that teach a lesson. The largest categories are tales of the pícaro and tales of enchantment. The pícaro in Spanish literature is a rogue or rascal. Enchantment stories have to do with magic or incantations. Some of these categories are combined in many stories. The people had an active imagination that was kept alive by storytelling.

At first, the cuentos were not written down. People memorized this vast storehouse of folktales and passed them down in the oral tradition, telling and retelling them. Since 1598, literally hundreds of cuentos have been preserved. By now, most have been collected by scholars and published. Since I grew up with both traditional cuentos and day-to-day storytelling, I thought this collection should include examples of both. Here you will find five cuentos I have retold and five of my own original stories.

In our folktales, there is a character who personifies death; her name is Doña Sebastiana. This old hag, who rides in a creaking cart, holding a bow and arrow, appears in New Mexican art and many folktales. The Spanish word for death is la muerte, and so when death is personified in our tales, she appears as Doña Sebastiana. Children who listen to stories about Doña Sebastiana learn about death’s role in life.

Throughout our history, the rich imagination of New Mexicans has been constantly at work creating new cuentos and passing down the old ones. Sometimes they start with a simple question. Sometime, somewhere, a man or a woman asked: What if we could understand the language of animals? The Shepherd Who Knew the Language of Animals describes what happens to a person who receives this gift. But this cuento also asks another question: Is it right to keep a secret from the person you love the most?

The Spaniards and Mexicans who came to settle New Mexico were Roman Catholics, so many elements of that religion appear in the cuentos. Folktales around the world incorporate the spiritual values of the culture they come from. Just as the Greek gods are active characters in Greek myths, so the saints of the Catholic religion appear in the cuentos. In The Three Brothers, it is the Virgin Mary and Jesus who appear to test the brothers.

Mary appears again in The Lost Camel to help a young man. In creating this version of The Lost Camel, I took two cuentos and combined them. As a writer, I love to take traditional materials and combine them into new stories. This is something you can try. Take a myth or a legend you like and write it in your own words. It’s like casting one of Shakespeare’s plays in a contemporary setting. In fact, I recently saw a movie of Romeo and Juliet that did exactly this. We can enjoy both the traditional and the contemporary versions in different ways.

The setting of these stories is very important to me. I was born and raised in New Mexico, so I use its people, rivers, towns, mountains, and deserts in my writing. I set The Lost Camel and The Miller’s Good Luck along the Río Grande. A great deal of the early history of New Mexico and the Southwest took place along this river. Mark Twain did the same with the Mississippi River, using it as a setting in his writing. In Sipa’s Choice, the river is so important the characters finally live in it.

The device of someone finding a diamond in the stomach of a fish probably stretches back to the origins of folktales in the Indian subcontinent. Thousands of years later, the idea appears with a New Mexican setting in The Miller’s Good Luck, in a story that instructs the young about saving for a rainy day. It’s also meant to leave you thinking: Does good luck or good planning rule our lives?

When I write my original stories, I try to capture the voice and drama of a good storyteller on the page. I often use characters from the oral tradition, like la Llorona. Versions of the crying woman appear in hundreds of stories in New Mexico, Mexico, and throughout Latin America. I think it’s safe to say that this tragic woman is the best-known character in the Latino oral tradition.

Why am I so influenced by her? Would you believe me if I told you she chased me? One evening I had stayed too late in town, playing basketball with my friends, even though my mother had told me to be home before dark. While crossing the river, I heard la Llorona’s cry, a horrible mournful shriek. I saw her bright eyes in the dark, felt her fingers clawing at me. I ran! I ran as I had never run before! Now when I tell this story, some people believe me, some don’t, and others aren’t sure. The point is that the characters of our cuentos feel very real to us. For me they are still alive.

Did you ever hear a story and couldn’t get it out of your mind? For me, Dulcinea is such a story. Respect for the elders is an important value in our community, so we have many tales about children who don’t obey their parents, including Dulcinea. My father told me the bare outline of this young woman’s story when I was twelve. Many years later, I included the story in my novel Heart of Aztlán. Then I wrote the version in this book. Now I think it would make an interesting movie. So you see, stories and characters take many forms. That’s the beauty of storytelling.

By the way, there’s also a very famous Mexican ballad about a disobedient son. El Hijo Desobediente tells the story of a young vaquero who disobeys his father, and for his transgression he dies at sunset. These ballads—songs that tell a story—are called corridos. Many stories are passed on in the form of corridos. It’s my favorite form of Mexican music.

You might think Coyote and Raven is an original Native American tale. Well, Coyote and Raven are Native American characters, but