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THE JOURNAL OF

.MERICAN FOLK-LORE

VOLUME XXVII

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LANCASTER, PA., and NFAV YORK

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G. E. STECHERT & CO., Ac;i-nts

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LONDON: DAVID NUTT, 57. SI i<"<^' '\<^K =

LEIPZIG: OTTO IIARRASSOWITZ. QUEltsTRASSll. 14

MDCCCCXIV

By the AMERICAN FOLK-LORE SOCIETY

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PRESS OF

THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY

LANCASTER. t-A.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME XXVII

ARTICLES

PAGE

The Explanatory Element in the Folk-Talcs of the North-American Indians.

2". T. Waterman i

The Traditional Ballad in the South Reed Smith 55

The Transmission of Folk-Song Phillips Barry, A.M. 67

The Collection of Folk-Song Phillips Barry, A.M. 77

The Bridge of Sunbeams Phillips Barry, A.M., S.T.B. 79

Ballads Emelyn E. Gardner 90

The Crow Sun Dance Robert H. Loivie 94

Some Aspects of the Folk-Lore of the Central Algonkin Alanson Skinner 97

Twenty Fifth Annual Meeting of the American Folk-Lore Society loi

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore Aurelio M. Espinosa 105

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos J. Alden Mason 148

Comparative Notes on New-Mexican and Mexican Spanish Folk-Tales.

Aurelio M. Espinosa 211

Loga del Nino Dios Rudolph Schuller 232

Negro Folk-Lore in South Carolina Henry C. Davis 241

Negro Folk-Songs from Tennessee Anna Kranz Odtim 255

Bulu Folk-Tales George Schwab 266-

The Play-Party in Northeast Missouri Goldy M. Hamilton 289.

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New York Emelyn E. Gardner 304

Alexander Francis Chamberlain Franz Boas 326-

Religion of the North American Indians Paul Radin 335

Mythology and Folk-Tales of the North American Indians Franl Boas 374

The Social Organization of the Indians of North America. .A. A. Goldenivciscr 411

NOTES AND QUERIES

The Elves of Old Mexico, Mary Blake, 237. Sympathetic Magic in the Kentucky
Mountains: Some Curious Folk-Survivals, Josiah Henry Combs, 328. Crow
Rapid-Speech Puzzles, Robert H. Lowie, 330. Spanish Songs from Southern
California, Eleanor Hague, 331. Texas Branch, 333. Moltke Moe, Albert N.
Gilbertson, 333. Alcee Fortier, 333. Adolph Francis Bandelier, 333.

OfTiccrs and Members of the American Folk-Lore Society, 437.

Index to Volume XXVII, 445.

Hn flDemodam

ALEXANDER FRANCIS CHAMBERLAIN

Born January 12, 1865
Died April 8, 1914

Professor of Anthropology at Clark University. Worcester. Mass.
Honorary member of the American Folk-Lore Society
Editor of the Journal of American F"olk-Lore, 1900-1907

THE JOURNAL OF

AMERICAN FOLK-LORE

Vol. XXVIL — JANUARY-MARCH, 1914.— No. CIII.

THE EXPLANATORY ELEMENT IN THE FOLK-TALES OF
THE NORTH-AMERICAN INDIANS.

BY T. T. WATERMAN.

Conspicuous among the very striking features of primitive myth-
ologies is the ingenious way in which tales are employed to explain
the various facts and fancies familiar to primitive folk. In our own
European folk-tales this function has been to some degree lost; and
in the cases where "explanations of phenomena" are a part of our
folk-tales, the explanations themselves sometimes concern rather
trifling things. For an example I might mention "The Story of the
Straw, the Coal, and the Bean," — a favorite in Grimm's familiar
"Household Tales," — which tells why the bean to-day has a curious
seam around it.^ With primitive folk the case is otherwise. In
connection, perhaps, with a more solemn attitude toward folk-lore of
all sorts, we find a large number of stories devoted to the explana-
tion of serious matters, and we find such explanations treated with
respect. I should like to give as an example one that is often quoted,
from the folk-lore of British Columbia.

The Black Bear and the Chipmunk once contended against each other, the
former for darkness, the latter for light. The Bear cried, "Lipa, Lipa, Lipa!"
and the Chipmunk, "Ma'a, ma'a, ma'a!" The Bear, finding that the Chip-
munk was his equal in the possession of magic powers, finally became enraged,
and would have killed his adversary; but the Chipmunk was too quick for him,
and ran into his hole just as the Bear made a dash for him. The Bear scratched
the Chijjniunk when going into his hole. This is the origin of the present stripes
on the chipmunk's back. If the Bear had managed to kill the Chipmunk, we
should have had eternal darkness instead of day and night, as we have at present.*

This myth has the outward appearance of having been devised to
account for certain definite facts. I do not think, however, that we

' See the numerous explanatory tales in Oskar Diihnhardt's Natursagen.
• Thompson, i, p. 6i (for full titles, see bibliography, pp. 50-54).
VOL. XXVII. — NO. 103. — I. I

2 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

need to assume that this tale, merely because it explains something
very neatly, was consciously invented. Its undoubted literary merit
as a tale, for instance, does not compel us to believe that its plot
was consciously elaborated. In any case, however, the explanation
certainly fits into the plot of the story as though it belonged there.
We might very readily suppose that in this and similar cases the
tendency to explain a certain thing has had something to do with the
origin and the shaping of the tale. In most mythologies the number
of tales in which, as in this one, the explanation is explicit and in-
genious, is very large. Such tales form a very striking feature in the
folk-lore of North America, and they are by no means unheard of
elsewhere. It might readily be assumed, therefore, that the desire
for explaining one thing or another may have played in general a con-
siderable part in the formation of folk-tales. This is in fact the most
popular method of explaining the "origin" of myths. The purpose
of the present paper is to find out whether or not the "explanatory
tendency" will account for the origin of the native folk-tales of North
America.

THE METHOD.

It is rather evident that any discussion concerning the actual de-
velopment of folk-tales must be based on something other than
ascertainable historical data. A documentary history, even for the
development of our own folk-lore during its literary period, is in all
likelihood out of the question. This fact has been widely recognized ;
and the writers who deal at all with the history of folk-lore attempt
to reconstruct that history either on the basis of psychological prob-
abilities, or on the study of folk-lore as it is found to exist among
modern peoples. It is not altogether clear how far conclusions drawn
from present conditions can be applied to the past stages of history.
Until the contrary is proved, I think it is certainly a fair assumption,
however, that any forces we may discover at work now have been at
work probably also in the past. This idea is applicable, of course, to
all branches of human activity. The products and expressions of
human thought to-day are in general so obviously similar to the pro-
ductions of former peoples, even those of long-past ages, that we may
assume a fundamental similarity of thought, a fundamental parallel-
ism of mental processes. The method, it seems to me, of learning
about the past by studying the present, is especially applicable in the
study of folk-lore. This is perhaps a good time to insist on the point
that myths and folk-tales are certainly not altogether the product of
"a kind of thought now extinct," as Lang puts it. On the contrary,
myths are in process of formation to-day,^ They are developing around

> Van Gennep, in his Origines des Legendes (Paris, 1907), p. 261, refers to this point.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 3

such historical figures as Washington and Benedict Arnold. Abraham
Lincoln, for that matter, is essentially a mythical character in the
popular imagination. The Lincoln who is pictured in story certainly
never had any objective existence. It seems rather important, then,
in arranging our ideas about the origin of folk-tales, to discover, first
of all, what is true of folk-lore to-day. This study is almost certain
to supply some material for conclusions concerning the history of
folk-lore in the past.

The present paper is an attempt to investigate the condition of folk-
lore in one part of the world only, — America north of Mexico. It is
conceivable that conditions in other parts of the world are quite differ-
ent. The North American field is so large, however, and the material
so varied, that it seems plausible to suppose that the general tenden-
cies found to operate here will probably be operative to a greater or
less degree in the folk-lore of other regions.

Even in dealing with the folk-lore of America north of Mexico,
it seems advisable to narrow the discussion down to certain selected
groups of people. The material which forms the basis for the study
of American folk-lore has been very unevenly recorded. In some
regions the native folk-lore has been preserved in fairly complete
form. Many individual tribes, even where they are related to each
other, are represented by rather full collections of tales. This is par-
ticularly true along the Northwest coast and among certain tribes
(especially the Caddoan) on the Southern plains. In other cases
the folk-lore map is relatively bare for hundreds of miles. Tribe after
tribe, some of them very important, has been ignored by the mythol-
ogist, and in some cases the folk-lore has largely disintegrated. This
is especially true of northeastern and southeastern North America,
though perhaps considerable material may yet be obtained. No two
tribes have been more important in historical and ante-historical times
than the Sioux and the Iroquois, and yet there are no two tribes
about whose mythology we have less information of a satisfactory sort.
In view of this condition, there is no apparent reason why the present
study should attempt to include material from all the tribes. It seems
quite feasible, however, in the present state of the literature, and by
proper selection, to make a study which will be fairly representative
of the continent as a whole. Therefore, the effort in the following
parngraphs will be, not primarily to include as much material as pos-
sible, but to distribute the investigation among those tribes tiiat may
be considered typical. We ought, I think, to consider at least one, if
possible more than one, mythology from each of the seven culture-
areas into which the continent may be divided. The following list
represents the tribes whose mythologies have been analyzed as a basis
for the present paper.

Joinnal oj American Folk-Lore.

I. Arctic.

Dakota.

6. Plateau.

Eskimo.

Grosventre.

Shoshoni.

2. Woodland.

Arapaho.

Thompson.

Micmac.

Omaha-Ponca.

Shushwap.

Abnaki.

Pawnee.

7. North Pacific.

Ojil)\va.

4. Southwest.

Chinook.

Fox.

Hopi.

Bella Coola.

3. Plains.

Jicarilla.

Kwakiutl.

Assiniboin.

5. California.

Haida.

Blackfoot.

Yana.

Tlingit.

The writer may appear to have been moved by mere perversity in
directing his choice in certain of the above instances. For example, the
folk-lore of the Micmac, the second tribe in the list, is in a sad condition,
— mixed with European elements, and apparently in large part recast
to accord with a European taste. It would perhaps seem better to
take up, in place of the Micmac, one of the numerous mythologies
concerning which we have relatively complete data. The fourteen
Dakota tales which have been analyzed in the present study represent
only a small fraction of the mythology of the Dakota people, most of
which could undoubtedly be obtained to-day by an observer in the field.
There were reasons, however, why these mythologies should be con-
sidered. The Micmac are so important from their geographical position,
that their folk-lore, it seems, ought to be considered, even though it
exists in incomplete or in garbled form. The Dakota are so important
as a tribe, that it seems well to include their mythology in the present
study, even though we must base our conclusions on only fourteen tales.
A good many mythologies, on the other hand, have been omitted
purposely. When we have analyzed a hundred and thirteen Pawnee
(Skidi) myths and tales, it seems unnecessary to consider the myths
of closely allied groups, such as the Chaui or Kitkehahki, or even more
remote groups, such as the Wichita and Caddo.

The present paper does not pretend to include all the available
material, even in regard to the tribes considered. The literature
worked over for each tribe may be regarded, however, as fairly
representative, — a point which is perhaps, in this connection, more
important than absolute completeness. Wherever possible, collec-
tions of tales recorded in some one definite locality were considered,
leaving aside such tales as were recorded elsewhere. By this method,
even though the total number of tales on which the conclusions are
based is reduced, we have the advantage of a complete cross-section
through the mythologies of a number of localities. It ought to be
clearly borne in mind that the whole body of myth material on which
the following study is based has been sifted, and only those sources for
any region brought into comparison, which, on account of their com-

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 5

pleteness, offer this cross-sectional view. Thus, out of a number of
important sources for the folk-lore of the Eskimo, only the tales of the
Cumberland Sound tribes have been considered, and selected for com-
parison with those of other peoples. The reason for this is, that the
series of tales from Cumberland Sound ^ is so long that we can be fairly
certain that every important tale known to the group is represented
in it. In similar fashion the mythology of the Haida Indians of the
Queen Charlotte Islands is represented by a single series of tales
recorded in the Skidegate dialect. The reason here is, that the tales
there recorded represent the most complete, if not the largest, single
series of Haida myths so far extant. In cases where we have no long
series of tales recorded in one village or among one definite local group,
it is necessary to fall back on the less satisfactory collections the
provenience of which is not specifically recorded. It might be re-
marked finally, before passing on to other matters, that by choosing
certain complete and representative sources for this study, in place of
including all the possible material, the tabulations in the following
pages were reduced to a reasonable compass.

It also seems necessary to say a word about certain terms commonly
employed in mythological discussions. I believe that in the study of
folk-lore, more perhaps than in many other subjects, it is well to reach
an understanding concerning the terms employed, before a discussion
rather than after it. It is obvious, of course, that folk-tales, to take
up merely one branch of folk-lore, may be analyzed and classified
under several different headings. A number of terms have come into
use in connection with the different varieties of narrative which
result from such a classification, — terms such as "myth," "folk-
tale," "legend," "tradition," and a number of other less common-
place ones, such as "saga," "Marchcn," "conte," and others. Within
recent years especially, some effort has been made to restrict the appli-
cation of certain of these words to some one subdivision of the general
subject. Thus the suggestion has been put forward that all stories with
a definite hero should be described as "sagas," while those in which
the hero is anonymous should be classified as " Marchen " or " contes." ^
This suggestion has been matched with another one, that "saga"
should imply a story which is held to be true, stories which are told
merely for amusement being referred to as "Marchen."' In regard
to the most important and most widely used term of all, "myth,"
there has been, unfortunately, no uniformity of usage. To illustrate
this point, a few of the current definitions of "myth" mx^hi bo cited.

> Eskimo. 2. pp. 163-305. Si8-535-

* Van Genncp, Les Orifjines des Lcgcnrles. pp. 21 ct acq. Compare Macculloch'a
Childhood of Fiction, p. 450.

* Gomme. Handbook of Folk-I^orc. London, 1890 (Publications of the Folk-Lorc So-
ciety, vol. xx), p. III.

6 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

Thus Jevons says^ that "myths are narratives in which the doings
of some god are related." Van Gennep understands the word " myth "
to imply "stories which are objects of belief, and which are handed
down through the medium of magic and religious ceremonies," ^ whether
or not they have to do with gods. The term "myth" is often applied
loosely to any tale of the marvellous. When, for example, Dixon calls
his well-known volume "Maidu Myths," he does not mean to include
any one type of tale to the exclusion of the others. In the opinion of
Rivers, the term "myth" should be restricted to those tales which
are the subject of the present paper, — tales with din explanatory func-
tion.^ Perhaps the best usage is this, that literature becomes mythical
when it reflects or refers to the operations of nature. In this sense
the word is used, among other writers, by Boas.^ Admitting that
usage in the matter of these terms has not become settled, it seems
necessary for the student, first of all, to avoid using them arbitrarily
in more than one sense.

One distinction that must, however, be observed, has a quite dif-
ferent basis from those mentioned, and is rendered necessary by the
present state of the literature. It must be remarked that a difference
exists between what we might call mythical tales on the one hand, and
mythical ideas or concepts on the other.

This distinction is useful, because we have a great deal of information
about the mythical tales of various peoples, but very little about
their mythical notions. There exists a large and rapidly multiply-
ing body of material concerning mythical tales, not only from North
America, but from all over the world, and running back in some
instances to a considerable antiquity. On the other hand, our in-
formation about the mythical notions, particularly of modern un-
civilized peoples, is very incomplete, and often lacking altogether.
In the North American field especially, the works which preserve the
mythical tales of the native peoples, taking into account only pub-
lished books and monographs, number well up toward a hundred.
The papers, on the other hand, which systematically discuss the
mythical notions of the Indian tribes, might almost be counted on
one hand. As examples merely of what is meant by a " discussion of
mythical ideas," reference might be made to the discussion of Bella
Coola religion by Boas and of Haida religion by Swanton.^

To make the distinction between mythical notions and mythical
tales perfectly clear, it might be well to consider a few definite cases.

1 Idea of God in Early Religions (Cambridge, 1910), p. 33.

* Les Origines des Legendes, p. 28.

* W. H. R. Rivers, "The Sociological Significance of Myth" (Folk-Lore, vol. xxiii
[1912I, p. 310).

* The Mind of Primitive Man (New York, 1910), p. 230.

* Bella Coola, i, pp. 28-48; Ilaida, i, pp. 11-37.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 7

Among the Indians of North America there is a widespread belief in
a bird which produces thunder by clapping its wings, and lightning
by winking its eyes. I do not mean to say that this is exclusively
an American belief. It is of course found elsewhere; for example,
among the Zulu. In America, particularly in northern and western
America, this belief plays a very important part in the life of many
different tribes, and is a favorite subject for representation in art.
This is true, for example, on the Plains and on the North Pacific
coast. At the same time, this thunder-bird does not appear very
generally as an actor in the mythical tales. ^ It therefore supplies an
example of what is meant by a mythical belief or notion. The wide
currency of this concept, moreover, makes clear the point that a
mythical belief can develop and become important independently of
any connection with any particular story. A further example of the
distinction between tales and concepts is found in the belief, appar-
ently of universal acceptance, that the sky is a solid vault, and that
beyond or upon the sky is a flat country very much like this one, with
vegetation and inhabitants. This conception, while not itself a tale,
affords a background for many tales. While this concept may serve
indirectly to explain many things to the Indian, such as rain, the
movement of the sun, and the like, it has of course no basis in fact, and
is another example of a mythical belief. A folk may be provided
with quite a series of such ideas, embodying notions not only of a sky
country, but of worlds underneath this one, or of a world of the dead,
to which spirits go at death. They may also have quite definite
even though absolutely mistaken notions of the forces which produce
such events as eclipses or earthquakes. The point I wish to emphasize
is, that at the present time there are hardly enough complete accounts
of these mythical notions accessible to render possible a discussion of
them, or to afford a basis of study. The present investigation at least
has to do only with the question of the part played by explanations in
the formation of tales or stories. Only that part of folk-lore has been
considered which consists of tales having definite plots.

WHAT IS EXPLAINED BY FOLK-TALES.

Returning now to the subject of inquiry ,1namely, the part played
by the explanatory tendency in the growth of folk-talcs, several points
seem to stand out especially as subjects for investigation. I think the
first question to suggest itself might be worded somewhat as follows: " If
there are a large number of explanatory tales in various mythologies,

1 It is found in the stories of the Ojibwa, Bella Coola. Kwakiutl, Tillamook. Thompson.
Shuswap. and Assiniboin. and perhaps elsewhere. As a mythical idea and in artistic
representations, however, it is found among practically all the tribes of northern and
central North America.

8 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

what do they explain?" The mere variety of objects accounted for
through the medium of folk-tales is a study which must throw light
of a more or less direct sort on the psychology of the myth-makers.^
I suggest this, therefore, as the first appropriate topic for investi-
gation. Unfortunately, as soon as we begin to study primitive folk-
tales with a view to seeing in this way what is explained, we are
confronted with the absolute necessity of deciding what is to be con-
sidered as an explanation. It is often hard to tell whether a given
passage constitutes an explanation of a given subject, or is merely a
passing reference to it. It is, to be sure, easy enough to find a great
number of tales which in their present form are unmistakably explan-
atory. In trying to find out the total range of explanation, — that
is, in trying to bring together all the cases of explanation for study
and comparison, — the occurrence of these doubtful cases offers a
genuine obstacle. It is actually impossible to decide in some cases
whether a given tale explains anything or not. The form of the
"explanatory" passage may, in the first place, be equivocal. In some
cases the native informant may feel very clearly that a given tale is
explanatory, without saying so in so many words. It is obvious at
once that an informant might have felt, possibly, that the explanatory
sense of a tale was so evident that comment on it would be unneces-
sary. In such cases, where an explanation seems to be clearly implied,
are we justified in assuming that an explanation is present? This ele-
ment of doubt enters into our considerations quite frequently. On
the other hand, an informant might conceivably cast a tale into the
form of an explanation without deliberately intending anything of the
sort. An actual example may make clear the nature of this latter
difficulty.

We have three passages in North Pacific coast folk-lore which deal,
in almost the same words, with the origin of fire. The first of the
passages runs as follows: —

Raven came to a place where he saw something floating not far from shore.
. . . Toward evening he looked at the object, and saw that it resembled fire.
So he told a Chicken-hawk, which had a very long bill, to fly out to it, saying,
" Be very brave! If you get some of that fire, do not let go of it." The Chicken-
hawk reached the place, seized some of the fire, and started back as fast as
it could fly; but by the time it got the fire to Raven, its bill was burned off.
That is why its bill is short.'

This passage, beyond all question, is explanatory. It gives a very
definite reason why the chicken-hawk has a short beak. Compare
with it another version of the tale from a different locality.^

> Use has been made of this method by Rivers in the article referred to above (Folk-
Lore, vol. xxiii [1912I).

» Tlingit, I. p. II. ' Ibid., p. 83.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 9

After this the Raven saw a fire way out at sea. Tying a piece of pitch-wood
to a chicken-hawk's bill, he told it to go out to this fire, touch it with the pitch-
wood, and bring it back. When he had brought it to him. Raven put it into
the rock and the red cedar, etc.

We know from the former tale that this Tlingit tribe sometimes tell
this story to explain chicken-hawk's beak. I should say that the
chances are great that some such idea was present also in the story-
teller's consciousness when the version just above was related. He
merely took it for granted that its explanatory force would be felt,
and did not feel obliged to point it out. Nevertheless, as the passage
stands, it is not an explanation of chicken-hawk's beak; and a person
reading this passage without an acquaintance with Northwest coast
mythology would hardly suspect that the story would so much as lend
itself to the explanation of this particular point.

Consider, finally, the following from Haida mythology.^

After a while, Raven came to one who had a fire in his house. And he did
not know how to get his live-coals. And somebody had bought a deer-skin.
"Say, cousin, I want to borrow your deer-skin for a while." And he lent it to
him. It had a long tail, they say, and he tied a bundle of pitch-wood to the
end of the tail. Then he came in and danced before him. As he danced, his
face was turned toward the fire only. After he had danced for a while, he struck
his tail into the fire, and the pitch-wood burned. Then his tail was burned
olT, they say. That is why the deer's tail is short. Then he went into his own
skin and flew away with the live-coals. His beak, too, was burned off. And
they pursued him. They could not catch him, and turned back. He got the
coals neatly.

I should like to point out that even this passage, though it actually
goes so far as to point out that Raven's beak was burned off, is not
in such form that we can be sure that the native story-teller felt it to
be an explanation of the shortness of the raven's beak at the present
time. The setting for an explanation is all there, but is the explana-
tion actually present or not? The question is, of course, whether the
native informant feels it as an explanation. So much, then, for the
difficulty of recognizing the explanations which appear in the text.
The obstacles which arise in dealing statistically with such material
are obvious. Owing to the endless uncertainty which would result
from any other method, only those tales have been reckoned as ex-
planatory in which, on somebody's authority, the statement is made
that something is explained. It is quite possible that many explana-
tions have been ignored. The present paper, however, must be recog-
nized as a study of what is explained by those passages which are
definitely labelled as explanatory by the native informant. All other
passages and all other explanations have been ruled out.

' Haida, i, p. 135.

lo Journal of American Folk-Lore.

We have not only the difficulty of recognizing explanations when we
see them ; but the explanations show amazing variability as regards
their connection with the story-plot. In some cases the two seem to
be indissolubly connected. For example, it is almost impossible to
conceive of the Tlingit myth of the theft of daylight by Raven ^ as
anything else than at bottom an explanation of daylight on earth.
We do, however, find explanatory tales where the explanation is very
loosely attached to the subject-matter. I think a good example of
this would be the tales with a ceremonial ending, of the type which is
very common on the Northwest coast of America. There is, for exam-
ple, the much-loved tale of the person who meets a cannibal spirit,
and escapes after a remarkable and perfectly definite series of adven-
tures, which are repeated in various forms by a great many tribes.
On the Northwest coast such a tale ends very often by referring the
use of some ceremonial object to this adventure.^ Here the "conclu-
sion" or "explanation" has little real connection with the story-plot.
In the case of some tales the explanation is so inappropriate, that
the casual reader could almost suggest a better one, — one more in
keeping with the incidents in the plot. In the matter of unity between
the plot and the explanation, the variation is simply enormous.

The explanations occurring in folk-tales differ endlessly in regard to
style. A favorite type of myth in America is one in which the cul-
ture-hero comes along and teaches the people, for example, to make
baskets, — an art unknown till that time. Or, for that matter, he
teaches them to hold sexual intercourse, or how to plant crops. This
might be called the " pedagogical " type of explanation. Another very
important type of tale in America is one in which the culture-hero
transforms somebody or something into some permanent feature of
the landscape or into some well-known animal. Every such story
is in a sense explanatory. A few examples may be given to illus-
trate this. Raven, for instance, among the Tlingit, is pictured com-
ing down-river with the daylight, which he had succeeded in stealing
from Raven-at-head-of-Nass. Angered at certain beings who were
fishing at the mouth of the river, he releases the daylight, trans-
forming them into animals, each according to the type of the blanket
he was wearing at the time. This tale is in a sense an "expla-
nation" of the animals on earth and their appearance. Tales of this
type are too numerous to mention, and make up a very considerable
bulk of American mythology. As far as they explain anything at all,
they involve what might be called an explanation by "transforma-
tion." In the following an attempt has been made to assemble all
the explanatory passages, no matter what the type of explanation.

' See B, p. 3n; Tlingit, i. p. 3.
* Kwakiutl, i, pp. 87, 513.

Folk-Tvles oj the North American Indians. 1 1

Without attempting to assume that all should be given equal weight
in forming our conclusions, it may nevertheless be said that such an
accumulation of explanatory passages of all kinds will at least illustrate
the range of primitive speculation.

An attempt has been made, however, to distinguish between inclusive
and particularistic explanations. For example, the myth recounting the
adventures and career of some culture-hero may include the statement
that "he taught the people all the arts." Or a creation myth may
involve the mere statement that the creator "made all the animals."
Some other incident, like that of the burning of the world, may
account for the fact that "there are stars" in the heavens. Such
explanations are certainly to be distinguished psychologically from the
minute and carefully localized tales which account for some one
definite fact, like the topography of a certain familiar cliff, or the
peculiar markings on some definite animal, or the movement and
appearance of some definite constellation. It would seem that the
distinction in such cases must have been present also in the native
mind, whatever may be said of the other instances previously referred
to. It seems well to pass over for the present any distinctions
which might be drawn between the explanations which are casual
and those which are really the motive of the stories in which they occur,
and also to ignore for our present purpose the type of the explanation;
that is, whether it is pedagogical, or based on the idea of transforma-
tion. The study merely of the popularity of one or the other type of
explanation would itself be an interesting undertaking, and would shed
some light on primitive psychology. It cannot, however, be under-
taken here. The difference just mentioned between the broad and the
particularistic explanations, is, however, so fundamental, that the two
types of explanation have been indicated in the following study by
different symbols.

The total range of things explained, and the curious way in which
these explanations are distributed over the face of nature, are- shown
briefly in the following tabulation. In this table an asterisk indicates
a generalized explanation. Numerals show the number of explana-
tions of individual or particular phenomena under each general head.
For example, opposite the heading "Culture," in the Abnaki column,
the asterisk stands for the statement, "The hero taught the people
all the arts;" in the Ojibwa column, the numeral i means that
a hero established one element of culture (in this case, wampum);
in the Blackfoot column, the asterisk followed by the numeral 3
indicates that a being arranged for "everything in the life of the
people," and, further, that three additional explanations account for
the origin of three individual cultural phenomena (in this case, quill-
work, etc.).

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

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Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 13

This tabulation involves a number of interesting points. Perhaps
these points will come out most clearly if we consider the mythologies
one by one. Taking up first the folk-lore of the Eskimo, we find
that the group which we have chosen for study possesses only one tale
which explains the first phenomenon on the list, the sun. This seems
at once rather extraordinary, in view of the fact that there are nine
tales which explain the traits of animals. There are, however, many
animals, and only one sun. The traits of all the different animals,
that differ from each other in appearance and in habits, offer a better
field for explanation than does the sun, which is simple in outward
appearance, and regular in its movements. One explanatory tale
might, after all, in the case of the sun, be considered to meet the
situation fully; while, in the case of animals, each species demands an
explanation to itself. Nevertheless, I am convinced that certain con-
clusions concerning the interest of the Eskimo are deducible from a
consideration of what their tales explain. It is at once obvious, for
example, that they find animal traits more interesting than they do
the topography of their country, and are in turn more interested
in topography than they are in ceremonies or in the peculiarities of
the state of culture in which they live. I am inclined, moreover, in
a general way, to extend this conclusion to their interest in earthly
as opposed to heavenly or celestial matters. The topics in the first
column of the tabulation are so arranged that the first sixteen terms
refer to things in the heavens, or, more generally speaking, to cosmic
forces. The last seventeen, on the other hand, appearing toward
the bottom of the column, constitute a list of the things on earth
which appear in the tales as the object of explanation. If we now
consider the total number of heavenly phenomena which are explained
in tales, we find that they amount, in the case of Eskimo mythology,
to only six in all; while in the same mythology the tales which explain
earthly matters reach a total of twenty-six. I see no reason why, if a
people were interested in the heavens, they should not find as many
things transpiring there which demand explanation as they would
find on the earth. This is especially true of the heavens in the arctic
regions. The absence of the sun from the sky during long periods,
the amazing display of the Northern Lights, seem calculated in them-
selves to attract comment and speculation. If a student approached
the subject without a previous acquaintance with Eskimo mythology,
arguing from i)urely psychological probabilities, he would certainly
expect to find in Eskimo talcs, if tales are ever used for explanation,
some reference to the sudden and furious arctic storms, which are a
matter of extreme personal interest to every Eskimo, from their effect
on the food-supply.' I am therefore disposed to think lliat the dis-

• See Eskimo, 2, pp. 460, 603.

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

tribution of explanations in the case of the Eskimo reflects some very
real psychological bias. I think it is important to see whether this
tendency to limit speculation largely to earthly matters finds wide
expression in primitive folk-lore. Eskimo folk-tales as recorded in
Cumberland Sound would certainly indicate that the heavenly
bodies and cosmic forces are not matters of most immediate interest
to primitive folk.

It is not proper, of course, to base any far-reaching conclusions on
the study of one mythology, or on the occurrence of one phenomenon
in various mythologies. I think, however, that if a consideration of
all twenty-six of the mythologies which are here the object of analysis,
bears out the conclusions we made concerning Eskimo mythology,
we shall have established a fact which, however it may be explained,
must at all events be recognized. The total number of tales which
explain the various phenomena in the twenty-six mythologies here dis-
cussod, is shown in the following table. In order to bring out the con-
trast referred to above between the comparative number of celestial
and earthly "explanations," the material has been arranged in parallel
columns.

SUMMARY SHOWING THE TOTAL NUMBER OF TALES WHICH EXPLAIN THE VARIOUS
PHENOMENA LISTED ABOVE.

CELESTIAL OR COSMIC.

Phenotntna.

Sun

Moon

Stars

Milky Way

Constellations. . . .
Day and night . . . .

Seasons

Clouds

Thunder

Weather

Snow

Tides

Earthquakes

Sky

Land

Water

Number of Tales.

Total .

19
3

14
5
5

2
II
10

I
6

138

EARTHLY OR LOCAL.

Phenomena.

Mankind

Plants

Animals

Death

Fire

Topography

Echo

Human traits

Animal traits

Plant traits

Tribal groups

Tribal traits

Languages

Culture

Customs

Ceremonies

Number of Talet.

15
17
45
14
6

174
I

58
356

28
6

15
191

Total .

1053

From this table it is clear, that, in twenty-six mythologies, the total
number of tales explaining the heavenly bodies and meteorological
and hydrographic phenomena is 138, while the total number referring
to earthly or local matters is 1053. In other words, conclusions based
on twenty-six separate mythologies quite bear out those based on
Eskimo alone. The total number of "celestial" explanations is only
one-eighth of the total number of "terrestrial" explanations.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians.

I should like now to look at our material from the point of view of
the number of individual mythologies, among the total of twenty-six,
as contrasted with the number of tales, which contain explanatory tales
relating to the various heavenly bodies and cosmic forces.

Let us consider, for example, the importance in folk-tales of one
celestial body, the sun, this time from the point of view of the num-
ber of mythologies in a given area in which he occurs as the object
of explanation. Arranged across the top of our tabulation, in a hori-
zontal line, will be found a list of mythologies so far analyzed. If we
look along the line following "sun," and read the figures which appear
in connection with the names of the various tribes, we see that only
certain tribes explain the sun at all in their folk-tales. The Micmac
tribe, for example, or the Blackfoot, have no story at all explaining
the origin or appearance of the sun, as far as can be ascertained
from their folk-lore in its present form. Out of twenty-six represen-
tative American mythologies, about which we have fairly complete
information, the sun is explained in only thirteen. I am inclined to
think that this fact, if it can be substantiated by the study of myth-
ologies in other parts of the world, renders necessary a reconsidera-
tion of those mythical theories which would make the heavenly bodies
the fountain and source of primitive myth and folk-tale.

Sun in 13 mythologies.

Moon "15 "

Stars "11 "

Milky Way " 3 "

Constellations " 9 "

Day and Night " 4 "

Seasons " 5 "

Clouds " 2 "

Thunder " lo "

Weather " 9 "

Snow " I "

Tides " 3 "

Earthquakes " i "

Sky " 6

Land "10 "

Water " 7 "

Mankind in 14 mythologies.

Plants "11 "

Animals "20 "

Death "11 "

Fire " 6 "

Topography "22 "

Echo " I "

Human traits " i8

Animal traits "25 "

Plant traits " IS "

Tribal groups " 7 "

Tribal traits "11

Languages " 5 "

Culture "18 "

Customs "12 "

Ceremonies "21 "

It is a fact of some significance that such important and conspic-
uous phenomena as the sun, the Milky Way, the seasons, the clouds,
the over-arching sky, are explained in the folk-tales of a few tribes
only here and there. The talcs of many tribes ignore thcin com-
pletely, as far as making any attempt to explain them through the
medium of tales is concerned. Even such all-important objects as
the sun and the moon, about whose place in mythology volumes
have been written, are explained in only half the mythologies we are
considering. The table, therefore, quite bears out the preceding one
in two important points. In the first place, it gives us a right to

1 6 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

suspect that something is wrong with those mythical hypotheses which
lay all the emphasis on the heavenly bodies as the basis of folk-tales.
It seems quite plausible that, if the mythology of primitive people
were in any sense based on the heavenly bodies and cosmic forces,
these bodies and forces ought to appear constantly as the objects of
the speculative tendency. We have every reason, on the basis of
our present material, to withhold concurrence on this point and to
investigate it more fully. The second point, which comes out in even
clearer light, is the interest shown by primitive people in the traits
of animals and in topography. We saw from the former tabula-
tion that animal traits are a very popular subject of explanation in
mythical tales, from the point of view of the number of tales devoted
to them. We see now that they occur with great regularity as the
object of explanation, appearing in almost every mythology of the
whole twenty-six here investigated. I should like to refer also to
the extreme interest in ceremonial matters indicated by the tabula-
tion. Ceremonial explanations in certain cases exceed in number
even the explanations of animal traits (see p. 12). This is true of
no other element. Reference might be made particularly to the case
of the Kwakiutl and the Blackfoot, Ceremonial explanations also are
a very considerable element in explanatory tales, taking all the myth-
ologies together (see p. 14). They also come prominently to the
front in the case of almost every mythology. Adding together the
explanations which concern ceremonies, animal traits, and topography,
— all of them "earthly" phenomena, — we reach a total which makes
the number of "celestial " explanations seem inconsiderable. The evi-
dence so far considered would, in brief, seem to indicate that primitive
folk, at least in North America, are certainly not interested in celestial
phenomena to the exclusion of everything else. Their interest in the
heavens seems to be of a very casual sort.

It seems rather important to check up these results, however, by
some further considerations, before placing implicit reliance on them.
I should like now to bring out the contrast between the celestial and
the terrestrial elements in folk-tales from another point of view;
namely, from the point of view of the actors who appear in tales.

The tabulation opposite indicates this briefly. In working out
this tabulation, also a certain amount of difficulty was encountered.
Various categories had to be devised to include the large number
of characters which appear, and these categories overlap to a cer-
tain degree. This fact implies, that, in placing an actor in one or
the other of these categories, we must, in certain cases at least,
be somewhat arbitrary. To give an example, animals are almost
everywhere thought to have supernatural power. In those tales in
which they appear as benefactors or supernatural helpers of human

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians.

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VOL. XXVII. — NO. 103. — 2.

1 8 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

beings, are they to be reckoned as animals, or as divinities? More-
over, there is a certain difficulty in deciding who the actors in a
given story really are. The hero of a tale does not always appear
in his true guise. For example, is it always possible to recognize, in
a hasty examination, all the tales in which the Sun appears as an
actor? He may appear in the form of a mortal hero, whose celestial
qualities are brought out, let us say, only at the very end of the story,
or only implied by his adventures or attributes. The issue has been
met in the present instance by ignoring the difficulty. The tabulation
on p. 17 is based on the actual condition of the folk-lore at the present
time. Unless a character is specifically stated to be the Sun, he is
not reckoned as the Sun. I am aware that a great deal has been done
in the way of identifying the actors in myths as celestial bodies or
cosmic forces by their attributes. Without wishing to enter into a
discussion of this point, ^ and without attempting here to formulate
any general principles, I wish to say merely, in regard to the American
field, that, after all, the folk-lore we are considering has been recorded
in very large part by responsible observers, endowed with acumen and
curiosity. If any of the present folk really regard a hero as the sun,
for example, these investigators can be relied upon to ascertain that
fact and to call it to our attention. The present study concerns it-
self with the present form of the material and with the present attitude
of the people. In the following paragraphs, then, the effort is made
merely to look at the material as it comes from their hands. We deal
only with the actors in myths, therefore, whom the native informants
are conscious of as actors.

In view of the fact, however, that the heavenly bodies are some-
times supposed to be the fountain and source of all folk-lore, and that
a certain interest attaches to them on account of that point of view,
all the characters which exercise control in any way over the heavenly
bodies or the cosmic forces are included in the general results. There
has been no attempt to identify a given character as the sun on the
basis of his attributes; but every character who is definitely stated to
have control over the sun is represented in the tabulation. This
method has been followed throughout. If a character, for example,
has control, either by magic or otherwise, over "warm weather" or
"summer," the fact has been indicated in the tabulation. The tabu-
lation also includes, for the reasons just assigned, all those charac-
ters, of which there are a good many in folk-lore of certain tribes, who
are transformed into stars or other heavenly bodies at the close of the
narrative. It is perhaps necessary to say that the tabulation does
not purport to show all the actors in all mythical tales. It shows

* For an elaboration of it, see R. H. Lowie, "The Test Theme in North American
Mythology" (this Journal, vol. xxi, p. loi).

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians.

merely the frequency and regularity with which certain chosen actors
appear. The characters which have been chosen, however, are the
most important ones, to whom I think the greatest amount of interest
attaches.

The results of this table may be summarized as follows: —

SUMMARY SHOWING ACTORS AND CHARACTERS APPEARING IN AMERICAN FOLK-TALES.

Number in

Regions.

T b

Number of

which cosmic

which animals

■

tales.

forces appear as

appear as

actors.

Arctic

\ Cumberland Sound
Eskimo

Micmac

Woodland

1 Abnaki
1 Ojibwa

^ Fox

Assiniboin

Blackfoot

Dakota

Plains

• Grosventre
Arapaho

42
100

7
13

22
55

Omaha-Ponca

Pawnee (Skidi)

113

Southwest

f Hopi
\ Jicarilla

85
39

8
4

California

Yana
Shoshoni

17
4

Plateau

■ Thompson

Shushwap

' Chinook

Bella Coola

Kwakiutl

177

North Pacific

• Haida
Tlingit

82
66

102
107

10
8

Chukchee

Koryak

131

It is obvious at once that a conclusion based on the former tabula-
tion would have to be revised somewhat, in the light of the facts
brought out by the present one. The Sun, for example, plays a much
more important part as an actor in mythical tales than as an object
for explanation. Half of our mythologies ignore the Sun in giving
explanations of natural phenomena; but the Sun appears as an actor
in a great many, — to speak accurately, in sixteen out of twenty-six.
It is perhaps worth noting that he appears in the more complete
mythologies, not in the fragmentary ones. Thus, he does not appear
in the mythology of the Micmac, the Abnaki, the Dakota, or the
Chinook. Reference to the tabulation will show that we base our con-
clusions, in the case of the Abnaki, on only twenty-nine talcs; and in
the case of the Dakota, on fourteen. Altogether, it seems to be rather
obvious that the sun is an object of extreme interest to most [iriniiti\c
peoples in North America, though we must conclude, nevertheless, that

20 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

they do not seem to feel such a need for explaining his existence and
action as they do in the case of many other things which to our minds
would seem less important. A general tendency is brought out, how-
ever, which does corroborate more or less our former conclusion. The
total number of tales in which celestial actors appear is rather small.
Thus, while we have ninety-eight distinct tales from the Cumberland
Sound Eskimo, the Sun appears as an actor in only one. In fact, if
we add together all the tales in which celestial actors appear, the total
number is small compared to the total number in which even one group
of terrestrial actors (animals, for instance) appear. The contrast is
brought out in the present summary (p. 19). It is quite possible to
say that cosmic forces are not the chief subject of folk-lore, by any
means, at the present time, either as actors or as subjects for explana-
tioxLand speculation.

HOW IMPORTANT ARE THE EXPLANATIONS IN FOLK-TALES.

It occurs to me that the role played by the "explanatory" tendency
can very easily be overestimated. I believe the interest in explana-
tions is not so predominant in the primitive mind as might be supposed.
Here I should like to refer to the opinions of Andrew Lang as expressed
in his "Myth, Ritual, and Religion,"^ and elsewhere in his writings.
He goes so far as to express the idea that all myths are etiological, — •
intended primarily to explain. If he did not originate this idea, he is
at least responsible for its popularity among English writers at the
present time.^ I should like, therefore, to direct attention now to the
attitude of primitive people themselves toward "explanations," as
far as we can define their attitude at all. In line with this, I should
like to ascertain precisely to what extent the tendency to explain the
world has actually resulted in the formation of explanatory tales.
On this latter point also I am inclined to think that popular opinion
has overshot the mark. The actual number of explanatory tales is,
after all, not so overwhelmingly large. We have, then, two points to
consider, — first, how important to the people themselves is the in-
terest in explanations; and, second, what actual proportion of tradi-
tional tales is explanatory. In other words, I propose that we consider
this tendency, first subjectively as regards the native, and then
objectively as it expresses itself in explanatory tales.

In regard to the first point, I might say very briefly that a very
wrong idea of the Indian's attitude toward folk-tales would be ob-

> A. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion (London, 1887), vol. i, pp. 122, i6r.

* See Gomme, Handbook of Folk-Lore (London, 1890), p. i (Publications of the Folk-
Lore Society, vol. xx); Jcvons, Idea of God in Early Religions (Cambridge, 1910), pp.
33, 50; Introduction to the History of Religion (London, 1892), pp. 250, 261, 263; Mac-
culloch, Childhood of Fiction (London, 1905), p. 451.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 21

tained if one supposed that his interest was primarily in the explana-
tions. If any one fact becomes clear from an acquaintance with
Indian society, it is this, — that the satisfaction which Indian audi-
ences get out of the recital of a tale is not an intellectual, but all"
ernotional one. Even admitting that certain tales explain, the Indian
of the present time listens to them, not because of a hunger for intel-
lectual satisfaction, but because he genuinely loves to listen to a good
story. In fact, the absorbing interest which primitive people take
in stories as stories is one of the picturesque features of primitive
life. It seems fairly clear that the explanations in folk-tales, con-
sidered from the standpoint of the attitude of primitive people toward
them, are of decidedly less importance than the novelistic elements
of the plot.

We come now to the question of what proportion of mythology
is made up of explanatory tales. It is obvious here that we cannot
simply count the number of explanatory tales in one mythology (sup-
posing for a moment that that is easily done), and compare it with the
number in another mythology. We have, unfortunately, from certain
groups, only a dozen or fourteen tales; while another mythology may
consist of a hundred tales, or even more. Obviously we must reduce
the whole to some common basis. The simplest way is to find what
per cent of each collection of tales is of the "explanatory" type. It
will at once be clear, however, from what was said above of the dif-
ficulty of recognizing and identifying explanations, that the situ-
ation is rather confusing. It will also be remembered that, where
many sources of error exist, our results cannot be expected to be of a
mathematically exact kind. In the present case we have the added
diflficulty of ascertaining how many tales there are in a given mythology,
as a preliminary step in finding out what per cent of them is ex-
planatory. This step itself is not without its difficulty. In some
cases the results obtained by two investigators must be utilized in
conjunction. This is true, for example, in the case of the Blackfoot,
where the collections of Wissler and Duvall contain many tales which
also appear in Grinnell.^ In nearly every collection of mythical talcs,
whether by one author or two, there are a certain number which appear
twice. In the present case, where any investigator in the field has
recorded two versions of a tale, they must be combined in some way,
and counted but once; otherwise our results would not be at all repre-
sentative. The difficulty lies in recognizing whether we are dealing
in any given case with two similar talcs, or with two versions or rendi-
tions of one and the same tale. Where the various parts of a mythol-
ogy have been recorded by different observers, the difficulty becomes

' Blackfoot Lodge Tales, New York, 1892.

22 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

acute. The natural differences of expression which creep in lead to
all sorts of confusion and uncertainty in the mind of the reader.

There are other things, too, which tend to make the subject one
of some complexity. There is, for example, no uniformity among
authors in the matter of recording the long myth cycles which are
sometimes found among primitive people. Sometimes such cycles
are made up of a long series of independent or largely independent
episodes. One author will print these episodes as so many separate
tales, supplying merely one general heading or label for the series.
An example of this is offered by Lowie's treatment of the coyote
stories, in his paper on the Assiniboin.^ Another author will include
a large number of such episodes as more or less clearly distinguished
subdivisions of one tale which he considers an organic whole. This is
the way in which Swanton looks at the Raven myth of the Tlingit,*^
which really involves a great many separate tales of wide individual
distribution; for example, the tale of the trickster who tries to "imi-
tate his hosts." ^ In some cases, however, the stories are run together
in one continuous narrative, as in the story of Mink and the story of
Omeatl among the Kwakiutl.* How much of this is due to the native
attitude, how much to the scientific editor, becomes a serious ques-
tion. To render one of these collections really comparable with an-
other, the present writer was often induced to break up a long cycle
into its constituent elements. For example, Swanton's Haida story
of "Raven travelling"^ was broken up into fifty-one separate tales.
For all of the reasons indicated, the present writer's enumeration of
the total number of mythical tales known to a tribe, or known in a
given locality, often does not coincide with the number which would
be indicated by the tables of contents in the printed works from which
the information is drawn.

Another disturbing element, which can hardly be ignored, and which
may lead to error, lies in the fact that a tale sometimes involves ten or
a dozen different explanations. Certain tales, for some reason, seem
to lend themselves to the explanatory impulse, and are utilized to
explain the most diverse matters. The question arises. Should such
a tale in the present connection be counted merely as one explanatory
tale? Suppose, for example, a mythology consists of fifty tales. Four
of these have only one explanation each, while a fifth has (to take a
hypothetical case) thirty explanations in it. It would hardly seem
right to reckon, under such circumstances, that forty-five fiftieths of
the tales are without explanations. Forty-five out of fifty have none ;
but, on the other hand, for a total of fifty tales, there are thirty-four

> Assiniboin, i. » Tlingit, I, p. 80. • See p. 45, below.

* Kwakiutl, 3, pp. 123-157. 216-240. « Haida. i, p. no.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 23

explanations, which, if averaged up, would give one explanation each
to more than half of the tales. Before passing on to another point, it
might be well to say that in the tabulation on p, 25 the total number
of explanations is shown, in case any critic wishes to use it in checking
up the conclusions expressed.

There are several other disturbing elements, any one of which
might distort the surface appearance of the folk-lore we are considering.
Suppose, for example, that a mythology consists of twenty long tales
and twenty short ones, and that only the long tales have explanations,
one to each : we should say that fifty per cent of the tales are without
explanations. But if we counted up the number of pages of myth
material involved in the tales which have an explanatory ending, we
might find that the explanatory traditions occupied twice the number
of pages. It must, as a matter of fact, be admitted that the tales
considered in working out the results below vary greatly in length.
Some of the "tales" consist of only a few sentences recounting an
incident in the life of some mythical character. Others are very long,
and, from the literary point of view, complex narratives, occupying
many pages of print. It is a fact, however, that some of the longest
tales contain no explanations at all. A short tale is as likely to explain
something as one of the longer ones. As a matter of fact, the explana-
tions are distributed through the total number of tales, irrespective
of their length.

The various tales considered also differ greatly from one another
in their character or setting. We find cosmogonic traditions, hero
stories, stories about the origin of secret fraternities, stories of human
heroes who have supernatural adventures or encounters, narratives
of divine or human exploits, and so on through a long classification.
Many mythologies are made up in part of humorous or facetious stories
about some trickster or other, — Coyote in the West; Raven or Mink
on the North Pacific coast; Old Man, Ictinike, Nih'a^ga" or Rabbit,
on the Plains. The question that now arises is this: In reckoning
the total number of tales, and finding the proportion of explanatory
tales distributed through them, is it fair to ascribe equal weight to
all of these classes? What right have we to compare cosmogonic
tales with hero stories, or sacred formulas with trivial trickster stories?
The answer is simple. Contrary to what one might expect, the
"cosmogonic" traditions, in the first place, do not contain all of
the explanations, by any means. A very "trivial" tale is as likely
to contain an explanation as is a solemn religious recital. More-
over, tales which would appear to be most trivial in plot and in
circumstance, sometimes explain the most serious matters. One
and the same talc, as a matter of fact, may serve two quite different
purposes among, for example, two neighboring peoples. The story

24 Journal of American Folk-Lore .

of "The Girl and the Dog," to give an instance, in which a dog assumes
human form and succeeds in marrying a girl, is told on the plains of
North America merely as an interesting tale.^ Among the Eskimo it
is told in connection with a story explaining the existence of sea-
mammals, the most important single factor in the life of the people;
and it supplies the background for the chief feature of their religion,
the seal taboos.^ On the North Pacific coast also it has a religious
application, accounting for or explaining a certain religious taboo and
the origin of a secret society.^ Another example of this same general
fact, which would occur to any one familiar with the American field,
is the Two-Brothers myth of the Sauk, which is told in connection
with the Mide or Medicine Society. This sacred tradition is merely
a version of a very common and quite secular story.'* Other examples
to illustrate the principle might easily be cited, such as the Raven
myth of the Tlingit, itself partaking of a sacred character,^ but con-
taining incident after incident which is found also in the ordinary
non-sacred folk-lore of the region.^ The religious myth, generally
speaking, is not at all different in its structure or its subject-matter
from the non-religious one. The setting which a tale may have is
often apparently a mere matter of chance, or may be the result of a
combination of several forces; but the setting of a tale does not seem
to affect its explanatory value. In spite, therefore, of the fact that,
on the surface, myths and folk-tales seem to present a quite diversified
appearance and to fall in many cases into certain well-defined classes,
the subject-matter and the treatment are throughout quite the same;
and one class does not seem to have any more explanatory possibilities
than another. It does not seem necessary, therefore, in investigating
the explanatory function of mythical tales, to draw distinctions of
which the native informant himself is unaware. In treating of the
explanatory character of myths and folk-tales, we may disregard their
setting, just as we may the matter of their relative length. The
explanatory phenomenon seems to run through all folk-tales, irrespec-
tive of both setting and length.

The only other statement that needs to be made in a preliminary
way is that the mythologies here studied were studied as they stand,
in the form in which they now exist. Thus, in the following tabulation

1 For example, among the Assiniboin (p. 224).

* Eskimo, 2, p. 583; 3, p. 163.
» Kwakiutl, 2, p. 401.

* Fox, p. 337; Ojibwa, p. 35.
' Tlingit, I, p. 80, note i.

« For example, the incident of the hero who was swallowed by a whale (Ibid., p. 91),
and that of the girl who insults the bears (p. 126). A still better example is offered by the
inclusion, in the Raven myth, of the tale in which a trickster imitates his hosts (Haida, i,
p. 132); see also Boas (this Journal, vol. ix, p. 2) for a discussion of this point.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians.

those tales are reckoned as explanatory in which the statement is
made that something is explained; nearly always on the authority of
the native informant, more rarely on that of the translator. In cases
of doubt, however, the given passage was placed without exception
on the explanatory side.

TABLE SHOWING PROPORTION OF EXPLANATORY TALES IN A NUMBER OF REPRE-
SENTATIVE NORTH AMERICAN MYTHOLOGIES.

Regions.

Tribes.

Number of
tales.

Number of
explana-
tions.

Number of
tales with
explana-
tions.

Percentage
of tales

with expla-
nations.

Arctic

f Cumberland Sound
1 Eskimo

Micmac
1 Abnaki

Ojibwa

Fox

Assiniboin

Blackfoot

Dakota

• Grosventre
Arapaho
Omaha-Ponca
Pawnee (Skidi)

|Hopi
\ Jicarilla

Yana

Shoshoni

• Thompson
^ Shushwap

Chinook
Bella Coola
Kwakiutl

• Haida
Tlingit
Chukchee
Koryak

98
43
29
38
46
98
97
14
42

100
50

113
85
39
21
45
73
69

53
177
102
107

35
131

34
22

27
28
16
32
86
14
15
81
21
99
49
40
35
54
III
60
24
57
133
108
68
II
5

17
8
14
19
II
20
52
7
8
32
15
47
17
20
12
12
52
33
10
23
78
44
38
3
5

Woodland

Plains

Southwest

California

17
19
48
50
24
20

54
50
20
32
30
42
20
51
57
27

Plateau

North Pacific

71
48
42
43
44
43
35
9
4

It will be seen at once that this tabulation presents some curious
features. In the first place, it is evident that in most mythologies
rather less than half the talcs seem to have any explanatory value.
There is so much variation that it is hard to formulate any actual
rule. For example, the Jicarilla, Yana, and Blackfoot mythologies
have more explanatory than non-explanatory talcs. In this, however,
they differ from all other American mythologies, in which the number
of explanatory tales is uniformly less than half of ihe tola! number of
traditions.

It is perhaps wcjrth noting that, (;f the mythologies named, the\'ana is
represented by a very small collection. The figures for this mythology
are based really on incomplete returns. It is at least concei\able
that, if the number of tales examined could be increased, the high
percentage might tend to disappear. This is rendered still more
plausible by the fact that, in nearly all cases where very large collec-

26 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

tions exist, the number of explanatory traditions is relatively small.
The Kwakiutl, Eskimo, Assiniboin, Arapaho, Pawnee, Haida, and
Tlingit mythologies might be cited. In fact, there is only one excep-
tion; namely, the Blackfoot. Why the Blackfoot percentage is so high
is not so easily explained; though the present writer is of the opinion
that the cause is an historical, not directly a psychological one, — a
matter which can best be discussed in the light of certain facts to be
brought out later.

Even leaving aside the exceptional cases, however, the percen-
tages show a marked variability. Where Fox mythology shows the
presence of twenty-four per cent of explanatory tales. Pawnee shows
forty-two. Where Eskimo shows seventeen, Koryak shows only four.
It would perhaps be dangerous to infer that all of these variations
correspond to actual difference in the mental processes of the various
groups of people concerned. They may be due, at least in part, to the
personal peculiarities of the informants from whom the stories were
obtained, or to the literary style or the interest of the recorder or the
translator. There is, however, one general tendency exhibited in
the tabulation, which I believe we may consider to represent a real
fact in American folk-lore. I refer to the fact that the arctic myth-
ologies are, on the whole, deficient in explanations. Since this point
is brought out in connection with all the arctic peoples considered
(Eskimo, Chukchee, and Koryak), and since the number of explana-
tions shows a steady decrease as we pass from south to north, especially
along the Pacific coast, where our material is most reliable, I regard
it as at least probable that we are here dealing with a real characteristic
of the mythologies in question.

It might be possible to ascribe the absence of explanations in a
certain portion of our printed sources to the failure of investigators
to record them. This would of course do away with the problem
altogether. In view of certain features of the tabulation, however, I
am inclined to regard this contingency as unlikely. It will be seen, for
example, that in all the cases where the results are based on a small
number of tales, the percentage of explanations runs very high. On
the other hand, where the results in the tabulation are based on large
and presumably exhaustive collections of tales, the percentages are,
as a rule, very much lower. In other words, the explanatory type of
tale seems to be the first type to be recorded. I suspect, moreover,
that the ordinary investigator is interested in the explanations, if
anything, more than the native informant is. I think it safe to con-
clude that the scarcity of explanations in the tabulation represents a
real phenomenon, and not mere accident.

In view of the irregularities in the tabulation, of which we can give
no really satisfactory account except in certain instances, perhaps the

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 27

best way to arrive at a conclusion would be to work out a general
average for the results obtained. If we take the average of the various
per cents, we arrive at a general average of approximately thirty-six
per cent. We may say with a fair degree of accuracy, perhaps, that,
if a hundred typical American tales are taken at random, about thirty-
six of them will be found to involve explanations. From the material
so far considered, I am tempted to draw the conclusion that, in the
folk-literatures we are considering, explanatory tales are not proved
to be conspicuous by their actual number. Certainly there is a large
part of folk-lore which is not at the present time explanatory.

The additional point is to be made that in a very large number of
cases, perhaps in the greater part of them, the explanations are brought
in quite casually. From the places they occupy in a given tale, and
the manner of their appearance, they seem to be chance features, put
in for good measure, or for other reasons, perhaps, which are not con-
cerned directly with the plot. To illustrate this point, I might call
attention to the tabulation of the familiar Dog-Husband story on pp.
28-30. The total number of episodes which make up the story in its
fullest form are arranged in series at the top of the tabulation. The
incidents which are present in the version belonging to any particular
tribe have been shown by writing the name of the tribe in the appro-
priate column. A blank space at any point in the line devoted to
any tribe or version indicates that the incident which is represented
by that space is lacking. The explanations involved are shown in
bold-face type in the position which they really occupy in the table.
The irregularity of the place of occurrence, relative to the other in-
cidents of the tale, is quite as noticeable as are the inconsistencies in
the explanations themselves. I believe that any one who looks over
the table will get the impression, as the present writer does, that the
explanations are merely casual in the tale, and are brought out where-
ever the story seems to fit certain problems which the story-teller has in
mind. A similar tabulation might be worked out, I believe, for almost
any mythical tale, though the present one is an excellent illustration.
The distribution of explanations through the versions of any given
tale seems to be the result of chance.

In connection with our second problem, several points accordingly
become evident. The actual number of tales with an explanatory
function is not overwhelming. In some mythologies it is extremely
small. Whether or not these talcs have dropped off explanations
they may once have had, is a point that will be taken up presently.
In the mean time the present state of folk-lore is one in whicli the
explanation is certainly not the matter of prime interest in tales. The
explanation in explanatory tales is manifestly a casual piicnomcnon
now, whatever is true of the past.

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Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 31

We have seen also that the number of explanations in present-day
folk-lore has the appearance merely of being relatively large. In some
cases it seems probable that a folk-lore assumes an explanatory com-
plexion through the interpretation, not of the native informant, but of
the civilized investigator. It must be remembered that our material
has been favorably selected with regard to explanatory tales. There is
no question but that the typical investigator would rather record tales
which involve explanations than those without. This tendency is
reflected in the fact, shown above, that every collection which includes
a small number of tales shows an extremely high percentage of tales
with explanatory endings. If an investigator is successful in making
his collections ^ complete, the proportion of explanatory tales dimin-
ishes. In regard to the second problem, therefore. How important are
the explanations in folk-tales ? it may be inferred that the element of
explanation is not of primary significance.

IN THAT PART OF MYTHOLOGY WHICH CONSISTS OF EXPLANATORY TALES,
IS THE EXPLANATION THE BASIS OF THE STORY?

It is well to refer again at this point to the tabulations already con-
sidered, which show what primitive tales explain. We see by examin-
ing the table, that, so far as stories are told with intent to explain,
some groups or tribes have one purpose in view, others quite a differ-
ent one. For example, the Pawnee, the Blackfoot, the Arapaho, and
the Kwakiutl feel themselves obliged to account, above everything, for
certain ceremonial institutions. I regard this as a most important
point. More explanations in these cases refer to ceremonies than to
any other one thing in the lives of the people. Where the Fox or the
Assiniboin, and most American tribes, have their interest centred in
animal traits, the Pawnee or the Kwakiutl are interested most of all
in their tribal ceremonies, even the traits of animals coming second.^
Now, is it possible to say anything about the relative antiquity of these
two "interests"? Which developed first in point of time, — the inter-
est in' the peculiarities of animals, or the interest in highly developed
ceremonial performances? Fortunately we do not have to rely purely
on internal evidence. We know from outside sources, that in certain
regions of America there has been a comparatively recent develop-
ment of ceremonialism. One ritualistic wave has in historical times
submerged the Pawnee, the Arapaho, and the Blackfoot, and is
even yet spreading. Its centre of distribution is not altogether
easy to establish, but certainly lies somewhere in the Central Plains.
Another and totally different cerenujiiial wave (quite dilTcrent in

• See p. 12.
' See p. 25.

32 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

details, even though the underlying ideas are not altogether unlike)
has within a comparatively recent period spread outward from the
Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island. Like the former wave, it is still mak-
ing itself felt, in spite of the breaking-down of aboriginal institutions
and the enrolment of many natives as members in the various churches.
In both regions, on the North Pacific coast as well as on the Plains,
the tendency toward complicated rituals has expressed itself in the
formation of secret societies. In both these cases the initial develop-
ment of the ceremonial impulse took place just before our history
begins. The impulse was already well under way when the white
man arrived on the scene. Since the time, however, when the phe-
nomenon first came under observation, the diffusion has proceeded
with fair regularity. In many cases we know, from linguistic and
other evidence, exactly how it proceeded. Since the ritualistic ideas
have spread, if they did not originate, largely within the historic period
and under observation, we may feel rather certain that the entire
impulse in its present form is not of any great antiquity. Yet the
peoples' mythology is now primarily concerned with this ceremonial-
ism. The actual content of the Blackfoot tales is not altogether differ-
ent from that of the Grosventre or the Fox. The same sort of plots
and the same literary devices are employed in both. The same remark
will apply to the Kwakiutl and their neighbors, who have in some degree
the same tales. Only the interest in ceremonials is peculiar to the
Blackfoot or the Kwakiutl. On the not unlikely theory that the most
widely diffused phenomenon is the oldest, it is evident that the story-
making impulse is older than this ceremonial interest. It would be
absurd to suppose that a tale told by the Kwakiutl to explain some
recent ceremony, and by other tribes far and wide for purposes merely
of recreation, must have originated in connection with these cere-
monies. The intent in telling stories, then, has, among the Kwakiutl
of Vancouver Island and the Pawnee of Nebraska, actually undergone
a revolution. It would be quite arbitrary to assume that the whole
mythology in these cases has developed since the use of ceremonies.
In some cases, in fact, a given story which is found over a whole region,
and must be of relatively great age, is among these ritualizing tribes
turned to a ceremonial use. In the case of the tribes cited, then, a
new sort of explanation has been read into an already existing mythol-
ogy. This case is an instructive example of how a whole mythology
may be re-interpreted.

A few rather curious examples of re-interpretation, having a cer-
tain bearing on this problem, have come to light in the preceding
study. For example, the horse was unknown to the American
Indians until introduced by the whites in the sixteenth century.
Naturally the animal could not have appeared in American folk-lore

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 33

before that date. Upon its introduction, it became a factor of utmost
importance in the life of the people, and the natives must have felt
(and in many cases did feel) the necessity of explaining it. If tales
originate as explanations, it would seem that new tales would have
been invented, either consciously or unconsciously, to explain the
horse. So far as I know, nothing of the sort happened. One mythol-
ogy, the Hopi, contains a passage which explains that the horse was
created by a woman, who rubbed scales from her skin and transformed
them into the horse, which had never before been seen. This is merely
a section from a very old myth, which is here re-interpreted. The
Hopi explain a number of things by saying that a mythical person
created them by rubbing cuticle from his skin, and making it into the
required shape. ^ This is apparently a very old element in their folk-
lore, much older than the possession of the horse. The episode of
the "cuticle-being" — a being made by rubbing scales from the skin
— is of very wide distribution in America outside of the Hopi tribe.
An old mythical incident has merely been revamped in this case to
serve as an explanation of a new thing. Similarly, the Yuman peoples
tell that mankind was created from the earth of a certain mountain
(among the Diegueiio called Wikami; among the Mohave, Avikwame).^
This tale is almost certainly older than their contact with the whites.
The modern version of the myth among the Diegueno adds that the
mountain was half of dark-colored earth, and half of light. The
Indian tribes were created from the dark half; the Mexicans, from
the other.' Good examples abound of this tendency to read new
meanings into old passages. For example, the Arapaho use the
Rolling-Skull story to explain the railroad ; ^ and a Tlingit informant
imagines that the story of the supernatural canoe, which requires to
be fed as it travels,^ refers to the steamboat. Certainly these are
interesting cases where the call for explanations resulted, not in new
tales, but in re-interpretations of old ones. In these cases, demon-
strably, explanations have been "read in."

Many of the explanations which occur in North American tales in
their present form are therefore only associated with the tales. In
answer to the question. How does this association arise? we might say
that, after a tale has taken a given form, an analogy is discovered
between the occurrences which the tale describes and the facts in
nature which happen to strike the observer's notice. Under such
circumstances, cither these analogies are interpreted as proof that the
tale is true, or else the tale is read back into the distant past, and is

> Hopi. pp. 6, 7, 8. ' Mohave, p. 315; Yuma, p. 326.

» Diegueflo, p. 302, note. * Arapaho, i, p. 19, note 3.

* Tlingit, I, p, 129, note a.

VOL. XXVII. — NO. 103. — 3.

34 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

imagined to explain such natural occurrences as fit into the plot. We
may assume that in many cases a given tale which is now used to
explain a number of things, has merely supplied a basis for the recogni-
tion of analogies. In many cases, of course, the analogy between a
phenomenon and the chance arrangement of elements in any certain
story, has not so far been discovered or recognized. In these cases
we may find a rationalizing belief existing, which stands alone, secure
in its own vigor, and is not made a part of folk-tales. Of such sort
are the beliefs in the thunder-bird, or the eclipse-producing monster
referred to above. Such speculations may be formulated in definite
terms, may become codified, and may become a social force without
ever coming into association with novelistic tales. Such formulated
speculations are of course myths, whatever else may be included
under that title. When an analogy or parallelism is discovered be-
tween such an idea and the course of events in any particular folk-tale,
I think the result would be one of the explanatory tales that we have
been considering. Certainly new facts are often explained by noting
analogies in old tales.

We see, therefore, that re-interpretation is a factor in the forma-
tion of explanatory tales which must be taken into account. The
point which must now be considered is whether re-interpretation can
be proved to operate very generally. I should like to call attention,
in this connection, to certain specific tales in relation to which re-
interpretation has manifestly taken place. There has been, as is now
well known, a widespread diffusion of tales over the American Con-
tinent. The result is, that a very considerable part of the tales known
to one tribe is known also, sometimes in slightly different form,
to all neighboring tribes. Perhaps the most interesting point that
comes out in the study of American folk-lore is the fact that a tale
can travel for enormous distances.^ In some cases tales have wan-
dered thousands of miles from what we must consider their original
home. For example, certain tales are common to the natives of
eastern Greenland and western Alaska, and are known to tribes as
far south as the Arkansas River.^ A given tale usually radiates out
from some central point, or centre of distribution, losing its character
little by little in direct proportion to the distance from this centre.
This diffusion of tales gives us some very interesting phenomena, and
helps to shed light on the problem of the possible "dropping-oflf" of the
explanatory significance of tales. In looking over a number of these

1 Consult Boas, Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen KUste Nord Amerikas
(Berlin. 1895).

' An insUnce is the story of the Rirl and the dog (or "dog-husband"), mentioned
above; or the story of the blind hunter deceived by his wife or step-mother. A general
idea of the diffusion of these and certain other tales may be obtained by consulting the
tabulations on pp. 41-50.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 35

diffused tales, it becomes evident that very profound discrepancies
exist in the explanations which are attached to a given tale by different
peoples, or, for that matter, by different informants in a tribe. It is
easily proved that, wherever a tale exists in a number of renditions or
versions, the explanations tend to show great variability. While the
various tales are changed somewhat at the hands of different people,
the explanations change much more rapidly and much more radically.
This point is perhaps worth illustrating in some detail. In the example
below, one story is traced through its various renditions. With each
version or repetition is listed the explanation which appears in connec-
tion with it. The tale here examined is a familiar one in North Amer-
ica, and occurs in almost identical form as far south as Patagonia.^

EXAMPLE ILLUSTRATING VARIATIONS IN EXPLANATIONS,'

Rolling Rock. — A trickster offends a bowlder by depriving it of a present
already given it (by offering to run it a race, etc.). The rock pursues him up
and down hill for a long distance, finally rolling on him and pinning him to
the earth. The trickster appeals to certain birds, who break the rock and
set him free. He then exhibits ingratitude.

Micmac (i, p. 317) Flies.

Blackfoot (2, p. 165) Bull-bat's mouth.

Cree (2, p. 296) A creek's name.

Shoshoni (i, p. 264) The Rocky Mountains.

Flathead (i, p. 245) White tip on fox's tail.

Pawnee (i, p. 260) Rocks are hard ; dead coy-
otes are found.

Pawnee (i, p. 106) Stones in creek-beds.

Arapaho (i, p. 68) Bull-bat's mouth.

Arapaho (i, p. 159) The Pleiades.

Assiniboin (i, p. 120) No explanation.

Shoshoni (i, p. 263) No explanation.

Ute (i, p. 260) No explanation.

Cree (i, p. 210) No explanation.

Arikara (i, p. 147) No explanation.

Pawnee (i, p. 446) No explanation,

Jicarilla (i, p. 234) No explanation.

— Trickster is seized and held by rock; freed by birds.
Assiniboin (l, p. 114) White spots on the wings of

a certain bird.

— Boy hero shoots rock which pursues and kills people.
Jicarilla (i , p. 208) Black spots on a certain rock.

' Spears, The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn, p. 159.

' The tribes are given on the left; the explanations, on the right. Additional tabula-
tions illustrating this point will be found arranged alphabetically on p. 41.

36 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Directing our attention for a moment to this tabulation, the follow-
ing facts become evident. Of sixteen versions of the story, all sub-
stantially the same in outline, as illustrated by the abstract (dis-
regarding for a moment the sixteenth version, which shows certain
points of difference), five have no explanations at all. It is possible
that these five, as suggested above, have lost an original explanatory
significance which they may have had. Let us turn, then, to the
remaining ten versions, and see whether it is possible to decide what
that original significance may have been. The rather curious fact
comes out, that there are eight totally distinct matters explained in
the remaining versions of this tale. The question which then presents
itself is. Can any one of these eight explanations be considered the
original one, in connection with which the story took form? It would
certainly be impossible, on the basis of the present evidence, to deter-
mine which, if any, is the original. Furthermore, it is absolutely self-
evident that the same complicated tale cannot have been independently
invented each time an explanation was called for, nor to explain eight
different things. It is obvious, therefore, that at least seven of the
versions represent a corruption or re-interpretation of the original
tale. We can without fear of question say that seven of these eight
explanations have been added in some way or other to a tale with
which they have no genetic connection, to which they do not belong.
This tabulation shows, then, that it is possible for a tale to pass from
one tribe to another and to pick up explanations in the process.

The additional material on pp. 41-50 shows, moreover, that the story
of the Rolling Rock is not peculiar in this regard. A great many
other tales show exactly the same phenomenon. For example, the
story of the Dancing Birds exists in twenty-one versions.^ The expla-
nations associated with it include such disconnected topics as (i) the
awkward gait of the duck, (2) the red eyes of the turkey, (3) the fact
that turtles do not bite, and, (4) the touchwood on birch-trees. A
total of eleven explanatory passages refer to five unrelated topics.
The story of the Eye-Juggler — an extremely picturesque tale, in
which certain creatures have the power of taking out their eyes and
playing games with them — exists in several forms. Considering the
versions of one form merely,^ we see that they explain a number of
quite different things, — owl's eyes, mole's blindness, the marks on
cottonwood-bark, and a place-name. One would suppose, in regard
to some of these, that the plot of the story, connected as it is with
eyes, acted as a suggestion, and that various animals with peculiar
eyes (such as owl and mole) tended to become associated with the
story. What the logical connection is, however, between the given

> See p. 44.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 37

plot and such a non-optical matter as the marks on cottonwood-bark/
seems to be quite beyond discovery.

The tabulations on pp. 41-50, therefore, illustrate, I believe, as
well as anything could, the lack of connection that sometimes becomes
apparent between a given story and the various explanations that may
appear in connection with it. In almost all cases where several
versions of a story exist, some will explain one thing, some another,
and some nothing at all. The mere absence of explanations in con-
nection with certain versions of a story might be accounted for, per-
haps, on the ground that they had dropped off; but the presence of
so many unrelated explanations, or explanations of unrelated topics,
with one and the same story, certainly demands a quite different
explanation.

The particular stories represented in the tabulations under dis-
cussion have of course been selected for purposes of illustration.
The tabulations were designed primarily to include some of the most
widely known tales, which, because they are widely known, exist in
the greatest number of forms or versions. The possibility that the
explanations associated with a tale will be widely variant, increases
of course with the number of versions which can be examined. It is
perhaps only necessary to say, that, wherever a tale exists in several
versions, the same phenomenon is to be expected. A tabulation, to
show all the cases where this has happened in American folk-lore,
would have to include, from the present indications, over half of all
the material in existence. It is obviously impossible to represent
such a body of facts in one set of tabulations. Moreover, the returns
at the present time are not nearly full enough to render possible a
tabulation that would be absolutely complete, even if such a tabula-
tion were desirable. It may be said, however, that every single tale
so far examined, falling within the requirements of our problem, shows
this instability of explanations, either in the fact that, in some of its
versions, explanations are altogether lacking, or, in most cases, that
they differ from one another. Tabulations illustrating this point
could be increased almost without limit. The writer feels quite sure
that variance in explanations is a fundamental trait of American
folk-lore.

There are some cases where the opposite would, at least on first
consideration, seem to be true. That is to say, some tales exist, the
plot of which would almost imply that a certain explanation was had
in view when the plot was devised. I should like to give an example
or two of this. The Fox Indians recount a story which deals with an
encounter between opossum and skunk. Skunk, who is ver>' sly,
convinces opossum that his own tail is a snake. As he springs away
in alarm, his tail of course follows him. He dashes away, running so

' See the fourth entry under " Eye- Toys," p. 44.

38 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

fast, in trying to escape, that the fur is all worn off his tail by friction
with the ground. The conclusion of the story is, "That is why
opossum has such a wretched tail with no fur on it." One would be
almost inclined to admit that the Indian myth-maker here noted
opossum's naked tail, conspicuously different from that of other
animals, and set to work to explain it. The tale fits the facts so nicely,
that there would seem to be almost necessarily a relation of cause and
effect. Even here, however, the explanation is not necessarily a part
of the tale. When we examine the Hopi version of the story, ^ we find
that the victim is no longer opossum with his unfledged tail, but
coyote, an animal with a beautiful brush. Coyote, in this latter
version, is tricked by having an artificial tail affixed to him; and in
running away from it he sets the prairie on fire. The plot is evidently
the same at bottom. The telling of this story has nothing to do
primarily with the poverty of fur on any animal's tail, though it is
quite appropriate for such a purpose. The Koryak of Kamchatka
tell a similar story,^ also without explanatory features. In this tale,
fox tricks wolf by tying a number of objects to his tail, and wolf
kills himself by trying to run away from them.^

Even where, as in this case,ithe character of a story seems to imply that
it was invented with the purpose of explaining some particular thing, the
apparent indissolubility of the story and the explanation can often be
shown to be really a matter of superficial association merely. Perhaps
the most convincing example of all is the following. The Ojibwa tell
a story * of a contest between an old man living amid the snow and a
young visitor from the South. They engage in a contest of powers,
the old man attempting to freeze his guest, the young man enduring
without complaint. The old man finally gives up, and, as Schoolcraft
recounts the story, melts and disappears. The whole is interpreted
by Schoolcraft as an allegory of summer and winter. The tale would
certainly be appropriate for explaining why winter is not eternal,
especially as other American tribes feel that this is a point which must
be explained.^ The Arapaho have a very similar story about a young
man who has a cold-enduring contest with a white owl.® The white
owl in this story has control over the blizzard, or is perhaps a personi-
fication of it. The boy, when successful in withstanding the freezing
power of the blizzard, gets certain privileges from the owl, just as
heroes in many of the Plains myths get supernatural power from
various animals. But the tale as told by the Arapaho has no connec-
tion with the seasons. Certainly the mere fact that an explanation is
apropos in a tale does not mean that the two always appear in com-

' Hopi, p. 186. ' Or perhaps a version of the same story.

' Koryak, p. 189. * Ojibwa, p. 96. Compare Abnaki, p. 134.

» Compare Shuswap, p. 671; Micmac, i, p. 99. • Arapaho, p. 304.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 39

pany, nor does it mean that the explanation is the original partner
in the combination.

As a matter of fact, the nature of the connection between a tale and
its appendages is in many cases open to entire misconstruction. What
might be taken for an setiological narrative is often only a narrative
with an incident added, to prove that the story is true. What might
be and often is taken for explanation is in many cases only proof.
This fact, which has been commented on by other writers,^ is well
illustrated by the theft-of-fire myth. In this tale, as told in western
America, animals set out to steal fire, which is guarded by some half-
malign being living at a distance. In carrying off the fire, as the story
runs, the successful animals are scorched, leaving various marks on
them. Thus, in the Shoshoni story, ^ ground-squirrel, who carries the
fire, has a spot on his breast burned black. This spot is of course still
to be seen on all squirrels. The Haida^ say that deer was the success-
ful thief, and that his tail is short because it was burned off at that
time. The same tale is told elsewhere with different explanations
associated with it, all of them connected with the fact that the animal
was burned or scorched. Among these explanations are the scraggly
neck of deer,* hawk's short beak,^ deer's red legs,^ and the black
spots on the soles of rabbit's feet.' The purpose of the tale is not by
any means to account for these markings, but rather, if anything, to
account for the presence of fire among men. The incident about the
animal in each case is put in so that the story will carry conviction.
The implication is this: "If you don't believe it, look at the deer
(hawk, rabbit, coyote), and you will see the very marks left on him
by the stolen fire." In the well-known tale already quoted, bear and
chipmunk quarrel about whether there is to be day and night, or
continual night. Bear becomes incensed, and pursues chipmunk, who
dashes into a hollow log. Bear's claws rake down his back, leaving
the stripes which are to be seen to-day. Here the real motive of
the tale is, if anything, to explain the succession of day and night.
The incident about the stripes is put in to show that the occurrence
really took place. It is only a fair guess that many of the so-called
explanations are, in similar fashion, after-thoughts, put in by way of
proof. If many of our talcs are considered from this point of view, it
is actually impossible to tell from the context what was the original
implication of the passage, setiological or evidential.

An example might make this clear. In the course of the winter cere-
monial of the Kwakiutl Indians of Fort Rupert, in 1895,^ certain dancers

• Lowie, "The Test Theme in North American Mythology" (this Journal, vol. xxi,
p. 123).

' .Shoshoni, p. 246. » Haida, i, p. 135. * TlinRit, B, p. 3i4-

' TlinRit I, p. 10. • Maidu, r, p. 165. ' Chilcotin, p. 15.

• For account of the ceremony and the attendant speeches sec Kwakiutl, 2, p. 544.

40 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

came in dressed as killer-whales. In connection with their perform-
ance, it was related that the Transformer once visited their locality,
and, as the result of certain difficulties between the human inhabitants
and the killer-whales, transformed part of the whales into birds, the
rest into sand. "For that reason," concluded the speaker, "the sand
of this beach gives forth a sound when it is stepped upon."

A few moments later in the same ceremony, the next company of
dancers came in dressed as birds. As the accompaniment of their
dance, the speaker recounted the well-known story of "The Painting
of the Birds." The crows, according to his oration, when the Trans-
former was painting the birds with their present gaudy colors, wished
to be made especially brilliant, and so waited till the very last. By
that time the paint was used up, and so the Transformer covered them
with charcoal: hence their color to-day. Then the birds danced out
of the cave where the painting took place. The speaker concluded
his oration with the following words: "If you do not believe what I
say, come and visit me, and I will show you the place." The point
I wish to make is, that these two stories are precisely of the same sort.
They were related by the same individual in connection with the same
ceremony, under precisely similar circumstances. The real fact is, that
they both "explained " the ceremony then under progress. I believe
that it would be highly artificial to say that the native speaker's
intention when he recounted the second of these tales was different
from what it was when he recounted the first ; yet the form of the first
tale is such that we should have to classify it as setiological, while the
conclusion of the second is obviously evidential. In other words, on
this occasion the form which the given tale took was largely determined
by chance and by the speaker's feeling for literary effect. I am inclined
to think this tendency has operated very generally in giving our North
American tales their present form; exactly how generally, it is of
course impossible to say, in that we have no insight into the native
story-teller's mental attitude. It is safe to say that this tendency has
made the number of "explanatory" tales seem larger than is really
the case.

SUMMARY.

It seems to me, therefore, that we have a fairly definite answer to
each of our problems. As regards the evolution of folk-tales, we may
make the following points. Folk-tales in their present form do not
show any traces of having taken shape from the contemplation of the
heavenly bodies. We saw that the interest of primitive man really
centres in the things immediately around him in his environment.
This is rendered fairly certain both by a consideration of what is

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 41

explained and who are the actors and characters. Even where
nature does enter into mythologies, the desire for explaining does not
seem to be the moving factor. The explanations, on the contrary,
seem tg be purely secondary to the story-plots. Explanatory tales do
exist, and some tales may be based on the desire "to explain. Such tales,
however, do not by any means constitute the bulk of traditional litera-
ture to-day. In attempting, moreover, to decide which part of mythol-
ogy, the explanatory or the non-explanatory, is the older and "original"
part, we must be governed by the consideration that many explana-
tory tales are not so by nature, but through accident and re-inter-
pretation. We can observe the operation of re-interpretation in the
case of certain mythologies as a whole. There are also a considerable
number of cases where a definite tale is demonstrably older than the
thing it is now supposed to "explain." The study of "disseminated"
tales, where a plot is diffused over a large area with relatively little
change, the explanations meanwhile working in or dropping off,^ would
seem to indicate that this priority of the tale with reference to the
explanations is a very widespread phenomenon. In other words, as
far as the present form of our mythical tales in North America is con-
cerned, the story is the original thing, the explanation an after-thought.
The ease with which this may be demonstrated in a great number of
cases, coupled with the absence of evidence to the contrary, justifies
the conclusion that in North America, generally speaking, tales do not
originate as explanations.

TABULATIONS INDICATING THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS WHICH ARE
ASSOCIATED WITH A NUMBER OF WELL-KNOWN TALES AND EPISODES."

Arrow - Ladder. — Hero Tillamook (r, p. 138). . . .Woodpecker's red head.

shoots an arrow upward, Achomawi (i, p. 166). . . .(Mountains; traits and cries of
striking the sky, into animals.)

which the arrow sticks. KwakiutI (3, p. 127) No trees on mountains; tops of

Then he shoots a second, mountain crags are cracked.

which strikes the nock Comox (S, p. 64) Sun and moon.

of the first; and a third, Bella Coola (i, p. 96). . . .Goat and ermine are white;
which strikes the second; animals are lighter underneath.

gradually forming a chain. KwakiutI (4, p. 87) Yellow cedar has dead tops.

He clambers up this, Haida (i, p. 78) "Taxet's Trail."

finally reaching the sky- Eraser River (S, p. 31). . .Snail is boneless, moves slowly,
country. Comox (S, p. 65) Ducks are not blind.

Heiltsuk (S, p. 215) Mussels are black.

Tsimshian (S, p. 278). . . .People are respectful to sun.

Quinault (i, p. 108) Fish-hawk has good eyes; snail

is blind.

Comox (S, p. 68) No explanation.

Nootka (S, p. 117) No exi)lanation.

KwakiutI (i, p. 157) No explanation.

Newcttee (S, p. 173) No explanatii)n.

Tsimshian (i, p. 88) No explanation.

Kathlamet (i, p. 11) No explanation.

Haida (i, p. 355) No explanation.

' Consult Boas, "Growth of Indian Mythologies" (this Journal, vol. ix, p. i).
* Explanations which are very loosely associated with the story-plot arc placed in
parentheses.

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Arrow-Ladder {Conclud-
ed). — Hero climbs to
heaven by means of a
single arrow.

Beaver and Porcupine. —
Beaver and Porcupine,
two friends, begin to
trick each other. Beaver
abandons Porcupine in
the middle of a lake.
Porcupine, in revenge,
induces Beaver to climb a
tree far inland, and leaves
him there.

— Beaver and Coyote.

Blind Dupe. — A blind
hunter and his relatives
are starving. When game
approaches, he draws his
bow, and, asking his wife
(mother-in-law, sister) to
aim the arrow for him,
makes a successful shot.
Informed that the shot
went wild, he goes hungry,
while the relative eats the
meat alone. The hunter's
sight is restored by a
water-fowl who dives into
alake with him. He then
can revenge himself.

Koryak (i, p. 293) No explanation.

Koryak (i, p. 304) No explanation.

Yana (2, p. 214) Moon halo.

Tlingit (i, p. 220) Broken appearance of tree-bark

Tlingit (i, p. 44) Friends "fall out."

Ts'ets'aut, (2, p. 43) Beaver lives in lakes; Porcupine

does not come out in frosty

weather.

Haida (i, p. 44) No explanation.

Tsimshian (i, p. 73) No explanation.

Tsimshian (S, p. 305) . . . .No explanation.

Hare (P, p. 234) No explanation.

Shuswap (i. P- 655) No explanation.

Jicarilla (i, p. 231) No explanation.

Eskimo (i, p. 99) Narwhal.

Eskimo (3, p. 168) Narwhal.

Eskimo (3, p. 169) Narwhal.

Chilcotin (i, p. 35) Loon's white collar.

Carrier (i, p. 171) Loon's white spots and collar.

Kwakiutl (3, p. 447) A certain rock.

Assiniboin (r, p. 204). . . .No explanation.

Arapaho (i, p. 285) Wives are sometimes deceitful.

Tlingit (i, p. 104) No explanation.

Haida (2, p. 212) No explanation.

Loucheux (P, p. 84) No explanation.

Hare (P, p. 226) No explanation.

Blood-Clot Boy. — A hero
develops from a clot of
blood, and is secretly
reared by an old couple.
He revenges them on a
warrior who abuses them,
destroys monsters, and
does wonderful feats.

— Blood-Clot Girl.

Buffalo Wife. — A man
takes as his wife a female
buffalo, who assumes the
form of a woman and
comes to live with his
tribe. Later she becomes
piqued, and with her child
assumes the form of a
buffalo again, and leaves
her husband. The hus-
band follows his wife and
child to the buffalo vil-
lage.

Burning Cannibal. — A
cannibal or other monster
is overcome in a struggle
and burned up in a fire.
The ashes, blown about
by the wind, turn into
creatures or different ob-
jects.

Blackfoot (i, p. SZ) The "Smoking Star."

Maidu (i, p. 59) Cockle-burrs.

Blackfoot (2, p. 29) No explanation.

Dakota (i, p. loi) No explanation.

Arapaho (i, p. 298) No explanation.

Omaha (i, p. 48) No explanation.

Grosventre (i, p. 82) No explanation.

Pawnee (i, p. 80) No explanation.

Arapaho (i, p. 320) Crow is black.

Blackfoot (i, p. 117) Bull-and-Horn and Matoki So-
cieties.

Blackfoot (2, p. 104) The Buffalo Dance.

Arapaho ( I, p. 395) Elk live in the mountains; the

buffalo can be eaten.

Pawnee (i, p. 284) Flutes.

Arikara (i, p. 94) Ring-and-javelin game; the Buf-
falo Ceremony.

Crow (i, p. 289) No explanation.

Wichita (i, p. 199) No explanation.

Arapaho (i, p. 389) No explanation.

Tlingit (i, p. 276) (Cannibal.) Mosquitoes.

Tlingit (i, p. 214) (Arrow-headed boy.) Gnats.

Tlingit (i, p. 93) (Wolverene-man.) Gnats and

mosquitoes.

Haida (2, p. 265) (Brain-sucker.) Mosquitoes.

Comox (S, p. 165) (Cannibal.) Mosquitoes.

Comox (S, p. 64) (Monster devil-fish.) Devil-fish,

certain rocks and eddies.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians.

Burning Cannibal. — Con-
cluded.

Child and Cannibal. —
Children are carried off
by a cannibal, but kill the
cannibal and escape.

— A crying child is
taken underground by a
supernatural being.

Cliff-Ogre. — An ogre in-
duces people to walk on a
cliff, and kicks them over
the edge with his foot
when they do so. His
children eat the bodies of
the victims.

Crane-Bridge.' — A wo-
man has commerce with
an animal, and is killed by
her husband. Her chil-
dren run away, pursued
by her skull, which rolls
along the ground. When
the children come to a
river, they appeal to a
bird to take them across.
He does so, and, when
asked the same favor by
the skull, destroys it.
Boys kill sister's lover.

— Deer children escape
from Bear.

Kwakiutl (4, p. 18) (Cannibal bear.) Mosquitoes

and horse-flies.

Dakota (2, p. 197) (Fiendish woman.) Women can-
not kill people by magic.

Pawnee (2, p. 239) (Spider-woman.) Spiders; rheu-
matism.

Pawnee (2, p. 240) (Spider- woman.) Tree-frogs.

Arapaho (i, p. 297) (Magician father-in-law.) White

clay.

Cheyenne (Magician father-in-law.) "Dia-
monds" and beads.

Zufii (i, p. 364) (Tarantula-man.) Small taran-
tulas are found every^vhere.

Blackfoot (i, p. 153) (Woman who sharpens her leg.)

No explanation.

Shoshoni (i, p. 291) (Cannibal.) No explanation.

Assiniboin (i, p. 183) ... (Fiendish girls.) No explanation.

Grosventre (i, p. 90) (Magician father-in-law.) No

explanation.

Koryak (i, p. 296) (Hero eats himself up.) No ex-
planation.

Skokomish (S, p. 58) (Cannibal.) No explanation.

Kwakiutl (i, p. 431) The Dzonoqwa Dance.

Kwakiutl (i, p. 87) Ornaments worn by adolescent

girls.

Heiltsuk (S, p. 224) Frogs (?).

Bella Coola (S, p. 249). . .No explanation.

Kwakiutl (i, p. 354) No explanation.

Kwakiutl (3, p. 117) No explanation.

Skokomish (S, p. 57) No explanation.

Haida (i, p. 328) Ditches at Kaisun.

Chinook (i, p. 21) (Traits of different tribes.)

Arapaho (i, p. 302) Buzzard's bare head.

Navaho (r, p. 122) (Traits of different tribes; birds

of prey; Rocky Mountain
sheep.)

Zurii (r, p. 76) Owls; falcons.

Micmac (i, p. 90) No explanation.

Shoshoni (i, p. 260) No explanation.

Shoshoni (i, p. 262) No explanation.

Jicarilla (i, p. 203) Birds (?).

Zuni (r, p. 373) Two stars; Milky Way; Rattle-
snake has yellow poisonous
fangs.

Wintun (i, p. 131) Ground-squirrel.

Kathlamet (i, p. 118). . . .Robin does not eat people.

Chilcotin (i, p. 13) (Sea-gull.)

Cree (2, p. 71) Masses of foam on river.

Ojibwa (i, p. 267) White fish.

Shuswap (i, p. 650) Crane's peculiar appearance.

Dakota (i, p. 195) No explanation.

Pawnee (i, p. 117) No explanation.

Assiniboin (i, p. 178). . . .No explanation.

Micmac (i, p. 164) No explanation.

Assiniboin (i. p. 143). . . .No explanation.

Quinault (i. p. 119) No explanation.

Caddo (i. p. 650) Duck's gaudy colors.

Shoshoni (i, p. 254) No explanation.

1 See Rolling Skull.

Jourjial oj American Folk-Lore.

Dancing Birds. — A trick-
ster induces a number of
birds to dance around
him, keeping their eyes
closed. The penalty for
opening the eyes is that
they will become red. As
the birds dance, the trick-
ster wrings their necks
one by one. One of the
dancers grows suspicious,
opens his eyes, and gives
the alarm. The rest es-
cape.

Deserted Children. —
The children of a camp
offend a chief by disturb-
ing him (calling names,
abusing his child). He
orders the camp to be
moved and the children
to be left behind. They
are later "helped" by a
dog (wolf, superior being),
and in turn disown the
parents who abandoned
them.

Disintegration.' — Hero
comes all to pieces, joint
by joint and limb by limb,
but remains alive.

Drilling Fire in Mon-
ster.' — Hero is swal-
lowed by a monster;
kindles a fire in the mon-
ster's interior with a fire-
drill, and so causes his
death.

Eye-Toys. — Trickster sees
certain birds amusing
themselves by throwing
their eyes up into trees
(racing their eyes around
a mountain), and causing
them to come back into
their sockets. The trick-
ster asks to be taught the
trick, but, in spite of
warning, does it once too
often, and his eyes fail to
return. He is obliged to
replace them with a sub-
stitute.

Cree (i, p. 212) Touchwood on birch-trees.

Ojibwa (i, p. 30) Diver's black feet, short legs.

Menominee (i, p. 162). . .Duck's red eyes.

Menominee (i, p. 204) . . . Diver's red eyes, absence of tail.

Fox (i, p. 283) Diver's red eyes, tuft on head.

Cheyenne (i, p. 165) Duck's red eyes, crooked back

and neck.
Arapaho (i, p. 59) Indians live on game; coyotes

live by stealing.

Dakota (i, p. 113) Wood-duck's red eyes.

Assiniboin (i, p. 114). . .Turtles do not bite.
Omaha-Ponca (i, p. 67). .Turkey has red eyes.

Grosventre (i, p. 71) No explanation.

Crow (i, p. 288) No explanation.

Osage (i, p. 9) No explanation.

Pawnee (i. p. 265) No explanation.

Assiniboin (i, p. 11 1). . . .No explanation.

Pawnee (2, p. 134) No explanation.

Dakota (2, p. 122) No explanation.

Jicarilla (i, p. 203) No explanation.

Abnaki (i, p. 186) No explanation.

Nenenot (r, p. 327) No explanation.

Blackfoot (i, p. 117) BuH-and-Horn and Matoki So-
cieties.

Arapaho (i, p. 293) Embroidery designs and tech-
nique.

Blackfoot (i, p. 138) No explanation.

Assiniboin (i, p. 142). . . .No explanation.

Blackfoot (2, p. 250) No explanation.

Grosventre (i, p. 104).. . .No explanation.

Omaha-Ponca (i, p. 83). .No explanation.

Micmac (i, p. 46) No explanation.

Bella Coola (i, p. 99) .... People limp to-day.
Bella Coola (2, p. 275) . . .Deer exist.

Yana (2, p. 203) (Rolling-Skull story.) A bathing-
place with magic powers.

Kwakiutl (3, p. 167) No explanation.

Koryak (i, p. 309) No explanation.

Kwakiutl (i, p. 350) Weather is good for four days at

a stretch.

Kwakiutl (4, p. 15) Mosquitoes and horse-flies.

Bella Coola (2, p. 256). . .Stars.

Haida (i, p. 362) No explanation.

Nez Perce (i, p. 19) Catbird's red eyes, habits.

Arapaho (i, p. 51) Owl's yellow eyes.

Arapaho (i, p. 51) Mole's blindness.

Arapaho (i. p. 51) Marks on cottonwood-bark.

Jicarilla (i, p. 229) Marks on coyote's cheeks. Plums.

Navaho (i, p. 90) Coyote's yellow eyes.

Hopi (i, p. 95) A place-name.

Zuiii (i, p. 268) Coyote's yellow eyes.

Blackfoot (2, p. 153) No explanation.

Assiniboin (i, p. 117). . . .No explanation.

Jicarilla (i, p. 70) No explanation.

Sia (i, p. 153) No explanation.

Compare Rolling Skull, p. 47.

' See also Swallowed Hero, and Jonah.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians.

Eye-Toys {Concluded) . — Quinault (i, p. 92) Snail is blind, crow black.

Snail lends his eyes to his
blind wife, Crow.

— Snail lends his eyes Quinault (i, p. 108) Snail is blind, fish-hawk keen-
to Fish-Hawk (arrow- eyed.

ladder). Hero takes out Koryak (i, p. 182) No explanation.

his eyes and puts them Koryak (i, p. 186) No explanation.

back. Koryak (i, p. 321) No explanation.

Found-in-Grass. — A wo- Blackfoot (i, p. 40) Buffalo-tails. Medicine Lodge

man is killed by a guest and songs.

whom she entertains in Shoshoni (i, p. 282) Snow on mountains; why people

spite of warning, and her die of old age.

unborn child is thrown Crow (i, p. 303) (Snakes have flattened heads.)

out of doors. He survives, Arapaho (i, p. 342) Twins.

and grows up perfectly Pawnee (i, p. 91) No monsters.

wild. Later he is cap- Omaha-Ponca (i, p. 215). .No explanation.

tured by his father, Grosventre (i, p. 77) No explanation.

tamed, and performs
many wonderful deeds.

Growing Rock. 1 — Hero Bella Coola (2, p. 256) .. .No explanation.

takes refuge on a rock, Yana (2, p. 37) Certain split rocks; grizzly-bears.

which he by singing causes
to grow, thus escaping.

Growing Tree. — Heroine Grosventre (i, p. 190).. • .Moon-spots.

is induced to climb a tree Arapaho (i, p. 337) Snakes strike at men.

in pursuit of a porcupine. Arapaho (i, p. 338) A certain star; people have the

The tree suddenly begins bow.

to grow, so that she can- Arapaho (i. p. 329) Moon-spots. (Buffalo are used

not climb down again. for food.)

She is carried up to the Shoshoni (r. p. 268) No explanation.

sky. Grosventre (i, p. 100).. . .No explanation.

Crow (i, p. 299) No explanation.

— Growing tree carries Blackfoot (i, p. 46) A certain star.

hero to the sky.* Blackfoot (i, p. 53) A certain star.

— Growing tree brings Jicarilla (i, p. 193) People live on this earth.

people from the under-
world.

— People are trapped Ts'ets'aut (2, p. 37) A certain red cliff.

on a growing rock. Shuswap (i, p. 623 Indian-hemp bushes.

Arapaho (i, p. 79) No explanation.

Jicarilla (i, p. 224) No explanation.

Lmitating Host. — Trick- Ojibwa (i, p. 23) Chipmunk's cough.

star is entertained by Omaha (i, p. 557) Beaver's cleft toe.

various animals, who pro- Hopi (i, p. 209) Coyote fat is good for ant-bitcs.

duce food by magical Kwakiutl (4, p. 147) Raven's black and shrivelled

means. He tries to imi- feet.

tate them when they re- Nootka (S, p. 106) Raven's black feet and feathers.

turn his visit, and fails Thompson (i, p. 41) Coyote's shrivelled paws.

miserably. Tsimshian (i, p. 46) Old men's hands arc bent.

Quinault (i, p. 85) Not much fat on bear's feet, nor

meat on back; bluejay's tuft.

Micmac (r, p. 300) No explanation.

Shoshoni (i, p. 265) No explanation.

Pawnee (i, p. 239) No explanation.

Navalio (i. p. 87) No explanation.

Hopi (i, p. 202) No explanation.

Chinook (l, p. 178) No explanation.

' The episode Is psychologically related to the Growing-Tree incident Ix-Iow.
* Compare the Star-Husband story, p. 49.

Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

Imitating
eluded.

Host. — Con-

Jonah.' — A hero is swal-
lowed by an enormous
fish, but remains alive.
By working on the mon-
ster's heart he kills it, it
drifts ashore, and he es-
capes when the animal is
eaten or cut up.

Magic Flight (Obstacle
Type). — A rolling skull
pursues and destroys peo-
ple. In escaping from it
the heroes of the tale
throw certain objects be-
hind them, which turn
into obstacles. These
delay the skull, and they
succeed in making their
escape.

— A man kills his wife
and cuts off her head, on
account of her adultery
with a snake. Her head
pursues her children, who
escape by throwing ob-
stacles behind them,
which delay the skull.

— Unfaithful husband
kills his wife, and cuts off
her head. This head pur-
sues her children, who are
magically lifted over sta-
tionary objects, the skull
following with difficulty.

— People escape from
a monster or ogre through
a magic flight, causing
forests, thickets, canyons,
mountains, rivers or lakes,
or other natural objects,
to spring up behind them.

Magic Flight (Bait Type).
— A skull pursues people,
who delay it by causing
attractive objects to ap-
pear behind them.

Comox (S, p. 76) No explanation.

Newettee (S, p. 177) No explanation.

Bella Coola (S, p. 245). . .No explanation.
Bella Coola (r, p. 93) .... No explanation.

Chilcotin (i, p. 18) No explanation.

Haida (2, p. 184) No explanation.

Kwakiutl (3, p. 237) No explanation.

Koryak (i, p. 315) No explanation.

Ojibwa (i, p. 21) Names of the squirrel and gull.

Jicarilla (i, p. 201) Gill-slits on fishes.

Chukchee (i, p. 164) . . . .No explanation.

Tlingit (i, p. 91) No explanation.

Haida (i, p. 131) No explanation.

Pawnee (2, p. 121) Seventh star in the Pleiades.

Arapaho (i, p. 13) (Sky, earth, lodges.) Railroad.

Arapaho (i, p. 278) (Lakes and rivers.)

Grosventre (i, p. 63) No explanation.

Pawnee (2, p. 447) No explanation.

Cree (2, p. 71) The Rocky Mountains.

Cree (i, p. 202) The sturgeon.

Assiniboin (i, p. 177). . . .(Ursa Major.)

Carrier (i, p. 4) (The earth.)

Dakota (2, p. 195) No explanation.

Cheyenne (i, p. 185) No explanation.

Pawnee (i, p. 115) No explanation.

Eskimo (3, p. 197) Fog.

Quinault (i, p. 1x6) Certain rocks, a large and a

small one.

Nootka (B, p. 99) Certain mountains and lakes.

Blackfoot (i, p. 70) Ursa Major.

Grosventre (i, p. 107)... .Ursa Major.

Chukchee (i, p. 40) No explanation.

Koryak (i, p. 257) No explanation.

Koryak (i, p. 187) No explanation.

Kwakiutl (B, p. 164) No explanation.

Hciitsuk (B, p. 224) No explanation.

Heiltsuk (B, p. 240) No explanation.

Bella Coola (B, p. 268). . .No explanation.

Ts'ets'aut (i, p. 260) No explanation.

Chinook (i, p. 78) No explanation.

Omaha (i, p. 293) No explanation.

Pawnee (2, p. 35) Sun, moon, the spots on thein«

(The Pleiades.)

' For a related motive see Swallowed by a Monster.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians.

Magic Flight {Bait Type,
Concluded). — A monster
or ogre is delayed through
the same device.

Meat Trick. — The hero,
in order to capture a bird
(or to capture his wild
brother), changes himself
into a carcass or into a
piece of meat. His quarry-
finally comes down, along
with the other birds, to
feed. The hero then in-
stantly assumes his proper
form and makes the
capture.

Rolling Rock. — (See
tabulation on p. 35.)

Rolling Skull * {Disinte-
gration Type). — A man
comes all to pieces, leav-
ing nothing of himself but
the head (eats himself up,
hands, feet, limbs, and
body, the head remaining
alive). He becomes an
inhuman prodigy.

Rolling Skull {Rolling Ob-
ject Type). — A skull or
other object (compare the
rolling-rock story on p.
3S) pursues people by
tumbUng over and over
(by flying through the
air), and destroys them.

Scratch Berries. — Trick-
ster eats certain berries,
in spite of warning. The
berries cause him to expe-
rience an unheard-of itch-
ing.

Skin-Shifter. — Hero or
heroine kills a person, re-
moves the skin from the
corpse, puts it on, and in
this disguise assumes the
part of the dead person,
deceiving the people.

Skin-Shifter {Old-Woman-
and-Daughter Type). — An
old woman wishes to
marry her own daughter's
husband. She kills her
daughter, puts on her
skin, but is discovered
and punished.

Kathlamet (i, p. 118). . . .Traits of certain plants.
Maidu (i, p. 77) The sun does not harm people.

Assiniboin (i, p. 107). . . .Color of eagle's head.

Blackfoot (2. p. 147) Raven is black, lives by hunting

about.
Menominee (x, p. 203). ..Buzzard has a bald head and

bad smell.

Omaha (i, p. 78) Buzzard's head is bare and red.

Arapaho (i, p. 276) Crow is black. (People have the

buffalo.)
Assiniboin (i, p. 146). . . .No explanation.
Arapaho (i, p. 302?) Buzzard's bare head (Cliff-Ogre

story).

Yana (i, p. 203) A certain bathing-place which

has magical properties.

Maidu (4, p. 189) People go crazy sometimes.

Koryak (i, p. 296) No explanation.

Maidu (i, p. 97) No explanation.

Chukchee (i, p. 18) Children do not always die in

infancy(?).

Arapaho (i, p. 8) (Lakes and streams.) Railroad.

Eskimo (3, p. 255) No explanation.

Blackfoot (i, p. 154) No explanation.

Yana (2, p. 464) No explanation.

Assiniboin (i, p. 127). . . .Coon's hairless rump.

Abnaki (i, p. 85) Gum on trees.

Grosventre (i, p. 69) No explanation.

Crow (i, p. 287) No explanation.

Yana (2, p. 158) (Topography, animal habits.)

Koryak (i, p. 322) No explanation.

Haida (r, p. 1 10) No explanation.

Haida (i, p. 137) No explanation.

Haida (i, p. 147) No explanation.

Shuswap ( I , p. 676) No explanation.

Yana (2, p. 216) No explanation.

Shoshoni (i, p. 260) No explanation.

Zufii (i, p. 461) No explanation.

Pawnee (2, p. 45) Clam-shell.

Pawnee (2, p. 506) No explanation.

Eskimo (3, p. 185) No explanation.

Assiniboin (i, p. 157). . . .No explanation.

' Thirteen versions of this talc have already appeared on p. 46. under the caption of
the Magic Flight, since they involve that incitfent in addition to tlie Rolling-Skull episode
proper. The following are versions of the story which do not involve the Magic I'"light.
A related motive to the present one will be found in the story of the Rolling Rock, p. 35.
With the disintegration type compare the disintegration story on p. 44.

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Skin-Shifter (Sham-Doctor
Type). — Hero, by a trick,
wounds water-monsters
who have killed and
skinned his younger bro-
ther. He meets an old
woman (or old man) going
to doctor the sick mon-
sters. He kills this doc-
tor, puts on the skin, and
pretends himself to be the
doctor, imitating the pro-
per gait and song. When
he approaches the sick
people to treat them, he
suddenly kills them in-
stead.

— Hero tricks the su-
pernatural beings by
wearing an enemy's skin.

Sky Basket. — Woman
goes crazy, and desires to
marry her younger bro-
ther. To escape from
her, all the people have
themselves drawn up to
the sky in a basket. One
of them looks down, how-
ever, and they are all
spilled, falling back into
their blazing home. Some
survive.

Snaring Sun. — Hero
snares the sun by setting
a noose where the sun
rises in the morning. To
prevent a terrible catas-
trophe, the sun is with
great difficulty set free.

Son-in-Law Tested. —
Hero marries the daughter
of a supernatural being, or
a Iman jwith supernatural
power. His father-in-law
receives him kindly, but
asks him to do certain
thingswhich involve great
danger. The hero is suc-
cessful in all the tests,
and finally gets the best
of the evil father-in-law.

Ojibwa (i, p. 37) Kingfisher's white medal

tuft.

Blackfoot (i, p. 152) Bears and rabbits are fat.

Omaha (i, p. 241) (Wolf and deer traits.)

Cree (2, p. 74) No explanation.

Assiniboin (i, p. 147). . . .No explanation.
Menominee (i, p. 133). . .No explanation.

Pawnee (i, p. 250) No explanation.

Shoshoni (i, p. 242) No explanation.

and

Chukchee (i, p. 45) No explanation.

Yana (i, p. 407) A certain salt spring.

Yana (2, p. 309) Black bears are found every-
where.

Shasta (i, p. 165) Mountains; animal markings,

cries, and traits.

Achomawi (i, p. 166) ... .Mountains; animal traits and
cries.

Maidu (i, p. 71) People sometimes go crazy.

Ojibwa (i, p. 239) Dormouse is of small size.

Omaha (i, p. 14) Rabbit has yellow shoulders.

Chipewyan (i, p. 184). . . Mouse is yellow.
Montagnais (i, p. 35). . . .No explanation.
Menominee (i, p. i8i). . .No explanation.

Fox (r, p. 79) No explanation.

Assiniboin (i, p. 140). . . .No explanation.

Cheyenne (r, p. 177) Beads and diamonds are kept

by the whites.

Cree (i, p. 205) The Whiskey Jack.

Maidu (i, p. 67) Thunder does not kill people.

Wintun (i, p. 121) Ground-squirrel; eel; sun and

moon; sky colors.

Yana (i, p. 281) Moon and stars.

Chinook (i, p. 33) (Sturgeon; bluejay.)

Kwakiutl (4, p. 14) Numerous devil-fish at Den-
man's Island.

Micmac (i, p. 12) No explanation.

Assiniboin (i, p. 154). . . .No explanation.

Assiniboin (i, p. 157). . . .No explanation.

Grosventre (i, p. 88) No explanation.

Omaha (i, p. iCo) No explanation.

Carrier (i, p. 7) No explanation.

Chilcotin (i, p. 26) No explanation.

Kathlamet (i, p. 113). . . No explanation.

Tsimshian (i, p. 130). . . .No explanation.

Nootka (B, p. 118) No explanation.

Nimkiah (B, p. 136) No explanation.

Newettee (B, p. 171) No explanation.

Nevvettee (B, p. 198) No explanation.

Koryak (i, p. 114) No explanation.

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians.

Star Husband. — Two girls Pawnee (3, p. 197).

sleeping out at night no- Blackfoot (i, p. 58) People have the turnip; the

tice two stars, and wish digging-stick; the Pole Star;

that they could marry songs of the Sun Dance.

them. In the morning Dakota (i, p. 90) (Meadowlark's song.)

they find themselves in Quinault (i, p. 108) (Fish-hawk is keen-eyed, snail

the sky-country, with is blind.)

stars for husbands. Be- Micmac (i, p. 160) No explanation.

coming homesick, they Grosventre (i, p. 100).. . .No explanation.

escape from heaven on a Pawnee (i, p. 60) No explanation.

rope. Wichita (i, p. 298) No explanation.

Otoe (i, p. 199) No explanation.

— Woman, lured by a Crow (r, p. 301).
porcupine, is carried to
the sky on a growing tree,
as the result of expressing
a wish for a star husband.

Swallowed by a Mon- Blackfoot (i. p. 57) "Ghost" dance.

STER.i — People are swal- Hopi (i, p. 83) Small ruins scattered over the

lowed by a hill (swamp, country.

sucking-fish), and de- Blackfoot (2, p. 36) No explanation.

stroyed. The hero also Grosventre (i, p. 85) No explanation.

has himself swallowed, Omaha (i, p. 34) No explanation.

cuts the monster's heart, Jicarilla (i, p. 200) No explanation.

thus killing it, and revives
the people who have died.

Swing Trick. — Old wo- Jicarilla (i, p. 210) Frog (?).

man who wishes to Fox (i, p. 103) Lynx has a short tail; lynx are

marry her daughter's hus- not eaten.

band induces the young Arapaho (i, p. 12) (Lakes, rivers, swings.)

woman to swing over a Cree (i, p. 205) No explanation.

jKJol of water. She then Assiniboin (r, p. 157). . .No explanation.

causes the swing to break, Osage (i, p. 26) No explanation.

and the girl falls into the
water. Here she is mar-
ried by a water-monster,
but, brought to the surface
to nurse her human baby,
she is rescued.

— Magician has a Grosventre (i, p. 87) No explanation.

water-monster which he

feeds through the swing
trick

— Ogres drown people Blackfoot (i, p. 57). .... .(A certain star.)

by getting them to swing.

Toothed Vagina. — Wo- Kwakiutl (B, p. 66) Sexual intercourse harmless now.

man's vagina is armed Kwakiutl (i, p. 95) (Dolphins; deer.)

with teeth. Hence she Kwakiutl (B, p. 24) Footprints in a rock on the Lower

causes the death of her Fraser; crag in Harrison River.

husbands and lovers. The Chilcotin (i, p. 13) Sexual intercourse with Chilcotin

hero, by being warned women now innocuous.

beforehand, breaks the Shoshoni (i, p. 238) Different hostile tribes.

teeth with a hard object, Dakota (2, p. 198) Sexual intercourse now harmless.

thus succeeding where Arapaho (i, p. 260) Vaginas now harmless.

others failed. Pawnee (i, p. 35) No toothed vaginas now.

Kwakiutl (4, p. 238) No explanation.

Bella Coola (i, p. 76) .... No explanation.

Maidu ( I , p. 69) No explanation.

Pawnee (2, p. 41) No explanation.

Wichita (i, p. 144) No explanation.

Jicarilla (i, p. 203) No explanation.

Chukchee (i, p. 72.) No explanation.

' Compare also . )nah, above.
VOL. XXVII. — NO. 103. —4.

50 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Toothed Vagina (Conclud- Koryak (i, p. ii6) No explanation.

ed). — Kala's anus has
teeth.

Tree-Refuge. — Heroes in Blackfoot (i, p. 109) Front-Tails Society.

running away from pur- Arapaho (i, p. 38) Buffalo Woman's Lodge.

suing buffalo (deer, etc.) Arapaho (i, p. 158) Buffalo have short horns.

take refuge in a tree. Arapaho (i, p. 160) (Pleiades.)

They are discovered (by Arapaho (i, p. 394) Red spots in a certain kind of

accident) and the animals wood.

hook the tree until it is Pawnee (i. p. in) (Blackbirds perch on buffalo.)

ready to fall. Caddo (i, p. 50) Buffalo do not eat people.

Shoshoni (i, p. 293) No explanation.

Grosventre (i, p. 102)... .No explanation.

Zufii (i, p. 165) No explanation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The following bibliography includes only the collections of myths
referred to in the foregoing pages. References to general works are
made in the footnotes. The titles below are grouped under the
names of the tribes concerned instead of directly under the name of
the author. Two miscellaneous collections of myths used in this study,
and which, because they are miscellaneous, cannot be included under
the name of any one tribe, are Franz Boas' " Indianische Sagen von
der Nord-pacifischenKiiste Nord Amerikas" (Berlin, 1895), and the
"Traditions Indiennes du Canada Nord-Ouest" of Emile Petitot (Alen-
gon, 1887). They are abbreviated as B. or Sagen, and P., respectively.

Abnaki:

C. G. Leland, Algonquin Legends of New England. Boston, 1885.
Achomawi:

R. B. Dixon, Achomawi and Atsugewi Tales (Journal of American
Folk-Lore, vol. xxi).
Arapaho:

DoRSEY and Kroeber, Traditions of the Arapaho (Field Columbian
Museum, Anthropological Series, vol. v).-
Arikara:

G. A. DoRSEY, Traditions of the Arikara (Carnegie Institution of
Washington, Publication 17).
Assiniboin:

R. H. LowiE, The Assiniboine (Anthropological Papcrsof the American
Museum of Natural History, vol. iv, part i).
Bella Coola:

Franz Boas, The Mythology of the Bella Coola Indians (Publications
of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. i).
Blackfoot:

1. WissLER and Duvall, Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians (Anthro-

pological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History,
vol. ii, part l).

2. G. B. Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge Tales. New York, 1892.
Caddo:

G. A. DoRSEY, Traditions of th i Caddo (Carnegie Institution of Wash-
ington, Publication 41).

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 51

Carrier:

Father Morice, Three Carrier Myths (Transactions of the Canadian
Institute, vol. v).
Cherokee:

James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee (Nineteenth Annual Report
of the Bureau of American Ethnology, part i).
Cheyenne:

A. L. Kroeber, Cheyenne Tales (Journal of American Folk-Lore,
vol. xiii).
Chilcotin:

Livingston Farrand, Traditions of the Chilcotin Indians (Publica-
tions of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. ii).
Chinook :

Franz Boas, Chinook Texts (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of
American Ethnology, Bulletin 20).
Chukchee:

W. BoGORAS, The Chukchee (Publications of "the Jesup North Pacific
Expedition, vol. viii).
Cree:

1. Frank Russell, Explorations in the Far North. University of

Iowa, 1898.

2. John Maclean, Canadian Savage Folk. Toronto, 1896.
Crow:

S. C. SIMMS, Traditions of the Crows (Field Columbian Museum,
Anthropological Series, vol. ii, no. 6).
Dakota:

1. S. R. RiGGS, Dakota Grammar, Texts and Ethnography (U.S. Depart-

ment of the Interior, Contributions to North American Ethnology,
vol. ix).

2. Clark Wissler, Some Dakota Myths (Journal of American Folk-

Lore, vol. xx).

Diegueno:

T. T. Waterman, Religous Practices of the Diegueiio Indians (Univer-
sity of California Publications in American Archaeology and
Ethnology, vol. viii).

Eskimo:

1. H. Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo. Edinburgh and

London, 1875.

2. Franz Boas, The Central Eskimo (Sixth Report of the Bureau of

American Ethnology).

3. The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay (Bulletin of the

American Museum of Natural History, vol. xv).

4. A. L. Kroeher, Tales of the Smith Sound Eskimo (Journal of Ameri-

can Folk-Lore, vol. xii).

5. LuciEN Turner, The Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson

Bay (Ninth Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology).

6. E. W. Nelson,? The Eskimo about Bchring Strait (Eighteenth

Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology).
Flathead:

Louisa McDermott, Myths of the Flathead Indians of Idaho (Journal
of American P'olk-Lorc, vol. xiv).

52 Journal of Atnerican Folk-Lore.

Fox:

William Jones, Fox Texts (Publications of the American Ethnological
Society, vol. i).
Grosventre:

A. L, Kroeber, Gros Ventre Myths and Tales (Anthropological Papers
of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. I).
Haida:

1. J. R. SwANTON, Haida Texts and Myths (Smithsonian Institution,

Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 29).

2. Contribution to the Ethnology of the Haida (Publications of

the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. v).

3. Haida Texts, Masset Series (Publications of the Jesup North

Pacific Expedition, vol. x).

Hopi:

H. R. V^OTH, Traditions of the Hopi (Field Columbian Museum, Anthro-
pological Series, vol. viii).
Iroquois:

Erminie a. Smith, Myths of the Iroquois (Second Annual Report of
the Bureau of American Ethnology).
Jicarilla:

1. James Mooney, The Jicarilla Genesis (American Anthropologist,

vol. xi).

2. P. E. Goddard, Jicarilla Apache Texts (Anthropological Papers of

the American Museum of Natural History, vol. viii).
Kathlamet:

Franz Boas, Kathlamet Texts (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of
American Ethnology, Bulletin 26).
Koryak:

VV. JoCHELSON, Religion and Myths of the Koryak (Publications of the
Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. vi).
Kwakiutl:

1. Boas and Hunt, Kwakiutl Texts (Publications of the Jesup North

Pacific Expedition, vol. iii).

2. Franz Boas, The Social Organization and Secret Societies of the

Kwakiutl Indians (U. S. National Museum, Report for 1895).

3. Boas and Hunt, Kwakiutl Tales (Columbia University Contribu-

tions to Anthropology, vol. ii).

4. Kwakiutl Texts: Second Series (Publications of the

Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. x).

Maidu:

1. R. B. Dixon, Maidu Myths (Bulletin of the American Museum of

Natural History, vol. xvii).

2. Some Coyote Stories from the Maidu Indians (Journal of

American Folk-Lore, vol. xiii).

3. Stephen Powers, Tribes of California (U. S. Geological Survey,

Contributions to North American Ethnology, vol. iii).

4. R. B. Dixon, Maidu Texts (Publications of the American Ethno-

logical Society, vol. iv).
Menominee:

W. J. Hoffmann, The Menominee Indians (Fourteenth Annual Report
of the Bureau of American Ethnology).

Folk-Tales of the North American Indians. 53

Micmac:

S. T. Rand, Legends of the Micmac. New York and London, 1894.
Mohave:

A. L. Kroeber, Two Myths of the Mission Indians of California
(Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. xix).
Montagnais:

LeJeune, Jesuit Relations, vol. 12.
Navaho:

Washington Matthews, Navaho Legends (Memoirs of the American
Folk-Lore Society, vol. v).
Nenenot (Naskopi):

Lucien Turner, Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson Bay
(Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology).
Nez Perc6:

H. J. Spinden, Myths of the Nez Perce Indians (Journal of American
Folk-Lore, vol. xxi).
Ojibwa:

H. R. Schoolcraft, The Myth of Hiawatha. Philadelphia, 1856.

Omaha and Ponca:

J. O. DoRSEY, The Cegiha Language (U. S. Geological Survey, Con-
tributions to North American Ethnology, vol. vi).
Osage:

G. A. DoRSEY, Traditions of the Osage (Field Museum of Natural
History, Anthropological Series, vol. vii).

Pawnee (Skidi):

1. G. A. DoRSEY, Traditions of the Skidi Pawnee (Memoirs of the

American Folk-Lore Society, vol. viii).

2. The Pawnee: Mythology (Carnegie Institution of Washington,

Publication 59).

3. G. B. Grinnell, a Pawnee Star Myth (Journal of American Folk-

Lore, vol. ii).

Quinault:

Livingston Farrand, Traditions of the Quinault Indians (Publications
of the Jcsup North Pacific Ex[)cdition, vol. ii).
Shasta:

R. B. Dixon, Shasta Myths (Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. xxi).
Shoshoni:

R. H. LowiE, The Northern Shoshone (Anthropological Papers of the
American Museum of Natural History, vol. ii).
Shushwap:

James Teit, The Shushwap (Publications of the Jesup North Pacific
Expedition, vol. ii).
Sia:

Matilda C. Stevenson, The Sia (Eleventh Annual Report of the
Bureau of American Ethnology).
Skokomish :

C. Hill-Tout, Notes on the Skokomic of British Columbia (British
Association for the Advancement of Science, Reports, 1900).

54 Journal of American Folk-Lore .

Thompson:

1. James Teit, Thompson River Indian Traditions (Memoirs of the

American Folk-Lore Society, vol. vi).

2. Mythology of the Thompson Indians (Publications of the

Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. viii).

Tillamook:

Franz Boas, Traditions of the Tillamook Indians (Journal of American
Folk-Lore, vol. xi).
THngit:

1. J. R. SwANTON, Tlingit Myths and Texts (Bureau of American

Ethnology, Bulletin 39).

2. A. Krause, Die Tlinkit-Indianer. Jena, 1885.
Ts'ets'aut:

1. Franz Boas, Traditions of the Ts'ets'aut (Journal of American

Folk-Lore, vol. ix).

2. Traditions of the Ts'ets'aut (Journal of American Folk-Lore,

vol. x).

Tsimshian:

Franz Boas, Tsimshian Texts (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of
American Ethnology, Bulletin 27).
Ute:

1. A. L. Kroeber, Ute Tales (Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. xiv).

2. J. Alden Mason, Myths of the Uintah Utes (Journal of American

Folk-Lore, vol. xxiii).
Wichita:

G. A. Dorsey, Mythology of the Wichita (Carnegie Institution of
Washington, Publication 21).
Wintun;

Jeremiah Curtin, Creation Myths of Primitive America (Boston,
1898), pp. 1-278.
Yana:

1. Jeremiah Curtin, Creation Myths of Primitive America (Boston,

1898), pp. 280-284.

2. E. Sapir, Yana Texts (University of California Publications in

American Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. ix).
Yuma:

J. P. Harrington, A Yuma Account of Origins (Journal of American

Folk-Lore, vol. xxi).
Zuni:

1. F. H. Cushing, Zuni Folk-Tales. New York, 1901.

2. Outlines of Zuni Creation Myths (Thirteenth Annual Report

of the Bureau of American Ethnology).

University of California,
Berkeley, Cal.

The Traditional Ballad in the South. 55

THE TRADITIONAL BALLAD IN THE SOUTH.

BY REED SMITH.

In tabulating American survivals of the traditional English and
Scottish popular ballads, uniformity in the use of terms is desirable.
As Professor Kittredge pointed out in a letter to the writer, the terms
"ballad found in America," and "version," need settling. Ballad-
collectors since Child include under "ballad found in America" all
ballads derived from singers and reciters living in the United States,
no matter what the original nationality of the reciters or singers. This
is a proper use of the term, if ballad-collectors unite in so using it, and
if the same principle is followed in quoting statistics as to American
survivals listed in Child's "English and Scottish Popular Ballads"
and in Child's ballad manuscripts.^

Agreement on the exact meaning of the term "version" is likewise
needed. Ballad-collectors at present seem to be using "version" in
the sense of "variant copy," and are calling each ballad copy or text
a "version." This use of the word would be unobjectionable, if it
were agreed upon by all, and if it could be applied in quoting statistics
and making references to Child's collections. There, however, the
term "version" has another content, meaning "a copy with distin-
guishing characteristics in plot, style, age, atmosphere, or the like;"
and a single "version" is often represented by several variants.
Thus, Child's "version B" of No. 4 includes four variants {a-d),
and his "version I" of No. 12 includes nine {a-i). Ambiguity, there-
fore, results when "version" is used both in this stricter sense and in
the broader, looser sense of "copy or variant." Since all ballad col-
lecting and investigation must go back ultimately to Child's final and
authoritative work, it would seem preferable to use "version" as he
uses it, and to employ "variant" to mean loosely any copy (or frag-
ment) of a ballad secured on American soil, irrespective of the par-
ticular "version" in Child to which the copy seems to point.

In the following tabulation of American ballad-findings, "variant"
is so used, "version" being reserved for the stricter meaning as
employed in Child.

1 These manuscripts belong to tlic Harvard College Library, and are at present in the
custody of Professor Kittredge, wlio has nearly completed their arrangement and cata-
loguing.

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

I. THE TRADITIONAL BALLAD IN AMERICA.

A. AMERICAN VARIANTS IN CHILD S ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR

BALLADS.!

In Child's "English and Scottish Popular Ballads" there are in-
cluded from America 27 ballads in 55 variants. These are distributed
as follows: —

No. No. of

Source. in Child. Variants.

Massachusetts 2 i

Virginia 4 I

New York 10 2

Iowa {Return^) 11 i

Massachusetts 12 6

Maine 12 2

New Hampshire 12 2

Iowa (Reburn) 20

Dr. Thomas Davidson ^ 20

Massachusetts 49

New York 49

Iowa (Reburn) 62

Davidson 62

Massachusetts 73

Virginia 73

Massachusetts 74

Massachusetts 75

Virginia 76

North Carolina 76

Michigan 76

North Carolina 79

Iowa {Reburn) 81

North Carolina 93

Virginia 93

Massachusetts 93

North Carolina 95

Iowa {Rcbiiryj) 96

Iowa {Reburn'^) 105

Davidson no

Pennsylvania 155 2

' The information as to Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads and as to the
Child manuscripts was furnished through the courtesy of Professor Kittrcdge.

2 This ballad is described by Child as being " from Miss Margaret Reburn, as current
'n County Meath, Ireland, about i860." In the Advertisement (or preface) to Part I,
Child gives Miss Reburn's residence as New Albion, lo. " Among Child's papers,"
says Professor Kittredge, " are many letters from her." Hereafter ballad-texts which
were submitted by her will be marked Reburn.

' Dr. Thomas Davidson was a Scot who lived for many years in various parts of the
United States (in Missouri, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey). It is hence impos-
sible to tell to what States to accredit his texts. Hereafter they will be marked Davidson.

* Mentioned by Child (II, 426), as "from an Irish lady."

The Traditional Ballad in the South.

No.
Source. in Child.

Maryland 155

New York 155

Massachusetts 188

Iowa {Rehurn) 200

Massachusetts 200

Maine 200

New York 200

Davidson 219

243

New Hampshire 250

South Carolina 250

Davidson 252 *

Massachusetts 277

No. of
Variants.

B. AMERICAN VARIANTS IN THE CHILD MANUSCRIPTS, HARVARD
COLLEGE LIBRARY.'

Concerning these manuscripts, Professor Kittredge writes, "Child
also had (in whole or in part) the following ballads, which he preserved
in manuscript, but did not use in his book, either because he thought
them derived from print, suspected their genuineness, or for other
causes. They should be included in the statistics, however; for many
of the texts recently collected, if Child had examined them, would have
been similarly judged by him." To put it the other way around, the
ballads about to be listed would have been included, according to
the method of later ballad-collectors. It seems best, therefore, to
include them in the Child statistics of American survivals. There
are 20 such ballads in 26 variants, as follows: —

No.
n Child.
2

No. of

Variants.

Source.

Texas

Massachusetts 4

New York 4

Massachusetts 10

Iowa (Rebiirn) 39

Iowa {Rebiirn) 53

Massachusetts 62

Iowa {Reburn) 65

Iowa {Reburn) 68

North Carolina 73

Massachusetts 75

New Hampshire 75

Texas 79

' Two stanzas of " an Americanized version . . . printed not long ago in Philadelphia."
" I have been able to secure only two stanzas, which were cited in draham's Illustrated
Magazine, September. 1888" (Child, IV. 361).

* Printed as a fragment of No. 17 (Child. I, 502), but subsequently noted as belonging
to No. 252 (Child. IV. 451). » Sec note i, p. 55-

Journal of American Folk-Lore .

No.

Source. in Child. Var

Davidson 83

Kentucky 85

Davidson 93

V^irginia 125

Iowa {Rebnrn) 156

Iowa {Rcburn) 170

Davidson 173

Iowa {Reburn) 178

Virginia 243

No. of
ants.

Combining

both lists

we have a total of 38 different ballads

73 83

178 252

74 85

125

188 277

75 93

155

200

76 95

156

219

79 96

170

243

81 105

173

250

These 38 ballads exist in 81 variants.

SUMMARY BY STATES.

Source. Ballads (Child).

Iowa II, 20, 39, 53, 62, 65, 68, 81, 96, 105, 156,

170, 178, 200.
. 12(2), 200.

• 155-
. 2, 4(2), 10, 12(6), 49, 62, 73(3), 74, 75(5), 93,

188, 200, 277.
. 76.

. 12(2), 75, 250.
. 4, 10(2), 49, 155, 200(2).
■ 73, 76, 79. 93, 95-
. 155(2), 243.

• 250.

• 2, 79.

• 4, 73- 76, 93, 125, 243.
20, 62, 83, 93, no, 173, 219, 252.

Maine ....
Maryland . .
Massachusetts .

Michigan . . .
New Hampshire
New York . .
North Carolina
Pennsylvania .
South Carolina
Texas ....
Virginia . . .
Davidson . .

C. AMERICAN VARIANTS REPORTED BY LATER COLLECTORS.

During the last two decades the search for American survivals has
been more or less systematically carried on in certain sections, and
results of ballad-findings have appeared from time to time in this
Journal and elsewhere.

The fullest tabulation of traditional ballads surviving in America is
Mr. Barry's list printed by Professor H. M. Belden in his article on
"Balladry in America." It contains 52 separate ballads.^

' See this Journal, vol. xxv, p. 5, note i. This article has been of much assistance to
American ballad-collectors. The list consists of the following numbers in Child: —

The Traditional Ballad in the South. 59

With this list as a working-basis, during the last few months an
effort was made by the writer to complete it, and, so far as possible,
to bring it up to date. Most of the leading ballad-collectors in the
United States were written to.^ Mr. Phillips Barry of Cambridge,
Mass., was personally consulted,^ and rendered valuable assistance.

125

210

278

155

214

279

162

221

281

181

243

28s

105

188

250

287

106

200

274

289

209

277

295

* Generous assistance was given by all who were consulted. Their kindness and co-
operation made possible the larger part of this article. Next to Professor Kittredge,
thanks are due primarily to Mr. Barry and to the following: Professor H. M. Belden of
Missouri, Professor H. G. Shearin of Kentucky, Professor C. Alphonso Smith of Virginia,
Professor Frank C. Brown of North Carolina, Professors J. A. Lomax and R. A. Law of
Te.xas, and Miss Louise Pound of Nebraska. The following were also communicated with;
and furnished whatever information, either positive or negative, was in their possession:
Professor O. D. Wannamaker of Alabama, Professor W. F. Melton of Georgia, Professor
Alcee Fortier of Louisiana, Miss Mary L. Dougherty and Professor E. M. Hopkins of
Kansas, Miss Mary A. Owen of Missouri, and Professor E. C. Perrow, University of
Louisville.

Miss Louise Pound has published an interesting article on "Traditional Ballads in
Nebraska" in this Journal, vol. xxvi, pp. 351-366. Seven traditional ballads are included.
As stated on p. 351 of her article, "Almost without exception, they were brought from
elsewhere, — from Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana." In a letter of Jan. 10,
1914, Miss Pound kindly listed for me her material in detail as follows: —

Johnny Randall (Lord Randal, Child, 12). Sung in a railway camp in Colorado.
See Modern Language Notes, January, 1902.

Two Little Boys (The Two Brothers, Child, 45). Brought from Nodaway County,
Missouri.

Lord Bayham (Young Beichan, Child, 53). In a MS. book of ballads brought from
Indiana.

Lord Lovel (Child, 75). Texts from Virginia; Aledo, 111.; and Junction, Wyo.

Barbara Allen's Cruelty (Child, 84). Texts from Kearney (Neb.), Indiana, and Noda-
way County, Missouri.

Black Jack Daly, or the Gypsy Laddie (Child, 200). Brought from Nodaway County.
Missouri.

The House Carpenter (James Harris, or The Demon Lover, Child, 243). Brought to
Nebraska from Aledo, III.

Miss Pound has been promised a copy of Sir Hugh and the Jew's Daughter (Child.
155). coming from Missouri, I)ut has not yet obtained it.

' Mr. Barry has a fine collection of ballad-texts and a particularly rich and varied
number of ballad-tunes. His collection covers in the main the Nortli Atlantic States.
Pending a fuller description, which it is to be hoped he will soon publisli. a suniiiiary of his
material will be of interest. Numerals in parentheses refer to the number of variants.

tunes included: —

2(8)

10(2)

43(1)

68(1)

106(2)

210(1)

273(0

281(1)

287(3)

3(1)

ii(i)

45(1)

73(4)

iio(i)

214(1)

274(3)

285(1)

289(3)

4(13)

12(28)

46(1)

75(6)

162(2)

243(4)

279(3)

286(6)

295(1)

7(1)

26(1)

53(4)

84(8)

200(17)

250(2)

6o Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Professor Kittredge, as already noted, ^ drew generously upon his
intimate first-hand knowledge both of the Child material in particular
and of the whole ballad-field in general. From all these sources, 21
additions were brought to light.

On the information furnished by Professor Kittredge, and tabulated
above, were added the following numbers.

II 65 156 178

39 83 170 219

62 96 173 215

From Mr. Barry's collection were reported Nos. 273, 286.^

From Virginia, reported by Professor C. Alphonso Smith, were Nos.
120, 126, 141, 201.

From Missouri, reported by Professor Belden, was No. 185.

From Kentucky, reported by Professor Shearin, was No. 299.

A puzzling question arises here as to whether to include No. 40 in
the list of American survivals. No. 27 is given by Professor Arthur
Beatty,^ "from Mrs. McLeod of Dumfries, Scotland, when she was
on a visit to her relations at Lake Mills, Wis." This seems to be the
only variant yet found in the United States. From the same source
are reported Nos. 26, 40, and 181. Now, No. 26 has been reported
elsewhere (by Mr. Barry and from South Carolina), and may hence
be dismissed from discussion. No other American variants, however,
of Nos. 40 and 181, have turned up. Professor Belden includes Nos.
27 and 181 in his list, but does not include No. 40. As all three seem
to rest upon the same basis, either No. 40 should be added to the
completed list, or Nos. 27 and 181 excluded.

If No. 40 is accepted, the present grand total of traditional ballads
surviving in America is 73. If No. 40 is excluded, and Nos. 27 and
181 along with it, the total is 70.

The complete list consists of the following: —

27(?)

162

214

281

170

219

285

40(?)

105

173

221

286

106

178

243

287

i8i(?)

250

289

120

185

252

295

125

188

273

299

126

200

274

141

201

277

155

209

278

156

210

279

' See note, p. 55, and note i, p. 56.

' No. 286, The Sweet Trinity (The Golden Vanity), was also reported from Missouri
and Kentucky.

* See this Journal, vol. xx, p. 154.

The Traditional Ballad in the South. 6i

II. THE BALLAD IN THE SOUTH.

So far as the ballad is concerned, the South seems to be at present
the most promising field in the United States. According to the fullest
and most recent information obtainable,^ 40 separate ballads have
been discovered in the six States of Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia,
Texas, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

From Kentucky are reported 23 : —

Child, 4 13 68 76 85 277

7 20 73 79 105 286

10 49 74 81 155 299

12 53 75 84 243

From Missouri are reported 19: —

Child, 2 18 74 84 209 277 286

4 49 75 185 243 278 289
10 73 79 200 250

From North Carolina are reported 13: —

Child, 4 12 73 75 79 93 243

7 53 74 76 84 95

From South Carolina are reported 9 : —

Child, 12 73 84 243 274
26 75 95 250

From Texas are reported 10: —

Child, 2 53 74 79 95

7 73 75 84 278

From Virginia are reported 23 : —

Child, 4 13 75 93 126 243

7 53 76 95 141 274

10 73 84 120 155 289

12 74 85 125 201

A complete table of 40 ballad survivals in these six Southern States,*
showing both the total of different ballads and their occurrence by
States, might be drawn up as follows.

' See note i, p. 59.

* Satisfactory statistics for the rest of the South could not be obtained. No. 155 is
reported in Child from Maryland; and Professor Kittrcdge now reports No. 84 from
Mississippi. No. 95 was discovered by the writer in West Virginia in August. 190J. and
reported by Professor Kittredge in this Journal, vol. xxi, p. 56. From Mississippi arc
reported by Professor Perrow Nos. 84 and 289.

62 Journal oj American Folk-Lore .

This tabulation shows that the 40 ballads are distributed as follows.

SOUTHERN BALLAD

TABLE.

No. in Child.

Kentucky.

Missouri.

North
Carolina.

South
Carolina.

Texas.

Virginia.

—

74
75

—

*
*

—

-K-

105

—

120

—

125

—

126

*
*

141

—

155

185

200

201

209

243

250
274

277

278

286

289

299

—

Found in —
One State

Two States .
Three States
Four States .
Five States .
All six States

No. of Ballads.
15 (Nos. 18, 20, 26, 68, 81, 105, 120, 125, 126, 141, 185,
200, 201, 209, 299).

12 (Nos. 2, 13, 49, 85, 93, 155, 250, 274, 277, 278, 286, 289).
2 (Nos. 10, 76).
6 (Nos. 4, 7, 12, 53, 79, 95).

2 (Nos. 74, 243).

3 (Nos. 73, 75, 84).

Some such summary of the ballad-field, both in part (as here in the
South) and in whole, should be made from time to time in order to

The Traditional Ballad in the South. 63

show the numerical distribution of ballads by States or sections, and
the number of variants, as well as to show the total number of dif-
ferent ballads. It is almost, if not quite, as important to know how
widely a ballad is distributed as to know whether the ballad occurs
at all. For example, No. 73 ("Lord Thomas and Fair Annet"), No.
75 ("Lord Lovel"), and No. 84 ("Bonny Barbara Allen") are found
in many different variants in each of the Southern States included in
this report. In Mr. Barry's list, No. 12 ("Lord Randal") comes first
in popularity with 28 variants; No. 200 ("The Gypsy Laddie") next*
with 17; then No. 4 ("Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight"), with 13;
and, next, Nos. 2 ("The Elfin Knight") and 84 ("Barbara Allen"),
with 8 variants each. These facts are as significant in the ballad
tradition as the facts that No. 20 ("The Cruel Mother") occurs once
only in the South (in Missouri), and that a fragment of No. 26 ("The
Three Crows") has turned up in South Carolina alone of the Southern
States.

A ballad syllabus or summary should be reported at least once a
year, — at the annual meeting of the American Folk-Lore Society.
This report might be published in the Journal in the first or second
issue. So conducted, it would be of great interest and value to
ballad-collectors throughout the United States. After its initial
appearance, revision bringing it up to date would not be laborious.

III. THE BALLAD IN SOUTH CAROLINA.

Up to the present, 9 different ballads in 24 variants have been dis-
covered in South Carolina. These are —

No. of
Ballads (Child). Variants.

Lord Randal (12) i

The Three Crows (26) i

Lord Thomas and Fair Elinor (73) ^ 5

Lord Lovel (75) , . 2

Barbara Allen (84) 8

The Hangman's Tree (95) 2

James Harris (The House Carpenter) (243) ... 2

Henry Martyn (Andrew Bartin) (250) i

Our Goodman (fragment) (274) 2

It would, of course, be dangerous to begin to generalize on South
Carolina ballad conditions so early and upon such incomplete returns.
A few preliminary facts, however, may be safely noted.

"Lord Thomas and Fair Elinor" and "Barbara Allen" arc easily
the best known of the ballads in South Carolina. Of "Lord Thomas
and Fair Elinor," 5 variants have turned up, running all the way from

' So-called "poor buckra" variants of Nos. 12 and 73 were reported by Mrs. C. S.
Means in 1899. See "A Singular Literary Survival," The Outlook, vol. Ixiii. pp. iig-122

64 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

a fragment to an unusually pure and complete text of 20 stanzas.
Tunes were sent in with three versions. " Barbara Allen" is the most
widely distributed of all, both numerically and geographically. There
have been secured 8 variants, representing practically every section of
the State. The variants run from 5 up to 10 stanzas. They all
resemble most nearly the B version in Child, the version given also
in " Percy's Reliques." Of the 8 South Carolina variants, 5 close with
the twining of the rose and the brier from the bodies of Barbara and
her sweetheart "for all true lovers to admire."

Of the other ballads no special mention need be made here, except
of one, — a negro variant of No. 95 ("The Maid freed from the Gal-
lows"), under the usual American title, "The Hangman's Tree."
This text was sent in by Mr. W. R. Dehon of Summerville, S.C., who
stated that he had learned it from an old colored nurse, Margaret,
who had belonged to the family in Charleston before the war. This
variant is additionally interesting because it makes mention of a
golden ball which is needed to free the maid from the gallows. This
allies it with the H version in Child. In his note on this version,
Child remarks, "A characteristic explanation is furnished of the
heroine's danger: she has lost a golden key, or a golden ball, which
had been intrusted to her."

The first triad of verses, which in ballads of this type fixes the frame-
work, runs: —

Hangman, hangman, hold your hand
A little longer still:
I think I see my father coming
And he will set me free.

0 father, father, have you brought

My golden ball and come to set me free?
Or have you come to see me hung
Upon the Scarlet Tree?

1 have not brought your golden ball
Or come to set you free;

But I have come to see you hung
Upon the Scarlet Tree.

So on through the whole family, until the sweetheart comes. He
brings the golden ball, and frees the maid.

This South Carolina group bears out perfectly two of the conclusions
reached by Professor Belden in his article on "Balladry in America." ^
First, themes repulsive to our moral sensibilities are dropped. In
No. 26, "The Three Ravens" ("The Three Crows"), for example,
stanza six, which might be a little embarrassing to us now, does not

' See this Journal, vol. xxv, pp. 5-6.

The Traditional Ballad in the South. 65

appear. This tendency is due in part, of course, to the supersensitive
refinement of the present age; but it is also due in part to the fact
that ballads are frequently sung to children as nursery songs. Either
reason is sufficient to account for the softening and toning-down of
earlier ballad themes and situations.

The second conclusion of Professor Belden, borne out by the South
Carolina group, is, that ballads which in their British forms present
more or less distinctively supernatural elements, lose these elements
in America. For example, in both versions of No. 243, it is simply the
returned lover, not his ghost or demon, that tempts the house carpen-
ter's wife away to be drowned at sea when the ship springs a leak.

Valid also seems the generally held opinion, that ballads are pre-
served by the music; that is, they are really and truly songs, not
narrative poems. In nearly every case, the person sending in a
South Carolina ballad has reported it as being sung rather than
recited. In general, the words and the music are recollected together
from childhood, learned in the nursery from nurse, mother, or grand-
mother.

The promising feature of balladry in South Carolina is, that the
field is still largely untilled. The surface of the ground has been
barely scratched. What is true of the ballad is true of all the other
departments of folk-lore as well, — folk-tale, animal and plant lore,
superstitions, witchcraft,;customs, games, bird and beast lore, formu-
las, phrases, animal cries and calls, and popular etymology. The store
of material is rich, varied, and abundant.

By this time next year we hope that at least 20 different traditional
ballads will have been secured in South Carolina. Twenty seems a
fair working-limit so far for any one Southern State. Missouri and
Kentucky are the two States which have been worked most thoroughly
up to the present, which is due largely to the efforts of the folk-lore
groups headed by Professor H. M. Belden in Missouri and by Professor
H. G. Shearin in Kentucky. Missouri, as noted, reports 19 ballads.
Professor Shcarin's excellent "Syllabus of Kentucky Folk Songs" ^
contains 22 traditional ballads,^ including a doubtful identification or
so. In answer to a recent request for later information, Professor
Shearin writes that no additional ballads have come to light since the
Syllabus was published, adding, "I am forced to believe that almost
all of them in this section have been discovered. At a meeting, day
before yesterday [Dec. 6, 1913], of our State Folk-Lore Society, I find
this to be the consensus of oi)inion of the group of workers present."

Of the Southern States, Virginia has recently come to the front most
rapidly in collecting ballads. The Virginia Society is only about a year

1 Transylvania University Studies in English, Lexington. 191 1.
* Professor Kittredge's report of No. 85 brings Kentucky's total up to 23.
VOL. XXVII. — NO. 103. — 5.

66 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

old, but it has already done and is doing splendid work. From Virginia
are reported 23 different ballads in more than 30 variants. Four of
the Virginia ballads have not been reported by any other State. These
are —

120, "Robin Hood's Death."

126, " Robin Hood and the Tanner."

141, "Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutley."

201, " Bessie Bell and Mary Gray."

One other Robin Hood ballad (No. 125, "Robin Hood and Little
John") was reported^ by Dr. H. S. V. Jones from Illinois; but his
informant learned it in Virginia.

The rich ballad discoveries already made in Missouri and Kentucky,
and now being made in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina,
should be duplicated and increased in all the South Atlantic States.
The folk-lore movement seems to be taking on new life in the South.
The next few years should show gratifying results. The societies in
Virginia and North Carolina are but a year old. Ours in South Caro-
lina is a vigorous youngster of a few months. The Georgia society is
scheduled for formal organization, Easter, 1914. Alabama, Florida,
Mississippi, and Louisiana are yet to be heard from.

Most significant of all, so far as the ballad is concerned, is a bulletin
just issued by the Bureau of Education in Washington. It was pre-
pared by Professor C. Alphonso Smith of the University of Virginia,
president of the Virginia Folk-Lore Society.^ The bulletin sets
forth a comprehensive plan for collecting ballads throughout the
United States. It is addressed to the public school teachers of the
nation. It opens with a request for co-operation on the part of
teachers, pupils, and patrons in sending in ballad information. An
alphabetical list of the 305 traditional ballads follows, with an explana-
tion of their interest and importance. Forty thousand copies are to
be issued. Mr. P. P. Claxton, National Commissioner of Education,
has written a ringing introduction, thus giving his own influence and
the prestige of the Bureau of Education to the movement.

All in all, it seems that the South is on the eve of contributing a
highly important and significant chapter to the history of balladry
in America.

University of South Carolina,
Columbia, S.C.

J See this Journal, vol. xxiii, pp. 432-434.

' Professor Smith writes that he is already receiving hundreds of letters from all over
the country about ballads. He is preparing a work on ballads in Virginia.

The Transmission of Folk-Song. Gj

THE TRANSMISSION OF FOLK-SONG.

BY PHILLIPS BARRY. A.M.

The media for transmission of folk-song are twofold, — first,
the folk-singer; second, the printed text as circulated by broadside,
"songster,"^ and to no small degree through the columns of country
and even city newspapers.- Of the two media, the folk-singer is of
the greater importance, since by oral tradition alone is a folk-song
transmitted intact.

It matters little where the folk-singer learns his songs. Ancient
ballads, some of them centuries old; later ballads, in part based
on world-old themes, in part celebrating events yet unforgotten;3
traditional lyrics ; parlor and vaudeville songs,^ — all are to be
found in his repertory. Acting in response to the universal instinct
of man to sing, he takes them as he finds them, and makes them
his own, shaping them according to the subconscious dictates of
his own fancy. The lone fisherman in his rocking dory, the rustic
at the plough, the cowboy with his never-ending plaint, as expressed
in the accompanying strain, —

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" Bury me in some quiet spot.
Where these bones of mine won't be forgot, — "^

all are characteristic folk-singers. Yet not alone of the solitary type of
singer is folk-song the possession. Its social aspects appear wherever
a group are gathered together, conserving the elements of the primi-
tive "folk," — congeniality, freedom from care, and light-heartcd-
ncss, — hunters and trappers around a camp-fire, it may be, or railway
laborers in a box-car on a wet night. It is not many years since, in a

• Songsters are small volumes (vest-pocket size) of popular songs, usually printed
without music. They have had some influence in the transmission of folk-song in this
country. Such are the Forget-me-not Songster, the Blackbird Songster, the Pearl Song-
ster, etc. A large number of them are in the Harris Collection of American Poetry, in
Brown University.

' H. M. Beldcn, "Balladry in America" (this Journal, vol. xxv, p. 20, and foot-
note i).

' See my articles, "William Carter, the Bensontown Homer" (this Journal, vol. xxv,
pp. 156-168), "Some Asix;cts of Folk-Song" {,lbid.. pp. 274-283), also E. C. Pcrrow,
"Songs and Rhymes from the South " (Ibid., pp. 137-155).

♦ Vaudeville songs enter the folk-singer's repertory, particularly in districts remote from
cities.

» "The Lone Prairie," A (Folk-Songs of the North Atlantic States); from M. F. H.
(Cambridge, Mass.), resident of San Antonio, Tex.

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

town near Boston, schoolboys would gather of an evening to seek
recreation in singing. One of their songs is preserved to us.

THE DEVIL AND THE FARMER.^

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1. The Devil came to the farm one day,
With his tol de rol, tol de rol.

Diddle doll day.

2. "Oh, say! have you come for my oldest son?
With your tol de rol," etc.

3. "Oh, no! I've not come for your eldest son.
With my tol de rol," etc.

4. "Oh! then, have you come for my hired man?
With your tol de rol," etc.

5. "Oh, no! I've not come for your hired man.
With my tol de rol, etc.

6. " But I have come for your scold of a wife.
With my tol de rol," etc.

7. "Take her right off, she's the plague of my life,
With your tol de rol," etc.

8. The Devil came back to the farm next day.
With his tol de rol, etc.

9. "Oh, say! I've brought back your scold of a wife.
With my tol de rol, etc.

10. "She filled all hell with clamor and strife.
With her tol de rol," etc.

A notable development of the social side of folk-song is of local
record in southern Iowa and Nebraska. To the latter State, about
1887, a large number of settlers — mostly American, but with some
English, German, and Swedish immigrants^ — had come to take up
homesteads. The social life of the new community centred about
the Literary Society. This association held regular meetings, about
once a week during the winter months, in the sod schoolhouse, attended

' "The Farmer's Curst Wife," C (Folk-Songs of the North Atlantic States); from E.
W. H., Boston, Mass.

* The EngUsh and American settlers met on intimate terms; the Germans and Swedes
kept by themselves.

The Transmission of Folk-Song.

by all the people within a radius of ten miles or more. Singing of
songs without accompaniment was an important part of the pro-
gramme.^ Many of the songs were folk-songs. One (a sentimental
ballad), as sung by three sisters, was quite a favorite.

THE OLD ELM-TREE. 2

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There's a path by the lone deserted mill,

And a stream by the old bridge, broken still.

And the golden willow-bough, bending low

To the green sunny bank where the violets grow;

And the wild birds are singing their same sweet lays

That charmed me in dreams of the dear old days.

When Laura, my beautiful, sat by me,

On the moss-grown bank 'neath the old elm-tree.

Chorus.

0 Laura, dear Laura! my own true love,
Shall we meet in the angels' home above?
Earth holds not a treasure so dear to me
As the moss-grown scene 'neath the old elm-tree.

'Twas there, 'neath the bright blue sky above,

I told her the tale of my heart's true love;

And there, ere the blossoms of summer died.

She had whispered the promise she'd be my bride;

And there fell the tears of our parting sore —

But ah! little did I dream we should meet no more —

For ere I came from the dark blue sea.

They had made her a grave 'neath the old elm-tree.

3. Oh! cruel and false were the tales they told, —
That my vows were broken, my own love cold.
And my truant heart held another dear,
Forgetting the vows that were whispered there;

' The programme was elaborate. The first part was devoted to recitations, dialogue,
readings, and singing of various songs. On a certain occasion a Swedish neighbor rendered
an accordion solo, "mild torture" for American ears. After an intermission, the meeting
was called to order and a debate followed, often upon economic questions, socialism,
taxation, etc. The debate might last as long as two hours, and the meeting freciueiitly
did not adjourn till niidniRht.

'"The Old Elm-Tree." A (Folk-Songs of the North Atlantic States); melody from
singing of H. L. W. (Cambridge, Mass.), June 12, 1912; text from II. L. W. as copied
from manuscript of M. A. S., Sidney, Kan.

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

And her cheek grew pale, and the faint heart sad,
And her beautiful lips never smiled again;
She wept, ah! she wept where none could see,
She wept o'er the past 'neath the old elm-tree.

4. She died, and they parted her sunny hair

O'er the cold pale brow death had left so fair,

And they crossed her white hands o'er her still, pulseless breast,

And so gently they laid the sweet Laura to rest.^

O Laura, dear Laura! my own true love.
Shall we meet in the angels' home above?
Earth holds not a treasure so dear to me
As the lonely grave 'neath the old elm-tree.

Songs of the Civil War, rendered with vigor or pathos as the case
might demand, brought back memories of the great struggle. One in
particular, of an incident in the battle of Fredericksburg, was sung
to a fine old Irish air.

THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG."

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In the Spring, the Literary Society held its annual exhibition. A
large crowd would then be in attendance, and people would come
twenty miles or more to take part. "The schoolhouse," to quote the
exact words of an eye-witness, "would be jammed so full, that,
looking from the stage,^ you could see only a sea of heads. People
stood in the seats, on the backs of the seats, in the windows, on chairs,
and on every available bit of floor-space." The programme, which
was quite long and elaborate, included organ and violin solos, speeches,
recitations, dialogues, and songs. The songs were of various sorts.

' A version kindly communicated to me by Professor H. M. Belden (from M. W.,
Rucker, Mo.) has here, instead, —

"They laid her to rest where the bright summer flowers
Could bloom o'er her grave in the long summer hours."

* "The Battle of Fredericksburg," A (Folk-Songs of the North Atlantic States); from
singing of H. L. W. and H. W. (Cambridge. Mass.), June 27, 191 2. A text of the ballad,
differing somewhat from that sung on this occasion, appeared in "Everybody's Column "
(Boston Globe. Aug. 18, 1912).

' A stage was built across one end of the building, and two windows were removed
and used for doors.

The Transmission of Folk-Song.

Some were songs learned from books, and sung by quartet or part-
chorus, — gospel hymns, anthems, etc. ; new songs of the day, which
the settlers had learned back East; and, what is more important as
relating to the transmission of folk-song, songs that were "brought out
from people's memories for the occasion, that had been half-forgotten."
Of such was the familiar "Thomas and Eleanor," or "The Brown
Girl," as it was locally known, sung to a lovely Dorian air.

THE BROWN GIRL.

Dorian.

£^

£©

Readers of the Journal may now peruse some folk-songs current
in the family whose members contributed much to the success of the
Literary Society at its regular meetings and at the exhibitions.

I. COME, ALL YE MERRY HUNTERS.^

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I. Come, all ye merry hunters who love to chase the fox,

Who love to chase Bull Reynard among the hills and rocks!

Chonis.
Then a ho ho ho, and a hi lo, along the merry stream,
Tay tay tay and a ti ti ti, and away to the rocky bow wow wow,
A yank fi fiddle and a bugle-horn,

Through the woods we'll run, brave boys, and through the woods
we'll run!

> "The Merry Fox-Hunters," A (Folk-Songs of the North Atlantic States); sung by
H. L. W. and H. VV. (Cambridge, Mass.), June 27, 1912. Another text, copied by H. L.
W. from manuscript of M. A. S. (Sidney. Kan.), differs in some particulars.

72 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

2. The first they saw was a teamster a-loading up his team,
He said he saw Bull Reynard go floating up the stream.

3. The next they saw was a blind man, as blind as he could be,
He said he saw Bull Reynard run up a hollow tree.

4. The next they saw was a hunter a-winding up his horn,
He said he saw Bull Reynard run . . . through the corn.i

5. The next they saw was a little boy a-feeding of his sheep.
He said he saw Bull Reynard as he lay fast asleep.

6. The next they saw was a little girl a-combing out her locks,
She said she saw Bull Reynard run through her flock of ducks.'

This song belongs to the type of quatrain ballad of which "Brian
O' Lynn" and the celebrated "Houn' Dawg" song are examples.
The characteristic feature of these songs — which may be relics of
actual communal composition — is, that each stanza is, as it were, a
complete ballad in itself.'

• This stanza is lacking in the text of M. A. S.

' Compare stanzas 4 and 5 in text of M. A. S., Sidney, Kan.: —

4. "The next that came was a shepherd

Herding of his sheep,

He said he saw Bull Reynard

As he lay fast asleep.

5. The next they saw was a little boy

Walking down the road.
He said he saw Bull Reynard
Eating up a toad."

* Another example of the quatrain ballad may be of interest. It is from the "Forum"
(Philadelphia Press, March, 1908), as sung in Alabama by negroes seventy years ago.

OLD CIRCUS SONG.

1. I went a-whooping and a-hollering, for the first thing I could find
Was a frog in a well, and that I left behind.

Some said, "It's a frog;" but I said, "Nay!"
Some said, "It's a seabird, with its feathers torn away.
Look a-there now!"

2. I went a-whooping and a-hollering, for the next thing I could find
Was an ice-pond in the meadow, and that I left behind.

Some said, "It's an ice-pond;" but I said, "Nay!"
Some said, " It's a pane of glass, but it's nearly wash away.
Look a-there now!"

3. I went a-whooping and a-hollering, for the next thing I could find
Was an old house on the hilltop, and that I left behind.

Some said, "It's an old house;" but I said, "Nay I"
Some said, "It's a barn, but it's nearly rotted away.
Look a-there now!"

4. I went a-whooping and a-hollering, for the next thing I could find
Was an owl in a thorn-tree, and that I left behind.

Some said, " It's an owl;" but I said, " Nay!"
Some said, "It's the devil, and let us run away!
Look a-there now!"

The Transmission oj Folk-Song.

2. SALLY.i

Mixolydian.

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1. There was a fair maiden, from Scotland she came,
Great riches and honor, and Sally by name;

Her riches were more than the king could possess,
And her beauty was more than her riches at best.

2. There was a poor boy who came to court her,
Whose wages were only one thousand a year, —
She being so wealthy, so lofty, so high,

That upon this poor (boy) she would scarce cast an eye.

3. "O Sally! O Sally! O Sally!" said he,

"I fear that your love and mine cannot agree,

Unless all your hatred should turn into love.

For your beauty's my ruin, I'm sure it will prove."

4. " No hatred for you, sir, nor no other man.
But as for to love you, I know I never can:
So you may retire, and end your discourse.
For I never will have you, unless I am forced."

5. "No forcing, dear Madam, and this you may own.
There are plenty of ladies who are living alone;
I'll go and I'll court one, in hopes you may rue:
So fare you well, Sally, I bid you adieu."

6. Three weeks had scarce come, three weeks had scarce passed.
When Sally was taken with love at the last.

Entangled in love, and she knew not for why;
But she sent for the young man she once did deny.

7. "Oh! am I the doctor, you send for me here?

Or am I the young man who once loved you so dear?"
"Yes, you are the doctor, can kill or can cure,
And without your assistance I'm ruined, I'm sure."

8. "0 Sally! O Sally! O Sally!" said he,
"Don't you remember when you slighted me?

' "Fair Sally," A (FoIk-S>ong9 of the North Atlantic States); melody from H. L. W.
(Cambridge, Mass.); text from manuscript of M. A. S. (Sidney, Kan.), loaned l)y II. L. W.

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

I courted with pleasure, you slighted with scorn,
And so now I'll reward you for what's past and gone,"

"O Willie! O Willie! forget and forgive,

And grant me some longer in this world for to live!"

"No, Sally, I will not, not while I have breath;

But I'll dance on your grave when you're laid in the earth."

Then off from her fingers pulled diamond rings three.
Saying, "Take these, and wear them while dancing o'er me,
While dancing o'er Sally, o'er Sally your queen,
And her colors are there, now no more to be seen!"

Soon W'illie was taken at hearing her doom.
And over his mind there grew a great gloom, —
Said he, "I'll retire, and lay by her side,
I'll wed her in death, and I'll make her my bride!"

In a Massachusetts manuscript of 1790 is the following melody,
" Fair Sally," which, as it fits the metre of this ballad, may belong to
a lost version of it : —

10.

II,

:a=l?:

:4:

#-r-»— #-

-F^— t rq « — h-i — I — »-p — I — h — F-H

S J I J_fc:r-r^-»-^=tiii^:M— t^

« — ^ L^_ 1

-#-#-

=ti=

-•-•-

-'-i^

:tit

This ballad is particularly interesting by reason of its close similarity
in subject-matter, and in part in language, to "The Brown Girl." ^
In the version before us, Willie is made to relent; another text, how-
ever, lacking the last stanza,'^ represents him as proud and unforgiving,
— the character which the situation demands.^ Herein is added
evidence that communal re-creation (in this case, the result of a less
retentive memory) improves as well as alters ballads.

' Not "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet," but Child, 295.

* From C. A. G. (Des Moines, la.), sister of M. A. S. The text lacks also the fifth
stanza.

» Concerning "The Brown Girl" (No. 295), Professor Child wrote: " In the point of the
proud and unrelenting character of the Brown Girl it is original." Of the two versions
recorded by Professor Child, the second (B) is the more nearly like "Sally."

The Transmission of Folk-Sofig.

3. TEN THOUSAND MILES AWAY.l

?^=?^

— < — •— ^ — ■ ^

-^itr^

No more recalled. Choeus.

> N

:Sl=3t

-:5^^

:i=:|=

lEggz^fN--

-^»=^

^.—y^r

-V— i^

1. Oh! my true-love, she was handsome,

And my true-love, she was young;
Her eyes were blue as the violet's hue.

And silvery was the sound of her tongue.
And silvery was the sound of her tongue, my boys;

But while I sing this lay-ay-ay,
She has taken a trip in a government-ship,

Ten thousand miles away.

Chorus.

Then blow, ye winds, heigh-ho!

A-roving I will go;
I'll stay no more on England's shore,

But let the music play-ay-ay,
For I'm off on the morning train,

Across the raging main.
For I'm on my way to my own true-love,

Ten thousand miles away.

2. The sun may shine through an eastern fog,

The Hudson run bright and clear,
The ocean's brine be turned to wine.

And I forget my beer,
And I forget my beer, my boys,

In the landlord's quarts lay-ay-ay;
But I never will part from my own sweetheart,

Ten thousand miles away.

' "Ten Thousand Miles Away." A (Folk-Songs of the North Atlantic States); melody
from H. L. VV. (Cambridse, Mass.); text copied by H. L. VV. from manuscript of M. A. S.,
Sidney, Kan. An absurd parody of this song, bearing the title "The Walloping Window-
Blind," is a favorite of An\erican college-students. Many students' songs, by the way,
are corruptions or parodies of folk-aong.

76 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

3. Oh! dark and dismal was the day

When last I saw my Meg,
She'd a government-band around each hand,

And another one round her leg,
And another one round her leg, my boys;

But while I sing this lay-ay-ay.
She's taken a trip in a government-ship,

Ten thousand miles away.^

This is a typical example of the "traditional lyric," such as may be
found in the repertory of any folk-singer.

It remains to consider briefly the more mechanical side of the trans-
mission of folk-song. A given ballad, let us say, had a beginning, —
the time when first it was composed and sung. The same ballad, as
we know it, is represented by an indefinite number of versions, not all
of which can be derived in an unbroken line from the archetype.
Print, as is well known, interrupts tradition. The same interruption
may result from the caprice of a folk-singer who reserves the right to
sing a certain ballad to a melody different from that to which it has
been sung hitherto. ^ If the melody did not happen to fit the text
exactly, the text adapted itself to the melody, — an efifect of communal
re-creation, of which many recorded texts of the ancient ballad, for
example (cast in different metres), are mute witnesses.

"Das Volk dichtet" is a true saying. Like all true sayings, its

truth becomes most apparent when interpreted progressively. We

are to understand by it, not merely the idea of the folk creating its

songs (as Tennyson would compose a poem, or Schubert a melody), but,

through the activity of its singing members, making its own, songs of

all possible types, of whatever origin.

Felton Hall,

Cambridge, Mass.

' This version lacks the opening stanza, which is, however, preserved in another version
(from E. M. P., Cambridge, Mass.): —

"Sing an aye and an oh for a gallant bark and a brisk and a lively crew.
And an aye for a jolly cap-ta-in and a jolly good ship too.
To carry me o'er the seas, my boys, to my true-love so gay-ay-ay.
For she's taken a trip in a government-ship, ten thousand miles away."
» In the case of the American ballad "Fair Charlotte," this has actually happened, —
a four-phrase melody set to a stanza in common metre has in Maine and Nova Scotia
given way to an eight-phrase melody set to stanzas in double common metre. See my
article, "William Carter, the Bcnsontown Humer " (this Journal, vol. xxv, p. 164, foot-
note 3).

The Collection of Folk-Song.

THE COLLECTION OF FOLK-SONG.

BY PHILLIPS BARRY. A.M.

America with its cosmopolitan population affords for the folk-lorist
a unique opportunity for research and usefulness. Much has been
done to collect the traditions, myths, and songs of the Indian and of
the Negro; more yet remains to be done in the way of enlarging the
records of European material current in our midst. In the case of
folk-song in particular, a good beginning has been made, as a result
of the widespread and growing interest in British balladry and folk-
music.^ In large measure still unrecorded, however, are the songs
and stories of those of our fellow-citizens whose power of English
tppeech is an acquired trait. Evidence of the richness of the treasure
awaiting the activities of a systematic collector, is afforded by the few
published folk-songs which we owe to American singers whose native
speech is German,- French,^ Spanish,^ Gaelic,^ and Yiddish.^ Nor is it
likely we should be disappointed were we to look for native folk-songs
among the new settlers of our crowded cities, — Italians, Greeks,
Armenians, Slavs, Magyars, Syrians, just to mention a few.

In the hope that the interest of readers of the Journal may grow
into a collecting-enthusiasm, three French-Canadian melodies may
herewith be put in evidence.

I. LA BELLE CANADIENNE.^

if:^:

:*=!=*:

-+-> ft— f-

V. ^ *-

Fine.

D.C.

■ H. M. Bclden, "Balladry in America" (this Journal, vol. xxv. pp. 1-23).

' H. L. Fischer, Kurzwcil un zeitfertreib, odder Pennsylfaanisch deutsche folksiicder.

' E. GaKnon, Chansons Populaircs du Canada (Quebec, 1894); P. E. Prevost, Cliansons
Canadicnnes (Montreal, 1907); R. Renault, "French Canadian Songs" (Le Courricr de
Livre, January, 1900).

* C. F. Lummis, The Land of Poco Tiempo, pp. 215-250; A. Farwell, Folk-Songs of
the West and South; Eleanor Hague, "Spanish-American Folk-Songs" (this Journal, vol.
xxiv, pp. 323-331).

' A. Eraser, "The Gaelic Folk-Songs of Canada" (Proceedings and Transactions of the
Royal Society of Canada, ser. 2, vol. ix, pp. 49-60).

' J. L. Cahan, Yiddish Folk-Songs (New York, 191 2); L. Wieocr. " Popular Poetry o^
the Russian Jews" (Americana Germanica, II., r. pp. 1-26, 2, pp. 3i~38).

' From E. E. M., Marlboro, Mass.

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

2. OLD CANADIAN FRENCH SONG.»

Mixolydian,

-=i=w-

&^^J

3ti=i|:

-( 1»^— «-

r^=^

-I — =^

* — ^

1=.:^-:

^^^

:^=f:

:t=«:

#-^

aizff:

3. LA FILLE BLONDE.'

-:J^*

:qi*

J: I J=g

:q=

-?5*-

^:#±i

n I rs

-T-^-

■# *■

ail

3t3i

1*^-~l— -

4±

-•-^zb:

-^±

1640 Cambridge Street,
Cambridge, Mass.

' Manuscript of G. H. B., Westminster, Mass.

* From R. J. P. (Bury, P.Q.), as sung by a Frenchwoman in Beecher Falls, Vt.

The Bridge of Sunbeams. 79

THE BRIDGE OF SUNBEAMS.

BY PHILLIPS BARRY, A.M., S.T.B.

Among the legends recorded in the uncanonical books dealing with
the childhood of Jesus, is a miracle of levitation by means of solar
rays. It is first found in an interpolated passage of the Pseudo-
Matthean Gospel: —

Et cum Jesus cum aliis infantulis super radios so(lis) ubique plures
ascenderet et sederet, multique simili modo facere coeperunt, praecipi-
tabantur.^

Other versions of the same story are found in two documents of the
thirteenth century: —

1. Una autem die . . . ascendit Jhesus Christus radium soHs, et positis
super eum vestimentis suis sedebat quasi super trabem firmissimum.^

2. Legitur eciam ibi quod dum Jesus quandoque matri aquam de fonte
ferret, super solis radium suspendit vasculum, et post se radium sicut funem
cum vasculo traxit.^

At about the same time, the miracle was current in the vernacular
hagiography, — Provengal,* French, ^ and somewhat later in English.
Of the English text, three recensions,^ the oldest of the fourteenth
century, are extant. The following citations may be of interest: —

I. Sythyne apon a noder daye

VVyth chylderne Jhesu ganne mete:
Sum wold play and sum sayd naye.
On the sune-beme Jhesu mayd hys sete.
As he dede so wend thay,
Thay fylle adown and never the bet.^

' C. Tischendorf, Evangclia Apocrypha, p. io6, footnote. This interpolation cannot
be earlier than the eleventh century.

' R. Reinisch, Die Pseudo-Evangclien von Jesu und Maria's Kindhcit, p. lo, sect. 6.
' (). Schadc, Narrationcs de Vita et Conversationc B. M. \irginis, xliii, p. 21.

* K. Bartsch, DcnkmSler der Provencalischen Litteratur, p. 279.

' P. Mayer, Romania, xviii, p. 128. The French text, as yet unpublished, was trans-
lated into English about the year 1300. This EngUsh version, from MS. (Laud, 108),
has been published by C. Horstmann, Altenglische Legenden.

• MS. Ilarleianus, 3954 (the oldest), MS. Harlcianus, 2399; C. Horstmann. Sammlung
Altenglischer Legenden, pp. 101-123, MS. Additional, 31042; C. Horstmann, Horrig's
Archiv, Ixxiv, pp. 327-339.

' MS. Harleianus, 2399. 11. 453-458; C. Horstmann. Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden,
p. 118.

8o Journal of American Folk-Lore.

2. Than Jhcsu hoi hys pot gan make,
Ant to hys frend he seyd anon,
VVyl we pleyne be the lake?
On the sunnc bem xul our pottes gon.
On the sunne bem thei hem honge,
Crystes heng stylle, here gan don falle.^

From the hagiographs, the story filtered down through popular
tradition, to appear in the ballad of "The Bitter Withy," ^ in the
following form: —

Our Saviour built a bridge with the beams of the sun.

And over He gone, He gone He,
And after followed the three jolly jerdins,

And drownded they were all three.*

In the course of a critical study of the ballad of "The Bitter Withy,"
Dr. G. H. Gerould has sought to trace the origin of this story.*

" It is, then, not out of place to inquire whence came the sunbeam
in the legend. Dr. Kressner, in treating the Provencal versions, sug-
gests a parallel, which I am inclined to believe a source. He says,
'Man ist versucht dieses Wunder mit einer im Mittelalter sehr
verbreiteten Geschichte zusammen zu bringen, namlich von einem
Diebe, welcher auf einem Mondstrahle von dem Dache eines Hauses
in dasselbe hinunter gleiten will, und dabei den Hals bricht.'' This
story is found in 'Kalila and Dimna,' and thus goes back to Sanscrit.
. . . This story is, of course, absolutely unlike our legend, save for
the expedient of using the ray of the moon as a means of conveyance ;
yet when it is considered that the Oriental story was known in Europe
before the end of the eleventh century,^ and that the Laurentian MS.
of the Pseudo-Matthew (somewhat after that date) gives the legend
very briefly, it seems probable that the first man to invent the incident
of Jesus and the sunbeam knew the earlier tale in some form or other."

This theory, must, however, be abandoned. In the first place, the
story of the thief and the moonbeam does not go back to Sanscrit,
but is of later origin. It appears for the first time in the Introduction
prefixed by Ibn Al-Mokaffa to his version of the "Kalila and Dimna,"

> MS. Harleianus, 3954, 11. 357-362; C. Horstmann, Ibid., p. 106.

» Journal of the Folk-Song Society, vol. ii. pp. 205-206, 300-304, vol. iv, pp. 29-47.

' Ibid., vol. ii, p. 301.

« G. H. Gerould, "The Ballad of the Bitter Withy" (Publications of the Modern
Language A3sociation, vol. xxiii, pp. 160-161).

' A. Kressner, "Die Provcncalische Bearbcitung der Kindheit Jesu" (Herrig's Archiv.
Iviii, p. 296, note).

• The translation by Simeon Scth was made towards 1080 (G. H. Gerould, I. c, p. i6i>
note).

The Bridge of Sunbeams. 8i

made from the Pehlevi version of Burzoye, about the year 750. *
The story is as follows: —

I felt, therefore, more and more convinced that if I fixed my affections on
things of unapproved worth, or listened to the suggestions of my ill-regu-
lated passions, my credulity would be repaid by disappointment and trouble,
and I was confirmed in this persuasion by the story of the thief who, having
formed with some of his companions a plan for robbing the house of a rich
man, made so much noise that he awakened the owner, who informed his
wife of what he had heard, and desired her to be still, as he thought there
were thieves breaking into his house. He then told her to pretend to awaken
him by making a noise, which the thieves might hear, and to ask him to give
her some account of his great fortune and riches. " And when I desire you,"
said the master of the house, "to hold your tongue, you must not forget
to be more earnest and louder in your demand." The wife did as her
husband had desired her, and the thieves listened attentively to all that was
passing. The husband then told his wife, that if fortune had been bountiful
to them, she ought to be satisfied with the possession of what fate had given
them, "for if I inform you," continued he, "of the means by which I have
acquired my riches, it is possible that I shall be overheard, and we may both
of us suffer for my imprudence and indiscretion." The wife assured him that
there was no one to hear what he related, upon which he acceded to
her request. "I have collected together," said he, "all that I possess, by
my dexterity in robbing, and I have never excited in any one suspicion of
my practices. One moonlight night I went out with my companions,
and, climbing up to the top of the house of a rich person like ourselves, I
went to the aperture which was made for the admission of light, and used
an incantation, which consisted in pronouncing, seven times, Shulam,
shulam; then I embraced the light, and no one perceived that I had let
myself down into the room. I then took away all the money and furniture
which I could find, and, repeating the same incantation seven times, I
embraced the light, and it drew me up. Then I went to my companions,
and we retired unmolested." When the thieves heard this, they con-
gratulated themselves on the discovery which they had made, and promised
themselves a large booty. They therefore remained quiet till they thought
that the man and his wife were asleep; then the leader of them went to the
window and said, ''Shulam, shulam,'" seven times, and embraced the light,
that he might let himself down into the room; but, falling backwards upon
his head on the floor, the husband immediately sprang out of bed, and
rushed upon him with his club, and, asking him who he was and what he
wanted, was answered by the thief that he had been betrayed by his too easy
credulity, and was then reaping the fruits of his error. ^

Evidently we have here to do with a fable, one of the many varia-
tions of the theme of the knave outwitted, into which a bit of popular
tradition has been interwoven.

> The Sanscrit text of Kalila and Dimna, the fables of Bidpai (made about 300 A.D.),
is lost, as also the Pehlevi version by Burzoye, made about 570. From the Pehlevi, a
Syriac version was made about 570; that of Al-MokafTa, about 750. The Introduction con-
sists of a fictitious autobiography of Burzoye. which is not found in the Syriac version of 570.

' \V. Knatchbull, Kalila and Dinina, pp. 69-71.
VOL. XXVII. — NO. 103. — 6.

82 Journal of Ainerican Folk-Lore.

It is not necessary, however, to look in Oriental documents for the
immediate source of the miracles of levitation by solar rays, as reported
in the Latin prose and vernacular metrical narratives of the infancy
of Jesus, since these are paralleled by numerous similar instances of
such miracles, recorded in the Latin Lives of the Saints. In witness
whereof is the following testimony.

I. DOCUMENTS OF KNOWN DATE.

1. (652-657.) Vita S. Brigidae, part, ii, iii, 12.^

Quadam autem die pluviali Virgo gloriosa Brigida ad cellam suam de
via venit, et cum post pluviam sol luceret, radius solis domum per
parietem domus intravit, et posuit S. Brigida vestimenta sua humida
super iUum radium, putans quod funis esset.

2. (Eighth century.) Vita S. Alvei, 4.^

Tunc nutu Dei, antequam mcmorati sancti Alvei cappa ad terram cade-
ret, radio solis suscipitur, et videntibus cunctis, in radio solis pendet
3- (839.) Vita S. Goaris, xi.^

Qui cum intrasset, coepit praevidere locum ubi discipulus suus stare
potuisset, vel ubi cappam suam pendere vel abscondere Hcuisset, et
vidit de angulo domus per fenestellam exire radium solis, et visum
est ei vel manipulo suo quasi fustis esset roboreus, ibique pependit
cappam suam, atque ministrum suum ibidem stare praecepit.

4. (965.) Vita S. Deicoli, 20.''

Vir venerandus aspiciens radium solis per fenestram domus ad instar
trabis clare ingredientem . . . vestimentum superposuit.

5. (1000.) Vita S. Cadroe, iii, 28.*

Putans homo Dei se aliquem suorum sequi, baculum qucm manu gere-
bat, retro porrexit, quem cum nullus esset qui susciperet, per fenestram
lucebat, ut solet contingere, radius solis, qui videlicet ruentem baculum,
velut elementum aliquod solidum, suscepit et sustinuit.

6. (c. 1050.) De S. Amato, Episc. Scnon.^

Quoniam fatigatus itinere . . . deponens cappam suam atque manicas
suas, radio solis tamquam ibi protensae ferulae ignorantcr iniecit.

7. (c. 1100.) Acta S. Nicolai Peregrini, i, 5.^

Divina virtute dum orat, supra solis radios sublevatur, ac intra
monasterii muros latus et in ecclesiae trullo portatus, miro modo
ascendit.
8.(1117.) Vita S. Aldhclmi, 9.8

luste et pie peracto Missae officio, eodemque ministris suis porrigente
casulam . . . ita firmitcr et constanter solis radio pependit.

> AA. SS. Boll., i Feb.. 161. 2 AA. SS. Boll., iii Sept., 808.

> AA. SS. Boll., ii lul.. 334. ♦ AA. SS. Boll., ii Jan.. 204.
' AA. SS. Boll., i Mart., 479-

• AA. SS. Boll., iv Sept.. 126. From the Chronicon Cameracense, covering the period
500-1051.

' AA. SS. Boll., i lun.. 238. A Latin panegyric, written before 11 17. refers to this

miracle, —

Et super solis radios canoro

Tolleris ore.
« AA. SS. Boll., vi Mai., 86.

The Bridge of Siinheams. 83

9. (1160.) De Miraculis S. Roberti Casae-Dei.*

Avenione in loco, eo sermonem ad populum faciente, cum eius chiro-
thecas duo clericelli in ecclesia inventas ludendo invicem in ecclesiam
proiicerent, in solis radio visae sunt remanere pendendo.

10. (Twelfth century,) Vita S. Florentii Episc. Argent., 6.-

Beatus autem Florentius se circumspiciens, a fenestra solarem radium
contra se dirigi attendit. . . . Sciens ergo quia omnia possibilia
credenti, clamidem exutam eidem lineae sustinendam commisit.

11. (Twelfth century.) Vita S. Etheldredae, 161.'

Dominum oravit, et chirothecam abstractam et simul revolutam, super
radium solis, qui prope ex fenestra clare radians emicuit, incunc-
tanter posuit.

12. (c. 1200.) Vita S. Cunegundis, iii, 13.^

Dexterae manus suae chirothecam detrahens, cum nullus quo reciperet
adesset, a se reiecit, quam radius solis per fenestrae rimulas intrans
suscepit.^

13. (1225.) Acta S. Amabilis Ricomagi, 6.®

Deus . . . solis radium dedit illi in obsequium, qui contra sui natur-
am tamquam fidelis famulus, eius sustineret sagum sive tegmina man-
uum.

14. (Thirteenth century.) Vita B. Alrunae, 5.''

Quadam enim die . . . radium solis . . . vestium suarum firmum fecit
retinaculum.

15. (Fourteenth century.) Anecdote of St. Utho of Metz.*

Cum enim ipse Karolus Magnus provinciam Bavariae obtineret, accidit
quod transitum faceret in venatione positus . . . viditque ibidem
hominem dispositione eremitica existentem . . . et bipennem cum
quo ligna exscindebat, ad radios solares suspendentem.

16. (1420.) Vita S. Petri Caelestini, — Suppl. 30.^

Cum enim . . . cucullam exuisset . . . remansit cuculla divinitus sus-
pensa in aere ad solis radium, transeuntem per fenestram vitream.

17. (1518.) Vita B. Amati Saludeciensis, 14.1"

Sol radios ex quadam fenestra per opaca domus transmittens trabis
speciem efificiebat, eique suberat discus, super quern vir Dei pallium
ponere solitus fuerat, quod tunc . . . vir Dei cum apposuisset, reman-
sit in sublime radiis solaribus detentum.

« AA. SS. Boll., iii Apr.. 327.

« AA. SS. Boll., iii Nov., 401.

» AA. SS. Boll., iv lun., 576.

• AA. SS. Boll., i Mart., 275.

' The author continues, "Tale ctiam quid in beati viri Goaris vcste alicjuamio divina
virtute ostensum fuisse legitur. qui ... a summa maiestate per maioris luniinaris hono-
ratur famulatum." This statement is of interest as giving evidence that the hagiographers
were in the habit of comparing notes.

• AA. SS. Boll., ii lun.. 467.

' B. Pez, Thes. Anecd.. ii. pt. 3. p. 259.

• Andreae Ratisbonensis Chronicon. B. Pez.. Ibid., iv. pt. 3. p. 446.

• AA. SS. Boll., iv Mai.. 505. This saint was afterward Pope Cxleatinus V.

'* AA. SS. Boll., ii Mai., 351. As far as is known, this saint is the last of whom the
miracle of levitation by solar rays has been recorded.

84 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

II. DOCUMENTS OF UNKNOWN DATE.^

1. St. Alexander of Fiesoli.*

V'ir namque Dei . . . arrepto itinere Papiani devenit ad impcratorem
Lolharium. Et ingressus ad eum, mox pileum ubi abstraxit, statim
solis sphacra id per dimidium fere horam sustinuit.

2. St. Cuthniann of Stcnnyng.'

Consuevit indumenta nianualia, quae chirothecas appellamus, radiis
solaribus appendcre.

3. St. David of Cluny.<

Cum iam . . . oculi eius caligarent, radium solis per fenestram intran-
tem forte conspicatus, et paxillum esse ratus, in eo chirothecas
appendit.*

4. St. Hathebrand of Antwerp.*

Quodam tempore cum Abbas cum fratribus secundum consuetudinem
in pratis laboravit, subito de caelo pluvia non modica super ipsos
erupit. Cessante pluvia, cucuUa sua se Pater exuit, et tunc quasi ex
turbatione in splendorem solis suspendit.

5. St. Hildewert of Bern.^

Chirothecae eius, quas e manibus suis ante consecrationem extraxerat,
a radio solis in aere visae fuerunt tribus horis sustentatae.

6. St. Jerome of Pavia.'

Cum ad regem vocatus, festinus venisset, aestuque ex itinere vcxatus,
pallium exuisset, illud radio solis . . . subsistere visum est.

7. St. Leonorius.'

Dum . . . vestem manicalem exueret, atque ad dexteram partem ponere
speraret radius solis per fenestram egrediens, suscepit fortiter.

8. St. Lucanus.i"

Cum Romam pervenisset Pontificemque adiisset, pallium suum radio
solari, tamquam vecti impositum mirabiliter substitit.

9. St. Milburg."

De capite suo sacrum velamen quasi nescia proiecit. Nee mora, solis
radius, divino nutu, antequam tcrram tangeret illud suscepit.

• Though the exact dates of the following documents are unknown, it is certain that
none of them can be as early as the Vita Brigidae.

» AA. SS. Boll., i lun.. 750.

» AA. SS. Boll., ii P'eb.. 199. Vita S. Cuthmanni, 11.

• J. Vastovii, Vitis Aquilonia, p. 49, ed. 1708 (compiled, 1623).

» "In the year 1205 there lived in Slagelse a priest of St. Peter's Church, who was
known by the name of Holy Anders. . . . He was so holy a man that when he performed
his devotions in the open air, he was wont to hang his cap {cap pa? i.e., cowl) and gloves
on the sunbeams." — B. Thorpe, Northern Mythology, ii, pp. 258-259.

• AA. SS. Boll., vii lul.. 166. Vita S. Hathebrandi, 7.
» AA. SS. Boll., vi Mai., 71J.

• AA. SS. Boll., V. Jul., 322. Cited from F. Ferrari, Catalogus Sanctorum (compiled
before 1626).

• AA. SS. Boll., i lul. 122. Vita S. Leonorii, vii. The biography is pure fiction; no
such person as St. Leonorius ever existed.

" AA. SS. Boll., V lul. 70. Cited from F. Ferrari, Catalogus Sanctorum.
" J. Capgrave, Nova Legenda Angliae, ii, 191 (ed. C. Horstmann).

The Bridge of Sunbeams. 85

10. Sts. Wulfhadius and Rufinus.^

Prostravit re rex poenitens iuxta verbum sancti sacerdotis in oratione,
levansque oculos vidit vestimenta sacerdotalia super radium solis
dependere. . . . Surgens ergo protinus accessit . . . suasque chiro-
thecas et baltheum posuit super radium, quas statim ceciderunt in
terram.

Of the foregoing hagiographic records of the miracle of levitation
by solar rays, the earhest is contained in the biography of St. Brigit,
Abbess of Kildare, which dates back to the seventh century. Of all
Irish saints, none was more highly honored than St. Brigit. She is
called "the branch with blossoms, the mother of Jesus," by St. Ultan,^
who prays to her in these words : —

Brigit, ever excellent woman, golden sparkling flame.

Lead us to the eternal kingdom, the dazzling resplendent sun.'

Broccan, whose hymn dates from the ninth century,* records the
story of St. Brigit and the sunbeam.^ He calls her "the Ladder to
peoples to attain to the kingdom of Mary's Son, — a striking bit of
symbolism which reappears in the Latin elegiac verses prefixed to the
version of her biography by Chilienus.' Another version of the sun-
beam incident, according to which St. Brigit meets with the famous
St. Brenainn, or Bredanu, as found in a Middle Irish homily, is as
follows : —

Once upon a time, Brenainn came from the west of Ireland to Brigit,
to the plain of LifTey. For he wondered at the fame that Brigit had in
miracles and marvels. Brigit came from her sheep to welcome Brenainn.
As Brigit entered the house, she put her wet cloak on the rays of the sun,
and they supported it like pot-hooks. Brenainn told his gillie to put his
cloak on the same rays, and the gillie put it on them, but it fell from them
twice. Brenainn himself put it, the third time with anger and wrath, and
the cloak staid upon them.*

> AA. SS. Boll.. V lul.. s8i.

• "In chroib comblathaib in mathir Isu" (Ultan's Hymn, c. 650).

VV. Stokes and J. Stracuan, Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, ii, 325.
' " Brigit be bithmaith, breo 6rde oiblech,

Donfe don bithflaith in gren tind toidlech." — Ibid., p. 325.

• W. Stokes and J. Strachan, Thesaurus Paleohibernicus, ii., xxix.

• "On a day of rain she herded sheep, in the middle of a plain.

She afterwards spread her mantle in the house on a sunbeam."

W. Stokes and J. Strachan, Ibid., pp. 335-.^36.
Broccan's Hymn, as the editors point out (Ibid., p. xxix), is the source of the biography
by Cogitosus, written about 835. Compare A^\. SS. Boll., i Feb., 136, this passage, in
turn, being borrowed directly by the author of the Biography of St. Hathcbrand.

• " Amra irarl do thuathaib d'ascnam flatha Maicc .\Iaire." — Ibid., ii, p. 328.
' AA. SS. Boll., i Feb.. 141: —

"Scala parata viris, pueria excelsa, puellis,
Matribus et Sanctis, tendit ad astra poli."

• W. A. Stokes, Three Middle Irish Homilies .p. 83.

86 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

The interpretation of these allusions is to show that, by the time
when biographies of St. Brigit had come to be circulated, she had been
connected in legendary lore with a group of beliefs that belong to the
category of solar mythology. Nor is the life of St. Brigit unique.
Similar references and allusions are numerous in the Latin hagiography
of Ireland. Waiving the debatable question, whether elements of
Irish Paganism have filtered into Irish Christianity, we may depend
on documents to show that a number of legends and miracles, including
levitation by solar rays, were already part of the Christian ecclesiastical
tradition, and came with it to Ireland.

The hagiography testifies to an activity peculiarly associated with
the life of the monks. Through them the tradition of sainthood
developed. Now, monasticism originated in Egypt; both Pagan and
Jewish religious communities existed in pre-Christian times in the Nile
valley.^ The Egyptian St. Anthony was, according to tradition, the
first Christian monk.^ The first monastery was founded at Tabennisi,
by St. Pachomius, soon after the year 300. Linguistic evidence also,
that Egypt was the centre whence monasticism was diffused over
Europe, is furnished by the word "frock" (the monastic dress), also
by Glocke and Schelle, names of bells, — all of which are Coptic' The
monastic character of the early Irish Church is a well-known fact.
The appearance in Irish hagiographs of elements of legendary lore
which are found in similar Coptic documents of an earlier date, only
adds to the evidence for the contact of Ireland and Egypt.

Instances of such documentary parallels may here be put in evidence.

I. Fingers of a saint give light or fire.

(Coptic Testimony.) Vie de Schnoudi (written by Besa of Atripe,
about 457).
J'ai vu les dix doigts du petit gar^on, ^tant comme dix lampes de feu.'*

> Dom. Cuthbert Butler, "The Lausiac History of Palladius" (Texts and Studies, ed.
J. Armitage Robinson, vol. vi, pp. 229-230). The native priests of Memphis and Heli-
opolis lived an eremitical life of seclusion and austerity. Many Alexandrian Jews, in the
time of Philo, left their homes to watch and pray in the wilderness.

* The Decian persecution in the year 250, when many Christians fled to the deserts
and mountains, transmitted the spiritual impetus of monasticism to Christianity.

' Frock. — " Bei MonchsRewand darf cs nicht befremdem wenn das Etymon in einem
koptischen Worte wurzeln sollte, flenn auf die Gestaltung der Monchsregeln hat die The-
baide gewiss einen grossen Einfluss ausgeubt." — L. Wiener, "Materialien zu einer
Geschichte der Kleidung" (Revue de Linguistique, xliv, p. 138).

Glocke. — "Dieses Klopfen oder Glockenlauten heisst auf koptisch kolh, kolch, kolah.
Aus diesem stammt nun vlat. clocca, gerade wie kopt. fork zu vlat. froccus gefilhrt hat."
— L. Wiener, "Byzantinisches" (Zeitschrift f Ur Romanische Philologie, xxxv, p. 468).

Schelle. — "Skella ist aber das koptische ^kil, skilkil, ikelkil, kelkil, Glocke." — L.
Wiener. Ibid., p. 468.

* E. Amelineau. "Monuments pour servir St. I'Histoire de L'Egypte chretienne" (Vie
de Schnoudi, p. 4). Compare also, p. 76.

The Bridge of Sunbeams. 87

(Irish Testimony.) Vita S. Patricii (compiled by Jocelin about 1185).
Videbantur enim intuentium oculis de digitis sancti pueruli orantis,
pro stillulis aquae, scintillae igneae respergi.^

2. Breath of a saint issues in light or fire.

(Coptic Testimony.) Apophthegmes sur Saint Macaire.

Et le petit dit cinq psaumes de six versets chacun, avec un alleluia,
et k chaque verset une flamme de feu sortait de sa bouche et mon-
tait au ciel.*
(Irish Testimony.) Vita S. Patricii.

Videbatur ex ore pueri Patricii pro flatu, fiamma processisse.'

3. Fingers of a saint pierce stones.

(Coptic Testimony.) Vie de Schnoudi (457).

Alors il s'approcha du morceau de pierre qui 6tait pr^ de Ici: il le
saisit entre son doigt et son pouce, — aussitot il le perfora comme
de la cire pr^s du feu.*
(Irish Testimony.) Vita S. Brigidae (657-662).

In alio die B. Brigida digitis suis petram durissimam perforavit.*

The above instances are chosen as being the most obvious and
notable; the list of such parallels, however, is not thereby exhausted.®
As yet, no exact parallel, corresponding in detail as well as in general
to the miracles of levitation by solar rays, has been found in the Coptic
hagiography. Instances are recorded, however, of levitation by light,
described as a "cloud of light," or "a glowing vapor," of which the
following are representative: —

1. (457.) Vie de Schnoudi.

Pendant qu-il pensait ainsi, voici qu'une nuee de lumi&re descendit
du ciel, le prit avec son disciple, I'enleva dans les airs, et s'envola avec
lui.'

Et lorsqu'il eut dit amen, voici qu'une nuage de lumi^re I'enleva, et
I'emmena dans la ville capitale du royaume.'

2. Vie de Saint Jean de Lycopolis.

Voici qu'une nuee lumineuse vint vers lui, dans laquelle il y avait une
grande lumiiire et un grand parfum. Sur I'heure il monta sur la
nu6e.»

* AA. SS. Boll., ii Mart.. 541. Compare also, p. 572: "Continuo illius quinque diKiti
velut quinque radii solia lucidissimi etTuIserunt . . . totam provinciatn illuniinantes."
In Coptic, the comparison of a briRht liRht to solar rays is a stereotyped commonplace.

• E. Am61incau, Annalcs du Musee Cuimet, xxv, p. 211.

» AA. SS. Boll., ii Mart., 541. Compare Ibid., p. 572. "Praedicabat S. Patricius
cuidam viro . . . videbaturque ci quod ex ore Patricii fiamma egrediena aures et os suum
ingrcdcrctur."

♦ E. Am^lincau, Monuments pour scrvir, etc., p. 16.
» AA. SS. Boll., i Feb., 170.

• In a subsequent article. "Lac pro Sanguine," the provenience of Egyptian lore in
Latin hagiography will be treated more fully.

' E. Amelincau, Monuments pour scrvir d rilistolrc de I'Egypto chrctiennc, p. ij.
» Ibid., p. ii. • Ibid., p. 061.

88 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Si je langais cette lettre en haut vers cette nu6e lumincuse . . . mon
Seigneur, mon Seigneur. . . . Et sur I'heure il langa la lettre au ciel.^

The light and fire miracles which appear in Christian hagiographs
are quite correctly set in relation to the myth and ritual of solar
deities, such myths having become literalized as events in the lives of
saints. Egypt, the first home of Christian monasticism, had, for three
thousand years at least, maintained an elaborate and complicated
system of sun-worship. Remnants even of the cultus passed into
Christianity among the Copts. St. Coluthus, on his fast-days, kept his
eyes fixed on the solar orb from its rising to its setting. ^ It is, then,
in Eg^'pt, that we must look for the origin of the miracle of levitation
by solar rays.

In the " Pyramid Texts," the oldest monuments of the native Eg>^p-
tian religion, ^ are found already records of a doctrine to the effect that
the king ascends to heaven on a ladder of sunbeams, there to join the
company of the gods. In witness whereof, the following documents
may here be put in evidence.

1. Unis (c. 2625 B.C.).

Unis ascends upon the ladder which his father Re hath made for him.*

2. Pepi i (c. 2550 B.C.).

Meri-re has put down this thy radiance as a stairway under his feet.'

3. Pepi i.

The spirits of HeliopoHs put down a stairway for him."

4. Pepi i.

He ascends to heaven on the ladder of God.^

5. Pepi i.

Thou hast given him the ladder of God, thou hast given him the ladder
of Set.8

6. Pepi ii (c. 2475 B.C.).

They have made thee a ladder, thou goest to heaven.'

This imagery appears over and over again in these texts. ^° In the
event that none of the gods would help him, it was believed to lie in
the monarch's power to make a ladder for himself, as illustrated by
the following utterance: —

* E. Am^lineau, Monuments pour servir, etc., p. 663.

* G. Zoega, Catalogus codicum copticorum manuscriptorum, p. 44.

* These texts are magical-liturgical formulas, inscribed on the walls of the Pyramid-
tombs to insure the deceased ruler immortal life. See J. H. Breasted, Development of
Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, pp. 70-117.

* K. Sethe, Die Altagyptischen Pyramidentexte, 390. All references to the Pyramid
Texts are to this edition.

* Ihid., 1 108. • Ibid., 1090. ^ Ibid., 979.

* Ibid., 974. • Ibid., 1474.

'" Compare Pyr., 468, 472. 479, 547, 751, 941, 971, 974-976, 978-980, 1090, 1108, 1253,
1431, 1474, 2070. 2082.

The Bridge of Sunbeams. 89

Homage to thee, ladder of God, — homage to thee, ladder of Set! Stand
up, ladder of God, — stand up, ladder of Set, — stand up, ladder of Horus! ^

Its mystic name also was a word wherewith to conjure.

He hath set up the ladder, — he goeth upon it in its name of "Thou,
(ladder) goest to heaven!"*

Thou goest upon it in its name, M'kt!^

From the ritual of the days of the Pyramid kings, the belief in the
ascent by a ladder to heaven passed into the great body of magical
scriptures known as the " Cofifin Texts," * and lastly into the " Book of
the Dead." 5

The contact of Egypt and the West, as has been pointed out, due
to the spread of monasticism, facilitated the diffusion, into the Latin
hagiographic tradition, of legends and ideas native to Egypt, among
others, the "ladder of light." Out of a natural tendency toward
literalization of the symbolic, grew the miracle of levitation by light-
rays, in particular, by rays of the sun. The ballad of "The Bitter
Withy," in which this miracle appears, as derived from the hagiog-
raphy, acquires for us an additional interest through the literary
genealogy which carries the legend of the Bridge of Sunbeams ulti-
mately back to the ancient dwellers in the valley of the Nile as they
made homage to their Lord, the Son of the Sun: —

Teti, thou springest, thou ascendest the radiance, thyself a radiant one,
on the passage-way to Heaven.^

1640 Cambridge Street,
Cambridge, Mass.

> Pyr., 971.

* Ibid., 1 43 1.

* Ibid., 479. Egypt, m'kl ; Coptic, mouki ("ladder").

* J. H. Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 279.

* E. A. W. Budge, The Book of the Dead, xcviii, 5, cxlix, ii. "I set up a ladder to
heaven amongst the gods," clii, 7.

* Pyr.. 751-

90 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

BALLADS.

CONTRIBUTED BY EMELYN E. GARDNER.

The following version of "Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight" (Child,
II, 14a) I obtained in November, 1912, from Miss Frances Payette, a
student of mine in the State Normal College, Ypsilanti, Mich. Miss
Payette learned it from her mother, who had heard it sung by an
English uncle of hers, John Knowles by name, some time before 1862.
Mr. Knowles lived near Bay City, Mich.

I. LADY ISABEL AND THE ELF-KNIGHT.

1. There lived a false knight in London did dwell,

Who courted a lady fair;
And all that he wanted of this pretty maid
Was to take her life away.

2. "Go get part of your father's gold

And part of your mother's fee,
And we will go to some strange country,
Where married we shall be."

3. She went and got part of her father's gold

And part of her mother's fee;
Oh she went, oh she went, to her father's stable-door.
Where the horses stood fifty by three!

4. She mounted on a milk-white steed,

And he on an iron gray;
Oh they rode, oh they rode, to some deep water's side.
Four hours before it was day!

5. "Light off, light off! my pretty fair maid.

Light off, light off!" said he;
"For here Fve drowned six ladies gay.
And the seventh one you shall be."

6. "Oh, stoop and bend these briers down

That grow so near the brim.
So they won't entangle my curly locks,
Or tear my milk-white skin."

7. He stooped to bend those briers down

That grew so near the brim;
This maiden, she ran with all her might,
And plunged the false knight in.

Ballads. 9 1

8. "Swim on, swim on, ye cruel false knight,

Swim on, swim on!" said she;
"For here you drowned six ladies gay,
But the seventh has drownM thee,"

9. She mounted on the milk-white steed,

And she led the iron gray;
Oh she rode, oh she rode, to her father's stable-door,
Two hours before it was day!

10. The old man, he being sick in bed

And hearing what the parrot did say,
"Oh, what are you prattling, my pretty parrot,
So long before it is day?"

11. "Oh, hold your tongue, my pretty parrot!

And tell no tales on me;
Your cage shall be made of the best iron and gold,
And hung in the old oak-tree."

The following ballad was recited to me by Miss Mildred Pahl, a
student of mine in the State Normal College, Ypsilanti, Mich. Miss
Pahl learned it from her mother, who, in her turn, learned it from her
father, after his return from California, some time in the sixties. He
had heard it sung there by the miners.

2. JOHNNY TROY.

1. Come, all ye daring bushrangers.

And outlaws of the land,
Who scorn to live in slavery
Or wear a convict's band.

2. Come, listen to my story,

To that most solemn lay
Of those most mournful days.
The days of Johnny Troy.

3. Troy was born in Dublin,

That city of great fame,
Brought up by honest parents:
The world knows the same,

4. I'^or the robbing of a widow

He was sent o'er the main,
For seven long years, to New South Wales,
To wear a convict's chain.

5. There were Troy, Bill Harrington,

Tim Jackson, and Jack Dun,
Four of the bravest heroes
Who ever handled gun.

92 Journal of American Folk-Lorc.

6. Said Troy to Bill Harrington,

"Load every man his piece;
For this very night I intend to fight
Against the horse police."

7. There were six well-armed policemen,

All seated in the bow;
And they were none surprised
When Troy commenced his row.

8. And they were none surprised

When Troy he made a rush.
And six more as brave heroes
Rushed bravely in the bush.

9. "And it's now we've gained our liberty,

Our escape we will make sure;
We'll smash and break those handcuffs,
When once we reach the shore.

10. "When once we reach the shore, brave boys.

We'll shout and sing for joy;
We'll hiss and stone those horse police,
And sing ' Bold Johnny Troy.' "

11. They chanced to meet an old man.

All on the king's highway.
And Troy rode up to him,

While these words he did say,

12. " Your gold watch and your money

I quickly do demand,
Or I'll blow out your brains instantly.
If you refuse to stand."

13. "It's neither watch or clock I ever had,"

The old man then replied;
" But for a wife and family
I daily do provide."

14.

" Oh, if that be so, you sha'n't be robbed,"
Said gallant Johnny Troy.

15. Troy then mounted on his steed.

And before he rode away.
He said, " Here's fifty pounds, old man;
'Twill help you on your way.

16. " The poor I'll serve both night and day,

The rich I will annoy;
The people round know me right well;
They call me ' Johnny Troy.' "

Ballads. 93

The following fragment of a ballad was brought to Michigan, from
the California gold-miners of the early sixties, by the grandfather of
Miss Mildred Pahl, a student in the State Normal College, Ypsilanti,
Mich.

1. I suppose you have heard of all the talking
Of that noted horse-thief, Wakken;

He was caught in Calaveras,

And he couldn't stand the joke,

So the rangers cut his head off; they've got it now in soak.

Chorus.

Now I warn everybody not to ramble.

Nor to fight nor steal nor gamble;

For you'll never have a cent.

All your money will be spent,

And you to Sacramento in the chain-gang be sent.

2. Just before Wakken was taken.

He killed a Chinaman and stole his bacon;
Then he went to Sonora,
Where he killed eleven more.

And a big digger Injun which made the twenty-four.
Ypsilanti, Mich.

94 Journal of American Folk- Lore.

THE CROW SUN DANCE.

BY ROBERT H. LOWIE.

The Crow Sun Dance was not an annual ceremony, but was cele-
brated at irregular intervals in order to carry out a vow. This vow
was made only by a man who, in the extremity of his grief over a
relative's death at the hands of an enemy, wished to wreak vengeance
on the offending tribe by undergoing the most painful but most
effective mode of mourning. Whenever a Crow contemplated a move
against the enemy, he sought to obtain a supernatural revelation
showing where and under what circumstances the enemy would be
overcome. In the Sun Dance this vision was sought through a dis-
tinctive agency, — a sacred doll, such as was owned by a few of the
shamans in the tribe. One of these shamans was hired to supply
his doll, to instruct the mourner, and to direct the entire ceremony in
his pupil's behalf. This medicine-man stood approximately in the
same relation to the mourner as a man owning a war-medicine to one
who owned none and was obliged to hire the owner's, together with
requisite instructions as to its use. As soon as the pledger of the Sun
Dance saw the desired vision, the ceremony immediately came to a
stop. In one particular case, frequently referred to by my informants,
it was stopped even before a vision was seen, because an enemy had
been found sneaking into the camp, and had been slain on the spot.
The end sought in the Sun Dance having thus been attained, further
procedure was regarded as unnecessary. Generally speaking, we
might define the Crow Sun Dance as a form of mourning that sought
to compass the death of an enemy in retaliation for the death of a kins-
man through a vision induced by a specific sacred object.

The first question that thrusts itself on the attention of the student
of Plains Indian ethnology is, Why should such an irregularly recurring
mourning procedure be called by the same name as, say, the Cheyenne
Sun Dance, which is pledged to preserve the devotee or his family
from sickness? To one acquainted with the Cheyenne data, the
answer is obvious when he glances at the chapter-headings of a descrip-
tion of the Crow ceremonial. Though the purpose for which the Crow
ceremony is held differs absolutely from that of the Cheyenne cere-
mony, there is, in part, exactly the same ceremonial mode of procedure.
Both tribes have a several days' preliminary performance in a prepara-
tory lodge; both send out expeditions to select a tree for the centre pole
of the Sun Dance Lodge ; in both cases the tree is treated as though it
were an enemy; and so forth. If we compared the Crow with the

The Crow Sun Dance. 95

Blackfoot, we should get some additional parallels, such as the promi-
nence of a virtuous woman in the ceremony, and the collection of
bufifalo-tongues before the beginning of the ceremony proper. And
among the Kiowa we should even find duplicated our Crow medicine-
doll. In other words, we call the Crow ceremony "Sun Dance"
because, while the theory of its performance is quite different from
that of other Sun Dances, the performance itself is in several features
the exact counterpart of the Sun Dance as found elsewhere.

It is not my object to deal at present with the historical problem,
fascinating though it is, as to what tribes share which elements of the
Crow complex, but to call attention to another matter. It follows,
from what I have said, that the Crow Sun Dance is not a simple integral
phenomenon, but is the product of secondary association. What I
should like to lay stress on, however, is not merely the complex char-
acter of the ceremony, but certain psychological concomitants of the
complexity. Corresponding to the cleavage into the objective phase
of the performance and the avowed object of the performance, there is
a difference in psychological attitude toward the ceremony, that corre-
sponds to the difference between the esoteric and the exoteric attitude
which Professor Boas has frequently emphasized. The Sun Dance
of the Crow is especially suggestive on this point, because practically
the entire tribe participated: hence the performers themselves were
divided into an esoteric group, composed of the mourner and his
shamanistic instructor, and an exoteric group, including every one else.
But this did not by any means exhaust the differences in point of
view that occurred among the participants. We have, in the first
place, a number of men who voluntarily fasted with the mourner, and
in addition tortured themselves, for the purpose of getting a vision.
The activity of these persons was genuinely religious, like that of the
mourner himself, but in no way identical with it in purpose. The
volunteers did not seek visions that were to duplicate the mourner's,
but sought an individual revelation such as, on other occasions, they
might have sought in solitude. Then we have the activity of famous
warriors for whom the occasion was a splendid advertisement. They
enacted or recited their exploits, received public recognition for their
bravery through special duties that fell on their shoulders, and had
special privileges thrust upon them. Two chaste women and one
chaste man were also rendered conspicuous by special duties of an
honorable nature that were imposed upon them. Finally, to mention
only the most important features, there were the undistinguished
members of the community, of cither sex, for whom the entire pro-
ceedings were an occasion of boundless jollity and licensed philander-
ing, in part a dramatic performance of war-exploits past or future,
and altogether a spectacle on the grandest scale within tribal com-
prehension.

96 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Between these various activities and between the underlying psycho-
logical attitudes, there is no logical connection; they certainly in no
way promote the ostensible object of the ceremony. Shall they, there-
fore, as might be assumed by some, be regarded as unessential or
intrusive? To do so would be, in my opinion, to misconceive the
very essence of ceremonial life. Ceremony for ceremony's sake is, I
think, the secret of ceremonial activity; hence the vagueness, if
not total absence, of any Intelligible purpose for much ceremonial
activity; hence the stability of many objective features in the
absence of any stable subjective associations with those features.
Why need a Cheyenne bother about the absence of logical con-
nection between a dramatic onslaught on a tree and the cure of a
sick relative, if all he wants is a show? It is as immaterial to him
as is, for an election-eve celebrator, the connection of confetti-
throwing, or tooting of a horn, with the greatest happiness of the
greatest number. That there is a religious tinge in much of the Sun
Dance procedure, it would be vain to deny ; but perhaps it exists only
in the same sense in which there is a religious atmosphere about nearly
all of Indian life. The point I make is, that, as a tribal performance,
the Sun Dance is not essentially a religious performance, but a free
show. All the religious ends sought could, on Crow principles, be
sought without any elaboration, in the solitude of a several days' fast
on a mountain-top. The elaboration, nevertheless, exists; hence it
must have an additional psychological background. That psycho-
logical background is, it seems to me, similar to that of the Roman
festivals and circenses, and different from the psychology of the familiar
lonely vigil. And the question I should like to bring up for discussion
is the following: Is this not equally true of other great ceremonies,
such as the Midewiwin, the Snake Dance, the secret societies of the
Northwest Coast? Is not the alleged object of these performances a
rationalistic mystification? Perhaps their distinctive features are
correctly characterized by Swan in his account of Northwest Coast
festivals: "It will be seen that the public part of these performances
are rather in the nature of amusements akin to our theatrical panto-
mimes than of religious observances, though they are religiously
observed." ^

American Museum of Natural History,
New York City.

• Quoted in Boas, "The Social Organization and tiie Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl
Indians" (Report of the United States National Museum, 1895), P- 644.

Some Aspects of the Folk-Lore oj the Central Algonkin. 97

SOME ASPECTS OF THE FOLK-LORE OF THE CENTRAL

ALGONKIN.

BY ALANSON SKINNER.

The material here presented is the fruit of six summers' field-trips
for the American Museum among the Eastern and Plains Cree, the
Northern and Plains Ojibwa, and the Menominee, supplemented by the
continuous field-work of Mr. John V. Satterlee (himself a Menominee)
among his own people and the Potawatomi, Ojibwa, and Ottawa,
once of Manitowoc, Wis., now dwelling in the hardwood forests in the
northern part of the State.

Additional data on the region and groups near by have been gathered
from the classic sources, Riggs, Dorsey, Lowie, Schoolcraft, Blackbird,
Copway, Peter Jones, Dr. William Jones, Lasley, and a host of others.

So far as I am aware, nearly all folk-lore the world over is comprised
more or less of certain stereotyped concepts and properties set in
different fashions on separate stages. In European folk-lore we find
the fairy godmother, the imprisoned or enchanted princess, and so on.
With them are frequently associated certain objects or properties, so
that one never thinks of the witch without her broomstick or her
black cat, and the like. Without these concepts and their concomi-
tant properties, a fairy-tale could not be told. This is also true of
North America; and, selecting the Lake Algonkin tribes and their
neighbors of the same stock, I shall endeavor to give a list of these
phenomena. That these properties and concepts are peculiar to the
group I do not claim. I know, however, that they arc found not only
among the Ojibwa, Crec, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk and Fox, and
Menominee, but certainly also among some of their Siouan neighbors.

A study of the stereotyped properties utilized in Algonkin folk-lore
of the Lakes region is interesting, and may perhaps prove of value
in comparison with similar concepts found elsewhere in North America.
By "properties" I mean objects found in the possession of, or asso-
ciated with, the hero, and which arc always suggested to the auditors
of a story by reference to him, just as the average school-child immedi-
ately thinks of the hatchet when George Washington is named. Some
of the most famous of these, exclusive of those found only in the culture-
hero cycle (which I will not enumerate), are: —

I. The Magic Canoe. — Among Menominee, Cree, and Ojibwa,
we find frequent references to this properly, generally, but not always,

VOL. XXVII. — NO. 103. — 7.

98 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

in connection with the "Evil Fathcr-in-Law" cycle. This is a canoe
which goes by itself when its owner raps on its bottom with his paddle,
or cries, "Nitcimaun, pon!" or "Tcimaun pol!"

2. The Inexhaustible Kettle. — This is a vessel of almost micro-
scopic size, which usually holds only a single bean or grain of corn and
a shred of meat; but, no matter how often it is emptied, it fills itself
again until the user is satisfied. It is generally in the possession of an
old woman. Variants occur, but always with the idea of inexhausti-
bility.

3. The Automatic Kettle. — This concept is not so widely known
as the preceding. It consists of a kettle, which, at the command of
its owner, fills itself, hangs itself over the fire, and cooks food.

4. The Miraculous Pipe. — A pipe, which, when smoked by the
hero, gives forth clouds of turkeys and pigeons instead of smoke, but,
when used by the impostor who enchants the hero, produces only dung
beetles and flies.

5. The Invincible Weapon. — So far, I have noted this only among
the Cree. This is an arrow which never misses.

6. Fire Arrow. — Cree and Menominee. This is an arrow which
sets fire to whatever it strikes.

7. The Singing Snowsiioes. — A man has a pair of snowshoes
which, when he is returning from the hunt, precede him, singing like
birds, and fly through the smoke-hole into his lodge. Particularly
Menominee.

8. Bird Ear-rings. — A somewhat similar idea to the foregoing
is that of live birds worn as ear-rings, which also sing. Oak-gall ear-
rings occur. Both Menominee.

9. The Fisher-skin Medicine-Bag. — Ojibwa and Potawatomi
particularly. A bag which throughout the story aids its owner to
escape from various disasters, etc.

10. The Animal-head Ball. — A ball, really a lynx's head, which,
when batted or thrown at any object or person, bites it, and brings it
back.

11. The Winking-Club. — Peculiar to the Plains Cree. A club of
the ball-headed variety, the knob of which is carved to represent a
bird's head, the eyes of which wink from time to time.

12. The Mummified Dog. — A dried-up dog which is kept in a
box by the hero. When the hero is killed, his widow takes out the
dog, which comes to life, collects the bones, and howls over them,
and the hero revives. In a Menominee tale, little beavers are kept
in a tiny box. When the box is opened, they come and assist the
owner.

In addition to these set properties, we have also certain regular
types of action. These concepts are also widely distributed. I shall
give only a few.

Some Aspects of the Folk- Lore of the Central Algonkin. 99

1. Animal Foster-Parents. — A child, lost or deserted by its
parents, is adopted and brought up by animals, who impart to it
certain of their characteristic powers or attributes, which serve it in
good stead later on.

2. Animal Wife or Husband. — A human being marries an animal,
by whom a child is born. One parent or the other finds life with
animals or people intolerable, and leaves, taking the offspring, who
has supernatural qualities.

3. The Contest Motif. — More common than either of the pre-
ceding are stories woven about contests between either indi\iduals or
groups of individuals. These are races, games, or endurance tests.

4. Violation of a Taboo. — A man's familiar enjoins him not to
do a certain thing; he disobeys and is punished, often by being turned
into an animal.

5. Sun-Shover. — In order to delay the hero, the villain, to prolong
the day, shoves back the sun with his bow.

6. Bead-Spitter. — As the title implies, the spittle or excrement of
the hero is beads.

7. Monster and Thunder Contest. — The thunder-birds are
constantly at war with the powers beneath, particularly the horned
snakes. This occurs freciuently in the stories.

8. The Sacred Dreamer. — A man imbued with sacred power
performs a series of miraculous acts, usually freeing the world of
demons.

9. The Monster-Killer. — This is most apparent in the Lodge
Boy and Thrown-away Group. A child or dwarf, usually aided by a
twin-brother, destroys many monsters.

10. The Vengeance Moth-. — An animal or some natural force,
insulted by a human being, seeks vengeance, which it usually obtains.

11. The Sky Lover. — A man or woman marries a sky being in
human guise, generally only to be deserted in the end.

12. The Impostor. — A man who overcomes the hero, and takes
his place and lu)n()rs until found out.

I Nearly all the tribes in f|uestion begin their culture-hero stories

/with the statement thai "the ciillure-hero was walking" or "tra\el-

fling," and end them by saying that he has resumed his journey; and

many have set facetious formula- for the close of all other slorii-s. A

I Ml ins Cree will s;iy, "The ( liibs are falling;" a Menominee, ".And then

I came away."

Certain sets of magic phrases are apt to occur. The hero, in luing-
ing a slain cijmrade to life, cries (nit as he shoots an arrow inlo the air,
"Look out, the sky is falling!" or "Is this the way your grandfather
did when he went courting?" whereui)on the corpse comes to life.
Humorous (juotations from the culture-hero stories are used as by-
words, and every one is cognizant of them.

loo Journal of American Folk-Lore.

In the main, the longer stories or fairy-tales of the Menominee,
Ojibwa, Potawatomi, Cree, and probably the Ottawa, seem to fall
into one class. The types of action are remarkably similar.

The Eastern Dakota possess many elements and not a few entire
stories in common with the Ojibwa and Menominee. This is not to
be wondered at, as we know they have long been in contact with the
Algonkin peoples. With the Ojibwa, it is true, they have nearly al-
ways been at war; but they have been uniformly at peace with the
Menominee. Menominee warriors joined them against the Sauk and
Fox, and even against the Ojibwa. Moreover, the Sioux permitted
them to visit the red stone quarry and to gather pipe material. This
friendship for the Sioux was unique among the Central Algonkin, all
other tribes of the group execrating the Dakota.

It is, therefore, to be supposed that the Algonkin influences came to
the Eastern Sioux rather, although by no means wholly, through the
Menominee than through the Ojibwa; and Siouan influence made
itself felt through the Menominee, so far as the peaceful arts are con-
cerned, more than through the Ojibwa, although a study of the Plains
group of the tribe has shown the writer that in their war-customs
Siouan influence is manifest.

The Cree, on the other hand, have acquired, and must have brought
into the Central Algonkin region, northern currents from the Chippe-
wyan and Eskimo ; and although on the west they have introduced
elements possibly obtained from the Blackfoot group (by which I mean
Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegan), they have imposed their folk-lore upon
the Assiniboin without receiving much in return.^ On the south we
have so far observed no trace of southeastern influence.

Through the Great Lakes fur-trade route we have received from
the East undoubted Iroquois influence, though not a great deal; but
although long in contact with French and English fur-traders and pio-
neers, squaw-men and half-breeds, the Central Algonkin as a whole have
not absorbed much folk-lore that is European. In fact, the European
element is almost, but not quite negligible; and when it docs occur, it
instantly proclaims its origin by the introduction of such wholly
extraneous matter as magic violins, tablecloths, swords, coaches,
kings, princesses, castles. A very few talcs of possible negro origin
occur, and are as easily spotted. Central Algonkin folk-lore is wholly
Indian, with rare exceptions, which are always obvious.
American Museum of Natural History,
New York City.

• Lowie, " The Assiniboin" (Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of
Natural History, vol. iv); Skinner, Plains Cree MSS. (obtained in Saskatchewan, 1913),
"Notes on the Eastern Cree and Northern Saulteaux " (Anthropological Papers of the
American Museum of Natural History, vol. ix).

Annual Meeting of the American Folk-Lore Society. loi

TWENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN
FOLK-LORE SOCIETY.

The Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the American Folk-Lore
Society was held at the American Museum of Natural History, West
Assembly Hall, on Dec. 31, 1913.

The Council of the Society met at 9 a.m. Present, Messrs. Barry,
Boas, Dixon, Goddard, Lomax, Peabody; President Lomax in the
Chair.

It was then resolved that the Society should join the International
Congress of Americanists, to be held in October, 1914, and the Presi-
dent was instructed to appoint delegates to attend the Congress.

It was voted that the third issue of the Journal should be made a
special number, to be devoted to a review of subjects relating to
American folk-lore, the material for which is to be collected by Dr.
A. A. Goldenweiser. It was voted that extra copies should be printed,
to be placed at the disposal of members of the International Congress
of Americanists. The arrangement for this extra edition was left in
the hands of a special committee consisting of Messrs. Boas, Barry,
and Peabody.

The question of enlarging the Journal and adding to the number of
editors was discussed. On motion of Professor Boas a committee —
consisting of Professors Kittredge, Reed Smith, Goddard, and Boas —
was appointed to consider the feasibility of an annual edition of the
Journal to consist of six numbers. The selection of the place for the
next annual meeting was left to the former committee.

Messrs. Dixon and Peabody were appointed Auditing Committee.
The Council then met as nominating committee, and nominated
officers for the year 1914.

At 10 A.M. the meeting of the Society was called to order by Presi-
(knt John A. Lomax of the University of Texas. The reports of the
Secretary, Treasurer, and Editor of the Journal, were then read.

secretary's KICI'ORT.

During the year 1913 branches and societies have been established
in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Kentucky. The New Wnk
branch has disbanded.

'liie membership of the Soc iety is as follows: —

toil. IQtJ.

I lonorary inembera i.\ i.\

Life members i o 1 1

Annual members j.jo j.|5

Subscribing libraries and institutions 149 156

I02 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Annual members arc distributed as follows: —

Boston 99

Cambridge 42

Missouri 13

Illinois 9

North Carolina 8

South Carolina 5

Texas 20

At large 149

Charles Peabody, Secretary.
treasurer's report.

RECEIPTS.

Balance from last statement S996.83

Receipts from annual dues 923.95

Receipts from life-membership dues 50.00

Subscriptions to Publication Fund 98.00

Sales of Memoirs 3.50

Sales of Journal of American Folk-Lore 300.73

Gift from Franz Boas for clerical assistance to Editor 147.88

Gift from "Friend " 100.00

Mr. King, for sending out reprints 1.50

Balance from Treasury of Illinois Branch of the American Folk-Lore Society,

H. S. V. Jones, Treasurer 7.75

Interest, Old Colony Trust Company, Boston, Mass 18.85

$2648.99

DISBURSEMENTS.

The New Era Printing Company, Lancaster, Pa., for manufacturing Journal of

American Folk-Lore, Nos. 96-101 S1580.35

American Anthropological Association, '/12 cost of composition, mailing, etc., of

"Current Anthropological Literature" 416.57

The New Era Printing Company, Lancaster, Pa., for reprints for Mr. Mechling. . 6.45

Storage of catalogue, "Tenth Memoir," for one year 12.00

Insurance on catalogue 2.00

Dr. Franz Boas, Editor, expenses for 1912 35.00

Dr. Franz Boas, Editor, expenses for 1913 30.00

Dr. Franz Boas, Editor, for clerical assistance 247.88

Sending out reprints for Mr. King .68

Miss Emma Backus, folk-lore material 10.00

Refund of Gezer Roh6im 5.00

English draft listed as $6.00 was paid for $5.76 .24

Treasurer's postage and sundry expenses 16.18

Rebate to Cambridge Branch (M. L. Fernald, Treasurer, Cambridge, Mass.). . 19.00

Rebate to Boston Branch (S. B. Dean, Treasurer, Boston, Mass.) 63.75

Rebate to Missouri Branch (Miss Idrcss Head, Treasurer, St. Louis, Mo.) 6.00

Rebate to New York Branch (Stansl>ury Ilagar, Treasurer, New York, N. Y.) . . .50

Rebate to Texas Branch (Miss Etlicl Ilil)bs, Treasurer, Galveston, Tex.) 5.00

Rebate to North Carolina Branch (Frank C. Brown, Treasurer, Durham, N. C.) . . 12.00

Rebate to South Carolina Branch (Reed Smith, Treasurer) 5.00

Amount carried forward $2473.60

Annual Meeting of the American Folk-Lore Society. 103

Amount brought forward $2473.60

Rebate to Kentucky Branch (E. B. Fowler, Treasurer) 6.00

Old Colony Trust Company, Boston, Mass., for collecting checks 4.20

$2483.80
Balance to new account 165.19

$2648.99

Eliot W. Remick, Treasurer.

R. B. Dixo.v 1 Auditing

Charles Peabody / Commiltee.

editor's report.

During the current year six numbers have been issued, thus bringing
the Journal up to date. The last number of the current year is
expected to come out early in January. According to a vote of the
Society, the printing of the index to the first twenty \'olumes is not
to be started until a sufficient amount of money is available in the
treasury. Since during the past year the publication of six numbers
entailed a considerable expense, which was still further increased by
payments for "Current Anthropological Literature," nothing can be
done towards the publication of the index, which it is felt is very much
needed.

The amount of material offered for publication is becoming so
extended, that the Jfjurnal is no longer capable of providing space
for all of it. Since most of the contributions sent in are of value,
the Society ought to look forward towards an enlargement of the
Journal; and the Editor recommends that the Society endeavor to
make the Journal a bi-monthly publication, devoting throe numbers
tf) European folk-lore in America, three numbers to aboriginal Ameri-
can folk-lore. Contributions on the Spanish field ha\e been coming
in during the last few years, in increasing numbers, but il still remains
to work up properly the field of French and of Negro folk-lore.

The whole edition of the Journal and of the Memoirs has been
transferred to Messrs. G. E. Stechert &: Co., 151-155 West 25th Street,
New York City, whf) will luiiccforth be the selling agents of the
Society.

The following officers were ihtii clcclcfl for the \f.ir I()I4: —

Pki'.siDENT, Dr. Pliny ICarle ('•oddard, AuRrican Must'um of Natural
History, New York.

l"iusT Vice-President, Profissor (i. L. Kittnd-c, li,u\.inl I'ni-
vcrsity, Cambridge, Mass.

Second Vice-President, Professor J. Walter IVwkes, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, D. C.

Editor of the Journal, Professor Ir.in/. Ho.is, Cohiinbi.i I'ni-
versity, New York.

Associate ICditors, Professor Alexander I". Cli.inibirl.iiii .iiid
Professor G. L. Kittredge.

I04 Journal of American Folk-Lore .

Councillors. For three years: Roland B. Dixon, Mrs. Zelia Nut-
tall, A. L. Kroeber. For two years: Phillips Barry, J. B. Fletcher,
A. F. Chamberlain. For one year: R. H. Lowic, E. K. Putnam,
A. M. Tozzer. Past Presidents: J. R. Swanton, H. M. Belden, John
A. Lomax. Presidents of local branches: F. W. Putnam, W. F. Harris,
A. C. L. Brown, H. G. Shearin, Miss Mary A. Owen, J. F. Royster,
Reed Smith, Robert A. Law.

At 10.30 A.M. the scientific meeting of the Society was called to
order. President Lomax in the Chair. The Society met in conjunction
with the American Anthropological Association. The following papers
were read : —

John A. Lomax, presidential address, "Types of American Folk-
Songs."

Charles Peabody, "A Folk-Dance from the Charente, France."

Robert H. Lowie, "The Crow Sun Dance" (printed on pp. 94-96).

Truman Michelson, "Notes on the Folk-Lore and Mythology of
the Fox Indians."

Alanson Skinner, "Some Aspects of the Folk-Lore of the Central
Algonkin" (printed on pp. 97-100).

A. A. Goldenweiser, "The Iroquois Totemic Complex."

H. J. Spinden, "Home Songs of the Tewa Indians."

Reed Smith, "The Traditional Ballad in the South " (printed on pp.
55-66).

Henry C. Davis, "Negro Lore in South Carolina:" (a) "Talcs,
Sayings, and Superstitions;" (b) "Songs, A Plantation Dance befo'
de War."

Phillips Barry, "The Bridge of Sunbeams" (printed on pp. 79-89).

Mock Joya, "The Japanese New Year."

The following papers were read by title: "Siuslauan, a newly Dis-
covered Linguistic Family " (an ethnological sketch of the Wailatpuan
tribes of northeastern Oregon), by Leo J. Frachtenberg; and
"Introduction to the Study of Indian Religions," by Paul Radin.

Charles Peabody, Secretary.

THE JOURNAL OF

AMERICAN FOLK-LORE

Vol. XXVIL — APRIL-JUNE, 1914.— No. CIV.

NEW-MEXICAN SPANISH FOLK-LORE.^

BY AURELIO M. ESPINOSA.
VI. LOS TROVOS DEL VIEJO VILMAS.

The following New-Mexican Spanish popular poetic compositions
are parts or versions of a series of metrical discussions which seem to
have taken place among the popular poets {puetas) of Mexico and New
Mexico. The four versions were taken down from oral dictation, and,
to my knowledge, not a single verse of these has ever been published
before." These metrical discussions must have attracted wide atten-
tion ; and the verses there recited must have been very popular and
well known both during and after the time of their production, for
there are very few New Mexicans over fifty years of age who cannot
recite from memory one or more strophes of the compositions in
question.

It is clear that I, II, and III (or versions A, B, and C of "El Trovo
del viejo Vilmas y el Negrito Pueta") are versions of the same (and
very probably the only) original composition. The strophes have
been in some cases misplaced ; but the three versions begin in the same
way, and their only essential difference is their length. Even version
A, which is the longest and best of the three, seems to be an incomplete
version of a metrical discussion which may have included a hundred
or more strophes. The entire composition must have been known by
many; and popular tradition has done enough in prcscr\ing some
thirty-three strophes, which represent one hundred and seventy
octosyllabic lines. Not only the thought, but the metrical structure

• Dialectic notes in the following refer to "Studies in New-Mexican Spanish "(Revue
de Dialectologie Romane): Part I, "Phonology" (1909); Part II, "Morphology" (1911,
1912, 1913). These will be cited hereafter as Studies.

» Version I was recited by Juan Chaves y Garcia of Puerto de Luna, N.M.; version II,
by Nicolds Molina of Jarales, N.M.; version III, hy A. B. Archuleta of Carrumpa, N.NL;
and version IV, by Tcofilo Romero of Barclas, N.M.
VOL. xxvn. — NO. 104. — 8. 105

io6 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

and the rhyme-arrangement, show that here and there a verse or even
a whole strophe may be out of place, or, in the latter case, incomplete.
Inasmuch as it is impossible to determine what verse or verses have
been omitted, it would be futile to attempt to reconstruct the original
version of A, B, C, or even to attempt to arrange in the correct order
those versions preserved. The material is published, therefore, just as
it was taken down from dictation.

"El Trovo del viejo Vilmas y Gracia" (IV) seems better preserved.
The discussion has logical sequence and the rhyme-arrangements are
on the whole correct. For example, the rule in most compositions of
this kind, that each contestant must begin with the last rhyme of the
previous strophe, is very closely followed; whereas in the three ver-
sions of the other trovo the apparent disregard of this rule is due only
to the incompleteness of the versions.

From New Mexico I have no data whatever which would give us
any information about the popular poets in question, or the date of
their compositions. Old man Vilmas {el viejo Vilmas 0 is placed first
in the titles of the trovos, and seems to be the most important person
of those involved in the metrical discussions; and in IV (verse i) he
is called mestro. My New-Mexican friends afifirm that he was a
New Mexican, and this is probably true; but there is no proof of it.
Concerning Gracia, I only know what is told in IV, 1 1 ; namely, that
he was from Sonora, Mex. : —

" Yo soy el Grasia mentado
qui alaban muchu en Sonora."

The third important pueta in question, el Negrito Pueta, formerly
unknown to me, is now a well-known personage, thanks to the recent
interesting study of Dr. Nicolis Le6n of the Museo Nacional of
Mexico.^ There is no doubt whatever that el Negrito Pueta Meji-
cano, whose agudezas metricas are published by N. Le6n, and who
lived in the first half of the eighteenth century,' is the Negrito Pueta

* Variant forms: Vielmas, Dimas.

2 El Negrito Poeta Mejicano y sus populares versos. Contribucion para el folk-lore
nacional. Por el Dr. N. Leon. Mexico, Imprenta del Museo Nacional, 1912.

' "Jose Vasconcelos, el Negrito Poeta, nacio en Almolonga (E. de Puebla) en la centuria
XVIII, y quiza en sus principios, pues en el gobierno de D. Juan de Acufia y Casafuerte,
1722 a 1734, ya vivia.

"Sus padres eran negros del Congo traidos a'Mexico para servir en los trabajos do-
mesticos 6 rurales de algun rico de la entonces Nueva Espafia.

"Las pocas referencias que en escritoresjantiguos'tenemos acerca de el nos lo presentan
haciendo una vida de vago y sost'eniendose, mas que con el trabajo personal, con los ob-
sequios que &. cambio de sus versos le hacian sus admiradores, en todas las clases sociales.

"Entre estas, cultivaba con especialidad la de los padres jesuitas y de su trato debe
haber tornado algunas ideas filos6ficas que campean en sus improvisaciones.

"Debe haber muerto por el aiio 1760." N. Leon, pp. 5-7.

New- Mexican Spanish Folk- Lore. 107

of the New-Mexican compositions. The names are identical. The
New-Mexican compositions abound in the ideas filosoficas of which
N. Le6n speaks, and he is frequently called poeta, ajamado negrito,
sabio Caton,^ etc. Aside from the verses here published, the New
Mexicans know the verse: —

"Tii eres el Negrito Pueta

aunque sin ningun estudio.
A no tener esa geta

fuera otro padre Zamudio."

This verse is the one which appeared on the cover of the " Calendarios
del Negrito Poeta," from which N. Leon took most of the versos by
him published.^

Curiously enough, however, not a single verso of those found in these
calendarios, and published by N. Le6n, is found in the New-Mexican
versions of "El Trovo del viejo Vilmas y el Negrito Poeta." The
calendarios must have been known in New Mexico, but I have not
found any, and their versos are unknown. It would not be surprising,
however, to discover that the New-Mexican versions of the trovos here
published are known also in Mexico. Indeed, the suspicion arises
that the New-Mexican compositions may be versions of compositions
of Mexican origin; and the actual date of these compositions, together
with the place where these poetic contests were held, — as well as more
definite information concerning the other important puetas, that is,
Vilmas and Gracia, — may be recorded somewhere.

(l) TROVO DEL VIEJO VILMAS Y EL NEGRITO PUETA (a).

N. P. I. Veng'* el que jucre'' prudente

4 trovar con la ras6n;
qu'' el qu' * es amante no tome,
antes busca I'^ ocasi6n.
Con las juersas* de Sans6n
y las del entendimicnto
mi" has dc fabricar cl tcniplo
del rey sabio, Saloni6n.

V. 2. Mira si tengo ras6n,

(|ue te voy d prcguntar

nie dirAs la scpoitiira

onde^ ju6* 'enterrady' .AcK^in.

' Compare II, 7, 9, 11; III, a. 12.

' Compare facsimile of the cover of one of these calendarios in the publication of Lc6n,
p. I.

» Studies, I, § 87. * Il'id.. § 121. ' Ihid.. J 88.

• Ibid., § 89. ' Ihid., 5 32. • Ihid.. 5 91.

io8 Journal of Americati Folk-Lore.

N. p. 3. Addn s' ' enterru^ en Ebr6n

en un campo di' almaden,
en una cuev',* oye bien,
que yo te dar6 ras6n,
en una cuev', oye bien,
cerca de Jerusal6n.

V. 4. Si me sabcs entcndcr,

6 trais^ memory' * 6 sentido,
I qu6 s' 1 hisieron las monedas
[por que Cristo jue" vendido?

N. p. 5. Aqueos^ treinta dineros

en tierra jueron' impliados*
pa' que jueran° enterrados
peregrines pasajeros.

V. 6. Digam' • esto quien mi sabe

si k desirmelo sj^ atreve,
I cuil es la culpa mds leve
qui^ has'' el pecado mas grave?

N, p. 7. Piensa bien y diestry^ acabes,

oye mi distinta vos.
Mir'/ el pecado mis grav'^ es
dar las horas el rel6.
Quien no venera sus padres
no le ve la cara Dios.

V. 8. Comu- inosente pregunto

que me des conosimiento,
mi' hagas saber el asunto
de tu memori' ^ 6 talento.

N. p. 9. Yo no dudo de tu asento

ni tu organisado canto.
Me cans'* admirasi6n tanto
de ver tu agudo talento.
Entry^ en mi conosimiento
de que versas con primor.
Si eres giien'" compositor
y tan sufisiente ti' hayas,
aguardate, no te vayas,
que yo te dar6 ras6n.

V. 10. Escuchamc, negro sabio,

fil6sofo y entendido,

I Studies. I, § 88. ' Ibid., § 91. ' Ibid., § 89.

♦ Ibid., § 87. ' Ibid.. § 62. « Ibid., § 121.

' Ibid., § 158. ' Ibid.. § 25. Ubid., § 92.
^0 Ibid., § 118.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 109

V. ly^ incapds de mi talento,

lo sierto de mi sentido.
Como sabio y entendido,
por tu siensia verdadera,
te pregunto por tu siensia
I cudl es la plana primera?

N. P. II. Todo mi memorj'^ ensierra

si mi* has de desir verdd.*
, Mir',^ es la plana primera,

F(6), Esperans'* y Caridd.^

V. 12. i Qu6 jue^ 'n Cristo mds finesa,

de morir crusificado,
6 quedar sacramentado
ddndosi* al hombr'^ en la mesa?

N. P. 13. Pues, si es tanta tu agudesa

la respuesta t'^ he de dar.
Dios se represent' * al hombre
en la mesa del altar,
el di' e^ su penitensia
cuando subj' a comulgar.

V. 14. Maria pariy* 4 Jesus

y Dios d Maria form6,
y ora quiero que me digas
en qui* obligasi6n qued6.

N. P. 15. Oy',» esto te digo yo:

desd'* el giierty* hasta la crus,

bien sabes que si' oblig6

k padeser por Jesus,

qu'" el nos criy* y nos redimi6.

V. 16. Me dirds como baj6

el verbo desde su altura,
que neP" vientre de la pura
virgen y madr'« cncarn6.

N. p. 17. Encarn6 con tanty' anhclo

en aquel vientre divino,

en el

de 1' • emperatris del siclo.

> Studies, I, i 91. ' Ihid., J 87. » Ibid.. 5 8<j.

* Ibid., i l8o. * Ihid.. i 121. • /6«(/., 5 88.

1 Di e < dia de (Studies, I. S 87; II. 894)- •Studies. I, Jqi; 11. } 109 (III).

» Ibid., I. a 91. 123. .'» Nel < en el (Studies, II, ( 4)-

I lo Journal of American Folk-Lore.

V. l8. Si cstudias con tanty' anhclo

6 tu palm'- OS vcrdadera,
me dards cl conlcnido,
I qu'' hiso Dios en su alt'' esfera?

N. P. 19. Desde tu memoria tena*

y mi sentido segundo.
Dios bajo de siely' d tierra
para gobierno del mundo.
Testes di' um biejo fecundo
qui^ obtengo de preguntar,
I d qu6 baj6 Cristy^ al mundo
cuando viny^ k predicar?

V. 20. Por mi sentido segundo

mira si te corresponde.
Mira, baj6 Cristy^ al mundo
para redimir al hombre.

V. 21. Dime tu, i k qui6n se 1'' esconde?

que te voy 4 preguntar,
i quien sh quedarii nel' sielo
cuando Dios bajy^ 6ncarnar?

N. P. 22. La respuesta t'* he de dar

por tu memoria notable.
Dios hijo bajy^ dncarnar
y ayk se qued6 Dios padre,
el que nos ha de jusgar. '

N. P. 23. Le volveri^ k preguntar

k tu memoria notable,
(_ cuil es el ave mks grande
de la corte selestial?

V. 24. La respuesta t'' he de dar

si tienes guena' pyesia."
De la corte selestial
tan s61o 'P" Ave Maria,
que todos deben gritar
k todas horas del dia.

V. 25. Si entiendcs filosofia

6 trais" tu talenty' agudo,

> Studies. I. 5 91. ' Ibid., § 87. ' Ibid., § 88.

* Tena < tenua. The New-Mexican forms teno, lena, are derived from the older
Spanish forms lenuo, tenua, and not the later tenue. For uo > o, ua > a, see Studies,

I. §78; II. §77-

<■ Studies, I, § 89. ' ^el < en el (Studies, II. § 4).

' Baj6 d e> bajn e (Studies. I. § 94)- ' Studies, I, § ii8.

• Ibid., § 84. " Ibid., II, § 3 (lb). " Ibid., I. § 62.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk- Lore. 1 1 1

,i qu6 cosa mi Dios ny^ harfa,
que quisy' haser y no pudo?

N. P. 26. De tu talento no dudo,

eye mi distinta vos.
No pudy' haser la mentira
como nosotros los dos.

N. P. 2

te pregunto con anhelo:

antes e' Dios y su lus

i qui^n entr6 primery' al sielo?

V. 28. Si estudias con tanty ^ aniielo,

escucha, compositor:
antes e* Dios y su lus
su divino resplandor.

N. P. 29. Quiero que me des ras6n

por tu sentido segundo,
antes e^ que juera' Dios
i quien obrab' * en este mundo?

V. 30. Con eso no me confundo,

yo te pondre nel ^ camino.
Antes e* que juera,* Dios
ju6^ su espirito® divino.

N. P. 31. Dios este mundo form6

por ser su poder supremo.

Cuando tu padre naci6

i c6myi estabas tu en su seno?

V. 32. Si estudias con tanty* anhelo

6 sabes ler^ cstocrasia,
con el pecado venial
y el espirito ^ de grasia.

V. 33. Es un parosismo juerte'

en qu'* el juisio ti' ha metido,
sin confesar ni dolerte
el qui* d Dios has ofendido.
Reflej'* y busca tu sucrte,
ya ny' cs ticnipo dc dormir,
que sc ti' aserca '1 '" morir.
Verds qui» amarg' cs la mucrtc,
6 que tendrds que desir
ante Dios onipotente.

•Studies. I. 591. '/&»■</.. II. § 94. * Ibid.. ], i X2I.

* Ibid., i 87. » Ibid., II. 5 4. • Ibid., I. i 54.

' Ibid.. § 82. » Ibid., S 88. • Ibid.. S Sg.
««/6iJ., II. § 3 (lb).

112 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

(ll) TROVO DEL VIEJO VILMAS Y EL NEGRITO PUETA (b).

N. P. I. Salg'^ el que juer'* imprudcnte

d peliar' con la ras6n;
el qu' * es amante no teme,
antes busca 1' ^ ocasi6n.

V. 2. Con las juersas^ de Sans6n

y las del entendimiento
mj ^ has de fabricar el templo
del rey sabio, Salom6n.

V. 3. No me valgo dj* ocasi6n;

atiendi^ d lo que te digo,
I qu6 s' * hisieron las monedas
por que Cristo ju6^ vendido?

N. P. 4. Aqueos* treinta dineros

en tierra jueron^ impliados,^
pa' que jueran sepultados
peregrines pasajeros;
pues sj ha comprado con eos^
el campo di un alfarero.

V. 5. Diga '1' aut' 6 quien m4 sabe

si acasy k desir si atreve,
I cudl es la culpa mis leve
qui has' el pecado mis grave?

N. p. 6. Oye bien y diestry acabes;

repetir6 'n alta vos.
Quien no venera sus padres
no le ve la cara Dios.

V. 7. Pueta,'" voy i preguntarte

de tu talento 1' historia;
cuando Cristo viny al mundo
I k qui6n dejari" 6n la gloria?

N. P. 8. Hoy pregunty i la mcmoria

de mi scntido notable.
Abajo vino Dios hijo
y arriba qued6 Dios padre.

V. 9. Pueta, vengy k preguntarte,

si entiendes filosoffa,
i cuil es el avc mis grande
qui alaba la jerarqufa?

> Studies. I, § 87. * Ibid., § 121. ' Ihid.. § 83.

* Ibid., § 88. » Ibid.. § 89. • Ibid., § 158.

' Ibid., § 25. « Ibid., II. § 92. » Ibid., II. § 3 (lb),

w Ibid., I. § 84. " Ibid., 5 94.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 1 1 3

N. p. 10. Hoy, en esta grande boda

disc la sum' alegria:
de las aves de la gloria
tan soly el Ave Maria,
todos r hemos de gritar
d todas horas del dia.

V. II. Pueta, voy d preguntartc,

de tu talento no dudo,
cuando Cristo viny al mundo
I qu6 quisy baser que no pudo?

N. P. 12. La lengua se mj hase nudo.^

Repetir6 'n alta vos:
todito pudy baser Dios.
Lo que no pudy es mentir
como nosotros los dos.

N. P. 13. Viejo, voy d preguntarte

si tu capasidi es giiena,
cuando di un cuerpo se sale
por muertj un alma serena,
dime, I qui6n es el que sabe
si se salv' 6 se condena?

V. 14. Si tengo memoria giiena

esty en mi pecbo no cabe.
Cuando di un cuerpo se sale
i oh pueta! un alma serena,
eso s61o Dios lo sabe
si se salv' 6 se condena,
porque deste mundo nadien.*

N. p. 15. Otras preguntas t' bisiera

que te dejar' abismado,
pero se ti ba calentado
un poquito la moyera.

(ill) TROVO DEL VIEJO VILMAS Y EL NEGRITO PUETA (c).

N. p. I. Veng' cl que jucre i)udiente

ix trovar con la ras6n;
el qu' es amante no teme,
antes busca 1' ocasi6n.

V. 2, Oy', afamado Negrito,

ti advierto no soy pudicnte;
\.(x pensards cai' parado
pero vas {x cai' de f rente.

> Studies, I. S 127. « Ibid., I. § 200; II. § 74.

« Cai < caer (Studies, I. §§ 9, 62; II, §{ 109 [lo], 140).

114 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

N. P. 3. Si esa chinchi^ me picara

y del piquete muriera,
levantaria la nalga
de calia^ me la metiera.

V. 4. Qu6 grande bocado buscas,

oy', afamado Negrito.
Para que no se ti atore
ly hablas de buscar chiquito.

N. p. 5. Para mi tu eres chiquito,

cantandy en la melodia.
Ora quiero que preguntes
testos de filosofia.

V. 6. Testos de filosofia

yo te voy k preguntar.
I Onde 'std la sepoltura
onde ju6 'nterrady Ad4n?

N. P. 7. Addn s' enterry6n Ebr6n

en un campo dj almaden,
en una cuev', oye bien,
cerca de Jerusalen.

V. 8. Una cosa que no s6

me dircis si tu la sabes,
I c\xk\ serd la mds grande
de toditas las aves?

N. P. 9. Si hasta pa subir al sielo

se nesesita de guia.
De toditas las aves
mds grand' es '1 Ave Maria.
Es la qu' hemos di alabar
a todas horas del dia.

V. 10. Yo te voy k preguntar,

la lengua se va\ base nudo,
I qu6 cosa mi Dios haria
que quisy baser y no pudo?

N. p. II. La lengua se ti base fiudo

de ver mi distinta vos.
No pudy baser la mentira
como nosotros los dos.

V. 12. Oyeme, sabio Cat6n,'

yo te voy k preguntar,

' Studies, I, § 47-

» Calia < calilla (Studies. I. § 158). diminutive of cala.

» Used as an adjective in New-Mexican Spanish, frequently combined with sabio and
with the regular inflection, sabio caton, sabia catona, or simply calon, calona, muy calon,
muy calona, etc.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 115

V. cuando Dios bajy este' mundo

I k d6nde viny a parar?

N. P. 13. Yo no soy sabio Cat6n

ni he 'studiado catecismo.
Cuando Cristo bajy iP mundo
viny k parar en si mismo.

V. 14. Yo te voy k preguntar,

escuchame con sentido,
d qu6 s' hisieron las monedas
por que Cristo jue vendido?

N. P. 15. Aqueos treinta dineros

en tierra jueron impliados
pa que jueran enterrados
peregrinos y pasajeros.

(iv) TROVO DEL VIEJO VILMAS Y GRASIA.

G. I. Mestro^ Vilmas, I 6nde 'stas,

entre semanas y dias?
Aij' ti han salidy a buscar
mas de cuatro companias.

V. 2. Nulas son tus fantasias

qui acabo de notisiar.
I Dj 6nde son las companias
que mj han salidy k buscar?

0. 3. En la flor dj Alejandria

pronto lo pondrji mi lista.

Mestro Vilmas, la menor

ny es di aquj es de Buena Vista.

V. 4. Yo te pondr6 'n mi conquista

pa que puedas divcrsar.*
Mi han dicho que tu ores Grasia;
conmigo ny has de jugar.

G. 5. Mestro, si tu ti has de dar

como ticncs de vcrano,
como chuliaran k Grasia
si le ganar' un ansiano.

V. 6. Torpc 'st4s como '1 gusano,

y acabo de competir.
Yo tambi^n canty en lo sano,
no mi has de contradcsir.

' Baju_ csic < baju 6 isle (Studies, II, ( 109). ' Studios. I, § 62.

* At < alii (Studies, I, {{ 9. 158). * Versar - componer versos.

1 16 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

G. 7. Ya yo te voy aplaudir,

mi trovo no tiene tasa.
Si alguna plana m'enmienda
ni en la tierra queda Grasia.

V. 8. Grasia jucra que conmigo

dijieras, Grasia, soy giieno,
que neste punto tan teno^
cantaras con eficasia.

G. 9. Voy i romper 4 las casas

y al verso ponle refleja.
Mestry, aunque quieras ser giieno
tu antigiiidi no te deja.

V. 10. De mi vos nadien se queja

de lo dichy d lo vulgar.
Soy como '1 astro sereno
cuando quiero diversar.
Desto contra mj has de dar,
pues soy el esprimentado.^

G. II. Yore la pen' y cuidado,

ny ha transitado I'aurora.
Yo soy el Grasia mentado
qui'alaban muchy en Sonora.

V. 12. Me bajy k la cantimplora

con satisfasi6n completa;
y si no, mira tu, aci,
ya '1 viejo carga pateta.
Mi vos ha sido discreta
y en todo soy vitorioso.
De r humany k lo jocoso
traigo '1 sentido perplejo.
Como chuliaran al viejo
si le ganar' un mocoso.

G. 13. No te muestres riguroso

dise la sum' alegria.
Ora quiero que me cantes
testos de filosofia.

V. 14. Si entiendes filosofia

dali k tu discurso vuelo.
Para gobierno del sielo
^ qu6 cosas mi Dios harfa?
Puetas y compositores,
ora les pregunto yo,
d cuintos jucron los colores

1 Teno < tenuo (see Trovo, I, verse 19).
^ Experimenlado (Studies, I, § 204).

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 117

V. que Dios k la gloria di6?

I Cuantos jardines plant6
cuando su muerte notoria
sey6 la sagrad' historia?
I Cudntos sones sus vioHnes
sonoros sus ecos dan?
I Y cudntos dngeles van
k componer los jardines?
I Cuintos son los querubines
que cantan las melodias?
I Cudl es la sum' alegria
qu'el jardin mis alto gosa?
I Cual r estrea mas hermosa
qui al mundo da claridd?
I Que titulo se le da
al jardin mis esensial?
<i Cuil es el rio de cristal
onde se pasio Maria?
Si entiendes filosofia
dali a tu discurso vuelo.
Para gobierno del sielo
I Qu6 cosas mi Dios haria?

G. 15. Mestro, i qu6 quieres que cante

si vengo todo turbado?
i C6mo quieres qui adivine
un punto tan encumbrado?

V. 16. Van cuatro, pongan cuidado,

todo puesty en su lugar.
Oyeme, Grasia mentado,
d de que te sirve 'studiar?
Desto contra mi has de dar.
Si cantas de nochi^ dia
prives' en la palomia.-
Tu eres el Grasia mentado
que pedias filosofia.

G. 17. Yo canto de nochi dIa

y habelito' mi fortuna.
Antes de formar la gloria,
pienso formaria la luna.

V. 18. Cu6ntalas d'cn un'cn una,

el palmo ny es vcrdadcro.
Ya que Grasia la jerr6,*
resp6ndclas tii, Cicnfuegos.
> Studies. I, § 47-

' This line is not clear. I have it so written in my notes.
' Studies, I, § 49.

* Err6. Error and hcrrar liavc been confused in New-Mexican Spanish; jerrar ( < her-
rar?) = error; while error without 7 ( < /» </) — hcrrar (Studies, II, § 151).

ii8 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

C. 19. Yo ny he sido de los legos,

ni canto com' banidd;
todos si hasen A la concha
en leyendo Trcnidci.
Les dar6 'I 'c6mo les va',
qu' el trovar es mi deseo.
Estos cuatro pinacatcs ^
di d quinse me los tanteo.'

V. 20. Sosi6gate, tempestci,

si te juere 4 poleo,
qu' es grande la vanidi
qui alaba la jerarquia.
En el nombre de Maria,
pues, yo mi talenty alcgo.
Oye, mentado Cienfuegos,
resp6ndeme la porfia.

C. 21. Yo canto de nochi dia

y habelito mis ideas.
Antes de formar la gloria
pienso form6 las estreas.

V. 22. Anque * las mires tarn',* beas,
tu palmo ny es verdadero.
Ya Cienfuegos la jerr6,
resp6ndemelas,

G. 23. Mestro, ya yo me retiro,

Ya yo voy de retirado,
porque Cienfuegos me tira
come si juer' entenado.

V. 24. Con compos y giien cuidado

en mi pecho moralise.
Hasti acA '1 braso del viejo
para que nadien te pise.

• Studies. II, § 97. ' Ilomhrczuelo, "good for nothing.

' Embaucar, "to fool." * Studies, I. § 34-

i Ibid.. II. §83.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 119

VII. MORE FOLK-TALES.i
13. PEDRO Dl URDEMALES.2

I. First Version (a).

Pedro dj Urdemales y su hermano Juan vivian con su madre que
staba ya muy avansad' en anos y muy enferma. Cuand' uno salia
(k) trabajar '1 otro se staba con ea pa cuidala. Un dia salio Juan k
trabajar y se qued6 Pedro solo con la viejita,- y lueo que prepar6 la
comida le yevo de comer. Ea le dijo que no queria, pero Pedro le
desia: "Coma, coma." Y lueo que vido que no queria comer comen-
sy4 (d)tacale la boca de sopas hasta que 1* hog6. Y lueo que la vido
muerta viny y la sent6 nuna sia como si stuviera 'siendo media y Ij
amarrya la parte la sieta un cordel que yegab' hasta la puerta pa que
lo pisara sy hermano cuandy entrara, y champale la muertj k 61.

Y cuando vido venir k su hermano sali6 corriendy incontralo y le
grito: "Anda, ven apriesa, que ya se sta muriendo mi madre." Y el
otro probe, con '1 apuro que venia trompes6 con el cordel y le jalyd
la sieta, y la probe vieja cay6 de costalasy al suelo. Y antonses corri6
Pedro par'onde staba caida su madre y le grity^ Juan: "jAque
barbaro, ya matates a mi madre!" "Yo no la mat4," le dijo Juan.
"Si la matates, <|pos que no ves que jalates el cordel y la tirates?"
"Pos y antonses dqu^ vamoshaser?" le dijo Juan. " Yo se," le respon-
di6 Pedro, "and' y traime '1 burro y ensialo." Ansina ly hiso Juan,
y lueo que yeg6 con el burro jue Pedry y subi6 k su madre nel y la
'marr6 pa que paresiera que la viej' iba nel burro, y antonses jueron y
yevaron al burro con la viej' ensima y ly arriaron pal seminterio junty
e r ilesia. Y Pedro jui' s' escondi6 serca pa ver lo que suscdia.

En este inter* sali6 '1 padre, y lueo que vidy al burro nel seminterio
jui yamydl sacristdn y le dijo: "And'y corr' ese burro qui and' aa nel
seminterio." Y antonses sali6 '1 sacristdn par' ir k correr al burro.
Pero lueo que vidy al burro que venfa corriendo s'espanto y cchyA
juir. Y k ese mesmo tiempo cay6 la probe vieja de golpe, y Pedro que
stab' escondido sali6 corriendo par' onde stab' el sacristdn y le dijo:
"jAque bruto, ya matates ci mi madre! E' iba subida nel burro y tu
hi espantates y has sido la cuasa de su mucrte." "No," le dijy cl

' Sec this Journal, vol. xxiv, pp. 397-.}44, where Nog. i-i2 are given. Fourteen more
were published in the Bulletin de Uialectologic Romane, vol. iv, pp. 97-115. All these,
together with those now published, and those collected by Mr. Mason in Mexico and
published on pp. 148 210 of this number of the Journal, are studied on pp. ari-aji.

' Variants: Urdimalcs, Urdimalas, Ordimales, Ordimalas. In a California version
(I have three California versions) he is called Pcdru Animalcs, a very natural case of
popular contamination. Instead of the complete form Pedro di Urdemales, etc., the
people usually say, Pedr' Urdemales, Pedr' Ordemales, etc.

' Fuc y. * Inlcriti.

I20 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

sacristan, " yo ny he sidy el de la culpa. Yo vinj d corrcr ^1 burro del
seminterio porque '1 padre me mando, y yo no tengo la culpa que '1
burro s' espantara." "Eso nu importa," le dijo Pedro, "tu juites el
dc la causa y tu me 1' has de pagar."

Y ansina staban alegando cuando yeg6 '1 cura, y lueo que Pedro le
dijo too lo qui habia pasua, el cura le dijo: "Pos mira, Pedro, ya qu'
esty ha susedidy asina, lo mejor es darle sepoltura (4) tu madre y no
desir nada. Yo 1' enterrar6 y le dir6 misas y no te costard nada."
"Gyeno," le dijo Pedro, y el cura T hisy k la vieja un funeral muy
sonau y 1' enterr6 de su cuenta, y nada le cost6 4 Pedro di Urdemales.

II.

Pos otro dia, le dijo Pedro di Urdemales k su hermano Juan que
se juera(a) trabajar con un rico que vivia serca d61. Y lueo que yeg6
le pregunt6 si le daba trabajo y el rico le respondi6 : "Si, te doy trabajo
y te pago bien, pero solamente con una condisi6n. Tienes qui baser
un contrato conmigo que '1 primcro que se 'noje de los dos tiene que
dar una tira sacada de su lomo y pierde lo trabajau. "Si," le dijo
Juan, "asina quedamos entendidos."

Gyeno, pos que comensu4 trabajar y cl amo no le daba descanso.
"Has esto; has el otro; dale de comer k los cabayos; parte leiia; has
el fuego," y no lo dejaba descansar un momento. Y el probe de Juan
resongaba poco y le desia(a) su amo: "Per' hombre, si Vd. no deja
sestiar." "(iQues eso?" le desia '1 amo, "<ique ya te vas 'nojando?"
"No," le desia Juan, "no me 'nojo, nomas digo." Y en la noche:
"Anda, Juan, asomate, que sta yorando '1 nino; levantati k ver si cai
agua; k ver si ya sta tarde." Y el probe resongaba, y su amo le
desia: ",iQu^seso? <; que ya te vas nojando?" Y le respondia Juan:
"No, no me 'nojo, nomas digo." Gyeno, y asina siguia mandandole:
"Trdime '1 basin; anda ver al gato." "^Y pa que diablos quiere que
vaya ver al gato?" le respondi6 Juan, muy nojau. "Pa ver si stk
caliente, gyev6n; ya te 'nojates." "(-Quien diablos no si ha de 'nojar
con un hombre tan impertinente com' uste," le dijo Juan. " Pos bien,
mi tirita del lomo." Y li arranc6 al probe una gyena tira, y lo des-
pach6 adolorido pa su casa sim pagale nada.

III.

Y asina que ycgya la casa le conty4 Pedro lo que \\ habia susedido, y
Pedro le dijo: "Per' hombre, tii si, no sirves pa nada. D6jam' ir yo,
y veras como yo si lo fricgo."

Yeg6 'nde vivia '1 rico y le dijo quj andaba buscando trabajo.
"Muy bien," le dijo '1 rico, "pero yo teng' una regla de que no com-
prcndy k naycn sin baser un compromiso." "dY cudl es ese com-
promise?" le pregunt6 Pedro, hasicndose '1 muelas de gayo. "El

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 121

contratu es," le contestu^l rico, "que tenemos quj haser un contrato
obligandonos los dos, a que, el primero que se noje, pierde lo trabajau
y '1 otro le tiene que cortar una tira del lomo. De modo que si }'o me
'nojo primero, te pago tu trabajo y me cortas una tira del lomo."
"Gueno," le dijo Pedro, "ya sta dicho." "Gyeno," le dijo '1 amo,
"pos manana prendes los gyeyis y vas al monte por lena; y lueo que
gyelvas no se ti olvide meter el carro dentru e la plasuela. Oye bien,
no se ti olvide lo que te mando." "No seiior," le dijo Pedro," asina
sj hara com' uste dise."

La maiiana siyente se jue Pedro por leiia, y el rico, como sabia que
vendria tarde, p' haselo nojar, atranc6 la puert' el corral onde tenia
qu' entrar Pedru k meter el carro con lefia, y si acostua dormir.
Gueno, pos Pedro, logo que yeg6 y hay6 la puerta serrada, agarr6 '1
hacha y I'hiso pedasos y juimeti6adentro 'Icarru e lefia, ju'a la cosin'
y seno y jui si acsto muy sin cuidau.

Otro dia 'n la maiiana se levanto '1 amo y saliua ver qu' era lo qui
habia susedido, y incontrandu a Pedro, le pregunto: "(^Como te jue?
(itrujites la leiia y pusites el carro 'nde te dije?" "Hise comforme me
mando," le dijo Pedro. " lY comu entrates al corral, cuando yo lu
atranque y me yeve la yave?" "Pos, nu importa, yu entre." Y
antonses jue '1 amy a ver, y logo que vido la puert' hecha pedasos, le
diju 4 Pedro: "Per' hombre, ique yo te comprendi pa que me de-
struigas mis cosas?" "Ya se va 'nojando, ya se va 'nojando," le
dijo Pedro. "No, no me 'nojo, Pedro, nomds digo," le dijo '1 amo.

IV.

Y otro dia, yamo '1 amy a Pedry y le dijo: "Hoy tiees qu' ir d
cuidar los marranos al estero. Cuidau con tus salvajadas." "Estd
gyeno, patronsito." Y se jue Pedro muy de maiiana con su atajy e
marranos pal estero. Pero nomas sali6 y empesyd gritar: "dQuicn
quiee comprar marranos? jvendo marranos muy baratos!" Y
prontu hayo compradores que vinieron onde staba. Y logo que
yegaron les dijo que les vcndia los marranos muy baratos, pero que
no les daba las colitas y las orcjas; que 'sas tenian que cortcirselas y
devolvcrselas. Y como vcndia barato le compraron too los marranos
y le dcvolvicron toa las colitas y orcjas.

Y antonses se ju6 Pedro pal estero y enterro toa las colitas y las
orcjas en el soqucte en posisi6n como si s[ luibican atascau los marranos,
y si arrend^ pa la casa. Y logo fjuc yvgn lo dijy al rico: " Patronsito,
se mi atascaron los marranos en cl soquetc. Veimos, mj ayudarA
(A) sacalos." "Asina la malisi6," le dijo '1 amo. "Seguro ya juitcs
y hisitcs una salvajada." "Ya se va nojando, ya se va nojando,"
le dijo Pedro. "No, no me 'nojo, Pedro, nomds digo," le respondi6 '1
rico. Y se ju6 con Pedro pal estero y logo que le 'nscii6 las colitas y

VOL. XXVII. — NO. 104. — 9.

122 Journal of A7nerican Folk-Lore.

las orcjas, comcnsaron ci jalar pero no sacaban mds de las colitas y las
orejas. "jAquc Pedro, ya no mj averiguo contigo!" le dijo '1 rico.
"Ya se va 'nojando, ya se va nojando," le dijo Pedro. "No, no me
nojo Pedro, nomds digo."

El rico ya no sabia qui baser con Pedro, y lo yam6 y le dijo: " Pedro,
esta nochi, tienes que semir toda 1' harina. Oyeme bien. No vayas
andar con tus simbergyensadas." "Gyeno, patronsito, har6 com' ust6
dise." " Pos bien," le volvi6 k desir el patr6n, "logo que senes comien-
sas, porqu' es muncha y tiees que sernirla toda esta nochi." "Si
seiior," le dijo Pedro, "har6 com' ust6 me manda."

Gyeno, pos k poco rato si acostaron los amos y logo que vido Pedro
que ya todo staba muy silensio jue Pedru y comens6 I'obra. Saco por
saco agarr6 toa 1' harina, y pocy k poco la ju6 sirniendo por toa la
cas' y por too '1 patio hasta que la sirni6 toda. Y loo qui acab6 jui sj
acost6 muy quitau de penas.

Poco tiempy antes equi aclarara record6 '1 amuy le dijy asu mujer:
"Hija, voy k levantarmj k ver si ese gyev6n de Pedro acab6 de scrnir
r harina," y se levant6 y jy'd ver. Y loo que vido too '1 patio bianco,
se volvi6 y le dijy k su mujer: "Hija, quisas anochi cay6 nieve, porqu'
estk bianco '1 suelo por ondequiera." "Mir' k ver si rechina," le dijo
su mujer, y ju6 descalsu y pis6 y viny y le dijo: "Pery hija, si no sta
fria." Y ea, viendo que marcaba '1 suelo 'nde pisaba, reflej6 qu' er'
harina, y le dijo: "iQu6 nievj ha de ser! Es harina." "Si, esy es,"
dijo tamicn el hombre." Ya este Pedro di Urdemales gyev6n despa-
rram6 I'harina por too '1 patio. jMal redo vaya este tonto!" ^

Y antonses se visti6 y jy^^ buscar k Pedro. Logo qu ly hayo le
dijo: "Oyis, Pedro (iqu6 no te mand6 que simieras I'harina?" "Si,
patr6n, y asina ly hise. ^que no stk semida?" "En el sedaso te
mandd que la sirnieras, no nel suelo, bruto." "Ya se va nojando,
ya se va nojando," le dijo Pedro. "No, no me 'nojo Pedro, no mks
digo."

De manera que ya '1 probe del amo ya no sabia quj haser, y le dijy
k su mujer: " Ya no mj averigyo con este tonto y nu hayo como co-
rrelo. Y lo pior es que si me nojo me sac'un tir6n del lomo."

VI.

Y logo se jud buscar k Pedro di Urdimales otra vcs, y hasi6ndos' el
que no staba nada nojau, le dijo: "Pedro, ya basta de tantas salva-
jadas. Ora vamos yy y tu ir a pasiarnos. Anda trai los cabayos de

' A redro vaya. Compare Studies, II, § lOO. ' Jud = fui &. See Studies, I, § 94-

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 123

la vega y echales las guarnisiones. Saca '1 bogue ^ de la cochera y
prendelo. Prende todo bien, ^M'enticndes?" "Si patronsito, asina
com' uste dise, asina si hara."

Gyeno, pos que quedase 'I amo sperando, y Pedro jui agarro los
cabayos, los trujo, les ech6 las guarnisiones, sac6 '1 bogue de la cochera
y hisu a los cabayos subirsj arrib' el bogue. Y antonses, p' baser lo
qu' el amo li habi'a dicho, sac'un f6sforo y le prendi6 juegu al bogue
con tui^ cabayos, y empesu4 gritar: "jYa st4 prendido '1 bogue con
tui cabayos!" El amo oyo las griterias y sali6, y logo que vido lo qui
habi' hecho Pedro, le dijo: "Jiju e puta, ,iqui has hecho?" "Prender
el bog' y los cabayos. ,jPos que no me dijo que los prendiera? Ai
Stan bien prendidos." "Pero mi asina, bruto." "Ya se va nojando,
ya se va nojando," le dijo Pedro. "No, no me nojo Pedro, nomds
digo."

VII.

Gueno, pos ya no si averiguaban con Pedro di Urdemales, y un
dia yam6 '1 amu a su mujer y le dijo: "Hija, ya no mi averiguo con
este tonto. Y lo pior es que si me nojo tengo que pagale su trabajo
y m| arranc' un tir6n del lomo." Y nomas en cuanto comensy^
(ha)blar y oyo Pedro lo que desian y vinu y s' escondi6 junto d' eos
y oy6 too lo que dijieron. "Yo te dire comy haremos," le dijo su
mujer. "Vamos a tramar um biaje, y lo yevamos serca del rio y
cuando ste dormido ly echamos en '1 agua pa que sj 'hogue." "Si,"
le dijo '1 marido, "y lo yevamos k pie pa que se canse y se duerma logo
que yeguenos." Y Pedro que stab' oyendo dijo pa sus dentros: " Ai
veremos k quien echan al rio."

Y antonses yam6 '1 amy k Pedro y le dijo: "Pedro, hemos deter-
minau ir um biaje, tu patronsit' y yo y queremos yevarte. Prepara
too bien y mafiana tenemos que salir muy de maiianita." "Gyeno,
patronsito," le dijo Pedro, "com' ust6 diga."

Y otro dia se levantaron toos muy demaiiana y almorsaron y sj[
alistaron pa salir. "Yo y tu patronsita vamos cm burros, pero tii
vas k pie," le dijo '1 amy k Pedro. "Queremos que vayas k pic pa ver
que gyen mosy eres." "No, yo no voy d pie," dijo Pedro. "Si vas."
"Pos no voy." Y asina s'iban ya 'nojando, y dijo '1 amo: "Ya tc
vas nojando, Pedro, ya te vas nojando." Y Pedro pa que no le cor-
taran un tir6n de lomo del espinaso, dijo: "No, no mc nojo, patron-
sito, nomds digo." Y al fin tuvo qu' ir k j)ie.

' Although there are over three hundred basic words of direct English origin in common
usage in New-Mexican Spanish, very few are found in the traditional tales or songs. For
a brief treatment of the phonetic development of words of English source, see Studies,
!• J5 215-263. A special treatment on the subject, forming Part III of these .Studies,
will appear soon in the Revue de Dialectologie Romane. Bogue < (English) " buggy."

' Todo y. See Studies, 11, § 77-

124 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

El caminy era tarre largo que cuando yegaron al rio ya 'I probe de
Pedry iba rendido. Yegaron y camparon y arreglaron todo y pre-
pararon la sena. Despu6s e que senaron platicaron un rato, y logo
le dijo '1 amy 4 Pedro: "^C6mo te sientes, Pedrito?" "Muy cansau,
patronsito," le respondi6 Pedro. "Pos no se te de cuidau, que sta
nochi vas d descansar muy k gusto." La mujer jui preparo las camas,
y la cam' e Pedro la pusieron k un ladito del' otra, y '1 amo le dijo:
"Anda, Pedro, acu6state, que stas muy cansau y ya sta 'siendose
nochi." Y Pedro, que ya tenia tramau muy bien lo qu' iba (ha)ser,
no s' hisy e rogar y jui si acost6. Y a poco rato s' hisy el dormido y
comensua roncar.

Y loo que lo vieron dormido jueron el maridyy la mujer y sedesvis-
tieron p' acostarse, y la mujer puso sus ropas junty ea, y prepar6 la
colch' ond' iban a meter a Pedro pa tiraly en el rio. Y determinaron
irsi 4 dormir un rato y levantarsi 4 media noch' a yevar k Pedry al rio.

Y Pedro que staba velando vido todo lo que staban hasiendo y loo
que se durmieron se levant6 pocu a poco sin qu' eos lo sintieran y se
vistio con las ropas de la mujer. Y despues jui tomo la colcha y se
jud par' onde staba '1 marido, y lo menio con cuidau y le dijo 'm bos
baja: "Hijo, hijo, y' es tiempo." Y aquel se levant6 creyendo que
su mujer era la que li hablaba y sin desir palabra, embolvieron con
cuidau k la mujer en la colcha, y comu ea staba bien bien dormida se la
yevaron pal rio sin sentir. Y comu estaba tarre 'scuro, el patron via
(4) Pedro vestido de mujer y creiba qu' era su mujer.

Jueron muy despasito y tuavia no recordaba la mujer cuando
yegaron k V ori' el rio. Y loo que yegaron le dijo '1 amy k Pedro 'm
bos muy bajita: "Ora si, hija, amos echalo." Pero nomis en cuanty
iban k dale la primer columpiada cuando recuerda la probe, y viendose
'n la manta comensud gritar: "Si no soy Pedro. Soy tu mujer. No
m'eches al rio." Y 'I probe '1 marido, de 'spantau, solto su lau de la
colcha, y su probe mujer cay6 de costalaso y se dio un golpaso pero
gyeno. Y el marido se 'noj6 muncho y le dijy a Pedro: " Pedro de los
diablos, hijo di un tal, <ique m'ibas echar a mi mujer al rio?" Y
Pedro le respondi6: "Si ust6 lu iba (ha)ser conmigo, pero no soy su
tonto." Y aqud'l s' infuriaba vaks y mks, y cuando vido que su mujer
estaba lastimada ya mcro le rompia (a) pegale. Y Pedro, loo que lo
vido tarre 'nfuriau, le desia: "Ya se va nojando, patronsito, ya se va
nojando." "El diablo que no se noje, animal, con lo que querias
baser con mi mujer," le dijo '1 amo, "si que me nojo y mks que pierda
mi lomo y mi dinero, ya no quiero verte m4s." "Gyeno," le dijo
Pedro, y jui Ij arrancuna tira de lomo qu' hisy al amo dar unos gyenos
gritos, y le pag6 doblc. "Gyeno, patronsito, ya me voy," le dijy
antonses Pedro. "Vetj k los inficrnos, que ya no quiero ni verte," le
dijo su amo.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 125

Y se ju6 Pedro pa su cas' onde staba su hermano, y loo que yeg6 le
dijo: "Aqui traigo '1 lomo del rico y doble pago; ya te vengue por
lo qu' hiso contigo. Conmigo no le vali6."

Y k pocos dias le diju a Juan que s' ib' ir a (ha)ser su fortuna por
el mundo, y en efeuto, le dijy 'adi6s' y se jue.

VIII.

Y en el camino por ond' iba incontrua uno qui andaba tamien
hasiendo la vida por el mundo y s' hisieron amigos. Caminaron too
'1 dia y se les hiso nochi 'n la sierra, y se jueron a dormir (a) una cueva,
onde les habian dicho que se juntab' una gabia de ladrones. "No
tengas cuidau," le dijo Pedru a su compaiiero, " los ladrones no nos ven
y si nos cuidamos no nos hasen nada."

Pos que yegaron h. la cueva y como ya staba nochi y creyeron que
presto vendrian los ladrones, se pusieron k pensar comu iban baser.
"Mira," le dijo Pedru a su compaiiero, "lo mejor es subirnos (a) esj
dlamo coposo que sta serca. Trai aquea tabla que sta juntu e la
puert' e la cueva y la subemos pa 'rriba y ai descansamos pa no cainos,^
y hasta podemos dormir arrib' el alamo sin que nayen nos vea." Y
en efeuto subieron la tabla y la pusieron muy bien. Antonses senaron
y se subieron arriba pa que no los jueran a pescar los ladrones.

Y apenas si habian subido, cuando jueron yegando, de guenas a
primeras, la gabia de ladrones. Gyeno, pos yegaron, hisieron un'
hoguera y se pusieron, unos (a) baser de senar y otros a contar el
dinero que si habian robau. Y aqueos arrib' cl alamo oservando todo.

Y en esto le dieron ganas di baser aguas al compaiieru e Pedro,
porque ya se moria de miedo. "iQui hago?" le dijy a Pedro, quedito.
"Meate nesta botea, y nu hagas ruido, porque si nos sienten estamos
perdidos." Y como staba tan escuro, algo desperdisiaba '1 probe,
ydesian los ladrones: "Peromiren como yueve sin estar nublau. Pero
seguro que yueve porquj ban caidu aigunas gotas."

Y poco despu6s dijo '1 compaiiery e Pedro: "Tengo ganas de ca-
garme. iQnd voy (4) baser ora?" "Ora si nos sienten y nos matan
Lo mejor es quj hagas tu nesesidd 'qui 'n mi sapato." Asina ly hiso,
per' onquc ly hiso con cuidau, algunos pedasos cayeron p' abaj' onde
staban los ladrones contando su dinero, y eos desian: "iAque p'ljaros
tam pucrcos!"

Y ya (d) Pedro se 1' iban los ojos mirandy i\ los ladrones contando su
dinero, y al fin le dijy k su compaiiero: "Ora vcr/is comy espanty
{k) cstos ladrones y nos qucdamos yy y tu con too '1 dincral." Y esc
tiempy cmpesaron los ladrones k dispular porque no les tocab' igualcs,
y en el meyo de la disput' estaban cuando jzas! dcja Pedro cai cl
tabl6n di arriba y hiso tal ruidaso que los probes se 'spantaron y
arrancaron k juir en toas diresiones, dcjandy ai too su dinero.

' Caernos.

126 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Y antonscs si abajaron Pedry y su companero del 4rbol y agarraon
too '1 dincro que pudieron y se jucron con 61 antes que voh'ieran los
ladroncs. Caminaron toda la nochi en dos cabayos que les habian
robau k los ladrones y ya (d) la madrugada, yegaron un pueblo 'nde
se stuvieron unos dias gastando como ricos. Y loo que gastaron too su
dincro vendieron sus cabayos y eso tamien gastaron.

IX.

Y di ai dej6 Pedru k su companero y se ju6 solo par' otro pueblo.

Y en el camin' ond' iba vido venir un hombri k cabayo y dijo: "Ora
voy ci jugalj una gyen' 6ste que viene aqui." Y corny ese tiempo le
dieron ganas e cagarse jui se cag6 muy apriesa y la tap6 con su som-
brero. Y '1 hombre que yeg6 er' un fraile que venia nuna mula, y loo
que ya yego sere' e Pedro, le grito: "<iQue tienes ai tapau con tu som-
brero?". "Sefior cura, es um pdjaru e siete colores. Como me par6
pa descansar lo tape pa que no se me volara. Y valj un caudal."
"A ver; ensenamelo," le dijo '1 fraile. "No, senor cura, no lo pongy
en riesgo." "Pos te lo compro. ,JCuanto quieres por 61?" "No,
seiior cura, no lo vendo. Es mi fortuna." "Y ,jqui6n eres tu?"
"Yo soy Pedro dj Urdimales." "Pos, anda, Pedrito, v6ndemelo."
"Gyeno, ya por ser ust6, se lo vender6. Pery es a condisi6n que me
d6 su mula y sus vestidos y que ny ha de destapar al pajary hasta que
no st6 yo muy lejos." "Ta gyeno," le dijo '1 padre, "traty es trato."

Y si api6 y cambiaron de vestidos y se subio Pedro 'n la mul' y se ju6.

Y tavi' esde^ muy lejos le gritaba: "No lo destape tuavia, porque me
sigue.

Y el fraile que staba con la curiosidd de ver k su pdjaro jue meticndo
la mano pocy k poco hasta qui agarr6 muy apriesa y s' engrud6 la
man6 'ntera de mierda. Y con el coraje que le dio le di6 una sacudid'
k la mano y p6gase nuna piedra. Y del dolor que le di6, sin pensar,
se chup6 los dedos, y volt6asele '1 estomago y gomitase 'ntero. Y k
cada g6mito 1' echab' un reniegy k Pedro, que ly habia dcjau en ese
'stau.

Y pa comy k V orasi6n yeg6 Pedry a um pueblo 'nde ny habia padre,
y logo que yeg6 dijieron toos que scgury er' um padre nuevo. Se
solt6 la buya y too salieron k resebilo. Y 61 les dijo que staba muy
cansau, que le dicran de senar y lo dejaran descansar porque tenia que
desir su brevario y la mis' iba {k) ser muy demaiiana.

Gyeno, pos lo yevaron k senar y despu6s le dieron un gyen cuarto
y ai si acost6 y durmi6 muy k gusto. Y otro dia se levant6 muy
demaiiana, sac6 los omamentos de la maleta y se jue pa I'ilesia.

I Desde.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 127

Estaba yen' e gente y loo que entro se vistio pa desir misa y se jue
pal altar. Y loo se volti6 par' onde staba la gente y comensua desir:
" Goles, goles, tortiitas con frijoles. Goles, goles, tortiitas con frijoles."
"Goles, goles, tortiitas con frijoles. Goles, goles, tortiitas con
frijoles." Y di ai no salia. Y si acabo la misa y se jueron toos pa sus
casas.

Pero munchos murmuraron y le mandaron a desir al obispo qu' el
padre no desia misa como toa las misas, y el obispo mandua desir que
le dijieran al padre que dijiera misa como toa las misas. Y antonses,
otro dia hubo mis' otra ves y Pedro se visti6 'tra ves de padre y jua
desir misa, y esta ves s61o desia: "Misa como toa las misas. Misa
como toa las misas." Y la gente sali6 murmurando 'tra ves y se
quejaron al obispo, y le mandaron a desir que '1 padre too lo que desi'
era 'misa como toa las misas' y que di ai no salia. Y '1 obispo le
mandu a desir que no dijiera misas como toa las misas, que las dijier'
Unas cantadas y otras resadas.

Y hubo mis' otra ves y Pedro solo desia: "Unas cantadas y otras
resadas. Unas cantadas y otras resadas." Y la gente se volvi6 k
quejar, y antonses 'I obispo le mandu a desir que la gente d' ese pueblu
era muy descontentadisa y que lo mejor era desiles nomas misa resada.
Gueno, pos qui hubo mis otra ves y Pedro, too lo que desi' era.
"Nomas misa resada. Nomas misa resada." Y la gente volvio a
murmurar y k quejarse.

Y '1 obispo se 'noj6 y le mandui desir que les dijiera nomas misa
cantada. Gyeno, pos qui hubo mis' otra ves y Pedro, too lo que desi'
era: "Nomds misa cantada. Nomis misa cantada." Y la gente
volvio k murmurar y 4 quejarse. Y antonses Pedro les dijo: "El
diablo que les de gusty k ustedes," y se subi6 'n su mul' y se jue.

A poco que salio de la suida vendio la sotan' y los ornamentos y
siguio su camino.

XI.

Y al poncrs' el sol yeguk 'ncase sus compadres, y como lo vieron
yegar en mula y muy bicm plantau y remosau l' hisieron un
rcscbimiento que no solo. Le dieron una gucna sena y le tcndieron
una gyena cama. Gueno, pos se recogicron los compadres y Pedro se
]uk 'costarsi k su cama.

Pa la sena Ij habian dau poliadas y como le gustaron tanto puso
gycn cuidau onde las habian pucsto pa volver en la noch' k comer mks.

Y loo que reflej6 que ya 'queos s[ habian dormido, jui se levant6 con
cuidau y se ju6 pa la cosin' onde staban las poliadas en una tinaja.

Y como staban muy espesas y no salian cuando 'mpinaba la botea,
metia la mano y sacaba.

Y loo que ya conii6 poliadas hasta que s[ acabahj jui ccIk') poliadas

128 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

entre los compadrcs en la cam' onde dormian. Y cuando 'ch6 '1
ultimo puno at6rasele la mano 'n la tinaja. Y cuando staba bata-
yando, en est' inter record6 '1 compadre y meniandu d su mujer con
cuidau, le dijo: "Hija, ya te desgrasiates en la cama, Anda limpiate.
,iQu6 dirci mi compadre, si amaneses asina 'n la manana?" Antonses
se levant6 la probe pa salir aa 'juera lavars' en la 'sequia, y staba
limpidndose cuando sali6 Pedro con la botea toavia 'torada; y logo
que la vido 'n camis6n bianco pens6 qu'er' una piedra blanca, y aser-
case y ^brese y dali un tinajaso 'n las nalgas pa desatorarse de la
tinaja. Y la probe, que pens6 qu' era su marido, pegun brinc6 y
grit6: "jAy, padresito, que ya no me vuelvu^ cagar!"

Y loo que vido qu' era su comadre arrancud juir, y la mujer se
qued6 gritando. Y el marido saliu4 ver qui habia, y antonses entr6
Pedry y se visti6 y salio y ensi6 su mula, y dejo la cas' e sus compadres
sin desir siquiera, "aqui quedan las yaves."

XII.

Dj ai sigui6 Pedro su camino y incuentrase con el diablo. Y le dijo
'1 diablo que si queria comprenderse con el. Que le daria too '1 dinero
que quisiera y que despues di algiin tiempo vendria por el. Pedro le
dijo que staba gueno y hisieron el trato.

Y Pedro tenia muncho dinero y anduvo divirti^ndose con sus amigos
por un tiempo.

Peru al fin yeg6 '1 diablu y le dijo: " Ya vine por ti, Pedro, vamos."
"Esta gueno, vamos." Y se jue '1 diablo con 61 y antes e ponelu k
trabajar le dijo: "Aqui stan los diablos; ven k ver que tal saben
ler." Y Pedro, sin que lo vieran jui les unt6 pega {k) toa las sias y
cuando los diablos vinieron d dar su lesion se sentaron y se pegaron en
las sias. Y antonses jue Pedry y traj' una crus y se las enseii6, y eos
pronto querian arrancar y armaron un alboroto que ya nu hayaban
qui baser. Y Pedro con 'su crus, hasta que le pidieron los diablos
misericordia, y le dijieron que lo daban libre si escondia la crus. Y
el les dijo que libre staba, qui alcabo que con es' arma no \\ hasian
nada. Y antonses les devSpeg6 las sias, y '1 diablo le dijo: "Vete.
Quitate de mis clantes.^ A ti ni los diablos X\ aguantan."

XIII.

Y se ju6 Pedru y dijo: "Ora voy h. ver 4 mi tocayo A que me 'nsefie
la gloria. Disen qu' es muy bonita." Y s6 ju6 camino camino pre-
guntand' ond' era la gloria, hasta que ycg6.

Toc6 la puerta y sali6 '1 dngel, y Pedro le dijo: "dEs aqui la gloria?"
"Si sefior, aqui es." Y antonses yeg6 Sam Pedro y le dijo Pedro di
Urdimales: "<|C6mo le va tocayo? iMo. conose?" "Si, s6 quien

' Delantes.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 129

eres." ' ",;Me deja 'ntrar d ver la gloria?" "No; hombres tan malos
como tij ny entran en la gloria." "Ande, tocayito," le dijo Pedro,
"dejeme ver, siquiera poquito." Y Sam Pedro \\ abri6 poquito y
deslisase Pedro pa dentro y cuando menos pens6 Sam Pedro ya Pedro
dj Urdimales estab* adcntro.

Y Sam Pedro loo que ya lo vido que staba dentro le dijo: "Pedro,
Pedro, te voy d volvcr piedra porque mj has desobedesido." "Gyeno,
tocayito, vuelvame piedra si quiere, pero con ojitos." Y ai sta Pedro
vuelto piedra pero con ojitos, y ai se stara 'sta^ '1 dia del juisio final.

14. PEDRO DI URDEMALES.

I. Second Version (b).

Gyeno, pos la primera ves que se sali6 Pedro di Urdimales de su
casa, se jya trabajar ancas' e un amigy e su padre, y este lo mandyd
cuidar sus cochinos. Logo que se jy6 con los cochinos al campo vido
venir unos hombres por un camino, y los par6 nel medio del camino y
les grito: " iQuleren comprar cochinos baratos?" "i A cuanto?" le
preguntaron eos. "A do riales cad' uno," les dijo Pedro di Urdimales,
"pero antes e entregarselos tengo que cortales las colas." "Ta
gyeno," le dijieron eos, y les vendio los cochinos d do riales cad' uno.
Eos se jueron por su camino con los cochinos y el se jue con sus riales
en la bolsa y con las colas e los cochinos en un saco. Y antonses pa
tramar mejor la mentira jue y enterr6 toa las colitas e los cochinos en el
soquete y se ju6 pa la casa. Cuando yegud la casa y que sy amo le
pregunt6 por los cochinos, Pedro di Urdimales le respondio: "Sicnto
desile, amo, que los cochinos jueron y sj atascaron toos en el soquete
que nomds las colitas se les ven." ",iC6mo puede ser eso?" le dijo sy
amo. "Lo mismo que si lo vicra," Ic dijo Pedro di Urdimales, "y
para que lo crea, vamos conmigo y verd." "Gyeno," le dijo su amo,
"vamos d ver." Y logo que vido '1 amo que las colitas nomds se vian
jui comcnsyd jalalas, y como no salian mds c las colitas solas, cre6 lo
que Pedro disia y se puso muy triste, y le disia (d) Pedro: "Pedro,
Pedro, ya no mj avcriguo contigo. ,iPa que los dcjates entrar en el
soquetal?"

Pero Pedro di Urdimales no dijo mds, y en la nochi se jyc con sus
riales en la bolsa.

II.

Otro dia 'n la mafiana iba Pedro dj Urdimales por un camino y vido
venir un padre que venia (d) lo lejos y dijo: "Ora le voy d jugar una
tret' este padre, pa quitale su burry y su sotana." Gyeno, pos ju6 y
se cag6 muy apriesa y tap6 todo muy bicn con su sombrero. Y cuando
ya *1 padre iba yegando, se pusy d gritar: "jVengan d ver el pdjary e
siete colores! iVcngan d ver el pdjary e siete colorcs!"

» Ilasta.

130 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Y cuando '1 padre 1' oy6, le dijo : " <| Cudnto quieres por ese pdjaro? "
"Se lo doy por su burro y su sotana," le respondi6 Pedro dj Urdimales,
"pero tody es k condisi6n que no ly ha de destapar hasta que yo no
vaya muy Icjos." "Ta gueno," le dijo '1 padre. Antonses se quit6
la sotana y se la pusu k Pedro di Urdimales y le entrego '1 burro. Logo
que se subi6 Pedru en el burro ya iba '1 padrj k destapar el p^jaru e
siete colores, pero Pedro le dijo: " Pocu k poco, seiior cura; se le vuela.
Esp^resi hasta que yy estd lejos, y antonses, pocy k poco va metiendo
las manos por los dos laus y ly agarra bien fijo pa que no se le vaya."
"Ta gyeno," le dijo '1 padre, "pus vete"; y Pedro se ju6.

Logo que cre6 que ya Pedro d| Urdimales iba bastante lejos, meti6 '1
padre las dos manos, pocy k poco y con muncho cyidau, y pa star
seguro di agarrar bien al pdjaro aplano y apret6 muy apriesa las manos
y engrudaselas enteras de mierda. "Mai hay' este Pedro, bribon,"
dijo '1 padre; "si yo lo pesco, 61 me 1' ha de pagar."

III.

Y como Pedro di Urdimales iba vestido de padre, cuando la gente lo
vido venir, toos creyeron qu' iba (a) haber misa y salieron (a) incon-
tralo. Y logo que le preguntaon que si cuandy ib' haber misa, h\
les dijo qui otro dia. Gyeno, pos toos lo trataon muy bien y otro dia
hubo misa. Pero Pedro di Urdimales no desia mas e: "Dominos
obisco. D6minos obisco."

Despues e la misa munchas personas vinieron a quejarse y le dijieron
que no disia misa como toa las misas, y que si no disia misa como toa
las misas, que I'iban k dar queja '1 obispo. Pedro di Urdimales les
dijo que no tuvieran cuidau, qui otro dia iba (ha)ber mis' otra ves, y
que diria misa como toa las misas.

Gyeno, pus otro dia vino mas gente que nunca (a) la misa y Pedro
di Urdimales subio al altar y se pusy k disir : " Misa como toa las misas.
Misa como toa las misas." Y cuandy acabo, la gente le dijo qu' iban
k dale queja '1 obispo porque no sabia disir misa, y Pedro di Urdimales
se subi6 'n su burro y se jue y no lo volvieron k ver.

IV.

Una ves iba caminando Pedro dj Urdimales con un padre a quien
servia y los pesc6 la noch' en una casa y ai desidieron estarsj hast' otro
dia. Los resibieron muy bien y antes e que los combidaran k senar le
dijo '1 padri k Pedro: "Pedro, hijo, no vayas andar hasiendo de las
tuyas. Es gyeno que te portes bien con este gyen hombre y esta
gyena seiiora que nos han dau posada. Y no vayas k comer en
demasia. Ya s6 qu' eres muy goloso y ti aconsejo que cuando te
pise '1 pie ya no comas mis." "Ta gyeno, padre, "le dijo Pedro dj
Urdimales, "no teng' ust6 cujdau, qui asi ly hare."

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 131

Pues bien, que poco despu6s los combidaron k que pasaran k comer.
Y apenas habian comensau cuando pas6 corriend' un perrito por
abaju e la mesa y pisale '1 pie 4 Pedro di Urdimales, y deja '1 pobre de
comer, y qu^dase muerto di hambre, porque apenas habia tomau unos
pocos bocaus.

Gueno, despues e comer se jueron todos acostar. A Pedro y al
padre les pusieron una cam' en un rinc6n y poco m4s ayd staba la cam' e
los amos e la casa. Cuando y' era nochi y que Pedro vido que ya too
staban dormidos, se levanto y se ju6 pa la cosin' a ver si jayab' algo
que comer. Ya se moria di hambre y agarr6 lo primero qu' incontr6
'n r escurana. Era 1' oy' e frijol, y pa que no lo sintieran se jue muy
apurau pa su cama, a comer con el padre. Pero 'n '1 apuro qu' iba
no supo ni par' ond' iba y em bes (d') ir a su cama ju'a dar 4 la cam' e
los amos e la casa. Gyeno, al tiempo que Pedro yego staba la mujer
empinada, con las nalgas e juera, y pedu y pcdo. Y como Pedro di
Urdimales creiba qu' era la car' el cura y no las nalgas blancas e la
mujer, Ij arrim6 1' oy' e frijoles pa que comiera. Pero como staba pedu
y pedo, pens6 que le staba soplandu al frijol, y le dijo, quedito: " No le
sople, si sta frio." Y como la mujer estaba dormida y seguia pey6ndose
y Pedro tuavia creiba qu' era '1 cura, antonses el se noj6 y le dijo:
"No le sople; si le vuelvi k soplar le vuelco '1 frijol en la cara." Pero
la vieja siguici pedu y pedo, y Pedro muy nojau 1' ech6 los frijoles en
las nalgas y se sali6 pa juera a comerse s61o los que quedaron.

Gyeno, pos en esto recordo la mujer y loo que vido que tenia las
nalgas engrudadas de frijoles pens6 la probe que li habi' hecho mal la
comida y que s\ habia cagau en la cama; y pocu k poco recordua su
marido, y atocandose las nalgas, le dijo, medio yorando: "Hijo, ya
me cagu6." Y el marido le dijo: "Pus anda limpiate, cochina, y no
lo vuelvas (d) baser."

La probe salio pa juer' k limpiarse y estaba yoviendo y s' empin6
par' onde yovia pa lavarse las nalgas. Gyeno, pus ai staba la probe,
con la yuvia cay6ndole 'n las nalgas pa limpiarse, cuando juc yegando
por ai Pedro dj Urdimales con la many atorad' en otr' ova que si
habia jayau en la cosina. Y como no podia sacar la mano habia
salidy k buscar una piedr' onde quebrala. Y logo que \idy k la mujer
empinada, pens6 que sus nalgas eran una piedra blanca, y arriniandose
pocy k poco, r emboc6 con 1' oy' en las nalgas k la probe y despadas6
I'oya. Y como cre6 qu' era su marido quj habia vcnidy k pcgalc porque
si habia desgrasiau en la cama, grilaba la probe: "jAy, i)a(lresito, ya
no me vuelvy k cagar! jAy, padresito, ya no me vuclvy k cagar!"

Y antonses, Pedro dj Urdimak-s, sin dcsir, "arjui qucdan las \-a\es,"
se visti6 y se ju6.

132 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

Una ves iba Pedro di Urdimales por un camino y encu6ntrase con un
Iadr6n que disia qu' era profesional. "<jQui6n eres? ^Y qui andas
hasiendo por aqui?" le pregunt6 Pedro di Urdimales. "Soy ladr6n, y
ando buscandy ^ quien robar," le respondi6 '1 otro. "<|Sabes tii
robar?" "Poquito," le respondi6 Pedro di Urdimales. "Pus bien,"
le dijo '1 ladr6n, "si quieres aprender k ladr6n yo t' enseiiare. Ven
conmigo." Gueno, pus quedaon arreglados par* ir a robar y el ladr6n
se yev6 d Pedru y le dijo: "(iVes aquel nido di aguila que sta a4
naquea pefia?" "Si," le dijo. Pedro di Urdimales. "Gueno, pus
voy ir a robale los guevos al dguila sin que sicnta, por que '1 guen
ladr6n tiee que robar sin que lo sientan." "Gueno," le dijo Pedro dj
Urdimales, "aqui me voy estar pa ver si bases lo que dises."

Gueno, pus comens6 '1 ladron k subir el peiiasco pocu a poco y '1
dguila que staba nel nido ni lo sentia. Pocu a poco s' iba 'rrimandy al
nido y '1 dguila ni se movia. Y Pedro dj Urdimales qu' era mds
lepero,^ iba tamien subiendo '1 peiiasco atrasito y '1 ladr6n ni lo sentia.

Al fin yego '1 ladron al nidu e '1 dguila y sin que ea lo sintierale rob6
uno por uno too los guevos que staban en el nido. Pero Pedro dj
Urdimales, cada guevo que '1 ladron le robaba '1 dguila y se lo meti'
en la bolsa, se lo robab' el al ladron y se lo meti' en la bolsa d' el; y sj
abaj6 del peiiasco adelantito sin que '1 ladr6n lo sintiera, porqu' el lo
que cuidab' era '1 dguila pa que no lo sintiera.

Y loo que ya baj6, le diju d Pedro di Urdimales, que staba 'bajo
'sperdndolo muy ampon 2 y con too los gyevos en su bolsa: "({Vites
como lu hise? Jui baje y '1 dguila ni se mueve." "Gueno," le dijo
Pedro di Urdimales "<ipus onde stan los gyevos? A ver." Y '1
otro se jud sacar los gyevos e la bolsa y loo que vido que no traiba nada,
maHsi6 lo qui habia susedido, y le diju d Pedro di Urdimales: "Seguro
qui otro ladr6n mejor que yo me frego." Y antonses Pedro 1' enseii6
los gyevos y le dijo: ",: Son estos?" "Esos meros. Tii no nesesitas
mestro. El diablo que te gane." Y disiendy esto se jue y dejy d
Pedro di Urdimales.

VI.

Y dj ai se ju6 Pedro di Urdimales pa la sierra y encontryd un probe
trampe^ qui andaba viendy d ver d quien robaba, y loo que Pedro
supo quien era, le dijo: "Ven conmigo, yo t' enseiiari d robar." El
otro le dijo que staba gyeno, y se jueron los dos juntos.

Primcry incontraron un campy e pastores y Pedro le dijy d su com-
paiiero: "Espcramj aqui, mientras voy d trai que comer." Y se jyi

' Asluto, dgil.

2 Salisfecho, orgulloio.

' From the English "tramp."

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. I33

volvi6 con un gyen alty e tortias y los dos dieron una gyena comeli-
tona.

Antonses ya staba 'si6ndose nochi y jueron y se sentaron k descansar
abajo di un Arbol murre grande. Peru a poco ratu e que staban ai,
vieron venir a lo lejos una patruy'e ladrones y pa que no los jayaran se
subieron arrib' el drbol y subieron tamien una tabla pa tener ondj
acostarse. Y apenas sj acabaron di arreglar arrib' el drbol cuando
yegaron los ladrones y se sentaron abajy' el drbol k contar el dinero
que traiban y a platicar. Y Pedro di Urdimales estaba viendo todo
y ya se le salian los ojos e ver tanto dinero, pero su companero staba
temblando de miedo.

Gyeno, pus asi staban los ladrones hablando, y despues e contar su
riales hisieron un' hoguera pa calentarse porque stab' hasiendo frio.
Y el probe qu' estaba com Pedro dj Urdimales arrib' el ^rbol ya se
moria de miedo. Ya casi er' k meya nochi cuando le dijy a Pedro dj
Urdimales: "Ya me meo. (iQui hago?" "Meate 'n mi sapato," le
dijo Pedro dj Urdimales. Y se mio aqu61 y comy algunas gotas
cayeron pa 'bajo, disian los ladrones: "jAque^ nochi tan escura! Y
quisds est^ yoviendo." Y k poco rato dijo '1 compaiiero: "jAque
carai! Ya se me jue la carg' atr^s." "Pus descdrgala 'n mi sapato,"
le dijo Pedro dj Urdimales. Gyeno, pus asi ly hisy aqu^l, y no dejaron
decaialgunospesgotitosensim' e los ladrones, y dij' unod' eos: "j Aque
p^jaros tan cochinos!"

A poco rato le dijo su compaiiery k Pedro di Urdimales: "Se me
std ladiando la tabla y ya mero se me cai. <;Quihago?" "Sinopuees
detcnela, d6jala cai," le respondi6 Pedro di Urdimales; y d6jala cai
el probe, y his' un ruidaso de mil demonchis, y los ladrones se 'span-
taron y salieron juyendo, dejandy ai too su dinero. Y antonses s\
abajaron Pedro dj Urdimales y su companero del arbol y agarraon el
dinery y se jueron.

VII.

Otro dia, se sent6 Pedro dj Urdimales abajo di un drbol, y ci poco
rato vide venir unos arrieros con cabayos y mulas. Y como Pedro
traiba dinero lo 'scoii(li6, y dej6 nonicis pocjuito, ly echyen una talega
y la colg6 del drbol. Gyeno, pus loo que yegaron los arrieros Ics dijo
Pedro dj Urdimales: "^Cuinto quieren por su cabayada?" Y cos
le rc'spondicron: "<;Cucinto nos das?" "Les doy," les dijo Pedro,
"csti drbol que da dinero; cada dia da un talc'g6n de riales." Y comy
cos vian que staba colgand' un talcgoii, crcycron lo que les disia y le
dieron la cabayada. Ai se 'stuvieron unos dias y loo que vieron cju'el
kr\)()\ no daba dinero y que Pedro les habfa jugau una trampa, dejaron
al drbol y se jueron k buscar ii Pedro dj Urdimales.

' Ay, que.

134 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

Al fin ly hayaron y le dijier6n: "Ora si te vamos d fregar." Y ly
agarraron y ly echaron en un saco y ly amarraron bien p' echaly en el
mar. Ai lo dejaron un rato p' ir a comer. Pero cuando lo dejaron
solo se pusy (\ yamar k los que pasaban, y staba con unas gritaderas,
qui al fin sj arrim6 unu y le pregunt6: "(iQui hay, hombre? ,iPorque
gritas asina?" "iQui ha dj haber!" le dijo Pedro di Urdimales, meyo
yorando, "me quieen casar con 1' hij' el rey y yo no quiero porqu' es
tuerta." "Pus echami a mi nel saco, yo si me caso con ea, onque sea
tuerta," le dijo '1 otro. Gyeno, pus que desamarr6 k Pedro di Urdi-
males y lo sac6, y se meti6 61 en el saco, y Pedro di Urdimales ly
amarr6 bien y le dijo que se stuviera quieto y que no dijiera naa. El
otro dijo que staba gyeno, y Pedro di Urdimales li avisui talones.

Antonses, k poco rato vinieron los arrieros y agarraron al pobre que
staba nel costal y se lo yevaron y ly echaron en el mar y si (a)hog6.

Antonses ju6 Pedro di Urdimales y feri6 toa su cabayada por cabaitos
pintitos, y unos meses despucs lo volvieron incontrar los arrieros.
",jC6mo les va?" les dijo Pedro. " Per' hombre," dijieron los arrieros,
"(jpus qu6 ny echamos k Pedro di Urdimales en el mar?" "<;Que
no ti hogates? ,^di 6nde vienes ora con cabayada?" Y Pedro di
Urdimales les dijo: "Si mdsadentrito mi hubieran echau mas cabaitos
pintitos hubiera sacau." Y uno de los arrieros le dijo: " Pus echemen
k mi pa sacar cabayada." Y ly echaron y si 'hog6.^

15. LA SORRA Y EL COYOTE.

Una ves incontr6 '1 coyoti k la sorra y le dijo: "Ora si te voy k
comer." Y la sorra qu' era muncho mas astuta, le dijo: "No manito
coyotito, no me comas, mira qui aqui va (ha)ber un casorio y ya vienen
los musicos y toos tieen que bailar. Metete nese carrisal y ponti k
bailar." "Gueno," le dijo '1 coyote, y se pusy k bailar. Antonses la
sorra jyf ^ le prendi6 juego al carrisal, y logo que comensaron k quemarse
los carrisos y que si 01' '1 ruidy e las yamas, le gritaba la sorra '1 coyote:
"jBaila, mano coyotito, quj ai vienen los novios! jBaila, mano coyo-
tito, qui ai vienen los novios!" Y se jue la sorra y el coyote se qued6
bailandy hasta que yegaron las yamas y lo chamuscaron entero.

Otra ves incontro '1 coyoti k la sorra, y le dijo: "Ora si te voy k
comer. Ya no mc la ves." "No manito coyotito," le dijo la sorra,
"no me comas. Mira qui aqui teng' un' escuela." Y 1' enseii6 un
panal dj abejas onde tenia metid' und palito p' haselas nojar. Y la
sorra meniaba '1 palo y les disia {k) las abejas: "Lean, lean." Y logo
que '1 coyoti oy<^ lo sumbidos, le dijy k la sorra: "(iQu6 ruidy es cse?"

' In another one of my New-Mexican versions, this episode is somewhat different.
After the mule-drivers had drowned the one who took Pedro's place in the sack, Pedro is
met, not by the mule-drivers, but by his compadrc; and it is he who is drowned, seeking
horses. In this version, this same compadre is also the host of episode IV, as in version 13.

' Fue y.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 135

"Son los escueleros que 'stan leyendo," le dijo la sorra. Y antonses
le dijy al coyote: "Ya me voy; has tu ler 4 los escueleros." "Ta
gyeno," le dijo '1 coyote, y la sorra se jue y 61 se qued6 picandoles k
las abejas.

Y loo que ya se cans6 '1 pobre coyote de meniar el palo, se 'noj6
y les dijy k las abejas: "Ya 'std; ya no lean m4s," y saco '1 paly y
lo tir6. Pero las abejas que ya staban muy nojadas salieron sumbando
y lo picotiaron por onde quiera. El probe coyote s' echua juir hasta
que yeg6 'nde stab' un rio y ai se sambuyo. Pero cada ves que sacaba
la cabesa lo volvian k picar.

Al fin cuando ya se sosegaron las abejas salio '1 probe coyote del
agua, hinchau de piquetes, y mks nojau que nunca. Y se jue disiendo :
"Ora si, si hayu k la sorra, ora si me la como."

Gyeno, pus otro dia incontr6 '1 coyoti otra ves a la sorra y le dijo,
muy nojau : "Ora si no te me 'scapas. Ora si te voy a comer." " No
manito coyotito, no me comas," le dijo la sorra. "Ven aca 'yudarmj
a tener esta sierra que s' esti cayendo," y miraba pa 'rriba di un
penasco. Y el coyote jy4 ^ mirar, y como le paresia que se staba caindo
la sierra, se quedu k\ embobau y la sorra se volvi6 (a) 'scapar.

16. EL JATANSIOSO QUE SE CASO CON l' HI J A DEL REY.

En un reino vivi' un rey riquisimo que tenia palasios com barandales
di asero y colunas di oro. Y tenia tamien un' hija muy hermosa.

En un' ocasi6n pasaron sere' el palasio tres j6venes y uno d eos era
muy jatansioso. Los tres se pararon junto del palasio y comensaron
k platicar.

El rey estaba serca y oy6 lo que staban disiendo. Y oyo qui uno
d' eos desia: "Todo sj hace con dinero. Teniendo dinero nad' es
emposible."

Y antonses lo yam6 '1 rey y le dijo que ny anduvj[era disiendo tales
tonterias; y pa que viera que '1 dinero ny hasia todo, le dijo: "Te
voy k dar dos mil pesos, y en un mes ha d' estar m' hija preiiada de
ti. Si no lo sta ti 'horco. Pero si yo go^ mis guardias te pescamos
por los alrcdcdorcs del palasio te matamos. Y d m' hija la tcngo
'nserrada de nochi nel palasio bajo siete yaves, y de dfa la cuidamos
yy y mis guardias. Ora ver^s como no todo ly hase '1 dinero. AquI
Stan los dos mil pesos. En un mes scriis 'horcado.

El joven jatansioso se ju6 con sus dos mil pesos pero muy Iriste,
porque creiba que staba perdido.

Iba muy pensativo 'n su camino, pensando quj hnria pa que no 1'
'horcaran, cuando s' incontr6 con una vicja. Y vicndolo Ian irislc le
pregunt6 la causa de su aflisi6n, y el joven le cont6 punto por punto y

> Fuc &.

» 0. See Studies. I. § 97.

136 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

V esplic6 todo. Pero la vieja le dijo: "No ti aflijas que yo te pueu
ayudar. Dame tu 4 mi los dos mil pesos y yo te saco dj apuros." El
joven le di6 los dos mil pesos y le dijo que le dijiera lo que tenia qui
baser. Y la vieja le dijo: "^Qu6s tu ofisio?" Y 61 le respondi6:
"Soy musico. Toco '1 violin."

Y antonses le dijo la vieja : " Pos mira. Con los dos mil pesos voy k
mandar baser un' dguila de bronse y te metes adentro y tocas tu violin
y digo yo que '1 4guir es una maquin' c tocar. Y el rcy y su bija
dirdn que quedrdn verte, y asina '1 fin puedes entrar onde ste la prinsesa
y complir tu deseo.

Pos dicbo y becho. S'biso '1 dguil e bronse y '1 jatansioso se metiuci
dentro y cuando la vieja le jalab' un resorte comensaba tocar el violin.

El rev oyo desir de '1 ^guil' e bronse y mand6 yamar k la vieja. Ea
vino con su aguila y le toco las mejores piesas. El rey y la prinsesa
se maraviaron y le preguntaron k la vieja que si cuanto queria por
dejar la mdquina tocadora nel palasio por una semana. Y la vieja le
respondio que lu basia por dos mil pesos, pero s61u k condisi6n que
nayen babia di atocar '1 dguila y que tenian que cuidala muy bien
porqu' er' un estrumento muy delicau. El rey Ic dijo que staba
gueno que no tuviera cuidau, quedejara '1 %uila y que se la cuidarian
comu ea desia. Y dej6 la vieja '1 dguil' e bronse con el joven adentro
y se jue con su dincro pa su casa.

EI rey y la prinsesa hisicron cantar al 4guila toa la tarde, y en la
nochi, dijo la prinsesa que pa mayor seguridi y pa divertirse mis,
era gueno que metieran al dguila 'n su cuarto. El rey consinti6 y
yevaron al iguila pal cuartu e la prinsesa. Y despues se jue la prinsesa
(a)costarse y serraron las siete puertas con siete yaves.

Y '1 joven estab' oyendo todo y supo que ya staba nel cuartu e la
prinsesa. A la meya nochi salio de '1 iguila y jui li bablya la prinsesa.
Al prensipio se sorprendi6 muncho de velo pero logo qu' 61 le 'stuvo
'splicando todo y que le dijo que lu iban 'horcar si no consintia (k)
lo qu' el queria, y quj alcabo no li basia ningun mal porque se casaria
con ea, pocy k poco se ju6 'namorando del hsata qu' hiso lo que queria.

Gueno, pos cuando ya yeg6 la manana se meti6 'tra ves en '1 dguila
y k poco rato lo sacaron p' ajuera y lu bisicron tocar otra ves. Y
asina, de dia tocaba, y de nocbi por toa la semana dormian el joven y
la prinsesa sobre suntuosos lechos como mujer y marido.

Cuando se pasaron los ocho dias la prinsesa le dijy al rey que se
sintia triste y que queria tener '1 iguila ocho dias mis. El rey se 1'
otorg6, y gosaron de sus amores por ocho dias mis.

Y asin' es qui al fin se yevo la vieja al dguila y la princesa se qued6
muy triste por su novio.

Cuando ya se yegaba '1 mes mand6 '1 rcy yamar al joven y le dijo:
" Pos bien, ya sabes lo que te dije. ^No dijites que con dincro nad' er'

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 137

emposible? l^o te dije quj habia cosas que '1 dinero no podi' haser?
iEstds listo pa r horca?"

"Vamos despasio," le dijo '1 joven; "yy he hecho lo qui ust6 dijo
que no podia 'ser. La prinsesa, su hija, sta prenada de mi." " <;C6my
es posibl' eso? ,iQui6n te meti6 'n mis palasios?" "Ust6 mismo," le
respondi6 '1 joven, y le cont6 punto por punto como ly habi'a lograu
haser.

El rey se sinti6 muy avergonsau, pero ny hay6 mds qui haser sino
casar i su hija con el joven jatansioso.

17. LA PALOMA Y SUS PICHONES.
(Reprinted from Bulletin de Dialectologie Romane, vol. iv, pp. 101-103.)

Una paloma vivia nel monte y teni' un nidy en un ensino con cuatro
pichonsitos. Un dia yegun coyot' y le dijo: "Paloma, dami unu e
tuspichones,"y la paloma lerespondi6: "No, notelodoy." Antonses
le dijo '1 coyote: "Si no me lo das te corto '1 ensiny y me los como
todos," y comens6, calasy y colasu k dali al ensino.

La pobre paloma se spant6 y de miedo le tirii 'ny e sus pichones y el
coyote ly agarui ^ se lo comi6.

Lueo yeg6 '1 calvo y hayya^ la pobre paloma yorando, y le dijo:
"(jPorque yoras?" Y la paloma le respondi6: "C6mo ny he de
yorar? Vino '1 coyot" y me quitu 'ny e mis pichonsitos." "(iPa qu6
se lo dites?" le dijo 'I calvo. Y la paloma le respondio: "Porque me
dijo que si no le dab' uno me cortaba '1 ensiny y se los comia todos."
"Si vuelvj k venir no le d6s nada," le dijo '1 calvo, "y si te dise que
corta '1 ensiny y se los come todos, le discs:

"Hacha, burro, cort'ensino,
no cola de rapasino," y se ju6.

A poco que se ju6 '1 calvo vino de nucvo '1 coyote y le diju i\ la
paloma: "Damj uny e tus pichonsitos." Y ea le respondio: "No,
no te lo doy." Antonses le dijo '1 coyote: "Si no me lo das te corto '1
ensiny y me los como todos." Y la paloma le dijo:

"Hacha, burro, cort'ensino,
no cola de rapasino."

El coyote se ju6 muy nojau, malisiando (|Uf '1 caKy cr' ol dc la
culpa, y ly hay6 bcbicndy agua nun ojitcj. ArriniAnilosc pocy (\
poco y muy qucdito lo pcsc<') y Ic (\\']o: "Ora si tc voy ci comer, jjorcjue
tij juitcs el que le dijites (\ la paloma (|uc no nic dicr' otro i)ich6n."
El calvo le respondi6: "No, inanito coyotito, no mc mates, mira (jue

' Agarr6 y. ' II ay 6 &.

VOL. XXVII. — NO. 104. — 10.

138 Journal of American Folk-Lore

yo soy el rcy de tcxla las avcs, y yo te yevar6 onde te las comas todas.
Subeti arriba dj aquca lomita y te paras en las patas dj atrds y gritas:
"Alcaravdn comf," y toda las aves vendr^n y te las comer^s."

El coyote dijo que staba gyeno, qui asina ly haria y se ju6, como '1
calvo le dijo, pa 'rib' e la lomita, se par6 'n las patas dj atrAs y abri6
la boca muy grande pa gritar lo que '1 calvo li habia diclio. Pery
abri6 la boca tan grande que '1 calvo se scap6 cuandy iba comcnsar d
gritar, "alcaravdn comi," y le dijy al coyote: "Mierda comites."

18. l'hormiguita.

Dise r hormiguita: "Muy juert' es la nicvc que quebr6 mi patita."

Dise la nieve: "Mds juert' es el sol, pus onde me redite."^

Dise r hormiguita: "Sol redite nieve, nieve quebr6 mi patita."

Dise '1 sol: "Mds juert' es la nube, pus onde me tapa."

Dise r hormiguita: "Nube tapa sol, sol redite nieve, nieve quebr6

mi patita."

Dise la nube: "Mas juert' es el aigre, pus onde me desbarata."
Dise r hormiguita: "Aigre desbarata nube, nube tapa sol, sol

redite nieve, nieve quebr6 mi patita."

Dise '1 aigre: "MAs juert' es la pader, pus onde mi ataja."

Dise r hormiguita: "Pader ataj' aigre, aigre desbarata nube,

nube tapa sol, sol redite nieve, nieve quebr6 mi patita."

Dise la pader: "Mds juert' es el rat6n, pus onde mi ajuera."*
Dise r hormiguita: "Rat6n ajuera pader, pader ataj' aigre, aigre

desbarata nube, nube tapa sol, sol redite nieve, nieve quebr6 mi patita."
Dise '1 rat6n: "Mds juert' es el gato, pus onde me come."
Dise r hormiguita: "Gato come rat6n, rat6n ajuera pader, pader

ataj' aigre, aigre desbarata nube, nube tapa sol, sol redite nieve, nieve

quebr6 mi patita."

Dise 'I gato: "Mas juert' es el perro, pus onde me mata."

Dise r hormiguita: "Perro mata gato, gato come rat6n, rat6n

ajuera pader, pader ataj' aigre, aigre desbarata nube, nube tapa sol,

sol redite nieve, nieve qucbr6 mi patita."

Dise '1 perro: "M4s juert' es el palo, pus onde me mata."

Dise r hormiguita: "Palo mata perro, perro mata gato, gato come

rat6n, rat6n ajuera pader, pader ataj' aigre, aigre desbarata nube, nube^

tapa sol, sol redite nieve, nieve quebr6 mi patita."

Dise '1 palo: "Mds juert' es la lunibrc, pus onde me qucma."

Dise r hormiguita: "Lumbrc qucma palo, palo mata perro, perro

mata gato, gato come rat6n, rat6n ajuera pader, pader ataj' aigre,

aigre desbarata nube, nube tapa sol, sol redite nieve, nieve quebr6 mi

patita."

' DerriU. ' Agujera.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 139

Dise la lumbre: "Mis juert' es 1' agua, pus onde mi apaga."
Dise r hormiguita: "Agua 'paga lumbre, lumbre quema palo, palo
mata perro, perro mata gato, gato come raton, raton ajuera pader,
pader ataj' aigre, aigre desbarata nube, nube tapa sol, sol redite nieve,
nieve quebro mi patita."

Dise 'I agua: "Mds juert' es el gyey, pus onde me bebe."
Dise r hormiguita: "Gyey bebj agua, agua 'paga lumbre, lumbre
quema palo, palo mata perro, perro mata gato, gato come rat6n,
raton ajuera pader, pader ataj' aigre, aigre desbarata nube, nube
tapa sol, sol redite nieve, nieve quebr6 mi patita."

Dise '1 gyey: "M4s juert' es el cuchio, pus onde me mata?"
Dise r hormiguita: "Cuchio mata gyey, gyey bebi agua, agua 'paga
lumbre, lumbre quema palo, palo mata perro, perro mata gato, gato
come rat6n, rat6n ajuera pader, pader ataj' aigre, aigre desbarata
nube, nube tapa sol, sol redite nieve, nieve quebro mi patita."

Dise '1 cuchio: "Mis juert' es '1 herrero, pus onde me machuca."
Dise r hormiguita: "Herrero machuca cuchio, cuchio mata gyey,
gyey bebj agua, agua 'paga lumbre, lumbre quema palo, palo mata
perro, perro mata gato, gato come rat6n, rat6n ajuera pader, pader
ataj' aigre, aigre desbarata nube, nube tapa sol, sol redite nieve, nieve
quebr6 mi patita."

Dise '1 herrero: "Mas juert' es la muerte, pus onde me yeva."
Dise r hormiguita: "Muerte yev' herrero, herrero machuca cuchio,
cuchio mata gyey, gyey bebi agua, agua 'paga lumbre, lumbre quema
palo, palo mata perro, perro mata gato, gato come rat6n, rat6n ajuera
pader, pader ataj' aigre, aigre desbarata nube, nube tapa sol, sol
redite nieve, nieve quebr6 mi patita."

Dise la muerte: "Mis juert' es Dios, pus onde me manda."
Dise r hormiguita: "Dios manda muerte, muerte yev' herrero,
herrero machuca cuchio, cuchio mata gyey, gyey bebi agua, agua 'paga
lumbre, lumbre quema palo, palo mata perro, perro mata gato, gato
come rat6n, rat6n ajuera pader, pader ataj' aigre, aigre desbarata
nube, nube tapa sol, sol redite nieve, nieve quebr6 mi patita."

19. LA SERPIENTE, EL HOMBRE, EL CyEY, EL CABAYO Y EL COYOTE.

Una ves ib' un hombre por um prado y incontr6 una scrpicnte
trampada con una picdra. 'L hombre tuvo compasi6n d' ea y le
(iuit6 la piedra.

Anlonscs los animalcs hablaban lo misnio que nosotros, y la scrpicnte
Ic dijy al hombre: "Ora tc voy i comer; tcngo munch' hambrc."
*'iPorqu6 me quiercs comer despu6s que yo t' hise tan grande bcne-
fisio?" Pero la sicrpc* insisli^ en com6rsclo y al fin Ic dijo '1 hombre:

• Serpiente.

140 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

"Esp6rate tantito. Espera que yegui aquel gyeyi (buey) y antonses
me comes." "Gyeno," le respondi6 la serpiente.

Y logo que yeg6 'I gyeyi le dijo '1 hombre: "<iOnde si ha visto quj
um bien con un mal se paga?" "En mi," le respondi6 '1 gueyi.
" Despu6s que le serv-i munchos aiios a mi amo, aqui me solt6 maltratau
pa que 'ngorde pa matarme." Y antones la sierpe le diju al hombre:
" Ya ves corny es muy justo que te coma."

"Agudrdati k que yegui aquel cabayo viejo y antonses me comes,"
le dijo '1 hombre. Gyeno, pos lo speraron y logo que yeg6 le dijo '1
hombre: "^Onde si ha visto qui um bien con un mal se paga?" "En
mi," respondi6 '1 cabayo, "que despues de servili k mi amo por munchos
anos me dejaron aqui pa que me coman las fieras." " Ya ves corny es
justo que te coma," le dijo la sierpi al hombre. "Esp^rati k que
yegui aquel coyote y logo me comes."

Gyeno, pos yeg6 '1 coyote y le dijo '1 hombre: " lOnde si ha visto
qui um bien con un mal se paga? Esta sierp' estaba trampada con
una piedra y porque 1' hise '1 benefisio de quitale la piedra ora me
quiere comer," "Es muy justo que te coma," le dijo '1 coyote, "pero
primero, quiero ver como staba trampada la serpiente."

Y antonses la sierpe consiti6 a que rodaran la piedra pa que vieran
como staba trampada. Y logo que ya staba bien trampada, dijo '1
coyote: "dAsina staba trampada?" "Si, asina staba," respondieron
todos. "Gyeno," les dijo '1 coyote, "pos si asina staba, asina que se
quede, no vay' baser el diablo que me com' a ml tamien."^

20. SAN PASCUAL.

Vivi' um pobr' en una suida y no tenia vaks de familia que su des-
consolad* esposa.

Y yendy y viniendo tiempos, tuvieron un chiquito. Y como staban
tam pobres nu hayaban k quien combidar pa padrinos. Y serca de la
suida vivi' un rico que tenia munchas ovejas, y ese rico determinaron
combidar pa que juera '1 padrino.

El ricy aseut6 con munch' alegria, y yevaron al nifiy k la capia de la
misma suida y lo bautisaron, Y le pusieron 'Pascual el desvalido.'

No muncho despues, k los tres meses, vino la muerti k yevarsi k
la madre del nifio, y antonses el padre detcrmin6 ir y entregales el
gy6rfany k los padrinos. Y como yeg6 (a) esc tiempo el campero con
su partida, el padrino 1' entreg6 al niiio y le dijo: "Mira, hombre,
y6vati este nifio pa que lo crien di una cabra, pa que di algo les sirva
cuando se' hombre."

Gyeno, pos se lo yevaron al mayordomo y le dijieron como se yamaba
y que '1 patr6n habia dicho que lo criaran. Y antonses se lo yevaron.

1 Collected by one of my students, Miss Matilda Allen, at Acomita, N.M.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 141

Y el mayordomo er* un hombre muy religioso y siempre que podia
ib' k los ejersisios divinos, pero nunca yev6 al nino.

Y cuando ya Pascual tenia dies anos y que ya serv'ia muncho, mand6
'1 mayordomu al campero pan cas' el patr6n porque ya no lo nesesitaba.

Un dia ju4 'I mayordomy 4 misa y dej6 k Pascual solito cuidando '1
ganau. Y Pascual se pusy k pensar y desia: "<.Pero, y qu6 sevk
misa?" Y al fin desidi6 que si lo volvi' k dejar, iba seguilo pa ver
qu' era misa.

Asina ly hiso. Se ju6 '1 mayordomo y Pascual lo sigui6 a una vista.
Y cuando ya faltab' una mia pa yegar a la suida vido venir un hombre
qu' iba nun carro por leiia. Y como '1 pobre ny habia visto carros,
dijo: "Ora si, ya conosco la misa. Est' es."

Y logo que yeg6 '1 lefiero le dijo: "Gyenos dias lede^ Dios, gyen
seiior." "Gyenos dias k ti, gyen niiio." Y antonses le pregunt6
Pascual: "^Ond' es misa?" Y el leiiero le dijo: "Vete derecho por
este camino hasta que yegues k la plasa, ay' onde se ve coloriar, y la
casa grande que st4 'n la plasita del medio 6s' es 1' ilesia, y ai adentro
disen misa."

"^Y corny hasi uno 'n misa?" pregunt6 Pascual. "Todo lo que
veas haser esy bases tu," le dijo '1 leiiero.

Gyeno, pos se ju6 y yego derechy k la plasa y pronty hay6 k la
capia, y ajuera stab' una viejita y le quit6 '1 t^palo y se cobijo. Y se
quit6 los calsones y se los cobijo. Y logo 'ntr6 a 1' ilesia, Y cuando
se postraron todos lo vieron sin calsones y algunos traviesos le picaron
por atras. Y antonses, Pascual, le pic6 k la vieja que staba delante
d61, y dijo: "Piquen, piquen, que di atrds vienen picando."

Y loo que ya todos salieron se qued6 solo muy espantau y cuando
vidy al Seiior clavau en un madero, dijo: "Este pobre hombre mat6
6 rob6." Y el sacristan no lo vido y serr6 toa las puertas y lo dej6
atrancau.

Antonses Pascual se jue par' onde staba '1 Seiior y le dijo: "Amigo
no st6 triste. Yo voy k trabajar y yo le traidr^ de comer pa 'ngordalo.
(^Ondj hayar6 trabajo?" "Mira," le dijo '1 Scfior, "vete por la cayi
mayor hasta qu' incuentrcs una casa grande. Ai pide trabajo."

La puerta sj abri6 y Pascual sali6 y yeg6 k la casa grande, qu' cr'
onde vivia '1 cura, y sali6 '1 sacristdn y le prcgunt6 que si que sc \\
ofrcsfa. "Ando buscando trabajo." Y vino '1 cura y Ic dijo: "<iQu6
clas dj ofisio quieres?" "Yo no s6 mks ofisio que cuidar ovejas,"
rcsj)onfli6 Pascual. "Pos vcn acd. dCudnto sucldo quicrcs?"
" NomAs la comichi pa mi y un amigo mfo." "Gycno, pos tom' este
cabador y cscarda '1 jardfn." ",J C6mo scardo?" "Todo parejo," le
dijo 'I cura.

Y Pascual cscarda toa la gycrta, todo parejo; chile, scbo>'as y todo

» Le de.

142 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

cort6 parejo. Y '1 sacristan vido '1 destroso y juk desilj al cura. Pero
cuando '1 cura vino vido que toa las plantas arrancadas estaban
floriando y dando frutas. Y el cura dijo: "Segury 6st' cs un siervo
del Seiior, que vienj k probar mi gratit6."

Y yam6 k Pascual k que vinier' k comer con 61. "No, s61o quiero
comida pa mi y pa mi amigo." Se la dieron y se ju6. Cuando volvi6
le dijo '1 cura: "Manana voy haser una fiesta muy grande y quiero
que vengan k comer k mi mesa tu y tu amigo." Jueron y '1 cur* his'
una fiesta muy grande.

Y el Seiior le diju k Pascual: "Dili al padre que pa maiiana embitj
k toa la gentj k una fiesta menos k tu padrino, por ingrato."

Otro dia hiso la fiesta '1 sefior, y cuando staba viniendo la gente
Pascual estaba muy acongojau de ver que nada staba preparau y le
diju al Seiior: " Pero hombre, nad' estk listo. Por eso te tienen preso,
por engafiador." "Anda trai una cubeta di agua," le dijo '1 Sefior.
" (lY di 6nde voy a trai agua?" "Anda, Pascual, en un lau del camino
r hayaras." Y sali6 Pascual y volvi6 con la cubeta di agua.

Y cuando volvi6 ya stab' un mes6n bicm preparau y yeno de toa
clas de manjares. Y Pascual le diju al Seiior: "Con ras6n lo tienen
por brujo." "Ckyate, Pascual; agarr' esta cubeta y sigueme." Y
Pascual lo sigui6 y cuando volti6 pa tr^s vido muertos pa toos laus y
le diju al Sefior: "Con ras6n lo tenian preso, pos si ust6 (e)s puro
matador." "Ckyate, Pascual; sigueme." Y siguieron adelante
echandu agua por toas partes hasta que toos quedaron muertos.

Y cuando Pascual muri6 ju6 levantadu k las mansiones selestiales.
Y su padrino ju6 k los abismos eternos, por su ingratitii.

Si es verdi
par' aya va;
y si es mentira
ya std urdida.^

VIII. SHORT FOLK-TALES AND ANECDOTES.

21. Un hombre ]uk casar y de repente vid' um benau y dijo: "Ora
maty este vcnau y le quito '1 cuero, y del cueru hag' unos calsones de
primera y salgu k pasiarmi k la caye." Y en lo que staba disiendy
eso vdsele *1 vcnau.

22. Un hombre que staba murre pobre y que tenia muy grande
familia estab' una ves platicando con sus hijos, y les dijo: "Cuando
tenga dinero voy haser una casa com barandales." Y vin' unu e
sus nifios y le dijo: " Yo me voy k subir en el barandal." Y otro dijo:
"Y yo tami6n." Y otro m^s, dijo: "Y yo me voy k sentar arrib' el
barandal."

' Collected by Miss Matilda Allen, at Acomita, N.M.

New- Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 143

Y 'n6jase 'I hombre y les dijo: "Esta familia desordenada va
'cabar con el barandal," y les diuci todos una gyena soba.

23. Un hombre staba sentau con su mujer abajo di unos drboles, y
la mujer viendo cai las hojas, dijo : " Ojali qu' estas hojas jueran mone-
dasdi isincosentavos." "<iPaqu6di4smcocentavos?"dijo'l marido.
"Mejor juera que jueran di k do riales." "Que do riales, mejor dj k
sinco pesos."

Y n6jase '1 hombr' y dali una guena sob' k su mujer.

24. Est' er' una mujer que siempre le gustaba star sola. Una
nochi se li aparesi6 una mano solita y le daba 'n la spald' y le desia:
"Por solita, por solita."

25. Una ves ju6 una mujer k confesarse y nom^s entr6 nel confesio-
nario y se pe6. "tQu^s eso, cochina? iPorqu4 te peyis?" le dijo '1
padre. " De miedo, padre."

Y logo qui acab6 de confesarse se pe6 'tra ves. '' lY ora, porqu^
te peyis?" le pregunt6 '1 padre. "De gusto, padre."

26. Una ves ju4 un casador k casar venaus. Y alrededor di una
laguna vido munchos venaus que stabam bebiendu agua, y se pusu k
pensar k ver comu hasia pa matalos todos. Y vinu y dobl6 '1 cafi6n
de su escopeta en forma di arco y les tiro, y la bala rodi6 la laguna y los
matud todos.

27. Un hombre caminab' un dia (d) cabayo. Estaba cayendy
agua, y le dieron ganas de fumar en su pipa. No traiba f6sforos y
esperud qu' hisier' un relimpago, le meti6 las espuelas k su cabayo,
y ju6 y ensendi6 su pipa de la lumbre 'el reldmpago.

28. Um borrachu iba {k) misa too los domingos, y un domingo s\
aburri6 del serm6n y se sali6 de 1' ilesia disiendo: "Este cura dise
siempre la misma cosa."

Otro domingo, noraks entr6 '1 borracho y dijo '1 cura: "Echemen
ajuer' ese borracho." Y el borracho se sali6 disiendo: "Eso si ny
habia dichu antes, eso si nu habia dichu antes."

29. Un coyotito iba con una gaina 'n la boca, y en el camino le dijo
la gaina: ",jA que no dises 'queso'V Y el coyote dijo 'queso' y
vdsele la gaina pa 'rriba dj un krho\.

"Abdjate," le dijo 'I coyote. "Ha yegau' un comando que se
junten too los animales." "Gyeno," dijo la gaina. Ayk vienen ya
unos galgos." "Eso no stci nel comando," dijo '1 coyote, y se ju6.

30. Un pastor le dijy al cura que qucrfa pagar por una misa
tutanada con alaridos (cantada) en el palo gyeco (pulpito), con rega-
nos en cl tapanco (serm6n) y con jumaderas en 1' oyit' cl cuajo (inccn-
sario).

31. Una mujer casada tcnf un amantc que vcni'a vela cuando '1
marido no staba 'n la casa, y sicmj^re le tenia dicho que cuando
stuviera su marido le colgarf un gycso pa que supiera.

144 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

Una nochi que staba 'I marido 'n su casa yeg6 '1 amante y no vido
gyeso colgau porqiic se li habi' olvidau k la mujcr y y' ib' entrar, pero
la mujer no mds sinti6 '1 ruidito y dijo, como cantando:

"Alma, que andas penando
por lograr cl gycn suseso,
mi marido st'6n la cama,
olvid6 colgar el gyeso."

32. Una mujer casada tenia su amante ycuando '1 marido staba 'n
la casa ea siempre le poni' alguna scfia pa que supiera. Y una ves le
puso malva, una bot6' e vino y romero.^

33. Um viejo nuevomejicano lesdiy^ sushijosesteconsejo: "Nunca
tengan nada qui baser com baraja, verija ni botija."

34. Una vieja tenia trcs hijas gangosas que querfan casarse. Una
ves yegun noviy d conoselas y la madre les dijo que ny hablaran pa
que no supiera qu' eran gangosas.

Y nomds en cuanty ib' entrando '1 novio cuando dijo la mayor:
"(iOngue 'jcd mi guegal?" (^d6nde esti mi dedal?). Y la segund'
hermana le respondi6: "Eg gaco je go guiev6" (el gato se lo yev6).

Y la menor dijo: "Ji, je go guiev6 pa guib' e ga jotea" (si, se lo yev6
pa 'rriba de la 'sotea).

35. Un nuevomejicano di Alburqueque ju6 una ves k comprar
mantequia nuna tienda di americanos y no sabia (ha)blar ingles. Si
asercydl cajery y le dijo: "Quiero compra.T f run f ran fan, desa que se
\[ unta '1 pan."

36. Una mejican 'e 1(a) Alameda isque* ju6 p' Alburqucqui a vender
gyevos.

Y '1 amiricano de la tienda le dijo: "Sit downy "No senor, no
se dan, se venden," le dijy ea.

Y antonses '1 amiricano que no 1' entendi6, le dijo: "(J Are you
crazy?'' Y ea le respondi6 : " No senor no cresen, las gainas los ponen,"

37. Una ves estaban sentaus un mejicano y su mujer adelant' e su
casita y yegun amiricany y los salud6 muy politico pa (ha)sersi amigo,
peru eos ni lo 'ntcndian.

Y logo que yeg6 1' hisieron la seiia que se scntara, y se sento y his' un
sigarry y dijo: "Please, give me a match." Y el viejito le dijy A su
mujcr: "Disc que nos quicrc comprar el macho."

Antonses *1 amiricano dijo, poco nojau: "You are a d — fool."

Y el viejito dijo: " Y disc que nos da tami6n una fresadit' asul."

'L amiricano se noj6 y dijo: "Go to hell." Y el viejito dijo: "Y
nos da tami6n una mujer. Mis que no sirva par' otra cosa, estas
gringas son muy gyenas pa cosineras."

' The husband's name was Romero, hence, mal va, vino Romero.
* Diz que. See Studies, II, § 169(5).

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 145

38. Habi' una ves um viejito que vivia solito con su neta que Ij
hasia de comer.

Un dia le pregunt6 su neta: "Tata Juan <;de qu6 pan hago las
migas?" Y el viejito le respondi6: "Haslas del que tengy, hijita, que
del viento qui hase no sj oyi lo que discs."

39. Isqui um padre teni' un hijo tarre gyev6n que nunca queri' ir
k trabajar. Una ves isque le dijo: "Amos,' hijy k trabajar k las
minas." Y el hijo le dijo: "M (ipa qu6?" ",iC6mo pa que?" le dijo
'1 padre, "pa ganar riales." Y el hijo le dijo 'tra ves: "M <ipa qu^?"

40. Habi' un hombre muy rico que teni' una guerta d' higos, y que
le desfa la gente por mal nombre 'el pelos tiiertos.' Y toa las nochis
iban a robal' higos.

Una noch' hisieron un ruidaso y sali6 61 k ver qui habia. Pero
cuando los ladrones lo sintieron comensaron andar juntos disiendo:

"Taldn, tal4n, taldn.
Cuandy 6ranos vivos
venianos por higos;
y ora que semos muertos
venemos por pelos tuertos."

EI rico se spant6 y arrancud juir, peru eos siguieron disiendo:

"([Hasta cudndo durardn nuestras penas?
Hasta que tenganos las talegas yenas."

41. Una ves hub' um bail' en una casa, y de repente si oy6 quj
alguien habia tirau un tiry ajuer' e la casa. Too salieron pa ver qu'
era lo quj habia susedido, cuando ju6 yegandy k la puerta una vieja
vesina empelota, gritando: "jAy! jya me mataron! jQuisas me
dieron um balaso 'n '1 estantino!"

42. Una mujcr teni' una vesina que toos desian qu' era bruja. Una
nochi que jud dormir con ea no se podia dormir d' espantada que staba.

Corny k media nochi se levant6 la bruja, se sac6 los ojos y los pusy
en um plato, se sac6 los brasos y las piernas y las als6 muy bien, y logo
se volvi6 lobo y se sali6 por la chimenea.*

43. Una mujer juk pasiarsi an cas' e sus visinos. Y toc6 pcro naycn
respondi6 porque nu habia naycn en la casa.

Antonscs, la probe, comy era conosida, alsu' na ventanita p' cntrar
esperar k que vinieran los vesinos. Gyeno, pos meti6 la cabcs' y los
brasos y at6rase sin podcr salir ni pa 'tras ni pa 'dclantc. Y ai se
qucd6 la probj atorada, y cuando yegaron los de la casa comensud
gritar: "jVale mAs morir k palos que morir atorada! jValc mds
morir k palos que morir atorada!"

* Vamos.

* In another version the woman goes away (unchanged) riding on a broomstick.
Sec this Journal, vol. xxiU, p. 4.

146 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

44. Un hombre se pasiaba {k) cabayo por las montanas. En un
canonsito cleju4 su cabayo pastiando y no volvi6 por 61 hasta los seis
meses. Cuando lo solt6 habia comido sandias arriba d61 y algunas
cayeron en las mataduras.

Y d los scis mescs cuando volvi6 por su cabayo no lo podi' liayar. Al
fin vidy algy arrastrando y logo que si arrim6 vido qu' eran sandias.
Era qui habia cresid' una mata murre grandota (d)lrededor del cabayo
que ni se via.

Y cuando yeg6 'nde staba 'I cabayo se subi6 n^l y se jue con el
sandial pa su casa.

45. Est' er' un mano fasico que ju6 una ves amansar un cabayo. Y
pa que no se le juer' el cabayo se lu amarr6 de la muneca con un
cabresto.

Y ese tiempo yego 'tro mano faSico 'n um burro, y gritalj al otro:
"^Qu6 std 'siendo, mano faSico?" Y del grito se 'spant6 '1 cabayo y
y^vasi arrastrandu k mano fagico. Y 'I otro li apretui su burro pa
'yudale, peru k penas se via '1 polvito.

A poco s' incontr6 con um braso y dijo: "jAque mano fa§ico tan
hombre ! i Perdi6 um brasu y tuavia va queriendo detener al cabayo ! "

Y k poco que camin6 (o)tro trecho s' incontr6 con una pierna, y
dijo: "iAque mano faSico tan hombre! iPerdi6 una pierna y um
braso y tuavia va queriendo detener al cabayo!"

Y poco raks ayd s' incontr6 con 1' otra pierna y dijo: "jAque mano
f aSico tan hombre ! j Ya perdi6 las dos piernas y un braso y tuavia va
queriendo detener al cabayo!"

Y al fin incontrui la cabesa y dijo: "jAqui si que la cago mano
fasico!"

46. Un mano faSico teni' una novia y ju6 una ves k vela sin que lo
vieran.

Y loo que yegaron los padres e la novia s' escondi6 'n la quesera pa
que no lo vieran. Y cuando se meti6 dej' una pata de juera.

Y pa que 1' escondiera, su novia, qu' er' una mana fa§ica,^ le dijo:
"Mano FaSico, que sta 'n la quesera, esconda la pata que tiene de

juera."

Y ly hayaron y lu echaron ajuera (4) palos.

47. Otra ves ju6 mano fasicy k ver k su novia y la tenian atrancada
pa que no la viera.

Y por '1 ajuery e la yave Ij hablaba y le dijo: " Ya que no me puees
ver tirami um bcso." Y ea le tiru' n beso por '1 ajuery e la yave. Y
mano faSico s' empin6 y le tiru 'm pedo.

Y su novia le dijo: "jAque mano faSico! iC6mo te jiede la boca!
QuisAs comites jajo!"*

• A fool, stupid person. * Ajo.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore. 147

48. Una ves habi' un curandero que todo curaba con una jeringa.
Una ves se li ator6 un guesu k una probe mujer y yamaron al curan-
dero pa que le sacara '1 gyeso.

Ya staba la probi 'hogindose cuando yeg6 '1 curandero con su
jeringa.

" iQu€ diablos va (d) (ha)ser con esa jeringa?" le pregunt6 '1 maridy
e la mujer. "Yo se mi negosio. TrAigamen d la negra, la criada,
pronto." Y loo que se la trujieron le rompi6 con la jeringa pa met^r-
sela. " iY pa que le va meter la jeringa (A) la negra?" le grit6 '1
marido. "Yo s6 mi negosio. Hasiendo la cos' efeuto, nu importa
'n que sieso sea."

Y la probe negra brinc6 por una ventana y at6rase. Y ai onde
staba 'mpinada le metio '1 curandero la jeringa 'n '1 ojete y empesyd
soltar los chorros de cagada. Y la que tenia 'I gycsy atorau le dicron
tantas bascas que (e)ch6 juera '1 gyeso. Y '1 curandero dijo, muy
satisfecho: "Hasiendo la cos' efeuto, nu importa 'n que sieso sea."

49. Una ves habia dos compadres, uno pobre y otro rico. Y el rico
le dij' una ves k su mujer: "Voy haser ricy k mi compadre."

Y le prest6 dos mil ovejas pa que criar' animales. Y k los och6 dias
una sente(a) acabo con toa las ovejas.

Y el rico, cuando lo supo, le dijo: "Compadrito, no si apure por
eso." Y le di6 vacas al partido. Y hub' una primavera muy seca y
toa las vacas se murieron atascadas en una laguna.

"No importa," dijo '1 rico, "quiera Dios 6 no quiera, voy (A)
haser ricy d mi compadre." Y le di6 dos mil pesos y un burro, y le
dijo: "Vdyase pa su casa y haga lo quiera con su dinero."

El pobre se subi6 nel burro con su dinero y se ju6. Y al yegar d su
casa cay6 muerto.

Y antonses el Senor incontr6 al rico y le dijo:

"Yo para pobre lo cri6;
tu para rico lo quieres.
Ora, revivelo,
si puedes.

50. Est' cr' un gato

con los pies de trapo

y los ojos al rcv6s.

tQuieres que tc lo cucntj otra ves?

Leland Stanford. Jr., U.niversity.
California.

148 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

FOLK-TALES OF THE TEPECANOS.

BY J. ALDEN MASON.
(Edited by Aurelio M. Espinosa.)

[The following Mexican folk-tales were collected from Tepecano
Indians at Azqueltdn in the state of Jalisco. The work was carried
on as part of the researches of the International School of American
Archaeology and Ethnology. The people living there are, for the most
part, Tepecanos, the last remnant of the Pima population that in
former times inhabited that locality. Their native language is in
rapid process of extinction, and is being supplanted by Spanish. The
folk-tales here published are eloquent proof of the rapid assimila-
tion by the Tepecanos of Spanish traditions, which have had such
an important influence on the native races of Spanish America.
Dr. Mason took the tales from dictation, and attempted to transcribe
them, as well as possible, in the ordinary Spanish orthography. In
preparing them for publication, a few evident errors have been cor-
rected; such as, hacer for a ser, al for a V , par' for por, and the like.
The constructions, although often poor Spanish, remain, and are prob-
ably a very faithful representation of the dictated forms. The
records were not taken for philologic purposes, particularly not for
the study of phonetics; and, as already stated, the transcription
is in the standard Spanish orthography. The study of the native
language was the principal task that Dr. Mason had set himself,
and the tales were collected incidentally.

It is hardly necessary to state that Dr. Mason deserves much praise
and hearty thanks, from all those interested in folk-lore studies, for
his care and patience in collecting such an abundant and important
fund of Mexican folk-tales.

Comparative notes to the Tepecano folk-tales will be found on
pp. 21 1-23 1 of this issue.

A. M. E.]

I. TRADICIONES TEPECANAS.

Antes de la Conquista los Tepecanos tenian un terreno vasto.
Llegaba hasta Malacate, cerca de San Crist6bal de la Barranca y
hasta la Sierra de Morones cerca de Colotldn, y incluia la famosa
ciudad de Teul. Azqueltin siempre era la poblaci6n vaks grande y se
llamaba asi porque la gente alld era tan numerosa como ^squeles.*
Pero el primer pueblo era San Juan de Solt4n 6 Isolta poco al sur.
AlH se murieron muchos con la c61era y cambiaron 4 Azqueltdn.

' A list of a few rare dialectic words is given on p. 203.

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 149

Cuando Ilegaron los Padres castellanos y quisieron bautizar k los
Tepecanos la mitad de la gente no quiso conformarse y se fu6 hacia
el norte; algunos se quedaron con los Mecos en Santa Maria de
Ocot^n y otros caminaron mds lejos hasta el Rio Colorado. Entonces
el terreno dejado por los Mecos lo agarraron los Mexicanos y los
blancos y poco despu6s una plaga grande mat6 k muchos de los demds
Tepecanos.

San Lorenzo se apareci6 debajo de un nopal en el mero centro de
Azquelt^n y es el patr6n del pueblo. Habia alii una imagen de San
Lorenzo por la cual peleaban los Tepecanos con los Mecos. Dos
veces volvieron los Mecos del norte para llevarse esta imagen. La
primera batalla comenz6 en Isolta y acab6 en el Cerro de la Vibora.
En el Cerro de Colotldn estaban sentados los sacerdotes cantando y
tocando el arco. Luego sacrific6 un niiio el Padre al Sol y el sol baj6
al Cerro y se comi6 al niiio. Se parecia al lobo de piedra que estd alii.
Entonces cuando se habia comido al nifio se par6 y emborrach6 4 los
Mecos en un cerro bianco para que se pelearan unos con otros y los
Tepecanos ganaron. Entonces pusieron montones de piedras, una
piedra para cada Meco muerto. Todavia se ven estos montones.

El Rey India.
El Rey Indio vive en Tlaxcala ccrcade la ciudad deM6xico. Es la
mera cabecera de los Indios donde estd el rey. Es rey de todos los
Indios. No sabe morir porque no es cristiano del mundo.

El Aguila Real.
El Aguila Real estd en la Ciudad de Mexico y estd siempre viva.
Es duciia del agua. Hace muchos afios estaba en el ponicnte en la
mar donde baja cl sol. Cuando venian los Mexicanos del ponicnte
para el sur pasaron por ahi. El dguila real siempre volaba adelante y
donde quiera que paraba, alii hacian un pueblo. Baj6 d la Mesa de
Golondrinas ccrca de Ocotdn y aquij'undaron los Mexicanos su pueblo.
Alii todavia se ve una laguna pintada con el dguila en medio sobre el
nopal. Estd pintada en los cimicntos. Alii no habia lugar y se
fucron para el Cerro de Tomaslian donde baj6 el Aguila y se fund6
otro pueblo con el Aguila y cl nopal y la vibora pintados en los cimicn-
tos. Aqui no se ciuedaron tampoco pcro fueron hacia ccrca dc Villa-
nueva donde fundaron otro j)ucbl(j. Pero d poco el Aguila \ol6 otra
vez y se fueron los Mexicanos para M6xico, dojidc hallaron bastante
lugar y fundaron su riudad.

El Nacimicnlo.
Cuando nacic') ol Nino en Jerusal6n, con cl podcr dc Dios se apare-
cieron estos danzantes y los pastores y bailaban y cantaban, y otros

bailadores tambicn. Al priii(ii)i(), cuando Dios forim') v\ nino y las

150 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

nubes, los danzantes bailaban primero delante de las nubes; sus
espejos eran los reldmpagos y sus cohetes los truenos. El nino naci6
entre las nubes,

Eran dos companias las que vinieron al Nacimiento, una de Diablos
y otra de Pastores. Todas las naciones se juntaron entonces, el
hermitano, el Huichol y todos. Los pastores estaban 4 favor del
nino y los diablos que eran de Herodes querian matarlo. Y el dngel
domin6 k los diablos. Entonces todos los danzantes, los bailadores,
los Mecos y los pastores bailaban el mitote.

2. LA ZORRA Y EL COYOTE.

(Told by Felipe Aguilar.)

Pues es que queria saber m^s la zorra que el coyote, y entonces el
Coyote dijo que no. "<iNo me comprendes?" Ydijo la Zorra: "Puede
que si." "Bueno, pues mafiana va salir la luna." "Bueno, cpor
'6nde va salir?" — "Aqui derecho." Y dijo la Zorra: "No, va salir
por acd." (Oriente.) Y luego dijo: "Vamos apostando que no."
" Yo le voy que sali aqui derecho." (Poniente.) Y tuvieron una porfia.
Bueno. Y entonces salio la luna y fu6 saliendo de ac4, del poniente.
Diceque ledijo: " jA ver! i Como yo soy mas sabio que tu ! " Dijo la
Zorra: "jUu! Pues me ganates. Yo creia que de aca salia."

Y luego en la mafiana se fueron a un rio y estaba bebiendo agua la
Zorra. Y luego divis6 en el agua adentro que estaba una rueda algo
en la cienta. Y en un momento fu6 llegando el Coyote tambien.
Luego dijo la Zorra: "jMire, hermano Coyote!" Y luego dijo:
"jVeng'aci!" Respondio el Coyote: '' iQnk vites?" "jMire! Aqui
esti un queso." Luego dijo el Coyote: "tC6mo asina?" Luego dijo
la Zorra: "Vamos sacando." Y luego dijo el Coyote: "dPero como
lo sacamos?" Dijo la Zorra: "Bien." Y le dijo la Zorra: "Ahi verds
si te metes tu." Luego dijo el Coyote: "No, tu." Y ahi estuvieron
porfiandohastaquedijoel Coyote: "jAndaleltu te metes." Y entonces
la Zorra se fu^ al rio, y se andaba metiendo en el charco de agua y
no se pudo meter. Y luego dijo el Coyote: "No, asina no te metes.
Pues yo te voy amarrar una piedra en el pescuezo." Y luego la Zorra
se crey6 y le amarraron la piedra en el pescuezo. Y luego la Zorra se
meti6 k sacar el queso. Pues no mcis se meti6 y ya no sali6. Y
entonces el Coyote arranco y se f ue para una media ladera k la carrera.

Y entonces la Zorra con mucho rato sali6 y luego dijo la Zorra: "Hora
veri, mi hermano Coyote, lo que voy k hacer porque me engaii6."

Y luego sali6 la Zorra con coraje y lo fue siguiendo. Y no lo alcanz6.
Asi anduvo hasta que un dia se encontraron. Y luego le dijo: "Aqui
vienes, hermano Coyote. 'Hora si, te como." Respondi6 el Coyote:
"No me comas. jMira! hcrmana Zorra. Vamos cagando dinero."

Y luego se fueron k un Uanito y empezaron k cagar juntos los dos. Y

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 151

el Coyote cagaba semillas de chahuacon. Y la Zorra cagaba puros
pelos. Y luego dijo el Coyote: "cC6mo te fu6, hermana Zorra?"
Respondio la Zorra: "Tii si, bien le acertates." "Hombre, yo no,"
dijo la Zorra. Y luego se arrim6 la Zorra. Empezaron k contar el
dinero y lo manijaba. Y eran puras semillas de chahuac6n. Y la
Zorra decia que era dinero pues, y el Coyote dijo: "Asi, es mucho
dinero. Est4 recien hecho, ese dinero." (Esto es que estaba calientito
porque se habia reci6n cagado.) Y luego se fu4 el Coyote y le dijo k
la Zorra: "Aqui te estds, hermana Zorra. Yo voy por alli." Y se
fu6 yendo poco k poco y la Zorra alli qued6, hecha tonta. Ahi se
estuvo mucho rato y luego dijo: "iQu6 se haria mi hermano Coyote
que no parece? Voy que 6ste ya me engaii6 otra vez." Y luego se
fu6 otra vez atrds de el 'siguiendolo.

Y por alli lo vido que estaba escarbando y luego le dijo: "Aqui
estds, hermano Coyote, 'Hora si, te muelo. Tanto que me has dicho
mentiras." Y luego dijo el Coyote: "No, hermana Zorra. No me
hagas nada. Vamos escarbando; aqui estk la relacion." (Y eso es
que no era relaci6n, era un nido de jicotes.) Y luego la Zorra empez6
escarbar tambi6n. Y fueron saliendo un mont6n de jicotes. Se le
echaron encima k la Zorra los jicotes muchos y le picaron. Y alli
andaba la Zorra capotiindolos. Mientras que la Zorra andaba
capotiandoel Coyote arranco. Y que no supola Zorra que por 'onde
se habia ido el Coyote. Y luego dijo la Zorra: "'Horaveras. 'Hora
si, no te perdono. El dia que lo encuentre, ese dia si me lo como."
Y luego empez6 k buscarlo.

Un dia se vieron otra vez que estaba el Coyote divisando en un
pefiasco alto. Y luego dijo la Zorra : " 'Hora si, no te escapas, hermano
Coyote. 'Hora si, te como porque te como." Dijo el Coyote: "No
me comas. jMira! hermana Zorra. iVen aca! Alli en medio
penasco esti un tompiate." Dijo la Zorra: "dComo asina?" "Si,
jven! iAs6mate!" dijo el Coyote. Luego la Zorra se asom6 al
peiiasco por abajo y muy cierto estaba colgado. Y luego dijo el
Coyote: "Ahi veris, hermana Zorra, si te cuelgo." Luego dijo la
Zorra: "Si, yo me cuelgo. No mis no me sueltes," dijo la Zorra. Y
lo amarr6 de la cintura con un mecate y la Zorra fu6 yendo por el
I)ciiasco y lo fu6 abrasando aquel tompiate. Pero no era tompiate;
era un panal. Y abrazindolo sahcron las avispas del panal y pues
(jue se le amontonaron i la Zorra, Y por alli gritaba la Zorra y
decia: "jEstirame, hermano Coyote!" Y luego el Coyote cslir6 por
arriba y la solt6 hasta abajo y por alli tron6 en el suelo. Y arranc6
cl Coyote. Y la Zorra por alli qucd6 dcsmolada. A poco momento
ahi venia volando un zopilote y luego se sent6 en la cabccera de la
Zorra. Estaba cantando porque se Icvanlara la Zorra y decia el
zopilote: "Lo fuero,^ lo fuero,' primcro en los ojos y dcspu6s en la

' Ajuero < agujcro < agujereot

152

Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

panza." Y en un momcnto se levant6 la Zorra, que la levant6 el
zopilote porque cant6. Y la alivi6 y se fu6 otra vez ci buscar al her-
mano Coyote. Y anduvo buscdndolo por las cuevas y por los montes
y no encontr6 nada. Y se fu6 d una cueva y alii fu6 divisando un
Conejo. "jAy! aqui estds," le dijo, "hermano Conejo. Yo te como,
hermano Conejo." Y luego dijo el Conejo: "No me comas. Voy k
traer una comida buena para ddrtcla." Y dijo el Conejo: "Aqui te
estds en mi casa. 'Horita vengo." Y la Zorra alii se quedo aguarddn-
dolo. Y ya hacia mucho rato que no parecia y dijo la Zorra: " 'Hora
verds. Ya me lo como al Conejo porque me ha engaiiado. Yo ya
me muero de hambre." El Conejo no pareci6. Y luego empez6 k
buscarlo y por alii anduvo esperdndolo por las cuevas.

Un dia lo hall6. Alii estaba en una cuevita con las patas par'
arriba; estaba pisando en el penasco. Y luego dijo la Zorra: "Aqui
estds, hermano Conejo. Hoy te como." Y respondi6 el Conejo:
"No me comas, hermana Zorra. Ven ayudarme k tener el peiiasco,
que aqui lo estoy teniendo." Y luego la Zorra le ayud6 y tambi^n
estaba alii con las patas arriba. Y dijo el Conejo: " Aqui me aguardas
tantito. Voy por alii; 'horita vengo." Y la Zorra creia. Alii se
estuvo aguarddndolo y no apareci6. Y dijo la Zorra: ",jQui6n sabe
como hare? Estoy teniendo aqui el penasco y si lo suelto, me machuca."
Y pronto la Zorra brinc6 hasta afuera y corri6 a la carrera.

Y luego fue k seguir al hermano Conejo y no lo pudo encontrar;
hasta que un dia encontr6 al hermano Coyote. Y le dijo: "Aqui
estas, hermano Coyote. Hoy no te perdono. Mucho es lo que me
has enganado." Y respondi6 el Coyote: "No, no me hagas nada.
Hoy mismo voy 4 ver unaboda." Y luego la Zorra lo crey6. "^Como
asina?" dijo. A poco momento le dijo: "Ahi veras, si tii aqui te
quedas, hermana Zorra; me van k traer una comida buena." Entonces
la Zorra la amarraron y el Coyote se fu6. (Que es que lo habian amar-
rado al Coyote para matarlo porque ya se habia comido muchas
gallinas.) Y llego una viejita con una olla de agua caliente y la Zorra
se alegr6 pensando que ya le llevaban la comida. (Esto es que era
agua caliente para echarsela encima al Coyote.) Y no alcanzaron al
Coyote. No mis la Zorra estaba alii amarrada. Y luego llegando le
ech6 al agua caliente la viejita k la Zorra. Y alii qucd6 la Zorra
tiesa. Y k grande rato se levant6. No se muri6, y empez6 k buscar
k su hermano Coyote.

Y un dia lo encontro subido en un burro que lo habian despachado k
dar de comer al Burro. No vaks le colgaban las gordas y se iba solo
el Burro. Y en el camino sali6 el Coyote hacidndose del enfermo. Y le i
decia al Burro: "Hermano Burro, 'hora me dasun taco." Y dccia el
Burro: "Pues siibase arriba de mi." Y se subia el Coyote y empezaba
k traquiar los costales de gordas y no comia gordas; la pura gallina

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 153

que iba entre las gordas. Y siempre el Burro se iba hasta con los
peones. Y llegaba con los peones y le preguntaban, pues que no
I'enviaban: "iTraes puras gordas!" Y el Burro decia: "(jSabe?
Quizes no." Y otro dia lo mismo; despachaban al Burro con costales
de gordas y no llegaba nada de comida, y luego un peon de los que
andaba trabajando se vino con el Burro d preguntarles que porqu6 no
enviaban comida. "Matemos tres gallinas." Pues que lo hicieron
y le preguntaban al Burro que qu6 habia hecho con las comidas. Y
ya lo amarraron al Burro, que si no decia que lo iban k matar. Y ya
dijo que en el camino le salia el Coyote, "Pues 'hora (ic6mo haces
para agarrarlo?" dijieron. Respondi6 el Burro: "Bien. Yo ver6 4
ver como lo agarran." Y otro dfa el Burro se fue k un llano y estuvo
tirado en el sol. Ya con grande rato ahi fue resultando el Coyote y
dijo: "Ea, jCarai! Se muri6 mi hermano Burro! ,;C6mo hare para
sacarle las tripas?" Y se arrim6 junto de ^1 y el Burro tirado, y dijo
el Coyote: "A mi no me hace tonto mi hermano Burro. Se me hace
que estd vivo." Y luego arranc6 el Coyote y se fu6 otra vez. Otro dia
lo volvi6 hallar alli mismo y luego dijo el Coyote: "Creo que siempre
esti muerto mi hermano Burro. Yo le voy a sacar las tripas y el
menudo." Poco k poco fue entrando y luego fu6 estirando el pescuezo
y en un momento el Burro se levant6 y lo amarro con las nalgas y
arranco el Burro. Iba lejos cuando ya iba gritando el Burro y decia:
" i Aprevenganse ! Que aqui Uevo k mi hermano Coyote." Y luego
prontito alistaron los perros y luego lo solt6 el Burro y luego lo aga-
rraron entre muchos perros y aqui le estira uno y aqui le estira otro y
mds por alia otro. Pues que ya lo hicieron gritar. Y ya lo andaban
trayendo en pedacitos y decia un pedacito del Coyote: "Bien dicen
que con un mal, un bien se paga. \ Miren lo que me hicieron d mi ! "
Hasta ahi no mas lleg6.

3. EL VENADOR.
(Told by Felipe Aguilar.)

Este era un tirador que era muy bueno para tirar y nunca les jerraba
k los venados y sali6 al venado y agarr6 su rifle. Iba entre el monte
y pues que habia dias que mataba de k dos, de k tres. Todos las dias
salia, y mataba muchos. Pues que tenia mucha carne, y muchos
cueros de venado. Pues que entonces otro dia volvi6 k salir y estuvo
venadiando mds dc dos meses y no les jerraba. Todos los dias tanto
estuvo yendo, y es porque ya se le iba llegando el hora, de tanto que
habia agarrado de venados.

Un dia salio y iba en un camino cuando vido unos cinco venados que
andaban cantando en el patio y se decian unos con otros: "Andcnle,
que por ahi viene el encniigo." Y entonces el tirador que vido que
andaban cantando y hablando, se arrcnd6 para atras y dijo: "<[Hdyase

VOL. XXVII. — NO. 104. — II.

154 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

visto? Yo no habia visto. iQu[6n sabe lo que me sobreviene?"

Y se fu6 en un monte bueno y no agarr6 ya nada. Ese dia se arrend6
para la casa y Ic dijo d la mujer: "(iCrees, oyes, que me fu6 mal? Que
no agarr6 nada." Y le dijo la mujer: "No mds una cosa vide por
alii, que andaban cantando los venados. Quien sabe que me quedrd
succder."

Y entonces otro dfa se volvi6 d ir y iba en el camino cuando vido bajar
Unas tres muchachas entre el monte y no llevaban direcci6n pero iban
entre el monte k un lado del camino. Y entonces el tirador les sali6
y ya les dijo: ",iPar 6nde van, muchachas?" Entonces respondieron
las muchachas: "Pues, aqui vamos. No sabemos ni por 'onde." Y
entonces el tirador pens6: "Voy, que ya me robo una de esas mucha-
chas." Y entonces ya le habl6 d una de ellas, la mas grande que si
se iba con 6\. Y dijo una de ellas que si, pero que se habia de ir con
ellas para su casa de ellas. Entonces dijo el tirador: "Qui6n sabe si
les parecerd mal d sus padres." Entonces respondi6 la muchacha:
"No, al cabo que mis padres no dicen nada." — "jBueno!" Y se
fu6 con ellas. Y ya iban muy alegres. Y dijo la muchacha que si se
iba con ellas les iba 'cer un baile. Respondi6 el tirador: "Si, me voy
con Uds; d ver si no dicen nada sus padres."

Pues que se fueron y en el camino despach6 la muchacha d la mds
mediana adelante que se fuera. Bueno, pues lueg6 ya ellos se quedaron
atras poco d poco se fueron atrds y la muchacha se alegr6 porqu6 ya
habia Uevado el marido. Pues que ya lleg6 la muchacha alld con los
padres y les aviso que la hermana ya llevaba un hombre y los padres
sealegrarony dijieron: "(iC6moasina, hija? Pues bien, lo recibiremos
con gusto." Y de alii de un cerro les divisaron que iban ya d medio
camino. Y entonces ellos alld luego se alistaron con los musicos de
arcos y una funcion grande aguarddndolos que iban d liegar. Pues
que ya iban cerca, y entonces se rompi6 el baile. Pero no eran musicos
de arpa, eran del arco. Ya cuando iban llegando los encontraron
como unos novios y ya las comidas listas para aguardarlos. Y iban
cerca y empezaron d bailar al rededor del patio. Ya habia mucha gente,
que parecia una boda. Y los mecos carcamaneros estaban sentados
tres, mirando por 'onde el sol salia y cantando y tocando.

Y se fueron llegando la muchacha y el tirador y luego dijo el viejo,
el meco mayor, que estaba cantando: "(i'Onde hallates marido, hija?"
Que en un camino le habia hablado ese hombre en trato de casamiento.

Y respondi6 el viejo: " 'Td bueno, hija; me gusta mucho para yemo."
Luego dijo el viejo: "Pues 'hora le hacemos un baile de gusto." Y
Uegaron, los sentaron en un banco d la muchacha y al tirador. Bueno.

Y siguieron con el baile. Tan luego (]ue escureci6 siguieron el baile;
fu6 por toda la noche dcsde que escureci6. Y el tirador sentado, no
pensaba que le estaban formando un plan.

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 155

Sena como k las diez que siguieron al baile mas recio. (Esto es que
ya se les estaba llegando la hora.) Y cntre mds, mds andaban bailando
y se apuraron los niusicos, pero eran musicos de cihai'ndu. Sena como
k las once de la noche cuando ya se I'estaba llegando la hora, pero no
sabia lo que le iba k suceder. Pues llegando k media noche se apuraron
mas los musicos k tocar. Estaban sentados en un banco muy bonito.
Pues que entonces la muchacha dijo: "Pues 'hora si; nos vamos k
casar." (Pero es que ya se lo iban k comer.) Pues entre mas, mas se
apuraron a bailar, pues el sin pensar nada, sentado, y mas la mujer lo
abrazaba. (Pero esto es que lo estaban acariciando.) Y se apuraron
vaks k bailar. Pues el sentado luego pens6: "jQuien sabe como serd
ese baile!" Siempre ya malicio lo que le iba a suceder.

Pues que k poco rato, quizes ya cuando se le iba llegando la hora,
en un momento pas6 un raton y le dijo al tirador: "Pues ya te van k
comer." Y respondi6: ",^C6mo asina? tQue de veras?" Y respon-
di6 el rat6n: "Si. <iQue de atiro no malisias? Pues mira. Te voy a
decir sin que nadie nos vea, pues ya estdn apurando a cantar y a bailar
porqu6 ya te van k agarrar." Y luego pas6 el raton y le dijo: "No
te descuides." Y entonces ya el tirador ya asustado no hallaba como
salirse de alii. Y le dijo el raton: "No tengas cuidado; a la hora que
yo d6 la vuelta, echa carrera y tumba esa vela, y luego tu arrancas antes
que te vean pues que ya merito te van a agarrar."

Cuando pas6 el raton a la carrera y tumbo esa vela que estaba encen-
dida, entonces el tirador en un momento se par6 y arranc6. Y lo
siguieron y no lo alcanzaron y dijeron: "i Aqui va!" Y agarraron uno
de ellos, diciendo que 6se era. (Y esto es que no era ; era uno de ellos.)

Y arranc6 y no lo alcanzaron, y el otro que agarraron ahi lo tenian
apachurrado y dccian y gritaban: "Andale, que aqui estd." Y el que
lo 'bian apachurrado decia que no era. Decia: "jUu! jSabe 'onde
ird ya! y dicen que yo soy." Y trujieron la luz y lo vieron que no
era. Y ya no lo siguieron porque ya iba lejos. (Y esto es que no eran
gentes; eran los venados; por tanto que ya los habia molestado por eso
se aparecieron.) Y lo siguieron y perdieron la esperanza de alcanzarlo.

Y decian: "iLdstima que nolo 'bi6ramos alcanzado para comerlo!"
Y el tirador llcg6 a su casa y le dijo la mujer: ",i'On'tabas tu?"

"Si supieras lo que me sucedi6." Respondi6 la mujer: "tQu6 te
8ucedi6?" "Pues que los venados me iban k comer de tanto c\\.\q los
habia atrasado."

Pues que al mes se murio el tirador y siempre fucron los venados los
que lo asustaron.

4. EL MAIZ.

(Told l)y Fcli[)e AKuilar.)

Era un paisano c|iic era muy (lojo. Tenia inadif y no sabia trabajar
nada. Y ya crcciu a(|uil crisliano grandc y lodavia no se sabia vcstir.

156 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Etemamente andaba cncucrado, con el cliile de fucra. Y lucgo le
dijo la madre: "jAndale! Vete k trabajar siquiera para que ganes
para que te liapas tus calzoncs." Y aquel honibre no sabfa como iba
d trabajar. "Pucs, anda alii para que tc ensencn como se ha de
trabajar." Enlonces dijo: "Yo no voy." Y entonces la viejita le
dijo: "tNo vas?" Y lucgo agarr6 un varej6n y lucgo sc levant6
aquel hombre y no sabia lo que iba hacer pues.

Y luego poco d poco de miedo se fu6 parando y luego se fu6 yendo
asf encuerado. Y se fue para una laguna grande. Y en la orilla de la
laguna se andaba banando. Se andaba revolcando en el lodo y
entonces como d medio dia bajaron tres muchachas d la orilla de esa
laguna y 61 alli estaba. Y d una de ellas le empez6 hablar que se
arrimara junto de 61; quiso platicar unas palabras. Y luego se arrim6
la mdsmedianay luego le dijo: " <|Qu6quieres?" " Yo quisiera que me
dijeran que serd bueno para trabajar." Y lucgo le dijo la muchacha:
"cQue no sabes?" Y luego le dijo que no. "Pues ojald que te arri-
maras para irte con nosotros. No pasarias trabajos ni tendrias que tra-
bajar. Y tambi6n te voy a decir que te cases conmigo." Y el hombre
dijo que si, y se fu6 con cllas para otra laguna grande y Ucgaron con
Dios, Nuestro Seiior. Luego le preguntaron que de donde era, y luego les
dijo que de una ciudad; que estaba solo, que se habia criado sin traba-
jar. Luego le dijeron: "Pues, si quieres trabajar, nosotros te ensefia-
mos." Y respondi6 la muchacha la que le habia hablado que se iban
d casar. Y luego dijo Dios: "Ahi verds, hija, si echas de ver que ese
hombre no te maltrata te vas con 61." Y luego dijo el hombre: "Yo
cumplo de no maltratarla nunca con tal que yo no trabaje."

Y lucgo d los siete dias se la llev6 para su casa con la madre, y la
mujer no lleg6 ; por ahi qued6 en la orilla de una cerca. Y cuando iban
d medio camino llegando iba cubierto de nublina que no se via lo
que iba en medio de la nublina. Y entonces aquel hombre se fu6 con
la madre d decide que se apreviniera, que ahi Uevaba una mujer. Y
lucgo la vieja se levant6 y dijo: ",iC6mo asina, hijo, y porqu6 traes esa
mujer? iQ6rt\o la mantienes siendo que no sabes ni trabajar?"
Ya le dijo que se callara porque no sabia lo que llevaba, y la viejita se
levant6 con coraje renegando en contra del hijo. Y luego dijo el
hombre que barriera un cuarto, que ahi la iba d meter adentro. La
viejita con coraje anduvo barriendo. Acab6 de barrer. Luego le
dijo al hijo: "Pues ya l)arri. Tractc pues, esa mujer." Luego dijo
el hijo: "jVaya! Vaya,mama,d traerla. Alli estd junto de la cerca."
Y se fue la viejita y no hallo nada mds dc un mont6n de viboras
cnroscadas. Y luego pronto la viejita sc arrend6 asustada y luego
rcgan6 al hijo porque le echaba mentiras. Dijo el hombre que no, no
cran mentiras, no mds que iba pensando mal y iba con coraje, por eso
no ai)arcci6. Y luego se fue el hombre para alld 'ondc habia dejado
k la mujer, y alld estaba la mujer scntada.

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 157

Y luego el la llev6 para la casa, y cuando iba Uegando no se via de
la nublina. Y luego la metieron en un cuarto grande, y luego cerraron
la puerta. Pues que ci poco otro dia amaneci6 lleno de maiz. Aquel
cuarto grande estaba lleno de maiz hasta las vigas. Y se asom6 la
viejita, ya alegre, que ya tenia que comer, porque eran muy pobres.

Y andaba la viejita y no hallaba que hacer. Pues que ya otro dfa
puso nixtamal de aquel cuarto; puso un granito de maiz en la oUa y
con ese granito de maiz revent6 la olla. Y ya le dijo que no pusiera
mucho, que la mitad de un granito, no mds.

Y vido que ya tenia mucho maiz ; agarr6 un puiio y puso nixtamal de
maiz. Y otro dfa amaneci6 otro cuarto lleno de frijol lo mismo, hasta
las vigas. Y ya la viejita andaba vahs alegre. Ya puso tambi6n una
ollita de frijol y con esa ollitanolo pudieron acabar. Y ya le dijo que
no pusiera m^s de un granito, con ese habia para comer. Y la viejita
porque tenia que comer se puso k tortillar, y quemaba las tortillas.

Y otro dia aquella mujer que estaba adentro amaneci6 quemada, toda
la cara y manchas quemadas en los trapos. Y ya dijo la mujer que
no la maltrataran tanto, porque si no, no lo sufria tanto. Dijo: "Si
quicren verme, no me quemen tanto." Ya dijo el hombre: "No,
mamita. Poco d poco nos hemos de ir tantiando, porque 6sa es una
cosa muy delicada."

Asi estuvieron y al afio ya tuvieron mds que comer. Y empez6 el
paisano 4 tener novias. Y la primera novia que tuvo el paisano fue el
tacuache, Y el cuervo les empezaba d Ilevar maiz escondidas. Y
luego el tacuache echaba gordas y las quemaba y otro dia amanecia la
mujer toda quemada en la cara, y loo dijo la mujer: "Ea, tii. Creo
que no cumples con lo que te dijieron que no me maltrataras. Si
quieres verme en tu casa, no me maltratcs, porque si no, me voy, y
ya no me vuelves k ver nunca." Y dijo el paisano que no lo volvia k
hacer.

Y luego siempre 4 pocos dias llevaba maiz el cuervo y tambien todo
lo revolcaba, las gordas y la tierra. Y otra dfa la mujer amanecfa
mallratada, revolcadas todilas las naguas; y luego ya dijo otra vez:
"Siempre creo que no cumples con lo que te dijieron. Y tambien te
digo que tu no me veas la cara." "<iQue porqu^'?" dijo el hombre.
"Porc|u6 no." Y luego, en la nochc dijo el hombre: "<|Porqu<f; no
riuerfas que te viera la cara?" Luego en la noche k media noche se
lcvant6 el paisano y enccndi6 una vela de cebo y le vido la cara. Y
era una mujer muy bonita, muy liiula. Y cntonces fu6 rccordaiidf) la
mujer, porque le cay6 una chispa de lumbre en la cara. Dijo la mujer:
"Eatu. No has cumplido, creo, con lo que te han dicho. QuizAs no
me quedrAs ver. Y me VT)y y ya no me vuelves k ver." Y luego otro
dfa en la noche se desaparcci6. Fueron k ver adentro el cuarto y no
habfa nada de maiz ni de frijol; no habfa mks de un atajo de palomitas

158 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

volando adentro de aquel cuarto. Y otra vcz la viejita lloraba triste
porque ya no tenia con que pasarla.

Y se fu6 otra vcz el hijo b. seguir d la mujcr y sc fu6 con Dios y le
preg:unt6 que si no habia Ucgado la mujer. Y dijo Dios que no habia
Uegado nadie. (Y esto es que estaba adentro cscondida.) Y luego
dijo: "dPorqu^ se te vino? Tii no cumplites con lo que yo te dije.
Pues 'hora tu mujer no la vuclves d llevar." Y luego dijo el hombre
y respondi6: "Yo no lo vuelvo k hacer; si aqui estd que saiga para
afuera para pedirle pcrd6n, que ya no lo vuelvo d hacer." Y luego
dijo Dios : " Si ; la llevas otra vez, pero si la vuelves d maltratar , entonces
sf, ya no la vuelves k ver, nunca. Se te huird tu mujer y nunca la
volverdsd ver." Y respondio el hombre que no, que nunca le volveria
k hacer nada.

Y se la llev6 otra vez para su casa, y lo mismo cuando iban llegando,
aquella nublina espesa y truenos de agua adelante de aquella mujer.

Y la viejita sali6 k ver, diciendo: "jMiren, que chulo'viene ahi!"
Luego iba llegando y abrieron las puertas y metieron aquella mujer en
el rincon adentro. Y otro dia amanecieron dos cuartos llenos de maiz
desgranado bien; muy Undo ese maiz. Y otra vez la viejita, alegre,
barriendo y componiendo porque ya tenian que comer. Y al hijo
ya apreciaba mucho porque habia llegado con esa mujer. Y otra vez
tanto que ya tenian, empezaron otra vez a hacer lo mismo. Y asi y
escondidas llevaba el cuervo otra vez aquellos maices que tenia aquel
hombre. Y luego dijo aquella mujer que no la maltratara mucho, que
si no, no la volvian k ver, que se iba. "Entonces si, ya no me vuelves k
ver nunca. Te cansards de buscarme y no me hallaras nunca." Y
siempre no laqueria creer. Entonces un dia no estaba ahi el paisano;
andaba mirando las novias. Y ya cuando vino ya no estaba la mujer.
Se asom6 por adentro de aquellos cuartos tan grandes y no vi6 nada.

Y entonces la viejita ya estaba triste porque ya no habia nada.

Y luego, otro dia se fu6 otra vez aquel hombre pensando que se
habia ido con Dios. Y fue k preguntarle d el y le dijo que no habia
llegado nada. Y luego dijo Dios: "Pues tii no cumplites lo que te
dije. Tu mujer ya no la vuelves k ver nunca ni jamds, porque tu la
maltratas. (iQue no recuerdas que la maltratates mucho? Lo mds
encargada lo mds olvidada." Y luego se fu6 el hombre triste porque
no hall6 k la mujcr y lleg6 a la casa. No llevaba nada. Y luego
acat6 otro dia de ir k buscarla hasta 'onde la hallara y empez6 k andar
todo el mundo. Y luego empez6 k preguntarles k las aves, diferentes
animales y ende cuervos y cnde gavilancs que si no habian visto
por ahi una mujer desconocida. Y rcspondicron las aves: " No hemos
visto nada. Nosotros andamos volando 'ondequiera y no hemos visto
nada." Y luego se desengafi6 y ya camlnando en el camino real
encontr6 un hermitaiio, y luego le pregunt6: "Hermano, que andas

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 159

'ondequiera, sierras y montanas, (jno has visto una mujer descono-
cida?" Y respondi6 el hermitano que no, que cierto, 61 habia andado
sierras y cerranias fieras y por ahi no habia encontrado nada. Y luego
el hombre se fu6 caminando mds adelante y encontr6 al aigre y le
pregunt6: "Oy6s, tu que andas 'ondequiera, ^'6nde me has visto una
mujer que se me ha perdido de tal tiempo?" Y respondi6 el aigre:
" Yo no he visto nada. En una parte puede que estuviere." Y luego
dijo: "Pasate 4 preguntarlo al sol si no ha visto 4 tu mujer." Y se
pas6 k preguntarle al sol.

Iba Uegando con la madre del sol. Y luego lo tap6 con una olla
porque el sol no parecia. A poco rato fu6 Uegando, fue diciendo:
"jPor ahi huelo carne humana!" Luego respondi6 la madre del sol:
"No hijo, no te lo comas. ,;No ves que trae negocios contigo?" Y
luego dijo el sol: "A ver, sdcamele par' afuera, que lo quiero conocer."
Y luego no tuvo raz6n nada de ella. Y se pas6 con la luna y no tuvo
raz6n nada. Y se arrend6 de vuelta. Y se fu6 k preguntarle otra
vez el aigre, y le encontr6 en el camino. Y luego respondi6 el aigre:
" Unicamente k un punto no he ido, es en la ciudad de Merlin. Tengo
malicias que pu6 'que alii est6 tu mujer, Y jojald que pudiera Ud
desengaiiarse si alii estd para que me avisara ! " Y luego se fue el aigre
para esa ciudad y tuvo malicia que pu6' que alii estuviera. Y se arrend6
con el paisano y le dijo: "(iCrees que alii esta tu mujer? Tengo una
mediana malicia asegun hay muestras. " Y luego le dijo al aigre:
"jOjali que tu pudieras entrar en ese cuarto adentro! tu, que no te
vea, y si alii estd, me avisas." Y luego el aigre se fu6 de atrds de aquella
criada que tenia aquella mujer debajo de siete Haves. Y luego se fu6
abriendo aquella muchacha las puertas por adentro y el aigre respal-
dando sobre las puertas hasta que lleg6 hasta donde estaba esta mujer
mientras que sali6 par' afuera aquella mujer que la habia Uevado la
comida. Y luego el aigre se arrend6 para atrds y luego le dijo al
paisano: " Ya me desengan6. Alli estd tu mujer sentada en una silla
de oro." Y luego dijo el paisano: "<|Me haces el favor de que me
prestes un tac6n para poder entrar yo para saludar k esa mujer y para
conocerla si 6sa es mi mujer?" Y luego, mientras que sali6 aquella
mujer par' afuera, 61 que habia llevado la comida poco k poco sc fu6
yendo par' adentro y luego la vido que si era. Y luego le dijo: "Ea
tu, de mi alma. <jQui6n te ticne aqui debajo de las siete Haves?"
" Ea tu, me tienen aqui y no mc dcjan salir." Y respondi6 el hombre:
"Acu6rdate que yo soy tu marido." Y luego aquella mujer dijo: "Ea
tu, de mi alma. iC6mo quisiera que mc sacaras de aqui, que cstoy
presa sin ver para afuera!" Y respondi6 el maridcK " Yo te saco de
las penas." Y luego le di6 un abraso y luego dijo: "jCurucucu!
,;Acu6rdate de aquel dia c|ue estuvinios juntos?" Y rcspondit') la
mujer: "iCurucucu! Me acucrdo."

l6o Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Y lucgo form6 un juego de palomitas en un banco y las hizo que
bailaran y dccfan las palomitas: "jCurucucu! ,JAcu6rdate de aquel
dia que me tuvieron presa y tu me sacates de aquella prision? jCuru-
cucii! Ya me acuerdo." Y diciendo eso se dieron un abrazo y d las
cinco vTjeltas adentro. Y ya cuando vieron los caseros, no mis
vieron un remolino grande. Luego maliciaron y corrieron para aso-
marse. Y cuando se asomaron ya no habia nada.

Y en cl camino dijo la mujer: "Ea tu. Si en el camino me alcanza
la maldici6n, alii me vuelvo granos de maiz. Y alii me cuidas hasta
al mes. Voy h. hacer cinco milpitas verdcs y alli me haces mi casa."

Y luego cl hombre hizo la casa y alli se estuvo no mis quince dias.
Ajustando los quince dfas perdi6 las esperanzas y gan6 y se fu6.

Y llcg6 i otra ciudad y luego conchab6 otra mujer, y estaban en una
boda cuando alli fu6 llegando la mujer. Y luego el hombre dej6 4
la novia para seguir k la mujer que habia tenida primero. Y luego
dijo la mujer: "Ea tu, ic6mo eres ingrato! Me dejates y te vinites.
Pues 'hora no te casas." Luego se abrazaron y dieron cinco vucltas y
se llev6 otra vez k la mujer.

Y luego llegaron con Dios, Nuestro Seiior, y lucgo le pregunt6:
"iEa, hallastes tu mujer? Hasta que se concedi6 hallarla. Pues
'hora te voy k castigar, no mas porque echastes tu mujer k la perdi-
ci6n." Y luego lo agarr6 al paisano Dios Nuestro Seiior, y lo clav6
en un tepetate duro, de cabeza, y luego le dijo: "Aquf te voy k poner
de cabeza para que des produto," y alli le dej6. Y se volvi6 unos
mescales muy grandes y alli salieron unas milpas muy bonitas al
rededor de €\. Y salieron unos irboles muy frondosos al rededor de
k\ que parecian mis verdes que los mis que hay en este mundo. Pero
fu6 castigo que Dios le habia embiado porque no cuid6 i la mujer.

Y luego dijo Dios i todos los pr6ximos: "Cualquiera cosa que te
pidan les daris y los socorreris."

Hasta aqui no mas lleg6.

5. EL TOLOACHE.
(Told by Eleno Aguilar.)

Eran dos hcrmanos que eran muy flojos y ambos eran musicos. No
querian buscar maiz ni nada y los corri6 la mami porque no buscaban
maiz. Y se fueron caminando hasta por ahi en un llano. Se acercaron
k una barranca y que estaba un pciiasco alto y que alli estaba una pila
de agua. Y 6stos se morian de sed y se bajaron sus fajas par' abajo
para beber agua. Y que no era agua lo que brillaba; era dinero.

Y cntonces subieron todo el dinero para arriba. Y entonccs cl hermano
mayor se fu6 con todo el dinero y dej6 al chico debajo alli en medio
peilasco.

Y entonccs alli estuvo cinco dias, y i los cinco dias cayeron unas

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. l6l

gufas de cuamecate (dientes de vibora). Y entonces como Dios le
ayud6 se subi6 par' arriba y all6 en la ceja haI16 su violin y empez6 k
tocar, mirando para el oriente. Alld vido un humazo muy alto hasta
el cielo y entonces dijo: "Dios me ha de dar licencia k llegar alii 'onde
esta ese humazo." Y entonces se fu6 tocando todo el llano hasta que
lleg6 y era nublina cuando lleg6. Y alii estaba descansando cuando
bajaba una muchacha muy bonita, linda, preciosa, 4 una laguna donde
estaba saliendo la nublina. Y entonces ya le trat6 de casamiento y
le dijo la muchacha que si, y se casaron.

Estuvieron viviendo un ano bien sin mortificarse y al afio se vino
para su casa el Toloache con toi la scfiora. Y llegando, le dijo k la
mam4 que compusiera bien, que hiciera un altarcito, que el traiba una
mujer, y dicha mujer dijo que se habia aparecido en figura de vibora.
Cuando fue k ver la suegra no vido mis de una vibora que estaba alii.
Entonces se arrend6 la viejita enojada con el hijo, y entonces ya se
fue el a tracr k la mujer. Y la llev6 y la puso por alii en un altarcito.

Y dicho rancho de la viejita estaba el agua muy lejos, que hacia todo
el dia par' ir v traer un viaje del agua. Y entonces dijo la mujer del
Toloache: "Oiga, mami, presteme un cantaro para ir k traer agua,"
"Pues hija, aqui esti el agua muy lejos. Necesito todo el dia para
ir y traer un viaje del agua." Y entonces agarr6 el cintaro y dijo:
"Yo voy k ver alii." Y inmediatamente estaba un arroyo muy
cerca. Y entonces se fue y estaba aquel arroyo corriendo con mucha
agua. Y di6 la vuelta y lleg6 k la casa.

Llegando dijo k la suegra: "Mami, yo tengo hambre." Y no
tenia nada de gordas la suegra y le dijo que no tenia maiz. Y entonces
le dijo: "Yo voy k asomarme adentro del jacal k ver si de veras no
tiene maiz." Y entonces: "A ver, madre, vamos par' adentro."
Y se asomaron y estaba el jacal lleno de maiz hasta arriba. Y luego
se fucron para otro jacal para lo mismo. Estaba lleno hasta arriba
de maiz de color. Y luego se fueron para el otro; estaba lleno de
maiz amarillo.

Y entonces ya estuvieron viviendo alii unos dias k gusto. Y entonces
el Toloache se hall6 una mujer, una querida. Las queridas eran la
Tacuache y la Cuerva. Iba toda la noche alii para bailes. Y luego
ya em()ez6 a sentir el Maiz, que era la mujer del Toloache. Y entonces
se huy6 el Toloache y se fu6 la mujer para con la niami. Y \'a fu6 y
pi(ii6 [)crd6n y le dij<^ los perdones que ncccsitaban, y lo volvi6 k
Uevar la mujer. Y entonces si; estuvieron viviendo unos dias con-
fonnes. Asi estuvieron hasta que empez6 k mortificar de nuevo y
entonces ya se fu6 otra vez cl Maiz para con el padre, Dios, Nuestro
Sefior. Entonces fu6 k seguir otra vez y llcg6 con el Padre, y ya no lo
pudo traer. Entonces empez6 k perdonarse con Dios, Nuestro Seiior.
Entonces Dios, Nuestro ScfK^r le dijo que si ajustaba las siete palabras

1 62 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

que le perdonaria, y si no, no. No pudo ajustar las siete palabras;
apcnas llcg6 A las cinco. Y lucgo les dijo Dios Nuestro Senor 4 San
Juan Bautista y d San Jos6 que lo baulizaran y 61 no se dej6. Entonces
io agarraron y le clavaron la cabeza en un tepetate.

6. EL LUCERO.

(Told by Eleno Aguilar.)

El Lucero era venadero y per ahi andaba siguiendo entre los venados.
Entqnces encontr6 al Diablo y hicicron una 'puesta. El Lucero habfa
de tumbar el Cerro de la Leona con sus flechas, y el Diablo con su
rifle. De un balazo habia de tumbar. Y quedaron un dia en que
habia de tumbar dicho Cerro. Y el Diablo via que el Lucero era
hombre pobre y se burl6 de 61, y entonces dijo: "iQu6 has de tumbar
tu, pendejo!" Y el Lucero respondi6: '"Hora veremos. ({Cuinto
apostamos?" "Yo apuesto que me voy para los abismos infiemos k
salir en este mundo nunca mis," dijo el Diablo. Y el Lucero dijo:
"Pues no. Yo apuesto que lo tumbo y lo he de hacer tres pedazos."
(Porque dicho Cerro de la Leona era una milpa de los maizantes.)

Y luego 61 dijo que quedaron k tirarle y ya quedaron 'onde se habian
de ver. Sali6 el Diablo con su buena carabina, y el Lucero dijo que
traiba su arco y sus flechas de popote. Y que le tir6 un balazo el
Diablo que no lleg6. Y entonces tir6 el Lucero un flechazo con su
flecha de popote, y que k medio viento se encendio de una lumbre y
entonces no mas un trueno se oy6, y lo avent6 muy lejos al Cerro en
tres partes. Un cerro fu6 k quedar hasta San Luis de Losada y otro
gan6 para Tequila y es el Cerro de Tequila, y dichos cerros uno se
llam6 el Cerro de La Quemada y otro La Leona que esta aqui y el otro,
Cerro de la Tequila.

Y entonces asi que perdi6 el Diablo se fu6 llorando para los abismos
infiernos, y entonces el Lucero ya le dijo que si habia de andar perjudi-
cando k sus hijos que entonces tambi6n le daba flechazo. Y asi no hay
diablos aqui en este mundo. No salen.

Y el Lucero siempre sigui6 en su empresa de venadero y todos los
dias traiba tres 6 cuatro, hasta que se apareci6 un venado bianco y le
dijo que no le tirara y asi le estuvo apuntando hasta que se arrim6
cerca. Y luego le dijo que ya no lo persiguiera y que fucra k buscar
otra suerte. Y dicho venado dijo que era un difunto, un cadaver, y
dicho caddver se fu6 y se volvi6 mujer. Y volvi6 k encontrar el
Lucero una mujer muy linda y el Lucero estaba aguardando. Y
luego le trat6 de casamiento. Ella le dijo que se casaba con 61 y
luego dijo que si. Y entonces quedaron k verse en la noche. Y se
vieron y que se fu6 acostando con el Lucero la mujer. Y luego la
atoc6 k la mujer y vi6 que estaba fria, fria. Luego k poco empez6 k
arder y entonces el Lucero se asust6 y se fu6 para su casa como enojado

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 163

y asustado y entonces le encontr6 el Coyote y le dijo: "Hermano
Lucero ,iporqu6 viene tan asustado?" "Hermano Coyote, fui d
dormir con una mujerque era una difunta." Y que asi anduvo asom-
brado. Y luego el Lucero se fue para con el padre, que era el Sol.
Dice que para que lo curara. Y el Sol dijo: "Yo te lo dije que no te
anduvieras creyendo, pero tu no quieres entender. 'Hora persiguelos
con mds ganas."

Y anduvo persiguiende 4 los venados hasta que los acabo. Y por eso
no salen por ahi dc dia, no mds de noche, los venados. Ya saliendo
el Lucero salen muy pocos. Y los anduvo persiguiendo hasta que
los acab6.

7. EL DILUVIO.
(Told by Eleno Aguilar.)

Este era un hombre de treinta afios que quizes ya no tenia pecados.
Su divertimiento era trabajar. Dice que se divertia desmontando. Y
un dia tumb6 un desmonte muy grande, y otro dia ya estaban los
palos otra vez parados. Asi estuvo trabajando y siempre los palos se
levantaban parados. Y los volvia d tumbar. Y asi estuvo trabajando
hasta que pens6 que iria d espiar quien levantaba los palos. Y en-
tonces dice que ya vido un viejito que iba levantando los palos con un
bord6n. Y le dijo que porque le levantaba los palos, que ya habia
trabajado haciendo un desmonte. Entonces respondi6 este viejito,
que no. " No, ya no es tiempo para que trabajes. Si quieres trabajar,
entonces trabaja en otra cosa," le dijo. "Tumbas un salate y ya le
haces un abujero. Lo vacias. Te voy k poner plazo para que tiempo
lo has de acabar." Entonces ya cuando vino el viejito ya habia
acabado de hacer el area. Entonces ya le dijo: "Pues 'hora ve
agarrando cuantas aves hay en el mundo y animales, hembra y macho,
y tantito maiz para que est6s comiendo, y agua. Media 'anega de
maiz que no se acabe y un pozo de agua que no se acabe adcntro del
area."

Y entonces ya se lleg6 el tiempo, el plazo que puso, y ya estaba Hsto
para encerrarlo. Y ya cuando comenz6 el diluvio cuarcnta dias estuvo
lloviendo. A los cuarenta dias ya andaba sobre el agua el area y ellos
adentro enccrrados. Andaba nadando sobre el agua. El primer tope
que di6 en el suelo fu6 para orientc y luego se fu6 para el nortc, y
luego del nortc par' el poniente, luego del poniente al sur. Y luego
se fu6 otra vez hasta el oricnte otra vez, y luego su1)i6 al ciolo otra
vez dc vuclta. Asi se ajust6 los cinco golpes cjue dio en el cielo, se
api6 en el oriente. Entonces ya el Indio que andaba adentro el area
k los sictc dias fu6 (x verlo y le dijo: "Sal; d ver." Salit) y vido y
todavia no pfxlia salir, fK)rciue el mundo estaba tiernito tcnlavfa y lo
dej6 otra vez p(jr allf. Entonces ya vino olra vez Dios, Nuestro
Senor, y lo saco afucra del area y luego ya i)udo aiuiar. Ya estaba
hcca la lierra.

164 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Y luego sigui6 trabajando, y hizo casa y luego ya la perrita lo dejaba
en la casa. Y todos los di'as que venfa dcsde la primera vez hallaba
dos tortillitas gorditas. Y estaba por alii la perrita mirando para arriba
h donde estaba colgada la canasta. Y entonces el Indio ya vido lo
que habia en la canasta. Y se hall6 dos gorditas; una se comi6 y la
otra le di6 d la perrita. Y otro dia volvi6 d ir y ya hall6 tres gorditas
y lo mismo; alli estaba la perrita mirando arriba d la canasta. Y ya
estaban tres gorditas. Dos se comi6 y una le dej6 d la perrita. Hasta
que ajust6 los cinco dias entonces pens6 espiarlo, y por ahi se estuvo
mirando d ver quien era el que echaba las gordas. Y entonces vido
salir una niiia d tirar el agua de nixtamal. Y entonces ya ech6 carrera
el Indio y luego por alli estaba el pellejo de la perra. Y entonces le
dijo: "<iPara qu6 me quema mi camisa?" Entonces ya no se volvi6
perra, ya fu6 cristiano. Y entonces ya lo ampar6 la perrita y entonces
ya lo cur6, lo roci6 con pinole de maiz (va'muit).

Y luego ya siguieron viviendo y sigui6 trabajando el hombre y la
mujer echando tortillas. Duraron siete aiios sin pecar hasta que creci6
la mujer grande. Y el mismo Dios les impuso para que pecaran. Y
entonces ya tuvieron mucha familia para que se poblara el mundo.
Cuando tuvieron veinticuatro, doce llev6 el Indio con Dios Nuestro
Seiior para que les dieran vestidos porque estaban encuerados. Y
los otros doce se quedaron en la casa y no les present6. Y los ricos son
d los que di6 Dios Nuestro Seiior los vestidos, y nosotros nos quedamos
desnudos. Entonces ya le dijo Dios Nuestro Seiior al Indio que los
que habian quedado que trabajaran con los d quien les habia dado
vestido para que se cubrieran tambi6n. Y por eso nosotros los
pobres trabajamos con los ricos para que nos protejan.

iYya!

8. SAN JOSE Y MARIA SANTISIMA.
(Told by Eleno Aguilar.)

San Jos6 diz que era carpintero y se encontr6 con Maria Santisima.
Y Maria Santisima estaba asistiendo cuando San Jos6 estaba traba-
jando en la carpintcria. Y que aqui fu6 resultando embarasada y
sin pecar con San Jos6. No eran casados. Y entonces ya le dijo
Maria Santisima que estaba gorda. Y entonces ya ech6 d huir San
Jos6 y con el poder de Maria Santisima di6 la vuelta. Y los diablos
se qucrian casar con Maria Santisima porque era muy linda. Y
entonces ya dijo Maria Santisima que su padre queria que se casara
con un rico, muy rico. Y entonces ya dijo Maria Santisima que la
persona que florecicra su vara, que 6ste era su marido. Y San Jos6
era el que floreci6 la vara. Y los diablos querfan pues lo mismo y no
florcci6.

Y entonces porqu6 no quiso casarse Maria Santisima con los diablos
ya la empezaron d persiguir. Y empez6 d huir San Jos6 porque

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 165

querian matarlo. Entonces se fueron y k Maria Santisima la subi6
en una mula y San Jos6 iba k pie. Maria Santisima y San Jos6 bajaron
al rio y Maria Santisima iba en su mula y la vibora la asust6 porque
andaba andando; tenia patas. Y le tumb6 las patas y que eterna-
mente se ha de arrastrar y la mula no ha de saber parir. Ese es el
castigo que les di6 Maria Santisima porque la tumbaron.

Y lleg6 alii donde estaban sembrando trigo y dice que les dijo San
Jos6: "Si vienen por aqui preguntando por mi, no les des raz6n. Les
dices, que 'Apenas andaba sembrando trigo cuando pas6 aqui un
hombre pero que yo no lo conoci. 'Hora yo estoy pescando.'" En-
tonces se pasaron m^s adclante Maria Santisima y San Jos6 y encontra-
ron d un hombre que andaba trasponiendo chiles, y luego que pas6
Maria Santisima y San Jose, luego luego coloriaron los 4rboles de chile
y lo mismo les dijo, que si por ahi venian hombres preguntando por
€[ que no les dieran raz6n. Y se fueron mds delante 'onde andaba uno
sembrando maiz prieto y dijo que: "(iQu6 estds hacicndo, buen
hombre?" "iQue te importa?" respondi6 el hombre. "Aqui ando
sembrando estas piedras." Entonces respondi6 San Jos6: "Pues,
piedras se han de volver." Que lo mismo San Jos^ le dijo a el, y
llegaron los diablos y luego les dijo: "jAhi van! Son hechiceros; me
hechizaron."

Y pasando San Jose luego se hizo un pefiascal muy espeso. Y se
fu6 San Jos6 por alia con un rico y lleg6 entonces el rico y respondi6:
"No, aqui no paran los pobres, los puros ricos." Y siempre le di6
posada en la caballeriza. Y entonces Maria Santisima ya estaba en
dias que naci6 el nino. Y luego quien sabe a que hora de la noche
record6 el rico y oy6 las campanas repicando y los pastores cantando y
las danzas bailando y el moreno gritando, el gallo cantando, el borrego
balando y el conche gorgoriando. Y dijo el gallo: "jCristo naci6!" Y
el borrego balando decia: "jEn Bel6n!" Y el conche decia, "j Gordo,
gordo!" Y entonces pens6 el rico: "Pues, serd Dios, Nuestro Sciior,
y no le di liccncia," Y luego agarr6 su manojo de velas y se fu6 toda
la familia. Y San Pedro no les dej6 pasar; no queria que pasaran
par' adentro y les dijo que no mds los puros pobres entraban; no pas6
mds del criado y la criada par' adentro. Y entonces se arrend6 el
rico para su casa triste y aflijido y luego se durmi6. Y se volvi6
[)uerco y la senora pucrca, toda la familia.

Y entonces supicron los tres reyes que ya Jesucristo habia nacido y
luego se vinieron 4 saludarle, escuras para que no supitra cl rey Herodes,
que vicne 4 ser cl Lucifer, cl Diablo. Y quien sabo conio supo el
Lucifer cjue ya habia nacido, y luego dijo que mataran cuantos niiios
que habia en el mundo para saber cual nino habia de ser cl rey. Y
entonces Maria Santisima y San Jos6 estuvicron en una ciieva donde
paraban los ladrones. Y l^ilatos les estaba llevando los aliinentos para

1 66 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

que no lo mataran, porque Hcrodcs habia dispuesto que mataran k
todos los niiios hasta que ajustara el termino de treinta aiios.

Y entonces ya salieron de la cueva y entonces ya comenzaron k
persiguirlo los diablos que son los Judios, y entonces ya lo mataron 4
Jesucrislo y lo arrastraron los Judios y anduvieron tray6ndolo preso
hasta que hubo una persona que lo vendi6 en treinta reales. Y
Jesucristo para ensenarnos 4 morir muri6 y volvi6 4 resucitar. Y
entonces Santo Santiago empez6 4 pelear con los Judios hasta que no
dej6 ni uno, porque Dios, Nuestro Senor le dijo que no dejara ni uno.

Y Dios Nuestro Senor lo revivi6 al rey de los Judios,

Y entro por un chiquihuite roto,
Y cu6ntame otro.

9. PEDRO Y SAN PEDRO.

(Told by Eleno Aguilar.)

Era una mujer que tenia tres hijos que eran muy flojos y no mds
asistian acostados con los pies en la pader. Les dijo la madre que los
corria k trabajar. Los despach6 k trabajar y se fueron y llegaron k
una higuera 'onde se apartaban tres caminos, uno ganaba para con
San Pedro y otro con Seiior San Jose y otro con Dios Nuestro Sefior.

Y se fueron y las sefias que pusieron que si se morian que tenian que
venir k saber alii en la higuera; si lloraba sangre ya se habian muerto.

Y se fueron k trabajar, un aiio trabajando, uno con Dios Nuestro
Seiior, otro con San Pedro y otro con San Jos§.

Y ya ajustado el termino entonces el mayor dijo que ya se venia y
entonces el menor que estaba con San Jose dijo que tambi6n que ya
se venia. Y entonces al mayor pregunt6 Dios Nuestro Seiior que que
queria, su dinero y sus gordas 6 un "Dios te lo pague" y su medio. Y
que lucgo le pregunt6 San Jos6 al menor que si ya venia tambien que
le dijo que que queria, su dinero y sus gordas 6 un medio y un "Dios
te lo pague." El mayor respondi6 que queria su dinero porque sus
padres le habian de preguntar que que estaba haciendo. Y el menor
dijo lo mismo. Y el vaks chico se Uamaba Pedro y estaba trabajando
con San Pedro y 61 quiso un " Dios te lo pague." El tomo el "Dios te
lo pague" y un medio, que con eso no le robaron ni mataron.

Se vinieron todos y volvieron juntos alii k la higuera, ambos tres
un dia citado que quedaron, que all4 se apartaron. Llegaron, se
juntaron los tres y luego empezaron k calentar gordas. Y luego
dijieron k Pedro que viniera k comer y traer sus gordas. Y Pedro
rcspondi6: "Coman Uds," y se sent6 k comer su torta de pan que le
habia dado San Pedro. EUos se quedaron comiendo y el se fue a beber
agua k la laguna. Y entonces alii encontr6 una ranita. Y pronto
vinieron por all4 los otros hermanos que le preguntaron: "(iQu6 estds
haciendo, Pedro? jVdmonos!" Y el respondi6: "Estoy bebiendo

Folk-Tales oj the Tepecanos. 167

agua." Y entonces se fueron los otros y 61 se qued6 agarrando la
ranita. Y la agarr6 y ech6 en la copa del sombrero y se fu6 y lleg6
k la plaza k comprar una tinaja. Y luego busc6 una criada que le
dijo: "Todito los dias tienes que hacer traerle agua trasnochada de
la tinaja y echarle agua nueva." Y entonces dice que la mamd le
mand6 un manto y le mand6 un perico y un perrito. Entonces le
dijo Pedro: "([Pues qu6 hago yo con este perrito y este perico?"
Sali6 la ranita de la tinaja y le dijo que no se apurara, que ya no
se emborrachara , que se banara y que ya para manana le estarian
aguardando. Y diz que le dijo que le llevara el manto. Le dijo:
"Trdeme el manto." Estuvo haciendo manto y que ya se volvi6 una
servilleta, un mantel, y de alii dijo la ranita que le llevara el perrito
tambion k pasearlo y le dijo al perico que le hablara k Pedro. Y que
rezara una letanilla, y al perro tambidn le dijo que se parara en dos
patas y que le llevara un petate. Y 6stas eran las gracias que estaba
haciendo el perro.

Entonces dijo la ranita: "Trdeme la criada," y empez6 d peinarse y
creci6 la trensa muy grande. Entonces dijo Pedro: "Ven acd, tu."
Y le cort6 un pantalon y una chaqueta. Y que ya le dijo que se fueran
arrimar al coche, y que se fueran 4 ver k los padres. Y ese dia iba k
ser la boda de los tres hijos. Le dijo la ranita en el camino: "Al'hora
que los lleven k comer, no vayan. De cuantos potajes que nos ofrez-
can, agarra una sopa, no mas." Y llegaron y les dieron de comer. Y
acabaron de comer, se salieron par' afuera. Luego se fueron k bailar,
porque era la boda. Y la primcra que sacaron k bailar fu6 la ranita.
Luego se solt6 una esquina de bano, y eran puras flores que se tiraron
al patio donde se bailaba. Y las mismas gracias hicieron Pedro y la
criada.

Y se fueron de la boda y llegaron k la casa y luego se fue para la
plaza k emborracharse. Y en este tiempo vinieron Dios y San Jos6 y
San Pedro que lleg6 con el mayor y le dijo k la mujcr: "^Ond'estd su
marido?" Y les dijo que no estaba ahi, y le dijo que si le daba licencia
k pasar una buena noche en su casa, y les dijo que no, que alli no era
mes6n, rjue el mcs6n era adelanlito. Y se pasaron con el otro mcnor
y no lo }iall6. Y le dijo k la mujcr que si le daba licencia i^ara pasar
una buena noche con ella alli en su bucna casa, y le dijo {\\\v no, cjiic
el mes^n era adelantito. Y se fueron con Pedro y no lo hallarou,
andaba borracho. Y le preguntaron k la mujer (jue 'ond' estaba Pedro,
y les dijo que pasaran mientras que venia Pedro. Y ya vino Pedro y
le dijo que si porque no llegaron, y le dijo ([ue no, que estaban aguar-
dando. Yya preguntaron si sabiacon (luien plalicaba y les dijo (|ue no
los conocia. Y le dijo San Pedro ciue si no acordaba con quicn iba k
trabajar, y 61 les dijo (|ue si ellos eran cjue no los conocia. Y los vi6
Uegar k la casa y lueg(i se fu6 I'edro para la plaza ii comprar comestibles.

1 68 Jotirnal oj American Folk-Lore.

Y lleg6 San Pedro reclamando su medio, que con ese estaba condena-
do. Y Ic dijo que no, que no le daba el medio, Y San Pedro dijo
que si, que venfa por su medio y luego se quedaron d dormir alii con
41. Y otro dfa que se fueron olvidaron el costal de dinero que le traiban
k Pedro. Entonces se fueron y la sefiora empez6 d barrcr y hall6 el
costal de dinero. Y le dijo la mujer k Pedro que se fuera alcanzar k
entregar el dinero. Y los alcanz6 y les dijo que habian olvidado su
dinero, que alii estaba. Entonces dijo que no, que lo dejaba, que k
poco le diria que los habia robado. Y le dijo que no, que le dejaba el
dinero y si no lo queria creerla ranita que le ponian una manzana en la
puerta de la casa. Y otro dia en la maiiana lo despert6 con el olor de
las manzanas, y pas6 una mujer al agua y cort6 una manzana y se peg6.

Y dijo San Pedro k la Muerte: "Vaya k traerme k Pedro porque
Pedro est4 condenado con mi medio." Y se fue y vino la Muerte k
llevar k Pedro. Y entonces Pedro dijo que le cortara una manzana
y se peg6 k la Muerte y le dijo que asi no le llevaba, que lo despegara
y le dijo que no le llevaba. Y de pronto le lleg6 otro cristiano y
entonces San Pedro dijo: "No, 6ste no es Pedro. jAnda! Traeme
a Pedro." Y que Pedro estaba en la plaza hecho de pelo que no lo
habia de conocer. Entonces lleg6 la Muerte y pregunt6 que que raz6n
le daba de Pedro y le dijo que no parecia. Entonces dice que dijo la
Muerte: "Este pel6n me llevo," y le di6 un flechazo y se vino Pedro
asustau para su casa, y luego empez6 k comprar su diciplina y su
habito y las botcllas de vino y le encarg6 la ranita que ya iba a morir
Pedro, que le echaran su diciplina, su hdbito, su medio y sus dos
botellas de licor; y se muri6 y se fu6 k sepultar.

Y luego lleg6 k la Gloria y toc6 la puerta y le dijo San Pedro que:
"(iQuien es?" Luego respondio Pedro: "Yo soy." "jVete a la
otra puerta! " y se fu6 para el infierno y toc6 la puerta. Y le prcgun-
taron los diablos: "^Quien es?" "Pedro." "jPase!" Y empez6 4
jugar k la baraja con ellos, y los diablos empezaron k jugar las almas
y las gan6 todas. Asi que les gan6 agarro a chirrionazos con la dici-
plina hasta que los ech6 par' afuera. Entonces se fu6 otra vez para
la gloria. Y toc6 la puerta y le dijieron: "dQui^n eres tii?" "Yo
soy tu tocayito." Y luego empez6 k pedir que se abriera la puerta
tantito y se meti6 poco d poquito. Y luego San Pedro Ic dijo: "No
te metes, Pedro." "No mds tantito para asomarme." Y que se
meti6y le dijo: "jPiedra te vuelves, Pedro!" "Si,pero con ojos," re-
spondi6 Pedro de Ordimales.

lO. PEDRO DE ORDIMALES.

(Told by Felipe Aguilar.)

Es que les echaba mentiras k todos los arrieros y se iba en un camino
y encontraba k los arrieros. Y lo vian en un camino; estaba cuidando
un drbol muy grande, muy verde. Y pasaban los arrieros y le decian:

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 169

*'Oyes, Pedro, icukato quieres poraquel Arbol?" Y Pedro respondia:
"Me daran doscientos pesos." Respondieron losarrieros: "Que si, si
los damos, porque es drbol que sabe tener dinero." Y les dijo que al
ano criaba mucho dinero. Y Pedro gan6 y se fu6. Vendi6 aquel
drbol, no mds cort6 el dinero que tenia el drbol. (Y no es que tenia
dinero aquel drbol; es que solo los habia colgado.) Y se estuvieron
aquellos arrieros aguardando y nada dinero que tuvo aquel drbol.
Perdieron las esperanzas y se fueron enojadisimos con Pedro. Y
dijieron: "'Hora ver^s, el dia que lo encontremos, ese dia lo apresa-
mos porque nos ha echado mentiras."

Y un dia lo hallaron en otro camino real cuidando un oUa y decia que
era olla de virtud. (Y no era nada mas que tenia lumbre por debajo
de la tierra.) Y los arrieros que pasaban le decian que si vendia la olla
y 61 les dijo que si, la vendia si le daban doscientos pesos. Y entonces
los arrieros se creyeron y le dijieron los arrieros que era olla, que no
necesitaba lumbre ni nada. Y entonces la vendi6 y lueguito se fu6
y aquellos arrieros en el camino iban poniendo la olla y nada que cocian
en ella. Y se enojaron los arrieros con 61 y dijieron que algun dia lo
habian de encontrar.

Y pasaron otros arrieros en otro camino real y estaba Pedro en un
camino. Iban Uegando los arrieros y les dijo: "jAnden, amigos!
Vengan i agarrar el pajaro cu." Y andaba brincando Pedro y los
arrieros no vian nada. Y luego en un punto lo tap6 y dijo que alli
estdba el pajaro cu. Y luego dijieron los arrieros que si lo vendia.
Pedro dijo que si, porque era muy bonito. Y luego dijo Pedro: "Si,
pero yo no lo destapo. Primero entriegan el dinero y me voy antes
que me vea. Y me prestan su sombrero." Y le prestaron el sombrero
y les dijo: "No lo sueltan hasta que no encumbre yo en aquella loma,
porque si lo sueltan 'horita, me ve y me sigue." Y alli lo tuvieron
apachurrando hasta que no lo vian, que se desapareci6. Y entonces
aquellos arrieros, uno de ellos luego dijo: "V^monos destapando, al
cabo que no lo devisa." Y luego alzaron el sombrero; poco k poquito
fueron meli6ndoIe la mano debajo el sombrero y se fu6 atascando los
dedos y lo fueron destapando. Y era un mont6n de mierda. Y luego

' fueron y le echaron malhayas: "Ora verds, Pedro, el dia que te
iicontremos, ese dia te fregamos."

Y entonces en un camino real vcnia un atajo de arrieros y traiban
mucho cargamento. Y Pedro venia por el mismo camino. Vcnia
L.imbicn arriando, hacicndo huasanga que parccia que vcnian muclios.
Y dijieron los arrieros: "Hdganse 4 un lado; ahi vicne un atajo muy
grandc." En un callej6n se hicieron d un lado que no hallabaii que
hacer porque oyeron el atajo muy grandc que Pedro vcnfa arrcando.
A poco momento ahi fu6 saliendo con un burrito todo piojoso, y luego
los arrieros lo regailaron. Y entonces se pas6 muy tieso.

VOL. XXVII. — NO. 104. — 12.

170 Journal of American Folk- Lore.

Y en otro camino real estaba otro atajo almorzando cuando Pedro
iba pasando. Y alii se fueron encontrando aqu611os que les habia
echado mentiras, los primeros arrieros. Y alii lo fueron agarrando
y le agarraron y lo metieron en una bota y lo cosieron bicn. Y en un
momcnto por ahi iba gritando un chivero. Tan luego que lo oy6
Pedro, Pedro habl6 y le dijo al chivero: "Hazte par' acd tantito."

Y luego aquel chivero se arrim6 junto de 61, y por adentro hablaba
que si se queria meter adentro de aquella bota, que aquellos arrieros
lo llevaban, que lo llevaban k casarse con la hija del rey. Y aquel chi-
vero se crey6, y luego Pedro dijo: "jAndale pronto! Descueseme y
te metes antes que te vean y yo me salgo. Y yo cuido tus chivas."

Y se meti6 aquel chivero y Pedro lo cosi6. Y ya cuando vieron iba
aquel chivero con el atajo gritando y aquel chivero qued6 adentro.

Y acabaron de almorzar los arrieros y luego se arrendaron y dijieron:
"i'Hora si, Adios, Pedro! Y (jhasta cuando volverds?" Y ya Pedro
iba en una media ladera y de alii les decia: "i Adi6s, reata y ganaris!"

Y luego dijieron los arrieros: "Creo que hablaba Pedro." Y siemprej
cargaron y se fueron. Y luego en un camino real estaba un saltoj
grande con agua y dijieron: "Aqui vamos k aventar 4 Pedro par'
abajo que se caiga en el charco." Pues que lo aventaron de arriba y|
lo echaron con toi bota y alii le dejaron y se fueron.

Y un dia lo encontraron en un camino i Pedro los arrieros yj
dijieron: "^No diz que ya te habian matado, y muchos dijieron quel
ya eras muerto?" Y Pedro respondi6 que si, pero que toda el aguaj
que hervfa cuando lo aventaron de arriba por el charco hervia de purasj
espumas, y todas esas espumas dijo Pedro esas habian sido las chivasj
que habian salido.

Y siempre sigui6 caminando con el atajo y en una sierra los dej6 y|
encontr6 4 un Padre y le dijo 4 Pedro: "<iC6mo haces tu, que los haces
creer por ahi 4 todos?" Y el Padre dijo que desiaba saber que come
hacia, y Pedro dijo que no tenia ahi sus urdideras, que si no, le deci<
como. Y dijo el Padre: "(iEst4 muy lejos tu urdidera?" Y dij(
Pedro que no, que estaba muy cerquita, pero que 4 pie no llegabal
pronto. Y el Padrecito dijo: "Yo te presto mi caballo." Y Pedroj
dijo: "Asina si, voy al cabo no me dilato." Y le prest6 el caballo yJ
se subi6 y dijo: "Creo que el caballo me desconoce. Prestame ti
capote, y tambien tu sombrero y tus zapatos porque el caballo mel
desconoce. A ver si asina no me desconoce, al cabo no me dilato.' j

Y se fu6 Pedro 4 la carrera, y el Padre ahi qued6 encuerado. Serfs
como 4 las tres de la tarde, y dijo el Padre: "(iPues, qu6 sucedi6 d(
Pedro que no parece?"

Y ya Pedro tuvo la noticia que ya iba llegando 4 una ciudad. IbJ
Uegando Pedro bicn vestido y luego dijieron toditos 4 una voz: "jAhi
viene el Padre!" Y en un momento se subieron arriba de la capilla

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 171

y luego repicaron. Y Pedro les decia que no repicaran. Y vaks se
apuraron y le vinieron k encontrar. Y luego le metieron en un cuarto
y luego les dijo que otro dia iba k haber misa, que se juntaran. Y luego
otro dia en la manana dijo misa, y alia en el altar todo lo que decia era:
"Entre mis, mds; entre mks, mas." Eso era todo lo que decia. Y
luego dijo misa y se fue. Y ya lo ensartaron y lo agarraron. Y
entonces mandaron k llamar al Padre porque le habfa dado el traje y
el caballo. Y apresaron k Pedro; estuvo preso un dia y en la noche se
sali6 de la c^rcel y entonces ya acat6. Se visti6 de toda clase de palmas
benditas y de tanto porque ya no cabia aqui en este terreno y se fue
para el cielo en cuerpo y alma.

Y se fu6 y ya lleg6 en una capilla muy grande y estaba San Pedro en
la puerta parado. Y le dijo que que andaba haciendo. Y luego dijo
Pedro: "Aqui ando paseindome. Vine k ver al tocayo." Y San
Pedro le dijo: "No, tocayo, aqui no cabes." Y lo despacho para el
infierno. Y lleg6 al infierno y alia los chamucos toditos los cueri6
con aquella palma bendita y los corrio para afuera. Y aquel diablo
mayor que estaba amarrado con cadena ya lo mataba k puros cuerazos.

Y se arrend6 para la gloria y volvi6 a llegar con el tocayo. Y se
par6 en la puerta y oyo Pedro aquella musica muy linda que no la
podia haber en este mundo. Y le dijo al tocayo que le diera licensia
de asomarse par' adentro. Y le dijo que no. Y entonces queria
entrar a fuercitas, y San Pedro lo detuvo con la mano y ya le dijo:
"Mas que sea que se asomen mis ojos por adentro." Y luego Pedro
se arrim6 junto al tocayo y quiso entrar debajo de 61, de brazo. Y
lo apachurraba tantito. Y Pedro decia: " No me apachurre, tocayo."
Y decia: "jAy, ay!" y entre mds, metia la cabeza par' adentro. Y
entonces Pedro, siempre a fuercitas, ya cuando acordo el tocayo ya se
habia clavado la cabeza hasta adentro. Entonces le dijo el tocayo que
se saliera par' afuera y Pedro se arm6 y no se quiso salir. Entonces le
dijo: "(iNo te sales?" Y Pedro respondi6 que no. Y luego dijo San
Pedro: "j Pedro, Pedro! Porque no te sales par' afuera, piedra te has
de volver." Y luego Pedro de Ordimales dijo: "Si, pero con ojos para
estar mirando."

II. EL CHAMUCO.

(Told by F"elipe Aguilar.)

Era uno que era honrado; muy bien se vian t\ y la mujer tambidn.
Muy bien se vian pues que no podia cntrarles el chamuco; lo que queria
era destantiarlos. Y no les podia haccr nada porque eran pcrsonas
honradas.

El chamuco s'cscondia detras de cUos, qucri6ndolos destanliar y no
pudo nada hasta que un dia se vali6 el chamuco de una mujer viejita
para que los destantiara k esos sehores, pues que el hombre andaba
trabajando en un barbccho muy grande. Seria como k medio dia

172 Journal of A merican Folk-Lore.

cuando lleg6 esa mujer y llegando le dijo al hombre: "Ea, buen
honibre, tu andas trabajando. (^No sabes que tu mujer alld estd
'cicndo Unas comidas muy buenas, y alli cstd uno dandole de comer
comidas muy buenas, y tu cansdndote y trabajando para otros?
'Horita que me vine, alli estaban unos individos comiendo comidas
mu\- buenas, muy bien hechas, y tu ac4 no sabes." Y luego se arrend6
la viejita otra vez con la mujer y llegando le dijo: "Ea, mujer. Estds
trabajando haciendo tu quehacer en tu cocina. ^Tu no sabes si tu
marido alli estd con otra mujer ddndole de comer unas comidas mds
buenas que las que estds haciendo tii, y no te hace caso."

Y siempre el hombre quizes le di6 coraje y luego solt6 sus bueyes y
se fu6 para la casa. Y lleg6 con coraje y se volvi6 k arrendar. No le
hizo nada k la mujer y entonces la mujer se fu6 y no mis eso le dijo.

Y luego en el camino lo volvi6 k encontrar al chamuco llorando y luego
le dijo la viejita, le dijo al chamuco: "Ea, criatura, (Jpo'qu6 lloras?"

Y luego respondi6 el chamuco: "Si Ud supiera porque lloro, y le digo
y no le digo, al cabo Ud no remedia nada." Y luego dijo la viejita:
",;Quien quita? " " \0]d\k que Ud hiciera lo que yo pienso! le pagaba
dos cargas de dinero." Y respondi6 la viejita: " 'Ora veremos; la lucha
hacemos." Y el chamuco sentado y llorando y era una criaturita muy
chiquita, y moqueando. Y la viejita lo consolaba que si le daba pues
el dinero que si hacia y venia k ver de que modo los destantiaba. Y
luego se fu6 otra vez la viejita y luego dijo el diablo: " Yo te acompano,
pero yo no me doy k ver." Y se fu6 la viejita con aquellos seiiores.

Y estaba el hombre trabajando muy k gusto cuando lleg6 la viejita.
Luego dijo: "Eabuen hombre, tii de veras trabajas, pero tu ni sabes
para quien trabajas. Nada mks 'horita que me vine lo tenia tu mujer
alli acostado." Y en un momento lo crey6 el hombre, porque se lo habia
dicho una mujer ya anciana. Y luego se fu6 el hombre, agarr6 el puiial
en la mano y se fu6 con coraje y lleg6 k la casa. No dijo nada mks
que, llegando, luego luego, le dio una pufialada k la mujer y la mujer
sin pensar nada estando en su casa muy pacifica. Y vino el marido
y la mat6 sin haber porqu6.

Y se fu6 otra vez k su quehacer 'ond'estaba trabajando. Y luego
baj6 Dios, Nuestro Seiior y le dijo: ",iQue es lo has hecho con tu mujer?
Ya le quitates la vida sin haber porqu6. Tu te creyistes del diablo.
Pues 'hora tu vas k arder al infierno por tu causa, por tu mujer que
le has quitado la asistcncia." Y rcspondi6 el hombre: "Sea por Dios;
yo la mat6." Luego dijo Dios: "Yo no te perdono esas palabras
porque fucron palabras de chamuco. 'Hora tu vas k arder en el
fuego eterno por causa de tu pcrdici6n tuya, que no sabes que la mujer
que te vino k destantiar no era mujer, era el mismo diablo. Por con-
sejas de si mismo vino k dcstantiarte porque tu recibites el sacramcnto
en aquel dia. Pero es por llevarlos al infierno k padccer para siempre."

Folk-Tales oj the Tepecanos. 173

Y lloraba el hombre despu^s de haber hecho esto, pero no le vali6
nada y luego lo despach6 con unos senores que cada rato se mortifica-
ban, y ledijo Dios: "A ver, hasde ver 4 aquellos senores, esoshombres,
como se estan mirando alii cada rato, se estdn golpiando. Y el cha-
muco entr6 alii y se acost6 junto de ellos y por eso se destantiaron
mucho. Y el chamuco es viva lumbre, chizpas de lumbre que les est^
echando en medio de ellos. Por eso se perjudican cada rato. Y se
arrend6 el hombre para su casa arrepentido, pidiendo favor encontrar
k Dios, y Dios se apareci6 y le dijo: "Hasta 'hora me estds pidiendo
favor, pues el favor que te voy d hacer, te voy echar en los conventos
mas profundos del infierno y estards penando para siempre hasta el
dia del juicio, y seguirds en infierno eterno para siempre hasta el dia
que quiera Dios." Y luego se arrend6 y dijo: "Perd6name estas
dejaciones que he hecho con mi mujer por andarme creyendo de esa
vieja mandada que me vino k destantiar mis estados, estando yo traba-
jando para mantenerme. Nunca pensaba que yo iba k quedar solo
por causa de mis credos que yo tuve." Y luego otro dia se fu6 a
confesar y no lo confes6 el padre y lo despach6 para Roma y le dijo
que hasta all4 fuera k confesarse.

Y en el camino alcanz6 k uno y le dijo: "^Par' 6nde vas?" "Voy
para Roma k confesarme." Y le dijo el otro: "Yo tambien voy par'
alld. iVdmonos pues juntos!" Y se fueron juntos los dos, y en el
camino se preguntaron unos con otros: "^A qu6 vas tu? Yo tambien
voy k confesarme porque yo he tratado con una mujer casada." " Y
yo tambien voy para alia." Y llegaron con el obispo y les pregunt6 k
que venian. "Venemos k confesarnos." ",iPorqu6 no se confesaron
all4?" "No ,senor, porqu6 no quiso confesarnos el padre." "Pues
<|qu6 hicieron?" "Pues yo trate k mi madre." " Y tu, iqnt hicites?"
"Trat6 k una mujer casada." Y luego los despach6 que se vinicran
y uno se vino adelante, el que habia tratado la mujer casada. Y el
otro se vino dctrds de 61. Y ya en el camino estaban dos caminos,
uno para el infierno y otro para la gloria. Y llcgando alii en el puro
camino estaba el infierno. Y cuando lleg6 el otro compancro ya
estaba el otro compariero hirviendo en las llamas, gritando que le
rezaran un rosario y el compaiiero le dijo: " No hay rcmcdio; ya csiks
en el infierno y no hay quien se duela de ti." Y gritaba y rencgaba,
hasta que encontr6 asi mismo el obispo k aqucl hombre, y le dijo:
"No trates esa mujer; no es mujer, es una mula del mismo chamuco.
Si vuclves k tratar, te verds lo mismo como acjuel hombre que cay6
en el fucgo eterno." Y se encomcnd6 acjucl hombre y se vino jiara su
tierra. Solo en el camino se apareci6 San Juan y le dijo: "d'Onde
habfas ido, buen hombre?" "A Roma." ";A' (iu6 fuitcs?" "A
confcsannc." "<iQuc era tu dclito, muy grave?" " I*-.s (juc era porque
trat6 mujer casada." " Hiitno, v6te pues, y no vayas A hacer lo mismo."

1/4 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

(Esto es que era el mismo Dios que lo habia encontrado en el camino
para ver que estremos venia haciendo del mal que habia hecho. Y
lleg6 d su casa y despu6s que lleg6 se apareci6 la mujer y le dijo;
"Ingrato, me has quitado la vida, pero 'hora no te perdono nunca, ni
ante la presencia de la divina magestad."

12. LA DIABLITA.
(Told by Eleno Aguilar.)

Era un hombre que ni podia hallar compadre, y se fue k buscar el
compadre. Y en el camino se encontr6 con el Diablo. Y le dijo si le
hacia el favor de bautizar una criatura, y entonces respondi6 el Diablo
que si, si le daba la criatura que le bautizara. Y el hombre dijo que
si y que lo bautizo. Y que creci6 la criatura y le echaron k la escuela.

Y traiba un letrero en la mano, y este letrero decia que el Diablo era
su padrino.

Y creci6 el muchacho y a los quince anos se i\x€ k buscar el padrino,
y lo encontr6 en el infierno y le dijo: '"Hora si, padrino, ya vine." Y
el Diablo tenia una muchacha y ella dijo que le aconsejaba lo que
habia de hacer. Y dijo el Diablo: "Ya vino mi aijado, manana lo
despachamos k cuidar los conches. ' ' Y se f u6 k cuidar y todos lo querian
picar. Y el dijo que k chicotazos y k pedradas se los quitaba, fu6
el primer dia, llego con todos los conches quebrados.

Otro dia lo pusieron k cuidar los puercos. Lo mismo lo querian
comer, y k pedradas y k palos se los quitaba de encima y ese fue el
segundo dia. El tercer dia lo despacharon k acarriar leiia y la Diablita
le aconsejaba todo el modo que habia de hacer para cargar las mulas.
Anduvo acarriando leiia dos dias. El primer dia no les dej6 beber
agua en el rio Colorado. El segundo dia pens6 el muchacho: "Yalas
voy k dejar que beban agua. " Y que bebieron agua en el agua limpia.

Y entonces que volaron las mulas para el cielo. Y ya se arrendo para
la casa. Dice que dijo el Diablo: "Maiiana le ponemos k cuidar la
tinaja del maiz." Y le dijieron que no abriera la puerta. Y entonces
pens6 el muchacho: " Yo voy k asomarme, a ver cuanto maiz tiene mi
padrino." Y abrio la puerta y no mds vido k las almas y entonces
agarr6 la sabanita que llevaba y les empez6 k dar para que se salieran.
Ya cuando fu6 la criada k traer maiz, ya no hall6 maiz. Y entonces se
enojo el Diablo con el aijado y dice que dijo: "Maiiana lo echamos k
lascalderas, k mi aijado." Y la Diablita dice que le dijo: "No te de
cuidado; yo te digo como has de hacer con mi padre y yo me voy
contigo." Ya le dijo: "jOyes, aijado! Manana vas k atizar las
calderas." Entonces 61 respondi6: "Padrino, pues yo no s6 como
he de hacer." Entonces dijo el Diablo: "Yo dir6 como." Y la
muchacha del Diablo aconsejdndole el otro que le diera un arrempuj6n
al padre para que cayera entre las calderas. Y asi lo hizo, le di6 un

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 175

arrempuj6n y le ech6 adentro de las calderas y ya no salia el Diablo.
Ydecia: "iAydemi!" Yentonces dijo para si: '"Hora has echado 4
mi pap4 en las calderas. jV^monos!" Y se fueron.

Y luego se fu^ siguiendo i la vieja, la mujer del Diablo. Y la
Diablita aprevino un tamal de ceniza, una estilla de pino, un peine,
tamal de sal y se fueron. Y por ahi se alcanzaba la Diabla. Y luego
dijo que aventaran el tamal de ceniza y se volvi6 un nublinazo muy
fuerte, muy espeso. Y se fueron caminando. Y luego ya iba alcan-
zando otra vez 4 la vieja. Y luego aventaron la estilla de pino y se
volvi6 un pinal muy espeso. Y se fueron. Y siempre ya se iba
alcanzando, y aventaron un pedazo de peine, y se volvi6 una magiieyera
muy espesa. Y se fueron caminando. Y otra vez ya se iba alcan-
zando a la vieja. Entonces ya dijo la Diablita: " Avientale un tamal
de sal," y se volvi6 una laguna. Y la Diablita se volvi6 una rana y
el muchacho tambi6n. Y ahi anduvo la viejita queriendo agarrar d
el muchacho entre el agua y no lo pudo agarrar. Y entr6 por una
parte y sali6 por otra. Y asi estuvo batallando. Al fin se enoj6 y se
fue Uorando.

Y entonces ya se salieron y se fueron hasta que llegaron k la casa
del hombre. ■ Pero el muchacho no lleg6; por ahi se qued6 cerca con
otra vecina. Entonces lleg6 d casa con el padre. Y de gusto que
lleg6 dice que ya trat6 el padre de casarle con otra mujer. Y entonces
diz'que se cas6 el muchacho. Y este dia que amaneci6 la boda pidi6
permiso la Diablita para que le diera permiso 4 ir 4 cantar. Y ech6
Unas canciones muy bonitas. Y entonces se levant6 el novio queriendo
abrasarla y que no se dej6. Y luego ese dia que pas6 la boda, la
segunda noche se muri6 el muchacho y la Diabliata se desapareci6.

13. EL AGUILA.
(Told by Eleno Aguilar.)

Est' era un Aguila que tenia unas Aguilitas sin bautizar. Y luego
le habl6 d la Liebre ciue le bautizara las Aguilitas. Le dijo que si y
se fu6 d bautizarlas. Y en el camino ya no las entreg6. Y el Aguila
se quej6 con el Perro: "Perro, muerde d mi comadre la Liebre porque
mi comadre la Liebre no me quicre entregar mis aguilitas." Y le dijo
que no.

Y luego fu6 con el Palo: "Palo, dale al Perro porque el Perro no me
quierc mordcr d mi comadre la Liebre, porque mi comadre La Liebre
no me (juicre entregar mis Aguilitas." Y le dijo cjue no.

Y luego fu*:- con la Lumbre: "Lumbre, quema al Palo, porque el
Palo no quierc darle al Perro, porcjue el Perro no quicre niorder d mi
comadre hi Licijre, jK^rcjue mi comadre la Liebre no me (juicre entregar
mis Aguilitas." Y le dijo que no.

Y luego se fu6 con el Agua: "Agua, apaga d la Lumbre, porque la

176 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Lumbre no quiere quemar al Palo, porque el Palo no quicre darle al
Perro, porque el Perro no quiere niorder k mi comadre la Liebre
porque mi comadre la Liebre no me quiere entregar mis aguilitas."

Y le dijo que no.

Y luegosefu6 con el Buey: " Buey, bebeelAgua, porque cl Agua no
quiere apagar (x la Lumbre, porque la Lumbre no quiere quemar al Palo,
porque el Palo no quiere darle al Perro, porque el Perro no quiere mor-
der k mi comadre la Liebre, porque mi comadre la Liebre no quiere
entregamie mis aguilitas." Y le dijo que no.

Y se fu6 con el Cuchillo: "Cuchillo, mata el Buey, porque el Buey
no quiere beber el agua, porque el agua no quiere apagar la Lumbre,
porque la Lumbre no quiere quemar al Palo, porque el palo no quiere
darle al Perro, porque el Perro no quiere morder k mi comadre la
Liebre, porque mi comadre la Liebre no me quiere entregar mis aguilitas.

Y le dijo que no.

Y se fu6 con el Herrero: " Herrero, desabrata el Cuchillo, porque el
Cuchillo no quiere matar el Buey, porque el Buey no quiere beber el
Agua, porque el Agua no quiere apagar k la Lumbre, porque la Lumbre
no quiere quemar el Palo, porque el Palo no quiere darle al Perro,
porque el Perro no quiere morder k mi comadre la Liebre, porque mi
comadre la Liebre no me quiere entregar mis aguilitas. Y el Herrero le
dijo que si, y empez6 k desbaratar al cuchillo.

Y entonces el Cuchillo empez6 k matar el Buey, y el Buey k beber el
Agua, y el Agua k apagar la Lumbre, y la Lumbre k quemar el Palo,
y el Palo k darle al Perro, y el Perro k morder k la comadre la Liebre, y
la Liebre k entregarle las aguilitas.

Y cntro por un chiquihuite roto
Y cu6ntame otro !

14. JUAN oso.

(Told by Felipe AguUar.)

Est'era una mujcr que se la habia robado el oso, y la retac6 en
un penasco. Y al aiio tuvo ositos chiquitos de aquclla mujcr, y luego
ya crecieron; uno de ellos fue cristiano y el otro fu6 animal, fue oso.

Y al afio les hallaron los arrieros k medio penasco y de alli le echaron
una soga de arriba par abajo antes que viniera el oso. El oso andaba
en una sierra y ya cuando vino ya no pareci6 la mujer. Y luego la
estiraron por arriba y luego, arriba subiendo oyeron que grit6 el oso en
una serrania. Y luego echaron k la mujer en un caballo y luego se la
echaron por delante antes que llegara el oso. Y entre mas, m^s
oyeron que venia mas cerca, y luego le apuraron el caballo. Y luego,
luego lleg6 el oso por alld dond'estaba la mujer, y no hall6 nada, no
m^s el osito. Y le sac6 de ahi y le abraz6; lo subi6 por arriba por el
pefiasco y sigui6 k la mujer por atras. Y luego ya iban lejos con la
mujer y el oso dctrds de ellos con el osito abrazado. De lejos le en-

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 177

senaba k la mujer y le daba contra el suelo y los arrieros se fueron
apriesa. Y entre mds, mds los iba alcanzando hasta que Uegaron k
una ciudad. Y luego metieron k la mujer en un cuarto y el oso no
entro. En la orilla de la ciudad lleg6 y de alli se arrend6 y el osito lo
mato en la orilla de la ciudad.

Y luego d los quince afios creci6 el oso que fu6 cristiano y luego ya
empez6 andar por las sierras. Y ya se encontr6 con unos arrieros y
les dijo que le acompaiiaran asomarse por ahi en las cuevas 4 ver si
hallaban dinero. Y luego se fueron. Dos los despach6 que tenian
malicia en una cueva que habia dinero. Y luego se arrendaron; no
hallaban nada y volvi6 a despachar 4 uno de ellos solo. Y se fu6 y el
oso se qued6 en una cueva solo. Y volvi6 aquel que lo habia des-
pachado y le dijo que no habia hallado nada. Y entonces se fu6 el
solo y ya cuando vino no habian echo de comer porque por ahi les
tiraba un espanto. Y luego dijo el oso que no era cierto, que estaban
echando mentiras. Y luego d poco rato el se qued6 solo. A poco le
tiraban arriba de un periasco por debajo, y dijo el oso: "^Quien me
lira por ahi? Quisiera verlo quien es el que me tira." Y luego vinie-
ron los compaiieros y dijo el oso que era muy cierto que le tiraban.

Y poco k poco se fue subiendo por arriba y luego se apareci6 el diablo
con un buen sable y el Juan Oso se fue a encontrarlo. El tambien
traiba buen sable y se agarraron k los cuerazos hasta que le ganaron al
diablo. Se echaron buen rato y le mocharon una oreja y luego corri6
el diablo y el oso le fue siguiendo. Y ya dijo el oso que le acompaiiaran
k seguir al diablo k verpor'onde habia ganado. Siguieron elrastro de
la sangre que chorriaba hasta que Uegaron en un abujero que hacia por
abajo, y hasta alli no mas lleg6 la sangre. Y luego le dijo uno de los
companeros que se echaran por debajo, y luego se baj6 uno y le dijo
que no habia nada, pero es porque habia visto adentro unos animates
muy fieros y el oso subi6 por arriba. Despacharon al otro que tambien
fu4 k asomarse y lo mismo vido que no habia nada. Y de ahi entonces
el oso se fu6 el solito con su machete en la mano. Poco k poco se fu6
llegando par' adentro y luego vido adentro que estaban unos animalcs
muy fieros y luego se le vino uno para con 61, y era una vibora. Y luego
61 avanz6 con su machete y se agarraron 61 y el animal, 61 con su
machete y la vibora k piquetes hasta que la hizo pedazos. Y luego se le
vino otra y lo mismo hizo, y luego las hizo pedazos. Luego cntr6
mds par' adentro y adentro estaban los denies chamucos. Y luego los
retac6 k cuerazos mks par' adentro y luego les quit6 dos muchachas que
estaban adentro sentadas en una silla. Eran muchachas bonitas; y
luego les (Hjo el oso: "Ahora se van conmigo, muchachas." \' luego
dijo el diablo mayor que no se las llevara. Juan Oso dijo: "A mi nada
me importa. Yo me las voy 4 llcvar!" Y luego vino el que le habia
quitado la oroja y luego le dijo que le entregara la oreja, que se riian
nuicho los hermanos de 61.

178 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Y lucgo sali6 y les dijo d los companeros que echaran una soga para
sacar para arriba d esas muchachas. Y luego lo subieron par' arriba
y le dijieron los companeros: "Vamos haci^ndole el tonto k Juan
Oso de quitarle las muchachas ahorita que estd por alld adentro." Y
lucgo sc las llevaron. Cada uno agarr6 una mujer y el oso qued6
adentro y no podia subir par' arriba. Y el diablo le decia que le
entregara la oreja. Juan Oso dijo que no entregaba nada, que sf,
entregaba, pero que lo subiera par' arriba. Y luego dijo el diablo:
"Si, te subo, pero me cntrcgas mi oreja." Y luego dijo Juan: "A114
arriba se la entregar6." Asi que ya lo subi6 par' arriba dijo Juan:
"Pues 'hora me acuerdo que no t'entriego nada." Y luego dijo el
diablo: "^Nome entriegaspuesnada? iSemos amigos! Pero cuando
Uegues en una ciudad grande aclamards d mi oreja, Y luego les buscas
pleito y luego los golpeas. Si ya te andan ganando, le tiras una
mordida k mi oreja. Luego pronto me aparezco." Y luego dijo:
"<:Qu6 se te ofrecia?" Juan Oso dijo: "Un buen caballo y un buen
sable, buena silla, buen sombrero de lana para que no me conozcan
que voy k pelear."

Y luego gan6 por la calle por debajo y luego dijieron los gendarmes:
" iQu'ien es 6se tan valiente?" Y luego lo siguieron, le sitiaron alre-
dedor y luego, luego lo agarraron cerca; pero no le hicieron nada. Y
luego con el caballo los atropell6 k todos, y 61 con su machete en la
mano los arroll6 k todos. Y luego lo siguieron pero no lo alcanzaron,
y luego meti6 la oreja en un costal y pronto ya era cualquiera otro
desgarrado, sin trapos. Y luego entr6 en una casa y luego preguntaron
por 61 los gendarmes y les dijieron los caseros que alli no habia nada,
que no estaba mis de un hombre. "Pero 6ste no es el que buscan
Vds." Y luego dijieron los soldados: "Pues de veras no es 6ste, pero
si vimos que aquf entr6 un euro k caballo." Y luego dijieron los
caseros: "Pues aqui no hay nada de lo que buscan Vds., pero aqui
estk este hombre que no tiene ni camisa. Se les afiguraria, pero si
vemos patente. Pues biisquenlo si aqui estd." Y luego se asom6 uno
de los soldados par* adentro y no vido nada mks de un hombre que
estaba alli todo de mal traso, con la cabeza alborotada y luego se
fucron los soldados.

Y luego dijo Juan Oso, " 'Hora ver4s. Voy k salir otra vez k buscarles
pleito." Y luego se fu6 y en la media plaza, sac6 la oreja y luego le
tir6 otra mordida. A poco viniera corriendo el diablo y luego dijo:
" tQue se te ofrecia, Juan Oso?" " Un buen caballo, un buen sable y
tambien una buena pistola para topar con el director que tanto me ha
desconocido." Y luego en un estante se apareci6 el caballo y la
pistola y el machete y todo. Y lo corri6 por abajo y alli iban sigui-
6ndolo pero no lo pudieron alcanzar. Y se arrend6 par' atrds y luego
se los ech6 por encima k todos hasta que les gan6. "Y luego por

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 179

causa de estos amigos que me jugaron una patrana que me robaron
las muchachas dirdn ellas que estdn quedando bien. Pero j 'hora veris !
Se las voy 4 quitar k huevo." Y luego en medio de la plaza les
avent6 una naranja, y luego no les jerr6 en el pecho d cada uno. Y
luego se arrim6 con toi caballo y los cueri6 y los corri6. Y ahi dejaron
k las muchachas y arrancaron los individuos; y luego Juan Oso las
ech6 arriba anancas del caballo y luego se las llev6 por la orilla de la
calle y alii las dej6.

Y se arrcnd6 otra vez para la plaza d buscar pleito. Y luego se
agarraron y I'echaron cuerazos pero ni uno le dieron. Y luego se
arrend6 y les echo trancazos k todos y los dej6 tendidos. No mds
blanquiaba la gcnte porque les gan6 solito. Y se arrend6 ya y se fue
para una calle por arriba y levant6 k las muchachas. De alii se las
llev6 y en el camino se apareci6 otra vez el diablo y le dijo que le
entregara las muchachas. Juan Oso dijo que si, pero que lo acom-
paiiara en algun pleito que se le ofreciera. Juan Oso dijo: "Lleveselas
pues." Y el diablo dijo: "Si me las entregas te acompaiiare en cual-
quier pleito que se te ofrezca." Y luego le dijo: '"Horita aqui no
mds serds conmigo. Pero no tengas cuidado y no te olvido en cual-
quier peligro que te veas. Yo te defiendo." Y luego se despidieron.
Y luego el diablo se fu6 y Juan Oso agarr6 una sierra.

Y en el camino le asustaban unos difuntos. Y luego Juan Oso dijo:
"<iQui6n me asusta por ahi? jOjali que fuera cristiano! Yo te paro
con el; pero es unos espantos que me quieren asustar. A ver si me
asusto y me muero. jQue esperanzas que los espantos me asusten!"
Estaba una pader y de esa pader caiban terroncitos al suelo. Y luego
otra vez se quejaba, pero Juan Oso no hacia nada y caiban abajo
montoncitos de huesos. Esto es que eran los espantos para ver si se
asustaba.

Y no se moria porque tenia mucho valor. No tenia miedo y como
era animal, no vaks que se bautiz6, se volvi6 cristiano pero con mucho
valor. Porque tenia mucho valor lo aventaron lejos de este terreno
de ahi. No se supo lo que hizo Juan Oso, si moriria 6 si estd vivo.

Hasta aqui no mds llega el cuento de Juan Oso.

15. EL TinUR6N.
(Told by Margarito Aguilar.)

Estaba un viejito que tenia tres hijas. Entonces Ic dijo k la mujer
que cl iba k llcvar una carga de Iciia k una ciudad para cjue se niantu-
vieran. Y luego se llevo una hija la mayor y llegaron k la ciudad k
vender la leiia. Y se vinieron y en el camino sali6 el tibur6n y le dijo
al viejito que si le vendfa k la hija; que estaba cncantado, y cl viejito
le dijo que si, se la vendia, pero que le fiicra tres mil j^csos por ella, y
que si no, no se la vendia. ICrU(;iices tl lihurun le dijo que si, se los

i8o Journal of American Folk-Lore.

daba. Y luego se fu6 para su rec^niara 'ond'estaba encantada la
ciudad y le trujoel dincro. Ycntoncessc fu6 el viejitoalcgre para la
casa, y le dijo k la mujer lucgo que lleg6 que le habia ido bien con su
carga de lena. Y lucgo le prcgunt6 la viejita al vicjito que 'onde
habfa dejado k la hija. Y el viejito le dijo que la habi'a dejado con la
tfa, y le dijo la tia al vicjito que le dejara ci la sobrina para que se
pasiara con ella.

Y entonces le dijo otra vcz que volviera 4 llevar otra carga de lena,
que ya habia ido bien. Entonces se fu6 el viejito d la lena y llev6 dos
cargas y se fu6 al viaje otra vez. Y se llev6 la hija, la menor. Y
cuando pas6 de aqui para alld le dijo el tibur6n que si le vendia la hija
menor. Y el viejito le dijo que si, se la vendia, pero que le diera cuatro
mil pesos porque era mds bonita. Y que de vuelta se la dejaba, que
se estuviera lista alii donde salia el tibur6n. Y lucgo que llegaron le
dijo d la hija que se sentara alii 'onde sali6 el tibur6n. Y luego se sent6
y cuando se acord6 se la llev6 para adentro dond'estaba encantado el
tibur6n. Y le di6 su dincro. Y le faltaba todavia la mis chiquilla.
Le dijo el tibur6n al vicjito que le trujiera la mis chica, que le
daba cinco mil pesos por ella. Y se fu6 el viejito para la casa alegre
que llevaba el dincro. Y le dijo i la viejita que le estaba yendo
bien porque tenia nueve mil pesos, y que se volvia i ir otra vez i
llevar mis leiia, que dejara ir i la hija mis chica que fuera i pasiarse
con la tia, que las queria ver juntas. Entonces le dijo la viejita al
viejito que la llevara pues, y se la llev6 para la dicha poblaci6n. Y
ya habian quedado 61 y el tiburon en que se estuviera listo para que se
la llevara. Y llegaron alii bien de vuelta, y venia cuando ya le dijo el
viejito i la hija, alii 'onde salia el tiburon que se sentara i descansar.

Y luego la hija no queria sentarse 'ond'estaba el volcin. Y al fin la
hija se sent6 ,y scntindose y salicndo el tibur6n sc la llev6 para adentro.

Y luego vino el tibur6n y le trujo el dincro al viejito. Le trujo ocho
mil, porque era la mis bonita. Y luego se las llev6 i las tres muchachas
i sus cuartos donde vivia.

Y les di6 tres naranjas y tres Haves i cada una. Y le dijo i la mayor
que abriera la primera puerta de la recimara, y que no dejara que se
manchara la naranja porque si se manchaba no lo dcsencantaba. Y
entrando i la primera puerta lleg6 la nina y sc dcj6 manchar la naranja.

Y le dijo : " Hermosa mia d porqu6 dejates que se manchara la naranja?' '

Y se qued6 tambi^n encantada la mayor. Y luego le dijo i la menor:
"Toma esta Have y abrcs la primera puerta, y no dcjcs que se te
manche la naranja." Y entrando se manch6 y tambicn sc qued6
encantada.

Y entonces le dijo i la mis mediana que era la mis bonita: "Hija
mia, no dcjcs que se te manche la naranja. Toma esta Have y abres
todas las puertas y tu seris mi csposa y me desencantaris." Y luego

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. i8i

se fu^ la mds mediana y le abrio la primera puerta y no dej6 que se
manchara la naranja. Y se fu6 y abri6 la segunda puerta y los desen-
cant6 4 los que estaban encantados. Y se fu6 4 la tercera y tambien
los desencant6. Y se fu6 4 la otra puerta y tambien tuvo que desen-
cantarlos. Y se fu6 k la otra puerta y tambien tuvo que desencantar-
los. Y luego le dijo el tibur6n: "Ea, hija mia. Tu has de ser mi
esposa, que me has desencantado 4 toda la ciudad mia. Y tu seras
quien has de tomar matrimonio conmigo y te digo que nos vamos 4
casar." Y le dijo la viejita hechicera: "Para al fin que te cases con
ella, primero me casar6 yo contigo, que dejarte tomar mano con esa
principa, infeliz nina." Y le dijo el principe de Estudias: "Yo me
caso con la nina principa que me ha desencantado. Tii me has
encantado, jvieja hechicera! Te mando 4 quemar en lefia verde por
hechicera." Y le dijo que ella ya s'iba para otra ciudad, y sabria
quien era ella que si no la seguia, lo quemaria en leiia verde.

Y entonces el principe le dijo que 61 se iba 4 casar con la nina m4s
que le costara la vida. Y entonces la viejita lleg6 4 otra ciudad y
en sus brujerias hizo que la siguiera el principe y le lleg6 la yerba de la
vieja hechicera. Y entonces dice que le dijo 4 la mujer que tenia,
que era la principa, que si lo queria que lo siguiera. Y le dijo la prin-
cipa al principe que si lo siguia porque iba 4 ser su esposa, no m4s que
le comprara tres pares de guaraches, unos apuntillados y unas botas
y unos botines para su camino que ella tenia que seguirlo. Porque lo
queria mucho y lo estimaba al par de su alma. Y le di6 los tres pares
de guaraches y todo lo que necesitaba para seguirlo. Y se fu6 el
principe 4 seguir 4 la viejita hechicera y lleg6 4 la ciudad dond'estaba
la viejita hechicera. Y luego que Ileg6 le dijo que entrara par' adentro
4 descansar en el catre en la casa de la vieja hechicera. Y la vieja
dijo que si llegaba la principa que no le dijiera que alii estaba el principe
porque no se lo fuera 4 quitar, que sabia que lo iba 4 seguir para tomar
mano con 61. Y que ella estaba m4s 4 primero que ni la principa
infeliz.

Y se fu6 la principa 4 seguir al principe y en el camino se encontr6
con un hermitano y le dijo que 'ond'cstaba el principe de Estudias, y
el hermitaiio Ic dijo que estaba en la ciudad de Mclindrcs. Y Ic di6
una nuez 4 la principa para que llegando 'ond'estuviera el principe que
la sembrara y tenia que formarsc una maceta de las m4s bonitas ,y que
si decia la vieja que le vcndiera la maceta que le dijiera que no se la
vendia; que se la regalaba para qucse divirtiera mir4ndola. Y se fu6
y en el camino se encontr6 con otro hermitano y le di6 otra nuez que
la pusiera donde Ucgara ccrca del principe y que si mandaba la vieja
4 pedirle flores del jardin, que se las regalara para que se divirtiera
mir4ndolas. Y entonces se fu6 y encontr6 4 otro hermitano y le di6
otra nuez y que llegando la pusiera cerca del principe. Y llcg6 la

i82 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

mujer, la prfncipa d la ciudad y pregunto que 'onde era la casa del
principe d'Estudias y le dijieron que ya estaba cerca de la casa. Y
pidi6 pasada para llegar y estarse alll y luego sembr6 la otra nuez y tuvo
una gallina con muchos pollitos que uno decia : " Prfnclpe de Estudias "
y " Principe de Estudias." Y entonces dijo la vieja al criado que fuera
con la principa k que le vendiera el pollito porque decia: "Principe de
Estudias" y se fu6 el criado y le dijo ci la principa que decia la vieja que
le vendiera el pollito que decia: "Principe d'Estudias," y le habia
gustada mucho porque mentaba al principe d'Estudias. Y le dijo
que no se lo vendia ,que se lo regalaba para que se divertiera, pero que
le diera licencia de hablar con el principe, que tenia un negocio que
arreglar con 61. Y la vieja le dijo que si, pero no mds un momento y
le hizo que se durmiera y no habl6 con el porque estaba dormido. Y
se vino para la casa dond'estaba posada la principa que queria cas-
arse con 61 y le dijo que diera otra vuelta. Y entonces otro dia fu6 la
principa con la vieja que le diera licencia de hablar con el principe
d'Estudias y le dijo que si, pero no mcis una hora. Y entro y el
principe le dijo al criado que no le diera la comida que le mandaba la
vieja. Y entr6 la principa con 61. Y entonces le dijo que s'escondiera
debajo del catre, que tenia que tomar mano con la vieja y que estuviera
lista k la hora que viniera el cura para casarlos, para que ella tomara
matrimonio con 61. Y luego le dijo la vieja al principe que si ya se
habia ido la principa par' afuera, y le dijo que si, se habia ido. (Y
estaba escondida para tomar mano con 61.)

Y d la madrugada llegaron los obispos a casar al principe d'Estudias.
Y sonaron las campanas para que se arrimara la vieja hechicera que
lo tenia encantado. Y luego que se tomaron mano, estuvo lista la
principa de tomar mano con el principe y le dijo el principe al obispado
que ella habia sido la que le habia desencantado. Y por eso tom6
mano con ella. Y mand6 que quemaran k la vieja hechicera en leiia
verde.

Y 6se es el cuento de la principa y el principe d'Estudias.

1 6. EL RECliN CASADO.
(Told by Felipe Aguilar.)

Este era un reci6n casado que tenia una mujer bonita, y aquel
hombre se fu6 al comercio y dej6 k la mujer con la mamk. Pues seria
como k lunes que di6 la vuelta aquel arriero y ya cuando vino no hall6
k la mujer. Y entonces le dijieron que ya se habia muerto y el hombre
dijo que como se habia de morir tan pronto, siendo que antier la
habia dejado buena y sana aqui en la casa. Y la mami le dijo que
muy cierto que se habia muerto, que le habia picado un dolor. Y el
hombre no lo quiso creer. Entonces fueron y le enseiiaron 'onde la
habian sepultado, y todavia 61 no le crey6 y pens6 que se habia huido

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 183

con alguno. Pens6 que la habfan robado y entonces empez6 4 pre-
guntar con personas, con muchas personas y todos le decian que ya
habia muerto muy cierto. Y siempre no lo crey6.

Enipez6 d andar d preguntar por casas, por ciudades, y no tuvo
ninguna raz6n. Y se fue en una ciudad muy grande y pregunt6
que si no habian visto una mujer desconocida de esta clase, vestida de
azul, y le dijieron que no. Anduvo veinte anos buscando hasta que
acab6 de buscar todo el reino. Y ya se cans6 aquel hombre de tanto
que anduvo tantos puntos y no di6 con la mujer, ni tuvo raz6n de ella.
De tanto que anduvo se cans6 de andar y ya se scnto en un camino
real. Y ya estaba viejito aquel hombre. Se fu6 d la edad de quince
afios y se hizo viejo de tanto andar buscando k la mujer. Y se qued6
sentado en un drbol muy verde y debajo de aquel drbol descans6 un
ratito.

A poco momento llegaron unos cuervos y les pregunt6 d esos cuervos
si dc casualidad no habian visto una mujer. "Ea, cuerv'itos, si Vds
supieran de mi mujer para que me dijieran, porque ya pas6 muchos
trabajos." Y aquellos cuervos no respondian, no mds decian: "jCa,
ca!" Y otra vez les volvi6 A repetir. Entonces si respondi6 uno de
ellos: "r;Que has perdido, buen hombre?" "Pues mi mujer." "Pues
tu mujer es muerta," dijieron los cuervos. "Tal tiempo se muri6."
Y aquel hombre siempre se queria desengaiiar de su mujer. Dijieron
los cuerv'os: "Tu mujer estd en tal parte; si de veras quicres desen-
gafiarte de ello, nosotros te llevamos hasta 'ond'estd. Pero no 'horita;
te aprontas manana como rayando el sol, aqui 'ond'estas."

Pues que otro dia muy de maiiana se arrim6 aquel hombre aguar-
dando aquellos cuervos. Y lucgo le dijieron: "Pues 'hora si quieres
de veras que te Ucvemos, nosotros te llevamos, pero 'hora hay una
cosa; 'hora te tapas los ojos, y luego te sientas en nuestras alas." Y
se tap6 la cara y lo llevaron volando que no supo ni por 'onde. A poco
momento le dijieron: '"Hora si, dcstdpate." Y se destap6 y fu6
mirando aquel llano muy grande con mucha gente, otros trabajando.
Estaban haciendo una iglesia muy grande. Y entonces le dijieron los
cuervos (x aquel hombre: ",; Quieres dcsengaiiarte de tu mujer?
jMira! Alld vive en aquel cuarto muy bianco. Vas y te desengaiias
de tu mujer. Y maiiana rayando el sol, te aguardamos aqui en esa
cumbre."

Y luego se fue acjuel hombre (x desengaiiarse. Muy cierto, la \ ido
cuando lleg6; andaba barriendo. Y luego la salud6: "Ea mujer,
<ipucs qu6 estds haciendo afjuf?" Y respondi/) le mujer: "Pues me
desparharon." ",iQuicn tedespach6?" "Tu mamd." "Y ,;c6mo te
despach6.''" "Pues bicn; cuando te fuitcs al comercio un tlfa,
Domingt), me inandAtu maind; (|ucria tanlito pinole. Y (\ poco rato
estaba yo moliendo el pinole cuaiuK) tu inainA me pic6 C(^n el bordon

184 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

en las costillas y luego me quise reir y me 'hogu6. Ella fu6 la que
me despach6 par' acd. 'Hora yo ya no tengo licencia de irme
contigo; mejor te vas tu. (iQu6 andas haciendo? Todavia tu, no te
necesito aqui. El di'a que te necesiten, vendrds. Uds por all4 est^n
en la gloria, y nosotros aqui pasamos muchos trabajos porque aqui
diario estamos trabajando haciendo aquella iglesia. Hay veces
cuando ya mero acabamos y otro dia amanece caida hasta el suelo y
la volvemos k reformar de vuelta. Y ya mero acabamos y otro dia
lo mismo, amanece caida. Y mejor te vas, que tii ya no tienes
esperanzas que me vaya contigo."

Y lucgo aquel hombre alii se qued6 una noche, y en punto de media
noche se le quiso arrimar la mujer. El pens6 que estaba en este mundo.

Y fu6 recordando aquel hombre y fu6 mirando 4 la mujer. Estaba
tendida y dando ejemplo como se habia muerto en este mundo, con
dos luces en la cabeza y la cara muerta. Y la fu6 mirando aquel
hombre y luego se asust6 y en un pronto se sali6 par' afuera. Y 41
ya quisiera que amaneciera para venirse. Y otro dia que amaneci6
salio la mujer de adentro y luego empez6 4 barrer. Y luego le dijo
que se aguardara tantito, que le iba k hacer bastimento para que se
viniera. Entonces aquella mujer le trujo unas tortillas, cinco tortillas,
y ya le dijo que se viniera que al cabo todavia no lo necesitaban.

Y ya se desengaii6 aquel hombre y se vino k 'onde quedaron de
verse los cuervos. (Y no eran cuervos; eran los ingeles del cielo
afigurados cuervos.) Y lucgo le dijieron: "dYa te desenganates?"

Y luego el hombre dijo que si. " 'Hora si, ya lo crei que mi mujer es
muerta." Y le dijieron: '"Hora si, vamonos. Pues 'hora te vuelves
k tapar la cara para que no vayas mirando." Y luego se sent6 en las
alas y luego se lo trujieron. Y se le hizo un momento y ya cuando
acordo, ya estaba en este mundo otra vez. Y entonces vido su moral ;
traiba cinco gorditas, y no eran gorditas; eran cinco rueditas de can-
tera. Pues que se vino asustado, asombrado.

Pues que no ajust6 ni quince dias sin que no se mun6.

17. LAS GALLINAS PRIETAS.
(Told by Felipe Aguilar.)

Este era uno que tenia una mujer casada. Y luego la mujer tenia
inconvenientes con otro hombre y el marido no lo podia ver. Y luego
acat6 de hacerle un remedio y entonces pens6 de irse el hombre, el
casero k trabajar en sus barbechos. Y la mujer dijo: "Vente p'ac4,
mi querido, alcabo que no'st4 aqui mi marido. Bien puedes llegar
'hora que no 'std aqui." Y luego poco k poco se asom6 aquel hombre
y le hizo unas seiias, y cntre mas, mis se fue arrimando. Y la mujer
sali6 k asomarse y luego hizo unas sefias y luego dijo: " Ven'acd, al-
cabo no 'std mi marido."

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 185

Y luego el marido se fue p'al barbecho. (Esto es que no se fu6 par'
alia; se fue par' un iglesia adentro, po'que sabia que la mujer iba d
pedir para que pidiera y para que les hicieran maravillas k las imdgenes.)

[ Y luego el marido se fu6 par' adentro y luego se crucific6 detras del
; Cristo. A poco rato fu6 llegando adentro de la iglesia la mujer. Luego
} se hinc6 y luego dijo: "jEa, padre mio! Vengo que me haga una
I maravilla para que mi marido pierda la vista, para que mi querido
■ pueda llegar en la casa. 'Hora no puede llegar k verme porquc mi
marido estd muy listo." Y luego se hinc6 y empez6 d rezar y luego
dijo: "jEa, padre mio! Me haces una maravilla y te prometo una
vela de dos reales, otro dia de real y otro dia de medio, y otro de quar-
tilla para que mi marido pierda la vista." Y luego dijo: "jEa, padre
mio! Ya mero me hablas." (Esto es que era el marido el que
estaba crucificado detrds del Cristo.) Y lo via y la mujer decia : " j Ea,
padre mio! Hdblame; si me hablas y si me dices que es bueno que
nii marido pierda la vista por de atiro para que mi querido pueda
llegar bien." Y volvi6 d decir: "jEa, padre mio! Si me hablas, te
cumplo lo que te he prometido." Sonaron los milagros. (Esto es
que lo bull6 mds el marido.) Y luego fu6 diciendo y respondio
detrasito del manto: "Es bueno; las galHnas prietas." Y luego la
mujer dijo: "jEa, padre mio! Ya me hablates." (Y esto es que no
era el Cristo; es que era el marido que habia hablado.) Y luego la
mujer salio para afuera alegre y ya habia sabido lo que era bueno para
que perdiera la vista el marido.

Y ya alto el sol no parecia el marido en el barbecho. Y luego dijo el
hombre: "Voy k ver k mi mujer, porque no ha venido k darme de
comer." Y luego se fu6 y lleg6 k la casa y luego dijo: ",i Porque no
fuites k darme de comer?" Luego respondi6 la mujer: "Pues no he
ido porquc ya andaba barriendo y en 6sas andaba. Ya mat6 una
gallina y ahi me divert! pelandola." (Pero esto es que no; es que se
habia ido k la iglesia k pedir maravillas.) Y luego ya coci6 aquella
gallina y luego dijo el marido: "Andclc pues, que tengo hambre." Y
luego la coci6 bien entre mole, y luego dijo: "Ya cstd." Luego

( 2mpez6 k comer el marido y luego separ6 k parte una cazuela dc Icmole.
Y luego le pregunt6: "Esa, .{para qu6 cs?" Luego dijo la mujer:
"E^ para mi." (Pero esto cs (|ue no; era para clla; era para el (juer-
ido.) Y lutgo en la (ardc dijo el marido: "Oy6s, Ui. ;Lo crees que
10 veo muy bien?" Luego respondio la nuijer: "j/Xdiu!" Y luego sc
ilcgr6 m4s la nnijer.

Otro dfa volvi6 k matar otra gallina. Y luego el marido sc fu6
)tra vez ci trabajar y vino k comer en la casa con gallina. Luego dijo:
'<[ Porque no fuites k dejarme de comer otra vez?" I'-utonces dijo
a mujer: " Pues, no fuf porquc estaba pelando otra gallina jjorcjue no
lay de comer." (Esto es que crey6 la mujer que ya sc andaija hacicndo
VOL. .x.wii. — .NO. 104. — 13.

1 86 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

ciego el marido.) Y otro dia mat6 otra gallina y luego en la tarde
volvi6 k cocer. Y luego dijo el marido: "Oy6s, tu. Entre md
menos voy mirando." Y luego la mujer se crey6 que ya las gallin;
prietas eran las que eran buenas. "A poco k poco voy perdiendo
vista." Y luego dijo la mujer: ",;Deveras?" " Respondi6 el marido
"Si." Asi estuvo hasta que poco k poco dijo: "Ea, tu. Lo que he
es que entre mds, mis voy perdiendo la vista. Ya no miro bien."
ya la mujer estaba alegre que ya habia perdido la vista el marid
(Esto es que no; no mds k ver si se creia la mujer.) Y luego se crey

Y otro dia le volvio k matar otra gallina. Entonces en la tarde di.
que ya, ya no miraba. Y luego por alli se asom6 el querido y le hi;
Unas seiias que se arrimara, que alcabo no tuviera cuidado, que ya
marido ya no miraba. Y luego poco k poco se arrimo detrds de
casa. Y alli estuvo y el marido adentro porque ya no miraba. Lueg
dijo la mujer: "Arrimate alcabo que mi marido ya no ve." Y lue^
el marido dijo: "d'Ond'estds tu? <iQue no te vienes aqui conmigo?
Respondi6 la mujer: "Si, aqui estoy." Luego dijo el hombr
"jCaray! j Qu6 cosa es ya no ver uno ! 'Hora ya ni modo que vaya
trabajar, ni modo que vaya a venadiar. Y pues ^c6mo voy? Ya r
miro." Y luego salio la mujer para afuera y el querido alli estab

Y luego se abrazaban y se daban besos. Y luego decia el hombr
"(i'On'tds por ahi?" "Aqui estoy." "jQu^ cosa es ya no ver!

Y luego se abrazaban y se besaban afuera, y luego dijo la mujer: " N
tengas cuidado alcabo mi marido ya no mira. <iQue nos hace?"
poco k poco hasta que el querido entr6 par' adentro y luego pens<
"Alcabo ya no ve." Y luego adentro de la casa 'ond'estaba el marid
se abrazaban y se besaban delante de el pensando que de veras ya n
via. Esto es que se estaban haciendo ver alli delante de ^1.

Y luego estaba moliendo la mujer y el querido delante de ell;
sentado en frente del marido, y el querido cuando estaba moliendo 1
tentaba las chichis pensando que ya no via el marido de veras. I
marido sentado en el rinc6n miraba par' afuera y decia: "iQue cos
es no ver uno ! Yo ya no miro de veras. 'Hora yo ya no puedo trab^
jar. ^Pues 'hora qu6 hago?" Y luego dijo: "Quizes no me cor
vendria. Quizes con esto me voy k morir." Y luego le dijo k u
hijo: "Ven acd, hijo para darte unos consejos del modo que has d
trabajar, para que te mantcngas, porque yo ya no puedo trabajar.

Y luego el querido y la mujer sehacian cosquillas delante del maridc

Y luego dijo el marido: "jSea por Dios! Yo ya no miro de veras
Hasta aqui lleg6 mi trabajo." Y luego llam6 al hijo: "A ver, hijc
Trai mi reminton para darte unas mestrias de modo que has de manija
r arma." Y luego se arrim6 el muchacho junto de 61. Y luego 1
agarraba el rifle y nunca pensaban que ya les iba k dar un balazc
Ya no quiso sufrir delante de ellos. Y luego se arrim6 el muchachot

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 187

y luego le dijo: "A ver, hijo. Vente para ensenarte 4 tirar." Y
luego agarraron el r6minton entre los dos apuntando par' afuera.

Y luego le dijo al hijo: "Asina, mira, haz de manijar el arma cuando
quieras matar un venado. Le has de apuntar en el codillo 6 en el
coraz6n." Y luego la mujer alii delantc de ellos se reia y el querido
nunca pensaba que el niarido de la mujer le iba k dar un balazo. Y
luego otra vez le dijo al hijo: "Asi has de tirar un balazo k la ave d la
ala. Y al venado al codillo y al coraz6n." Y luego: "i Y al cabron se
va!" Y luego, "jtras!" Y no le jerr6 en el coraz6n.

Luego le avent6 par' atrds de un balazo. Y luego se levant6 el
marido y con la vaqueta del mismo rifle freg6 k la mujer hasta que la
dej6 tirada. Y luego le dijo: "Hasta aqui te quise sufrir. Y aqui
estd el ciego que no via." Esto es que se estaba haciendo. Y luego
con mucho rato se levant6 la mujer. Y luego le dijo el marido: " lQu€
tal; c6mo te fue?" Y no respondio. Y ya dijo la mujer: "jAh, que
caray! Ya no te vuelvo i hacer esto." Luego dijo el marido: "jAn-
dale, si quieres, otra vez! jAndale!"

Luego otro dia pasaron dos mujeres y le decian k esa mujer: "iOiga!
iNovamos?" Y respondi6 la mujer: ",iAd6nde?" " A la paranda."
Luego dijo la mujer: "jNo! (|C6mo dejo sola mi casa?" ",iQue ya
no te deja tu marido?" Y respondi6 la mujer: "Si, pero yo ya no
quiero ir porque misgallinas, ,Jc6mo las dejo?" Y luego dijo el marido:
"Si quieres ir, janda!" Luego dijieron las mujeres: "De veras; no
Tnks que Vd no quiere ir." (Pero esto es que le habia diido una monda
4 la mujer.)

Y luego levantaron al muerto y lo llevaron arrastrando par' afu-
era como un perro, y lo echaron en el patio. Y luego otro dia
llegaron los gendarmes k levantarlo y luego dijieron: "Pues, ^ste,
^que le succdi6?" Luego dijo el casero: "jSabe! Ahi amancci6."

Y luego lo levantaron. Luego dijo el hombre: "Yo le mate."
**<|Porqu6?" "Porque me hizo menos con mi nuijcr." Luego dijo el
capitin: "^Que de veras? Le hubicras dado trcs balazos." Luego
respondi6: "No, no mds con uno tuvo." Y la mujer triste porque la
habia dado una monda de ahi. Y ya empez6 k hacer lo cjuc el marido

( le mandaba j)ronto hasta que hubo ese remedio, ni jamds voK io k
r hacer nunca nada. Se pasiaba en el [jatio mirando para la ladera.
Pasaron otras tres mujeres y luego le decian: "jOiga! <iQue ya cstk
mAs honrada?" Resp()n(li6: "cPorqu6?" "Yo ya no la he visto en
f la par.md.i ni en los bailes." "No, si, pero yo ya no C]uiero." Y
i luego el marido decia: "Si quieres ir, anda."

' Y le ensenaba un varej/ni de toros y luego dccia la mujer: "No,

' yo pensaba tjue de veras me habian hecho milagros las imigenes.

Esto es que no. Pues 'hora yo no Ics cunii)lo lo cjue les he pronietido."

Y respondio el marido: "jAndale, proniete, m.'is para que (c hagan
milagros como 'hora te hicieron!" Y luego la mujer dijo; "Hasta

1 88 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

aquf llegan mis diabluras, y hasta aqui llegan mis loqueras. Mira lo
que me ha sucedido por andamie creyendo de mi querido, al cabo no
me salv6. No mcis me ha hecho compromiso. Hasta aqui duraron
mis pensamientos malos. Quizes ya no lo volverd k hacer nunca
jamds.

1 8. FRESADILLAS.
(Told by Eleno Aguilar.)

Un viejito tenia tres hijos, y al mayor le dijo que fuera d cuidar la
labor y que si no dejaba cntrar la manada que le daba un desayuno.

Y 61 se durmi6 y no le di6 desayuno y se fue huido de miedo que no lo
cueriara. Le dijo al menor que fuera k cuidar la labor la segunda
noche, que no le dejara comer la labor 4 la manada. Y tambien se
durmi6, y se fu6 acongojado el hermano.

Y quedaba Fresadillas y le dijo al padre que le comprara una gui-
tarra y que el iba k cuidar la labor. Y le dijo el padre: "^Que has
de cuidar tii? Tus hermanos que eran vaks grandes no cuidaron." Y
le compr6 siempre la guitarra y entonces ya se fu6 k cuidar la labor
Fresadillas. Y no durmi6 toda la santa noche tocando su guitarra.

Y que en la madrugada entr6 la manada y entre la manada venia un
caballo con siete colores y lo agarr6 Fresadillas. Entonces dijo el
caballo a Fresadillas que lo soltara, que en cualquier fragilidad que se
hallara Fresadillas que no mas lo aclamara y que el lo sacaria de la
fragilidad. Y que lo solt6 y se vino para la casa y entonces le dieron
desayuno. Y le dijo a la mama que le echara tres gordas, que el iba a
alcanzar a los hermanos. Y le echaron sus tres gordas y se fue k
seguir a los hermanos.

Y por ahi en el camino les alcanz6 y le dijo el mayor al menor:
"jMira! Fresadillas, 'onde viene." Y cuando lleg6 con ellos les
di6 k cada quien su gorda y luego trasaron de hacer una casa. Y
lleg6 Fresadillas y empezaron k hacer la casa. Y luego que acabaron
le dijieron k Fresadillas que se acostara adentro k ver si no les mojaba
el agua. Y luego le quemaron la casa y luego aclam6 al caballo de
siete colores, y el caballo de siete colores le sac6 de esta fragilidad que
encontr6. Y empez6 el caballo k desbaratar la casa amontonada. Y
le sac6 dc alli.

Y se fue otra vez alcanzar a los hermanos. Y dijieron: "jMira!
Fresadillas, 'onde viene." Y luego estos volvieron k hacer un hoyo
para sepultarlo. Y llcg6 Fresadillas y empezaron k trabajar ambos
tres hermanos. Y luego le dijieron k Fresadillas: "Acuestate, Fresa-
dillas, k ver si cabemos los tres." Y luego que se acost6 Fresadillas
lo cmi)czaron k enterrar en vida. Y luego se fueron y lo dejaron
sepultado. Y luego Fresadillas volvi6 k aclamar al caballo de siete
colores que lo sacara de la fragilidad donde se hallaba. Y lo desenterr6
y sac6 de alli.

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 189

Y luego se fue Fresadillas k seguir a los hermanos. Los volvi6 k
alcanzar y luego dijieron: "jMira! Fresadillas, 'onde viene. <iPues
que hacemos?" Que ya le dejaron y se fue con ellos y llegaron cerca
de una poblaci6n, con una viejita. Y luego ese dia se aproximaba un
rodeo. Y luego que llegaron, dijieron: "Buenas tardes, madre
abuelita." Y ya le dejaron y le dijieron que lo pusieran a moler y k
acarriar agua, que los otros dos hermanos iban al rodeo. Y acab6
de hacer el quehacer la viejita y se fue al rodeo tambien. Y luego
aclam6 al caballo de siete colores que le diera un vestido y buen
sombrero y caballo para ir al rodeo de los m^s preciosos que hay en el
mundo. Y luego se fu6 y le dijieron que tumbara un toro. " Bueno,"
dijo el, que no lo podia collar si no le aventaban cigarros y dincro y
otras cosas. Y Fresadillas se fu6 k coliar a ese mentado toro bravo.
Fresadillas no mcis fue saliendo en su buen caballo y le di6 tres vueltas
al toro, y al suelo; y le aventaron pesos y cigarros y dianas que le
tocaron. Y luego que colio el toro se fue para la casa donde estaban
posados. Y luego llegaron los hermanos y empezaron k platicar k
la vieja que habian visto un euro que habia tumbado el toro bravo y
que estaban aventandole cigarros y dinero, Luego dijo Fresadillas
k los hermanos: "Pues yo era." Y le dijieron ellos que no, que no
era cierto, que si les ensefiaba el dinero y los cigarros que le entregaron,
entonces le creian. Y luego Fresadillas les prometi6 trescientos pesos
para que levantaran una cama de gigante. El gan6 los trescientos
pesos y

Entro por un chiquihuite roto
Y cuentame otro.

19. LOS DOS COMPADRES.

First Version (a).
(Told by Felipe Aguilar.)

Uno era pobre y el otro era rico. El uno tenia animales y el otro
sabia tocar. Entonces tan pobre que estaba le pidia al compadre
la camisa para que fuera k tocar porque le daba vergiienza encucrado.
Y se la prest6 y luego se fu6 k tocar k un baile. Y otro dia iba k habcr
otro baile y el compadre ya no le quiso prestar la camisa. Y luego
dijo: ",;Porqu6 no me presta, compadre?" "Porque ya no me da
gana." "Bueno, compadre, sea por Dios, compadre. Ya no ir6 k
tocar; ya no me presta su camisa."

Y luego pens6: "({Pues, qu6 har6 ahora? Voy k hacer la lucha de
Uevar ceniza al comercio." Y luego se fu6 y llev6 cargas de ccniza
al comercio. Y luego se scnt6 en la plaza y los euros le dccian: "cQu6
vende.amigo?" "Ccniza." " i Revu6kiueseenella!" Yluegopasaba
otro. "(iQu^vcnde, amigo?" "Ccniza." Y luego ledijo: "iRevu61-
quese en ella!" Y luego pasaba otro euro. "(;Qu('' m-iuIo, amigo?"

190 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

"Ceniza." "jRevu^lquese en ella!" Alii cstuvo todo el dfa con sus
cargas dc ceniza y no hubo quien le comprara nada.

Ya metiendose el sol vino un euro y le dijo: "(iQu6 trae en las
cargas?" "Ceniza." "^Quieredos reales por que vaya A tirarla en la
muladar? " Y luego le di6 los dos reales y perdi6 las esperanzas de no
vender nada de sus carguitas. Y las fu6 d tirar para 1' orilla de la ceniza.

Y luego ya dijo: "tQue comprar6 con mis dos reales? j'Hora verds!
Voy h comprar una cosa bonita." Y luego se fu<^ donde hacen mas-
caras de moreno y luego compr6 una mascara m^s bonita que parecia
el vivo chamuco. Y luego en la tarde dijo: "Ya me voy. Esta lle-
var6 siquiera de mis carguitas, siquiera para que me ataje el frio en
la cara, porque no traigo cobija. Siquiera en la cara que me ataje
por ahi donde voy 4 dormir."

Ya iba en el camino y devis6 una lumbre lejos. Apenas se via en
una sierra. Y luego dijo: "Seguramente all4 voy 4 llegar con aquellos
seiiores." Iba llegando. (Esto es que eran unos tules que estaban
cenandoen la noche.) Y luego lleg6 y le dijieron que pasara 4 cenar.

Y luego se arrim6 y le dicron de comer. Eran muchos los tules. Y
luego le preguntaron que de donde venia y les dijo que venia de la
villa. "^Que habia llevado en las cargas de los dos burritos?"
"Pues, ceniza." " Y el dinero, (iqu6 hizo? " Y luego respondi6 : "No
vendi nada." "Y en las carguitas <; que trae?" "jNada!" Y luego
se acostaron todos y se durmieron. Y en la noche lleg6 el frio y los
tules estaban dormidos cuando el arriero se levant6 junto de la lumbre
porque ya llego el frio. Estaba calentdndose. Y luego dijo: "Pues
si yo traigo mi mascara. Voy a ponermela siquiera que me ataje el
frio en la cara." Y luego en un momentito fue recordando uno de los
tules y lo fueron mirando junto de la lumbre aquel arriero que parecia
el vivo diablo con la mascara. Y luego dijo uno de ellos: "iAlli esti
el diablo!" Y luego record6 el otro y dijo: "jAlli esta el diablo!"
Luego otro: "jAlliest^el diablo!" Asi hasta que recordaron todos.

Y se fueron levantando todos espantados. Y arrancaron y luego
el arriero tambien de asustado arranc6 dctrds de ellos con la mdscara
en la cara. Y los tules entre m^s corrian y los iba siguiendo; mas ellos
pensabanque los iba siguiendo. (Esto es porque se vian asustados y
se arrendaban k ver el arriero atriis y no vian nada.) Y pens6: " Ya
los asust6 con mi miscara." Y se arrend6 el arriero par' atrds donde
estaba el paraje y alii habia ropa y dinero que dejaron los tules. Y
luego el arriero empcz6 k cargar en dos burritos que llevaba manta y
dinero, lo que pudieron los burros. Lo dem^s alii qued6 porque no
pudo llevar todo.

Y luego llcg6 k donde vivia y estaba el compadre. Luego le pre-
gunto el compadre: ",iC6mo le fu6, compadre?" "Bien." "Esto es,
iqu6 es de las cargas de ceniza que llev6?" Y luego dijo el compadre:

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 191

",iC6mo asina, compadre?" "Si, compadre." "Y 'hora ,iqu6 se
vende mas en la plaza, compadre?" "Cuero crudillo." "(jY de
veras, compadre? Pues entonces yo tambien voy al comercio." Y
estaban los peones arando con los bueyes y en un momento los mand6
k traer y luego los mat6. Les hizo rayas el puro cuero y tambien
se fue al comercio y lleg6 con las cargas d la plaza. Y luego le dijo
un euro: "<iQue vende, amigo?" "Cuero crudillo para los perros."

Y luego vino otro y le pregunt6: "(iQu6 trae en las cargas, amigo?"
"Cuero crudillo." Y luego dijo: "Para los perros." Asi estuvo todo
el dia y no le compraron nada. Y perdi6 las esperanzas porque no
vendio nada y se vino enojado con el compadre que le habia echado
mentiras, que el cuero crudillo vendia y no vendio nada. Y llego k
lacasadondevivian juntos, y luego le dijo: "<iC6molefu6, compadre?"

Y luego respondi6: "Pues bien, compadre, asi." Y luego le dijo:
'"Hora me acompaiia k una vueltecita en la sierra." "Pues iremos,
compadre," respondi6 el otro. Y luego se fueron los dos.

Y luego le dijo la mujer: "Mi compadre me va Uevando para la
sierra. Sabe que me quedra hacer." Y la mujer decia: "Novayas."

Y luego dijo: "No le hace; yo voy. iQnh me puede hacer mi com-
padre?" Y le dijo k la mujer: "Ahi estas. Si yo no vuelvo, al cabo
has de saber, si algo m'hizo mi compadre." Y llegando k la sierra le
fu6 diciendo el compadre: "Ni tal; que le quiero para otra cosa.
dPorqud' me ech6 mentiras, que en el comercio se vendia el cuero
crudillo, y perdi mis yuntas? Pues 'hora porque me ech6 mentiras
le voy k sacar los ojos." Y luego respondi6 el otro: "Lo que guste,
compadre." Y luego se arrim6 y le copin6 los ojos, y alii lo dej6 que
no supo ni 'onde le habia dejado. Y alii se quedo triste.

Y luego se fu6 k gatas tentando poco k poco hasta que tent6 una
palma grande y luego poco k poco se fue subiendo por arriba hasta el
cogoUo de la palma. Alia se estuvo arriba y ya era muy nochc. Y en
punto de media noche era cuando oy6 un tropelazo. Venia un chillido
de armas y de sables y luego llegaron ahi abajo donde estaba 61. El
arriba oyendo no raks lo que estaban platicando esos tres. Y no eran
cristianos, eran diablos.

Y luego dijo uno de ellos: "^C6mo te fue, hombre?" "Bien. Yo
hice ciego k un rey." " Y tu, hombre .iC^mo te fue?" " Hice cuemos
k\m rey." Y luego le dijo el otro mayor: "Y tu, ,;c6mo te fu6?"
"Pues quit6 la fuente de agua y ahora se eslAn muriendo de sed los de
la ciudad todos." Y luego luego dijo el otro: "Y para abrir el agua,
mwd scri bueno?" "Pues, fdcil, una cosa muy ikc\\. Con Ires
varazos se descubre el agua." Y luego prcgunt6 el otro: " Y para que
vea uno fdcilmente, ,iqu6 es bueno?" " lYicihiiente, el remedio cs la
saliva; no mds se le unta en los ojos y en un momento ve." Y luego
dijo el otro: "Para quitarie los cucrnos al rey, /qu^ ser/i bueno?"

192 Journal of American Folk-Lore,

"Fdcilmentc," dijo. "No mds se le unta cebo alrcdedor de los
cucrnos y lucgo saltan Icjos." Y el otro oycndo, seria media noche,
despuesito, como d los primeros gallos y luego se fueron pronto los
chamucos y el transitante poco i poco se baj6 par' abajo. En el
suelo tcnt6 un poco de rocio, y luego lo agarr6 en las manos y se lo
echo en los ojos y vido bien como que si no tuvicra nada, mds bien
como antes.

Y luego se fu6 y atravisit6 la tierra, todo el mundo. Y lleg6 en una
ciudad grande y luego lleg6 detrasito de la casa. Luego pregunt6 que
qu6 hacian. Y luego sali6 una viejita con el bord6n en la mano di-
ciendoqueya se moriande sed. Y luego dijo el transitante que no era
cierto, y luego pidi6 agua. Dijo que de donde si no habia. Y luego
dijo el transitante si algo le daban que 61 sacaba agua del puente que
se habia cuajado. Y luego corri6 la viejita para con el rey y Ic dijo
que alii estaba un santo hombre que dijo que si algo le daban que el
descubriria el agua del puente. Y luego fueron los soldados y le
dijieron que sediera por preso. Y luego respondi6 el transitante que
porqu6. Y luego, no se sabe porque, le llevaron para con el rey. Y
luego dijo el rey: "Vd se ha propuesto d decir que si yo le doy algo,
Vd descubre el agua del puente." Y luego respondi6 el transitante:
"No lo he dicho, pero hacemos la lucha." Y luego se fueron para
'ond'estaba el puente, y no estaba mds de una piedra grande. Luego
dijo el rey: "dQue necesita, una vara, nada mds?" Dijo que no,
nada mis. Y luego salieron muchos, ya con sus jarros en la mano
muriendose de sed. Y luego les dijo el transitante que se hicieran d
un lado, y no le querian creer que el agua subia por arriba. Luego le
di6 un varazo y no mds un pedacito de piedra se despeii6. Y al otro
varazo se despen6 otro pedazo. A los tres varazos se zambullo la
vara hasta adentro. Y luego avent6 el claro de agua para arriba que
parecia remolino. Y d todos los alcanz6 y ya otros hogdndose y otros
gritando. Y luego dijo el transitante: "Yo bien les decia que no se
arrimaran." Y luego ya destap6 el agua y luego se fueron para con el
rey, y lucgo dijo el rey: "jBueno! Yasac6el agua." Y luego les dijo
d los soldados: "Aqui estdn tres cargas de reales y tres mulas apare-
jadas y una pacota de soldados." Y luego le entregaron al transi-
tante tres cargas de dinero y tres soldados para que le fueran cuidando
con el dinerito.

Y luego se fue al otro punto y lleg6 otra vez al punto detrds de una
casa. Y tambi6n salio una viejita con el bord6n en la mano muy
joronchi y luego salud6 el transitante : " ^ C6mo le ha ido, nanita ? " Y
luego dijo la viejita: "i Saiga Vd; que estamosde luto!" Y luego dijo
el transitante: "<{ Porque?" "Porque estd el rey con cuernos."
Que ya le habian hecho la lucha de quitdrselos, y no se los ha quitado
ninguno." Y lucgo dijo el transitante que si algo daba el rey que

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 193

vinieran 4 ver si 61 remediaba de quitdrselos. Y luego oy6 la viejita y
se fu6 yendo poco d poco k darle cuenta al rey, que ahi estaba un hom-
bre que decia que si algo daba el rey, verian. Y luego vinieron los
soldados; le aprendieron como bandido y luego dijo el transitante que
porque, que por ahi habia dicho que el remediaba. Y luego le llevaron
como preso asustandolo que si no hacia lo que habia dicho, que apenaba
delavida. Y luego dijo el transitante: "Haremoslalucha." Y luego
entr6 par' adentro 'on'taba el rey, y ahi estaba sentado en una silla
con grandes cuernos. Y luego le dijo al transitante que que necesitaba.

Y luego dijo que tantito cebo. Y luego dijo el rey: "dQue mas?"
"No mds eso," dijo. Y las muchachas del rey se arrimaban con el
transitante hasta que le besaban porque querian tener a su padre sin
cuernos. Y luego se arrim6 el transitante con el rey y le unto cebo
alrededor de los cuernos y en un moment© saltaron los cuernos lejos
que parecian gusanos, retorci6ndose. Yentonces dijo al rey: "jMuy
bien, sacarrial magestad ! " Luego dijo el rey : " Trdiganme tres cargas
de reales y tres mulas aparejadas con toi aparejo y tres soldados y
una pacota de soldados." Y luego entregaron el dinero al transitante
y luego dijo el rey: "Alii estdn esas tres cargas de reales y esos tres
soldados y esa pacota para que le vaya cuidando. Ahi le doy ese
dinero para que vaya a mantener su familia."

Y luego se fueron al paraje y ya se fue el transitante con seis soldados
y con seis mulas, con toi dinero y dos pacotas de soldados. Y ya se
fueron al otro punto y luego llegaron tambien lo mismo detrds de una
casa. Luego encontraron una viejita que apenas andaba en el bord6n,
llorando. Luego le preguntaron que que tenia. Les respondi6 la
viejita que estaban de luto, que se habia hecho ciego un rey y que no le
hallaban remedio nada. Y luego dijo el transitante: "jOjala que
algo diera el rey, veriamos si remediamos eso! " Y luego ech6 carrcra
la viejita para con el rey d avisarle que alii estaba un hombre que
decia que si algo daba el rey, que remediaba algo. Y luego el rey
mand6 d los soldados d ver 'ond'estaba el hombre que liabia dicho eso.

Y luego llegaron los soldados con cl hombre y luego le dijieron que se
diera por preso. Y luego respondi6 el transitante que porqu6.
Luego dijieron los soldados: "No se sabe; no importa. Alii le quiere
el rey." Luego dijo el transitante: "Iremos," y le llevaron adelante.
Luego llegaron con el rey y luego salud6. Luego respondi6 el rey:
"iPase!" "iSacarrial magestad!" dijo 0\. Luego dijo cl rey: "A
ver. Vd ha dicho (juc si algo doy que me hacia remedio de la vista."
Luego respondi6 el transitante: "No lo he dicho, pero haccmos la
lucha." Luego pregunt6 cl rey que (\uC' necesi(al)a, y luego respondi6
el transitante que nada. Luego dijo el rey: "Algo necesita. jDiga!"
Luego dijo el transitante que nada. Luego se arrim6 y luego ya se
escupi^ en la mano y luego le unt6 al rey en un ojo. Y luego a])ri6 el

194 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

ojo. Y volvi6 A escupir otra vcz en la mano, Luego le unt6 en los dos
ojos y ya vido y pel6 tantos ojos. Y luego dijo el rey: "Manden 4
los soldados que traigan tres cargas dc reales aparejadas con toi mulas
y trcs soldados." " Y 'hora si," le dijo, "que ahi estaban esos ccnta-
vitos para que fuera k mantener k su familia."

Y luego (x los diez anos lleg6 a su tierra de vuelta aquel transitante
con nueve cargas de dinero y nueve mulas y nueve soldados y tres
pacotas de soldados. Parecia el euro m^s rico de todos. A los diez
anos result6 en su tierra y llcg6 en la noche. Y luego oyeron los de la
casa que por ahi venia un tropelazo y ahi fue resultando esa gente. Y
la mujer salio a ver asustada que venian llegando los soldados y el
euro bien vestido. Y luego habl6: "Bucnas Noches," y le respondi6
la mujer: "Bucnas Noches, Sciior." Y luego dijo el marido: "Nome
diga de seiior. Soy su esposo." Luego respondi6 la mujer: "(;C6mo
ha de ser Vd mi esposo?" "Si, seiiora, yo soy." "cQue de veras?"
"Si, senora." Luego se metieron par' adentro en algun corral y ya
sali6 el compadre que le habia sacado los ojos. Luego le dijo la
comadre: "cQu6 es eso, comadre, esa gente?" Luego respondi6 el
compadre: "Yo soy, compadre." "<iC6mo ha de ser Vd mi com-
padre?" "Si, seiior. ^Acuerdese que Vd me sac6 los ojos? Estas
cargas todas, de dinero es lo que saqu6 porque Vd mequit6 los ojos."

Y luego dijo que de veras. "Si, senor." Y luego dijo el compadre:
"jAy de veras! Si Vd me Uevara tambi6n 4 la sierra para que me
saqucn los ojos tambien!" Luego dijo el compadre: "S61o eso si.
Yo no lo hago." Y luego pens6 y luego dijo la mujer: "jMire! Mi
compadre ya viene rico, y yo no puedo hacerme rico." Y luego
trat6 de embidia. Luego tambien dijo y mand6 que le hicieran basti-
mcnto (x la mujer, que se iba 4 buscar con que mantenerse mas.

Y luego se fu6 solo y luego se fue en una sierra. Devis6 lejos una
lumbre y pens6 en el camino de contado: "A114 voy d quedarme." Y
llego en la sierra donde estaba una casa sola. Esta diz que era una
casa de los chamucos que alii tenian la casa. Estaba sola la casa. Y
luego aqu61 pcns6 de entrar adentro porque ya era muy noche. Abri6
la puerta y se meti6 par' adentro. Seria media noche cuando oy6
montar 4 plaza y luego estaban en un tapanco arriba. Lueo se subi6
aquel de micdo que oy6 aquel tropelazo feo. Y alii se estuvo debajo
de aquclla quilihua. A poco rato ahi fueron llegando hombres d
caballo. Luego abrieron la puerta y se metieron par' adentro. Y
luego hicieron lumbre. Era una lumbre muy colorada y el que estaba
escondido arriba hasta se meaba de micdo. Y luego de arriba devis6
par' abajo 'ond'estaban sentados 6sos. Esos es que eran los chamucos.
Luego les devis6 las narices largas, otras por abajo y mds se asust6.

Y luego se platicaban los chamucos entre tres. ",|C6mo te fu6,
hombre?" "Mai. Hice cicgo d un rey y aliora no estd ciego."

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 195

Luegodijoel otro: ",iC6mo te fue, hombre?" "Pues mal." "iPor-
que ? " " Tenia cuernos un rey y ahora no tiene nada." Luego le dijo
el otro: "Tu, ^Com6 te fue, hombre?" "Quite el puente de agua y
ahora ya esta devuelta." ";C6mo sevk eso?" dijo uno de cUos.
"^Qui4n sabe?" qu4 por ahi estard uno oyendonos ! jAver! iAs6-
mate arriba, abajo!" Y luego dijo el otro: "No hay nada." Y
luego dijo el diablo mayor : " As6mate arriba. Quien sabe si estara por
ahi uno." Y subi6 uno de los chamucos a asomarse. Y alia fueron
hallando uno. Y luego dijo uno de los diablos: "Aqui esta uno."
Y luego dijo el diablo mayor: "A ver. i Traiganmelo ! " Y luego lo
apiaron abajo en el suelo. Y luego lo agarraron entre tres adentro k
puros cuerazos y lo arrempujaban para la pader; otro de aqui para
alia, otro de alld par' aca a puros cuerazos con los sables todos. Ya lo
hicieron gritar. Idas y venidas arrempuj6 la puesta par' afuera y se
sali6 par' afuera asustado. Y de alii se arrend6 para su casa y llego
muriendose de susto, que lo habian encuerado. Pues al mes se muri6
de puro susto. AUi esta la busca que hizo, ni tal que hall6 dinero, ni
tal que hallo nada.

20. LOS DOS COMPADRES.

Second Version (b).
(Told by Felipe Aguilar.)

Era un compadre que tenia animales y el otro tambien tenia. Y de
verlo que tenia aquel tambien, un dia le rob6 un buey al compadre,
Pues que entonces a los dos dias lo busc6 el buey y no lo haI16. Y fue
para con el compadre i preguntarle que si no habia visto su buey.
Esto es que no. Pues que entonces siempre malici6 algo. Pens6 el
compadre: "Quien sabe si mi compadre se comiera mi buey." Y se
arrcnd6 y no le dijo nada. Y otro dia volvi6 k llegar y le volvi6 k
preguntar que si no lo habia visto de veras, y el compadre le respondi6
que no. Y entonces se arrend6 otra vez.

Y en la casa de 61 en una tarde lleg6 una limosnera pidiendo limosna,
y respondi6 el hombre: "Pues si, te socorro, pero tambien quiero que
me hagas un favor, de que maiiana te voy k dejar con mi compadre
encerrada en una petaquilla grande." Y respondi6 la limosnera que
si, si animaba. Pues que otro dia luego la acost6 adentro de aquella
pclaquilla grande y le meti6 comestibles de bravamente, agua y todo
y logo amarr6 bien aquella petaquilla. Y luego la conch6 y se la
llev6 con el compadre y le dijo al compadre: "Compadre, yo te vengo
k encargar estos avios." Respondi6 el compadre: "Si, compadre, con
gusto. Tr^igalos par' ack. Los alzaremos." Y respondi6 cl com-
padre: "Pues si, compadre, micntras que voy k dar una vuclta por
alii." (Pero esto cs que no. Fu6 k dejar aquella limosnera para ver
si oia algo si platicaban algo de su familia 6 ellos.)

196 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Y luego d poco rato oy6 que dijieron los muchachos: "Yo quiero
came." Y respondi6 el padre del muchacho: "Sosi^gate, hijo. Pue'
que estara viendo uno." Pues que entonces en grande rato estaba el
compadre sentado en el rinc6n, haciendo cecinas cuando oy6 unos
tres pedos adentro de la petaquilla, y luego se levant6 aquel hombre
y luego dijo: "(iQue es esto?" Y luego pens6: "Voy, que yo me
asomo pues lq\ih tiene por ahi mi compadre? Ya voy abrir, mas que
se enoje mi compadre. ^Pues qu6 tiene por ahi mi compadre?"
Fu4 y abri6 esa petaquilla y adentro de la petaquilla estaba esa mujer
acostada de ladito. Estaba comiendo pan y se lleno; por eso se
pey6. Y luego la agarro el hombre y le retaco pan en la boca y en las
narices y en los sentidos'todo lo hizo hasta que la hog6.

Pues que ya en la tarde ya llego el compadre y le dijo: "Compadre,
pues ya vine por mis avitos." "Pues si, compadre, aqui estin."

Y luego se los entrego y dio las gracias porque le habian cuidado esos
avios. Y ya se fue para la casa de el y ya carg6 con la petaquilla.

Y en el camino le iba preguntando que como le habia ido, que si no
habia oido nada, y no respondio nada. Pues que ya lleg6 en la casa y
lo desat6 y lo vido, y eso es que iba muerta. Y penso el compadre:
"Pues, siempre tengo malicias que mi compadre se comi6 mi buey.
Pues 'hora vera que plan le voy a tirar a mi compadre."

En una maiiana encontro un hijo del mismo compadre y le pregunto,
de casualida: "(iNo se comio mi buey mi compadre?" Y respondio el
muchacho: "Quisiera decirle, quisiera no." Y luego le dijo el
hombre: "Dime, ique tienes miedo?" "Pues si, tengo miedo que
me cueree mi padre si le digo." Y respondi6 aquel hombre: "Si me
dices, yo sabre ver como te salvo." Y ya dijo el muchacho: "Si, le
digo, pero me defiende." Y respondio aquel hombre: "Yo sabre ver
como lo hago para que no te haga nada." Y fue diciendo el muchacho:
"Si, mi padre se comio su buey; estaba muy gordo." Y dijo el
muchacho: "Todavia tenemos carne." "Pues est4 bien, muchacho."

Y luego se fue el compadre de aquel hombre para la casa y agarr6
Unas luces de cera y ya se fue para con el compadre y tenia una imagen
de San Antonio. Y luego se 'hinc6 y luego dijo: "Compadre, yo
vengo aqui k visitar d San Antonio." Y respondi6 el compadre: "Si,
pase, con gusto." Y luego encendid esas luces y estuvo rezando un
ratito. Y luego empez6 k rezar y luego dijo: "Por la seiial de la
Santa Cruz, de nuestros enemigos — " y kV ultima palabra le dijo k
San Antonio: "Ea, San Antonio, ino se habia comido mi buey mi
compadre?" Y respondi6: "Si." (Pero esto es que s6Io se habia
respondido.) Y ya ador6 y se salio ya par' afuera y le dijo al compadre
que ya habia visitado al San Antonio y luego le dijo : " Compadre, pues
el San Antonio dice que Vd se comi6 mi buey." Respondi6 el com-
padre: "No, no me lo he comido." "Pero el San Antonio me dice

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 197

que Vd me lo ha comido." Y luego dijo: "No, senor, yo no me lo he
comido," "Pues quien sabe; pues 'hora no hay mas con. SI Vd me
lo comi6, Vd me lo paga. Y si no, pasare por la justicia si no me quiere
pagar mi buey." Y luego dijo: "Lo que guste, compadre, y haga de
ml lo que quiera." "Pues mafiana, 'hora ver4."

Y luego se fue para la casa y luego le huyo el compadre. "'Hora
ver4, compadre, lo que le voy a hacer, porque me comio mi buey." Y
luego el otro compadre tenia mucha manada de caballos y en medio de
ellos andaba un caballo que era manadero. Y luego penso: "'Hora
verd. Esta limosnera la voy k amarrar en aquel caballo de mi com-
padre." Pues que ya la vistio de euro, chaqueta, pantalon, un
buen sable de colgo, gorofina, y buena lanza en las manos y la amarro
bien. Y tan luego que escurecio la amarro y la fue a dejar entre la
manada.

Y luego otro dia que amanecio andaba aquel euro 4 caballo. Y otro
dia se asomo el compadre a ver sus caballos, y vido que andaba un euro
entre medio de la manada. Y se arrimo en la orilla de un llano y
luego se fue avisando aquel euro. Y luego se le vino y luego ya ar-
ranco aquel hombre y el euro atras de t\ a la carrera. Ya parecia que
lo alcanzaba y con la lanza en la mano como queriendolo picar. Y
mas arranco y se fue para la casa y le dijo 4 la mujer: " iLo crees que
anda un euro entre mis caballos, y es un euro bien vestido? Puede
ser que no sea cristiano. A mi se me hace que es el chamuco que se
quiere adueiiar de mi manada." Y luego ensill6 un caballo de los
que tenia el mansos y dijo: " Yo siempre voy a ver que euro anda mi-
rando mis caballos." Y se fue otra vez, monto a caballo y iba en-
cumbrando en el llano, y siempre vido que alii andaba ese euro. Y
tan luego que lo vido se le vino otra vez, y luego lo aguardo. Y
entonces aquel euro echo carrera para con el y lo aguardo y ya vido
que no era cristiano. Y le volvio a dar carrera y arranc6 el hombre y
el euro atris de el a la carrera, siguiendolo. (Y esto es que era nada;
era porque el caballo era manadero. Por eso seguia i los caballos y
k la gente, pero no era porque el euro iba 4 la carrera. Era el caballo.)

Y se fu6 para la villa 4 traer al Sefior Cura para que viniera 4 correr
la cosa mala que ya se habfa dueiiado de la manada. Fue y vino y
trujo al Cura y luego se fueron a ver la manada. I ban llegando cuando
se les vino aquel euro otra vez 4 la carrera y arranc6 el Sr. Cura y de
lejos lo bendecia. Y la cosa mala no quiso atender; entre m4s, mas
lo siguia. Y asi que no hizo caso, le tiro con el crucifijo, y se fueron y le
dijo el hombre que de aqui no se habia de retirar ya. Y dijo el Sr.
Cura que era la cosa mala que ya le habia gustado la manada. Y se
fueron.

Perdio la esperanza aquel hombre porque no hizo nada el Sr. Cura
y se fu6 para con el compadre y le dijo: "Compadre, iquCi ser4 bueno

198 Jourfial of American Folk-Lore.

para tjuc se retire la cosa mala que ya se ha duenado de mi manada?"
Y rcspondic') el compadre: "Ojalci, si al^o me diera Ud, yo venia 6.
vcr dc que modo la rctiraba." Y respondi6 el compadre: "Ojalti,
que si Vd lo hacia, yo le daba cinco caballos." Respondi6 el com-
padre: "(jDe veras? Pues haccmos la lucha h vcr si la rctiramos."
Rcspondic el compadre: "Yo s6 una oraci6n para que se retire el
chamuco, y si lo rctiro, es con mis oraciones que yo s6. Es muy
fuerte." Y luego le dijo: "Para mafiana verd."

Y luego se fue para la casa el compadre, y como 61 ya sabia lo que
era, fu6 y lo quit6 en la noche. Lo laz6 al caballo y api6 aquella
limosnera y se la llev6 y la scpult6 bien. Y otro dia ya no habia
nada de cosa mala. Y luego sc fucron 4 ver al compadre y cicrto
que ya no hubo nada. Y luego le dijo: "Ya se le cumpli6 lo que
he dicho." (Como 61 bien sabi'a que no era nada, facilmcnte lo
quit6.) Y luego le ensefio al compadre la manada y le dijo que
descojiera de los mis mejores caballos los que le gustaran. Y los
agarraron y luego se los entreg6. Cinco caballos le entreg6 al com-
padre, y el compadre alegre que ya tenia caballos despues que el otro
compadre le pudo haber dado los caballos y pens6: "(iQue pensaria
yo que Ic di mis caballos d mi compadre? Y quicn sabe si 61 sabia bien
lo que era lo que andaba entre mi manada." Y luego dijo: "Pues
'hora yo ya Ic di; 'hora ni modo de rajarme." Y luego sc fue para la
casa pensando, pero ya no habia modo de quitarselos otra vez.

En eso vino k topar el toro bucy que se lo comio el compadre.

21. EL COMPADRE FLOJO.

(Told by Margarito Aguilar.)

Estos eran dos compadres. Y le decia el compadre rico al pobre
que le fuera d ayudar d trabajar, que le daba cien pesos, mirdndolo
que era pobre. Y entonces le dijo que no iba d trabajar y se fu6
para la casa con la mujer y le dijo que su compadre le daba cien pesos
per que le fuera d ayudar d trabajar. Y entonces la mujer lo dcspach6
que fuera d ganar los cien pesos al compadre. Y se fu6 el hombrc con
el compadre y le dijo que estaba presto d ganar los cien pesos. Y le
dijo el compadre que no le dal^a mds de cincuenta pesos. Entonces
le dijo el compadre que no trabajaba y sc vino y se fue para la casa.
Y le dijo d la mujer que el compadre ya no daba mds de cincuenta
pesos. Y le dijo la nnijcr que fuera d ganarle los cincuenta pesos
porque estaban muy pobres. Y se fu6 para con el compadre y le dijo
que ya iba d ganarle los cincuenta pesos. Y entonces le dijo el com-
padre que le daba no mds dc vcinticinco pesos. Y se vino el pobre
para la casa con la mujer y le dijo que el compadre s61o le daba vcinti-
cinco pesos para que fuera d trabajar con 61. Y se fu6 otra vez con el
compadre y le dijo que le il)a d ganar los vcinticinco pesos y el com-

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 199

padre le dijo que no le daba m^s de doce pesos. Y se vino el pobre
para la casa y le dijo a la mujer que el compadre no le daba mas de
doce pesos para que fuera k trabajar. Entonces la mujer le dijo
que fuera k ganarle los doce pesos, que estaban muy pobres. Y se
fu6 el pobre con el compadre otra vez y le dijo que iba k ganarle los
doce pesos. Y el compadre le dijo que le daba seis pesos para que
fuera k gritarle k la suerte de 61. Y se fu6 el pobre para la casa y lleg6
con la mujer y le dijo que su compadre no le daba mds de seis pesos
porque fuera k gritarle su suerte. Y la mujer le dijo que fuera k
ganar esos seis pesos que le daba el compadre. Y se fu6 el pobre con
el compadre y le dijo que iba k ganarle los seis pesos para ir k gritarle
su suerte. Y le di6 dos medidas de maiz para que le echaran el
bastimento y los seis pesos. Vino el compadre pobre y le dijo k
la mujer que le echara su bastimento, que se iba k gritarle su suerte de
su compadre.

Y se fue k un cerro k media noche y le dijo k la suerte: "Suerte de
mi compadre, .i'ond'estds por ahi?" Y sali6 la suerte del compadre;
era un rico de los meros ricos en figura de chamuco, que no m^s le
brillaba el vestido. Y luego le dijo: "Tii eres la suerte de mi com-
padre. Me dijo mi compadre que te dijiera que le pusieras unas dos peta-
quillas de dinero ' ' (porque era muy rico el compadre) . " Y se las llevaras
k su casa para pagar unas haciendas que tenia compradas." Y puso
el dinero en la casa del compadre y se fu6 el compadre pobre con el rico
y le dijo: "Compadre, ya le grit6 k su suerte lo que Vd me mand6."
Y le agradeci6 mucho al compadre y le di6 trescientos pesos de gratis
porque le habia ido k hacer su mandado.

Y se fu6 el pobre para la casa y entonces le dijo la mujer al pobre que
le fuera k gritar su suerte de el para que se hiciera rico come el com-
padre. Y mand6 que le echaran su bastimento para ir k gritarle
tambien su suerte. Y se fu6 al mismo cerro y le grit6 k la suerte y
sali6 la suerte que era la pereza con el cabello suelto. Y le arrim6
una nionda y le dijo que porque desperdiciaba la suerte, que si le
daban unos seis centavos que los ganara en cualquicr mandado.

Y se fu6 el pobre para la casa muy malo y le dijo k la mujer que
le habia dado una monda la suerte de 61 dcspu6s, y que si le daban
unos trcs centavos por cualquicr mandado, que lo hiciera. Y ya no
desperdiciaba la suerte y entre poco se hizo rico, m^s que ni el com-
padre; y entonces le dijo el rico al compadre que como habfa iiecho
para hacersc rico m^is que ni 61. Y le dijo el compadre cjuc tambien
habia ido ci gritarle k su suerte y que no desperdiciaba la suerte. Y
entonces el compadre le dijo que 61 tanilnrn iba k gritarle k la suerte
de 61 para hacerse mAs rico que ni 61.

Y 6se es cl cuento del compadre rico y el iiobre.

200 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

22. LOS NINOS CORONADOS.
(Told by Iilcno Aguilar.)

Estc era un rcy que dijo al criacio que qucria los remudos cnsillados
para andar toda la ciudad para buscar una nina para casarse. Estaba
el criado cnsillando y pasaron tres ninas, y dijo la nina mayor que si
se casaba cl rcy con ella que le habria de haccr un costal de tachigual
que cupicra por un anillo. Y dijo la m4s mediana que si 61 se casaba
con ella que le hacfa un mantel de tachigual que pasara por un anillo.
Y dijo la mds chica: "Si cl rey se casaba conmigo, tenemos de tener
tres ninos coronados de estrellas." Luego se fueron para sus casas.

Y luego le pregunt6 el rey al criado que que habian dicho las niiias
que pasaban y le volvi6 4 repitir: "Dice la mayor que si se casa cl
rey con ella que le ha de hacer un costal de tachigual que quepa por
un anillo, y la m^s mediana que si se casa el rey con ella que le ha de
hacer un mantel de tachigual que pase por un anillo, y la m^s chica que
si se casa el rey con ella que tienen de tener tres ninos coronados con
estrellas." Y luego se fueron k saber si lo habian dicho. Lleg6 k la
casa de las ninas y luego les pregunt6: "A ver. iQud dijo Ud?"
"Pues yo dije que si Vd se casara conmigo he de hacer un costal de
tachigual que quepa por un anillo." Y le pregunt6 k la otra. "Pues
yo dije que si Vd se casara conmigo he de hacer un mantel que pase
por un anillo." Y luego le pregunt6 k la mds chica que que habia
dicho ella. " Pues yo dije que si Vd se casara conmigo que tenemos
que tener tres ninos coronados." Luego la agarr6 del brazo y mont6
k caballo y luego hicieron la boda.

Luego las hermanas de ella se fueron de criadas del rcy por agravio
que tenian con la hermanita porque no se cas6 el rey con ellas. Y al
afio luego salio embarazada la seiiora y el rey luego formo viaje para
otra ciudad. Y cuando vino ya se habia aliviado la senora. Y las
hermanas compraron tres petaquillas para echar los nifios. Y luego
le aprontaron un pcrrito. Y luego vino el rey de su viaje y les pre-
gunt6 de la sefiora. " (iQu6 tuvimos, esposa nifa? " Y le respondi6 la
seiiora, que habia tenido un pcrrito. "^Es verdad, esposa mia, que
tuvimos un pcrrito?"

Y ajustando el afio volvi6 k salir embarazada y luego se fu6 al viaje
el rey. Y ya cuando vino ya se habia aliviado. Y luego compraron
otra petaquilla y le aprontaron un cochinito y echaron el nino en la
petaquilla. Y vino el rey otra vez. "(iQu6 tuvimos, esposa mfa?"
" Pues i tuvimos un cochinito!" "dEs posible, esposa mfa que tuvimos
puros animalitos?" Y luego al afio volvi6 k salir embarazada, y se
volvi6 k ir otra vez el rey k su viaje. Y ya cuando vino ya se habia
aliviado otra vez y le pregunt6 : ",;Qu6 tuvimos, esposa mia?" "Pues
i tuvimos una gatita!" Y volvieron k echar en la petaquilla al nifio.

Y aqucUas mujercs antes que vinicra el rey se fueron k echar las

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 201

petaquillas al mar. Y de coraje que tenia puros animalitos el rey,
la empader6 d la sefiora.

Era un hombre pobrecito que dijo k la senora : " Esposa mia, ^chame
Unas gordas. Voy d juntar conchitas al mar para ir d vender." Y
se fue el hombre al mar d juntar conchitas. Y andaba 61 juntando
cuando lleg6 1' ola de agua del mar y alii sali6 una petaquilla. Y luego
la sac6 y apenas habia acabado cuando vido par' arriba y sali6 otra
petaquilla. Y luego estaba el acabando, sacando, y vido otra pet-
aquilla. Y logo empez6 4 quebrarlas y 6ste vido un niiio coronado. Y
volvi6 d quebrar otra petaquilla y volvi6 d sacar otro niiio coronado.

Y volvi6 a quebrar la otra petaquilla y sac6 la niiia coronada. Y luego
no junt6 conchitas. Luego se fu6 con aquellos nifios coronados para
su casa y luego le habl6 d la esposa que habia encontrado unos dngeles
del cielo coronados. Pues que empez6 d comprar trapitos para los
nifios que estaban encueraditos.

Luego se murieron aquellos padres y quedaron solos, hu6rfanos. Y
aquella nifia dijo d sus hermanitos, que fueran d la ciudad del rey d
trabajar. Se fueron y por ahi en las orillas de la ciudad pidieron per-
miso para hacer una casa para vivir. Y aquella nifia del jardin que
tenia llev6 las semillas y las plantas del jardin d la ciudad. Y luego
se fueron y hicieron la casa y se fueron d trabajar,

Y luego pas6 la tia de aquellos nifios y le dijo: "Mds chulo, mds
bonito ha de estar tu jardin si fueras d traer el Arbol de Todas Frutas."

Y le dijo la nifia: ",|'Onde std ese drbol?" "En la Pila de Todas
Aguas." Y vinieron los hermanitos de trabajar y luego les dijo que
fueran a traer el Arbol de Todas Frutas, que habia encontrado una
senora que le habia dicho que mds chulo, mds bonito habfa de estar su
jarfiin si fuerad traer el Ariiol de Todas Frutas que estaba en la Pila de
Todas Aguas. Y se fu6 el nifio mds grande, y en el camino encontr6
d un viojiio que le dijo: ",iPar '6nde vas, buen niiio?" "Pues voy
para la Pila de Trxlas Aguas para traer el Arbol de Todas Frutas."
Entonces ya le dijo cjue si estaba la pila de agua silencia que no
entrara, pero si estaban hirviendo, podia entrar y cortar el palo*
Asi lo hizo y luego se arrend6 y lo trujo. Y fu6 d su trabajo otra vez.

Y volvi6 d pasar la vieja y le dijo d la nifia: "Mds bonito habia de
estar tu jardin si fueras d traer el Arbol de Todas Flores." Y pregunt6,
qucsi 'ond'estaba. "Estden la Pila de Todas Aguas." Entonces le dijo
el nifu), el mds chico:"Echameunas gordas, porque voy d traer el Arbol
de Todas P'lores." Y en el camino encontrt') al viejo que le i)rcgunt6:
"<|A d6nde vas, buen hijo? P2sa vicjita no lesquiere; lesquicrematar.
Vds d la pila y te asomas. Si estd el agua silencia, no tc metas,
porque te vuelves pieilra, pero si estd 'hirvirndo, entras y cortas cl
drbol." Y se fu6 y lo trujo y se fui- cl nifio otra vcz d trabajar.

VOL. XXVII. — NO. 104. — 14.

202 Journal of America ft Folk-Lore.

Y otro dia volvi6 d aparecer la vicja y Ic dijo d la niiia que mds
chulo, mds lindo habia de estar su jardin si fucra d tracr el Pdjaro de
Todos Cantos. " d'Ond'estd? " Y le dijo que en la Pila de Todas
Aguas. Y luego se fu6 el nine mayor otra vez y en el camino otra
vez cncontr6 al viejo que le dijo: "Esa mujer no les quiere; les quiere
matar. Es muy cierto que alU estd el Pdjaro de Todos Cantos en el
copo del Arbol de Todas Flores, muy arriba." Y le dijo que habian
de salir muchos pdjaros que se sientan en sus brazos, pero no le agarran
sin subir al mero encimo y agarrar alli el pdjaro. Se entr6 y subi6 al
palo, y cuando baj6 ya estaba seca la pila y se volvi6 piedra. No
apareci6 este dia.

Otro dia se volvi6 d ir el mds chico y 61 volvi6 d encontrar al viejito.
"tA d6nde vas, buen hijo? Esa mujer no les quiere; les quiere matar.
Tu hermanito estd en la Pila de Todas Aguas; se volvi6 piedra, ya
trae el Pdjaro de Todos Cantos. Anda brincando sobre la piedra."

Y le di6 un lanto y le dijo que le diera tres golpes y que pronto saliera
porque si no se volvia piedra. Se sec6 la pila y se volvi6 piedra el
otro nino. Otro dia se fu6 la niiia d buscar d los hermanitos. Y en el
camino encontr6 d una senora vestida de azul que era Maria Santisima.

Y luego le dijo: "<;Par '6nde vas, buena nifia?" "Voy d buscar d
mis hermanitos que estdn en la Pila de Todas Aguas." Y le dijo:
"Ve y te asomas d la pila. Si estd el agua silencia, no entres, porque
te vuelves piedra, pero si estd el agua hirviendo, puedes entrar. Tus
hermanitos alli estdn; dos piedras blancas, y el pdjaro alli estd
tambi6n." Y luego se asom6 y luego empez6 d hervir. Entr6 y
llevaba la varita y les empez6 d dar tres varazos d cada uno y se fueron
levantando con toi pdjaro.

Y otro dia luego lleg6 la vieja. "j'Horasi! Es mds bonito tu jardin;
ya tienes el Arbol de Todas Frutas y el Arbol de Todas Flores y el
Pdjaro de Todos Cantos." Y luego se fuc d darle parte al rey y le
dijo al rey que estaban unos tres niiios coronados, dos niiios y una niiia.

Y ya se vino el rey. De la fruta que tenia aquel Arbol de Todas
Frutas lleg6 al rey en el palacio el aroma. Y se empez6 d buscar
criadas para haccr un banqucte para llcvar aquellos niiios. Y que
pas6 el rey d donde estaban los nifios d liacerles una cita. Y le dijo
que si iban al palacio. Les dijo que les iba d mandar el coche para
que fucran. Y el mayor se subi6 al drbol para llevarle la fruta al rey.

Y volvi6 d pasar la vieja y les dijo: " No vayan con el rey, porque les
quiere matar."

Y volvi6 d venir el rey d preguntar porqu6 no venian al palacio, que
de hocjuis habia hcclio su gasto. Y los niiios le dijieronque si iban, que
les aguardaran. Y se volvi6 d cortar fruta para llevarle al rey cuando
pas6 otra vez la vicja dicicndoles que no fueran. Entonces le dijo el
pdjaro que no fueran d comer de todos los platos que les dieran, que
no mds del plato que 61 picara. Y le dijo el rey al nifio que porqu6 le

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 203

agarraba su plato. Entonces le dijo el pajaro al rey que les habia
dicho que estaban 4 lo que 61 dijiera; que les habia dicho que los platos
que les dieran tenian veneno. Entonces ya decia el pajaro que
como habia de envenenar 4 sus hijos, que las criadas que tenia los
habian echado en la mar en las petaquillas.

Entonces mand6 que sacaran d la mujer que estaba ancha de gorda.
Ni se muri6 ni nada. Estaba asi como si hubiera comido todo el
tiempo. Y luego se postr6 de rodillas a pedirle perd6n el rey 4 la
mujer. Y dijo el rey que como habian de ser sus hijos al momento.
Luego mand6 hacer leiia y pregunt6 a los niiios que que castigo pedian
para sus tias. Y aquellos niiios dijieron que como 61 dijiera. Y la
nina dijo que les quemaran en leiia verde. Y ya estdn ardiendo en el
otro reino.

DIALECTIC WORDS.

aigre, air. mole or temole, chile sauce or dish

dndale, go ahead, go on, hurry. (Nahua).

dsqiiele, small black ants. nixtamal, corn parboiled in lime-

chamuco, devil. water (Nahua).

chichi, teat (Nahua). on, onde = donde.

chile, penis (Nahua). pinole, pulverized corn (Nahua).

chiquihuite, basket (Nahua). popote, reed, thick grass (Nahua).

conche, turkey. quilihua, basket (quiligua, huacal

euro, well-dressed person. [Nahua]).

destantiar, to fool, to tempt. tachigual, cotton, cotton lace

Jragilidad, difficulty, trouble. (Nahua).

gorda, tortilla, pancake. tacuache, tortoise (tlacuache < tla-

hoqiiis de, gratis, free. cuatzin, opossum).

huasanga, hacer, to make a racket, toi = todo y, and all.

jicote, wasp (Nahua). tompiate, palm frail, basket.

joronchi, humpbacked. (Nahua).

mecos, pagan Indians (Nahua, tules, robbers, thieves.

chichimecos) . zopilote, vulture (Nahua).
mi tote, popular Mexican Indian

dance (Nahua).

ABSTRACTS.

I. TRADITIONS.

Tiiic legendary history of Azqueltdn. relating particularly to the time
of iht- Concjuest and tlie first contact with the Spanish.

The Indian King and The Royal Eagle. ^
Traditions relating to the legendary King of Tlaxcala and to the pere-
grinations of the Aztecs before the founding of the city of Mexico.

'These legenfls were prol)al)ly introduced by the TIaxcaltccs. who were imported into
this region by the Spanish to act aa buffers against the hostile nations of the north.

204 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

The Nativity.
Distorted apocryphal legend of incidents at the nativity.

2. FOX AND COYOTE.

The Coyote Cycle} — Fox and Coyote have many trials of wit, and Coyote
always gets the better of Fox. Coyote bets that the moon will rise in the
west, which it does. They see the reflection of the moon (?) in the water,
which Coyote states to be a cheese. He ties a stone to Fox's neck, that he
may dive for it. Fox seeks Coyote, and finds him defecating. The latter
maintains he is making money: and Fox believes it, allowing Coyote to
escape. He finds him later digging in the earth, and assists in the excava-
tion, finally disclosing a wasp's nest. Seeking for revenge, he finds Coyote
near a high cliff, watching what he claims to be a suspended basket of
money. Coyote lets Fox down on a rope, finding the basket to be a bee- hive.
Coyote then lets him drop: and Fox is killed, but revived by the Vulture.
Still seeking Coyote, he meets Rabbit, but lets him go that he may bring
him a better meal. Rabbit fails to return. Another day he finds Rabbit
on his back with his feet against a cliff. He consents to aid him to maintain
the falling cliff, so Rabbit again escapes. He finds Coyote securely bound,
but agrees to take his place in order to get the good meal Coyote maintains
is to be brought him. Coyote escapes, and Fox is scalded with a pitcher of
boiling water. Coyote meets Burro, who is carrying food to the laborers.
He begs a lift, and eats the chicken from between the tortillas. Burro
agrees to trap him. He lies in a field and feigns death. Coyote, at first
suspicious, finally tries to eat him, but is seized and carried to the house, and
killed by the dogs.

3. THE DEER-SLAYER.'

A famous deer-slayer was rapidly exterminating the deer. One day he
met three girls and agreed to marry one. She led him to her people, who
began a great dance and celebration. But the hunter had suspicions.
Finally a Rat passed, and told him they were intending to eat him. The
Rat then upset the candle, and in the confusion the hunter escaped. But
in a month he died, for these were the Deer, who thus revenged their de-
pletion.

4. THE CORN-WOMAN.'

The Toloache, a lazy man, was sent by his mother to find work. He
was bathing in a lake when three maidens appeared, one of whom said that
if he would marry her he need never work. She took him to her father,
God, who agreed to the marriage on the promise of the Toloache that he
would never maltreat his wife, the Corn. They went home, the girl envel-
oped in a mist. The Toloache left her outside and informed his mother, who
was provoked, and who, on going to fetch her daughter-in-law, found only
a heap of snakes. But the Toloache went and brought her in. Immediately
the bins became full of corn of such strength that a half-grain was sufficient
to fill the jar. Another room was likewise suddenly filled with beans of

' This cycle is common to a large part of Mexico.

* This myth doubtless refers to the Morning Star, the deer-hunter par excellence, and
is purely indigenous.

' See footnote i, p. 205.

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 205

like power. But one day the mother burnt the tortillas; and the Corn-
Woman appeared with face and dress scorched, reminding them that they
must not maltreat her. But now the Toloache became unfaithful, and had
mistresses, — the Crow and the Tacuache. These likewise burnt the tortillas
and stole corn, so that the Corn-Woman again warned the Toloache, adding
that he must not see her face. But in the night he took a candle and looked
at her. Waking up, she disappeared with all the corn and beans.

Then the Toloache went to God and begged pardon and promised reform,
and regained his wife. All went happily for a while; but the Toloache
renewed his evil ways, and the Corn-Woman fled again. Again he petitioned
God, who now refused him. Then he began to search the world, asking the
birds, the hermits, and the wind. Finally he visited the sun and the moon,
from whose cannibalism he was protected by their mothers. Again asking
the wind, he was told of one possible place. Going there, they found the
Corn-Woman imprisoned, and released her after difficulty. Being over-
taken by a magic spell, the Corn-Woman became five grains of corn, which
sprouted to young corn-plants. Heedless of her objurgation to wait a
month, the Toloache lost hope after fifteen days, and left. Reaching
home, he became betrothed to another woman; but at the wedding the
Corn-Woman appeared, seized him, and carried him again to God, who
punished him by fastening him, head downward, to the earth. Here the
Toloache grew, and around him sprang up green corn and other plants; and
God said to the neighbors, "Whatever you beg of him he must give you."

5. THE TOLOACHE.i

Two lazy brothers went journeying, and found a heap of money at the
bottom of a hole. They took it out, but the elder left the younger in the
hole and fled with the money. After five days, some roots dropped in, and
he hauled himself out. Seeing mist rising from a lake, he went thither
and found a beautiful girl, who agreed to marry him. They went home,
where the girl first appeared as a snake. She caused a stream to appear
close by, as the nearest water was a day's journey distant. Three rooms
now became full of white, red, and yellow corn. But then the Toloache
secured mistresses, — the Crow and the Tacuache. The Corn- Woman warned
him and then fled to her mother; but the Toloache induced her to return.
But he continued to sin, and the Corn-Woman fled to God, her father.
When the Toloache came and tried to beg pardon, God told him that if he
could recite the seven words he would |)ardon him; but the Toloache could
hardly finish five. Then God told St. John the Baptist and St. Joseph to
baptize him, but he would not permit it. Then God fastened him, head
downward, to the ground.

6. THE M()KN!N(; STAR.*

Tho l)u\il and the Morning Star had a trial of strength. The former
bet, that, if he could not fell the Hill of the Lioness, he would never leave
hell again. He shot his rifle and failed. The Morning Star fired his arrow,

'This myth and the prcccdinR one arc of great importance in Tcpecano rciinion,
and seem to be attempts to explain natural piienomena, — the relations of the Sun God,
the father; the Corn, the creature of the sun; and Man.

' The Morning Star is the deer-liunter throughout tliis region.

2o6 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

and broke the hill into three pieces, two of which flew to a distance to form
two prominent hills; the other remained. The Devil then fled to hell,
and so there are no devils on earth to-day. Then the Morning Star con-
tinued his office of deer-slayer. He had killed nearly all of them, when one
day he met a beautiful woman who agreed to marry him. But at night,
when he approached her, she was cold, a corpse. He fled frightened, and
told Coyote, and then went to his father, the Sun, who told him to hunt the
deer more vigorously. For this reason the deer never appear during the day.
As soon as the Morning Star rises, they disappear.

7. THE DELUGE.l

A sinless man was engaged in clearing land. Several times he found
the trees raised again. At last he hid, and saw an old man replacing the
trees. Remonstrating with him, he was told to fell a salate-tree and make
an ark of it; to take a pair of each bird and animal, a little corn, and water,
and go aboard. It rained forty days, and the ark floated over the water.
It struck land first in the east, the north, the west, the south, then again
to the east, and then to the sky. After striking the sky five times, it de-
scended in the east. After seven days they disembarked.

The man then went to work, leaving the bitch in the house. Each night
when he returned, he found tortillas made, which he shared with the bitch.
Spying one day, he saw a girl cooking. Seizing the skin of the bitch near
by, he threw it into the fire, the girl remaining human. After seven years
they had children. When they had twenty-four, the man took half of them
to God to be clothed. Then God told the others to work for the clothed
ones to earn their living. For this reason the poor now have to work for
the rich to gain their daily bread.

8. Joseph and M.\ry.

An amusingly distorted story of the nativity, but without definite aboriginal
elements. The devils, who are the Jews, wish to marry Mary. She says
she will marry the one who makes his cane blossom. Joseph is the successful
one. They flee. The snake frightens the mule, so that it throws Mary.
For this reason it is deprived of its feet; and the mule, of power of repro-
duction. During the journey the wheat and the chilis are made to ripen
for those who aid them, and corn is turned to stone for those who refuse. A
rich man refuses them hospitality, and he and his family are turned to pigs.
At the nativity all the animals rejoice. Herod is identified with Satan, and
Pilate protects the child. St. Santiago kills all the Jews, the devils; but God
revives their king.

9. PETER AND ST. PETER.

Three lazy sons were sent to work. One went to St. Joseph, one to St.
Peter, and one to God. After a year of work, each one was asked whether
he would take his pay and lunch, or thanks and a half-real. The eldest two
wished their pay; but Peter, the youngest, who was working for St. Peter,

• The same myth, in a little less biblical version, is given by Lumholtz from the Huichol
and Cora, in Unknown Mexico, vol. ii, p. 191. He considers it indigenous. The mythology
of this region is still too little known to permit dogmatic statement. The present version
is largely affected by, if not entirely based on, the story of Genesis.

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 207

took the thanks. They met at the cross-roads. The others went home; but
Peter caught a frog and carried it home, where it became his guardian and
adviser. They went to the wedding of the brothers, where the Frog-Woman
saved Peter from poison. Then arrived God, St. Joseph, and St, Peter;
and the wives of the brothers would not give them hospitality. Then they
went to Peter's house, where St. Peter demanded his half-real. Peter
refused. Then St. Peter sent Death to bring Peter; but the latter tricked
him into taking another. Finally Death caught Peter and took him to
heaven; but St. Peter consigned him to other regions. Arriving in hell, he
gambled with the devils and won all the souls, and then chased the devils
out. Returning to heaven, he tried to squeeze through the gate, but was
turned by St. Peter into Peter of Ordimales, the holy-water basin of the
church.

10. Peter of Ordimales.
Peter was always cheating every one. He hung money on a tree and then
sold the tree to herdsmen as a tree which bore money. Another day he
sold a magic jar to other herdsmen as one which required no fire, the fire
being hidden in a hole in the ground. Again, he pretended to have caught
a beautiful bird, and sold it under his hat. He made a noise like a great
drove of burros, and fooled the herdsmen. At last the first men caught
him and put him in a bag. A goat-herdsman came by and was tricked intu
changing places with him. Peter took the goats, and the man was thrown
into a pool of water. Meeting the herdsmen again, he told them that the
goats had come from the foam. A priest desired to know the secret of his
success. Peter borrowed his horse and clothes to go for his magic. Reach-
ing a town, he said mass, but was arrested; but he escaped and ascended to
heaven. Here St. Peter sent him to hell, where he chased out all the devils.
Returning to heaven, he tried to squeeze in unnoticed; but St. Peter caught
him, and changed him into Peter of Ordimales, the stone basin for holy
water in the church.

II. THE DEVIL.

A devil determined to disrupt an honorable couple. Adopting various
guises, he poisoned the minds of each, so that the man, in a rage, killed his
wife. Then God appeared to him and condemned him to perdition. He
was tormented by devils. Repentant, he decided to go to Rome, as the
local prie.=^t refused to confess him. He met others bound on the bame errand.
On the way, St. John ajjpcaied and pardoned him, and he returned home;
but here the spirit of his wife ai)pearod and refused to forgive him.

12. THE devil's DAUGHTER.

A man could nut find a godfather until he met the De\il, who agreed to
serve if he were given the boy. At theagc of fifteen, the boy went to seek his
godfather. The first day he was sent to watch the turkeys. When they
tried to peck him, he killed them all. The second day he was put to watch
the pigs, and, when these tried to bite him, he killed them. The third day
he was sent with the mules for wood; but he let them drink forbidden water,
and they flew away. The fourth day he was put to guard the corn; but
he opened the forbidden door, and the souls all esca|)e(l. Then the l-)e\il
determined to kill him, but his daughter aided him. Tuld to stir the caul-

2o8 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

drons, he disclaimed knowledge, and, when the Devil showed him, threw
him in. Then he fled with the daughter of the Devil, and the mother
followed them. A magic flight ensued; a tamal of ashes and one of salt,
a bit of pine, and a comb, changing to a fog, a lake, a pine-brake, and a
magucy-ficld. Arriving home, he left the girl near by, and his father planned
to marry him to another girl; but the Devil's daughter came to the wedding,
and the following night the boy died.

13. THE EAGLE.

Children's story of the well-known type, — " Water, water, quench firt!
Fire won't burn stick; stick won't beat dog; dog won't bite ;"etc.

14. JOHN THE BEAR.

A bear stole a woman, and in a year they had two sons, — one human and
the other animal. Some hunters found the woman and child and carried
them ofT. The bear and the cub pursued, but were killed. The boy grew
up fearless and had many adventures. He helped others seek money in a
cave, where he was attacked by devils and wild animals. He beat them
all, and cut off the ear of the principal devil. There he found two maidens,
and called to his companions to let down a rope to haul them out. Having
done so, they ran away with the girls, and left John the Bear there. Then
the devil who had lost his ear helped him out, and told him to bite the ear
whenever he needed assistance, and he would help him. He gave him a
fine equipment, and John the Bear set forth to find adventures. Reaching
a big city, he overcame the policemen and then changed his appearance so that
they did not recognize him. Again, calling the devil to his aid, he defeated
his old companions, and recaptured the maidens. Again the devil ap-
peared, and John the Bear gave him the girls again. Some spirits tried to
frighten him, but, as he was superhuman, they could not succeed. He could
neither be killed nor defeated in a fight.

15. THE SHARK.

A peasant had three beautiful daughters. On the way to sell wood with
the eldest, they met a Shark, who ofTered to buy the girl for a great sum.
Returning, the father brought the other two, for each of whom the Shark
paid a larger amount. Then he gave each an orange and a key, and told her
to open the doors and not to let the orange be soiled, and she would disen-
chant him. The eldest two failed, and were likewise enchanted; but the
youngest one succeeded, and disenchanted the prince, who promised to
marry her; but the witch who had enchanted him caused him to follow her
that she might marry him. The girl followed. By means of gifts to the
witch, she obtained access to the prince; but the witch had caused him to
sleep. A second time he was awake, and secreted the girl; and, w'hen the
witch came to marry him, he ordered her to be burnt in green wood.

16. THE NEWLY-WED.

A young husband returned from market to find his wife dead and buried.
He would not believe it, and spent twenty years seeking her. Finally,
asking some Crows, they offered to take him to the other world to see her

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos. 209

and be convinced. Seated on their wings, with his eyes blindfolded, he was
carried thither. She told him his mother had killed her, and advised him to
return. The spirits were building a church, which fell whenever nearly
finished. At night she was cold in death, and the following morn he returned
by the same means. But the Crows were really angels. Fifteen days after
he returned, he died.

17. THE BLACK CHICKENS.

An unfaithful wife wished her husband to become blind, that her lover
might come more freely. She went to the church to ask the saints what to
do. The husband was suspicious, and suspended himself on the cross there.
To the woman's question he replied, " Black chickens." So the wife began
to feed him on black chickens, and he feigned increasing blindness until the
lover came freely into the house. Calling for his rifle, he pretended to
teach his son to shoot, and then shot the lover and beat his wife. The latter
repented and never repeated her evil doings.

18. Fresadillas.

The elder brothers of Fresadillas did not guard the harvest properly, and
let the animals eat some. They fled, from fear. Then Fresadillas tried and
guarded it well, capturing the magic Horse, which agreed to assist him in
any predicament. Then he followed his brothers, who tried to kill him by
burning the house and by burying him; but the Horse rescued him from both
perils. Arriving at a city, the brothers went to the fair. Fresadillas begged
a rich equipment from the Horse, and went also, threw the bull, and gained
the plaudits of the crowd. The brothers, returning, praised the unknown
one, who proved to be Fresadillas.

19. THE TWO GODFATHERS (a).

The rich godfather refused to lend his shirt to the poor one, that he might
go to play at a dance. So the latter took a load of ashes to town to sell.
Finally selling it, he bought a mask like a devil. On the way back he met a
band of robbers. In the middle of the night he donned his mask to keep
his face warm; but the robbers (led in fear of the devil. Then he loaded the
burros with money and returned. The godfather became envious of his
success with the ashes, and asked what else was selling in the market.
Being told rawhide, he killed all his cattle and carried the hides to market,
not selling any. Returning angry, he took his poor relation to the woods
and put out his eyes. The latter climbed a tree and soon heard three devils
recounting their deeds. One had dried up a spring so that the inhabitants
of the city were dying of thirst; another had made a king blind; the third
had grown horns on a king. Each told what was necessary to remedy
the evil. After they went, the man descended and applied the remedy to
his own eyes, curing himself. Setting out, he found the three places,
remedied each, and was given a fortune by each kwig. Ten years later he
arrived home and recounted his adventures. The other godfather wished
his eyes to be put out also, but the other refused. Then he likewise went
to the woods and entered a lone house. Soon the same devils appeared.
They recounted their failures and suspected an eavesdropper. Finding the
man, they beat liini till he fled home and died of fear.

2IO Journal of American Folk-Lore.

20. THE TWO GODFATHERS (6).

One godfather killed and ate an ox belonging to the other, but denied it.
A beggar arriving then, the injured one put her in a box with food and water,
and asked his relation to guard it for a while. The latter heard sounds
from the box and opened it, found the woman, and stuffed bread into her
mouth till he choked her. When the other returned for his box, the old
woman could tell him nothing overheard, being dead. Then he asked the
son of the other, who admitted the theft. Going to the latter's house,
ostensibly to worship an image there, he said the image had told him of the
theft; but the other still denied it. Returning, he tied the body of the beggar,
well dressed, to one of the horses of his companion. When the other saw
it, he was much frightened and thought it a devil. The priest could give
no assistance, so he promised his godfather live horses to rid his pasture of
the evil. This, of course, was easily done.

21. THE LAZY GODFATHER.

The rich godfather offered the poor one a large sum of money to help
him. The poor one hesitated until the other gradually reduced the offer
to almost nothing. At last he went to call his companion's Fate. Having
good success in this, he returned to call his own Fate, and became richer
than his wealthy relation.

22. THE CROWNED CHILDREN.

A king was seeking a bride. He passed three sisters who said, — one,
that, if he would marry her, she would make a bag of cotton to pass through a
needle; another, a cloak of cotton to pass through a needle; and the third,
that she would give him three children crowned with stars. He married
the third, and the children materialized. But the sisters, through jealousy,
took the children as they appeared and threw them in boxes into the sea,
replacing them with a dog, a cat, and a pig. At the last the king, in anger,
ordered the queen to be imprisoned. The children were found and raised
by a poor fisherman; but when he died they came to the city and made a
garden. The wicked aunts knew them, and sent them on dangerous errands,
— for the Tree of All Fruits and the Tree of All Flowers. When finally
sent to get the Bird of All Song, both boys were enchanted; but the sister
went and released them. Being then invited to the palace, the bird told
the king who the children were, the queen was released, and the sisters
burnt in green wood.

Germantown,

Philadelphia, Pa.

Comparative Notes on Spanish Folk-Tales. 2n

COMPARATIVE NOTES ON NEW-MEXICAN AND MEXICAN
SPANISH FOLK-TALES.

BY AURELIO M. ESPINOSA.

The following notes are not intended to be exhaustive. They are
merely a few comparisons which the author has been able to make
with the limited folk-tale literature at his disposal. He believes,
however, that the few parallels pointed out are sufficient to show the
great importance of our material for Spanish folk-lore studies. It may
not be amiss to state here that the Mexican and New-Mexican Spanish
folk-tales published within the last three years by Professor Boas,
Dr. Mason, and myself, represent a more abundant and better collec-
tion of folk-tales than all those that have been gathered and published
in Spain itself. Our material consists at present of some seventy
published versions of Mexican and New-Mexican folk-tales,^ whereas
the number of Spanish (peninsular) published folk-tales is only a little
over half that number. This lack of Spanish material is one of the
great difficulties in the way of the comparative folk-lorist who deals
with American-Spanish folk-lore; and from the present lack of interest
in folk-lore studies in Spain, especially with respect to folk-tales, the
difficulty may be encountered for a long time.^

After I began publishing my New-Mexican Spanish folk-lore
material, some four years ago, I made the somewhat sweeping asser-
tion, that in my opinion most of the material was traditional, that is,
Spanish.^ Further study has strengthened this opinion more and
more. The traditional material — whether it be ballads, nursery
rhymes, proverbs, riddles, folk-tales, or what not — may have some-
times undergone some modifications and amplifications, but it has
survived; and not only has it survived, but it has remained prac-
tically untouched by foreign influences.*

' I do not include, of course, the short anecdotes or very short stories.

* See R. Lenz, "\3n Grupo de Consejas Chilenas" (Anaies de la Universidad, vol.
cxxix, pp. 20-24). In South America, much more has been published by Lchman-
Nitsche, Lenz, Laval, Vicufla Cifuentcs, and others; and in Portugal and Brazil, folk-talcs
have long since been collected, and in greater abundance. My friend Dr. J. Vicufta
("ifuentcs, one of the leading folk-lorists of Spanish America, writes me that he has accu-
mulated Chilian folk-tale material for various volumes. In Spanish California I have
collected thus far fourteen folk-tales. It is also my intention to bring together some of
the peninsular Spanish folk-tales in California. Since 1908, Spanish immigrants, especially
Andalusians. have come here from Spain in large numbers. In Santa Clara, fourteen
miles from Stanford University, there are more than twenty families.

* Sec this Journal, vol. xxiii, p. 3; and vol. xxiv, p. 398.

* I have recently read various volumes of native American Indian folk-talcs, and many
from the New-Mexico Indians, but I have not yet found a single indisputably Indian talc
known by the New-Mexican Spanish story-tellers. Of the Coyote and Rabbit stories I
shall apeak later.

2 1 2 Journal of A merican Folk-Lore.

It is also very gratifying to me to note that Professor Boas seems
inclined to support my views with respect to the origin of the Mexican
and New-Mexican Brer-Rabbit stories.^ I believe, as I have said
before, that they are also traditional European tales. See notes to
No. 7.

In the following notes I shall study in a general way all the New-
Mexican and Mexican Spanish folk-tales thus far published, and
especially the Tepecano folk-tales collected by Mr. Mason and pub-
lished in the present number of this Journal (to which I shall refer
as Mason, i, 2, 3, etc.), and all my New-Mexican Spanish folk-tales
thus far published in this Journal ^ (to which I shall refer as J. A. F.,
I, 2, 3, etc.), and in the "Bulletin de Dialectologie Romane"' (to
which I shall refer as B. D. R., i, 2, 3, etc.).

I shall first consider the New-Mexican folk-tales and with them the
parallel versions of Mexican tales, and lastly the Mexican tales for
which I have no New-Mexican parallels.

I. El Cabayeru e la pluma (J. A. P.). — This is a widely diffused
European folk-tale, and versions of it have been found in Spain,^
France,^ Italy, ^ Germany,' etc. All the various elements of this
interesting tale divide themselves into two important and fundamental
categories: i. The story of the grateful animals; 2. The subsequent
adventures of the hero of the tale. It seems plausible to assume
that the first category was a tale by itself, since this story occurs also
in other tales where the rest of the story is entirely different from most
of the European versions and the New-Mexican version. This first
element with the regular and ordinary sequence of ant, tiger (but no
eagle, as in the French and Spanish versions), appears also in an
Indian folk-tale, although the gratefulness of the animals is not the
chief point of the tale.^

In most of the talcs where the grateful animals appear, however,
there are usually three, and ordinarily they are the same, — in France,
ant, magpie, lion (Carnoy), ant, eagle, lion (Cosquin); in Spain, ant,

* "Notes on Mexican Folk-Lore" (this Journal, vol. xxv, p. 247).

* Vol. xxiv, pp. 397-444, and in the present number.
' Vol. iv, pp. 97-115.

* Biblioteca de las Tradiciones Populares, vol. i, p. 183, La Sirena.

* Cosquin, Contes Populaires de Lorraine (Paris, 1886-87, 2 vols.). No. 15, "Les dons
des trois animaux." See also Carnoy in Romania, vol. viii, pp. 240-243; and Kohler,
Kleinere Schriften, vol. i, p. no.

* Jacobs, Indian Fairy Tales (London, 1910), pp. 3-16. This theme is very common
in Indian folk-tales. Compare Jacobs, p. 237, note. See also Folk-Lore Journal, vol. ii,
pp. 45-46, where we have a Malagasy tale with the same theme. The grateful animals also
appear in another different tale, a Celtic story (Jacobs, Celtic Fairy Talcs, pp. 180-193);
and, strangely enough, we have also in this tale the incident of the maiden's life residing
in an egg, in the same way as the life of the giant of the New-Mexican tale. See also
Folk-Tales of Angola (Heli Chatelain, 1894), No. iii.

Comparative Notes on Spanish Folk-Tales. 213

eagle, wolf, etc. In the New-Mexican version they are four, — ant,
eagle, tiger, lion.

The second part of all these tales (and in some a third part) differs
considerably, involving the usually complicated adventures of the
hero who gives freedom to an enchanted princess, of giants, etc. The
mare in the New-Mexican version, representing a soul from purgatory,
is a special feature, and no doubt a new element. The counselling
horse, however, is well known in folk-tales.^

For additional information concerning other European parallels
not accessible to me, see Cosquin, vol. i, pp. 170-177.

2. La Tierra d'Iras y no Volveras (J. A. F.). — This New-
Mexican folk-tale seems to be a mere fragment of a long tale, where
the adventures of the young man who married a princess are entirely
forgotten. I find two Spanish folk-tales which have an ending
similar to the New-Mexican version, although even here the details
differ.2

The most interesting thing in all these stories is the enchanted
castle (land whence no one returns, etc.), an element which appears
in many other Spanish tales. In all, the part which the castle plays
is substantially the same. In Feman Caballero's "Los Caballeros del
Pez," 3 the castle is called "el Castillo de Albatroz," and in a California
version it is, as usually, "el Castillo d'Iras y no Volveris." In
Cosquin, "La ReinedePoissons,"* a version of Fernan Caballero's tale,
the incident of the enchanted castle is not found.

In our New-Mexican folk-tale, however, it is not an enchanted castle,
but an enchanted land, where the adventurer or adventuress meets the
sun, moon, winds, etc.; but the part played by this enchanted land
is essentially the same as that of the castle of other tales.

The Tepecano tale'?" El Maiz" (Mason, 4) has also the episode of
the man looking for his wife, and visiting sun, winds, etc. In other
respects, the Tepecano tale is entirely different.

3. La Yegua Mora (J. A. F.). — I have found no exact parallel
to this long New-Mexican tale, but it is evidently a European tale.
The end of the story, the tournament, etc., resembles very much in
the details the story of "Juan del Oso" (No. 12), discussed on p. 219.
For the counselling mare, see No. i.

4. Los tres Consejos (J. A. F.) — This is also a traditional Euro-

' Compare the New-Mexican folk-tale, "La Yegua Mora" (J. A. F., 3), "The Black
Horse" (Jacobs. More Celtic Fairy Tales, pp. 63-73), "O Sarjatorio" (S. Romero. Contos
Populares do Brasil, 1907. No. 32). "amocatinha um cavalhocom quern consultava tudo."
Compare also the horse in Mason, No. i8. "Fresadillas."

* "El Castillo de Ir&s y no Volvcrds," and "Juan Jugador" (Bibliotcca do las Tradi-
clones Populares. vol. x, Nos. 4. 5).

' Cuentos, Oraciones, etc. (Leipzig, 1878), pp. 11-19.

* Vol. ii. No. 37, and notes.

214 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

pean^ tale. A very close parallel is the Brazilian-Portuguese tale, "Os
tres Conselhos" (S. Romero, No. 49). It is exactly the same story:
the lessons it teaches are the same, and the end is the same. However,
the differences are the most interesting results of the comparison. A
man leaves his house and family to seek fortune. He finds work, and,
after years of service, his master asks him to choose either money or
three counsels. He chooses the counsels, and is thus enabled to reach
his home safely and to avoid killing his own son. This is the entire
story. In the New-Mexican version, the master was God himself
who wished to reward the good man.

The important difference is found in the nature and subsequent
incidents of the second counsel. In the New-Mexican tale, the three
counsels are:

(i) No dejes camino por vereda.

(2) No preguntes lo que no t'importa.

(3) No te partas con la primer nueva.
In the Brazilian tale, these are:

(i) Nunca deixes atalho por arrodejo.

(2) Nao se hospedasse nunca em casa de homem velho casado com
mulher moga.

(3) Has de ver tres vezes para creres.

Furthermore, the loaf filled with gold is found only in the Brazilian
tale. In the New-Mexican tale, the man inherits the wealth of the
owners of the house of death. The incidents of the second counsel are
so well described in both tales, that it is difficult to say which is the
original. The skull incident of the New-Mexican tale may be a
monkish substitution, since the two owners of the house are represented
as two souls who must atone for their sins before entering heaven.

I have in my possession another version of this folk-tale, a Portu-
guese version from the Azores, recited to me by Mr. Tom^s Silva,
sixty-eight years of age, now residing in Palo Alto. He learned it
in the island of Pico, Azores, where he was bom. The version is not
complete, leaving out entirely the second counsel, which point is the
only one in which the New-Mexican and Brazilian versions do not
agree; but it is interesting in other details, especially in the end, where
the father finally discovers that the man whom he finds in his home is
his own son. In this incident it differs entirely from both the New-
Mexican and Brazilian tales.

I give the story in the original form.-

* When I say European, I mean that the New-Mexican version is of European origin.
I am not concerned at present with the primitive origin of the European folk-tales.

' I have transcribed it as faithfully as possible in the Portuguese orthography. All
the final unaccented vowels o and e are very close and short. Among other Portuguese
folk-lore material collected in California, I have three more folk-tales and six traditional
ballads.

Comparative Notes on Spanish Folk-Tales. 215

OS DOIS CONSELHOS.

Um homem casado largou a sua mulher i foi pelo mundo pra ganhar a
sua vida. A mulher ficou pra ter um filhu.

Depois d' andar por muitas terras chegou a casa d' um senhor muito rico,
pediu servigo i o senhar da casa o aceitou.

Esteve por \k muitos annos i nunca deu razou de si a mulher. Trabalhou
sempre com o patrao.

Um dia lembrouse d'ir fazer uma visita a mulher. Pediu o pagamento,
o dinheiro qu'o patrao Ihi pagasse. O patrao Ihi disse si elle cria dinheiro o
cria conselhos. O homem disse que fizera o qu'elle quisesse, qu' istaba per
tudo.

0 senhor rico nou Ihi deu dinheiro. Lhi deu dois conselhos, " n5u deixes
o caminhu pra dir pro um atalho," i "antes que fagas considera. " I deulhi
um pao i disselhi que nou partera o pao senou quandu estevesse com sua
mulher.

Despediuse do patrao i partiu pra sua casa com os dois conselhos i o pao.

No caminho encontrou um homem, i o homem lhi disse: "Vamos por
este atalho qu' e mais pertu. " I elle lembrouse do conselho do patrao
i nou foi. Seguiu viagem so.

De repente sentiu um tiro d' espingarda, tornou atras, foi ver i viu um
homem morto no atalho.

Caminhou sempre i chegou a sua casa de noite. Nou quis entrar pra
casa. Incustouse a casa i viu entrar pra casa um frade. Pensou matar o
frade, mais com' o patrao lhi tinha dado o conselho "antes que fagas con-
sidera, " esperou pra ver i ouvir. Entao sentiu dentro in casa: " Minha mai
eu 'stive sunando que meu pai isti incustado 4 casa. " la mai disse: " Nou
si da por sonhos."

Entao o pai bateu a porta. A mulher sahiu i preguntoulhi quem era.
Elle lhi disse qu' era o seu marido, i entrou pra dentro i preguntou a mulher
quem er' aquelle frade. A mulher lhi disse qu' era seu filho que ficara pra
nascer cuando elle se foi imbora.

Entao chamou a seu filho i a sua mulher i partiu o pao qu' o patrao
tinha-lhi dado, pra comer. Acharam o pao todo cheu de moedas d' ouro.

5. Los TRES Hermanos (J. A. F.). — In a general way this New-
Mexican tale reminds one of " Pedro di Urdemales" (J. A. F., 13, etc.),
and some of the incidents have some resemblances. A closer parallel,
however, is the tale of "Jack the Cunning Thief," found in English,
Celtic, Norse, Italian, and Hindoo versions.' The Celtic tale is a
very close parallel. Three brothers learn their trades, and arc tried
by the king, etc. The incidents of the stealing of the goat and sheep
by the young brother are identical in every respect.

6. 'L Adivinador (J. A. F.). — This tale belongs to the cycle of the
German " Doktor AUwisscnd;" and versions of it arc found in nearly
all parts of Europe, Mexico, and South America, and also among the
American negroes.^

• See Jacobs, More Celtic Fairy Tales, pp. 13-28 and notes.

* Sec Boas, "Notes on Mexican F"olk-Lorc" (this Journal, vol. xxv, p. 251); Grimm,
Kinder und Hausmiirchen (32 cd.. 1907), No. 98, "Doktor Allwissend;" Kohler, Kleincre
Schriften, vol. i, pp. 39-41.

2i6 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

The Brazilian tale, "Ovelho e o thesouro do rei" (S. Romero, No.
12), and the Spanish tale, "Juan Cigarr6n" (F. Caballero, op. cit.,
pp. 68-71), are exact parallels in all the important details to the
New-Mexican story.

The French version given by Cosquin, "Le Sorcier," ^ is a mere
fragment, containing only the skeleton of the main episodes. From
the pertinent remarks which Cosquin makes concerning the various
European versions of this widespread tale, it seems to me that we can
safely assume that the prototype of the tale is to be found in
India.^

7. El Conejo y el Coyote (J. A. F.). — This New-Mexican version
of the Coyote and Rabbit cycle is one of the best and most complete
that I know. As I have stated before, I believe it is of European origin,
together with all other American-Spanish similar tales.^ I do not
deny that in the various countries of Spanish America the original tales
may have undergone important modifications; but the substance of
these tales, I believe, is of European origin. Professor Boas (already
cited) seems inclined to the same view. In New Mexico the question
of the negro origin has no support at all. There are very few negroes
there now, and these stories have been current there for generations.
My father, who now resides in Albuquerque, N.M., writes to me that
when he was a boy (he is now sixty), every grandfather in New Mexico
related the Tar Baby story and other Coyote-Rabbit-Fox stories,
very similar to the New-Mexican version which I have published.
These stories were current in New Mexico, therefore, long before the
American invasion, when the negroes began to go there. My father
also tells me that fifty years ago there were not a dozen negroes in
all of northern New Mexico.

I cannot believe, therefore, that these New-Mexican tales are of
negro origin; nor do I believe that the stories were introduced from
Mexico in the eighteenth century. I believe that they are traditional,
like the rest of the New-Mexican folk-lore material. I abstain from
further discussion in the matter, however, and will refer the reader to
the very pertinent remarks of Professor Boas on this question, in his
"Notes on Mexican Folk-Lore."*

The New-Mexican version "La Zorra y el Coyote" (J. A. F., 15)
is a fragmentary version of No. 7, with the fox substituted for the

> Vol. ii, No. Ix. The Louisiana version of Alcee Fortier (Louisiana Folk-Tales
[Boston, 1895], Appendix, No. ix) is also a mere fragment.

* Cosquin, vol. ii, pp. 188-196. See also vol. i, xx; and Benfey quoted by Kohler.

« In vol. xxiv of this Journal, p. 422, note, omit "Contrary to Marden's view." Pro-
fessor Marden really did not express himself in the matter.

* See this Journal, vol. xxv, pp. 204-260. It seems very reasonable to suppose that
the negroes from northern and western Africa received many of the Brer-Rabbit tales from
Europe, particularly from Portugal.

Comparative Notes on Spanish Folk-Tales. 217

rabbit.^ The incident of the falling mountain does not occur in
No. 7, but is part of the general cycle.

The Mexican folk-tale "La Zorra y el Coyote" (Mason, 2) is also
one of the very best of such tales. We have here the familiar incidents
of the Coyote-Fox-Rabbit cycle, and in some of the details many
interesting developments. As in the New-Mexican version (J. A. F.,
15), the principal characters are at first the fox and coyote, and not
coyote and rabbit, as in the New-Mexican tale (J. A. F., 7) and the
Mexican version from Pochutla.^ Furthermore, it is the fox that is
fooled by the coyote (and in two cases also by a rabbit) ; and coyote
is at last killed by the peons, betrayed by the donkey from which he
had been stealing tortillas. This last incident is remarkably well told
in Mason's Mexican version, and does not occur in any of the other
Mexican or New-Mexican versions.^

The other familiar incidents of the Tepecano version of this well-
known tale are essentially the same as in all other such tales. It is
only to be remarked that the race and tar-baby episodes are lacking
entirely, since the rabbit has a very minor part, such as that of the
alligator in the New-Mexican (No. 7) version. The episode of the
Zorra being stung by the bees occurs twice, — once in the familiar
teaching-school incident, and a second time when Coyote hangs the
Fox over a precipice, telling her that a beehive is a tompiate ("bas-
ket"), and the Fox hits it and falls, as in the Uncle Remus tale.*

The incidents of the rising of the moon and the making money are
also new.

An element which docs not occur in the New-Mexican versions
(J. A. F., 7, 15) or in Mason's Mexican version, is the declaration of
the Rabbit or Coyote, when found tied, that he is to be married to a
pretty girl, as found in the Pochutla and Oaxaca versions published
by Professor Boas. On the contrary, this incident appears in other
New-Mexican tales, "Pedro di Urdimales" (J. A. F., 13, 14) and "Los
dos Compadres" (B. D. R., 13).

For adiscussion of the relation between the Mexican, Negro, and Amer-
ican Indian Brer-Rabbit stories, with remarks on their relation to Euro-
pean and African tales, see especially Boas, "Notes on Mexican Folk-
Lorc,"^ with the abundant bibliographical references which he gives.

' Marden (Modern Language Notes [1896], p. 44) states that he heard a Mexican
version from Guanajuato, which also substituted the fox for the rabbit, as in the New-
Mexican version above.

' Sec this Journal, vol. xxv, pp. 204-214.

' This episode forcibly reminds one of the stories of the jackal and the ass of the
Hitopadesa and Pantschatantra, although there is no exact parallel. I do not believe
that the episode is of Mexican origin.

* J. C. Harris, Uncle Remus, etc. (ed. 1905), vol. iii. Here it is also the fox that is
led into the hornets nest (not by coyote, but by the rabbit).

' This Journal, vol. xxv, pp. 247-250.
VOL. XXVII. — NO. 104. — 15.

2i8 Journal of American Folk-Lore. f

Interesting results may be obtained by making a careful study of a
large number of coyote (or fox) rabbit tales, making exact lists of
the animals in question (coyote, fox rabbit, alligator, snake, etc.),
and observing the exact role and character of each. It seems, that in
the Spanish versions the coyote (stupid, etc.) is always the victim
(in Mason, 2, there may be an erroneous substitution) ; while in Indian
folk-lore the coyote is not generally so. In fact, in some regions, coyote
appears as a Don Juan of the worst type.^

8. Los DOS Ladrones (J. A. F.). — The adventures of the two
thieves of this tale seem to be but fragments of longer traditional tales.
The first episode — the stealing of the eagle's eggs from the pocket of
the first thief, who was stealing them from the eagle's nest — is one
of tlie many tricks of Pedro di Urdemales (J. A. F., 14).

9. El Rico y el Pobre (J. A. F.). — This is a fairly complete ver-
sion of the tale of the robbers' treasure-cave. A fragmentary version
from Pochutla, Mex., is given by Boas (No. 5, "El Carbonero") in
his "Notes on Mexican Folk-Lore."

The New-Mexican tale is almost an exact parallel in every detail
to Grimm, No. 142, SimeUberg. "Maria puerta, dbrete" = "Berg
Semsi, tu dich auf," etc.

See also B. D. R., 13, "Los dos Compadres," discussed later.

10. Juan sin Miedo (J. A. F.). — Here we have another well-known
European folk-tale. The New-Mexican version is fairly complete,
and is a very good example of a short traditional tale preserved (almost jj
in its entirety) for perhaps three centuries in New-Mexican oral tradi- '
tion. It is essentially the same story as "Giovanni senza paura" of
A. de Gubernatis (where John the Fearless dies through fear of his
shadow) and "Jean sans peur" of Cosquin.^ Somewhat similar
versions are Grimm, No. 4, and others mentioned by Cosquin.

Of all the versions known to me, the closest parallel to the New-
Mexican tale is the Lorraine tale of Cosquin. In both, the fearless
young man is sent to his uncle, a priest, who attempts to frighten his
nephew. The church episodes are different ; but the trick is essentially
the same. In the Lorraine tale, "Jean sans peur" finally trembles at
the sight of a sparrow, and is obliged to marry; while in the New-
Mexican story, "Juan sin Micdo" dies at the sudden sight of a quail.
The marriage episode is not found in the New-Mexican tale.

11. JuANiTO 'l GiJEN Hijo (J. A. F.). — I have found no exact
parallel to this long and interesting moralizing tale; but some of the
details — such as the wonderful pear-tree, the counsel of the parents,
the granting of youth, etc. — are familiar in the folk-lore of Europe.

' See, for example, coyote's adventures, in Maidu Texts, by R. B. Dixon (Publications
American Ethnological Society, edited by Franz Boas [Leyden, 1912], vol. iv, pp. 68-104).

* See Cosquin, vol. ii, LXVII, and notes; Kohler, Kleinere Schriften, vol. i, pp. 347-348.
Grimm, No. 4, has only the episode of the ghost in common with our New-Mexican tale.

Comparative Notes on Spanish Folk-Tales. 219

The trick on the devils resembles one of the incidents of "Pedro di
Urdemales" (J. A. F., 13), which is discussed later.

As in "Los tres Consejos" (J. A. F., 4), the good master is God him-
self. In "Juanito '1 giien Hijo," the references to the wounds of
Christ, the burning of the flesh of the evil-doers, the miracles, etc., are
evident proof that the tale belongs to the widespread group of church
moralizing tales.

12. Juan del Oso (J. A. F.). — This is one of the most widely
diffused popular tales. It is found in nearly every country in Europe,
India, and America, also among the American Indians.

The tale is clearly of European origin; and Professor Boas shows
that the American Indian versions can be easily traced to various
European versions of somewhat varying types. ^

I have elsewhere compared the New-Mexican version with the
Lorraine tale of Cosquin and other versions.^

Friedrich Panzer has made a careful study and analysis of the
European and other versions, and gives two hundred and twenty
versions of the tale.'

The Tepecano version, "Juan Oso" (Mason, 14), is undoubtedly
the same tale, but it is much changed. Its European original was a
different version from the New-Mexican or Lorraine tale. The tale
has been corrupted considerably, and the bravado element has been
emphasized and developed. In fact, the Tepecano "Juan Oso" is a
degenerated miles gloriosus, — a type well developed in the Spanish
literature of the seventeenth century, and very popular. This ap-
parently new element is a natural popular development of the older
European "John the Bear" story, and has nothing to do, in my
opinion, with any older American Indian elements which might have
developed independently, even granting the possibility of independent
origin.

In spite of this new development, which has changed to a great
extent the character of the hero, introducing also elements of the tale
of "Juan sin Miedo" (J. A. F., 10), the Tepecano tale remains sub-
stantially as the tale of "John the Bear." It begins regularly, with
the birth of the hero; and the main subsequent episodes of the Euro-
pean talc exist in one form or another.

The Tehuantepec version, "Juan Tigre,"''is also fragmentary ; but

' Boas, "Notes on Mexican Folk-Lore" (this Journal, vol. xxv, pp. 254-258, etc.).
The old well-known European versions are Grimm, No. 166 ("Uerstarke Mans"); Cosquin,
No. I ("Jean de I'Ours"). See also notes, I, pp. 6-27. A fragmentary PortuRuese ver-
sion is given by Coelho, Contos Popularcs Portuguczes, No. xxii. Lisboa, 1879.

* This Journal, vol. xxiv, p. 444.

' Studien zur germanischen Sagengeschichte, I, Beowulf (Munich, 1910), quoted by
Boas.

* Boas, this Journal, vol. xxv, pp. 241-245.

220 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

the substance of the tale is clearly from one of the European versions.
It is also confused with "Juan sin Miedo" (J. A. F., lo), and to a greater
degree than the Tepecano version of Mason. The episode of the
priest, his uncle, attempting to frighten him, does not belong to the
original "John the Bear," but to the familiar "Juan sin Miedo," "Jean
sans peur," etc.

These two Mexican versions, however, — although both have elements
of another tale, and are clearly versions of "John the Bear," — differ
greatly in many respects. The bravado character of the Tepecano tale
has already been pointed out. The conflict with the diablos is the
episode of the giants and serpents of the European versions.

Professor Boas states that the most characteristically European of
the American versions are the New-Mexican Spanish, and those of
the Shoshoni, Thompson River, and Assiniboin Indians. It would be
of great importance and interest to compare the New-Mexican version
with versions from other Spanish-American localities where the tale,
no doubt, exists. We could then discover the relation of the American
Indian versions to the European versions much more definitely.^

13. Pedro di Urdemales (a) (J. A. F.), Pedro di Urdemales (b)
(J. A. F., 14), and Pedro de Ordimales (Mason, 10). — A trickster, a
joker, a bravado, in all their various senses (sometimes also a stupid
or lazy person), are frequently mocked in New-Mexican Spanish with
the name of Pedro de Urdemales. In other Spanish countries the
same may obtain, for the Academy Dictionary gives the expression
Pedro de Urdemalas ("dissatisfied," "ever wishing more," "a genius
who is not subject to ordinary rules or limitations "). The expression
must be very old. Cervantes — in his play, " Pedro de Urdimalas," *
a very mediocre production — presents us Pedro de Urdemalas as a
stupid, funny character, rather than an ingenious trickster. Not a
single episode of our New-Mexican or Mexican versions appears in
the tiresome play of the immortal author of "Don Quixote," so we
must not stop to consider his "Pedro de Urdemalas."

I have no doubt, however, that the popular tale or tales of " Pedro de
Urdemalas" were current in the time of Cervantes, probably in forms
not very different from the modem versions. The series of episodes
which are now associated with this name may be old, popular by-
products of the novela picaresca, which did not deserve publication in
the sixteenth century. A series of episodes of much less interest,
but of the same class, gained admission into the Spanish literary world
long ago, since when, I do not know; but when I was a boy, I read

* The only South American version known to me is the one given by R. Lenz, —
" Estudios Araucanos," in Anales de la Universidad, vol. xcvil, pp. 261-273. This Chilian
version is essentially the same as the New-Mexican, although the details differ considerably.

• Teatro Complcto, vol. ii (Madrid, 1896), pp. 115-221.

Comparative Notes on Spanish Folk-Tales. 221

a certain book called "Bertoldo, Bertoldino y Cacaseno," a lihro de
cordel, mentioned also by Marcial Valladares/ precisely of that type.

The tale is also known in Chili, although I have seen no published
versions. 2

Certain elements, however, do not belong exclusively to Spanish
tradition. The episode of the agreement between master and servant,
involving the victimizing of the first brother, is a familiar element of
a series of European tales, and indeed it is the all-important element
in some of these tales.' In the New-Mexican tale, this element is
found, but is only one of a dozen equally important episodes.

In such a long series of episodes preserved only in oral tradition, it
is only natural that the order should be confused, and similar espisodes
of other tales attached. In the first New-Mexican version (J. A. F.,
13), which seems fairly complete, there is at least one episode which
is found also in other tales, and which may not be an original part of it,
— the episode of the stealing of the eagle's eggs, which, in turn, are
stolen by a second thief. This episode occurs in the New-Mexican
tale "Los dos Ladrones" (J. A. F., 8), and is a familiar incident in
many European folk-tales.*

The incident of the drowning of the compadre in the sea, which is
found in Mason's Tepecano tale and in the New-Mexican, No. 14,
is also found in the New-Mexican tale "Los dos Compadres" (B. D. R.,

14).

Only the New-Mexican version (J. A. F., 13) is at all complete,
containing thirteen different and important episodes, twelve of which
seem to belong to an original connected tale. The tale begins with
the familiar agreement, after the mother's death, and ends with the
turning of Pedro into stone. If any episodes are lacking, they belong
to the body of the tale. Mason's version (No. 10) and the New-
Mexican version (J. A. F., 14) are fragmentary versions.^

17. La Paloma y susPiciiones (J. A. F. and B. D. R., 3). — Since
the "Bulletin de Dialcctologie Romane" may not be generally ac-
cessible to the readers of this Journal, I have reprinted this beautiful
little folk-tale as a typical example of a very old traditional talc, prc-

' Biblioteca de las Tradicioncs Populares, vol. iv, p. 66.

' See Lenz, "Un Grupo de Consejas Chilenas" (Anales do la Univcrsidad, vol. c.xxix,
p. 4).

• This element alone is the basis of the French talc of Cosquin (vol. ii, No. 37) and the
other versions which he mentions, althouRh a few of the minor incidents which are con-
nected with the fulfdlin^ of the aKrccnicnt occur also. The episode of the selling of the
pigs occurs in identical form. In a Galician tale (Biblioteca delas Tradiciones Populares,
vol. iv, pp. 139 fol.) the same happens (but oxen are substituted for pigs), and the agree-
ment between master and servant is also the principal point of the story.

• Compare Grimm, No. 129, " Die vier kunstreichen Brilder."

• I have three California versions, which I hope to publish on another occasion. The
longest and best is only a little longer than the New-Mexican version. No. 14.

222 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

sen'cd in its entirety in oral tradition for perhaps several centuries.
The tale is without doubt a version of the one found in the various
European editions of the " Pantschatantra," ^ " Calila et Digna," ^ etc.
Although the fate of the counsellor is changed in the New-Mexican
version, so that the original point of the fable is entirely lost, the tale
remains the same, almost word for word. The New-Mexican version
may date from the time when the "Calila et Digna" popularized the
Oriental fable literature, or it may be a version of a tale which belongs
to the primitive oral traditions of the Europeans, and was brought
from India.

The old Spanish saying, Alcaravdn zancudo; para otros consejo, para
ti ningiino, keeps the point of the primitive tale.

1 8. L'hormiguita (J. A. F.), El Aguila (Mason, 13), and El
Zancudo (Pochutla tale).' — Of these three versions, the first and last
are complete, and have a regular, fixed artificial form. These two
tales are versions of a similar original, and are alike in nearly every
respect, differing only in insignificant details of form. The New-
Mexican tale has as the principal character the ant, while the Mexican
tale has el zancudo ("long-legs"). In both of these tales the sequence
is, snow (cold in the Mexican version), sun, cloud, wind, wall, mouse,
cat, dog, stick, fire, water, ox, knife, blacksmith, death, God.

This same sequence appears in the following similar California
Spanish version (San Jose), which has the same fixed artificial form of
the Pochutla and New-Mexican versions, but which, from the point
of view of literary form, surpasses all the accumulative tales known
to me.

LA HORMIGUITA.
(Recited by Simona Fernandez of San Jose, Cal.)

Iba l'hormiguita por un camino y caiba muncha nieve y se quebr6 una
patita, y dijo: "Nieve que mi i)ie quebr6."

Y la nieve dijo: "Hay otro mas hombre que yo."

"(jQuien es?" pregunt6 l'hormiguita. Y la nieve dijo: "El sol que me
redite."

Y dijo l'hormiguita: "Sol que redite nieve, nieve que mi pie quebr6."

Y el sol dijo: "Hay otro m4s hombre que yo."

" (jQuien es?" pregunt6 I'horniiguita. Y el sol dijo: "El nublau que me
tapa."

Y dijo rhf)rmiguita: "Nublau que tapa sol, sol que redite nieve, nieve
que mi pie quebr6."

> Benfey, Pantschatantra (Leipzig, 1859), vol. i, pp. 609-610. African. Asiatic, and
other European versions are given by Oskar Diihnhardt, Natursagen (Berlin and Leipzig,
1912), vol. iv, pp. 279-284.

* Compare edition of C. G. Allen (Magon, 1906), chap. xvi.

» Boas, this Journal, vol. xxv, pp. 221-222.

Comparative Notes on Spanish Folk-Tales. 223

Y el nublau dijo: "Hay otro mas hombre que yo."

"iQuien es?" pregunto I'hormiguita. Y el nublau dijo: "El viento que
mi avienta."

Y dijo I'hormiguita: "Viento que avienta nublau, nublau que tapa sol,
sol que redite nieve, nieve que mi pie quebr6."

Y el viento dijo; "Hay otro mas hombre que yo."

"iQuien es?" pregunto I'hormiguita. Y el viento dijo: "La pader que me
resiste."

Y dijo I'hormiguita: "Pader que resiste viento, viento que avienta
nublau, nublau que tapa sol, sol que redite nieve, nieve que mi pie quebr6."

Y la pader dijo: "Hay otro mas hombre que yo."

"l Quien es?" pregunto I'hormiguita. Y la pader dijo: "El raton que
mi agujera."

Y dijo I'hormiguita: " Rat6n qui agujera pader, pader que resiste viento,
viento qui avienta nublau, nublau que tapa sol, sol que redite nieve, nieve
que mi pie quebro."

Y el raton dijo: "Hay otro mas hombre que yo."

"iQuienes?" pregunto I'hormiguita. Y el raton dijo: "El gato que me
come."

Y dijo I'hormiguita: "Gato que come raton, rat6n qui agujera pader,
pader que resiste viento, viento qui avienta nublau, nublau que tapa sol,
sol que redite nieve, nieve que mi pie quebro."

Y el gato dijo: "Hay otro mas hombre que yo."

"iQuien es?" pregunt6 I'hormiguita. Y el gato dijo: "El perro que me
mata."

Y dijo I'hormiguita: "Perro que mata gato, gato que come rat6n, rat6n
qui agujera pader, pader que resiste viento, viento qui avienta nublau,
nublau que tapa sol, sol que redite nieve, nieve que mi pie quebr6."

Y el perro dijo: "Hay otro mds hombre que yo."

"iQuien es?" pregunto I'hormiguita. Y el perro dijo: "El palo que me
mata."

Y dijo I'hormiguita: "Palo que mata perro, perro que mata gato, gato
que come rat6n, rat6n qui agujera pader, pader que resiste viento, viento
qui avienta nublau, nublau que tapa sol, sol que redite nieve, nieve que mi
pie quebr6."

Y el palo dijo: "Hay otro mks hombre que yo."

"(iQuien es?" pregunt6 I'hormiguita. Y el palo dijo: "La lumbre que
me quema."

Y dijo I'hormiguita: "Lumbre que quema palo, palo que mata perro,
perro que mata gato, gato que come rat6n, rat6n quj agujera pader, pader
que resiste viento, viento qui avienta nublau, nublau que tapa sol, sol que
redite nieve, nieve que mi pie quebr6."

Y la lumbre dijo: "Hay otro mds hombre que yo."

"(iQuien es?" pregunt6 I'hormiguita. Y la lumbre dijo: "El agua que
mi apaga."

Y dijo I'hormiguita: "Agua qui apaga lumbre, lumbre que (jucnia ])alo,
palo que mata perro, perro que mata gato, gato que come rat6n, raton qui
agujera pader, pader que resiste viento, viento quj avienta nublau, nublau
que tapa sol, sol que redite nieve, nieve que mi pie quebr6."

Y '1 agua dijo: "Hay otro mds hombre que yo."

224 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

" iQmbn es?" pregunt6 I'hormiguita. Y '1 agua dijo: "El gyey que me
bebe."

Y dijo riiormiguita: "Gyey que bebi agua, agua qui apaga lumbre,
lumbre que quema palo, palo que mata perro, perro que mata gato, gato
que come rat6n, rat6n qui agujera pader, pader que resiste viento, viento
qui avienta fiublau, nublau que tapa sol, sol que redite nieve, nieve que mi
pie quebr6."

Y el gyey dijo: "Hay otro mds hombre que yo."

"d Qui^n es?" pregunt6 I'hormiguita. Y el gyey dijo: "El cuchio que
me mata."

Y dijo I'hormiguita: "Cuchio que mata gyey, gyey que bebj agua, agua
qui apaga lumbre, lumbre que quema palo, palo que mata perro, perro que
mata gato, gato que come rat6n, rat6n qui agujera pader, pader que resiste
viento, viento qui avienta nublau, nublau que tapa sol, sol que redite nieve,
nieve que mi pie quebr6."

Y el cuchio dijo: "Hay otro mas hombre que yo."

"cQuien es?" pregunto I'hormiguita. Y el cuchio dijo: "El herrero que
mi hase."

Y dijo I'hormiguita: "Herrero qui hase cuchio, cuchio que mata gyey,
gyey que bebj agua, agua qui apaga lumbre, lumbre que quema palo, palo
que mata perro, perro que mata gato, gato que come rat6n, rat6n qui agujera
pader, pader que resiste viento, viento qui avienta iiublau, nublau que tapa
sol, sol que redite nieve, nieve que mi pie quebr6."

Y el herrero dijo: "Hay otro m^s hombre que yo."

"dQuien es?" pregunto I'hormiguita. Y cl herrero dijo: "La muerte que
me mata."

Y dijo I'hormiguita: "Muerte que mata henero, herrero quj hase cuchio,
cuchio que mata gyey, gyey que bebi agua, agua qui apaga lumbre, lumbre
que quema palo, palo que mata perro, perro que mata gato, gato que come
rat6n, rat6n qui agujera pader, pader que resiste viento, viento qui avienta
iiublau, fiublau que tapa sol, sol que redite nieve, nieve que mi pie quebr6."

Y la muerte dijo: "Hay otro mds hombre que yo."

"cQui6n es?" pregunt6 I'hormiguita. Y la muerte dijo: " Dios que me
manda."

Y dijo I'hormiguita: " Dios que manda muerte, muerte que mata herrero,
herrero quj hase cuchio, cuchio que mata gyey, gyey que bebi agua, agua
qui apaga lumbre, lumbre que quema palo, palo que mata perro, perro que
mata gato, gato que come rat6n, rat6n qui agujera pader, pader que resiste
viento, viento quj avienta nublau, nublau que tapa sol, sol que redite nieve,
nieve que mi pie quebr6."

The California and New-Mexican versions, although in most respects
absolutely alike, differ greatly in the matter of form. The New-
Mexican and Pochutia versions have, as already stated, a fixed
artificial form. The California version tells a story, and in a remark-
ably well prcserv'cd artistic form. In all questions and answers, how-
ever, it has also fixed formula?. The Tepecano tale (Mason, 13) is a
fragmentary version, the sequence being hare, dog, stick, fire, water,
ox, knife, blacksmith; and there is an evident intention to tell a story,

Comparative Notes on Spanish Folk-Tales. 225

and not a mere series of nursery formula?. It may not be amiss to
state here that the New-Mexican fixed artificial version is recited in
a sing-song fashon, whereas the California version was recited as any
other folk-tale.

Accumulative tales of this sort are found all over the world, and the
study of their origin and diffusion has been the subject of much dis-
cussion. We cannot go very far in the study of Spanish versions;
for, unfortunately, the peninsular Spanish versions published are only
two, and one of those belongs to an entirely different category. The
only peninsular Spanish versions known to me are the one given by
Rodriguez Marin, ^ and that of Ferndn Caballero,^ which does not
concern us here.

I believe that no one has called attention to the fact, at once evident,
that all the different classes of accumulative tales may be divided into
two general classes: —

1 . Those that have a necessary or logical sequence.

2. Those that have a merely circumstantial or volitional sequence.
The New-Mexican, Mexican, California, and Spanish (of R. Marin)

ersions belong to Class i ; while F. Caballero's version, and others
mentioned below, belong to Class 2.

The idea of strength or power, which is the point of the usual accu-
mulative tale, Class i, is entirely lacking in Class 2.

Outside of Spain we have, besides the versions already mentioned,
various Spanish versions which belong to Class i, although the sequence
appears in various ways.^

The Portuguese versions are very similar to the New-Mexican and
California versions. The Brazilian version of S. Romero^ has the
sequence, snow, sun, cloud, wind, wall, mouse, cat, dog, tiger, man,
God. The tale also occurs in verse. ^ A Madeira Portuguese version
is given by Azevedo (also in verse).' All these versions are very

' Francisco Rodriguez Marin, Don Quijote, vol. ii, pp. 45-46, note 9 (edition of Cldsicos
Castcllanos). A little ant sows seeds which do not grow, complains to gardener, etc.
The order is, butcher, ox, water, candle, stick, cat, mouse, queen, king, justice, gardener's
wife, gardener.

Rodriguez Marin is mistaken when he gives the above story as the one (or version of
which) which Cervantes had in mind in Don Quixote, 1. 16: " Y assi como suele dczirse, el
gato al rato, el rato d la cucrda. la cuerda al palo, daua el harriero i Sancho," etc. Cer-
vantes had in mind an entirely different version, more like the familiar English versions,
where the "rope hangs the butcher," etc., although he has the sequence confused.

' Cucntos, Oraciones, etc. (Leipzig, 1878), pp. 3-5.

• See Boas, this Journal, vol. xxv, p. 252.

• Contos Populares do Brasil (1907), No. 34, "A formiga e a neve." Sec also F. A.
Coelho, Contos Populares (Lisboa, 1879), pp. 5-7; and the note of Boas, this Journal,
vol. xxv, p. 252.

• S. Romero, Cantos populares do Brasil (Lisboa, 1883), vol. ii, pp. 136-139.

• A Rodrigues de Azevedo, Romancciro do Archipelago da Madeira (Funchal, 18S0),
PP- 473-475. See also variants, 475-478.

226 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

similar to the California and New-Mexican versions. A Galician
game and nursery tale differs considerably from the versions thus far
mentioned.'

Turning to Provencal versions, we meet at once a complete version
almost identical with our Mexican (Pochutla), New-Mexican, and Cali-
fornia versions.^ We are doubtlessly approaching an old Romance
version from which all these come. The Provencal version has the
same sequence (God is missing, and ice = snow), and differs only in
the fact that the ant is accompanied by the fly and the fly is the spokes-
man. Has this element been lost in our North American Spanish
versions, or is it a Provencal development?

Various French versions are given or mentioned by Cosquin.'
These belong to both classes i and 2 of our classification, and are
entirely different from most of the American-Spanish, Portuguese, and
Provengal versions, which, as I have shown, belong together, coming,
perhaps, from a single old Romance version.

The German tales are of both classes. Class i is represented by
such versions as " Dcr Bauer schickt den Jackel aus,"^ while Class 2
is represented by Grimm (No. 30), "Lauschen und Flohchen."

The English accumulative-tale literature is very extensive. There
are many published versions of both Class i and Class 2. Many of
the English versions of Class i resemble our American-Spanish,
Portuguese, and Provencal versions, and have a more or less similar
sequence; but they are evidently from entirely different original
sources. An Aberdeenshire version^ has the sequence, cat, mouse,
rope, smith, ox, axe, water, fire, stick, dog, kid. In the game of Club
Fist we have the sequence, cat, rat, rope, butcher, ox, water, fire,
wood (cat).^

' Biblioteca de las Tradiciones Populares, vol. iv, pp. 123-136.
"Estaba a amora en seu lugar
e ven a mosca pra a picar."
"A mosca n'a amora, a amora n'a silva, a silva n'o chan."

(The end:) "O home n'o boi, o boi n'a auga, a auga n'o lume, o lumc n'a lanza, a lanza
n'o lobo, o lobo n'o can, o can n'o zorro, o zorro n'o galo, o galo n'a mosca, a mosca n'a
amora, a amora n'a silva, a silva n'o chan.

Chan, chan

Ten man.

* "La Mousco e la Formigo" (in Romania, vol. i, pp. 108-110). See also Kohler,
Kleinere Schriften. vol. ii, p. 54-

' Vol. i, No. 17; and vol. ii. No. 74. See also notes in vol. i, pp. 204-207; and vol. ii,
PP- 305-306. Consult also the references given. Most of Cosquin's references are to
tales of Class 2.

* See Kohler, Kleinere Schriften, vol. ii, pp. 47-Sf>; vol. iii, pp. 3SS-365. Numerous
variants are mentioned on p. 358.

' W. Gregor in Folk-Lore Journal, vol. ii, pp. 277-278.

* W. W. Newell, Games and Songs of American Children (New York, 1883), pp. 134-
13s.

Comparative Notes on Spanish Folk-Tales. 227

In the Hebrew Passover Song of the Kid, the sequence is, kid, cat,
dog, stick, fire, water, ox, butcher, angel of death, God.^

Since I hope to take up the question of accumulative tales again,
I shall merely add a few of the more recent bibliographical references
for the English versions. ^ Whatever may be said about the independ-
ent origin of a few of the tales in question (and a few of Class 2 may
have developed independently), it seems to me that the series of
European tales of Class i are clearly versions of one primitive tale,
which was either a version of, or the same as, the old Indian fable of
the "Brahman and the Mouse" of the "Pantschatantra." '

19. La Serpiente, el Hombre, etc. (J. A. F.). — We have here
another typical example of an Old-World tale preserved in its entirety
in Kew-Mexican oral tradition. The New-Mexican fable is a version
of the fable of the man, the viper, and the fox of the "Disciplina
Clericalis" of Petrus Alfonsus.* The presence of the ox and horse in
the New-Mexican tale may belong to a primitive version. Observe
that the fox of the old fable is the coyote of the New-Mexican version.

20. San Pascual (J. A. P.). — There are various legends in the
lives of the saints similar to this, but it is not easy to see any direct
relation, in any of those known to me, to the New-Mexican tale.

21. 22, 23 (J. A. F.). — Fables and anecdotes of this class are familiar
in Indo-European tradition.' Nos. 22 and 23, however, have a some-
what new development.

29. (J. A. F.) — Compare J. A. F., 17. The trick of the hen on
the coyote is the same as that played by the calvo on the fox.

45, 46, 47 (J. A. F.). — See B. D. R., 14, discussed below.

50. Est'er'un gato, etc. (J. A. F.). — Cuentos de niinca acabar
of this class are very common in Spanish folk-lore. Versions very
similar to the New-Mexican are found in Galicia, Andalucia, and

• W. W. Newell, " The Passover Song of the Kid " (this Journal, vol. xviii, pp. 33-48).
The source of this cannot be Old French, as Newell supposes.

• J. Jacobs, Celtic Fairy Tales (1909), pp. 102-107; English Fairy Tales (New York,
iQii), pp. 197-198, 246-247; More English Fairy Tales (1912), p. l.xxx. A fine
specimen of an English version of Class 2 is "Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse" (English
Fairy Talcs, pp. 78-82); see also notes, pp. 251-252. See also Kohlcr, KkMnerc Schriften,
vol. iii. p. 45; VV. W. Newell, "The Passover Song of the Kid" (this Journal, vol. xviii,
pp. 38-48); Boas. "Notes on Mexican Folk-Lore" (this Journal, vol. xxv. pp. 252-253).
A recent discussion of the theories about the origin of these talcs is given by Jacobs, Celtic
Fairy Tales, p. 310.

• Benfey, Pantschatantra, vol. ii, pp. 264-266. See also McneniU-i: y I'llayo, Orfgcnea
de la Novela, vol. i, p. xxiii.

• Migne, Patrologia Latina, tomus clvii (1899), 679 a, Fabula iv.

• For exani[)Io, " Der Zerbrochenc Topf" (Pantschatantra IBcnfeyl. vol. ii, pp. 345-
346); The Brahman who brake the pots and pans, in the Ilitopadcsa (ed. VV'ilkins, London,
1888), vol. iv, p. 8; and The Milkwoman and her Pail, .Ksop (ed. G. F. Townscnd, London,
190s), pp. 79-80.

228 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Chili. ^ Some of these had as a basis an actual tale;^ but the tale has
been forgotten, and only the cuento de nufica acahar formula remains,
which is repeated indefinitely,

NEW-MEXICAN FOLK-TALES PUBLISHED IN THE BULLETIN DE DIALEC-
TOLOGIE ROMANE (vol. iv, pp. 97-II5), AND NOT STUDIED IN THE
FOREGOING REMARKS.

7. Los TRES Hermanos. — I believe that this is merely an episode
of a longer tale forgotten in New-Mexican tradition. In a Tepecano
tale, "Los dos Compadres" (Mason, 19), this episode occurs in
identical form, although it is not the brothers who are frightened, but
the robbers, whose money the poor compadre takes.

12. El Duende ("the dwarf"). — See this Journal, vol. xxiii, p. 8.

13. Los DOS Compadres. — There are various folk-tales in Spanish
tradition (also in other countries) about the tricks played on a rich
man by his poor friend or compadre. One of the best of these is the
New-Mexican tale "El rico y el pobre" (J. A. F., 9), which is almost
an exact parallel to Grimm, No. 142.^ In all such tales, the rich man
gets the worse of the deal, often being killed. Very few of these tales,
however, have anything in common. In two Tepecano tales (Mason,
19, 20), the usual enmity exists; but the tales have no common
episodes, nor do they resemble the New-Mexican tales in question.
No. 19 is more like the New-Mexican tale "Juanito '1 giien Hijo"
(J. A. F., 11), being absolutely identical in the last half; while No. 20
introduces a commonplace ghost-story.

The New-Mexican tale (B. D. R., 13), however, is a short, well-
preserved traditional tale, with perhaps only one extraneous element,
namely, the drowning of the compadre.'^ It is a very close version of
the Galician tale of Valladares,^ and "Ren6 et son seigneur" of
Cosquin.^ Similar versions have been found in many European
countries.'^

14. Mano Fasico (in B. D. R. are given episodes i, 2, 3, 4, 5; for
three additional episodes, see J. A. F., 45, 46, 47). — I believe we have
here a series of very old anecdotes, and it is not unlikely that they are

* See Bibliotcca de las Tradiciones Populares, vol. iv, 159; Rodriguez Marin, Cantos
Populares Espaiioles, No. 63; R. A. LavaJ, Revista de Derecho, etc. (Buenos Aires, 1909),

■ vol. xxxii, p. 527.

* R. Lehmann Nitsche, Revista de Derecho, etc. (1908), vol. xxx, pp. 297-306; and
Laval, cited above.

* See No. 9, p. 218.

* See Pedro de Urdemales (J. A. P., 13). Sec also A. Fortier, Louisiana Folk- Tales,
op. cil.. No. xxvi.

' Biblioteca de las Tradiciones Populares, vol. iv, pp. 55-64.

* Vol. i. No. 10.

' See the notes of Cosquin and Valladarcs; and Kohler, Kleinere Schriften, vol. i,
pp. 232-253.

Comparative Notes on Spanish Folk-Tales. 229

traditional and of Spanish origin. I have a California version with
four of the New-Mexican episodes. For the probable origin of the
word "Fasico," see B. D. R.

TEPECANO FOLK-TALES OF MASON's COLLECTION, AND NOT STUDIED
IN OUR PREVIOUS REMARKS.

i.'^iTradiciones Tepecanas. El Aguila real. — These fragmen-
tary and vague remarks refer to the old tradition of the Aztecs or
Nahuatlacas concerning the foundation of their city (Mexico). In
their journey to the south, they had been advised by their god
Huitzilpochtli, through the priests, that they were to found their
city where they would see an eagle perched on a cactus, and devour-
ing a snake. ^

The tradition is now symbolized in the national coat of arms of
Mexico, the national flag, coins, etc.

I. Tradicioxes Tepecanas. El Nacimiento. — The biblical story
of the nativity is evidently confused here with some primitive Tepecano
creation myth. The presence of both God and Satan in the myths
of the creation is very common. In many myths the creation is the
work of God and the Devil together.^

3. El Venador. — For a somewhat similar tale, see the Ungava
Indian story of "The Young Man who went to live with the Deer,"
published by L. M. Turner.^

4. El Maiz. — The end of this tale is an episode of the New-
Mexican tale "La Tierra d' Iras y no Volver^s" (J. A. F., 2), which
see. The first part of Mason's story, however, is another tale, of
which I have found no parallels.

7. El Diluvio, and 8. San Jose y Maria SantIsima. — The
familiar biblical traditions are reproduced, with a few popular exten-
sions.

9. Pedro y San Pedro. — This Tepecano version is a curious mix-
ture of various episodes of different folk-tales. The first and only
connected part of the story is a version of the European tale of the
frog that after marriage was changed into a princess j"* while the last
part is a mixture of the New-Mexican Spanish tale "Juanito '1 giicn
Hijo" (J. A. F., II) and "Pedro di Urdimales" (J. A. F., 13).

15. El Tibur6n. — This is evidently a traditional Spanish folk-
tale. Esludias = Asturias. I have found no exact parallel.''

• Sec Luis PCtcz Vcrdia, Compcndio dc la Historia dc M<;xico (stli edition, Mexico
and Paris, 191 1), p. 33.

' Sjee Oskar Diihnhardt, Natursagen (Hcrlin and LeipziR, 1907), vol. i, pp. 1-77.

• Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1894), PP- 328-330.

• Compare S. Romero, Contos populares do Krasil, No. 21, "A sapa casada."

• See, however, "El Principe Oso" (Biblioteca de las Tradicionca Populares, vol. x.
No. 8).

230 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

22. Los NiNOS CoRONADOS. — Tliis talc is, from many points of
view, the most interesting in Mason's collection. It is a traditional
tale preserved in its entirety, and a good example of what one may
expect to find in Mexican-Spanish oral tradition.

The tale belongs to the general class of popular Indo-European
folk-tales sometimes designated by the title of "The Outcast Child."
Such a general class, however, includes tales of such varied types that
it is hardly worth while to consider them together. In fact, there is
no direct relation whatever between some of the types.^

"Los ninos Coronados," however, is a well-defined type, and de-
serves a separate and special study. Its simple plot could change but
little, and our Tepecano Mexican-Spanish version is as good as any
other Spanish version known to me. The differences between the
various versions of this tale are matters of detail, and the plot and
substance of the story remain identical in all. The most noteworthy
difference is in the character of the three miraculous objects; but in
many versions, even these are the same.

A few of the well-known versions of this type ("Los nifios Coro-
nados ") of the tale of the outcast child or children are the following:
Grimm, No. 96, " De drei Viigelkens " (32d edition, Berlin, 1906) ; Jacobs,
"The Boy who had a Moon on his Forehead," etc. ("Indian Fairy
Tales," pp. 156-178); Cosquin, "L'Oiseau de Verite" (vol. i, No. 17);
Feman Caballero, "El Pajaro de la Verdad" (" Cuentos, oraciones,"
etc. [Leipzig, 1878], pp. 31-43); Sylvio Romero, "Os tres Coroados "
("Contos Populares do Brasil " [Lisbon, 1883], No. 2, pp. 43-49);
" Thousand and One Nights " (see Lenz, quoted below) ; " El Papagayo
bianco" (" Biblioteca de las Tradiciones Populares," vol. x. No. xiv,
pp. 175-185). See also the notes of Cosquin, and Kohler, " Kleinere
Schriften," vol. i, pp. 143-144, who mention many more versions.

The most recent publication on the subject, however, and a work
absolutely indispensable for a correct appreciation of the various types
of these tales, is the work of Dr. Rodolfo Lenz, mentioned before, " Un
Grupo de Consejas Chilenas, Estudio de Novelistica comparada"
(Santiago, 1912), 150 pages. Dr. Lenz has studied the whole problem
in his usual masterly manner, and in particular the types of " Losniiios
Coronados ' ' and ' ' La nina sin Manos, ' ' giving the texts for,|and studying

1 An attempt at a general classification was made long ago by E. S. Hartland (in
Folk-Lore Journal, vol. iv, pp. 308-349). He classified the tales into five principal types:
I, King Lear type; H, Value of salt type; IH, Joseph type; IV, Raven's type; V, Lan-
guage of beasts type. Of type 1 1 of this classification there are numerous variants. I have
a very complete version from California. It has no relation to "Los ninos Coronados"
type. See also Folk-Lore Record, vol. iii, pp. 1-25; Jacobs, English Fairy Tales (New
York, 1911), pp. 51-56; County Folk-Lore (1912), vol. vi, p. 166; Biblioteca de las
Tradiciones Populares, vol. viii, pp. 175 fol.; and Cosquin, Kohler, etc., mentioned by
Lenz, below.

Comparative Notes on Spanish Folk-Tales. 231

carefully, various Chilian versions. In view of this important
publication of Lenz, I shall refrain from any further remarks His
study must be read in its entirety to get a clear idea of the co-relation
of all these tales. The versions which are very close parallels to
Mason's version from Mexico are studied on pp. 1 15-139.
Leland Stanford, Jr., University,
California.

232 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

LOGA DEL NINO DIOS.

BY. RUDOLPH SCHULLER.

Ox the following pages is reproduced one of the manuscripts of the
Berendt collection, which is the property of the Library of the Uni-
versity Museum in Philadelphia, Pa. The manuscript bears the

number ,^^0-^ — and the following title: "Loga del Niiio Dios.
JVl L 023

I Representaci6n escenica de los Mangue(s) ] en | Namotiv^ | Santa
Catarina. Mayo de 1874."

LOGA DEL NINO DIOS.
MtJSICA.

Atienda Senores
Pongan atencion
Del Mangue tiyo Pegro
La conversaci6n.^
<iAIabado Sacramento
Santo Santisimo del alti?
Mi magre de Catalina
Mi pagre San Nicul4
Con las Animas vendita
Ay no ma San Sebastian
Mi Magre la Candelaria
Y ap6stolo Santo Toma
Mi magre la Mercede
Santisima Trinid4
Mi Senora los dolores
Revuelto con San Pascual,
Buenas noches, tus personas
Que dices, y como est^s?
Como lo Stan las familias?
Como quedan por galla?
Que avis venido a gac6,
Que no me abis de onti
Que estas gaciendo apifiado
Quien te le fu6 k convid4

0 te veniste solapado
De sin verguenza no md?
Here cuanto sin uficio

Se ban venido amontoni
Que pensaban reparti
Guavo con nacatam^
Que estas gecho los babiecos

1 Brinton, The GUegiience, etc., p. xxv.

Loga del Nino Dios. 233

O me veniste k mird
O dices soy como ustede
Que mi venida a sampa.
Sin que naide me convide
De sin cascara no mi
No escapa, nunca escapa
Nunca, nunca, nunca escapa
Porque yo no soy inracioni
Ni tampoco gindio cualquiera
Lo se las letras gabld
Yo los leyd las cartillas
Bastante lo s6 rezi
Sabo muy bi6 el vendito
La salvilla y los evegolo no mk
Tan vien sabo el pagre nuestro

Y bien me s^ persiil&

S6 oraci6n de perro negro
Con 6 los jabro las puerta
Para meterme k rohk

Y se priva los de adentro
Naide se a de recurd4
Poro quanto las tontera
Qui lo hi vinido ajaba.
Perd6name tus persona
No te vallas agravii

Yo lo vino catarina

Porque me fue convidi

La Senora Balientina

Que muncho me fu6 rogk

Me lo dijo: Tata pegas

Yo te bengo suplicci.

Que bayas en6 mi pueblo

Un serm6n k prendicd

Que la quija de mi yerno Caiidio

Ba jas6 silibridar

Los gejes magrina del nine

La tiene que entregi

Onde Sifio Juan Silberio

Y no quero queda ma
Quero que lo seya alegre

Y me gas desempreni
Cata que entose le dije
Porque muncho me afligi6
No y de pod6 valentina
Nunca que me 6 de animd
Yo no lo s6 esa puercada
Nunca he ido k sermonid
Busca yo al pogre Anton
Qual Pagre Cura Diri4
Que k esos si los pagas piste

VOL. XXVII. — NO. 104. — 16.

234 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Te lo an guir k predica

Cata que mi fu6 diciendo

Si bien te boy k pagd

Te boy k da tu cajeta

Tu trago guaro in crista

Un buen garola garo

Dos m^dios de frijol^

Chancho, gallina, cap6

Colaci6, nacatama.

Nuri, nampume, norianque,

Nimbuyase, nunguallure,

Guaicamo, numbatenamo

Nanpume tique licencia

Nuguayore canturia

Cata que entonce lo dije

Puesime cumplimentd

Boy k trepame al tavanco

El sirm6n k predict

Y aqui me tene ahora

Qu6 ni hayo que rezi.

Ni se que boy k deci

Ni que cosa esta ser4

Pero quero alimentame

Guai nambari, nuga nampume

Para despuej recorda

Las cosas que en todo santo

Todo se ponen k rezk

Almuerro Inter al nifio lo pone«
en la una punta del teatro.

Y agora si que almorci

Y lo quero record^

Las cosas que alia la escuela
Pero nada que me acuerdo,
Balgame San Baltasd
Quero v6 los musiquero
Si me puede aconseja
Qual serk serm6n del nino
Para pod6 predica
Maestro por amor de Dios
Hacerme ese fab6 no ma
De dicf como se enpieza
La sermona k predict

MtJSICA.

Indio si quieres saber
Lo que aquI dcbes hablar
En la sagrada Escritura
Todo lo debcs hallar.

Loga del Nino Dios.

235

RESITA.

Here que maistro tan cavayo
No me quere aconsejd
Lo que al nino Dios agora
Yo lo debo ir habli.
Pero me stoy acordando
Quen Novena San Antonio
Tanbien de la Trinidar
Dice la cosa del nino
Y eso no ma boy rezd.

Magre divino del verso
Reina pura y singular
Quien Sinora como bos
Tanto bien pudo gozar
De tener en otro brillante
A nuestro Dios celestial
Que por su grande umildar
Quizo en pogre pesebre
Use tan gran majestar.
Rey de los cielos y tierra
Bos abeis de pcrdoni
La inocencia tata Pegro
Que aqui te biene k gablar.

Y bos, Sinor San Joser
Patriarca el ma singular
Que abis tenido tanto m6rito
Por bcnir acompafid

Al bervo umanado que ay6
Se representa en portal
Pues lo los pague putativo
De tan grande majestar
Tan justo, tan casto y puro
Que otro no te a de gualar
Concede nos de tu gijo
Vallamos aya reino del cielo
Solamente d. descansdr

Y (x tu devoto Juan Salvcro
Larga vida le as de da,
Porque siga silibrandote

Y nunca te a de olvid'i.

Y d Sinora Balicntina,
Claudio y su esposa no ma

Y (\ todil(js los de casa
Alentado los tengas
Portpie otro ano con gusto
Te lo bcngan i\ entregd

Y baya onde tata Pogro
Que lo bcnga d jjredicd.

Quitarse el sombero y se va
onde esti el misterio (i)

236

Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

Y bos publico auditorio
Pasaras 4 dispinsA
La falta que y comitido
En lo que benido k gabl4
Yayudame d deci: viva
El nino, cl San Joser
Y la Reina celestial.

Philadelphia, Pa.,
December, 1913.

Notes and Queries. 237

NOTES AND QUERIES.

The Elves of Old Mexico. — [The following data were extracted from
a manuscript by Miss Mary Blake of Mexico City, relating to the belief in
duendes in Mexico. They were given to her by Luciano Mufioz, aged
seventy-three, a native of the State of Leon, Mex.]

How the Elves punished a Quarrelsome Man. — In former times there was
a ranch called "La Loma de Bufanda," which I think still exists under that
name. The owner had good land; and he had two large barns, — one for
wheat, and the other for hay. Near the barns was a house where the over-
seer, Jos6 Maria Ruga, lived. The household consisted of Jos6, his wife,
two sons, and two daughters. One son was a cowherd, the other a shepherd.
Now, this family knew that duendes inhabited the barn which held hay.
They had sometimes caught glimpses of them, and they described them as
lightly-clad children of diminutive stature. The shepherd was a gentle
lad, who had made himself a rude musical instrument like a flute; and on
Sundays and holy days he often sat among the haystacks in the barn, and
played little tunes to the elves. He would hear childish giggles of delight,
quickly suppressed, followed by stealthy footsteps toward him; but he
rarely saw the little ones on these occasions. At the close of the concert,
a half-eaten fruit or a bright-colored pebble, and sometimes a live frog or a
harmless little snake, was dropped at his feet. The elves were like small
boys in their tastes, and gave the shepherd the things most prized by them-
selves. Once there was a dance given at La Loma, and to this there came
from a neighboring ranch a man who was of the most quarrelsome. He
began by asking the shepherd's betrothed to dance. When she refused, —
for of course no respectable girl cares to dance with other than her promised
husband, — he insisted, and tried to pull her from her seat. Then the
cowherd, who stood near, said, "Friend, this maiden is betrothed to my
brother. Find thyself another partner." At that, the quarrelsome fellow,
whose head had been heated by drink, answered, "I dance with whom I
please," and pushed the cowherd aside so violently that the overseer's
son fell against a stone bench and cut his cheek. The girl screamed, and
hid her face in her scarf; while all the young men with one accord hustled
the brawler from the courtyard, where the dance was going on, to the hay-
barn, into which they thrust him and locked the door, saying, "There canst
thou pass the night, dancing with whichever lady-mouse pleases thee."
With much laughter they returned to the dance, leaving the quarrelsome
man to kick at the door and shout maledictions. At last the fellow grew
tired of this occupation, and, lying down upon the hay, he fell asleep. In
a short time he awoke with a scream from a dream of being buried alive,
to find himself completely covered with the hay. He shook himself free
from it, and composed himself to sleep again; but no sooner had he closed
his eyes than great bundles of hay fell on him. "There arc other prisoners
in the barn," thought the quarrelsome man; and he called in a loud voice,
"Who are you, and where are you?" There was no answer. The man, as
was his wont, began to shout insults, which were answered by a perfect
shower of hay. He groped around the immense building among the stacks.

238 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

but he found no one. At last he lay down again, and was again nearly
smothered. He knew his tormentors then, and began to plead, "Dear
duendes, pretty little duendes, let me sleep!" He could go no further, for a
fistful of hay was suddenly thrust into his mouth. He was half-strangled,
and each of his painful coughs brought a peal of laughter from the surrounding
darkness. When he had recovered a little, he exclaimed, " Unless you little
brutes leave me alone, I shall set fire to the hay, even if I myself perish with
you ! " Now, this was a threat that the man was powerless to put into efTect,
as he had nothing with which to make a fire; but the elves were so frightened
that they were perfectly quiet after that, and just before dawn the quarrel-
some man fell asleep. The young men came early to release the prisoner,
who was mightily shaken by the night he had passed. He related what had
happened; and all, narrator as well as listeners, found the account so inter-
esting, that they went off to drink coffee together, and to astonish the women
with the tale.

How the Elves helped on Moving-Day. — A family were troubled by duendes,
who had taken possession of their house. For this reason they decided to
move. While they were travelling along with their household utensils,
the mother exclaimed to her eldest daughter, "We have forgotten the broom !"
At once they saw a duende astride their pig, holding the broom across his
knees. He told them that the duendes were moving with the family:
therefore the family moved back to their former quarters.

How Elves may be Subdtied. — Duendes may be driven away in the fol-
lowing manner. Instead of putting away the dishes in the kitchen, place
them each night ready for use, with corn-meal dough on the metate. "My
grandmother did this, and there was never any more disturbance," said a
wise old woman to the narrator of the above. — Whenever anything dis-
agreeable occurs, say aloud, "This is for the duendes." For instance, if
you cut your finger, stumble on stones, or are seized with cramp, say, "This
cut (or this fall or this pain) is for the duendes." A family is said to have
done this, and within a week the little folk took their departure; but the
hens laid fewer eggs, their pepper-fields bore less, and the pig grew thin, after
that.

How the Elves put a Holy Father and his Sacristan to Flight. — In the ranch
of San Jeronimo, jurisdiction of San Francisco del Rincon, many old houses
were full of elves. In one house in particular the sprites were riotous from
eight at night until dawn. The master of the house went to the priest of
the nearest village and begged him to come and exorcise the spirits. The
priest willingly consented; and the next night he arrived on horseback,
with his sacristan mounted behind him, bearing all the articles necessary
for the holy task. "Now, father," said the man of the house, as he helped
the good man dismount, " my son will unsaddle and feed the horse, while you
and the sacristan will have a bite to eat before the service." The three
entered the house, and were soon seated upon a bench: while the man's
wife placed before them three earthen dishes of pork cooked deliciously with
green peppers, herbs, and olives; a pile of fresh tortillas; and three jugs of
pulque (the national drink of Mexico, the juice of the maguey-plant).
Each man rolled a tortilla to use as a spoon, and dipped it into his dish.
Just as the little father had swallowed the first savory mouthful, a clamor of
small voices began in the next room. He let his tortilla fall into his dish,

Notes and Queries. 239

and asked, "Who is in there?" — "The duendes, father," answered the
woman. " It is the hour when they begin their pranks." Just then there was
a sound of metal being drawn back and forth over a stone. "What are
they doing now? " inquired the sacristan. A shrill voice from within replied,
"We are sharpening a knife which we shall use to cut off the priest's head." —
"Saddle the horse and follow us with it!" cried the priest to the man of the
house, as he started running down the road, dragging the sacristan after
him. They continued to run knee-deep in dust, until they fell upon the
moonlit road exhausted. There the man with the horse helped them, and
assisted them to mount. The priest advised the horse-owner to sprinkle
the home with the holy water. The man returned to his home, and sprinkled
the holy water over the floors and walls of his two rooms; but the elves were
never so boisterous as that night. The duendes never left that house, it is
said. They seemed to bring prosperity to a house. It is certain that their
hosts never lacked good food and raiment.

Mary Blake.
Mexico, D.F.

THE JOURNAL OF

AMERICAN FOLK-LORE

Vol. XXVII. — JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1 914.— No. CV.

NEGRO FOLK-LORE IN SOUTH CAROLINA.

BY HENRY C. DAVIS.

To separate the lore of the negro from that of the white demands a
searching-out of origins to determine what, amid his borrowings from
the whites, is his peculiar inheritance, and what, in his present en-
vironment, he is creating as representative of his life. The one effort
relates to his early history; the other, to his sociological condition.
For both, material is lacking. Neither of these aims, however attractive
and interesting, falls within the purpose of this paper, which, after
all, is to record some negro-lore as gathered from negroes, without
implying its separation necessarily from material that is white-lore.

It seems, in fact, an error to suppose the lore of the races to be entirely
distinct. Rather, it coincides along many lines, and separates where the
cultures of the races bear apart. Though the negro's color clearly
marks him off from the white man, and his life is different, there is
no sharp di\iding-line between his lore and that of the whites. Even
before this fact becomes evident as one meets difficulties in making a
separate classification, its truth seems inferrible, at least, from facts
in the life of the races. Except on the great plantations, the races
have been in intimate sociological contact. Extreme massing of
negroes in quarters made the negro depend on his kind, and here it
is that "guUah" predominates. Roughly, the greater the departure
from the standard in dialect, the less is the lore of the negro like that
of the white. Elsewhere, however, the close relationships of life
brought the cultures nearer in lore. Many contacts are found in the
relation of master and servant, mistress and maid, child and playmate
or nurse; and, later, of employer and employee, seller and bu>er, farmer
and hired hand. Thus, a tale, a moon sign for planting, a ring-game,
or a song, may appear in one place as negro-lore and in another as
white-lore. "Go-in-and-out-thc-winrlow," for exanij:)le, I have seen in
Columbia, S.C., as a negro game, a chance hap|)ening; for the whites
have played it, and apparently the negroes got it from the whites.
VOL. XXVII. — NO. 105. — 17. 241

242 Journal of American Folk- Lore.

Superficially in the lore of the State there is great similarity; but
its diversity points to group division somewhat along natural divisions.
This fact of difference does not in itself separate negro-lore from white-
lore; since it is unlikely, that, in the limited sphere of negro life, the
negro would have retained all the lore that he has heard individually
as the last link in an alien chain stretching back to Africa. And, while
one cannot suppose a tendency toward selecting and retaining par-
ticular superstitions as his own, it seems true that he has chosen or
forgotten unevenly, or has recalled incorrectly, or has re-created im-
aginatively; so that, as a result, we are confronted with this diversity.
With him, an unballasted past is swamped in a present-day community
life, unstable itself but an entity, pools after a rain. Hence the need
of localizing the lore of the negro.

Along with this, there should be a study of his history and environ-
ment. When these have not been made out satisfactorily for the
whites, it is not strange that as to the negroes the matter is in the dark.
The negro has perhaps preserved an earlier stage of tradition, which
has vanished among the whites; certainly his lore is less interfered
with by literature and learning. If local history and genealogy
illuminate the culture of larger units in other fields, why not that of
folk-lore?

In spite of an apparent homogeneity of peoples in South Carolina,
there are in fact marked groupings which affect not only folk-lore,
but all culture. Partly they are natural, partly due to fixity of abode,
and aversion to change. The divisions are: i. The up-country or
Piedmont region, and the low-country or the coastal plain; 2. The
negro and the white, a cross-division athwart the others; 3. The rich
and the poor; 4. The industrial or milling class and the agricultural;
5. National or folk, according to place of settlement within the borders
of the State.

While similar divisions exist elsewhere, these are real, not mechanical
divisions: they are at once to be recognized. The increasing wealth
and the diffusion of education in the schools, along with greater means
for travel and narrower specialization, calling for a swarming-out of
the old hives, will make away entirely with local characteristics. Be-
fore this blending of regions of folk-lore by the stirring-about of
peoples can happen, it is well to record songs and sayings as of negro
or of white, by county, and according to social or economic condition.
Coast, "gullah," German, Scotch-Irish, negro, town, mill district,
farm, mountaineer, — these are terms worth while in noting South
Carolina lore and in assigning it to particular counties. As the field
for gathering material widens, or, rather, deepens, the greater the
necessity of recording, where possible, all facts as to the source of
the information.

Negro Folk-Lore in South Carolina. 243

TALES AND SAYINGS.

Two tales from the negroes of the low-country are given below.
The first suggests ^^sop's tale of "The Cock and the Fox," in which
the latter craftily seeks to beguile his intended prey with news of a
truce of the animals. It was told by an old negro to a gentleman who
had gone hunting. The question had arisen, whether the proposed
hunt would not be out of season. A constable was present, and mainly
on the assertion of the gentleman, in the absence of means of finding
out the law, it was decided that the hunting was in season.

That night the negro said to him, "Marse , you remind me of

'The Fox and the Goose; ' " and he told the story.

THE FOX AND THE GOOSE.'

One day a Fox was going down the road and saw a Goose. " Good-
morning, Goose," he said; and the Goose flew up on a limb and said^
"Good-morning, Fox."

Then the Fox said, "You ain't afraid of me, is you? Haven't you
heard of the meeting up at the hall the other night?"

"No, Fox. What was that?"

"You haven't heard about all the animals meeting up at the hall!
Why, they passed a law that no animal must hurt any other animal.
Come down and let me tell you about it. The hawk mustn't catch
the chicken, and the dog mustn't chase the rabbit, and the lion mustn't
hurt the lamb. No animal must hurt any other animal."

"Is that so!"

"Yes, all live friendly together. Come down, and don't be afraid."

As the Goose was about to fly down, way off" in the woods they heard
a "Woo-wooh! woo-wooh!" and the Fox looked around.

"Come down, Goose," he said.

And the Dog got closer. "Woo-wooh!"

Then the Fox started to sneak off"; and the Goose said, "Fox, you
ain't scared of the Dog, is you? Didn't all the animals pass a law
at the meeting not to bother each other any more?"

"Yes," replied the Fox as he troUed awciy quickly, "the animals
passed the law; but some of the animals round here ain't got much
respcc' for the law."

However remote the source of this story, the negro knew it only as
folk-lore. The same aptness, and love of illustration drawn from
animal life, are seen in the following account.

A gentleman said to his emi)loyce, a negro, "Jim, go down to the
'washer' (at the phosphate-works) and get the mule, and go to
Pinckney's and get the mule, and drive down to the store and get the
groceries."

Compare The State (Columbia, S.C.), Dec. 7, 1913.

244 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

"Mr. Taylor," replied the negro, in great doubt, "you tell me to go
three places at the same time. Dog got four legs, but he can't run
in but one path."

A fable of creation recalls the classical story of the division of parts
of the sacrificial ox between god and man, and, more nearly, Irving's
story of the division of occupations among Indian, negro, and white. ^
The version in "gullah" follows.

WHY THE NEGRO WORKS.*

In de beginnin', God he tuk two bundle, an' he place 'em before
a nigger an' a white man. An' one bundle he mek berry big, an' one
bundle bin berry little. De nigger he bin hab fust choice, an' you
know a nigger wid he greedy big eye: he tink de big bundle de best,
so he tek dat. Den de white man he tek what was left, — de leetle
bundle.

Now, when dey unwrop deys bundle, de white man he fine in e leetle
bundle a pen an' a bottle of ink; an' dat's how come he do de writin'
ob de worl'. An' de nigger he fin' de hoe an' de plough an' de axe in
e bundle; an' dat's how come he hafter do de wuk in de worl'."

Among the Rabbit stories there are two which were told in Columbia
by Joseph LeConte before the days of Uncle Remus. In one, B'rer
Rabbit has a feast, and while grace is being said he ducks the buzzard's
head into the hot hominy: that is why the buzzards are bald.' The
other told of Sambo's exploit of riding the alligator; he "job 'im
in the right eye" with his thumb to make him go to the left, and in
the left eye to go to the right; but, when asked what he did when the
alligator swam downward, he replied, "Ah, Massa, dat berry hard!"
But these and other stories — of "Why the Bear has no Tail" and of
"The Tar-Baby " — belong here, in this instance, only by inference, to
South Carolina.

A negro story explains why the cat eats first, and washes her face
and hands afterwards.

WHY THE CAT EATS FIRST.

One day a Cat caught a Mouse and was about to eat it. The Mouse
said, "You have no manners: you should wash your face and hands
before you eat." Thereupon the Cat began to lick her paws and rub
them on her face. The Mouse thus took advantage of its opportunity

1 Crayon Papers (The Seminoles. Origin of the White, the Red, and the Black Men;
a Seminole Tradition).

* By Mrs. Harriette Kershaw Leiding of Charleston, S.C. Compare The State (Colum-
bia, S.C), Dec. 7, 1913.

' DifTers from account in "Animal Tales from North Carolina" (this Journal, vol. xi,
p. 284).

Negro Folk-Lore in South Carolina. 245

to run away. Ever since that time, the cat eats first and washes
afterwards.

From the same source as the above comes the information that in
1 86 1 a tar-baby was painted above the door of a blacksmith shop on
the McDowell plantation near Sumter, S.C. It was for good luck, or
to guard the shop against ill luck. Thus the tar-baby has other uses
than to catch B'rer Rabbit.

Of the following incomplete list of negro superstitions the greater
number are from central South Carolina. Nearly all I have heard
from negroes, and in many of them I have firmly believed.

SUPERSTITIONS AMONG THE NEGROES.

1. The number of stars within a lunar halo indicates the number of

days before clear weather.

2. Potatoes and root-crops should be planted in "the dark of the

moon;" corn, peas, and beans, in "the light of the moon." *
Shingles laid on during the increase of the moon will swell up
or curl up. Plant watermelons May i, before day, by poking
the seed in with your finger.

3. A crawfish or "cooter" (terrapin) will hold on until it hears thunder.

4. A wasp, hornet, or snake will not entirely die before the sun goes

down. This is true even if you burn up the body and stir the
ashes together.

|; 5. A frizzly chicken comes out of the egg backwards; it is the devil's
own: and some negroes will refuse to kill a frizzly chicken,
6. An eel is the male catfish.

II; 7. The blue insect that looks like the dragon-fly which flits over
streams, is a "snake-doctor." It is bad luck to kill a "snake-
doctor."

8. If you kill a "pilot-snake," lookout for the rattler, which will follow

soon.

9. The coach-whip snake can roll up like a "hoop" snake, and over-

take a swift runner. His tail is plaited ^ in four jilaits. With it
he whij)s his victim to death. It is useless to feign death in the
hope that he will be deceived. He thrusts the pointed end of
his tail into the unfortunate man's car, and punctures the ear-
drum, so that he must cry out and be killed.

10. A lizard sheds its tail to escape from your hand. He comes back

and gets his tail, or runs ofl^ with it in his mouth, puts it back
on, and it grows.

11. Similarly, the garter-snake when broken apart can ciuickly re-

assemble the pieces.

' Compare this Journal, vol. vi. p. 299 (Tennessee); vol. xii. p. 265 (Clcorgia).
* Pronounced "platted." Compare "plat-eye," p. 248, No. 54.

246 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

12. The bark of the spring lizard or of the coral-colored lizard is sure

death. ^ These animals are called "puppy-dogs."

13. The sting of the big "cow-ant" ^ is deadly poison.

14. Plant-lice come from the dew on cotton.

15. Hair-worms in pools develop from horse-hairs.

16. Hang a dead snake on a bush or fence to bring rain.

17. Scratch the boat's mast, and whistle for wind.

18. Stir cake-dough always "the same way," usually clockwise, or the

cake will fall.

19. Salve for ear-ache may be made by stewing earth-worms. Use

the fat.

20. Elderberry-flowers stewed in lard make a good ointment for red-

bug-bites.

21. An eel-skin is good to rub with for rheumatism.

22. Red flannel cures rheumatism.

23. A necklace of lengths of " tread-saft " ^ roots strung on a thread

makes teething easy. Do not remove it, but let it wear out.

24. A camphor * or assafoetida bag under the neck prevents contagious

diseases.

25. A necklace of small onions (mashed) will cure a serious case of

diphtheria.

26. A Jamestown-weed poultice cures headache or rheumatism.

27. Medicinal teas are made from cherry-bark, pokeweed, redoak-bark,

hoarhound, sage, red sassafras, and other "yarbs." White-
- sassafras tea will cause blindness.

28. To cure "fallen palate," twist two locks of hair tightly together

on the top of the head, and wrap them with a string.

29. Bad luck it is to begin work on Friday. Accidents are the direct

consequence of wilfulness in this respect.

30. A child stepped over won't grow; or a man, thrive. Step back

quickly, or there will be trouble. To step over a fishing-pole
destroys luck, but stepping back restores it. At certain times
a woman should not step over melon-vines: should she do so,
they will bear no fruit.

31. Turn a chair around on one leg in the house, and somebody will

die. To open an umbrella indoors is bad luck.

32. The howling of a dog, the screeching of an owl, the wailing of the

whippoorwill, and the ticking of the "death-watch" in the wall
or bedpost, are ill omens, signifying death.

* This suggests the mandrake story.

* Sphcerophlhalma occidentalis (female), or velvet-ant. "In Texas it is known as the
'cow-killer ant,' because of a popular superstition that its sting is very dangerous to live-
stock." — CoMSTOCK, A Manual for the Study of Insects (1899), p. 648.

' Solarium Carolinense (horse-nettle).

* So in Boston.

Negro Folk-Lore in South Carolina. 247

33. The sight of a ghost, oftentimes "a Httle low (short) woman,"

presages death. ^

34. It is evil to kill a dove.

35. A "hag" may be caught in a bottle properly conjured. If it is

hidden in ashes under the fire, she will die in agony. -

36. Rub pepper and salt into the skin left behind by a "hag," so

that when she returns from her mischief and resumes her skin,
as she must before daybreak, the burning pain will drive her
out again to her death.

37. The tangles in hair are witches' stirrups which have been used in

nightly riding.

38. To recover lost articles, spit in the palm of the hand and strike

with thumb or forefinger. This will show you the direction in
which to search. If you fail at first, try again, and you will
find what you are looking for.

39. A rabbit-foot in your pocket gives good luck. The left hind-foot

of a graveyard rabbit killed in the dark of the moon serves
best. With the rabbit-foot, the owner may "put Gooflfer" on
what he wants to be successful, as in a game of marbles.

40. "Gooffer" may be invoked against an opponent simply by pro-

nouncing the word, or by adding a mark or cross-mark on the
ground and spitting in or near it.

41. The "cunger-bag" may contain many articles, but additional

value is given if it contains camel's hair procured from the
camel by the possessor of the bag.

42. The sensitive-plant is the "be-shame'-bush." Chew the root, spit

on the hand, and shake hands with any one whose affection
you crave, and you will win his affections.'

43. For luck, put a black cat in the oven and cook her till she burns

up. The only bone left will be jumping about in the spider.
This bone will ward off evil.

44. A smooth black pebble may be a "luck-rock."

45. To make a dog stay, take hair from his tail, place it between two

sticks, and bury it under the doorstep.''

46. To make a cat consent to remain in a new habitation, cut off the

last joint of her tail, and she will stay.*

* Stories of the little low woman are common among whites and negroes in Beaufort
and Richland Counties, South Carolina, and in Chatham County, Georgia.

* Compare this Journal, vol. vii, pp. 66-67, quoting the Southern Workman, March,
1894; compare also Southern Literary Journal, vol. iv, pp. 258-262 (1837), ascribed to
Professor H. J. Nott.

' From a negro, who learned it from an Indian woman.

* Williamsburg County. For burying under the doorstep, see this Journal, vol. ix,
p. 225; and vol. iii, p. 286.

' From Sumter County comes the information that the same result may be accom-
plished by buttering her paws, as she will remain to lick the butter off. Mr. Phillips
Barry mentions that this custom is found in New Hampshire.

248 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

47. It is a sin to use new lumber on an old house; for example, to add

a new piazza. It is a sin to throw bread or any food into the
fire.

48. If the ear burns, some one is talking about you.

49. Sneezing has the usual signs. ^

50. A hairy breast means riches; an itching palm means that money

will come there.

51. Negro graves are covered with bits of broken crockery, lamps or

toys. 2

52. The bite of a blue-gummed negro is absolutely fatal.'

53. A new knife that has never cut wood is effective against the evils

of the jack-o-lantern. (Georgetown.)

54. Plat-eye. — "Plat-eye" is an antebellum ha'nt still remembered

and feared in Georgetown and Williamsburg Counties, probably
in others. It is associated with the new moon and the form of
an animal, usually a dog. One negro saw a form appear in the
uncertain light, and grow larger, and then the fiery " plat-eye(s) "
shone and disappeared. Another was driving down the road as
the new moon was setting. A dog came trotting toward him,
getting bigger each instant. When right at him, the animal's
eyes "commence a-jumpin'," like fingers moving in the negro's
face, and vanished. Another heard hoof-beats, and in terror
saw a great horse appear. When this apparition passed away,
only a little dog was to be seen. In Williamsburg County it is
said that the "plat-eye" could be seen if any one would put
into his eye "matter " taken from a dog's eye. It is to be hoped
that no negroes care to see "plat-eye."

NEGRO SONGS.
I. SPIRITUAL, GENERAL, WORK, WAR-TIME.

In negro songs. South Carolina is rich. Twoscore are represented
in whole or in part, and further search will bring to light a great many
more. Omitting the usual hymns, which, however, are often char-
acteristically modified in tune and in words, we have the following by
no means complete list of negro songs of the spirit.

' As recorded for New York (this Journal, vol. v, p. 336), with this amendment, how-
ever:

"Sneeze on Sunday,

Safety seek.

Or the devil will get you all the week."

Compare also this Journal, vol. xii, p. 98.

2 In Columbia and Ridgeway, S.C., perhaps elsewhere. Compare also this Journal,
vol. iv, p. 214.

' Compare this Journal, vol. xii, p. 267 (Georgia).

Negro Folk-Lore in South Carolina. 249

I. I don' wan' be buried in de Storm.
2- Joy, Joy in my Soul.

3. Baptizing Song: Sheep and Goat.

4. Oh, yes, Lord!

5. She's the Holy City.

6. The Old Ship of Zion.

7. Who built de Ark, Brudder No-rah, No-rah.

8. Co-lock she rock (Old Ark she rock).

9. I have some Friends in Glory.

10. Rest for the Weary.

11. Room enough in Paradise.

12. Pluck upon yo' Harp: Little David.

13. You shall be free when the Good Lord set you free.

14. Pharaoh's Army got drownded: Sister Mary, don't you weep.

15. Jerusalem Mornin'.

16. Sister Mary, where you kim frim (come from).

17. I'm on my Way.

18. Lock de Lion's Jaw.

Among songs of a general nature occur enough to suggest the in-
completeness of the Hst. A mere scratching of the surface yields
fifteen showing great variety. More will undoubtedly appear later.

1. You can't break this Sad Heart of mine.

2. Lulu, my Darling.

3. Bird in a Cage.

4. It's Nobody's Business.

5. Coonshine: I got a House in Baltimore.

6. Ain't it hard to be a Nigger!

7. What you going to do when your Meat give out?

8. Gim' crack Corn, I don' care.

9. Rounzip Corn.
ID. Jesse James.

11. A Little mo' Cider, Cider.

12. Git along Home, Sally Gal.

13. I had a Sheep, Baa.

14. I'm looking for that Bully of the Town.

15. De Bell done ring, de Drum done beat (Antebellum).

The following seem more particularly adapted to be sung at work:
I. "That's the Hammer killed John Henry;" 2. "On the Mountain;"
3. "The Yaller Gal." However, any good song would seem to serve
for this purpose.

Among war-time songs of the negroes I hestitate to include "Say,
Darkies, did you see Old Maussa?"and the rollicking "Down in Ala-
bam'." A tantalizing bit of negro song of the early eighties, embodying
a myth, is reported from Columbia, S.C. Hampton, it seems, hangs
out a flag and loses a finger as Sherman rides by. The fragment runs
thus: —

250 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Hampton had a Confederate flag,
He hung it in de winder;
By and by old Sherman come
And shot off Hampton's finger.*

The hanging-out of the flag in defiance to the invader is the familiar
"Barbara Frictchie" motive; but the consequences are difTerent, since
the woman is spared at the commander's order; and Hampton the
soldier, enemy of the composer of the stanza presumably, suffers a
wound for his temerity.*

2. SONGS WITH DANCES OR GAMES.

In ring-games, the races hold common stock, greatly impaired,
however, by competition with a flood of imported new material in the
schools. The negroes used to play and sing the following, many
years ago.

1. Cold Frosty Morning.

2. Go in-dang-out (in and out) de Window.

3. Do, Mr. Watchman, don't catch me: in de Ladies' Garden.

4. Here we go round the Mulberry-Bush.

5. Boil dat Cabbage down.

6. Jump Jim Crow.'

7. Rang-Tang Bustle up.

Except for the last two, these games are well known to the whites.
To extend the list of negro games would be useless. A reference to
a study made by Zach McGhee* will show scores of games, some of
them with songs, which one could infer are to be found among the
negroes. His list will include nearly all, if not all, of the games of
negro children.

3. SHIFTING OF STANZAS.

Stanzas of one song may serve in another with only the tune and
the chorus to bind them together. These ballad fragments oftentimes
make a highly interesting whole. As the negro must depend upon
memory, and as, in the singing, oftentimes first one and then another
will break out as leader with his favorite stanza, the exact wording is
rarely fixed. The song is in a state of flux. The more widespread of
these songs are taken up by the whites, and given wider currency
through the medium of wags with good voices wherever there is a

' Compare The State, Dec. 7, 1913.
' Or is the account colorless?

* Compare "Dorsetshire Children's Games" (Folk-Lore Journal, vol. vii, p. 251).
Negro minstrels perhaps carried this song to England.

* Compare "A Study in the Play-Life of Some South Carolina Children " (Pedagogical
Seminary [1900], vol. vii, pp. 459, 478).

Negro Folk-Lore in South Carolina. 251

picnic journey or college informal gathering. Thus it is that to the
tune of "Good-by, my Lover, Good-by," or other songs, any suitable
stanzas may be sung; or these, in turn, may be shifted to the choral
melody of some other song.

The whites have thus treated the songs of "Little David,"
"Pharaoh's Army," "You shall be Free." The same stanzas may
serve in any of them. The negroes, it is true, keep these songs rela-
tively fixed; but the whites — in Columbia, S.C., for example — may
combine such a medley of stanzas as the following to a chorus ; and per-
haps the same tendency toward change would be more striking with
the negro, were it not for the fact that the negro is singing, not a sober,
but a fervent, religious hymn.

Upon de mountain I'm going to ride
Two white elephants, side by side.

Chorus.
Little David, pluck upon your harp, halleloo,
Halleloo, little David, pluck upon your harp, halleloo.

Some o' dese nights about twelve o'clock,
Dis old world gwinter reel and rock.

Chorus.
De Lord made a wheel and he made it round,
He roll' it in de hollow till de world turn around.

Chorus.

De Lord made de nigger, he made him in de night,
In such a hurry he forgot to paint him white.

Chorus.
If you want to see de debbil run.
Just pull de trigger o' de gospel gun.

Chorus.
Take care, sinner, how you walk on dc cross,
Yo' right foot slip, and your soul done ios'.

Chorus.
Went to bed, hut it wasn't no use,
My feet stuck out for a chicken-roos'.

Chorus.

{And so on at will.)

The songs have suffered so greatly from this process of transference,
that it is hard to assign correctly stanzas from a white's version. The
tune of "Little David" is slow, almost wailing; but the trijiping flip-
pancy of the song as sung by the whites is offensive to the ears of
religious-minded negroes whf) knnw the original melody.

252 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

The only instance that I have found of the intrusion of a contem-
poraneous event into a stanza before my eyes, was in the case of
"Pharaoh's Army," While we were all singing stanzas like those
cited above, the new one came in from the negroes. It seems that
a schism had rent the largest church in town, the Sidney Park Church,
so that a leader — one Reuben Bright, I think — had withdrawn with his
band of followers; and then the large wooden structure had burned
down one night amid tremendous excitement among the whole negro
population who were present. The lines referred to run, —

Reuben Bright he had a scheme

To burn Sidney Park with the kerosene.

It had been rumored that night that the flames had spread so rapidly
over the roof that kerosene must undoubtedly have been used. The
appearance of Reuben Bright in the song suggests how other characters
are borne along to fame or infamy on the wings of a song.

4. PLANTATION DANCES.

To Mrs. Harriette Kershaw Leiding of Charleston, I am indebted
for this account of the plantation negro at play. It was taken down
in the words of Maum Katie, a very old negro woman.

I tol' you about de ole days when I could dance, an' sing, an' pick
cotton wid de best of dem, 'cause you know I done been raise' roun' de
white folks ebber sence I been leetle mite, — wen I ain't but so leetle
dat I can hide underneat' old Miss' rocking-chair. Den wen I gets
bigger, I cum out an' hide underneat' her apern; den I get so big an'
fat dat I gets to be a regular wheeligo gal: dat's our name for a big,
bustin' gal.

Ole Miss she lafT, an' say to Marster, "Let them have it, let them
have it; they work all the better for it." O Lordec! dem were happy
days: I always had my stomach full of vittles den. An' atter de
fiel'-work, I teks my "fly-away" (dat's my hat), an' I teks de calico
dress Miss done gib, an' I go to de nigger-yard; an', glory, how I done
dance !

Pairing Off.
Here's de way we start. All de cullud folks crowd into de leetle
room an' begin for sing: —

Hurrah, ladies, two on de floor,
Here we go to Baltimore.
Swing e lady roun' de town.
Sling 'em roun' de floor.

Then the gals begin to sing, —

Negro Folk-Lore in South Carolina. 253

A hack a back, ladies!

Wanter go to Aiken;

So, Mr. Jones, you can take me dere.

An' den dat gal go off wid e partner. Den another gal she holler out, —

A hack a back, ladies'

Wanter go to Augusta;

So Mr. Brown can take me dere.

Mr. Cooler.

An by an' by all of dem get paired off dataway. Den atter a while,
somebody say, "Le's play Mr. Cooler."

Den somebody else holler out, "I holler for Mr. Cooler! I call for
Mr. Cooler!"

Den some buck nigger who can cut up, he pint heself to be Mr.
Cooler; an' he mok about, an' he mok about (look around), and atter
a little he choose a lady. Den all wat lef out begin to call on him fer
help 'em play, an' dey sing tree times, —

Ole Mr. Cooler, wat is de matter
Stay away so long?

Den Mr. Cooler he say, —

At your call.

Lordee! he been polite: he ac' jes' like a king. An' atter dat, all
ring up, an' go roun', an' begin to sing, wid Mr. Cooler in de middle, —

Mr. Cooler he lub sugar an' tea,
Mr. Cooler he lubs candy,
Mr. Cooler he can wheel an' turn,
And receive de one dats handy.

Den Mr. Cooler he shuffle, an' do monkey-tricks in de ring. He act
like a mule, an' he paw, an' he snort, an' he back. Den all sing again, —

There's a muk- in de niicidic, an' you can't get him out.
There's a mule in de middle, an' you can't get him out.
He wants some one to help him out, Miss Susie or Miss Julia.

Den Miss Julia she says, —

Si)rca{l your carpet on de floor,
Meet your true love at de door,
You nuis' say yes, and den we'll go
Ober de hills an' far away.

Den all we-uns bc^in fcr hum, an' do like de bee, —

254 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Um-liuin, uni-huni,

You black-eyed bee,

Where will de weddin'-sujiper be?

Way ober yander in de holler tree,

Um-huni, uni-huni.

Den dat couple dey git out an' leab de gal in de ring.

I do declare he mak' you laff fitten to bus' yourself, 'cause ebery
nigger wat gets in, he got to be a animal ob some kind. De men mek'
de fun, 'caze dey go like de mule, or dey hops roun' like de bullfrog,
or dey bellows like de ox, an' dey do whatsoever de name of the animal
dey takes. When de gal gets in de ring, dey is flowers, an' dey jes'
caper' 'bout a little mite, an' prance, an' show he foot. Den here's
de way we all sing wid de gal in de middle: —

My true love's gone, won't you help me to sing.

My darlin' is a rose in de middle, an' I can't get her out.

She wants some one to help her out, I think it's Mr, Benjy.

Rice Cake.
Den, Miss, atter we done play dis till we been tired, we sing a funny
little song about rice-cake: —

Rice-cake, rice-cake.

Sweet me so,

Rice-cake, sweet me to my heart.

Den dey do some kissin'.

An' sometimes dey play in de ya'd, an* play "Roxanna, go, gal,
go."

Roxanna, go, Gal, go.

All dat de buckra gib, you wear in de buckra fiel'
All dat your sweetheart gib you . . .

At this point, Maum Katie's memory failed, and she never came
past this point in her version of these plantation dances.

The incompleteness of the reminiscence is eloquent of what is hap-
pening now. The old woman is dead, and with her like will pass away
much that could have been preserved. Let this conclusion of her
account serve as mine; for, even as experienced workers in the field
of folk-lore must have felt, certainly I feel, that I have held up but
a flickering light in a dying world.

University of South Carolina,
Columbia. S.C.

Negro Folk- Songs from Tennessee. 255

SOME NEGRO FOLK-SONGS FROM TENNESSEE.

COLLECTED AND EDITED BY ANNA KRANZ ODUM.

The following negro folk-songs were heard in Sumner County,
Tennessee, and were all sung by the children of one family, sometimes
two or three of the children singing "parts," but oftener by one girl
of fifteen, who sang as she worked. These children could not read, and
they sang only the songs they had heard from their elders at home, in
the fields, or at church ; and they represent a link in the perpetuation
of the negro folk-songs. They live in a rural community of negroes
whose inhabitants are somewhat stationary, but not isolated. A few
of the songs which they sang have been published before; but the
versions are different, and they are given here for the purpose of
comparison with the same songs from other localities. The majority
of the songs are religious, or "spirituals;" and it was with difficulty
that the few secular songs were collected, for the singers were reticent
about singing any but "church songs," because, they said, they
"belonged to de church." Other singers from the same community
were later heard singing some of these songs.

The manner of singing was characteristic. There were unlimited
variations in the sequence of stanzas and refrain ; verses from different
songs were brought together; and there was much freedom in the
"part" singing, both with the words and the tunes. Sometimes the
songs were half hummed, and sometimes sung softly (in a high pitch)
in a manner often heard in "part" singing as well as in repetitions of
stanzas by the individual singer. The little variations in the words of
the stanzas, the tunes, the arrangement of verses, the musical expres-
sions, and the dialect, prevent the simplest song from growing monot-
onous with frequent repetitions. The same song seldom followed the
same order of verses and refrain when heard at different times. These
songs were always heard without the accompaniment of musical
instruments.

For the sake of convenient comparison, the same general classifica-
tion of the religious songs is used that was employed in a former
study.' Grouped according to the prevailing theme, the subjects are
as follows, — first, heaven and the life after death; second, sin and the
sinner; third, how to live the Christian life; and, fourth, biblical
narratives. It seems to matter little whether the songs are coherent
or the words true; the singer enjoys the rhymes, cadences, and
melodies apart from the meaning. A single theme is rarely followed

'Howard W. Odum, "Religious Folk-Songa of tlic Southern Negroes" (American
Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, vol. iii, pp. 265-365).

256 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

throughout a single song, except in cases of many repetitions. There
is little uniformity in the dialect, but the attempt has been made to
write the songs as they were heard.

1. waitin' fer me.

I've got a mother in the Rock of Ages,

I : Waitin' for me. :|

In God's bosom goin' to be my pillow,

|: Waitin' fer me. :|

Way up in de Rock of Ages,

I : Waitin' fer me. :|

Have a long white robe in the Rock of Ages,

I : Waitin' fer me. :|

Way up in de Rock in God's bosom.

I : Waitin' fer me. :|

This song is similar in some respects to " I got a Home in the Rock,
don't you see," heard in northern Mississippi.^

2. JESUS IS waitin'.

I : I am hungry :| {three times)
Want to eat.

I : Jesus is waitin' :|
Jesus is waitin' all de time.

|: I am cripple :| {three times)

I want to walk. J

|: I am sleepy :| {three times)
I want to sleep.

|: I am thirsty :| {three times)
I want to drink.
I want to drink all de time.

The song, "Heal me, Jesus," heard in northern Georgia,^ is very
similar to this, the chorus of which is, " Heal me, Jesus, heal me, Jesus,
along the heavenly way," and with stanzas as follows: —

O Lord, I'm sick an' I want to be healed.
O Lord, I'm blind an' I want to see.
O Lord, I'm crippl'd an' I wan'er walk.
O Lord, I'm deaf an' I want to hear.

Somewhat similar also is one stanza of the song heard in northern
Georgia, "Do, Lord, remember me." ^

'Howard W. Odum, "Religious Folk-Songs of the Southern Negroes" (American
Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, vol. iii, p. 328).
Ibid., p. 359. » Ibid., p. 325.

Negro Folk-Songs from Tennessee. 257

When I am hungry, do feed me, Lord,

Do, Lord, remember me.
When I am thirsty, do give me drink,

Do, Lord, remember me.

3. coin' ter wake up de dead.

Where shall I be when the first trumpet sound?
I : Where shall I be when it sound so loud ? :|
Sound so loud, wake up de dead,
Goin' ter wake up de dead.

I may be in my graveyard when it sound so loud,

Where shall I be when de first trumpet sound?

I may be dead,

I may be dead an' gone,

Goin' ter wake up de dead.

Look over there what I see,

Mary and Mac

Dressed in black.

Where shall I be when the first trumpet sound ?

Where shall I be when it sound so loud?

Goin' ter wake up de dead.

Another song, "Whar' shall I be?" from southern Mississippi,^ has
its chorus as follows: —

Whar' shall I be when de fust trumpet sound?
Whar' shall I be when it sounds so loud?
When it sound so loud that it wake up the dead,
Whar' shall I be when it sounds?

The verses and metre are entirely different. Another version of
"Goin' ter wake de Dead" was heard in northern Georgia- with many
common verses and the following chorus: —

Goin' to wake up the dead,
Goin' to wake up the dead,
God goin' to wake up the dead
Who's a-slecpin' in the grave,
God is goin' to wake uj) the dead.

The last stanza of the version given here is probably a corruption of
the two familiar stanzas,' —

Look over there what I sec,
Big tall angel comin' after me.

' Howard W. Odum. " RdiKious Folk-Songs of the Southern Negroes " (American
Journal of Psychology and Education, vol. iii, p. 355).

' Ibid., p. 313. » Ibid., p. 360.

VOL. XXVII. — NO. 105. — iS.

258 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Well, who that yonder ail dressed in black,
It look like it's de mourners jus' got back.

"Mac" is probably a corruption of Martha, as "Mary and Martha"
appear in a number of negro folk-songs.

4. OH THE BLOOD DONE SIGN MY NAME.

This favorite song has been published in another form,' but is given
here to show the differences that may be found when the song is heard
in different communities, and to show its widespread popularity.
Each stanza is repeated three times.

Oh the blood
Oh the blood
Oh the blood done sign my name.

: How you know :|
The blood done sign my name?

: Jesus tole' me so :|
The blood done sign my name.

: In de heaven :]
Oh the blood done sign my name.

: Ain't you glad :|
The blood done sign my name ?

: Glory an' honor :|
The blood done sign my name.

: Fare you well :|
The blood done sign my name.

5. BY an' by.

By an' by when de mornin' come.

All the saints of God gatherin' home,

An' we'll tell in story

How we'll overcome,

An' we'll understand it better by an' by.

6. SHE MOVE ALONG.

This song is reported to have been the composition of a negro
preacher in the community where it was heard and is sung by his

people.

Behold the City!
Behold the Lamb!
Behold the City!
She move along.

' Howard W. Odum. "Religious Folk-Songs of the Southern Negroes" (American
Journal of Psychology and Education, vol. iii, p. ZS^). „*

Negro Folk- Songs from Tennessee. 259

|: Been fightin' in the City :|
She move along.

|: Brother Isam in the City :|
She move along.

|: There's shoutin' in the City :|
She move along.

|: There's preachin' in the City :|
She move along.

|: There's cryin' in the City :|
She move along.

7. sweepin' through the gate.
This one-stanza song is repeated one or more times.

|: Sweepin' through the Gate, through the Gate :|
Hallelujah! CavaP Lamb,
Washed in every stain I am
Hallelujah! I am sweepin' through the Gate.

The group of son^s which has for its subject sin or the sinner is made
up of those in which the singer rejoices because his sins have been
taken away, and those which urge the sinner to change his ways.

8. ALL MY SINS BEEN TAKEN AWAY.

Following is a popular song of this class, and one that has appeared
before "^ in different forms. Only the stanzas that have not been pub-
lished before are given here.

Chorus.
|: All my sins been taken away :| {three times)
Glory hallelujah to the Holy Name!
All my sins been taken away.

I'm goin' home on the mornin' train,
If you don't see, you'll hear me sing.

]: Hand me some whiter* let me whiten my hand :|

Wish I had married when I was young.
Wouldn't a had all dat race to run.

9. WAY UP IN DE KINGDOM, LORD.

I love my Jesus, yes, I do,
Way in de Kingdom, Lord.
O sinner you must too.
Way in de Kingdom, Lord.

• Calvary. ' WhiteninR. Note tlic local coloring.

* Howard W. Odum. " Rcligiou'i Folk-S(ing3 of the Southern Negroes" (American
Journal of Psychology and Education, vol. iii, p. 304).

26o Journal of American Folk-Lore.

|: Just plenty good room,

Way in de Kingdom, Lord. :|

|: Goin' to build my church on this camp-ground,
Way in de Kingdom, Lord. :|

Just look over yonder in de harves' field.
My Lord pushin' at de chariot-wheel.
Way in de Kingdom, Lord.

Somewhat similar to the above is the song, "Love the Lord," ^ which
asks the questions, "Well, did you say?" and, "All I want to know is,
does you love Jesus?" and answers, " If you love Jesus, you can't keep
it." One chorus of the song, "I am de light uv de worr,"^ has one
chorus line, "Way up in de kingdom, Lord."

10. AND don't stay AWAY.

I : O brother, don't stay away :| {three times)

And don't stay away.
I : My Lord says there's room enough :| {three times)

In heaven for us all.

My Lord says there's room enough,

And don't stay away.

"Sister," "mother," "uncle," "auntie," arc in turn substituted for
"brother." This song is almost the same as the old spiritual, and is
probably the origin of the song, "You can't stay away,"' heard in
northern Mississippi, which has for its chorus, "You can't stay away,"
with several verses, among which are, —

My Lord is callin' an' you can't stay away.

King Jesus is a-ridin' an' you can't stay away.

II. won't you taste that the lord is good?

Only one stanza of the following song was sung, although more was
said to belong to it, but the singers did not remember it. It is probable
that "sister," "brother," "sinner," "uncle," are in turn sung in place
of "auntie," with possible variations in the third line; and the song
would thus be extended to suit the singer.

O auntie, won't you taste
That the Lord is good?
Sweet honey in the rock,
That the Lord is good.

' Howard W. Odum, " Religious Folk-Songs of the Southern Negroes " (Americatt
Journal of Psychology and Education, vol. iii, p. 327).

» Ibid., p. 305. » Ibid., p. 342. ,

Negro Folk-Songs from Tennessee. 261

12. O SINNER MAN, YOU SO HARD TO LEAD

The present song bears a resemblance to a song that has been pub-
lished.^ "'Po' sinner man he so hard to believe" is not unlike "O
sinner man, you so hard to lead !" the refrain of the present song. The
line, "My mother and your mother both dead an' gone," appears in
both.

: Don't call the roll, John, till I get there :| {three times)
O sinner man, you so hard to lead!

: My mother and your mother both dead an' gone :| {three times)
O sinner man, you so hard to lead!

: Don't crown the Lord, O Lord, till I get there :| {three times)
O sinner man, you so hard to lead!

: Some goin' to heaven, some tellin' lies :| {three times)
O sinner man, you so hard to lead!

: Some on the elemen', some on the cloud :| {three times)
O sinner man, you so hard to lead!

: Wasn't that a pity Lord, sin ain't a shame :] {three times)
0 sinner man, you so hard to lead!

13. I WANT TO GO TO HEAVEN WHEN I DIE.

Some of the words of the song following have been reported ^ in two
songs, whose refrains are, "God goin' to wake up the dead," and
"De young lambs mus' fin' de way." The first stanza and the refrain
seem to be new in this one.

Listen at the lambs all cryin*,
Want to go to heaven when I die,
Listenin' at the lambs.

Oh, mind out, brother, how you walk.
I want to go tf) heaven when I die.
Feets might sli[) an' your soul get lost.

Oh, mind out, auntie, how you walk on de cross,
Your feet might slip an' your soul get lost.
I want to go to heaven when I die.

In the next group of songs, that express the negro's idea of the kind
of life necessiiry for salvation, "Keep er-inchin' crlong" is familiar.*

'Howard W. Odiim, "Religious Folk-Songs of the Southern Negroes" (American
Journal of Psychology and Education, vol. iii, p. 322).

« Ibid., p. 313. » Ibid., p. 323.

262 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

14. KEEP ER-INCPIIN' ERLONG.

The words of this version are different from those previously
recorded, and the chorus has the addition of the line, "Like a pore
inch one."

I was down in the valley when the Lord come by,
Jesus is comin' by an' by,
I thought to my soul I would rise an' fly,
Jesus is comin' by an' by.

Cliorus.
|: Keep er-inchin' erlong, :|
Jesus will come by an' by.
Keep er-inchin' erlong
Like a pore inch one,
Jesus will come by an' by.

'Twas inch by inch,

'Twas inch by inch I saw the Lord.

Jesus is comin' by an' by.

'Twas inch by inch,

'Twas inch by inch I saved my soul.

Jesus will come by an' by.

15. THAT ain't right.

My Lord told me not to work on Sunday,
|: That ain't right. :|

My Lord told me not to work on Sunday.

Chorus.
Have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sadday,
Have Sunday.
That ain't right.

My mother told me not to gamble on Sunday,
|: That ain't right. :|
What make these people want to gamble on Sunday?
That ain't right.

My mother told me not to lie on Sunday,
|: That ain't right. :|
What make these people want to work on Sunday?
Lord, that ain't right.

16. BLESSED BE THE NAME!

A remarkable adaptation of the well-known revival song, "Blessed
be the Name of the Lord"^ is found in the following, in which the
chorus is identical, and the stanza adapted and made out of whole cloth.

' For other adaptations, see Howard W. Odum, " Religious Folk-Songs of the Southern
Negroes " (American Journal of Psychology and Education, vol. iii, pp. 307, 364).

Negro Folk-Songs from Tennessee. 263

I : Blessed be the Name :|

Blessed be the Name of the Lord!
|: Blessed be the Name :|

Blessed be the Name of the Lord!

If you don't not like your sister,

Do not carry her name abroad.

Take her in your bosom and carry her home to God.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord !

The songs which narrate stories from the Bible often give the sub-
stance of the story in a few lines, and the rest of the song may be more
or less related to the subject.

17. LITTLE DAVID, PLAY ON YOUR HARP.

Following is given aversion of the popular song, "Little David, play
on your Harp." Here the story is told in the first stanza, and the
second stanza is not related to the first. The beauty of the chorus can
only be appreciated when a group of negroes is heard singing it.

David was a shepherd-boy,
Killed Goliath, and shout for joy,

Chorus.
Little David, play on your harp,
Hallelujah! hallelujah!
Little David, play on your harp,
Hallelu!hallelu!

When I was a sinner

I never would quit tel de work was done.

18. don't you HEAR DAT WATER ROLLIN'?

Down by the river side Jordan,
Where John took an' baptized three.
Sadducees and Pharisees,
O John, won't you baptize me?

|: Don't you hear dat water rollin' all night? :| {three times)
Don't you hear dat water rollin' all night long?

19. THAT BLIND MAN.

Another version' of "The Blind Man" represents the blind man
standing "by the grave" and also "by the wave," crying, "() Lord,
don't you hear po' me?" The other parts of the two songs arc dif-
ferent.

'Howard W. Odum. " Roligioua Folk-Songs of the Southern Negroes" (American
Journal of Psychology and Education, vol. iii, p. 356).

264 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

|: Oh that blind man stood on the way an' cried
Cryin', O Lord!

|: I wonder did my people get on board. :|
Cryin', O Lord! save pore me,
That blind man stood on the way an' cried.

|: My pore mother dead an' gone :|
I wonder did my father get on board,
That blind man stood on the way an' cried.

]: All my people dead an' gone :|
That blind man stood on the way an' cried.

20. WASN T THAT A MIGHTY DAY

That the words make little difference to the singer can be seen in
parts of this song. David is a favorite character, and he is put in the
place of Jesus in the stanza. The third line was probably introduced
to rhyme with the first line, after the setting had been given in the
first two lines.

David was a baby lyin' at Mary's arm,
Lyin' in stable of Bethlehem.
Beefsteak keep-a him warm.
Singin',

Chorus.
\: Wasn't that a mighty day :| (three times)
When Jesus Christ was born!

21. NAAMAN THE LEPER.

O Naaman the leper, the honorable man,

No doctor can help him he see.

He pulled off" his burden,

And went into Jordan.

Go wash in the beautiful stream.

Chorus.

No Naaman, No Naaman, go down an' wash,
Go wash in the beautiful stream.

O Naaman went down and his servant was gone,
No man can save him he see.
Go wash in the beautiful stream.

Oh, my, what a sight! the disease made him white.

No doctor can help him he see.

He pulled off his burden,

And went into Jordan.

His burden is easy of course.

Negro Folk-Songs from Tennessee. 265

22. BROTHER HAMMER, RING.

An interesting secular song is the nature song which follows. Some-
times "send in" is used in place of "sing;" and the singer goes through
the list of all the birds he may think of, singing that part of the song
in quick time.

Way by an' by brother hammer, ring,
Brother hammer, ring.
Sing two black-birds,
Brother hammer, ring.

Sing two blue-birds,
Brother hammer, ring.
Sing two green-birds,
Brother hammer, ring.

|: Way by an' by brother hammer, ring :| (four times)
When I 'gin to move.
Brother hammer, ring.
Brother hammer, ring by an' by,

23. drinkin' bottle an' bawn.

I : Drinkin' bottle an' bawn :| (four times)
|: Wonder where my man :!

He on de road somewhere.
|: Won't you call him back :|

He on de road somewhere.

|: Mississippi River she so deep an' wide :| (three times)
They can't cross it, but they sanctified.

24. LEAVE YOUR HOUSE-RENT HERE.

This and the preceding song were sung in a high pitch.

(: Leave your house-rent here :|
If you will go an' won't come back
Leave your house-rent here.

|: Where did you stay las' night :|
Your hair all rumpled up,
Your clothes ain't on you right.

25. A LULLABY.

Religious and secular songs are sung as lullabys also. This one is
repeated a number of times.

Go 'long to sleep,

My little baby.

Mamma gone to town,

Pa[)a runnin' roun',

Left nobody with tlio baby.
Athens, Ga.

a66 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

BULU FOLK-TALES.^

BY GEORGE SCHWAB.
I. THE PANGOLIN AND THE LEOPARD.

It happened thus. Leopard and Pangolin became great friends.
Then spoke Pangolin to Leopard, saying thus, "Come thou to visit
me after two nights have passed."

Then Leopard gathered all his wives. They and he made a large
company, going to the village of Pangolin. But Pangolin had nothing
to cook and set before his guests when they arrived. Therefore he
went on a hunt, but found no place where he could kill game. Several
times went he to the forest to hunt game, each time finding none.
It happened that during his last wandering he came to an immense
tree. This very tree it was that he climbed. Then he fell down to the
earth, rolling himself into a ball' as he fell. An Okpweng ^ chancing
along, and seeing him thusly rolled up, spoke, "Ah, Pangolin, my
brother! what sort of a doing is this thing you are doing here? " Then
answered Pangolin, "Climb the tree and let yourself fall down slowly,
then you shall see (become) like this." Then Okpweng climbed the
tree, letting himself fall down, killing himself by the fall. Thus did
Pangolin obtain game to cook for his guests.

Leopard then returned to his village, saying, ere he left, "Ah,
Pangolin! after two nights from this have passed, come thou to call
on me at my village." Thus dawned the third day, when Pangolin
started out to call on Leopard. Then went Leopard on a hunting,
killing much game. This he cooked, setting it before Pangolin, even
as Pangolin had done unto him. After the eating had been finished,
both Leopard and Pangolin went on a hunting, but saw nothing to
kill. Then it was that Pangolin climbed the tree again, falling down as
before, and rolling himself up into a ball. Leopard spoke, "Now I
too shall climb the tree and fall down." — "Climb if you choose,"
answered him Pangolin. This Leopard did, falling, and killing himself
in the fall. Then arose Pangolin and hacked Leopard up into pieces,
which he finished eating.

Thus did Pangolin deceive and kill Leopard.

2. the YOUNG-PANGOLIN AND THE PIG FAMILY.

Leopard and Young-Pangolin went away from all their brothers,
even leaving them behind. Leopard did thus: he killed game, and

* See " Bulu Tales from Kamerum, West Africa," by Adolph N. Krug (this Journal,
vol. XXV, pp. 106-124).

' The pangolin sleeps rolled up into a ball during the daytime. At dusk it awakens
and goes in search of ants to eat, again curling itself up to sleep at gray da^vn, so the
natives state.

• The antelope Cephalophus melanorheus.

Bulu Folk-Tales. 267

fed Young-Pangolin. Then it came to pass that Leopard said to
Young-PangoHn, "You, when are you going to provide me with some
game?" Then arose Young- Pangolin and went to Husband Pig's,
even reaching his village. To Husband Pig he said, "Ah, Husband
Pig! your wife has cursed you with many bad cursings." Having
spoken thus, he left hastily, going even to Husband Pig's wife. To
her he said, "Ah, Wife Pig! it is your own husband that has cursed
you with many bad cursings." Then Young-Pangolin disappeared.
Then Husband Pig and Wife Pig, seeking each other, met, quarrelled,
and fought. Their fighting they fought until both died. Then ap-
peared Young-Pangolin, who picked up and carried the two corpses to
Leopard's village. One he gave to Leopard, the other he retained for
himself. Thus it happens when husband and wife believe a stranger.

3. HOW TURTLE DECEIVED LEOPARD INTO EATING HIS OWN MOTHER.

It happened thus. Turtle and Leopard were very hungry, having
no food at all. Turtle said, "Come, Leopard, let us kill and eat our
own mothers!" Leopard, hearing^ great hunger, said, "Come on,
then, we will kill them at the stream." Turtle answered him, "Mine
is across the stream. I'll go bring her." So Turtle left Leopard,
crossing the stream alone. Then he went into the forest, where he
gathered two basketfuls of the fruit ngong.- From this he pressed
the juice with his hands, th^n poured it into the stream. It flowed
down to Leopard, who, seeing the colored water, believed it to be the
blood of Mother Turtle. Then Leopard seized and killed his own
mother.

Turtle and Leopard now returned to the village, Turtle going to his
mother's hut. Her he hid in a large peanut-basket. Having done
this, he returned to Leopard's hut, where they cooked the bundle'
containing Motlier Leopard's corpse. Leopard went out to the back
of the hut to look for something. During his absence, Turtle hastily
exchanged the bundle containing Mother Leopard's corpse, which
they had been cooking, for his own bundle. When Leopard returned,
Turtle said, "Let us eat our mothers now!" Leopard agreeing,
Turtle went, and soon returned with Leopard's bundle. They ate up
everything in it. "Now," said Turtle, "you take your bundle, and
we will eat what it contains too." To his surprise, Leopard found

' Feeling. The Bulu never "feci," they always "hear:" for example, "I hear pain;"
"I hear hunger;" "I hear sorrow;" etc.

' A fruit about the size of a very large plum, blood-red, tart, and very palatable.
Its juice stains everything with which it conies into contact a blood-red.

• "Bundle cooking" may be termed the "paper-bag" cooking of many native tribes.
Young and untorn banana or plantain leaves are cut and wilted over a fire to toughen them.
Then the food to be cooked is put into the wilted leaves, tlie ends gathered together, the
bundle put into a pot, and set over a fire to boil.

268 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

ngong fruit in his own bundle. Then he spoke angrily thus, "Why
did you say, 'Come, let us eat our mothers'? For this thing I shall go
and seize and kill your mother." Turtle made answer, "You are
truly a foolish thing. Does one kill and eat his own mother? Yes,
your foolishness is truly great." Thus did Turtle deceive Leopard
to satisfy his hunger.

4. HOW THE MVON^ DESTROYED HIMSELF.

Mvon and Sparrow were together. Mvon spoke thus, "Let us go
drink palm-wine to-day!" Thus answered him Sparrow, "That would
be a bad thing to do. No drink, lest we die!" But Mvon kept
repeating stronger and more fiercely, "Sparrow, let us go drink
palm-wine!" Sparrow, tiring of Mvon's entreaties, at last consented.
Then went they to the forest, seeking and finding the wine-palm. A
tree they tapped. Then did they drink. But Sparrow surpassed
drinking (drank very heavily), and talking very loudly. Many birds,
hearing Sparrow's voice, gathered to learn the cause of the much
talking.

A boy who happened in that part of the forest, hearing the great
noise of talking, hastened home and got his bow-gun. Nearing
Sparrow's tree, he saw Mvon staggering along the ground. Him he
wounded with a great wounding, so that Mvon died. But all the
birds flew away. Then took the boy Mvon's corpse and brought it
to town. Thus perished Mvon, because he refused to listen to Spar-
row.

5. HOW PEOPLE SUFFER BECAUSE THEY RESENT A CHANGE.

Thus did it happen. Man married many wives, who bore him
abundance of children. Then Man commanded his sons, saying,
"Let not one of you go to the forest, lest an evil thing befall you!"

Now, it came to pass that one of his sons went to the river to bathe.
There he saw Monkey in a tree. Taking up his own bow-gun, he
wounded Monkey, who tried to escape in the forest. Son followed,
running swiftly under the trees. Thus was it that Son became lost
in the forest, where he slept three nights.^ He then came to a village
which was unknown to him. The people of this village were all very
dry,^ — yes, they were all very, very dry. They asked Son thus,

' The monkey Colobus salanus.

* Among many tribes it is customary to reckon time and distance by nights, not days:
for example, " Three nights ago he was here" (i.e., " he was here four days ago ") ; "the
village of A is two nights from here" (i.e.. "A is three days' walk from here"); etc.

' Thin. "Dry" is the term used for " thin " or "emaciated " in speaking of animate
objects. Sometimes, when most of the population of a village is absent or away tem-
porarily (as for hunting or fishing), it is spoken of as "dry:" for example, "Our village is
dry to-day."

Bulu Folk-Tales. 269

"Ah, friend, you, what sort of food is it that you eat?" Not making
answer to them. Son asked, "But you, what food is it that you all
eat?" Thus made they answer, "We eat only mushrooms. We have
no fire. We do not cook. The whole village eats only raw mush-
rooms."

Son, hearing^ great pity for them, spoke, "Come, you, all come to
my village!" They answered, "No, lest it happen that you eat us
when we arrive there." Son said, "No, I shall not eat you."

But two people of the village escaped and followed him. These
Son led to his village. Arrived there, Son called all the people together
to see the Dry People. Then wondered the men of the village at them
with a great wondering, saying, "What manner of men are these?
What sort of food is it that they eat?" They answered thus, "We
eat only mushrooms." The villagers replied, "Give these Dry Men
food." Then did they eat and grow large (fat), like Son, who had
brought them to his village.

Then said they of the tribe of the Dry People, "Now we shall depart
and get our fathers to come here." So they returned to their village,
saying to their people, "Let us go move to a real town!" But their
fellow-townsmen refused, hearing too much fear and doubt in their
hearts. And thus it comes, that, even unto this day, they are still
the tribe of the Dry People.

6. THE EVIL OF TOO MUCH TALK.

It happened that Akpwe,^ Monkey, Ngui,^ and Ngung,^ each tiring
of living alone, made a compact to live together. For their village they
chose a large hollow tree near a stream. After they had arrived at
their new home, they talked a great palaver. Yes, it was truly a great
palaver, lasting all night. Finally Akpwe said, "There is to be no
talking during the daytime in our village. Talk will mean death
to us."

"Truly you are wise, Akpwe," said the others, "there will be heard
only silence in our village during the day." And thus was it truly for
a time.

Now, Akpwe lived at the foot of the tree; Monkey chose the centre;
Ngui found a good opening into the hollow trunk; while Ngung built
a nest near the top. As time passed, the fruit of the tree ripened.
Ngung, seeing this, rejoiced greatly and began eating, making a great
noise about his good fortune. Then said Akpwe, "Monkey, pass the
talk up to Ngung to be silent, lest a bad death should find us."

* See footnote i, p. 267.

' The large horned viper Bitis gahonica and nasicornes.

* The scale-tailed squirrel of several species.

* The large black hornbill Ceratogymna alrala.

270 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

At that time there happened by a boy with a bow-gun. Hearing
Ngung's loud talking, he at once saw him in the tree-top, aimed, and
brought him down.

Ngung, falling, hit Ngui, who was sitting before his own door, sun-
ning himself. "Who is hitting me?" cried out Ngui.

" Kpwing!" went another arrow, and down fell both Ngung and Ngui
on to the back of Monkey. Boy then saw him too and brought him
down, all three falling at the foot of the tree. As Boy went to pick
up his booty, he spied Akpwe. Boy broke off a piece of a limb, killing
Apkwe with it.

In dying, Akpwe said, "Did I not tell you all that if you would not
make (keep) silence during the day, we should die a bad dying!"
But Boy picked up the four corpses, which he carried to his village.

7. THE EVIL OF DISREGARDING THE TABOO OF THE WITCH DOCTOR.

There was a man who had a son. This son was his first-born. He
grew up and had no riches. Then said he, "I'll go to my brother-in-
law's village, and he shall give some charm which I can eat, for riches."
Therefore he went to Brother-in-Law's, where he obtained and ate the
charm for riches. After this had been done, Brother-in-Law gave him
a bow-gun, saying, "I give you the command now, never to kill
Osen^ when you are shooting with this bow-gun. If you kill Osen,
you will have broken the command, and destroyed the charm. Riches
will never be yours."

After this was over, First-Born returned to his father's. Soon he
took the bow-gun and went on a hunt in the forest. Here he found a
dead elephant, with Osen sitting on its head. First-Born returned
home and called the villagers to come out and cut up Elephant. They
all came, cut up Elephant, and took the flesh and tusks home. But
Osen kept following close behind First-Born until First-Born drove
him away.

On another day, First-Born again took his bow-gun and went out
into the forest, where he found another elephant, with Osen again
sitting on Elephant's head. First-Born said to himself, "I have a
command not to kill Osen; but why does he thus torment me?"
Again First-Born returned home and called the villagers to come out
to cut up Elephant. They went out as before. Also they again
carried the flesh and tusks home, after they had cut up Elephant.

When First-Born looked around, he beheld Osen following close
behind. Then said First-Born, "Osen is really tormenting me very

' A small squirrel of two species, Sciurus isabella and S. lemniscatus. It begins to scold
loudly on the approach of any person or animal, and continues as long as the intruder is
in sight. It scolds especially loudly when an animal is under the tree in which it happens
to be. This fact is taken advantage of by hunters.

Bulu Folk-Tales. 271

much. I shall kill him." Yes, he even killed Osen upon the path.
When First-Born reached the village, he went to look at his riches
in the hut where riches are kept. There he found the tusks gone.
Therefore did he hear great sorrow in his heart. So he went out to
the forest behind the hut and hung himself and died, because he him-
self had destroyed the charm for riches when he broke the command
the witch doctor had given him.

8. TURTLE SURPASSES MAN IN INGENUITY.

It happened thus. Man, whose name was Zomeyomebe'e, had a
daughter. Now, Man said thus, "No one can ever give me a dowry
and marry this virgin of mine for it. She can only be married by the
man who brings me water from the stream in a basket." So all men
tried to thus win her, but all failed to obtain her in marriage. At
last came Turtle one day to Man, saying, "I have come to marry your
daughter." Man answered, "Go fetch me basketfuls of water from
the stream."

So Turtle made himself a basket. This basket did he take to the
stream, where he dipped it into the water. Then he called a child of
that village, Man's child it was, and told it thus, " Go tell your father, if
he wishes me to carry to him this basketful of water, to make and bring
to me a carrying-strap of smoke." But Man tired trying to make the
carrying-strap of smoke, saying at last, "Turtle, you have surpassed
me in ingenuity. Come, take and marry my daughter!" So Turtle
came and took Man's daughter in marriage. Then lived Turtle and
Man many days in great friendship, because Turtle had won Man's
daughter by his surpassing ingenuity,

9. AKPWE^ PAYS FOR HIS DECEPTION.

It happened thus. Akpwe and Osen ^ made a great friendship with
each other, even living together. In the course of time, Osen had three
children. Now, Akpwe ate Osen's children. Then Osen had three
more, after four rainy seasons had passed. The first was named
Mine'e; the second, Mintene; and the third, Abutan. Osen thus to
Akpwe, "If you again eat my children, I'll kill you." Then went
Osen out to work in the forest. When he had gone, Akpwe ate the
child named Mine'e. When Osen returned from the forest, he found
that Akpwe had eaten Mine'e. Then Osen asked him, "Where is the
child?" — "I don't know." Osen again went to the forest, and
returned only to find that Akpwe had eaten Mintene. Again asking
"Where is the other one?" Akpwe answered, " I don't know." For a
third time Osen went to the forest, finding Abutan missing when he

' See footnote 2, p. 269. ' See footnote i, p. 270.

2/2 Journal oj A7ncrican Folk-Lore.

returned. Tlicn went Osen to Akpwe, and, accusing him, said,
"You ha\c killed Mine'e; you liavc killed Mintene, and also Abutan,^
and also Abutan, and also Abutan!" Then heard Man, who was
passing, the talk Osen was talking. So he went to look under the
tree. There he found Akpwe, and slew him.

Thus did Akpwe pay the penalty for eating Osen's children.

10. THE ANIMALS PERISH BECAUSE THEY REFUSE TO LISTEN TO NYOK.

All the beasts of the forest came together to eat the shrub esombo.^
Daily they and the animal called Nyok ^ came together to eat of this
shrub. One day Nyok (spoke) thus, "Come, let us learn to climb
trees!" The others thus, "No, we refuse to learn to climb trees."
But Nyok did the thing his heart told him to do. Now, it happened
that Man passed by that region, and, noting that the shrubs were
much eaten, set many traps about them. The next day all the
beasts came again to eat at this place, of the shrub esombo. But
they all became entangled and caught in the snares and traps, dying
a bad death. Then said Nyok thus, "You have all died because you
made ears ^ when I asked you to come with me and learn to climb
trees. I have learned, and thus have escaped."

II. HOW TURTLE THREW LEOPARD IN WRESTLING.

It happened thus. All the beasts of the forest came together to
hold a wrestling-match. Ah, that was really a great wrestling-match !
But, try as they would, none of them could throw Leopard. He
surpassed them all in wrestling. Now, there was a stump in the village
street where the wrestling took place. Elephant stood by this stump,
hiding it from view. Around this stump it was that Leopard had
wound his tail; therefore had he great strength. At last Leopard also
challenged Turtle. Turtle thus, "Not to-day, on the morrow, shall
we wrestle our wrestling." So they left it. Then in the night came
Turtle and dug up the stump, which the foolish eyes of the other
beasts had not beheld. When morning dawned, Turtle appeared, and
with him all the other beasts. "Come now. Leopard, and let us
wrestle our wrestling! " said Turtle. So they wrestled. Turtle throwing
Leopard with a great throw. Then came the match to an end.
Turtle having been declared the surpasser of all.

1 The words "and also Abutan" are tige na Abutan in Bulu, and sound, when properly
intonated, like the chatter of the scolding squirrel.

* A shrub whose tough fibres are used by natives for making string.

* The tree hyrax {Procavia dor sails).

* Refused to listen.

Bidu Folk-Tales. 273

12. HOW TURTLE SAVED HIS LIFE.

It happened thus. Leopard was killing and eating all the beasts
)f the forest. Many pits dug he to catch and kill them. Now, it
lappened that Turtle left his village for a walk; but he had not
rotten far, when he, too, fell into one of the pits. "Woe is me, I am
done for!" thought he. Nko'o,^ too, went for a walk in the forest
this same day. He chanced to pass the pit in which Turtle was, who,
»vhen he saw Nko'o, said in his heart, "I'll try Nko'o to learn how his
leart is towards me." So Turtle thus, "Ah, Nko'o, my brother,
ihere are a lot of fine women down here. Come on down! I'll intro-
duce you." At this, Nko'o climbed down into the pit. Then said
Furtle, "Are you strong enough to throw me up out of this pit?"
N'ko'o thus, "Why?" Turtle thus, "Because I doubt your strength."
5o Nko'o picked him up and threw him out of the pit, not caring to be
ivith any one who despised or doubted his ability. From the top of
:he pit Turtle asked Nko'o, "Hoofs or horns — which was it that dug
:his pit?" Nko'o thus, "Claws." Turtle thus, "You remain down
there, I am going to the village."

Then went Turtle to Leopard, saying, "Ah, father mine, have you
3een out to examine your pits to-day?" Leopard thus, "No. Why
lo you ask me thus?" Turtle thus, "Because I dreamed a dream that
in animal had fallen into your pit." Leopard thus, "Come on, then,
ead the way and show me the pit!" So they went. Turtle showing
Leopard the path (leading the way) until the pit was reached. Here
Leopard saw Nko'o in the bottom of it. He raised his spear, intending
to kill Nko'o. He thus, "Hold on there! Let me tell you how it
:ame about." Turtle thus, "Ah, Father Leopard, shall it be that an
mimal dare speak to you?" Then Turtle raised his spear and threw
^t at Nko'o, wounding him so that he died. Then they both took
i^ko'o out of the pit and carried him to town, where they hacked him
:o pieces, eating him afterwards. So Turtle deceived Nko'o, and
gained the friendship and protection of Leopard.

13. TURTLE DRINKS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE OTHER BEASTS.

One day Leopard climbed a wine-palm, wiiich he tapped. Turtle,
vho happened by at the time, saw him suspend the gourd to catch
he wine. So he hunted iij) ()ki)weng, telling him, "Come, let us go
o the forest at gray dawn in the morning and drink Leopard's palm-
vine!" Okpwcng agreed to do so. At gray dawn in the morning he
amc, calling Turtle. He thus, "Have you a bag?" OkpwtMig thus,

Yes." Then they went out into the forest, climbed the palm-tree,
nd drank the palm-wine. After they had emptied the gourd, Turtle

' The antelope Tragelaphus scriptus.
VOL. XXVII. — NO. 105. — 19.

274 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

thus, "You help nic down, then remain up here until more wine drips
into the gourd. Then let it down to me in your bag." Okpweng
then helf)cd Turtle down, he himself remaining in the tree. When he
reached the ground. Turtle quickly hid himself in a leafy thicket.

Then appeared Leopard, who, seeing Okpweng up in the tree, said
in a loud, scolding voice, "So you are the one who constantly drinks
my palm-wine?" Then Leopard climbed the tree, and caught and.
killed Okpweng,

Turtle now went to S6,^ saying, "Early in the morning we shall go
to the forest to drink Leopard's palm-wine." So agreed. Very early
in the morning it was, when So came to call Turtle, saying, "Show me
the path - to Leopard's palm-wine." They both climbed the tree,
drinking the wine, as on the day before. After they had emptied the
gourd, Turtle asked So to help him down. So did, remaining in the
tree. Then Turtle again quickly hid in the leafy thicket.

Soon Leopard came along to collect his palm-wine. Seeing So, and
finding his wine gone as before, He caught and killed So too.

Thus did Turtle to all the beasts, deceiving them, and himself
drinking Leopard's wine.

14. THE TWO LEPERS.

There was a woman who bore two sons, both of whom became lepers.
She bought^ all the witch doctors of great healing repute; but none of
their remedies would hear.^ Now, there was a great maker of medicine
who could heal leprosy; but she knew not of him. His name was
M6te Biafi.^

One day Mote Biaii was out hunting in the forest, when he lost his
way. As he walked his walking to find the way home, he at last came
to the village of the two lepers. Here the lepers and their mother
provided him with food, also giving him a hut in which to live. One
day Mote Biaii called Mother-of-the-Lepers, saying thus, "Why is it
that you refuse to heal your sons?" Mother-of-the-Lepers answered
him thus, "Ah, father! and who is there to teach me to make this
medicine? Have not I bought all the witch doctors in the tribe to
make medicine for my boys? but all of their remedies and charms
refuse to hear." Mote Biah thus, "Ah, Lepers! come to my village;
perhaps I can heal you." Elder-Leper thus, "Yes; but who knows
where your village is? Where is the path that leads there?" Mote
Bian thus, "Go to the village where they have no mothers."

* The antelope Cephalophus caslancus.

* "To show any one the path" means, in Bulu, to accompany one along the path.

* "To buy" is often used by the Biilu in the sense of "to hire."

* The Bulu say a remedy refuses "to hear," not "to heal;" the idea being, that the
witch or spirit whose special charm is being made use of, or has been used, refuses to listen
or hear.

* Meaning "man of charms or medicines," or witch doctor.

Bidu Folk-Tales. 275

So Elder-Leper went to this village. Mote Bian had food brought
for him, then showed him a hut in which to live, which contained two
pole beds, — the one very good and beautiful, the other very bad and
broken. " Here is your hut. Which bed do you choose?" asked Mote
Biaii. Elder-Leper answered. Ah, father! give me the wretched one."
The next day Elder-Leper asked the directions of the river, as he
wished to bathe there. Mote Biaii showed it to him. Then he went,
finding clear pools and muddy pools. He then stepped into a muddy
pool; and as he bathed, his leprosy disappeared. Rejoicing, he went
home to his own village.

Now, Younger-Leper thought he would like to try this thing too.
So he went to the village of the No-Mothers. As Mote Bian had
spoken to Elder-Leper, even so spoke he to Younger-Leper. The
latter chose the good bed, and bathed in a clear pool. But his leprosy
never left him, as he was too proud of heart, refusing to take the
leper's bed, then bathing in the pools used by other people.

15. HOW OKPWENG GOT HIS LANGUAGE.

It happened thus. Okpweng left his village. He thus, "I have a
desire to go on a walk to see Leopard." So he started out, and at
last reached Lepoard's village. Here he learned that Leopard was out
fishing. Okpweng thus to the villagers, "I hear great hunger in my
belly."

When Leopard returned from his fishing, he met Okpweng. Then he
called a wife, saying to her, "There is a guest in my palaver-house."
Then went his wife and peeled plantains, which she put into a cooking-
crock together with some fish. She also took a charm, which she put
in with the other things. When the food had finished cooking, she
took it from the fire and set it before Leopard. He in turn set it
before Okpweng, who began at once to eat. As he was very hungry,
he kept repeating the word "zam;"^ thus, "Zam, zam, zam!" No
other word did he say but "zam, zam, zam;" never even thanking his
host Leopard for his kindness. So Leopard cursed him with a great
curse, saying, "That will be your talk (language) for all the days to
come."

And so it happens that the ungrateful iiihc of Okpweng has no other
talk but "Zam, zam, zam, zam!" even unto this day.

16. HOW DIXEITFUL HOY WAS PUNISHED.

It happened thus, that Man had a son to whom he gave a bow-gun.
Son then went to the forest to hunt with it. There he found I?eta Mot -

' Bulu for "savory" or "tasty." The "a" in "zam" is sounded like "a" in "father."
VV'ticn the word is slightly drawn out in speaking, especially the "a," it sounds like the call
of the okpweng.

' Bulu for "large man" or "^iant."

276 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

sitting in a clump of \incs in a tree-top. As soon as he had noticed
Beta Mot, tlic latter asked, "What are you hunting?" Boy thus,
"I have come to kill birds." Beta Mot thus, "What would you like
to kill, above all other game?" Boy thus, "Monkeys." Beta Mot
thus, "Wait a bit." Then he picked up a bow-gun and an arrow,
both of brass, and gave them to Boy. He then shook the vines.

Monkey came out of the clump and sat looking about to see who it
was that had disturbed his sleep.

"Shoot!" said Beta Mot to Boy. So Boy shot his bow-gun, and
killed Monkey. "Now go to your \illage and cook the liver and tail,
and bring them to me in the morning!" commanded Beta Mot. Then
Boy returned to his village and did as Beta M6t had bidden him.
When day dawned. Boy started on the path to Beta Mot's. As he
walked, he said to himself, "Is it that Beta Mot can see me here?"
So he tasted the food in the bundle he was carrying. It tasted very
good, — so good, indeed, that he ate it all up.

But Beta Mot was watciiing him as he ate. He also saw how Boy
hid the leaves of the food-bundle at the root of a tree. For three days
did Beta Mot help Boy kill a monkey, and three times did Boy deceive
him thus, each time telling him thus, "As I slept at night the dogs came
and ate up your liver and tail." He believed that he was deceiving
Beta Mot. Then said the latter, "To whom do you liken me? Do
you believe that I did not see you eat those bundles of food yourself?"
So Beta M6t became very angry, and in his anger he slew Boy because
of his deceit.

17. MOLE AND LEMUR.

Lemur and Mole went out into the forest to camp for a time. As
they were out there, Mole said to Lemur one day, "Lemur, I am going
for a walk in the forest. You keep your eyes on the path I am taking,
and don't you dare look anywhere else. If you do, and I lose my way,
you and I will have a palaver when I return." So Lemur looked along
the path Mole had taken, and kept looking and looking, till his eyes
seemed to be starting from his head, yes, even until they were the
size of a man's hand. W^icn Mole returned from his going, he found
Lemur's eyes large and sticking out. Mole thus, "What's this I see?"
Lemur thus, "You, you, are the cause of this."

Then it happened one day that Lemur said to Mole, "Mole, this
day I am going to walk a walk in the forest. You are to remain here
to take care of the coals of fire I brought from our village. You keep
blowing them, lest they go out." So Mole remained at home and kept
blowing the coals. He blew and blew until his lips lengthened out
into a snout. Also the sparks he blew up fell on to his back and singed
his hair, covering his body with a bad odor.

Thus it was that Mole caused Lemur to get his large saucer-eyes, and

Bidii Folk-Tales. 277

Lemur caused Mole to get a snout for a mouth, and an evil odor to
his body.

18. TURTLE AND MIAN ^ DISPUTE.

One day Turtle and Mian were out walking, when Mian said to
Turtle, "I can beat you running." Turtle took exception to this
boast. Thus they disputed about it until they tired disputing. At
last Turtle asked Mian if he would run with him on the morrow to
settle the matter. Mian consented to do so, because he knew that
he could outran Turtle.

So they agreed to meet at that very spot in the morning to run the
race. Having thus agreed, each went home to his own village. Yes,
Turtle went home to his own village, where he gathered together his
wives and children, also his relatives and fathers. On the face of each
he made a mark of redwood-powder. Then he took the whole com-
pany to the spot from which he and Mian were to start the race.
From here he went over the course which he and Mian were to follow
in their running, placing a relative at intervals along the route. Each
one was instructed to remain where he was until Mian had passed.
They were also to show their faces when Mian would ask, "Are you
there. Turtle?"

When Mian arrived in the morning, he called twice, "Where are you,
Turtle?" Turtle thus, " I am here!" Mian noticed that his opponent
had a redwood-powder mark on his face.

As soon as everything was ready, they started off; but Turtle sat
down as soon as Mian was out of sight. Mian ran and ran. At last
he called out, "Where arc you. Turtle?" — "Here I am," came the
answer from a turtle with a redwood-powder mark on his face. So he
began again, and once more called, "Turtle, where are you?" after
he had run for a time. A second time the answer came from a turtle
with a redwood-powder mark on his face, "Here I am!" A tliird time
Mian ran, running faster and farther than before, and believing that
now he surely would neither hear nor sec anything more of Turtle.
So he again called out, "Turtle, where are you?" A third time the
answer came, "I am here!" Then Mian gave up the race, because
he could run no more. Thus was it that Turtle beat Mian in the race,
because of his wisdom, and so settled the disi)ute.

19. now WIFE LEOPARD FAILED TO GET MONKEY TO EAT.

It hai)pened thus. Leopard mairud a wife. She bore a child,
then she bore another. So she made a now that she would nt\ rr eat
any meat again but that of monkeys. After she had made the vow,
she told her husband of il. W'lien she had finished telling him, he
said, "How shall I see (find) mcMikcy for you to eat?" As she would

' The antelope Cephalophus leucogasUr.

278 Journal oj American Folk- Lore.

eat no other meat, he finally had to go to the forest to hunt monkeys.
There he heard them talking, so he went over to where they were and
called to them.

Hearing his voice, they all came to where he was, swinging into the
lower branches. Then he asked, "Can you not come to me on the
ground?" They answered him thus, "You will have to tell us what
it is you have to say while we sit up here." As there was nothing else
to do, Leopard said, "We have been separated for many days, therefore
do I wish that we talk some palavers." But to this they answered,
"Not just now; but when two nights have passed, we will talk
these palavers." They also said thus, "Wait! We will give you
a thing. You are to return it to us when you come to talk your
palavers."

Then they climbed into the high tree-tops, where they took Ozem ^
and put him into a quiver.- This quiver they gave Leopard, warning
him not to open it when he left them. "When you return again, you
are to give us this thing again, even as we give it to you. Then will
we talk the palavers." This thing they did because they suspected
that he wished to catch some of them.

So Leopard took the quiver and went home. When he reached
his village and entered his hut, his wife waylaid him, and asked,
"Where are the monkeys?" He thus, "I'll go and catch some when
two nights have passed."

Now, when Ozem heard him say this, he wondered greatly, saying in
his heart, "So Leopard wished to kill us!"

When the two nights had passed. Leopard picked up the thing the
Monkeys had given him, and said to Wife Leopard, "To-day it is that
you shall eat much monkey." Then he went to the place of meeting
agreed upon. The Monkeys too came. They took a long vine and
let it down to Leopard, saying, "Tie the thing we gave you to the end
of this \ine." So he tied the small thing they had given him to the
end of the \inc. Then they pulled it up.

Now he looked and saw how they took the lid off the quiver and let
Ozem out. Leopard was dumfounded. Ozem thus, "If one of you
go to the ground, you will be caught. His wife is at the bottom of this.
She has made a vow not to eat any flesh but that of monkeys. That is
why he has come here to-day." When they had heard this, they all
scampered away through the tree-tops. Thus Leopard lost, because
he was stupid enough to trust the Monkeys.

* The small river-monkey Cercopithecus talapoin, about the size of a cat.

' The Bulu quiver is a bark pail-like cylinder from ten to fifteen inches in height. It
has a bark cover, inside of which is kept the poison into which ar.ows are dipped. The
arrows are merely rounded and pointed strips of the branches of the raffia-palm.

Bulii Folk-Tales. 279

20. HOW TURTLE GOT EVEN WITH EAGLE.

It happened thus. Eagle and Turtle built a village together. One
day Turtle went walking in the forest, leaving Eagle at home alone.
As soon as Turtle had disappeared in the forest, Eagle seized Turtle's
child and killed it. When Turtle returned from his going, he found
his child dead: so he asked Eagle thus, "What was it that killed my
child?" But Eagle answered him not a word, because his heart
accused him. Then Eagle took all his goods and flew to a far land
where Turtle could not follow him. No, Turtle did not even know
where this land was.

However, one day as he was looking out of the door of his hut, he
saw Parrot flying by. To him he called out, "Ah, Parrot! where does
Eagle keep himself these days?" Parrot thus, "He has gone to a
place where you cannot easily reach him." Now, after he had heard
this saying of Parrot's, he began to plan how he could reach Eagle's
new home. After a time he said to Parrot, "When you come by here
again, you take the package you will find lying outside my door and
give it to Eagle, and tell him that it was Turtle who sent it to him.
Tell him also that Turtle is coming to see him some time." When
Parrot had flown away. Turtle tied himself up in a package, fastening
it together from the inside.

The next day Parrot came back to Turtle's village, where he found
the package lying near the door of the hut; so he picked it up and
flew with it to Eagle's new village. Now, when Eagle opened the
package, out came Turtle. When Eagle saw him, great fear came
into his heart because he knew that he had killed Turtle's child. But
Turtle asked him, after looking about, "What is the matter with your
wives and children? Why are they thin and sickly looking?" This
made Eagle believe that Turtle did not suspect him of the murder.
Turtle then continued, "If you wish that your wives and children get
well, I'll make medicine for them at the stream on the morrow."
Eagle, fearing that the dryness ^ of his wives and children might bring
death upon them, consented. The next day they all went to the
stream, Eagle remaining at home. Turtle had built a rude hut of
branches. Into this he called the family of Eagle one by one, killing
each as he entered.

Thus it happens when one friend deceives another and turns him
into a bitter enemy.

21. TURTLE AND HIS DRUM ^ ESCAPE LEOPARD.

Turtle and Lcoixird were li\ ing together. Leopard thus one day,
"Let us hew ourselves two driinis, friend Turtle!" Turtle thus,

' See footnote 3, p. 268.

' The Bulu signal-drum is made by hollowing out a section of a log. It may be made
In any size, from about nine inches to several feet in diann ter, and from two to six feet
long.

28o Journal of American Folk-Lore.

"Come on, then!" So they went to the forest and felled a tree.
Then they cut two sections out of the butt, and hewed out the drums.
Now, the drum of Turtle talked ^ with a better voice than did that of
Leopard, which made him covet it. Daily he coveted it more and
more, until he at last tried to take it from Turtle by force. But
Turtle ran away through the forest. Leopard following after him, until
they reached a stream. Into this Turtle jumped with his drum.
But the tribe of Leopard had never learned to swim. Thus he failed
to get the drum.

And thus it happens that a friendship can be broken up when one
lets his heart do covetousness.

22. WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE TROUBLE?

It happened thus. Fly went walking a walk. As he walked his
walk, he came upon Cobra, who was lying at the root of a tree. So Fly
said to himself, "I believe that I'll make some trouble for Elephant,
who is doubtless scratching himself at this time of day against some
foolish vine." Then he crept up and stung Cobra, who hastened away
from his tormentor, crawling into Snail's hole in the ground. Snail
thus, "Who is this? As I am sitting here, how can I see you?" After
having spoken thus, he crawled out of his hole and climbed a tree.
Here he came upon Monkey. He thus, "Who are you? As I sit here,
how can I see you?" So Monkey ran away. As he jumped on to an
umbrella-tree, the limb broke, causing him to fall on to the back of
Pig, who was resting with his family under the tree. Pig family all
became frightened and ran away. Monkey holding to the back of
Father Pig as he ran. They soon came upon Elephant, who was
scratching himself against a vine. He took fright as the Pig family
went rushing by. Running through the forest, he came to a stream,
which he crossed. On some Fish which were lazily swimming about.
Elephant stepped, killing them. Then the other Fish gathered to-
gether to talk the palaver, asking, "Whose is this blood-palaver?"
Some thus, "Elephant's." He thus, "Not mine. It is the Pigs'."
Pigs thus, "Not ours. It is Limb-of-Umbrella-Tree's." He thus,
"Not mine. It is Monkey's palaver." Monkey thus, "Not mine. It
is Snail's palaver." Snail thus, "Not mine. It's Cobra's." Cobra
thus, "Not mine. I am still at the place where I first was." Then
Fly came up. He thus, "I have made much trouble for Elephant,
who was scratching himself at the foolish vine." Elephant thus,
"The palaver is Fly's." Fly thus, "Who started you? Does not a
starter of blood-palavers first consider the trouble he will cause others?"
Then he flew away, and no one could follow him.

' Drums are said "to talk" with a "good" or "poor," a "loud" or a "weak" voice.

Buhl Folk-Tales. 281

23, MBA^ SHOWS THAT HE IS RICHER THAN ELEPHANT.

It happened thus, that Mba and Elephant were talking together in
the palaver-house. Elephant thus, "I have more riches than you,
Mba." Mba thus, "No, Elephant, I surpass you in riches." Then
both tried to talk at once. Mba thus, "Wait, Elephant, let me finish
talking." Then he called out with a loud- voice. His wives hearing
him, all gathered together and began cooking much food for him.
Then Elephant talked with a louder^ voice about his riches. But his
wives hearing him, all became frightened, saying, "Trouble has come!"
So they ran away and hid in the forest.

At last Elephant and Mba finished disputing. They then started
off together, reaching first the village of Mba. Here they found that
his wives had finished cooking much food. They sat down and ate
it. After the eating had ended, they went on to Elephant's village.
This they found deserted, his wives not having returned from their
flight. So he called each by name, even telling them to hasten home
immediately. When they came, he asked, "Where is the food?"
They thus, "We heard you talking loudly, so we ran away and hid."

Mba now came to Elephant, and asked, "Where is the food you
promised?" Then thus, "You are poor. You have not even food.
Did not I tell you that my riches surpass yours?" So it came that
Mba surpassed Elephant in riches.

24. HOW leopard's foolishness killed HIM.

Leopard and Python made a great friendship between themselves.
Now one day, as they were talking together about many palavers,
Leopard said to Python, "I want you to give me your skin to make
a carrying-strap as soon as my wife bears her child, so she may have
a strap to carry the child." Now, when Wife Leopard bore her child,
Python slipped off his old skin, which he gave to Leopard, wiio made
a carr>'ing-strap of it.

After many days had passed. Python's wife too bore a child. So
he went to Leopard, asking thus, "Ah, friend Leopard! my wife has
borne her child, but we have no carrying-strap. Give me your skin
to make a strap to carry it!" Then Leopard said lo his children,
"Come, strip the skin off the right half of my body!" This his chil-
dren did, frariiig to ri-fusc. Then Leopard dii-d. Thus Leopard paid
for his foolishness in thinking that his skin was like that of Python.

25. now li:m uu would have killed hi.mself.

It happened thus. Lemur and Cobra being great friends, Cobra
said to Lemur one day, "Come, let us go to my village! Yes, let us

» The touraco {Ttiracus meriani).

* When the male Mba calls liis mate, he calU very louflly.

• When a bull-clopliant trumpets loudly, it is a danger-signal to the rest of the herd.

282 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

go even at this very instant." So Lemur went with him. Now, at
the time that they had first made their great friendship, Cobra had
said, "Our friendship is to be so great, that whenever you come to my
village you shall eat no other flesh but my own skin." They started
out, and at last reached Cobra's village. Here the latter went into
a hut and pulled off his old skin. This he then cut up and put into a
cooking-crock, making a soup of it. This soup Lemur ate. When he
had finished eating, not leav^ing even a small spoonful, he said to
Cobra, "Soon we shall go to my village."

So, after Cobra had set things in order at home, they started back
to Lemur's. When they arrived at the palaver-house, he called all
his wives together. He commanded them to go to their gardens and
get many plantains. This they did. When they returned with the
plantains. Lemur went into a hut, where he lay down on a piece of
bark. Then he called all his children to his side. He gave them a
knife. "What are we to do with it?" they asked. Lemur thus, "I
desire that you strip off my skin." — "How and why shall we strip
the skin off your body?" they asked. Father Lemur thus, "Why,
Cobra took off his skin when I was at his village, even cooking it for
me to eat; and shall I do less to prove my friendship for him?"

Then answered him Oldest-Child-Lemur, "Your foolishness is truly
great, Father Lemur, when your heart tells you that your skin will
come off like that of Cobra." Having thus spoken, he ran off to the
forest, followed by all his brothers.

23. SMALL-HORNBILL ^ PROVES THAT HE IS STRONGER THAN THE OTHER

BIRDS.

All the different tribes of the forest birds came together to talk the
palaver as to which tribe was the strongest. To settle it, they finally
decided that the bird which could shake the tree Oven would be
declared the victor. One after another they took hold of the tree
Oven at the butt, trying vainly to shake it. Not one succeeded; no,
not even a leaf could they cause to quiver. At last Small-Hornbill,
who had just arrived, was asked to try. He flew up into the topmost
branches, causing them to shake with a great shaking. Thus Small-
Hornbill, because of his cunning, surpassed all the others.

27. HOW OKPWA^ OBTAINED PANGOLIN'S DAUGHTER IN MARRIAGE.

It happened that Pangolin had a daughter, who had many suitors.
To them all Pangolin said, "The one who surpasses all the others in

^ Lophoceros fasciatus.

' A large francolin (Francolinus squamatus). It calls loudly from low trees just about
dusk in the evening, and again at about 4.45 in the morning, thus serving travellers as a
sort of alarm-clock.

Buhl Folk-Tales. 283

knowing the time of the morning shall marry my daughter." Now,
Nkulengui ^ boasted, "I, I'll marry that virgin!" When it became
dark, he came to Pangolin's \illage, alighting in a small tree; but he
remained awake only a few hours. When he ceased talking, Pangolin,
thinking that the day was about to dawn, lay down to sleep.^ He lay
a long time, but day refused to dawn. So he arose again, going out
to the forest to hunt more food. All the other suitors too tried in
various ways to meet the conditions Pangolin had made for his daugh-
ter's hand, and all failed to win her.

One day Okpwa came. He thus, "I'll win her!" When twilight
came, he flew into a tree. He then talked a short time, waking up
Pangolin, who saw that it was time to go to the forest in search of
food. He went, eating and eating the small black ant Eson until his
stomach reached even to his heart.^ At the dark dawn of the morning,
Okpwa began talking again. Pangolin returned to his home to hear
and learn what it was that Okpwa was talking so loudly about. Just
as he reached his hut, the gray dawn of the morning began to appear.
Then Pangolin lay down on his bed. Thus did Okpwa surpass all the
other suitors in knowing the time of the morning. So he got Daughter
Pangolin for a wife.

And so it is, too, when one tries to do things other than are his.*

28. now YOUTH CAME TO NOTHING.

It happened that Youth had not a thing which he could use in
payment of a marriage-dowry; no, not a single thing had he. From
place to place he walked about, for he had not even a spot which he
could call home, so poor was he. One day he arose from his bed in the
village in which he happened to be stopping, saying, "I'm going out to
the raffia-palm swamp to get some leaves to repair the roof of this hut."
As he was walking along the path, he heard a talking thus, " Keng6-
kcng6, kc'ngektnge!" Red-squirrel was chattering. Youth turned
aside from the path to find him, and, instead, found Akpwe sleeping
beside a log. With his cutlass he killed Akpwe, then carried him to
the village. When he arrived there, behold ! there was a wife for him
in the hut, awaiting his coming. Then Youth said, "Now I'll return
to the swamp to get the leaves."

So he started out, and again heard Red-S(|uirrel talking as before.
He left the jiath to learn what it was that caused him to chatter this
time. As he looked about, he bclield Akjjwe, whom he killed and
carried home. Now, behold! another wife was in the Iiul, awaiting his
coming. And thus it haiijiened again and again.

* A bird of the rail family, wliicli "talka" Un a time after dusk in tijc evening.

* See footnote 2, p. 266.

* Until he was ready to burst.

* Tries to do what is not in hitn.

284 Jourtial of America?! Folk-Lore.

One day First-Wife came to her husband Youth, and said, "When
my brother conies here, do not allow him to remain, for truly his foolish-
ness is surpassingly great." The next morning, when at dawn Youth
arose, there stood Brother-in-Law in the village street. Youth tried
by e\cry means to drive him away, but Brothcr-in-Law refused to be
driven from the village.

At last Youth said, "I'm going to the raffia-palm swamp now; you
remain here." Brother-in-Law thus, "No, no! I too wish to go
there." Youth thus, "No, I refuse to have you follow me." So he
started out alone. But Brother-in-Law secretly followed him at a
distance. Now he heard Red-Squirrel talking beside the path at the
same time as Youth did. So he hid, then stole along to where Red-
Squirrel was. He found him perched up on a vine, while Akpwe was
sleeping beside a log. Brother-in-Law raised his club and hit Red-
Squirrel on the head thus, ne kpwo! so that he died. But Akpwe
escaped.

This day, when Youth arrived home, he found that all his wives
but First- Wife had disappeared. She thus to him, "Did I not tell
you that the foolishness of my brother was surpassingly great, and
that you were not to allow him to remain here?" Then she too
vanished from his eyes (sight). So all Youth's riches left him, and
he came to nothing, just as he was at first.

29. HOW turtle's greed brought him to a sad end.

It happened thus. Turtle left his village and went to see Leopard
to beg of him one of his claws. When he had reached the palaver-
house, he spoke thus to Leopard, "Ah, father mine! cut ofT one of your
claws for me; I wish to be able to catch game." So Leopard did as
Turtle had requested of him, for there was a surpassing friendship
between them. Turtle took it and put it on one of his fingers, then
said, "Now I am going out to catch animals with my claw." He
returned home, and, taking his cutlass, went to the forest to set
noose-traps. As he was setting one of them, he saw Okpweng coming
along. So he called to Okpweng, "Come, help me set this trap!"
Okpweng came over and set the trap for Turtle. "Now teach me
how they get fast in these traps," he begged.

To oblige him, Okpweng walked along as animals do when they
are unaware of the i)resence of traps. Then he lightly placed one foot
on the stick which held the noose in place, and, kpwing! up snapped
the sapling to which the noose was fastened, catching Okpweng by
the neck and pulling him up into the air. He thus to Turtle, "Come
quickly and take the noose from off my neck or I'll die!" Turtle thus,
"No! Was it I that called you here?" Then he struck Okpweng on
the head with a club and tore him with his claw, so that he died. Then

Bulu Folk-Tales. 285

he took the corpse and hid it. As he was about to again set the trap,
he saw Mvin ^ coming along the path, and repeated to him the same
words he had used to Okpweng. Mvin was also caught around the
neck by the noose and pulled up into the air. "Take me out of this!"
h^ called. "Not at all! Was it I that called you?" cried Turtle,
Then he killed Mvin and also hid his body. Thus did Turtle to many
of the forest beasts, Zip- being the last to get caught and killed.

Mian, who happened along unnoticed by Turtle as he entrapped and
killed Zip, saw and heard what Turtle was doing. Now, after a time
Mian showed himself. Turtle tried the same words he had used to
the others, but Mian pretended to be very stupid. "Ah, friend
Turtle," said he, "my stupidity is surpassingly great. Show me first
how it is done, then all the days to come I can help you. Surely one
as wise as you are, knows a bit about this sort of thing."

"Is it that a beast puts its neck into the noose this way?" asked
Turtle, as he cautiously stuck his head into it. "Let me see," said
Mian, as he came closer. Then he quickly touched the stick which
held the noose in place with his foot, and up into the air went Turtle.
Ne kpwek! did Mian bring down a club on his head, causing him to die.
Thus perished Turtle because of his greed and deceit.

A man who has wisdom in his heart will listen to the words of this
tale.

30. HOW BAT GOT THE HONEY.

It happened thus, that hunger came^ to the village of Bat. So he
went on a journey to other parts. As he walked along the path, he
found a tree with honey. He then called loudly for the forest animals
to come and cut it down. They all came, bringing axes, and soon
had felled it. When the honey had been taken out of the hollow,
Turtle thus, "Now, Bat, you divide the honey among us." Bat thus,
"No, not to-day, wait until the morrow; I want to go back to my
village first." So Bat departed, leaving the others near the honey-
tree. He then entered a near-by hollow tree, and, climbing uj) inside,
clung to the sides. Then he beat his wings together, making a strange
noise. When the beasts at the honey-tree heard it, they all became
frightened and ran away. Then Bat came out, and took all the honey
and wont home.

31. HOW HAT THREW ELEPHANT IN WRESTLING.

It happened that Elephant and all the beasts held a great wrestling-
match. He threw all of them, his strength being surpassingK' great.
At last Bat, who had come late, said, "Now Elephant and I will

• The antelope Cephalophus calypygus.

• The antelope Crphalophus sylvicullryx.

» The Bulu say, "Hunger came" for "There was a famine."

286 Journal of A mcrican Folk-Lore.

wrestle." To this all the other beasts replied, "You! — can you
wrestle with Elephant? Does he not surpass us all in size?" Bat
thus, "I'll try it!" They thus, "Well, then, go and try it." At this
time, Elephant came out into the street, where Bat challenged him.
Elephant thus, "You are surjiassingly small for me to wrestle with
you." Bat thus, "No, come on, I'll wrestle with you!" Then they
grappled. But Bat soon flew into Elephant's ear, where he violently
beat and flapped his wings. Elephant heard a great rattling and com-
motion in his ear. He also heard ^ nmch pain there. Then great fear
came into his heart. He was about to run away, when he suddenly
and unexpectedly fell down. Upon this, all the other animals said,
"You have fallen, you lose!" So it was that Bat surpassed all the
other beasts in strength, because he alone could throw Elephant.

32. WHY THE VINES ARE HOLDING AND CHOKING THE FOREST-TREES.

The Trees and the Vines were together in the palaver-house. As
they talked, the Trees said, "Let's borrow nets and go on a hunt to
kill game!" The Vines agreed. So they got the nets and went out
into the forest to hunt. They set up the nets, then drove in the game,
killing a hundred animals. The Trees then went apart, and after
consultation returned, and said, "We are more numerous than you,
therefore we should get more game." The Vines thus, " No, we are the
more numerous." Then the division of the animals began. But the
Trees took seventy of them. The Vines thus, " No, not so; we are to
get fifty, and you fifty."

The Trees still objecting and making trouble, the Vines went to the
Trees of the tribe called "Mbenga," this tribe having refused to join
in the hunt. They found the Mbenga at home, and asked them thus,
"Is it just that, if you had gone hunting with us and we had killed a
hundred animals together, you had taken seventy and left us with
thirty, our party being as numerous as yours?"

So Father Mbenga-Tree, after he had counted both sides in the dis-
pute, cut the palaver thus:^ each side was to receive fifty animals, —
the Trees fifty, and the Vines fifty. Then, the Vines being angry, each
seized a Tree about the trunk, where they are still holding them, even
to this day; yes, all except the Trees of the tribe of the Mbenga, be-
cause they were just in cutting the palaver. They alone are left, of
all the Forest-Trees, without Vines holding them fast.

33. MAN KILLS HIS OWN CHILD.

It happened thus. Man and Woman had a son. Now, whenever
Wife wished to go anywhere, or to go to work in the forest-garden,

1 See footnote i, p. 267. ' Pronounced judgment thus.

Bulu Folk-Tales. 287

she always begged Husband to take care of Son; but he constantly
refused to do so. Thus it was all the days. So Wife had to take Son
with her wherever she went. One day when she took him to the
garden, a big bird flew to her as she was working. Big-Bird said,
"Here, give me Son! I'll take care of him while you work." Wife
thus, "And do birds take care of the children of men?" Big-Bird
thus, "Just let me have the child, and see!" Wife thus, "What else
can I do? Ke! Have not I daily begged his father to care for Son,
and he has tormented me by refusing?" So she gave Son to Big-Bird,
who took him.

Then Big-Bird sang this song to Son, thus, "Efofolo child! 6-ye-ya!
6-ye-ya! e-ya! The thing that killed Son did not come from down
the path, but from the village." Thus sang Big-Bird his song until
Son fell asleep. When Wife had finished her garden-work, she again
took the child and returned home. In the morning she again went to
her garden, taking Son with her, as before. Big-Bird was awaiting
her arrival, and again took care of Son while Woman worked. He also
sang again the song of the previous day until he had lulled Son to
sleep. Thus was it for several days.

One day. Husband thus to himself, "Who is it that takes care of Son
while Wife works her work in the garden? " Having finished speaking
thus, he took a large spear, then followed Wife to her work. Here
he found Wife busy, while Big-Bird had Son. Husband thus to
himself, "So there is great friendship between Big-Bird and Wife!"
Then he raised his spear and hurled it at Big-Bird. Instead of Big-
Bird, he hit Son in the breast. So hard did he hit him that he died.
Then said Big-Bird thus, "Did I not sing that the thing which would
kill Son would not come from down the path, but from the village?" ^

34. WHY SMALL BIRD DIED.

It happened that Bird bore a child. One day she left Child in the
nest and went out on a walk. She had not gone far, when Child began
to scream very loudly. Mother Bird, believing that something was
trying to take Child, hastened home. She thus, "What's the matter?"
Child thus, "Oh, I was just having some fun!" Several times he did
this. Now, one day Mother Bird went to the garden to work. She
had not gone far, when Python happened along. Seeing the nest, he
climbed the tree to see if there were anything in it. (Miild Bird
began to yell, as he had done before. But Mother Bird, believing
that Child was having fun, as before, paid no attention to his screams.
Then Python seized and ate child.

Thus it hapi)ens when one torments his parents.

' Would not be a forest beast, but a village dweller.

288

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

35. HOW PORCUPINE GOT EVEN WITH TURTLE.

Turtle and Porcupine made a great friendship. One day Turtle
sent to Porcupine for a thorn with which to take out a jigger ^ from his
foot. So Porcupine sent him a thorn. But Turtle refused to take it.
So Porcupine sent him many kinds of thorns. Turtle refused them all.
At last he tore out a quill from his own back and sent it. Turtle thus,
"Yes, that's what I wished. Now I am satisfied." Not long after,
Porcupine sent to Turtle for a bowl in which to mix redwood -powder.
So Turtle sent him a wooden bowl, which he refused to take. Then
Turtle sent him many other bowls, all of which were refused by
Porcupine. Then Turtle sent, asking, "What sort of a bowl is it that
he wants?" They thus, "You yourself have brought this trouble to
your home. Take the bowP from off your back and send it to him."
So they took the shell off Turtle's back and sent it to Porcupine, who
was satisfied with this bowl. But Turtle died.

Spanish flea.
Naperville, III.

* SheU.

The Play-Party in Northeast Missouri. 289

THE PLAY-PARTY IN NORTHEAST MISSOURI.

BY GOLDY M. HAMILTON.

In this Journal (vol. xxiv, pp. 295-318) appeared an article by
Mrs. L. D. Ames, on "The Missouri Play-Party" as seen by her about
thirty years ago. The last four or five pages were devoted to play-
party songs recently collected.

Upon inquiring among my students, many of whom are from the
country districts of northeast Missouri, about the play-party, I find
that it is still a not uncommon form of amusement for young people
there, even within a few miles of a normal school, and not uncommon
farther south, even near the university. A former student of this
school. Miss Mary Morrison, now teaching in a rural district near
Columbia, writes me that one of her pupils, a girl of twelve, "has been
to nine play-parties this year." The following songs, unless other-
wise specified, are from a collection written down for a student in the
normal school, Mr. Luther Crookshank, by Mrs. Anne Wood, whose
ancestors were loggers in Mississippi and Louisiana, but who has spent
all her life, so far, in Missouri, mostly in Linn County, and has learned
and sung these songs there. The same student reports that in Sullivan
County play-parties are still the favorite form of amusement of some
of the people.

In a certain class of sixteen studying rhetoric here now, there is
one student who knows all the songs but two in Mrs. Ames's collec-
tion, and has heard them at play-parties.

Seven know "Bounce around;" eight, "We'll all go down to Rowser;"
ten, "My Father and Mother were Irish;" two, "Angelina; " three,

■ "Oh, ain't I gone?" seven, "I went to see my Susan;" ten, "Shoot
I the Buffalo;" six, " Weevily Wheat ; " eight, "Sandy he belonged to
I the Mill; " none, "I've been to the East;" fifteen, "Skip to my Lou; "

one, "The Juniper-Tree;" ten, "The Jolly Old Miller;" nine, "We're
marching round the Levee;)" ten, "Captain Jinks;" fifteen, "Old
Dan Tucker;" one, "Yonder she comes;" eleven, " Indian Boys;"
nine, "Pass one Window;" seven, "Old Gray Hoss;" seven, "I'll
come back and l)e your Beau;" five, "Old Mother Kcturah" (except
the first stanza); eleven, "King William;" four, "Possum Pie;"
eight, "Fare you well;" five, "Twenty-five Miles to London;" two,
"I'm going to Marry;" six, " Hogs in the Cornfield;" two, "Shiioh;"
two, "Jack went a-fishiiig;" three, "Old Ra(-{V)()n."

■ "Skip to my Lou" seems to be ihc brsl known of all these play-
party songs; it is sung also by school-cluldren on tlic play-grounds
at recess.

VOL. xxvir. — NO. lOs. — 20.

290 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

This shows that the play-party in northeast Missouri is anything
but dead. The first few songs mentioned above are variations of those
published by Mrs. Ames, and are arranged in the order in which they
appear in her article. The tunes are the same as those published by

her.

I. rowser's.

1. |: Oh, let's go down to Rowser's : | {three times)

And get some lager-beer.

Oh, nice lager-beer!

Oh, sweet lager-beer!

Oh, let's go down to Rowser's

And get some lager-beer.

2. l:Oh, never mind the old folks : | (three'jimes)

When they're away from home, etc.

2. JIM ALONG A JOSIE.

Fire in the mountain,

Run, boys, run!
Fire in the mountain,

Run, boys, run!
Cat's in the cream-jar,

Run, girls, run!
Cat's in the cream-jar,

Run, girls, run!

Chorus.
Hey, Jim along, hey, Jim along!
Hey, Jim along a Josie!

3. WEEVILY WHEAT.

This is like Mrs. Ames's version.

I. Across the field of barley,

'Or.

Chorus.
I won't have none of your weevily wheat,

I won't have none of your barley;
It takes some flour for about one.hour

To bake a cake for Charley.

2. O Charley he's a nice young man,
Charley he's a dandy;
For every time he goes to town
He treats the girls on candy. '

He always likes to kiss the Rirls
Whene'er he finds it handy.

The Play-Party in Northeast Missouri. 291

3. Oh, who's been here since I've been gone

Across the fields of barley?
A pretty little girl with a red dress on,
Over the fields of barley.

4. The higher up the cherry-tree,

The riper grew the cherries;
The sooner the boy courts the girl,
The sooner they will marry.

5. If I'd been here, and she'd been gone

Across the field of barley,
I'd been sure to a-tried it on
Across the field of barley.

This fifth stanza was contributed by Mr. Wilson, a student from
Monroe County.

4. AUNT JEMIMA.

The following is much like Mrs. Ames's ''Angelina."

1. Aunt Jemima, do go home.
Do go home, do go home,
Aunt Jemima, do go home
To get your wedding-supper.

2. Nothing there but bread and butter.
Bread and butter, bread and butter;
Nothing there but bread and butter
And a cold cup of tea.

3. Bread and butter isn't fit to eat.
Fit to eat, fit to eat;

Bread and butter isn't fit to cat,
And neither is your tea.

5. SUSAN JANE.

The first stanza of this one, from near Columbia, is like the last of
Mrs. Ames's "Oh, ain't I gone?"

I. I went to see Miss Susan,

She met me at the door,
She told me that I need not come

To see her any more.
She said that she'd fell in love

With Rufus Mr. Andrew Jackson Payne;
I looked her in the fare and said,

"Good-by, Susan Jane!"

Chorus.

O Susan Jane, come stop that fooling now!
O Susan Jane, come stop that fooling now!

292 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

0 Susan Jane, stop your fooling
And give your heart to me,

And give me back my love again,

And I will let you be;
Oh, once I loved you dearly.

But now I cannot love again,
Oh, I am going away to leave you now.

So good-by, Susan Jane!

2. Her mouth was like a cellar,

Her foot was like a ham.
Her eyes were like the owl's at night.

Her voice was never calm.
Her hair was long and curly,

She looked just like a crane;

1 am going away to leave you now.

So good-by, Susan Jane!

3. Susan she is so deceiving,

She will not do to trust;
I have threatened twice to leave her,

And leave her now I must.
I will never love another,

To cause me any pain,
I have trusted her, and all the girls

Are just like Susan Jane.

6. SANDY.

This one is almost exactly like Mrs. Ames's "Sandy he belonged to
the Mill."

1. Sandy he belongs to the mill,
Sandy he belongs to the mill,
Sandy he belongs to the mill,
The mill belongs to Sandy.

2. "Say, Mr. Sandy, won't you loan me a mill?
Say, Mr. Sandy, won't you loan me a mill?
Say, Mr. Sandy, won't you loan me a mill?"
"Yes, I will," says Sandy.

7. THE JUNIPER-TREE.

This one lacks two stanzas given by Mrs. Ames.

I. Here sits a young lady all down to sleep,
All down to sleep, all down to sleep,
So early in the morning.

The Play -Party in Northeast Missouri. 293

2. It takes a young man to keep her awake,
To keep her awake, to keep her awake,
So early in the morning.

3. So put this hat on your head to keep your head warm,
To keep your head warm, to keep your head warm,
So early in the morning.

8. JOLLY MILLER.

There stands a jolly miller all alone by himself,
Day by day he is gaining in his wealth,
One hand in the hopper and the other in the sack.
The ladies step forward and the gents step back.

9. OLD QUEBEC.

Much like "We're marching round the Levee," is the following.
Mr. Crookshank's grandfather, from Virginia, says they sang it there
as a pawn-song, and redeemed the forfeits; but in Linn County it is
merely a marching-song.

1. We are marching down to old Quebec,

Where the drums are loudly beating;
The American troops have gained the day,
And the British are retreating.

2. The war's all over, and we'll turn back

To the place where we first started.
We'll open up a ring and choose a couple in.
To heal the broken-hearted.

10. OLD BRASS WAGON.

The tune to this is the same as to Mrs. Ames's.

1. Do see the old brass wagon.
Do see the old brass wagon.
You're the one, my darling.

2. Meet halfway in the old brass wagon.
Meet halfway in the old brass wagon.
You're the one, my darling.

3. Break hand, swing in the old brass wagon,
Break hand, swing in the old brass wagon.
You're the one, my darling.

4. Lead her up and down long as you love her.
Lead her up and down long as you love her,
You're the one, my darling.

5. Neck-yoke down and double-trees draggin'.
Neck-yoke down and double-trees draggin',
You're the one, my darling.

294 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

6. Run away, all. in the old brass wagon,
Run away, all, in the old brass wagon,
You're the one, my darling.

7. Front wheels off and the axle draggin',
Front wheels off and the axle draggin'.
You're the one, my darling.

8. Keep a-hangin' on the old brass wagon,
Keep a-hangin' on the old brass wagon,
You're the one, my darling.

9. The side boards on the old brass wagon,
The side boards on the old brass wagon,
You're the one, my darling.

II. TI-DE-O.

Corresponding to "Pass one Window" is this from Linn County.

Pass one window, ti-de-o,
Pass two windows, ti-de-o,
Pass three windows, ti-de-o,
Jingle at a window, ti-de-o.

12. AS I WEST DOWN.

Somewhat like "Eighteen Hundred and Sixty," which Mrs. Ames
says is still sung at play-parties, and which contains the line "A pretty
little girl in Georgia," is this one from near Columbia.

As I went down in Georgia town,
A-sparkin' Georgia girls around, —
Georgia girls none surpasses,
Sweet as sorghum 'lasses, —
Hope to marry before I die.
By and by, by and by.

13. OLD RACCOON.
This is a fuller version than Mrs. Ames's. It was known by my
grandfather, who came from Kentucky to northern Missouri.

I. As I went out by the light of the moon,
A-singing of that same old tune,
'Twas there I met with an old raccoon
Riding on a rail.

Chorus.
Riding on a rail,
Riding on a rail,
I'm not afraid of a big raccoon
Riding on a rail.

The Play-Party in Northeast Missouri. 295

2. Says I, "Mr. Coon, oh, howdy do?"
Says he, "I'm well, and how are you?"
I'm not afraid of a bugaboo
Riding on a rail.

14. KING WILLIAM

This version is not as full as Mrs. Ames's.

1. King William was King James's son,
From the royal race he sprung,
Upon his breast he wore a star,
Which-a way the compass are.

2. Go look to the east, go look to the west,
Choose the one that you love best,

If she isn't here to take your part,
Choose another with all your heart.

The rest of these are not found in Mrs. Ames's collection, but are
sung in Linn Count\'.

15. JOLLY ROVER

The following is a marching-song.

I am a jolly rover

Just lately come on shore.
I spent my time in jubilee,

As I have done before.

Chorus.
We will march all round, all round, all round.
We will march all round, all round, all round,
Until I come to a pretty, pretty girl,
And I'll kiss her kneeling down.

16. OLD CHIMNEY-SWEEPER.
There was once an old chimney-sweeper.

He had but one daughter.
He could not keep her,

For since she has resolved to marry;
Go join your right hand.

This broom step over,
And kiss the sweet lips

Of your true lover.

17. SUSIE GIRL.

Known to three students in a rhetoric class here.

Out at the window, Susie, Susie,
Out at the window, Susie girl!
Run a little faster, Susie,
Run a little faster, Susie girl!
Catch him and kiss him, Susie, Susie,
Catch him and kiss him, Susie girl!

296 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

18. LITTLE FIGHT IN MEXICO,

Suggestive of "Old Quebec" is this next one, known to three students
in a rhetoric class.

1. Had a little fight in Mexico;

If it wasn't for the girls, the boys wouldn't go.

Chorus.
Sing tra-la-la,
Sing tra-la-la-lay.

2. Oh the girls and boys when they do meet,
They turn right around and swing so sweet.

3. They come to the scene where the blood was shed ;
The girls turn back and the boys go ahead.

19. LITTLE BROWN JUG.

Known to nine students in a rhetoric class.

1. Sent my brown jug down in town,
Sent my brown jug down in town,
Sent my brown jug down in town
So early in the morning.

2. It came back with a waltz around.
It came back with a waltz around,
It came back with a waltz around
So early in the morning.

3. They keep good whiskey down in town,
They keep good whiskey down in town.
They keep good whiskey down in town
So early in the morning.

4. If you don't watch out, it will get you down,
If you don't watch out, it will get you down,
If you don't watch out, it will get you down
So early in the morning.

5. Ain't she sweet, my honey-o.
Ain't she sweet, my honey-o,
Ain't she sweet, my honey-o
So early in the morning?

6. Alcohol will get you down.
Alcohol will get you down.
Alcohol will get you down
So early in the morning.

7. Whiskey will turn you round and round,
Whiskey will turn you round and round,
Whiskey will turn you round and round
So early in the morning.

The Play-Party in Northeast Missouri. 297

Another student knows this stanza: —

Take out the cork and throw it down,
Take out the cork and throw it down,
Take out the cork and throw it down
So early in the morning.

20. LOW-LY-LOW.

Known to one student.

"Oh, don't you see my pretty little miss?

And don't you think she's lovely?"
"Yes, I do, and if you will walk right fast,

She'll make you a match forever."
A low-ly-low; a low-ly-low.

21. CRINNY MY CRANKY.

Known to one student.

Crinny my cranky is my song,
I'll sing and dance it all along.
From the elbow to the wrist,
Now's the time to take a twist.
Hurrah, hurrah, for Crinny my Cranky!

22. needle's eye.

Known to sixteen students.

The needle's eye he doth supply

The thread that runs so truly;
Many a beau have I let go,

But now I've caught my July.
They bow so neat, they kiss so sweet,
If you intend before me to see this couple meet.

23. GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME.

Known to eleven students.

First gent out to the lady on the right.

Swing her by the right hand, swing your partner by the right,

And (jromenade the girl behind you.

Oh that girl, that jjrctty little girl!

The girl I left behind nic.

Every time I think of her,

The tears they almost blind me;
I think of the grace, oh the charming grace,

Of the girl I left behind me.

298 Journal of American Folk- Lore.

24. ROXY ANN.

Known to two students.

Roxy Ann was an old fool girl,

She fooled me all the while.
She fooled me once, she fooled me twice,

She fooled me all the while.
You've been a long time fooling, fooling.

You've been a long time fooling me.
She fooled me in the parlor, she fooled me in the hall.
She fooled me in the kitchen, and that's the worst of all.

These additional stanzas to Mrs. Ames's version and to the Linn
County version of this song have been danced to by Edna McNealey
of Putnam and Sullivan County, and by most of the other students
of the class.

25. THE OLD BRASS WAGON.

Meet halfway in the old brass wagon, : ] (three limes)
You're the one, my darling.

Left hand swing in the old brass wagon, : | (three times)
You're the one, my darling.

ID.

Right hand swing in the old brass wagon, : ] (three times)
You're the one, my darling.

Both hands swing in the old brass wagon, : | (three times)
You're the one, my darling.

Do-si-do in the old brass wagon, : | (three times)
You're the one, my darling.

Lead her up and down as long as you like her, : | (three times)
You're the one, my darling.

Wheel them and whirl them in the old brass wagon, : | (three times)
You're the one, my darling.

Both wheels off and the neck-yoke draggin', : | (three times)
You're the one, my darling.

Front wheels and the axle draggin', : | (three times)
You're the one, my darling.

Change and swing in the old brass wagon, : | (three limes)
You're the one, my darling.

There seems to be no end to the number of stanzas sung. They
say, "We just make up as many others as we want to."

In addition to the Linn County songs given above, are all the

The Play-Party in Northeast Missouri.

299

following, known, danced to recently, and written down, by members
of a rhetoric class.

26. GENTS TO CENTRE.
Contributed by S. E. Wilson of Monroe County.

1. All gents to centre with right hand cross,
Ha! da di diddle a dum,

Form a star with left hand back.
Take your partner as you go round.

Chorus.
Gents swing out, and ladies swing in.
Hold your "holts" and circle again.
Break the swing and promenade,
Promenade with a waltzing swing.

2. All gents to the centre with right hand cross,
Ha da diddle do dum,

Form a star with left hand back.
Skip your partner and take the next.

3. All gents to the centre and form in a ring.

And when you have formed, go balance and swing,
And when you have swung, remember your call.
Swing the next lady and run away all.

4. Up and down the railroad-track.
Half a swing around.

Back to the centre with the same old swing.

And swing four hands round, and swing four hands round.

27. COME, MY LOVE.

Contributed by Robert Berger of Montgomery County, and known
to two in the rhetoric class.

Come, my love, and go with me, : | {three times)
And we'll be married on Friday O.

2. I : I am too young, 1 am not fit, : | {three times)
I cannot leave my mamma yet.

3. I : Oh, yes, you are, you are just ri^ht, : | {three times)
You'll be sixteen to-morrow ni^iit.

4. I : If that be so, thi'ii I will ^^o, : | {three times)
And we'll be married on I'riday O.

5. I : Now you're married, you must be good, : | {three times)
Go and chop your wife sonie wood.

6. I : Chop it fine and carry it in, : | {three times)
And she will kiss you once again.

300 Journal of American Folk- Lore.

Other stanzas are composed spontaneously, all sorts of tasks being
assigned.

28. BUFFALO GIRLS.

Four of the rhetoric class know this, contributed by Mary Miller
of Linn County.

1. Buffalo girls all around the outside,

All around the outside, all around the outside,
And balance to your partners.

Chorits.

Partners swing and promenade a ring.
Promenade a ring, promenade a ring.
And balance on the corner.

2. Buffalo boys all around the outside,

All around the outside, all around the outside,
And balance to your partners.

29. CHASE THE SQUIRREL.

Contributed by Miss Bridges of Schuyler County, and known to
eight in the rhetoric class.

Chase the squirrel with the lady in the lead,
Gent fall through and take the lead.
Lady follow up and take the lead.
And circle four hands round.

30. LADY ON THE GREEN GRASS.

Contributed by Grace Galbreath of Davis County.

Lady on the green grass,
Lady on the hay.
Take hold of her pretty hand,
And lead her by the hand.

31. RILEY BROWN.

This, by Jessie Sharer of Adair County, is known by two rhetoric
students.

Riley, Riley, good old Riley Brown,
All the girls in this town
Arc stuck on Riley Brown.

Chorus.

I : Move along a zigzag, : | (three times)
Good old Riley Brown.

The Play-Party in Northeast Missouri. 301

32. THREE OLD BUMS.

Contributed by Edna McNealey of Putnam and Sullivan County,
and known to two rhetoric students.

1. I : Three old "bums" went down to town, ; | {three times)

So early in the morning.

Chorus.
I : Swing them all around as you bring them in : | {three times)
So early in the morning.

2. I : Three pretty maids went skating free : | {three times)

So early in the morning.

33. LITTLE BROWN JUG.

Kjiown to six students in a rhetoric class, and contributed by Miss
Grace Bridges of Schuyler County.

1. My wife and I lived all alone

In a little log hut we called our own.
She loved gin and I loved rum,
I'll tell you what, we had some fun.

Chorus.
Ha! ha! ha! you and me.
Little brown jug, don't I love thee?

2. 'Twas you who made my friends and foes,'
'Twas you who made me wear old clothes.
So here you are so near my nose;

Tip her up, and down she goes.

3. If I had a cow that give such milk,
I'd dress her in the finest silk,
And feed her on the finest hay,
And milk her forty times a day.

4. As I went down the railroad-track
I took my brown jug on my back,

I stubbed my toe and I went down.
And broke my brown jug on the ground.

34. THE SAILOR-BOYS.

Contributed by Edward Howell of Adair County,

I. Here stands three boys,
Three jolly sailor-boys
Just come on shore.
And he that delights
In a pretty little wife.
Just lead her on the floor.
' Known by children in Lynn, Mass., thus:

2, 'Twas you who made my friends my foes, etc.

3. If I had a cow that (Hchi't j^ive milk, etc.

302 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

Chorus.

Oh, we'll take another row,
Oh, we'll take another row.
And he that delights
In a pretty little wife.
Just lead her on the floor.

2. Here stands three girls,
Three jolly sailor-girls
Just come on shore.
And he that delights
In a pretty little wife,
Just lead her on the floor.

35. ROUND THAT LADY.

Known to six rhetoric students.

1. Round that lady in London,
Round that gent in London,
First couple out to London,

So I heard them say.

2. Round that lady in London,
Round that gent in London,
Couple up two to London,

So I heard them say.

3. Round that lady in London,
Round that gent in London,
Couple up three in London,

So I heard them say.

[So on up to stanza 8.\

36. UP AND DOWN.

Contributed by C. N. Dye of Macon County is'this composite one.

1. Up and down the railroad-track

And halfway swing around,
Back to the centre and two couples swing.
With four hands cast around.

Chorus.

Do-si-do, my darling,

Miss, fare you well, I'm gone,
Do-si-do, my darling.

Miss, with the white slippers on.

2. The higher up a cherry-tree

The riper grows the cherries;
The sooner a young man courts the girls,
The younger he will marry.

The Play-Party in Northeast Missouri. 303

3. Used to ride an old gray horse,

And now I ride a roan;
You may hug and kiss your own sweetheart,
But you had better leave mine alone.

4. I wish I had a needle and thread

As fine as I could sew;
I would sew my girl to my coat-tail.
And down that river 1 would go.

5. I used to drive a four-horse team,

And hooked old nag behind;
Since I got a new sweetheart,
You are no girl of mine.

37. LONDON BRIDGE IS FALLING DOWN.

Known to fifteen rhetoric students, and contributed by Edward
Howell of Adair County.

1. London bridge is falling down,

Falling down, falling down,
London bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.'

2. Build it up with iron bands.

Iron bands, iron bands,
Build it up with iron bands.
My fair lady.^

38. UP AND DOWN THE CENTRE.

Known to four rhetoric students, and contributed by Lelah Clapper
of Putnam County.

1, Up and down the centre we go.
Up and down the centre we go.
Up and down the centre we go,
This cold and stormy morning.

2. Catch her and kiss her if you can,
Catch her and kiss her if you can.
Catch her and kiss her if you can.
This cold and stormy morning.

Most of these students report that there is a marked decline the

past five years in the prevalence of the play-party in their own county.

Some say that in their owndistrict, play-parties are scarcely ever given,

[though still popular five or ten miles away. In a few districts they

[are attended still by the better class; in others, by tlic lower class.

(The indications are, that in a few years the play-party in northern

Missouri will be a thing of (he past.

KiRKSVILLE, Mo.

' Or, So merrily.

* Or, Build it up with limestone, etc.; or, Get some bricks and build it up.

304 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

FOLK-LORE FROM SCHOHARIE COUNTY, NEW YORK.

COLLECTED BY EMELYN E. GARDNER.

In the southern part of Schoharie County, New York State, within
a five-hours' journey by rail and stage from Herald Square, New York
City, there still linger many survivals of the old-time customs and
beliefs. The first inhabitants of this section, so far as historians know,
were the Schoharie Indians, a tribe made up of refugees from various
New York and New England tribes. The present-day "settlers,"
as the older people style themselves, are of varied ancestry. Some can
trace their lineage to the poor German Palatines who were sent by
Queen Anne of England in the year 17 12 to help clear her territory
along the Schoharie River; a number are descendants of the Holland
Dutch who came to the same locality shortly after the Palatines, and
of the Negro slaves imported by the Dutch to work their farms; some
come from English ancestors who gave up their land in the Connecticut
Colony for the greater promise which they saw in the Schoharie
Valley; others claim Irish grandfathers who came to America to peel
hemlock-bark for the tanneries and to work in the tanneries and
cotton-factories in the vicinity of the Hudson River. A considerable
number, of mixed blood in the main, know little of their forbears
outside of an inherited tradition or two concerning a "big water —
a river, maybe" — which it took many days to cross.

It is chiefly among this latter class — who have allowed themselves
gradually to be crowded away from the rich bottom-lands of the main
valley to the poor, almost untillable farms of the uplands, or huddled
into the isolated and barren hollows which have been scooped out of
the soft sandstone formation by the various tributary "kills" of the
Schoharie River — that survivals of the old folk-lore are most in
evidence. For many years these people have mingled little with their
thrifty and prosperous neighbors of the farms and larger towns of the
valley. They habitually intermarry among themselves, thus tending
to keep alive the time-honored customs and traditions. Among them
are few accommodations for the tourists who sometimes frequent the
section for its beautiful natural scenery and for the romantic atmos-
phere of the past, imparted by lovely winding roads, old covered
wooden bridges clinging to decrepit toll-gates, wide-balconied turnpike
taverns, now serving time as mere farmhouses, fast-decaying mills and
deserted factory-buildings, and, above all, the curious little hamlets
consisting of a single string of typical Dutch and colonial houses
thickly bordering the country highway. For the modern European

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New York. 305

immigrants who might desire to settle among them, the natives have
scant liking and less room. The only foreigners whom they tolerate
with equanimity are stray "kike" peddlers and bands of gypsies who
sometimes chance to pass that way. It is doubtless these birds of
passage who have given many a familiar old tale a curious tinge of
foreign color.

In fact, every race or nationality which the valley has ever harbored
for any appreciable length of time has left its imprint upon the folk
mind and fancy as represented in their tales, superstitions, and tradi-
tions. Hence the mongrel character which they have assumed, and
which is illustrated by such a story as the following. History asso-
ciates the serious part of the incident with the name of Timothy
Murphy, now become a somewhat legendary local hero of the Revo-
lutionary War.

I. TIM MURPHY.

(Told by Ml. Alonzo Parslow of Blenheim. N.Y., an aged man of Irish ancestry.)

One autumn Tim Murphy with his large family left his home in the
valley for a winter residence on the mountain-top, whence he could
more easily command the mo^'ements of his Indian enemies. When
it came time in the spring to sow wheat on his valley farm, Tim
started to go down the mountain, with a drag on one shoulder and
seven skipple of wheat on the other. Suddenly a party of Indians
burst out of the brush. There was no hope of escape for Murphy,
except to leap from a precipitous cliff which projected from part of
the summit. So, without stopping to think twice or to say his
prayers, burdened as he was, he took the leap, and struck upon a
projecting cliff a hundred feet below. So great was the force with
which he landed, that he sank into the rock up to his knees. The
Indians, supposing him killed, made no attempt either to follow him
or to await his coming in the valley. Murphy, keeping still until he
was quite sure that he had nothing to fear from them, went down
into the valley, where he borrowed a pick and shovel, and came back
and dug himself out.' Then he went about his business unmolested,
and put in a crop which yielded him eighty skipple for every one
he put in.

In certain communities wiiosc members are designated as "slougli-
ters," "clappers," and "honies," according to the locality in which
they live, the folk-tales have degenerated to a degree which renders
tliem unfit for repetition. In other communities where families have
intermarried less, and where the general standard of morality is higher,

' This incident of going off to get something with which to dig one's self out occurs in
a .Serb tale, "The Finest Liar in the World" (Lang. Violet l^'airy Book, p. 21), and else-
where.

VOL. x.x:vii.— NO. 105. — 21.

3o6 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

the talcs have retained considerable of their original quaintness of
form and flavor.

Many people who know an abundance of tales, especially the
young;cr people, arc half ashamed of knowing them, very loath to tell
them, and fearful lest any one may suspect that they "believe in them."
On the other hand, some kind hospitable old men and women of keen
memor>' and intelligent understanding, when they grow to like and
trust a collector, will enter into the spirit of the thing and relate many
tales which they, as young people, heard repeatedly in their family
and neighborhood.

Among the tales which have been passed on to me in this way are
the following. Not being able to write shorthand, I regret to say that
often the language is my own. I have always taken copious notes
and written the stories up within a short time after I heard them.
Some I heard a number of times, and in such cases was able to catch
much of the vernacular. In every instance the order of incidents
and the form of the story are as they were transmitted to me. The
same is true of the language, in so far as I could reproduce it from
memory or notes. Naturally, some narrators speak much better
English than others, and all do their best when they discover that
their listeners are taking notes.

2. THE witches' RIDE.
(Told by Mrs. John Hartley,' Bull Hill. West Conesville, N.Y.)

A young man went to live in a house kept by a mother and daughter
who were suspected of being witches. Every night he would hear
the women leave, and then some time near morning hear them return.
One night he decided to creep downstairs and watch where they went ;
but, instead of their going out of doors directly, he saw them step to
the fireplace and grease themselves from a dish of grease that stood on
the shelf. After they had greased themselves very carefully, they
said, "Up the chimney and away we go!" And up the chimney
they went.

Then the young man greased himself with exactly the same kind
and number of strokes they had used. When he had finished, he said,
"Up the chimney and away we go!" At that he, too, was whisked
up the chimney. On the roof he saw a number of black calves stand-
ing. The two women were just in the act of mounting two of them,
at the same time saying, "Over thick and over thin and away we go!"
And away they went.

As soon as they were out of sight, the young man mounted another,
and said, "Over thick and over thin and away we go!" And away

' Mrs. Bartley did not know where she had heard the story in particular, but said that
the incident had been related in the neighborhood as a true one.

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New York. 307

he did go, far, far away, to some strange woods which he had never
seen before. There, in the deep black woods, his calf alighted just
outside of a crowd of witches who were dancing and singing together.
He tied his calf, and watched the performance until near morning.
Just before daylight the party broke up, and they all started for home.
They untied their calves, and said, "Over thick and over thin and
home we go!"

After they had all gone, he untied his calf, and said, "Over thick
and over thin and away we go!" The calf went so fast, that, just
as they were high over some woods, the young man said, "You do,
you go damn well for a calf!" At that the calf slipped from under
him, and he dropped into the top of a high tree. Then he knew that
he should not have spoken to the calf.

In the morning he discovered that he was in a strange part of the
country; but, as the calf did not return, he had to climb down out of
the tree, and get home the best way he could.

3. LAZY MARIA.^

Once upon a time there lived a man with three daughters, who, as
he thought, were old enough to look out for themselves. So he called
them to him, and said, " It is time to go out in the world and seek your
fortune. I'll start the oldest first. — Go and see what luck you have
in the world!"

So the oldest girl took her bundle of clothes tied up in a big kerchief,
and away she went. After a while, just as she was beginning to feel
hungry, she saw standing right near her a cow. The cow said, —

"Milk me, milk me, or my bag will bust!
Milk me, milk me, or my bag will bust!"

No sooner had the cow said this, and the girl was wishing for some-
thing to milk the cow into, than she espied right near the cow an
oven. From it came a voice, which said, —

"Take me out or I'll htirii up!
Take me out or I'll hum up!"

The girl Io<:)kcd inside the oven to see what was talking, and there
was a fine loaf of bread. She t(K)k it out, dug the centre out of it, and
filled the hollow with milk from the cow, then had a meal of bread

' This talc and the two which follow were told to mo by Mrs. William Bucll. Other
members of the same family spell the name Bull. Mrs. Buell is related to the Blink
family, of which many members have been great story-tellers, fortune-teller-;, witch
doctors, and, as Mrs. B. says, unusual people. Mrs. B. learned these stories from hearing
her mother tell them; and, as she has a most retentive memory, I doubt not that they are
very nearly as she heard them. She thinks that hor mother was German. The story ia
a variant of "Mother Holle," in the Grimm collection.

3o8 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

and milk. She said, "The old man sent me out, and I must be doing
well."

After she had eaten all the bread and milk she wanted, she went on
her way. Pretty soon she came to an apple-tree full of apples.

"Shake me, shake me, or my limbs will break!
Shake me, shake me, or my limbs will break!"

said the apple-tree.

So the girl shook the tree until her lap was full of apples. When
she had eaten all the apples she wanted, she put some in her kerchief
and went on her way. Towards dusk she came to a fine-looking
mansion, and she thought she would inquire if they (the occupants)
wanted anybody to work for them. Seeing a man standing in front
of the house, she called out, "Halloo!"

"Halloo!" answered the man, who liked the girl's looks.

"Do you want a girl to work for you?" asked the girl,

"I think we do need one," answered the man; "but my master
isn't home to-night, so you had better stay all night. Which door
would you like to enter? One is a gold door: if you go in through it,
you will be covered from head to foot with gold. The other is a tar
door: if you go in through it, you will be covered with tar."

"Oh, I don't mind!" replied the girl. "1 had just as soon be
covered with tar as with gold."

"You arc so humble, you deserve to go through the golden door."

"I don't care," repeated the girl.

Thereupon the man led her through the golden door; and the gold
clung to her nose, her fingers, her ears, to every part of her, until she
was completely covered with gold. When she was well inside the
house, the man said, "We have two places where wc put those who
come here. Will you sleep under the ladder with the cats and dogs,
or will you sleep in the high bed with all your gold and glitter?"

"I'd just as soon crawl under the ladder with the cats and dogs as to
sleep in the high bed."

"Being as you are so humble, I'll put you in the high bed with all
your gold and glitter."

When she reached the room where the high bed was, she saw that
everything was of gold. The gold from everything she touched stuck
to her, even the golden sheets; and in the morning, with the golden
sheets clinging fast to her, she thought she was rich enough to go home.
So home she went. When the family saw her coming, her father said,
"What! Is that lazy whelp coming back? I'll get the horse-whip
and whip her to death!"

The girl, however, as soon as she came near enough to make herself
heard, cried out, "O father! I'm rich, rich!"

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New York. 309

And sure enough, the father had never seen so much gold in his life
as he now saw on his daughter. As soon as he touched her, the gold
fell off from her to the ground. The father ordered the girl to tell
where she had been. When he heard the stor>', he decided to send the
second daughter to try her luck in the same way.

The second daughter had precisely the same experiences as her sister,
and she too returned home "rich, rich!" Then the father said, "Now
for Lazy Maria! She's never been good for anything yet. Let's see
what she can do!" To her he said, "Even if you are our baby, you
must go."

So Lazy Maria took her bundle on her shoulder and started. Soon
she came to the cow, which said, —

"Milk me, milk me, or my bag will bust!
Milk me, milk me, or my bag will bust!"

"Go along, you old bitch! I don't care if it does," replied the girl.
Then the voice from within the oven cried out, —

"Take me out or I'll burn up!
Take me out or I'll burn up!"

"Burn up, then! I won't touch you. I won't work when I'm alt
tired out," complained the girl, and went on her way. When she came
to the apple-tree, it cried, —

"Shake me, shake me, or my limbs will break!
Shake me, shake me, or my limbs will break!"

"Let your limbs break, then! I sha'n't shake you," said the girl,
and went on. When she came to the mansion, the man on guard told
her of the two doors, and asked her through which she wanted to
enter. "I want to go through the golden door," said the girl.

"All right!" and the man pushed her through the tar door. The
tar stuck to her hair, filled her eyes, and covered her from head to
foot."

"Oh, my father will kill me!" she cried.

"Where will you sleep, — under the ladder with the cats, or in the
high bed?" asked the man.

" In the high bed, tar and all," at once decided the girl.

"All right! Creep under the ladder." And the man pushed her
among the cats and dogs. "You must be more humble," said he,
"if you would get on in the world."

The next morning the [xjor girl, all covered with tar as she was, started
for home. When the family saw her coming, they rushed out to see
the gold; but when they discovered that she was covered with tar
instead of gold, they cried, "Let's whip her!"

"Oh, no!" said her father. "Let's scrub the tar off!" but, scrub

310 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

as they would, they couldn't get it off, because, you see, it had been put
on by a witch. They scraped and scraped until they scraped the
hair off her head, and the skin off her fingers and toes. At last they
scraped off one of her warts, and there lay the witch. At that all
the tar fell off, and Lazy Maria was free once more. But while her
two sisters were rich and could go and come as they liked. Lazy
Maria always had to stay at home, poor.

4. THE SECRET ROOM.

Once upon a time there lived a mother with three daughters, whose
duty it was to guard the cabbage-patch in front of the cottage in which
they lived. One day they were all sitting in the sun, spinning, when
they saw a Bull in the cabbage-patch. "Take your distaff and run,
child, run!" said the mother to the eldest daughter. So the girl took
her distaff and ran. The Bull ran and she ran, and she ran and the
Bull ran, until they came to a great house standing on the edge of a
wood.

There the Bull gave her a large bunch of keys, and told her that she
could go anywhere in the house she liked except one room. He showed
her the key to this room, and told her that she must not unlock the
door to which it belonged. Then the Bull went away and left her.
The girl took the keys and roamed from one beautiful room to another,
until she had seen all except the forbidden room. This she wanted to
see more than she had any of the others. At last her curiosity became
so great that she opened the door and went inside. What was her
liorror to discover that the room was full of headless bodies hung on
all sides. Quickly she locked the door and ran downstairs. But she
had some blood on the key, on her hand, and on her shoes. As she
was trying the best she knew how to get the blood off, along came a
big black Cat, which said to her, —

"Mew, mew, mew! Give me a dish of bread and milk, and I will
tell you how to get the blood off your vshoes."

"Go away, you old black thing! I am not going to bother with
you."

So the Cat went away, and pretty soon the Bull came. "Let me
see your keys!" said he. " How came the blood on this one?" Then
he asked to see her hands and her shoes. When he saw blood on them
too, he knew that she had disobeyed him; so, as he had done with all
the others who had disobeyed him, he cut her head off and hung her
body up with the others in the forbidden room.

The next day, when the mother and her two remaining daughters
again sat spinning in the sun, they again saw the Bull in the cabbage-
patch. The mother sent the second daughter just as she had sent the
first, and exactly the same things happened to her.

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New York. 311

The third day the mother and the youngest daughter sat spinning
in the sun, when the mother looked up and saw the Bull a third time
in the cabbage-patch. "Take your distaff and run, child, run!"
cried the mother.

So the youngest daughter ran, and the Bull ran. The Bull ran and
she ran until they came to the great house on the edge of the wood.
There the Bull gave her a bunch of keys, and told her that she might
open every door in the house except the one whose key he showed her.
Then the Bull went away. The youngest daughter did just as her
sisters had done, and went into all the rooms except the forbidden one.
She kept wondering what could be in there, until her curiosity became
so great that she unlocked the door and went in. She, too, was so
horrified that she quickly shut the door and ran downstairs, but with
the tell-tale blood on the key, on her hand, and on her shoes.

To her came the big black Cat, who said, "Mew, mew, mew! Give
me a dish of bread and milk, and I will tell you how to get the blood
off your shoes." Instead of telling the Cat to go away, as her sisters
had done, she went and got some bread and milk for him. When the
Cat had finished eating, he said, " If you will go into the attic, you will
find there a sickle. Take it, rub it on the key, on your hand, and on
your shoes, while you say, 'Blood, be gone! blood, be gone!'"

The girl went to the attic, found the sickle, and did with it as the
Cat had told her to do, saying, "Blood, be gone! blood, be gone!"
Even as she spoke the last word, the blood-stains disappeared.

Then the girl went downstairs, where she found the Bull waiting
for her. "Let me see your keys," he said, "and your hands and your
shoes!" When he saw that she had no blood-stains upon her, he
suddenly changed from a bull into a beautiful prince. "I was be-
witched," he said, "by a girl who loved me, but whom I wouldn't
marry because I didn't love her. I killed many a girl when I was a
bull ; but now we will have the bodies taken care of, and then we will
be married." So they buried the bodies, and then were married and
lived happily ever after.

5. WOLF OF THE GREENWOOD.^

Once upon a time there lived a woman who had three daughters
who were old enough to marry, but no oiu- came to marry them. The
woman owned a witch chair, which had the power to charm any one
who sat in it into loving one of the daughters. One day a fine young
man came and sat in the chair, and the mcnher told him that he might

• Variants of this story are found in "The Knight of the Bens and Glens and Passes"
(Folk-Tales and Fairy-Lore in Gaelic and EnKlish, by Rev. James MacDouKall); and in
"East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon" (Popular Tales from the Norse, by Sir George
Dasent).

312 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

have the choice of her daughters for his wife. After looking at them
all to see which was the prettiest, he chose the youngest.

A short time after they were married, another young woman who
had loved the young man invited him to her home high up on one of
the Rocky Mountains. He went; and while he was there, the young
woman, who was a witch, put a spell upon him which changed him
into a wolf. Every day he was to roam the greenwood; but when
night came, he could return to his own home in human form. So the
poor young wife never saw her husband except at night, for every
morning in the form of a wolf he ran away to the greenwood and
spent the day.

After about a year a little baby girl was born to them; and after
another year there came another babe to make them happy. This
made the witch woman on the mountain so jealous, that she sent down
her dog, which went to the baby lying in its cradle, and licked its little
cheek so hard that it licked out one of the baby's eyes. The mother
took good care that the dog did not get at her children again, until the
third baby came. Soon after that, one day the eldest disappeared;
and all the mother knew was, that she saw the same dog which had
licked out the second child's eye, disappearing up the road. She did
not know that the dog took the child to one of its father's brothers and
left it there. As the brother had no children of his own, he was Very
glad to take the one which the dog left. In the same manner another
was taken to another uncle, who was also childless. The poor mother
was almost distracted, for now the witch woman did not allow the
husband to return to his home at all. The mother watched the third
child as carefully as ever she could; but at last the dog managed to
steal that, too, and carried her to still another childless uncle.

When the mother had lost both her babies and her husband, she
felt that she must set out and see if she could not find them. She
did not go far, before she came to the house of the brother-in-law who
had taken the first child. The witch woman had put her under a
spell, so that she did not know her own babe or her brother-in-law.
Nor did they know her. When she told the man of her loss, he was
so sorry for her that he gave her an accordion for company. But she
could not bear to go home and stay alone, so she went on until she
came to the house of the second brother-in-law. Here the same things
happened as had happened at the house of the first brother; and when
she left him, he gave her a beautiful golden comb. Still she could not
bear to go home, but continued on her way until she came to the house
of the third brother-in-law. To him she told her story, and also that
her husband was kept upon a high icy mountain which she was not
able to climb because it was so slippery. W^ishing to help her, this
brother-in-law, just as she was going away, told her to go to the

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New York. 313

nearest blacksmith, whom he ordered to shoe the woman with some
sharp iron shoes, which would enable her to climb the mountain
where the witch woman lived.

When the blacksmith had her shod, she started up the mountain,
and, owing to the fine shoes he had made her, soon reached the home
of the witch woman, and saw her own husband working about, felling
trees and chopping wood to keep the witch woman comfortable, for
it was very cold on the mountain. When the witch woman saw the
wonderful shoes which had enabled the woman to climb so well, she
asked her how much she would take for them. The woman replied
that if she would let her pass the night with the wood-chopper, she
would give her the shoes. The witch woman agreed to that; but
when night came, before the wood-chopper went to bed, the witch
gave him a draught which made him sleep soundly until the witch
willed for him to awaken.

The wife, thinking that if she could get her husband by himself
she could win him back, waited until she thought that the witch
would not hear. Then she said, —

"O wolf of the greenwood! why won't you turn to me?
Three poo. little babes have I borne to thee."

But the witch had sealed his ears; so that, although the wife said
three times, —

"O wolf of the greenwood! why won't you turn to me?
Three poor little babes have I borne to thee," —

her husband did not hear her. In the morning the witch saw her comb-
ing her hair with a beautiful comb, and asked her what she would take
for it. The wife replied that she would exchange it for another night
with the wood-chopper. The witch agreed to this. But again she
gave the man a draught, so that he paid no heed when his wife said, —

"O wolf of the greenwood! why don't you turn to me?
Three poor little babes have I borne to thee."

In the morning, before he came out from the power of the draught, the
witch came and took him away.

In the afternoon the witch heard the wife playing beautiful music
on her accordion, and asked her how much she would lake for it. The
wife made the same reply as before; and the witch agreed, thinking
that she would give the man the sleeping-draught the same as before.
Before night came on, however, the wife escaped the watchful eyes of
the witch, and ran into the wood to her husband. She did not tell
him who she was, but gave him a sponge, and told him when the
witch gave him the draught that night to pretend to take it, but really
to pour it into the sponge. The witch watched him so carefully that

314 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

he had to pretend to get choked. Then, when the witch went for water
to help him, lie poured the draught into the sponge; and when she
returned, he protended that he had swallowed it. That night the wife
told her husband all that had happened to her; so in the morning,
when the witch came iato the room where they were, the husband fell
upon her and killed her. Then he and his wife went down the moun-
tain and got their children, after which they returned to the witch's
house, and lived happily ever after.

6. RUSTY JACK.

(Told by Miss Delia Miller of Conesvilla, N.Y.. who had learned it from hearing it told
by her mother, who, she thought, was English.)

Once upon a time there lived a rich farmer who had three sons.
The elder two boys, J.imes and Mark, were thrifty, hard-working lads;
but the youngest. Rusty Jack, as he was called, because he wore such
old and rusty clothes, was neither so strong nor so good-looking as his
brothers. So he was laughed at by them, and considered a trial by his
father. When the father came to die, he left all his houses and lands
to James and Mark; while to Rusty Jack he left nothing but a good-
for-nothing old ox, just ready to die. Sure enough, the day after the
father's funeral, when Rusty Jack went out to the barn to feed his ox,
he found it lying dead. James and Mark laughed at him about his
luck, and told him they now thought it was time that he set about
earning his own living. How he was to do this Rusty Jack did not
know, for he had never done a day's work in his life.

But he knew he could no longer stay at home; so he skinned his ox,
hung the skin over his shoulder, and set out in his rusty old clothes
to seek his fortune. Near sundown he became so tired that he felt
he could not go another step; so he lay down to rest on the ground
beside the road, throwing over him the ox-hide, with the flesh side out-
side. He was just about falling asleep when a loud cawing above his
head startled him; and before he could raise himself up, a flock of
crows alighted upon the hide and fell to pecking at the raw meat of
the hide. They all did this but one, which cocked his head on one
side, and, looking at Jack, cried, "Halloo, Jack! halloo. Jack!" Then
Rusty Jack knew that he had found a pet crow vvhich he had lost more
than a year before. The crow was as glad to see Jack as Jack was to
find the crow; and when Jack put out his hand, calling, "Halloo!
Come to Jack!" the crow allowed himself to be caught.

Jack was so overjoyed at finding his pet, that he forgot all about
his aches and pains. He put a cord about the crow's leg, perched him
on one shoulder, threw the ox-hide over the other, and again set forth
in search of his fortune. Presently coming to a wood-chopper's hut
in the midst of the forest, he saw a bright light shining from one of the

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New York. 3 1 5

windows, and peeped in. There, before the fireplace, he saw a table
set with delicious meats, cakes, wine, and honey; and, more than that,
at the table sat two women eating. One looked as though she might
be the wood-chopper's wife; but the other was a wonderfully beautiful
young lady, with long golden hair, and jewels about her neck, — a
princess, maybe. Jack couldn't imagine who she could be, but
thought that he had never before seen any one half so beautiful.

As he stood gazing, he forgot all about the crow; and the crow,
not liking that, called out, "Jack, Jack!" That frightened the women
so, that they snatched the food off the table and threw it, tablecloth
and all, into a chest which stood in one corner of the room. Then they
took a big crock which stood near the fireplace, and, removing a few
bricks from the floor, placed the crock in a hole which seemed to have
been made for it. Quickly replacing the bricks, the beautiful young
lady concealed herself under the valence of the bed, which stood in a
corner of the room. The wood-chopper's wife flew about, putting on
the table mush and milk for her husband's supper, then disappeared
up the ladder which led to the loft. Jack was so hungry that he
thought he would go in and help himself to the food in the chest; but,
before he had time to get anything out, the wood-chopper came in.
" Whom have we here?" cried he, amazed, as he saw a stranger making
himself at home in his hut.

"Nobody but a poor hungry traveller," replied Jack.

"Well, if you are so hungry, draw up and have some mush and milk
with me," said the man. "You have a tame crow there, I see. Does
he happen to be a talking crow?"

"That he does," answ^ered Jack, a bright idea coming into his head.

"Halloo!" said he to the bird.

"Halloo, Jack!" croaked the crow.

The wood-chopper was delighted. "Can he say anything else?"
he asked.

"Oh, yes! "said Jack, " he is a fortune-telling crow. — Tell the wood-
chopper what is in yonder chest." With that, Jack pinched one of the
crow's toes, whereupon the poor bird cried out, "Caw, caw, caw!"
— "He says there is meat and cake and wine and honej' in the chest,"
explained Jack.

The wood-chopj)er laughed. "Why, how can that be, when we are
so poor we hardly have enough to eat?"

"I don't know," said Jack, "but my crow alw.Tys speaks the truth.
You had better look and see." So the wood-chopper went to the chest,
and, lifting the cover, peeped in. To his amazement, he found it
just as the crow had said. After he had lifted out the good things,
he and Jack feasted as they had never done before. After they had
eaten all they could hold, the wood-chopper said, " I should like your
bird to tell me some other piece of good news; can he?"

3i6 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

"I think so," answered Jack. "I think he can tell you where a
treasure lies hidden, if you will agree to give me half of it."

"I'll do that," laughed the wood-chopper, never dreaming that the
crow knew any more about where a treasure lay buried than he did.

Thereupon Jack again tweaked the crow's toe; and again he
squawked, "Caw, caw, caw!"

"He says," explained Jack, "that if you will take up the nine bricks
before the middle of the fireplace, you will find a treasure -crock."

"A treasure-crock!" shouted the wood -chopper. "What on earth
is that? How could there be any treasure buried before the fireplace
when I laid every brick with my own hands?"

"But why not look?" asked Jack. "I've never known my crow to
tell a lie." And after a little Jack persuaded the wood-chopper to
lift up the bricks, when, sure enough, he uncovered a huge crock.
His hands trembled so that he could hardly lift the cover oflf; but
when he did, such a sight as met his eyes! Jewels, gold and silver
trinkets, and gold coin! More than he had believed existed in the
whole world.

"There!" exclaimed Jack, "will you believe my crow next time?"

" I will; and I will give you half of the treasure for him, then I can
go on finding other fortunes."

"Oh, I couldn't sell him, for I expect him to find me a wife and to
earn enough to take care of us both; but I have left outside an ox -hide
which will be worth much more to you than the crow. It was with
that I caught him from out a whole flock of talking crows. All you
have to do is to lie down beside the road and throw the hide over you,
flesh side outside, and more fortune-telling crows will alight on you
than you will know what to do with. Then you can make them find
fortunes for you, and sell them for great sums of money."

"So I could," said the wood-chopper. "I'll give you my half of
the treasure for the hide."

Then Jack filled his pockets with his riches, and tied the rest into
his big pocket-handkerchief. "Now," said he to the crow, "before I
go further, I am rich enough to marry me a wife. Where is there a
beautiful lady who will marry me?" Again he pinched the crow's
toes; and again the bird squawked, "Caw, caw, caw!"

"He says under the valance of the kitchen bed," explained Jack.

"That's a lie," (juoth the wood-chopper; but just the same he
looked under the bed, and, sure enough, there was a beautiful young
lady.

"Come out, come out!" coaxed Rusty Jack, "and I will marry you."

"Oh, will you?" cried the young lady. "That's what I've been
looking for, — a husband. The robbers came to my father's house
and killed my father and Ijrothcrs; and I barely managed to escape with

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New York. 317

a little of my father's wealth on one of his horses. If you will go back
with me and help me to bury my father and brothers, I will marry you
and give you my father's large estate."

"With all my heart will I do that! and we'll keep the crow, for he
will be able to get us out of any trouble we may get into."

By this time the wood-chopper's wife came down from the loft;
and they all had supper together. Jack and the wood-chopper eating
as though they had eaten nothing for a year.

In the morning Jack and the beautiful young lady set out to visit
her father's estate and to bury her father and brothers; while the
wood-chopper started in the opposite direction with the ox-hide, to
procure for himself a flock of talking crows.

7. PETER AND JOHN IN THE MILL.

(Told by Mrs. John Hartley of Bull Hill, West Conesville. 80 years old. and of English
descent; told to her by her father.)

In olden times, when the country was mostly covered with forests,
people were not so well off as they are now. So it came about that a
farmer who had cleared off a little land said to his two sons, when they
were grown, "Now is it time for you to go and try your luck in the
world;" and soon the boys started out to see the great world.

When they had wandered some distance in the woods, Peter said,
as night came on, "John, you are such a good hand to climb trees, go
up that tree and see if there is a house in sight!"

John quickly climbed up, and in a moment called down, "Yes, there
is one in the hollow just beyond that knoll that you can see."

Then the two went on toward the hollow; but before they had gone
far, they met a man who stopped and asked them where they were
going.

"To the house in yonder hollow," they answered.

"That is a mill," he replied; "you can't stay there."

"Why not?" asked the boys.

"Why, no one has ever come out of that mill alive."

"We're not afraid," replied the boys; and wilh that they continued
on their way.

When they reached the mill, they found a fireplace with a fire all
laid ready for lighting, a tabk' all sit, and randk-s wailing (o be lighted.
The boys were astonished to find such things in a mill; but tlie>- were
so hungry tiiat they didn't stoj) to wonder about it. IVter lighted the
fire, and J'jhn went (nit to sluKJt some game. When he caine in with a
couple of partridges, the boys prepared the birds for c(M)king. While
they were waiting for them to get nice and brown, Peter Siiid, "I am
going to take a candle and go down cellar to see what I can find."

3i8 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

They both went down into the cellar, and right at the foot of the
stairs they saw a curious bag hanging on the wall. Before they could
reach it, their candle went out; and Peter said, "I'll get the bag, and
we'll grope our way back." So they did; and when they got back
ujistairs, they opened the bag and found that it was full of money.
Upon discovering that, Peter said, "Let's go!"

But John said, "You can go if you want to, Peter; but I am going
to stay here all night." So Peter went, and John went on roasting
the meat for his supper. While he was editing, the outside door flew
open. He arose and shut it. In a few minutes it flew open again, and
again he shut it. No sooner had he taken his seat than it flew open
a third time, and in came two red caps and a white cap. Without
saying a word, the three went upstairs, and proceeded to make such
a noise that John left his supper and went up to see what in the world
they were doing.

Upon looking into the room, he saw that they were stabbing at
each other most desperately. He said to himself, "I'll finish my meat,
and then I'll go and help the white-cap. Two to one are too many."

When John had finished his meat and again went upstairs, he found
the red-caps throwing balls of fire out of the window. This they
continued to do until daylight, when without a word to John, or
without even appearing to see him, they disappeared.

As soon as they vanished, the white-cap turned upon John, as though
he would kill him. "Don't hurt me!" begged John, "I came upstairs
to help you."

The white-cap said, "I am glad you spoke; I thought you were
another red-cap. This mill was mine until two red-caps came one
night and murdered me for my money. If you will promise to see
that justice is done them, and will bury me, you may have all my
treasure, the mill, my land, and everything. If you keep the tablecloth
on the table downstairs, everything that you call for will always
appear to you."

So John went downstairs, got the tablecloth, and set off through
the woods to see that justice was done the murderers. He had not
gone far, when he met a little man with a jug. "What have you got? "
said the little man to John.

"A tablecloth," replied John.

"Let me have it!"

"No, I want it myself."

"But you don't know what is in my jug."

"No."

"Well, see!" and with that, the little man opened his jug and cried
in a loud voice, "Cavalry, appear!" No sooner had he spoken the
words than a whole regiment of horsemen stood before them.

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New York. 319

Then he cried, "Infantry, appear!" and out came as many
infantry.

John thought it would be a fine thing to have as big an army as
that always at his command; so he said, "Call them in, and I will
exchange my tablecloth for your jug." So the little old man called
in the soldiers, and John took the jug and went on his way. He had
not gone far, when he began thinking how valuable the tablecloth was.
Then he remembered that he had an army at his command.

Quickly he said, "Cavalr>% appear!"

As soon as they appeared, John said, "Cavalry go and take the
tablecloth away from the little old man who has it!"

The cavalry did as John commanded them to do; so soon he had
both jug and tablecloth.

When John reached home, his family scarcely knew him, he was
so changed. When his father was sure that it was really his son
John who had returned, he said to him, "Peter did well; I guess you
haven't done so well."

John said, "Oh, I don't know; I've done pretty well." Thereupon
he asked the tablecloth for wine, for honey, for cake, for this and for
that, and all appeared. After a fine meal was set before them, John
asked his father to sit up and eat with him.

When they had eaten all they wanted, John said to his jug, " Cavalry,
appear!" and out they came. Then he said, "Infantry, appear!"
and out they came, too.

The father, amazed, said, "If that's all so, and I believe it is so,
you have done better than Peter."

"Oh, that's not half," said John, "I have a mill, acres and acres of
improved land, and" —

But 1 didn't stay to see how they made it. I left them.

There is prevalent among certain people a belief in magic, and many
are the talcs which they tell of marvellous cures effected by two witch
doctors of local fame, both of whom have died within comparatively
recent years. One story runs thus: —

8. THE BEWITCHED MILL.

(Told by Mr. Fred Mattice of Westkill Hollow, Schoharie County, New York, whose
ancestors were, he thought, English and maybe Dutch.)

One day a man's mill refused to work for him. He tried every
way he knew to get it to go, but go it would not. So finally he came to
the conclusion that it was bewitched, and went to a witch doctor for
help. The witch d<Klor said to the mill-owner, "Get some one who
will not speak a word, no matter what happens to him, and bring
him to me."

320 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

When the desired man was produced, the doctor gave him a piece
of paper containing writing, and told him to fasten it to the mill-wheel,
speaking no word until he had completed the task. Then he was to
raise a great shout.

In order to reach the mill, the man had to take a boat. On his way
to it he felt something brush against his legs. Thinking it was a dog,
he put out his hand in an absent-minded way to stroke it; but when
his hand came in contact with something web-like and softer than
silk, he looked down, and discovered that there was nothing in sight.
At that he hurried his steps; but the invisible something kept running
so close to him, that it always pressed against him. When he came
to the place where the boat was tied, he quickly unfastened it and
jumped in; but he was not quick enough to leave his companion be-
hind. Remembering that he must go to the mill alone, he jumped
out with the "thing" close at his heels, and tried to get in with such
expedition that he would leave it behind. In this he was disappointed.
A third time he tried it. This time he went far up on the shore, then,
turning, swiftly ran and leaped into the boat, at the same time pushing
it away from the shore. To his relief, he found that he was alone; so
without a word he crossed to the mill, where he fastened the bit of paper
with the magic words on it to the mill-wheel. Then he returned to
his boat and raised a loud shout. Straightway the mill-wheel started
up, and continued to go for many years.

Soon after this, the mother of the mill-owner fell sick, and her son
again went to the witch doctor for help. "My mother is sick," said
he. "Of course she is," replied the doctor; "she is the one who
bewitched your mill; I meant she should be sick." The next day the
woman died.

9. GRANNY COBB, THE WITCH.

(Told by Mrs. Jane Buell of Conesville. N.Y.. wlio said tlie incident occurred in the
neighborhood. Others said the same.)

Mrs. B.'s mother once went to see Lib C, who was said to be
bewitched. As the caller entered, she noticed there was a closely-
covered basin of something boiling violently on the stove. Her
curiosity was aroused by the close attention which Lib's mother gave
to the boiling; so she incjuircd what was in the basin. They told her
that was a secret, but that it was something to keep the witch woman
away. The caller had been there only a few minutes, when Lib said
in agonized tones, —

"Hurry, Mrs. ! She'll be here now in ten minutes."

"Who?" inquired Mrs. .

"Granny Cobb, the witch woman." (Granny Cobb was a neighbor,
living but a short distance from the C. farm.) Sure enough, in just

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New York. 321

ten minutes by the clock, Lib began to turn a series of back somer-
saults, chair and all. After she was all but worn out, suddenly she
appeared sitting in her chair as straight as a cob. In a few minutes —
as soon as she was able to get her breath, in fact — she hopped lightly
from her chair and sprang upon the red-hot front griddles of the stove,
where she performed a lively dance until the witch left her again.
Presently she began to turn somersaults on the bed; and then the
caller, not being able to stand any more, went home.

After some weeks Lib became so tortured, that her father sent for
Dr. B., a noted witch doctor in Kingston. When the doctor came,
he went to the C. cellar, where those in the room above heard him
command the spirit of Granny Cobb to appear.

"Are you going to let this girl alone?" they heard him ask.

"Never till I die," was the answer.

"Then you die!" he replied.

The next morning, when the neighbors did not see Granny Cobb
about, one of them finally plucked up courage to go and peep through
her bedroom window; and there lay the old woman dead in her bed.

10. THE BEWITCHED GIRL.
(Current as a local incident about Conesville, N.Y.)

Dr. B. was summoned for another girl who had strange "spells,"
during which she could pass through locked doors, walk around rooms
on the moulding above the wainscoting, move through the air as though
she were flying. When the doctor arrived, he told the bewitched girl
and the members of her family that they could sit in a wagon on the
barn floor and hear what he said to the witch whom he was going to
summon to meet him on the hay-mow. After listening a moment,
those below heard him ask, "Will you promise me to let this girl
alone?"

"No," replied another voice.

"Very well, then; I'll make you." And witii that the listeners
heard, "Clush, clush, clush!" as though he struck her with a cat-o'-
nine-tail. "I hate to kill you," he said, "but I shall have to, if you
won't promise to let her aUmc."

"Well, I'll see," compromised the v(jicc. "I'll meet you at the
cross-roads to-morrow morning, on your way back to Kingston, and
tell you what I have decided to do."

As the girl had no further trouble, people concluded that the witch
woman decided to let her alone.

VOL. XXVII. — NO. 105. — 23.

322 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

II. GRANNY COLE.

(Told by Mrs. Jane Buell of Conesville, N.Y.)

Mrs. B. told of her mother's going upstairs to see Granny Cole
one night after she had gone to bed. The caller reported that she
found the old woman lying on the bed with her skin half off her body.
When the neighbors heard the report, they had a witch doctor go to
see Granny Cole, for she was a character much feared in the com-
munity. The doctor made his call late one night, and, finding her
body when the spirit was out of it, killed her. At least, that was the
supposition; as he told the neighbors, when he came away from the
house, that the old woman would not trouble them any more; and in
the morning they found her dead.

12. THE horse's EAR.

(Told by Fred Mattice, Westkill Hollow, over 80 years old.)

A man went to town meeting and left his son ploughing a piece of
ground which he wanted finished by the time he returned. Soon
after the father left, a man who was said to be a witch man called
upon the boy, and directly thereafter the horse refused to work. Nor
could the boy get a stroke out of him until the father returned. When
the son told his father what had happened, the man muttered that he
would fix him. With that he whipped out his knife and cut a chunk
out of the horse's ear. Directly the horse sprang forward, but,
strangely enough, with a whole ear. A few days later, when the witch
man was again seen, he had part of one car missing.

13. THE BOY AND THE PARTRIDGES.
(Told by Mrs. John Bartley, Bull Hill, West Conesville, 80 years old.)

A boy one day in the fall set out to shoot some partridges. He
had not gone far, before he saw tw'o sitting on the roots of an old tree.
He shot once, twice, three times; but, although he was generally a
good shot, he couldn't hit one of them. After each shot they would
merely shake their feathers and talk partridge-talk. Finally, in a
rage, he went to the house and asked his uncle Lish to take the gun
and see if he could shoot those partridges. Lish took the gun, went
out to the woods, and there found the partridges waiting for him.
He took a si.xpenny-piece, bent it up, and shot. The leaves flew in
every direction, there was a noise like thunder, and no partridges in
sight. The man was frightened, and hurried away. When he had
gone a few steps, he suddenly came upon old Witch Schermerhorn
standing in the path, with her hands crossed.

"How do you do?" she said. "Been hunting?" But the man
hurried on, more frightened than before.

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New York. 323

Ever after that Mrs. Schermerhorn had a hole through her wrist,
which never healed.

Until within the last year or two, when many of the smaller towns
and hamlets have "gone dry," the most profitable business of the sec-
tion was that of running the old turnpike taverns, where the chief source
of revenue lay in the bar trade. Here the farmers resorted on Sundays,
rainy and "other days," to drink, gamble, and tell stories; here were
held the many petty lawsuits popular in the section; and here were
celebrated the harvest-festivals known as the "hop-picking dances."
For these and similar functions throughout the year, the revellers
began to assemble from far and near three or four days before the event,
and were detained for some days after it, for reasons which the reader
may readily supply. The old square dances, performed with exag-
gerated emphasis upon "pigeon-wings" and other fancy steps, are
the prime favorites. The rougher men, who are rapidly lessening in
number, dance with their hats on, after the old custom, and indulge in
many crude jokes and much loud profanity, as they stamp and caper
wildly about. An impromptu fiddler calls off, and quells the riots
which sometimes arise. Newly-married couples are occasionally
treated to a "skimmerton;" and the old-time singing and kissing
bees, and riddle-guessing, are popular at parties and bees of various
kinds where the guests represent religious sects which do not counte-
nance dancing. I might add here that Catholics are unknown, and
that many belong to a sect called by the people themselves "The
Holy Rollers."

Belief in buried treasure is not uncommon. Farmers frequently
refuse to part with a bit of ground on account of a rumor that it con-
tains buried treasure, a gold-mine or "oil." Most of these same farm-
ers are so indolent or so sceptical as to keep them from digging, but
get much satisfaction out of pursuing a dog-in-the-manger policy, and
dreaming of sudden riches. During the autumn of 1913, two little
old men were told by a fortune-teller of buried treasure on some land
which their father had once owned. This land was more than a day's
journey by horse and wagon from where they lived, but, with com-
mendable pluck, they armed themselves with a local guide, picks,
shovels, and a jug of whiskey. Thus fortified, they drove to the place,
and then set out in search of a minister to pray over the treasure, — a
ceremony which had l)een ordered by the fortune-teller. F"urthcrmore,
they were not to utter a word until they had unearthed a cauldron of
gold, silver, and precious stones. Fortunately, ]XM-haps, their i)<)wers
of silence were spared the test, for they could find no minister wiio did
not, as he expressed it, fear "to lend himself to sorcery:" hence, a
drowning of disappointment in the e(Hitents of the jug which wise
forethought had provided.

324 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

14. CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS.

As may be conjectured, some place great faith in the predictions of
fortune-tellers and in all manner of signs, omens, charms, and dreams.
The following beliefs were told me by Mrs. Jane Buell of Conesville,
N.Y., Miss Delia Miller of Conesville, N.Y., and Mr. Elisha Case
of Strikersville, N.Y. All are of English and German ancestry,
as far as they know.

If a girl wishes a young man to fall in love with her, she may offer
him a teaspoonful of her finger-nails ground into a powder and stirred
into a glass of beer, cider, or lemonade.

If a girl wishes a view of her future husband, she takes a mirror and
places it on a stand by the side of her bed. Before it she lays a piece
of soap, a comb, a razor, and a towel. Then she removes her shift,
puts it on wrong side out, and backs into bed, where she keeps perfectly
still. After a time the fated young man will enter the room and shave
himself before the mirror, after which performance he will back from
the room. A word from either will break the power of the charm.

On the fourteenth day of May a curious one stands with his back
to a stream, spring, or well, while he gazes into a mirror and says,

" Whoever my true love be,

Come and stand by the side of me."

If he is destined to marry, he will see the face of his "fate" in the
mirror; but, if not, he will see a coffin instead.

If a girl should take a ball of yarn, and, as she looks straight ahead,
walk around the outside of her home, repeating,

"Whoever will my husband me.
Come, wind the ball behind of me,"

she will see behind her, as she finishes unwinding the ball, her future
husband wath the yarn rewound.

If an unmarried girl should draw a circle on her bedroom-floor,
write her name on one side of it, and go to bed backwards, in the
night her true love w'ould come and write his name opposite hers.

If a farmer should keep a whiffet-dog, he would never be attacked
by a Hon.

A lock of a child's hair mixed with plaster and put in the walls of a
house will prevent the child from having the croup.

Toe and finger nails cut unbroken and wrapped in tissue-paper,
when put in a hole bored in a maple-tree and secured by a pine plug,
insure the owner of the rails against rheumatism (Delia Miller,
Conesville, Schoharie County, N.Y.).

If a child have asthma, stand him before a cherry-tree, bore a hole

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New York. 325

in the tree (with the auger resting upon the child's head), then clip a
lock of his hair, put it in the hole, and finish off with a pine plug.
After the child grows above this opening, he will never have the
asthma again.

To dream of ploughing, or in any way disturbing the earth, signifies
death, unless there is some alleviating circumstance, such as ploughing
straight up a hillside, that indicates that one will struggle back to
health, even from the very throes of death.

Before a death, the members of the afflicted family are likely to
see somewhere about their home a light, which fades as the dying
soul passes. Mrs. B. told of seeing arise from a spring near her home,
just as she was going to the spring for a pail of water, a hand bearing
a light. She, being but a child herself, refused to get the water, so
her sister went, while Mrs. B. watched to see whether, as her mother
had told her, the light would disappear as the little baby-sister drew
her last breath. It happened as her mother had prophesied.

15. COUNTING-OUT RHYME.

(Told by Beatrice Snyder, Blenheim, Schoharie County, current in school there.)

As I went up the apple-tree
All the apples fell on me.
Bake in pudding, bake in pie;
Did you ever tell a lie?
You know you didn't, you know you did;
You broke your mother's tea-pot lid;
She blew you in, she blew you out;
She blew you in the sauer-kraut.
A I It!
Ypsilanti, Mich.

326 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

ALEXANDER FRANCIS CHAMBERLAIN.

Alexander Francis Chamberlain, professor of anthropology in
Clark University, Worcester, Mass., editor of the "Journal of Ameri-
can Folk-Lore" from 1900 to 1908, passed away at his home in
Worcester on April 8, at the age of forty-nine years. He was born
in England on Jan. 12, 1865. His parents settled in the United
States when he was still a child, and later on lived in Peterborough,
Ontario. He studied modern languages at the University of Toronto,
and received the degree of B.A. in 1886.

Through the influence of Sir Daniel Wilson, then president of the
University, he became deeply interested in ethnology; and after his
appointment as fellow in modern languages at the University College
in 1887, he continued his anthropological studies which he had taken
up in his undergraduate days. In 1890 Chamberlain was appointed a
fellow in anthropology in Clark University. Here he continued his
anthropological work, paying particular attention to the linguistic
side of anthropology. In 1892 he received the degree of Ph.D. In
1 89 1 he was sent to British Columbia on behalf of the British Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science, for the purpose of studying the
Kutcnai Indians. His report on the tribe appeared in 1892. Other
results of his studies appeared in numerous periodicals, some of them
in this Journal.

In 1892 Dr. Chamberlain was appointed lecturer of anthropology,
a position which he held until 1894, when he became assistant professor.
In 1911 he was appointed professor of anthropology.

Dr. Chamberlain's contributions to anthropology lie in several
fields. We are indebted to him for the greater part of our knowledge
of the Kutenai Indians. He made a number of important contribu-
tions to our knowledge of the Algonquian tribes, and during the last
few years devoted himself particularly to the study of the difficult
linguistic problems presented by the Continent of South America.
The preliminary results of these studies appeared in the "American
Anthropologist."

Another branch of anthropological research to which he paid par-
ticular attention was the study of the development of the child. He
published two volumes on this subject, — "The Child, a Study in
the Evolution of Man," and "The Child and Childhood in Folk-
Thought." He continued his interest in this subject until his death,
and we may hope to see the results of his later studies, which he left
almOvSt completed.

Besides his original contributions to anthropology, Dr. Chamberlain

Alexander Francis Chamberlain. 327

gave most liberally of his time and energy to the general advancement
of the science to which he was devoted. He laid students of anthro-
pology, and particularly also of folk-lore, under great obligations by
publishing his bibliographies of current anthropological literature,
which appeared first in the "American Anthropologist," later jointly
in the "American Anthropologist" and this Journal, more recently as
part of "Current Anthropological Literature." For many years he
also contributed notes on recent publications of folk-lore, which formed
an interesting department of this Journal.

Not content with serving his colleagues in the most signal manner
by placing at their disposal the results of his wide reading, he gave his
time to the "Journal of American Folk-Lore," which he edited for
nine years after Mr. W. W. Newell retired from the editorship. With
Dr. G. Stanley Hall, he also edited the "Journal of Religious
Psychology." His contributions to the "New International En-
cyclopaedia," the " Encyclopeedia Britannica," the "Encyclopaedia
Americana," the "Handbook of American Indians," Hastings's
"Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics," and Monroe's "Cyclopedia
of Education," place a large amount of accurate knowledge at the
disposal of the general reader.

The generosity with which he gave of his knowledge and his time to
his fellow-workers was merely an expression of the desire to be of
service to mankind, which was a dominant trait in his character.
His interests were not confined by the narrow limits of nationality,
but he felt himself one with all the members of mankind, and tried
to understand the manifestations of the human mind in all its moods.
His attitude was dictated by his convictions; for he held that the
organic mental differences between the races of man are trifling as
compared to the differences brought about by tradition and social
environment. Not content with teaching what he thought, he tried
to carry his convictions intoi^ractice in his participation in public life.

Anthropologists, and particularly those who had the good fortune
to be associated with him in his work, feel keenly the loss that they
have sustained.

Franz Boas.

Columbia I niversity,
New York.

328 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

NOTES AND QUERIES.

Sympathetic Magic in the Kentucky Mountains: Some Curious
Folk-Survivals. — Sympathetic magic in eastern Kentucky groups itself
into two leading divisions, — witchcraft in its various forms, and the more
ancient belief in charms. Half a century ago the belief in witchcraft and
charms was more prevalent in eastern Kentucky than it is at present; but
the shadow of such superstitious beliefs is yet strong enough to offer some
interesting examples. Here are some of the things witches do in the
Kentucky mountains. They transform certain indi\iduals into horses and
ride them all night, restoring the bewitched to their natural shapes before
daylight: later, complaint of the jumping of ditches, fences, etc., is often
made by the victims. Only the form of the bewitched is changed, and his
rational attributes remain intact throughout. Witches do not confine
themselves to working the black art upon human beings, but bewitch ani-
mals and inanimate objects as well. Cows are bewitched; and their owners
complain that they are not "giving down " milk, whereas the cows belonging
to witches are continually yielding a plentiful supply. Even a churn can
be bewitched, and in order to break the spell a silver coin is placed in the
bottom of it; but a witch can have plenty of butter always convenient
and at hand, because she is able to produce the creamy substance by merely
squeezing the handle of an ordinary table-fork.

Sympathetic magic in its essence is illustrated by the image or pictograph
resorted to by witches. The picture of the victim crudely scrawled upon a
tree, or something else, by a witch who wishes to work the black art, does
not mean much unless the witch-ball or hair-ball is used. A witch can take
a person's life with this "dangerous ammunition." A small bunch of hair
from a horse or cow is rolled between the two hands into a small round ball,
and this ball is used as a bullet. In whatever part the ball hits the picture,
in the corresponding part of the victim a wound is inflicted. In Knott
County, several years ago, a man was ploughing in the field and suddenly
dropped dead between his plough-handles. It was a strange case, and
doubtless never would have been solved, had it not been for a single piece
of undeniable evidence. When he fell dead, a witch-ball dropped out of his
mouth. This was enough. The case was investigated, and it was found
that a wizard, jealous of the victim, had gone into the woods, drawn his
victim's picture upon a tree, taken aim, and shot a witch-ball into the
mouth represented in the picture.

Witches often metamorphose themselves into black cats and toads when
they go about their mischief-making. For this reason it is bad luck to
injure a black cat or a toad. If you kill a toad, the witches will cause your
cows to "give down" bloody milk. Witches themselves sometimes suffer
painful injuries. Many years ago a man's wife left home at dark to attend
a meeting of the witches. In the guise of a black cat she came home to
where her husband was sitting by the fireside, and threw her paws upon his
knees. He chopped off one of her paws, and immediately the hand of a
woman lay upon his knee. The next morning the wife feigned illness and
did not arise. The husband was suspicious, and asked her to hold out her
right hand. She extended the right arm, but the hand was missing.

Notes and Queries. 3 29

The old transaction, bartering away one's soul to Satan, has undergone
some changes. In eastern Kentucky, one who desires to become a witch
goes before sunrise to the summit of an adjacent mountain. As soon as
the sun begins to appear above the distant horizon, and as soon as the
aspirant has hurled a trine anathema at Jehovah, and owned the Devil as
a master, she holds up a white handkerchief in front of it, shoots through
the 'kerchief with a silver bullet, and blood drops from it. The operation is
then complete.

According to the folk-conception in the Kentucky mountains, the witch
or wizard may or may not become the prey of the Demon of Evil. So long
as he remains in the power of the Evil Spirit, and rejects the intercession of
the Holy Spirit, he may be said to be sinning against the Holy Ghost, and
consequently is lost. However, a witch or wizard may renounce his demoni-
acal vow, completely reform, and live on an equality with his fellow-men,
and be saved.

In eastern Kentucky, men claim the power to work the black art, and are
as carefully avoided as are the witches. In the Kentucky mountains, there
are few, if any, instances of the use of herbs or roots, or of mandrake or
briony, with which to fashion images of persons whom a witch may wish
to consume; but witches are known to use a great many herbs for various
purposes.

There are two ways of protecting one's self against witches, — by soliciting
the services of a witch doctor, and by resorting to charms. The witch doctor
has many ways by means of which he or she may break the spell of witchcraft.
As soon as one's charm begins to work, the witch begins to suffer intense
physical agony, and soon comes bearing a gift of some sort to the bewitched
person or to the owner of a bewitched animal. If the gift is accepted, the
charm loses its efficacy the moment it is accepted. The gun-barrel charm,
in which the barrel of a gun is placed in a stream of water, first up stream
and then down, has been known to give witches a great deal of unpleasant-
ness. The gun-barrel method is as follows: "Aussitot qu'on devient ensor-
cel6, il fait partir quelqu'un immediatement au docteur en sorcellerie. Le
docteur porte un mousquet au bord d'un petit courant certain. II s6pare
la monture et le canon de fusil. Pr^mierement il place le canon de fusil
dans I'eau, contre le courant. Aussitot qu'il le fait, la sorciere commence
vomir terriblement. Alors le docteur renverse le canon de fusil, et la sor-
ci6re commence excrcter terriblement. Sur ces entrefaites la sorcidre
envoie un messager au docteur, suppliant piteusement. Le messager fait
plusieurs voyages en suppliant le docteur, pendant que celui-ci fait ceci et
ga, et palati el patala avec le canon de fusil. II ricochait, il ricochait! Enfin
la magiciennc se trouve dans difricult6 violcntc, le docteur en sorcellerie
avec compassion deplace le canon dc fusil de dessous le courant, la sorcicire
devient en avoir plus qu'asscz, et le vers magicjue de sorcellerie se rompt."

No one except the bewitched can see a transformed witch, and no other
person save the bewitched can injure a witch by shooting her. This must
be done by using a silver bullet. This is a seemingly paradoxical folk-
conception, that a silver bullet can create a witch and in the same breath
exterminate her. A silver bullet was used by a hunter in Cornwall to shoot
a rabbit that had escaped all the leaden bullets shot at it. The rabbit
was shot in one of the thighs by a silver bullet, and was pursued by the

:>y

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

hunters, but could not be found anywhere. Finally one of the hunters came
upon a withered old hag crouching behind a bowlder. She was led out
limping. Scott gives a charm against witchcraft, which consists in spitting
into the shoe of the right foot before putting it on. If I am not mistaken,
this charm has been resorted to in eastern Kentucky.

The second division of sympathetic magic, charms, is covered by a number
of superstitions in the Kentucky mountains. VV^e find charms against
inflammation, carnivorous fowls, droughts, spirits or ghosts, warts, and
many kinds of diseases. The charm against inflammation has been worked
by quoting these three lines (also an old English charm): —

" There were two angels came from the East;
One brought fire, the other frost:
Out fire, in frost! "

If a hawk is catching your chickens, get a stone from the bottom of the
creek-bed and place it in the bottom of the grate. Kill a black snake and
hang it up, and rain will come within twelve hours (compare the Bushman
rain-charms among the Semang tribes of East Malacca). There is a
current belief that scrofula in an infant can be cured by allowing another
child, one whose father died before it was born, to blow its breath into the
mouth of the sick infant. Charms for making one love you are many.
One of them consists in boiling the paddle of a goose's foot and giving the
water to your " best girl."

JosiAH Henry Combs.
Ardnore, Okla.

Crow Rapid-Speech Puzzles. — It may be of interest to note that the
Crow Indians have stereotyped sentences or phrases corresponding to our
"She sells sea-shells by the seashore." One person recites these as rapidly
as possible and calls on another to do likewise; owing to the peculiar-jux-
taposition of phonetic elements, confusion and mispronunciation generally
result. Naturally enough, these sentences are not fraught with profound
meaning. The best-known illustration is the following.

Bas'akapupec-di-fuc (l) akapupapa'pat'det'Ek' (2); that is, "My
people who went to the Nez Perce (i), you are the ones who wear belts tied
round the blanket in Nez Perce fashion (2)."

Cranimatical Explanation. — Bas, "my;" ak, prefix indicating vomcn
acloris; apupe, Nez Perce (ape, "nose;" u'pe, "hole"); c, suffix denoting
direction toward; da (de), "he goes;" u, plural sufiix; c, sufifix giving
meaning of definiteness, generally used with individual names and to
bind together several elements of a phrase, dk, " nomenactoris;" apup(e),
Nez Perce; apd^pat', designation for this particular style of wearing the
belt and blanket; de, "you have;" t, sufifix denoting similarity to the
preceding word (for example, micg'e't^k^ [micn'e, "dog:" k\ oral stopj,
"like a dog"); e\ connective; k\ oral stop. This interpretation of the
second complex by Yellow-Brow is not convincing to me, for my best
interpreter regarded the del^ as a single element, the privative particle.
This would change the translation to "they are the ones who have not
Nez Perce blanket-belts." I have heard the connective E dropped,
with concomitant shortening of the preceding syllable {det'k'); also the
plural sufhx in the first word-complex is sometimes dispensed with, giving
dec instead of dd-\-uc.

Notes and Queries.

331

The second example collected by me seems quite devoid of definite
meaning.

Tsipupu'ce (i) tsu'pe (2) maku'te (3) ici'k"oce (4) bac5'ritsi'tse (5)
asa'karu'uptse (6) i+5'picterExe (7); that is, "Chipmunk's (i) foreleg
bone (2) parallel (3?) his whistle (4) medicine-rock (5) holding by the edge
(6) smoking with a light (glassy) eye (7)."

Grammatical Explanation. — Ic {is), possessive pronoun of the third person;
t, instrumental prefix; koce, stem of verb for "whistle" (palatization of k
due to preceding vowel); dsa^ke, "corner," "at the extremity" (for
example, asa^kace, "Mandan = Last Lodge;" ace, "lodge"); ru (du),
verbal prefix indicating action with the hand (for example, dii'tsik', "he
takes;" dii'kapik', "he scratches"); t, instrumental prefix; o'pe, "to-
bacco," stem of verb for "smoke;" ictc, "his eye;" rkxe, possibly from
de'Exe, applied to the color of autumnal foliage, the weakly trilled linguo-
apical r regularly supplanting d in intervocalic position.

Robert H. Lowie.
American Museum of Natural History,
New York City.

Spanish Songs from Southern California. — Song No. i, "El Som-
brero Blanco," given below, is familiar throughout Southern California.
It was transcribed in the present instance from the singing of a young girl
of Mexican ancestry, who said that the tune w'as well known in Mexico,
but was sung there with different words. She also said that the words
here giv'en were supposed to have had some political significance during
the stormy period which culminated with the transfer of California to the
United States, the "Sombrero Blanco" and the "Sombrero Azul" repre-
senting different political parties.

Although various Spanish song-forms were transplanted across the
Atlantic, it is rare to find actual melodies carried to this side of the ocean.
Nevertheless, the second section of the "Sombrero Blanco" is undoubtedly
a descendant of the last half of the Spanish song, No. 2, also given below.

If any readers of the Folk-Lore Journal have further knowledge of
these songs and their history, the transcriber would be glad to hear from
them.

I. EL sombrero BLANCO

Cheerfully.

W'dltz rhythm for
a carmpan ivient.

-f^

-ri-

pon - ga

som - bre - ro blan - co.

Xr-

:=t

i^tn:

B»

Quie- res que te pon - ga mi som - bre - ro a
-I 1 J

zul,

-1- ' h-

vi - da en un tro - no.

Quie- res que te sien - te

332

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Fine.

-^ -,

t=:

<d-

Pa-raquete can -to el tu- run tun, tu-runtun, tu-run tun, tun.

—7^'

1. Si quie - res que

2. Si quie - res que

yo
yo

-(2-

!=»•

te quie
te quie

— N— N-

Ha de

Manda en-

-' f2

ser con con
la - dri - liar

ci6n, Que lo tu - yo ha de ser
mar, Y des - pues — del la - dri

-^-

--?---

- o,

Y el

mi -

tu -

yo,

no!

11a

do,

Soy

tuyo

pue -

mandar.

2. LA JOLA VALENCIANA
(From the collection called "Echos d' Espagno," published by Durand & Cie, Paris.)

:7^»1l^-r— r— f=^-

• T~ T ?* J

A 1

-H

■Pr- 8 ' . -^ ^ ^— H —

— 1 w \^ 1- -^ —

Cuan

A - dan,

tu ven - ta

na, con la gui - ta - rra can - ta - ba.

..Atttj k^^^

bM ,-^=J-^^^-^^-^_±:p=^

-^^

L^ 2 _• — w_? 1 J__^ — ^_

Quie - res que te com - pre una man - ti - 11a blan - ca,

-^^E^^

— N-

Quie- res que te com - pre una man - ti - 11a a; - zul,

:5=S=5=:ff:

4=:

Quie- res que te com - pre za - pa - tos y me - dias,

=ff=?=5^

Quie - res que te com - pre lo que quie - res tu.

Eleanor Hague.
Stockbridge, Mass,,
June, 1914.

Notes and Queries. 333

Texas Branch. — The Folk-Lore Society of Texas held its Fourth
Annual Meeting on Saturday, May 9, 1914, in the auditorium of the Young
Men's Christian Association building of the University of Texas. The
following papers were presented: "The Passing of the Folk," Annual
Address of the President, Professor VV. H. Thomas, College Station;
"Folk-Lore Fields of the Southwest," by W. P. Webb, Beeville, Tex.;
"Folk-Lore as a Factor in determining Institutions," by Professor J. E.
Pearce, Austin, Tex.; "The Training-School Boy's Slang," by A. W.
Eddins, Gatesville, Tex.; "More Play-Party Songs," by R. E. Dudley,
Valley View, Tex.; "Some American Versions of English and Scottish
Ballads," Dr. Robert A. Law, University of Texas. Reports of the
Treasurer and of the Nomination Committee were then read, after which
the meeting adjourned.

MoLTKE MoE. — Professor Moltke Moe, of the University of Christiania,
one of the foremost students of folk-lore in northern Europe, died Dec. 15,
last year. He was the son of Bishop Jorgen Moe, the distinguished church-
man and poet, who devoted a large part of his life to the collection and
publication of Norwegian folk-tales, his co-worker in this enterprise being
Peder Christian Asbjornsen. Professor Moe was born in 1859, and in
1876 entered the University of Christiania, where he began his work in
the field to which he was to devote his life. He made several journeys
into the rural districts to collect folk-lore material, and since 1882 has
received a yearly appropriation from the government for the prosecution
of his researches. In 1886 he was made professor of Norwegian folk-lan-
guage, with the duty of giving lectures also on folk-lore. Since 1899 he has
been professor of folk-lore and mediaeval literature. He has done much
to promote popular interest in, and academic recognition of, the scientific
study of folk-lore. He entered into the field of American folk-lore in his
collaboration with Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, in the latter's volume, "Eskimo
Life."

Albert N. Gilbertson.

University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, Minn.

Alcee Fortier. — Alcce Forticr, professor of Romance languages at
Tulane University, New Orleans, La., died Feb. 14, 1914. Professor
Fortier was born at St. James Parish, La., on June 5, 1856. He devoted
himself to the study of modern languages, and became particularly interested
in the folk-lore of his State. In 1888 he published " Bits of Louisiana Folk-
Lore;" and in 1895, an excellent collection of Louisiana folk-talcs in the
French local dialect, with English translation, which forms one of (he me-
moirs of the Ameriran Folk-Lore Society. In 1894 he was President of
the American Folk-L(jrc Society, in whose work he always took a lively
interest.

Adolph Francis Randelier. — On March 19, 1914, Adolph Francis
Bandclier died in Seviilo, Spain, where he was conducting studies on behalf
of the Carnegie Institution. He was born at Berne, Switzerland, on
Aug. 6, 1840. Although Bandelier's interests were chiefly historical and
archaeological, he made valuable contributions to our knowledge of the

334 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

ethnology and folk-lore of the American Continent. His studies on the
tenure of land and inheritance of the ancient Mexicans, published in 1878,
and his investigations on the social organization and mode of government
of the ancient Mexicans, have been of the greatest importance for our
knowledge of ancient America. Later on his studies carried him to South
America, where he spent many years. Some of the results of his studies
have been published by the Hispanic Society of America, under the title
"The Islands of Titicaca and Koati." After the completion of this volume, ■

he went to Mexico in order to study and copy documents relating to the ^

early history of the Indians of the Southwest. He died without being able
to complete these researches.

THE JOURNAL OF

AMERICAN FOLK-LORE.

Vol. XXVIL — OCTOBER-DECEMBER, 19 14.— No. CVI.

RELIGION OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

BY PAUL RADIN.
INTRODUCTION.

There are always two factors to be considered in religion, —
first, a specific feeling; and, secondly, certain beliefs, conceptions,
customs, and acts associated with this feeling. Of these beliefs,
perhaps the one most inextricably connected with the specific
feeling is that in spirits, who are conceived of as more powerful than
man, and as controlling all those elements in life on which he lays
stress. These two component elements of religion may be regarded
either as having always been associated and thus forming an insepa-
rable whole, or the one as having preceded the other in time.

These beliefs play an important role with all people, but the im-
portance of the specific feeling varies with each individual. The less
intense the feeling, the greater, on the whole, will be the value attached
to the beliefs, and the stricter will be the punctilious performance of
custom and observance. The reverse is not true, however, for the
greatest intensity of feeling is frequently known to accompany the
observ'ancc of customs. Beliefs and customs, as such, contain no
religious element. They belong to that large body of folkloristic
elements toward which the individual and the group assume an attitude
of passive acceptance. What makes certain of these beliefs part of
the religious complex is their association with the specific religious
feeling. It docs not matter with what degree this feeling is held, or
whether it is held by all the members of the group.

Religious feeling, however, is not a simple unit. It is accompanied
by certain muscular responses, — the folding of the hands, the bowing
of the head, the closing of the eyes; in siiort, by all external signs of
mental and emotional concentration. Now, whether these various
activities invariably condition religious feeling, and therefore c6nstitute
this state of mind, or vice versd, is a problem for the psychologists to
VOL. xxvn. — NO. 106. — 23. 335

336 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

determine; but this much is true, that these various activities, per-
formed at certain propitious times, do actually call forth religious
feeling. On the other hand, we know that the folding of the hands
and similar actions have become so entirely dissociated from religious
feeling, that they are little better than stereotyped formulae unac-
companied by the slightest thrill.

The discussion of the muscular responses accompanying religious
feeling has brought us to a crucial question: Does the association of
such muscular responses as have become stereotyped acts with certain
beliefs, customs, etc., constitute the religious complex? I do not see
how we can possibly deny the term "religion" to it; for the stereo-
typed acts were primarily associated with religious feeling, and only
secondarily became dissociated. In other words, we shall in this case
have to consider as a religious complex a complex in which one of the
essential elements — the specific religious feeling — may be absent.

Let us now turn to an examination of the specific religious feeling.
What I should call religious feeling is a far more than normal sensitive-
ness to certain beliefs, conceptions, and customs, that manifests itself
in a thrill, a feeling of exhilaration, exaltation, awe, and in a complete
absorption in internal sensations. Negatively it is characterized by
a complete abeyance of external impressions. As a feeling, I should
imagine that it differs very little from other feelings, such as the
aesthetic or even the joy of living. What distinguishes it from them
is the fact that it is called forth by entirely different elements.

A pure religious feeling is, however, exceedingly rare; for from the
nature of the folkloristic background with which it has been associated,
and from the nature of the role it plays in primitive man's life, it has
become assimilated with almost all the other feelings possessed by
man. With certain individuals, religious feeling may on almost all
occasions dwarf other feelings; but with the vast majority of men
and women it is but one am.ong others, rising at times to a position of
predominance, and more frequently being entirely displaced. Often
it is artificial in the extreme to attempt any separation.

Let us now inquire into the nature of those beliefs, conceptions, and
customs that have become part of the religious complex.

A cursory glance at the religious beliefs of peoples shows that almost
any belief or custom can and has at different times become associated
with religious feeling. This can be explained in only one way, — by
regarding religion, not as a phenomenon apart and distinct from
mundane life, not as a philosophical inquiry into the nature of being
or as a group of concepts and acts that spring from the relation of the
individual to the outer world, but, broadly speaking, as one of the
most important and distinctive means of maintaining life-values. As
these vary, so will the religious complex vary. In other words, religion

Religion of the North American Indians. 337

■will only emphasize and preserve those values that are accepted by
the majority of the group at any given time. Religion is thus closely
connected with the whole life of man; and only when other means of
emphasizing and maintaining life-values are in the ascendant, does it
become divorced from the corporate life of the community. This
divorce has never taken place among primitive man, and religion
consequently permeates every phase of his culture. It does not,
however, permeate every phase equally, with the same intensity, or
with the same permanency; and in this variability lies, it seems to me,
the possibility of discussing religion apart from all other aspects of
the life of a group, as well as the possibility of separating the religion
of one people from that of another.

In the midst of the variability of life-values, three stand out promi-
nently and tenaciously; and they are success, happiness, and long life.
In the same way there stands out, from the heterogeneous mass of be-
liefs, the belief in spirits who bestow success, happiness, and long life.
These life-values are in no way inherently connected with the spirits,
and may, we know, be obtained in another \vay; for instance, by
magical rites. Our constant element is consequently the life-values.
The association of these values with spirits may justifiably be regarded
as secondary, and not as necessarily flowing from the nature of the
spirit as originally conceived. Is it not, then, emphatically putting
the cart before the horse to contend that "religion springs from the
relation of the individual to the outer world (i.e., the spirits)?" Is
it not just the converse that is true, that religion springs from the
relation of the spirits to the life- values of man? In North America
I am certain that this is the case.

While religion is thus concerned primarily with the important life-
values of man, in stressing these it has been compelled, perforce, to
include with them (because they form so important and integral a
part of man's life) a large and variegated assortment of his folkloristic-
magical background; and while the individual's attitude toward these
is on the whole one of passivity, in their new setting there are occasions
on which the religious feeling becomes dilTuscd o\er these folkloristic-
magical elements too.

If religion is thus so intimately connected with the stressing of
life-values, it is essential to inquire carefully into the personnel of
its carriers and the gradations of (heir religious intensity.

From the nature of religious feeling, it is quite evident that no one
can be in this state continuously. In some individuals, howe\er, it can
be called up easily. These are the truly religious j)eople. They arc
always few in number. I'Vom these to the totally unreligious person
the gradations are numerous. If we were to arrange these gradations
in the order of their religious intensity, we should have as the most

338 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

important the following: the truly religious, the intermittently reli-
gious, and the indifferently religious. The intermittently religious
really fall into two groups, — those who may be weakly religious at
almost any moment; and those who may be strongly religious at certain
moments, such as temperamental upheavals and crises. In the inter-
mittently and indifferently religious are included by far the large
majority of people; but, since so many extra-religious factors enter
into their religious consciousness, they are really the most poorly
adapted for the study of religion. To understand religion and its
development we must study those individuals who possess religious
feeling in a marked degree. I believe that much of the confusion that
exists in so many analyses of religion is due to the fact, that, in so far
as these analyses are based on the study of distinct individuals, the
individuals selected belonged to the class of intermittently or ab-
normally religious. Starting, then, from the markedly religious
person, w^e should study the intermittently and the indifferently
religious with reference to him.

It is not enough to realize the division of people into the three
religious groups we have enumerated above: we have also to know
when their religious feeling is called forth. Apart from the degree of
religious susceptibility, we can legitimately claim that the members
of all our three groups show a pronounced religious feeling at certain
crises of life, and that these crises are intimately connected with all
the important socio-economic life-values of the tribe, — puberty,
sickness, death, famine, etc. The frequent existence on such occasions
of temperamental upheavals is unquestionably a great aid in evoking
a religious feeling. Whatever it be, however, it is during individual
and tribal crises that the majority of men and women are possessed
of what, in spite of other ingredients, is a religious thrill; and this
religious thrill becomes instantaneously associated with definite beliefs,
concepts, and customs, the most important of which is the belief in
spirits and the necessity of their being brought into relation with man.
There is nothing inherent in the religious thrill that would necessarily
suggest an association with specific beliefs. That it docs suggest
them is due entirely to the influence of the early education the man
has undergone.

It is, then, at crises that the majority of men obtain their purest
religious feeling, because it is at such times only that they perhaps
are most prone to permit inward feelings to dominate. It is only
at crises, however, that the majority of men obtain a pure religious
feeling at all. The markedly religious man is quite different. A
certain temperamental susceptibility permits him to obtain a religious
thrill on innumerable occasions; and since with each thrill are asso-
ciated the specific religious beliefs, etc., he sees the entire content of

Religion of the North American Indians. 339

life from a religious viewpoint. Life and its values as determined by
his traditional background are, of course, primary; and the function
religion assumes is that of emphasizing and maintaining these life-
values. The intermittently and indifferently religious are taught
and accept unhesitatingly, as far as they comprehend it, the religious
complex of the religious. They assuredly rarely see life from a
religious standpoint. There are occasions, however, in the corporate
life of a community, — such as a ceremony or ritual, — where a
religious feeling does at times seem to be diffused over the entire
content of life. Certainly even the intermittently and indifferently
religious who participate in these activities must partake somewhat
of this feeling too. At a ceremony many of the conditions favorable
to the calling-forth of a religious feeling are given, — the presence
of truly religious people and of acts and customs associated with
religious feeling; the condition of detachment from the outer world;
and, lastly, the very important fact that an individual has been taught
to expect a religious thrill there.

Summing up, we may say that all people are spontaneously religious
at crises; that markedly religious people are spontaneously religious
on numerous other occasions; and that the intermittently and in-
differently religious are secondarily religious on a number of occasions
not connected with crises.

One of the most important points in the study of religion is to know
where to begin the inquiry. It has been customary, whether we are
conscious of this fact or not, to treat the subject as though each
generation evolved its religion anew. We admit the inheritance of
the cultural background in theory, but make no use of it in practice.
The general impression conveyed by the discussions is that to each
generation the problems of religion present themselves for solution.
This lack of correspondence between theory and practice seems to me
due to the fact that we do not begin our investigations at some definite
point in the concrete data at our disposal. It is absolutely essential,
however, to have a starting-point; and there is, it seems to me, only
one logical and historical slarling-point, namely, the relation of a
youth to the preceding generation in the persons of his immediate
family. If we know what an individual, in the formative years of
his life, has learned of the objective and subjective content of religion
from his immediate relatives, and how the latter have moulded his
religious nature, we are on firm ground.

In the transmission of the religious complex, two important points
are to be considered, — first that from the nature of the age at which
youths are generally taught the objective contents of religion, which
embraces the years from ten to fourteen, all individuals nuist begin
with an attitude of unhesitating acceptance of their traditional back-

340 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

ground, with all its implications; and, secondly, that the appearance
of religious feeling is subsequent to the acquisition of that mass of
beliefs, concepts, and customs, with which in adult life it is inextricably
interwoven. In the emotionally formative period of life, the individual
is taught the socio-economic importance of being religious; and what
becomes the traditional religious background in later life, becomes
endeared to him in earlier life for reasons extraneous to religion, —
through family ties and affection, through personal ambition, etc.
He obtains all this before he has experienced any intense religious
emotion. If, consequently, we wish to understand the religious com-
plex, we shall have to bear in mind clearly the historical order of
development of its component elements and stresses.

Before entering on the discussion of North American religion proper,
a few words on the relation of magic and religion may not be out
of place.

The distinction which we wish to make between religion and magic
is a very simple one. It is concerned principally with the nature of
the subjective attitude. In religion this attitude is positive and defi-
nite; while in magic it is negative and indefinite, and may be said to
consist mainly in the feeling that certain facts will occur together.
The objective content of religion and magic, while differing in many
ways, is frequently the same. The resemblances are due, in my
opinion, to two facts, — first, because religion and magic are primarily
concerned with the same things, namely, the maintenance of life-
values (although here the range of magic is more restricted than that
of religion); and, secondly, because quite a number of the elements
that form a part of the magical complex have become secondarily
included in the religious complex.

CRITIQUE OF SOURCES.

Religion has never been made a special subject of inquiry in North
America; and practically all the accessible data are to be found in
the general accounts of tribes, in mythologies, and in specific studies
of ceremonies. However, even in the best of the studies at our dis-
posal, what is specifically dealt with is not religion in its entirety, but
religious practices and observances. The nature of religious feeling
and its role have rarely been dwelt upon, except in connection with
the discussion of the concept of magical power (orenda, ivakanda,
manito, etc.). Frequently, too, even in the best descriptions of the
religion of a certain tribe, we are at a loss to know whether it is the
Indian's viewpoint that is given, or an ethnologist's conception of that
viewpoint. Even when we have satisfied ourselves that we are essen-
tially dealing with an Indian's viewpoint, we rarely know what
Indian's viewpoint, — whether it is the shaman's or the layman's,
that of a religious or of an essentially unreligious person.

Religion of the North American Indians. 341

The raw material for the study of the subjective side of religion is
given to a certain extent in the myths, especially in the ritualistic
myths. These are generally merely personal religious experiences
cast in a literary mould. They naturally leave much to be desired.
One of the ideal methods for acquiring data relating to the subjective
side of religion is to obtain "spiritual" autobiographies. These are
not difficult to obtain in many parts of North America, owing to the
not uncommon use of modern syllabic alphabets. In addition, great
emphasis should be placed on securing verbatim, or at least approxi-
mately complete, accounts of speeches given at ceremonies or on other
occasions of a religious nature, for they often throw an admirably
clear light on the subjective aspects of our subject.

Unfortunately, in addition to certain defects in the nature of our
available material, we have to reckon with a serious gap in our knowl-
edge of certain tribes. This is conspicuously true for the interior
Athapascan tribes, for many of the tribes included in the Plateau
area, for almost all the Shoshonean, and for a large number of the
Southeastern tribes. For the Southeastern area a large mass of ma-
terial has recently been collected by Dr. Swanton, but it still awaits
publication. A peculiar condition exists with regard to the data on
the Southwest. While our published sources of information are by
no means small, the material, except in the case of the Navajo,
Pawnee, and Hopi, is presented in such a confused way that it is
frequently extremely difficult to use.

METHOD OF EXPOSITION.

The difficulties in the way of an adequate presentation of so com-
plex a phenomenon as religion are well known. For puryxiscs of
description it is necessary to separate our subject into a number of
definite, often enough artificial units; and yet it is essential to hold
these units together in a close nexus. At the same time, to treat
religion statically is manifestly one-sided, and likely to lead to many
misinterpretations. It is, then, at all times necessary to bear in mind
that we are dealing with a dynamic phenomenon. Finally, we must
remember that we are dealing with an historical grouj), and that we
must endeavor, even in spite of our unfortunate lack of historical
sources, to utilize those contemporary sources in our 7X)sscssion in such
a way that the religious complex as a whole, and the religious concep-
tions, beliefs, and customs in j)arti(ul.ir, are iiiterijrctcd in the light
of their probable development.

For the reasons given above, it has si'cnud bist to jMiscnt our
subject under the headings suggested by our definition of religion.
We shall accordingly treat religion under the following topics:' —

' It mijiht be well to state that the writer is personally acquainted with two tribes. —
the VVinnei;aKo and the Ojibwa. Ilis analysis of rclision naturally started with data
secured from them.

342 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Introductory: Religion as a shamanistic interpretation.

I. The specifically religious concepts,

1. The concept of supernatural power.

2. The concept of spirits.

3. The power and localization of spirits.

4. The development of spirits into deities.

5. Monotheism.

II. The relation of spirits to man.

1. The twofold interpretation of this relation.

2. Guardian spirits.

III. The methods of bringing spirits into relation with man.

1. Fasting.

2. "Mental concentration."

3. Self-castigation and torture.

4. Offerings and sacrifices.

5. Prayers and incantations.

6. Charms and fetiches.

IV. The folkloristic-religious complex.

1. The concept of evil.

2. The concept of disease.

3. The concepts of death, after-life, and re-incarnation.

4. The concept of the soul.

V. The transmission of the religious complex.

INTRODUCTORY: RELIGION AS A SHAMANISTIC INTERPRETATION.

Among the North American Indians emphasis was naturally laid
upon different aspects of life in different parts of the country. The
purely hunting and fishing tribes, with a loose social and ceremonial
organization, were bound to have a religious complex quite distinct
in certain ways from that of the Plains Indians or the agricultural
and sedentary tribes of the Southeast and Southwest. Throughout
America, as in other parts of the world, man has always asked
for two things, — success and long life. The kind of success he
desired would naturally depend upon what, in his culture, was con-
sidered of value, and also upon individual temperament. Man was
accordingly to conduct himself in the manner which would conform
best to the conditions necessary for the attainment of his specific life-
values. These conditions were more or less precisely given by the
preceding generation as interpreted by the elders of that generation.

Religion of the North American Indians. 343

From the point of view of the elders, a man's life might be separated
into a number of divisions of prime significance both to the commu-
nity and to the individual. These are birth, adolescence, old age,
death, future life, etc. To what extent these different periods of life
are religiously as well as socially emphasized, varies with different
tribes.

In the life of the individual, irrespective of any observance associated
with these periods, certain events will take place at the age of adoles-
cence and early manhood, for instance, around which a religious
feeling clusters. These events are generally of two kinds, — one that
might be called positive, and one negative. As illustrations of the
first kind might be given such events as the first killing of a food-
animal or the first killing of an enemy, the acquisition of a new name,
the first enjoyment of products of the field, etc. As illustrations of
the second kind might be given such occurrences as lack of success in
one's undertakings, the presence of dilemmas and crises, where the
question arises, "What am I to do?" It is at this point that the
religious feeling arises most easily and is felt most deeply, according
to the available data at our disposal. It is quite natural that it should,
for it is on such occasions that there exist a pronounced desire for
success and a willingness to put one's self in a condition by which
success may be achieved. According to the theory of the shamans,
complete absorption in the religious feeling is the essential require-
ment; but with this essential requirement there has come to be
associated, through an historical growth directed by the shaman, a
belief in spirits more powerful than man, who control success.

The predication of the religious feeling as essential to success, and
the association of this feeling with spirits who are also conceived of as
essential to success, flow neither from the nature of the feeling nor
from that of the spirits. In North America, at least, it is a theory and
an interpretation of the religious man, the shaman. I do not mean
to imply that the shaman has necessarily established this association;
but it seems highly probable that he has analyzed the entire complex,
and has given an interpretation of the relation of the religious feeling
to success in life and to the belief in spirits. This interpretation is
accepted uncritically and unhesitatingly by the other members of the
tribe.

How thoroughly concerned this theory is with the accentuation and
preservation of specific life-values, is made plain by the following
excerpt from the Winnebago system of instructions: —

"My son, when you grow up, you should try to be of sonic benefit to
your fellowmen. There is only one way in which this can be done, and that
is to fast. ... If you thirst jourseif to death, the spirits who are in control
of wars will bless you. . . . But, my son, if you do not fast repeatedly, it

344 Journal oj American FoJk-Lore.

Avill be all in vain that you inflict sufTcrinps upon yourself. Blessings are
not obtained except by making the proper offerings to the sjjirits, and by
putting yourself, time and again, in the proper mental condition. ... If
you do not obtain a spirit to strengthen you, you will amount to nothing
in the estimation of your fellowmen, and they will show you little respect.
. , . My son, as you travel along life's path, you will find many narrow
passages fi. e., crises], and you can never tell when you will come to them.
Try to anticipate these, so that you will be endowed with sufficient strength
(by obtaining powers from the spirits] to pass safely through these narrow
passages."

Certainly we have here a markedly materialistic conception quite
in contrast to the formulation of the relation of God to man in the
Semitic religions. In the latter religions man is admonished to put
himself in an attitude of thankfulness and veneration for the deity
who has created him and this world. In the religion of the Indians,
even where tlie idea of creation is markedly developed, there is no
trace of any such attitude. , Prayers ancj offerings are not made to the
spirits in order to glorify them: they are made in order to obtain
something very definite; and, as we shall see, the blessings they bestow
are not made because of their love of mankind, but because they have
received offerings. In theory they may at times refuse these offer-
ings, but in practice this rarely happens. Having once accepted the
offerings, the spirits must grant man the powers they possess. They
practically become automatons, and their relation to man becomes
mechanical.

So much for the formulation of the shamanistic theory. Let us
turn now to the presentation and examination of the specifically
religious concepts with which the shaman deals.

I. THE SPECIFICALLY RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS.

I. The Concept of Supernatural Power. — In North America
the shamanistic theory is a purely animistic one. The main char-
acteristics of the spirits or spiritual beings which tlie theory predi-
cates is that the spirits are non-human and more powerful than man.
The question as to whether they are anthropomorpliic or not seems
to be of comparatively small consequence. When seen or conceived
of as acting, tjiere is unquestionably a well-marked tendency to de-
scribe them either as anthropomorphic or as theromorphic beings.
This is particularly true of those spirits who play a r&le in mythology.
In spite of this, there is ample evidence to show that the Indians
were very little interested in the form under which their spirits were
conceived, without, however, making them any the less definite. The
lack of definiteness in form has led a number of ethnologists in
America and elsewhere to postulate the existence, in America, of a

Religion of the North American Indians. 345

*' spirit-force" or magic power. Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt was perhaps the
first to discuss it among the North American Indians, and his con-
clusions seemed to be corroborated by the studies of Miss Fletcher
among the Omaha, and by those of William Jones among the Central
Algonkin. Falling in, as it did, so admirably with conclusions that
had been reached by a number of European ethnological theorists, in
particular Mr. R, R. Marett, it soon obtained great currency. In
the last expression on the religion of the Indians, that of Professor
Boas,^ it is assumed as fundamental.

Professor Boas says as follows: "The fundamental concept bearing
on the religious life of the individual is the belief in the existence of
magic power, which may influence the life of man, and which in turn
may be influenced by human activity. In this sense magic power
must be understood as the wonderful qualities which are believed to
exist in objects, animals, men, spirits, or deities, and which are superior
to the natural qualities of man. This idea of magic power is one of,
the fundamental concepts that occur among all Indian tribes. It is
what is called manito by the Algonquian tribes; wakanda, by the
Siouan tribes; orenda, by the Iroquois; sidia, by the Salish; naualak,
by the Kwakiutl; and tamanoas, by the Chinook. Notwithstanding
slight differences in the signification of these terms, the fundamental
notion of all of them is that of a power inherent in the objects of nature
which is more potent than the natural powers of man. . . . Since the
belief in the existence of magic powers is very strong in the Indian
mind, all his actions are regulated by the desire to retain the good will
of those friendly to him, and to control those that are hostile."

The concept of magic power has assumed such prominence in dis-
cussions on American religion, that I feel justified in dwelling on it here
in some detail, particularly as I wish to demonstrate that in the form
in which it is generally presented it is quite untenable.

From Professor Boas's definition of magical power, one might infer
at first that he is really dealing with an interpretation of magic.
However, as he distinctly says that "man's actions are regulated by
the desire to retain the good will of these powers," we shall have to
assume that this power is identical with the "outer world" of his
definition of religion.

The first question that suggests itself for discussion is, In what way
is magical power related to spirits? According to Professor Boas,
spirits represent the magic ])ower of nature individualized; and the
variation in the conception of spirits, that exists in different parts of
America, is due to differences in the degree of indi\'i(liiaHzation they
have undergone. Where strong anthroixjiiioriiliic iiulix iduali/ation

' "Religion," in Handbook of American Iinliaiis (Bureau of .\inerican Ethnology.
Bulletin 30, Part 2).

34^ Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

has occurred, wc have deities; and where a beUef in magic power
that is vaguely localized is pronounced, we have the "concept of a
deity or of a great spirit which is hardly anthropomorphic in character."

Miss Fletcher formulates her conception of magic power in a dif-
ferent way. According to her, "Wakonda ... is the name given to
the mysterious all-pervading and life-giving power to which certain
anthropomorphic aspects are attributed," and "is also applied to
objects or phenomena regarded as sacred or mysterious. These two
uses of the word are never confused in the minds of the thoughtful.
When during his fast the Omaha sings, ' Wakonda, here needy he
stands, and I am he!' his address is to 'the power that moves,' 'causes
to move,' that is, gives life. . . . To the Omaha nothing is without
life. . . . He projects his own consciousness upon all things, and
ascribes to them experiences and characteristics with which he is
familiar; there is to him something in common between all creatures
and all natural forms, a something which brings them into existence
and holds them intact; this something he conceives of as akin to his
own conscious being. The power which thus brings to pass and holds
all things in their living form he designates as wakonda. . . . Wakonda
is invisible, and therefore allied to the idea of spirit. Objects seen in
dreams or visions partake of the idea or nature of spirit, and when
these objects speak to man in answer to his entreaty, the act is possible
because of the power of wakonda, and the object, be it thunder-cloud,
animal, or bird, seen and heard by the dreamer, may be spoken of by
him as a wakonda, but he does not mean that they are wakonda. The
association in which the term wakonda is used determines the char-
acter of its meaning. Wakonda, the power addressed during the fast,
... is not the same wakonda as the thunder that speaks to a man in
a dream is sometimes called; yet there is a relation between the two,
not unlike that signified by the term wakondagi when applied to the
first manifestation of an ability; for all power, wheLher shown in the
thunder-storm, the hurricane, the animals, or man, is of wakonda.''^

I think it is quite plain from the above that Miss Fletcher is not
dealing with power at all, but with a kind of Semitic deity conceived
of inconsistently, sometimes as an all-pervading principle of life, some-
times as a definite spirit.

Still another interpretation is that given by Mr. Hewitt in the dis-
cussion of the Iroquoian orenda. According to him, Orenda is a
"magic power which was assumed ... to be inherent in every body
. . . and in every personified attribute, property, or activity. . . .
This hypothetic principle was conceived to be immaterial, occult,
impersonal, mysterious in mode of action. . . . The possession of

' Article "Wakonda" (Handbook of American Indians, Bureau of American Ethnology,
Bulletin 30, Part 2).

Religion of the North American Indians. 347

orenda ... is the distinctive characteristic of all the gods, and these
gods in earlier time were all the bodies and beings of nature in any
manner affecting the weal or woe of man." ^

Mr. Hewitt, in another article,- tells us that "primitive man inter-
preted the activities of nature to be the ceaseless struggle of one
orenda against another, uttered and directed by the beings or bodies
of his environment, the former possessing orenda, and the latter, life,
mind, and orenda, only by virtue of his own imputation. ... In the
stress of life coming into contact with certain bodies of his environ-
ment more frequently than with the other environing bodies, and
learning from these constraining relations to feel that these bodies,
through the exercise of their orenda, controlled the conditions of his
welfare and in like manner shaped his ill-fare, he came gradually to
regard these bodies as the masters, the gods, of his environment, whose
aid, goodwill, and even existence were absolutely necessary to his
well-being and his preservation of life itself. . . . And the story of
the operations of orenda becomes the history of the gods."

Mr. Hewitt claims to base his conclusions on an analysis of a large
number of phrases in which the expression "orenda" is found; but
any one who will take the trouble to examine these expressions, and to
compare the translation he gives with the interpretation of the trans-
lation, can see at a glance that he is illegitimately extending the mean-
ing of these words. The conclusions are palpably not based on his
analysis of these words; but, on the contrary, the analysis of the words
is based on a certain concept of orenda that is held.

Let us see what is at the bottom of this concept of orenda. I
believe this is to be found in the phrase, "the possession of orenda is
the distinctive characteristic of all the gods." The gods have been
separated into beings plus magical powers, and it has then been for-
gotten that they belong together and cannot be treated as though they
were independent of each other. It seems to mc, however, that the
error lies in the separation itself. What warrant have we for thinking
of the god as a deity plus power, and not merely as a powerful deity?
Arc we not here really at the bottom of the whole matter? And are
we not committing the old error of confusing an adjective with a noun?
I think there is no doubt of it. Mr. Hewitt, in fact, has presented us,
not with certain facts, but with an interpretation of facts. What the
facts themselves are, we have no means of determining from iiis data.

Dr. Jones's conception of the nmnilo^ is essentially the same as Mr.
Hewitt's conception of the orenda. To him the nuniito "is an un-
systematic belief in a cosmic, mysterious property, which is believed

' "Orenda" (Handbook of American Indians, Bureau of Anurican I£thnology, Bulletin
30, Part 2).

» "Orenda and a Definition of Religion" (American AnthropoloRist. N. S.. vol. iv).
» "The Algonkin Manitou" (Journal of American Kolk-Lorc, vol. xviii).

348 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

to exist cver>'Avhcrc in nature. . . . The conception of this something
wavers between that of a communicable property, that of a mobile,
invisible substance, and that of a latent transferable energy; . . .
this substance, property, or energy is conceived as being widely diffused
amongst natural objects and human beings; . . . the presence of it
is promptly assigned as the explanation of any unusual power or
efficacy which any object or person is found to possess; ... it is a
distinct and rather abstract conception of a diffused, all-pervasive,
invisible, manipulable, and transferable life-energy, or universal
force. . . . [Finally] all success, strength, or prosperity is conceived
to depend upon the possession of [this force]."

Dr. Jones, like Mr. Hewitt and, as we shall sec. Dr. Swanton, lays
considerable stress upon language, " as affording means of approaching
nearer to a definition of this religious sentiment." He says, "When
they [the Indians] refer to the manitou in the sense of a virtue, a
property, an abstraction, they employ the form expressive of inanimate
gender. When the manitou becomes associated with an object, then
the gender becomes less definite." Jones here seems to accept the
assumption that grammatical distinctions correspond to pyschological
ones. It is clear, however, quite apart from the general incorrectness
of this assumption, that the gender of Algonkin words depends fre-
quently on analogy. We do not know with what words "manitou"
is used in an "inanimate" sense; and until we do, and have been
able to satisfy ourselves that these words have not become inanimate
through analogy, Jones's linguistic argument lends no corroboration
to his contentions.

Although I am firmly convinced that such use of the linguistic data
as Jones, Swanton, and in the main Hewitt, have made, is both illegit-
imate and futile, there is no gainsaying the fact that a discussion and
an examination of the roots used in describing religious concepts may
prove of great importance.

Let us now, before summing up, pass to Dr. Swanton's view of
supernatural power. He seems to rely entirely upon the linguistic
argument, interpreting language likewise, in the same manner as
Dr. Jones. "Most Indian languages,"^ he says, "at any rate the
Tlingit, do not have a true plural, but usually a distributive and occa-
sionally a collective. This meayis that instead of thinking of so many
different objects, they think of one diffused into many. Therefore they do
not divide the universe arbitrarily into so many different quarters
ruled by so many supernatural beings. On the contrary, supernatural
power impresses them as a vast immensity, one in kind and impersonal,
inscrutable as to its nature, but wherever manifesting itself to men

* J. R. Swanton, "Condition, Beliefs and Linguistic Relationships of the Tlingit
Indians" (20th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, p. 451, note).

Religion of the North American Indians. 349

taking a personal and it might be said a human personal form in what-
ever object it displays itself. Thus the sky-spirit is the ocean of
supernatural energy as it manifests itself in the sky, the sea-spirit as
it manifests itself in the sea. ... It is not meant that the Tlingit
consciously reasons this out thus or formulates a unity in the super-
natural, but such appears to be his unexpressed feeling. For this
reason there is but one name for this spiritual power, yek, a name which
is affixed to any specific personal manifestation of it, and it is to this
perception or feeling reduced to personality that the great-spirit idea
seems usually to have affixed itself."

I think that it is apparent, from the quotations given above, that in
no case are we dealing with a clear presentation of certain facts, but
with interpretations. The facts themselves are rarely given as such,
and, when they are given, are so closely bound up with the specific
interpretation advanced, that they can be used only with the greatest
caution. If we were dealing with a general analysis of religion from
a logical or metaphysical standpoint, perhaps all that would be required
would be the inner consistency of the explanation advanced; but
we are not concerned with that. All that we wish to know are
certain facts and the Indians' interpretation of them, and this our
authorities on magical power have signally failed to give us. Quite
apart, therefore, from the fact that there is abundant evidence to
show that they have generally approached the subject from a pre-
conceived European metaphysical viewpoint (whether they have done
this consciously or not is immaterial), the premises of which it is legiti-
mate to examine, we are compelled to reject their data because they
have confused interpretations with facts.

However, I do not wish to rest my rejection of a belief in magical
power, as presented by the writers quoted abo\e, on this negative
evidence. I was fortunate enough to work among the Winnebago
and Ojibwa, where the belief in wakanda and manito is strongly and
characteristically developed. In both tribes the term always referred
to definite spirits, not necessarily definite in shape. If at a vapor-
bath the steam is regarded as wakanda or manito, ic is because it is
a spirit transformed into steam for the time being; if an arrow is
possessed of specific virtues, it is because a spirit has either trans-
formed himself into the arrow or because he is temporarily dwelling
in it; and, finally, if tobacco is offered to a peculiarly-shaped object,
it is because cither this object belongs to a spirit, or a spirit is
residing in it. The terms ''wakanda'' and ''manito" are often used
in the sense of "sacred." If a Winnebago tells you that a certain
thing is waka (i.e., sacred), further inquiry will elicit from him the
information that it is so because it belongs to a spirit, was given by
a spirit, or was in some way connected with a spirit. It is possible

350 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

that Dr. Jones, Miss Fletcher, and Mr. Hewitt interpreted a certain
vagueness in the answer, or a certain inability (or unwillingness) to
discuss ol)jccts that were regarded as matiilo or wakanda, as pertaining
to the nature of sacred. In addition to the connotation of "sacred,"
wakanda and manito also have the meaning "strange," "remarkable,"
"wonderful," "unusual," and "powerful," without, however, having
the slightest suggestion of "inherent power," but having the ordinary
sense of those adjectives.

Is it not possible, however, that the idea of a force inherent in the
universe may have been developed by shamanistic systematization?
It is possible; but no data pointing to this exist, as far as I know,
in North America. In some cases the shamans have thought away all
the personal characteristics; but an "unpersonal" unit still exists,
set off against other "unpersonal" units. This is not magical power;
for, according to our authorities, it is not divisible, but forms one unit.
Even if, finally, we were to interpret wakanda and manito as in the
nature of a tertium quid, that the personal characteristics were not
thought away from them, but that they never possessed them, the
individuality of each tertium quid would still prevent it from corre-
sponding to magical power.

We may say, then, that from an examination of the data customa-
rily relied upon as proof, and from individual data obtained, there
is nothing to justify the postulation of a belief in a universal force
in North America. Magical power as an "essence" existing apart
and separate from a definite spirit, is, we believe, an unjustified
assumption, an abstraction created by investigators.^

There is another way in which we may look upon the idea of a uni-
versal force, and that is to regard it as the unconscious expression of
the religious emotion itself. It should be looked upon, in other
words, as the non-individualized feeling of fear, awe, etc., which
forms the subjective side of religion. It is this, perhaps, upon which
Jones insists in certain passages of his essay. From this point of
view, the answer given by an Indian to any question presupposes a
certain amount of reflection on his part, and cannot, therefore, be
regarded as a true expression of the religious emotion. If, conse-
quently, by "force" we wish to designate simply the religious emo-
tion as such, no issue need be taken with the concept. However,
this is not what the majority of theorists mean by the term. Quite
apart from this consideration, arc we justified in separating the re-
ligious emotion from its associated historical elements? And does not
the admittedly individual object or happening which becomes asso-
ciated with the religious emotion, in a way, indi\idualize the entire

> In the discussion of the nature of the spirits, a number of points come out, of con-
siderable importance in connection with the notion of supernatural power, and to this
readers are referred.

Religion of the North A merican Indians. 351

complex? It is of course well-nigh impossible to determine this satis-
factorily; but it seems to me that the individual, in the vast majority
of cases, does not content himself with the mere pleasure of "swim-
ming" in a vague religious emotion, but almost mechanically indi-
vidualizes the emotion by reference to the facts he has been taught.

2. The Concept of Spirits. — Animism, then, in the old Tylorian
sense of the term, is the belief of the Indians. What, however, is the
nature of these spirits with which animism deals? It has frequently
been urged that spirits must of necessity be conceived of in a vague
manner by the majority of Indians; but this seems to me an entirely
erroneous view, due to lack of analysis of the answers received from
direct questioning of the Indian. To those Indians who have never
spent any time thinking upon the nature of spirits, the concept of
spirit is neither vague nor definite, for they cannot really be said to
have any concept at all. The question has really never presented
itself to them. When, therefore, an ethnologist seeks by direct ques-
tioning to inquire into the nature of spirits from the ordinary lay
Indian, he is likely to obtain an answer (in those cases where he obtains
an answer at all) prompted by a moment's consideration. Such an
answer no more reflects the true conception of spirits than a reply
concerning the Holy Ghost, obtained under the same conditions, from
an illiterate peasant, would reflect the Catholic belief on this subject.
There is no reason for even supposing that such an answer reflects the
same Indian's belief after he has given the subject some consideration.
The vagueness present in our lay Indian's answer is consequently
not an indication of vagueness in the conception of spirits, but is due
to entirely difl"erent reasons. This distinction is of the utmost im-
portance.

While, however, this ignorance as to the precise nature of the spirits,
on the part of the ordinary man, is a fact to be borne in mind,
to understand the Indian's conception of spirits, we must inquire
principally from those who have thought upon the question, and who
have inherited the thoughts of others upon this question, — the
shamans. What has the shaman to say upon the nature of spirits?
Are they anthropomorphic, theromorphic, dream-phantasms, or in-
definite entities in general? Can we divide them into personal,
impersonal, or unpersonal spirits? Right here, it seems to mc, we
are apt to make an unjustifiable assumption. Our ordinary division
into personal and imjK'rsonal is made on the possession of cor-
poreal characteristics, which are in turn dependent upon our sense-
perceptions, — sight, hearing, touch etc. Ordinarily, too, the pres-
ence or absence of corporeality is the test of its reality or unreality.
What right have we, however, to assume that the Indian either makes
the same classification or equates corporeality with reality, with
VOL. XXVII. — NO. 106. — 34.

352 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

existence? To judge from specific inquiries made among the Winne-
bago and Ojibwa, and from much of our data in general, reaHty does
not depend necessarily upon sense-impressions. Among the Winne-
bago shamans, what is thought of, what is felt, what is spoken, is as
real as what is seen or heard. It is, I believe, a fact that future investi-
gations will thoroughly confirm, that the Indian does not make the
separation into personal as contrasted with impersonal, corporeal
with impersonal, in our sense at all. What he seems to be interested
in is the question of existence, of reality; and everything that is per-
ceived by the sense, thought of, felt and dreamt of, exists. It follows^
consequently, that most of the problems connected with the nature
of spirit as personal or impersonal do not exist.

Because, however, the Indian is thus essentially interested in the
existence of things, it does not follow that he classifies the universe
into that which exists and that which does not exist. Whatever is
the object of his thoughts and his feelings exists. He does not concern
himself with the negative aspects of existence. The questions with
which he concerns himself, by preference, are those relating to the
kind and the permanency of the existence of spirits. Far more impor-
tant than these two questions, however, is the question relating to
the authority for the existence of spirits.

Before entering into this discussion, a few words on the respective
roles of the shaman and the layman may not be out of place.

That the shaman works with the general folkloristic material on
hand is self-evident. To a large extent, therefore, he must be re-
garded as a mere arranger and synthesizer. But he is also an inter-
preter and a theorizer; and in the exercise of these capacities he is
only in part limited by the interpretations and theories known to the
mass of the people. When we remember the special religious aptitude
that characterizes the more capable of the shamans, it must be quite
plain to us that he will actually invent new interpretations and new
theories, and that his individuality will stamp itself indelibly upon the
new syntheses he attempts. If we regard religion as the association
of a religious emotion with certain concepts and folkloristic elements,
then it is essential to realize exactly how the religious emotion may
be extended to new folkloristic elements. It is just in this connection,
it seems to me, that the role of the shaman shows itself. It is he that
extends them.

If we survey the whole field of North America, we shall find that
spirits arc conceived of as being visible, audible, felt emotionally, or as
manifesting their existence by some sign or result. They are all
equally real. WHien visible, they may appear as human beings,
animals, "mythological" animals, rocks, trees, fire, phantasms, etc.;
when audible, it may be as a human voice, or as the voice of a bird,

Religion of the North American Indians. ' 53

in the form of a song, in the whistling of the wind, the crackling of .he
fire; when manifesting their presence by a sign, it may be by lightn ag,
by a cloud, by an object found, etc. How a spirit vouchsafes to m .ni-
fest himself to an individual may to a certain extent vary with the
particular individual; for it probably depends upon the prcdomin mce
of visual images in one case, and auditory images in another. How-
ever, in the vast majority of instances the particular manner of mani-
festation is given. As might be expected, a large number fi- spirits
are believed to be visible to man.

A large number of spirits arc distinctly and definitely corporeal.
As such they may be definitely anthropomorphic, theronurphic, etc.
We shall first examine the anthropomorphic spirits.

The North American Indians have peopled their universe with
spirits, who may be defined, we have said, as being more powerful
than and as real as man. The lay Indian, we have pointed out, does
not concern himself with the nature or the shape of spirits at all. Both
the lay Indian and the shaman, however, when speaking of spirits as
directly related to the activities of man, must from the nature of the
case have generally conceived him as acting similarly to the principal
sentient beings with which he was mainly concerned, — man and
animals. In general, these anthropomorphic characteristics would be
vaguely defined; but when, owing to shamanistic activity, the powers
and nature of spirits were more sharply drawn, then the spirits took
upon themselves more definitely the shape of man or of some animal.
Whether anthropomorphic, theromorphic, or indeterminate spirits
predominate, varies in difTerent parts of America. In the Northwest
Qoast, the Plains, and the Southwest areas, anthropomorphic spirits
largely predominate; while in the Woodland and Southeast areas
they do not seem to be of any more importance than either the thero-
morphic or the indeterminate spirits. Among the Plateau Indians
and those of the interior and northern Canada, indeterminate spirits
are largely in the majority. Analyzing the distribution of anthropo-
morphic spirits, it seems fairly clear that they are most abundant in
those areas in which a ritualistic organization is well developed. In
the Woodland and Southeast areas, where this, and its invariable
accom])animent shamanistic systemalization, are found only in certain
places, anthropomorphism plays only a moderately important rOlc;
whereas in the Northwest, on the Plains, and in the Southwest, where
the ritualistic organization is comjilex, the converse is true.

Among the Pueblo Indians the anthropomorphic character of spirits
or deities has developed from the influence of two features, — one
being the reconstructions of the shamans, which are analogous to what
has taken place on the Northwest coast and the Plains; and the other
being what might be called a "deification" of clan-ancestors. Dr.

35 J. Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Fewkcs speaks of the second feature as ancestor-worship. To him
the katcina cult, for instance, is a phase of ancestor-worship; and
the katcinas, "deified spirits of ancestors." In this he is followed by
Mrs. Stevenson; but only by a peculiar, and to me illegitimate,
extension of the concept ancestor-worship, is this true. As a matter
of fact, what we are dealing with here is not ancestor- worship, but the
not uncommon transformation of an heroic animal into a man who
become ^ the ancestor of the clan. This belief, so characteristically
develop ^ among the Winnebago, Sauk and Fox, and Omaha, has
taken a different turn among the Hopi and other Pueblo tribes. Among
the latter, the animal ancestry of the clan founder has been completely
lost sight of, and consequently the katcinas seem to have taken upon
themselves the nature of anthropomorphic beings or ancestors who
were worshipped. That we are not dealing with deified ancestors
comes out clearly from what Dr. Fewkes says about "animate"
totems. "When the totems are inanimate, — as sun, water, lightning,
corn, — the clan totem ancestors are likewise anthropomorphic, and
their worship the central idea of the cult." ^

It would be erroneous to imagine that the shaman has consistently
or completely interpreted or systematized, or brought into harmony
with itself, the vast magico-folkloristic background which forms, after
all, the matrix of the religious complex. First of all, the task was far
beyond his powers; and, secondly, this complex was changing contin-
ually as it passed through the hands of the lay Indian, and as new
elements were added to it from the inexhaustible magico-folkloristic
background. It is to this lack of complete systematization that is
due at times the uncertainty as to the nature of spirits. We fre-
quently do not know whether we are dealing with an anthropo-
morphic or a theromorphic spirit. As an example we might take
the thunder-bird among the Winnebago. In the popular belief in
the clan legends, it is always spoken of and depicted as a bird akin
to the eagle. In the shamanistic religion the thunder-birds are theo-
retically bald-headed anthropomorphic beings. Frequently, however,
although they are spoken of as men, they act as birds. Complete as
has been the shamanistic transformation of the bird into a man, the
spirit has still kept two of the old characteristics of the thunder-bird
concept, — the baldness of the birds, and the flashing of the eyes as
the cause of lightning.

In one other way did the shaman seem powerless to withstand the
influence of the popular beliefs. When spirits of a definitely circum-
scribed type were developed, one of the first and most natural reactions
to be expected was that the people would elevate to the rank of spirits
those heroes and hero-buffoons so dear to the popular mind. The
* Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. xi, pp. 173-194.

Religion of the North American Indians. 355

shamans, it would seem, fought against this tendency, to judge from
the utter lack of unanimity regarding the status of these popular spirits
in North America; but this did not prevent the raven among the
Bellacoola, the hare, trickster, and turtle among the Winnebago,
Wisaka among the Sauk and Fox, Nenebojo among the Ojibwa, etc.,
from becoming bona fide spirits. Upon their inclusion in the pantheon
of spirits, the shaman did his best to obliterate their more grossly
animal characteristics; and, though he could not change the animal
form of many of these hero-spirits, he did succeed in making them
either indeterminate or at least human animals.

Under the present discussion belongs properly also that of the
High God, for he is generally conceived of as markedly anthropo-
morphic; but, owing to its importance, we shall discuss this conception
separately.

If we except the heroic animals who have developed into spirits,
theromorphic spirits are by no means common. There exists, how-
ever, another class of spirit characteristically developed among the
Winnebago and kindred tribes, among the Ojibwa and Sauk and Fox,
and among some of the Plains Indians, who is regarded as a spirit
controlling the living species of animals. Among the Winnebago
this spirit seems to possess no corporeality at all. He is a generalized^
clarified animal. He, for example, it is who is the guardian spirit^
not the specific animal. There is no doubt in my mind that this con-
ception is largely, if not entirely, a shamanistic one. It plays an im-
portant part in Winnebago life, for it permits an individual to kill any
animal without running the risk of killing either his guardian spirit
or his clan animal. This spirit-animal is distinguished from, let us
say, the anthropomorphized hare of the Winnebago Medicine Dance,
in that he does not represent the gradual development of a benevolent
spirit out of an heroic buffoon animal, but simply a newly-created ab-
straction of the shaman, based, it is true, on an animal prototype.

A large number of spirits are indeterminate in shape. The reasons
for this seem to be, that the object with which the spirit is associated
has no definite shape ; that its shape, while definite, has been discarded ;
that they are creations of the popular fancy; or that, finally, they are
in a more or less constant state of transformation.

To the first class belong such spirits as water, fire, light, wind, etc.,
on the one hand; and those spirits whose existence is made known by
sounds or signs, on the other. Among the Winnebago, water is
addressed as, "thou whose body is of water." Nothing more definite
is ever given. For those spirits who manifest themselves only by
sound and signs, I have definite information only from the Winnebago
and Ojibwa, though there is reason to believe that they also exist
among the other tribes belonging to the Woodland area and to the
territor>' just west of it.

35^ Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

As to the nature of the identification of spirits with celestial objects,
both shaman and lay Indian are at one; but a difference seems to exist
in their interpretation of the identification with stones, trees, etc.
The shaman seems to identify spirits with the latter objects, while the
layman apparently conceives them to be inhabited by spirits.

The sun, moon, and stars are among the most important spirits in
America. So closely, however, have they been identified with these
particular bodies, that no systematic attempt seems to have been
made to transform them into true anthropomorphic spirits. These
celestial bodies belong everywhere to the older strata of beliefs, and
were in many tribes displaced by the development, on the part of the
shaman, of other spirits. Wherever shamanistic systematization was
at its highest, — among the Bellacoola, Ojibwa, Winnebago, Pawnee,
Pueblo, Iroquois, etc., — there we find evidence of a former marked
prominence of the sun. In the popular mind, as evidenced by some of
the popula cults and the mythology, the sun always retained its
prominence. Among the Natchez and in the civilizations of Mexico,
the cult of the sun obtained so high a development that it displaced
almost all others.

Monsters as spirits are found all over America. Perhaps the most"
characteristic of them all is the widespread Water-Spirit, also known as
the Horned Snake and the Plumed Serpent. He unquestionably
belongs to the old strata of beliefs, and, although adopted by the
shaman everywhere, has undergone almost no recasting. Around
his figure still cluster the whole mass of magico-folkloristic beliefs
characteristic of the popular spirits. No attempt has been made to
•clarify this picture. He is always regarded as a more or less malign
being, at war with the Thunder-Bird. It may be in consequence
of this latter trait that he was so little appreciated by the shaman;
.for the Thunder-Bird is favored by the shaman and the people, and
the old belief in the eternal enmity of the two beings must have meant
the development of one at the expense of the other. Among the
Winnebago a sort of rehabilitation and clarification of the Water-Spirit
has taken place in connection with the origin legend of the Water-
Spirit clan.

There is, however, another class of monster-spirits found in North
America, whose origin docs not lie so definitely in the popular folk-lore.
As such we may cite the Eskimo Sedna and the Winnebago Disease-
Giver. The latter is conceived of as human in shape, and as having
his body divided into parts, one dealing out life, and the other death.
This figure seems to me to be largely a development of the shaman,
although J^it may be based on ]X)pular belief. According to the
shaman, he is the cause of disease; but he has not succeeded in
displacing the popular belief as to the cause of disease and death.

Religion of the North American Indians. 357

All of the spirits discussed are capable of taking an indefinite number
of shapes. This power of transformation does not seem to be insisted
upon as much by the shaman as by the lay Indian, due perhaps to
their different standpoints. Naturally this power is possessed to its
highest degree by spirits. But to the lay Indian the spirits are not
merely beings from whom all blessings flow, but also heroes; and their
infinite capacity for transformation is dwelt upon everlastingly as
proof of their superior power. To the shaman as religious systematizer
the spirits partake of the nature of deities, and their hero character is
less important. The task they have before them is to define, co-
ordinate, and classify the spirits. Emphasis upon their powers of
transformation is not conducive to this. In defining them in prayers,
in ritualistic speeches, etc., their character and the mode of representing
them became fixed, and this literary fixation led to standardization
in certain areas. Where artistic representation also occurred, the
standardization was even more prominent. We have, then, to con-
sider all these interpretations, each of which is partially true, and each
of which has historically influenced the other, in our conception of
the nature and figure of spirits.

3. The Power and Localization of Spirits. — Spirits possess
the power of bestowing upon man all those things that are of socio-
economic value to him. These may vary from such very important
things as rain or success on the war-path to the most insignificant
trifles. Whether these powers are possessed collectively by a few
spirits, or possessed singly by a large number, will be found to vary
according to the degree of systematization the beliefs have undergone.
Where this systematization is marked, the powers have become
grouped together in the hands of a comparatively small number of
spirits; and where this is not the case, the powers have been scattered
over an enormous number. The same powers are frequently possessed
by different spirits, due mainly to their number, their localization,
and the influence of family groups and clans.

Historically the multiplicity of spirits may to a certain extent repre-
sent the influence of localization. As to the prevalence of the belief
in the localization of spirits in North America, there can be little
doubt. The prominence attached to the belief in "magic power"
has obscured this fundamental conception. Any study of North-
American religion based on mythology', ritualistic speeches, and
persfjnal cxi)criences, will demonstrate this clearly. People are blessed
by guardian sjjirits whose abode is a definite place in the near vicinity
of their village, not by spirits who live somewhere in the universe.
Among the Winnebago, the Ojibwa, the Omaha, there were as many
spirits as there were lakes, hills, rivers, etc.; and each of these spirits
possessed practically the same powers. Among the Eskimo the same

358 Joiirftal of American Folk-Lore.

thing is true. According to Turner,^ "every cove of the seashore,
every point, island, and prominent rock, has its guardian spirit."
Among the Takehiia, according to Dr. Sapir, "a potent group of spirits
are localized and associated with certain definite rocks, trees, or moun-
tains. Direct ofiferings of food and other valuables seem often to
have been deposited at the localities with which such beings were
associated." ^ So thoroughly ingrown is, in fact, this localization in
the popular mind, that the shamanistic systematization never made
any real headway against it. Its spirit-deities never displaced the
local genii, but at best were established at their side.

As in most other things, so here too there seems to be a difference
between the lay Indian's conception of the powers associated with
the spirits and the shaman's. The localized spirits are to the popular
mind true ge7iii loci, who are concerned not so much with granting
power to man as with the protection of their respective precincts.
The granting of powers to man is popularly believed to have been the
work of the early culture-heroes. True, man never prayed to them
for power; but then it had been given for all time w^hen they trans-
formed this world and made it habitable. If by offerings to the
genii loci they could placate them and safely pass from place to place,
then life was fairly secure. This apparent lack of positive relation
of the gefiii loci to the socio-economic needs of man, I believe to have
been the popular and earlier viewpoint.

Certain spirits — like the sun, moon, earth, stars, etc. • — all be-
longing, according to our evidence, to the earlier strata of spirits,
although they are of course not genii loci in the strict sense of the term,
are looked upon, nevertheless, as being concerned with their own in-
terests. Their own interests happen, however, to be of the utmost
importance to man. Man's attitude toward them is sufficiently
illustrated by the fact that he asks them not so much for power as
for the continuance of their own strictly private functions. It is
interesting to note that the same attitude, the main feature of which
seems to be a lack of direct relation to man's needs, is characteristic
of the tricksters and transformers of North-American mythology.

The shaman's viewpoint is characteristically different. To judge
from those areas where our information is sufficiently definite, in
particular from the Winnebago and Ojibwa, the emphasis on the
association of the power to grant man all his socio-economic needs
with the realization of the direct relationship between the maintenance
of these needs and the spirits, is almost exclusively the work of the
shaman. The function of the genii loci was transformed, or, better,

> L. M. Turner, "The Hudson Bay Eskimo" (nth Annua! Report of the Bureau of
American Ethnology).

' E. Sapir, "The Religious Ideas of the Takelma Indians" (Journal of American
Folk-Lore, vol. xx, p. 35).

Religion of the North American Indians. 359

augmented. They still remained the guardians of their precincts, but,
in addition, were regarded as the source of man's power throughout
his life. The creative animal heroes had to give way to these new-
comers as the original source of power, unless they were themselves
elevated to the dignity of spirits.

Such are the two points of view prevalent in North America; and
these should be carefully borne in mind if we wish to obtain a correct
idea of the Indians' religion.

4. The Development of Spirits into Deities. — The conception
of deities is quite clearly due to shamanistic systematization. From
what were the deities developed? Doubtless to those ethnologists
who believe firmly in the existence of a "magic power," the differ-
ence between spirits and deities Is one of degree of individualization
of the magic power. To me the facts seem to point toward a devel-
opment in exactly the opposite direction. But to what are we to
relate them, — to such spirits as sun, moon, stars; to the genii loci;
or are we to regard them as new conceptions largely representing the
reconstructions of the shaman? I believe an examination of the data
points in all three directions.

Deities are found developed in practically all parts of North Amer-
ica, with the possible exception of interior and northern Canada and
among the Plateau tribes. In certain sections — like the Northwest
coast, the Plains Woodland, the Plains, California, the Southwest,
and certain parts of the Eastern Woodlands — two types of deities
are found; to wit, the trickster deity and the "pure" deity. The
wide distribution of the trickster deity shows that it is not associated
with any marked ritualistic development. To my mind it represents
the shaman's acknowledgment of the power of popular beliefs, and
likewise an admission that he too shares many of them. His recon-
structed trickster is generally more consistent as a creator, more
directly and consciously benevolent, but his origin is indicated in a
number of features. Indeed, it could not be otherw^ise; for the
shaman's rc-interpretation is never thorough and complete, and, no
matter how clarified his conception may be, the people as such have
never lost their conception of the trickster. What appears to me a
probable reason for the lack of remodelling of the trickster deity, at
least in certain portions of America, is the fact that the shaman has
developed another deity in which he was more interested. The trick-
ster was i^robably always forced upon him to a certain degree. In
certain sections of the Northwest coast and California where the
second type of deity is not well developed, the trickster deity retains
less of his primeval diaracter: as, for instance, the raven among the
Tlingit, Ilaida, and the Asiatic Chukchce; and the coyote among the
Mewan. Conversely, the trickster nature of the deity, or perhaps

360 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

the influence of the trickster conception on the second type of deity,
creeps out even when the deity has obtained so abstract a formulation
as among the Chitimacha. Although he is spoken of here as "having
neither eyes nor ears, but who sees, hears, and understands every-
thing," he yet plays the role of trickster at the same time. One word
of caution is necCvSsary here: we may be dealing with information
obtained from two sources, — the shamanistic and the popular.

Although, as we have pointed out before, the development of deities
need not coincide with a marked development of ritualistic organiza-
tion, it is frequently so associated; the Central Algonkin, some of the
Eastern-Woodlands tribes, and California presenting a notable excep-
tion. This association is not due to the complexity of the ritual, but
to the necessity of having founders and creators for the various rituals.
These founders are for the most part trickster deities. Such, for
instance, is the case with a number of the societies of the Northwest
coast, the Winnebago, the Sauk and Fox, etc. We have thus two
sources for the origin of the trickster deities, — the reconstructions of
the individual shaman, and the desire of having a founder for a ritual
or society.

The "pure" deities are quite clearly unrelated to the trickster or
culture-hero. They may vary from such definite deities as the sun,
moon, earth, star, etc., to such indefinite ones as the Great- Medicine
of the Cheyenne, Olelbis ("Dwelling-on-High") and Namhliestawa
("Hurling-Left-Handed-to-the-West) of the Wintun, Shining-Heavens
of the Haida, Tirawa of the Pawnee, Earth-Maker of the Winnebago,
and the Good Spirit of the Ojibwa. Of these, certain ones (like the
sun, etc.) belong, as we have seen, to the oldest possessions of the
people ; while the others seem at first glance to be largely reconstructions
of the shamans, although, as we shall see later, this is only partially
true. One difference between these two types appears fairly clear, —
the sun, moon, etc., generally belong to a polytheistic phase in America,
while the Great Medicine, etc., belong to a monotheistic phase.
There are of course exceptions; such, for example, as the role of the
sun among the Natchez, and that of Raven-at-the-Hcad-of-Nass
among the Tlingit. The position of the former was due to the remark-
able development of the sun cult among that people.

Let us examine the names of our deities more closely. Dwelling-
on-High and Hurling-Lcft-Handed-to-the-West are descriptive terms
from which nothing can be learned. The Good Spirit of the Ojibwa,
we know, exists side by side with the Bad Spirit. Earth-Maker of
the Winnebago is the only name that explains the function of the deity.
This, however, is only one of his names. He is also known as the
Creator and the Great Spirit. Like the Good Spirit of the Ojibwa,
another spirit of equal rank appears in the mythology, called Herec-
gunina, corresponding exactly to the Ojibwa Bad Spirit.

Religion of the North American Indians. 361

The Shining-Heavens of the Haida represents, in my opinion,
merely a transformed older spirit. Dr. Swanton says, "He (Shining-
Heavens) is the sky god, the highest deity anciently recognized by
the Haida." ^ He goes on to say, "Siii, the name by which he is known,
is the ordinary word for 'day,' as distinguished from 'night' or from
an entire period of tw-enty-four hours which also is called 'night;'
but it seems to be more strictly applied to the sky as it is illuminated
by sunshine." This explanation is, I believe, far-fetched. Sifi is
apparently identical with the Winnebago help and the Tciwere (Oto,
Iowa and Missouri) hape, which means "day." There is also a very
important deity by this name. Hap, however, has two other second-
ary meanings, — that of "light air, heavens," and that ol "life."
In view of the remarkable correspondence of the Haida and Winne-
bago deities, may we not legitimately identify the two? Siii would
then simply be an old spirit deity who has been transformed into a
supreme deity.

The names of these deities show clearly that we are to look for their
origin neither in the older spirits (like sun, moon, etc.) nor in the genii
loci. Where, then, are we to look? There seem to me to be three
sources of origin, — the generic genii loci, the dual creators, and the
shamanistic reconstructions.

Among the Tlingit we are told that there were "one principal and
several subordinate spirits in everything."" A similar conception
exists among the Eskimo, the Asiatic Chukchee, the Winnebago, etc.
What we find here is a localization of authority. There was at all
times an inequality in the importance of the genii loci. The genii loci
of the trees were subject to the genius loci of all the trees within a cer-
tain area, etc. This conception is quite similar to that of the spirit-
animal mentioned before. We are not dealing here, however, with an
abstraction for the purpose of subjecting a number of individual
entities to some unifying principle, but clearly with generic genii
loci. It is from this generic genius loci that, in my opinion, such
deities as the Hard-Bcing-Woman of the Hopi, the Spider-Woman of
the Pueblos, Scdna of the Eskimo, the Water-Spirit of the Wiiintbago,
etc., were developed. All these deities have, of course, undergone
considerable rc-int(T])retalion and ciarificalion at the hands of the
shaman.

Dual creators — or, better, dual transformers — are found in all
parts of America. They are a common feature of all their ni>thoI(»gies.
Frequently three, four, or five transformers are found, dcpentling upon
the sacred number of the tribe. Among the Winnebago, for instance,
there are four. The dual creators are generally regarded as equal in

> J. R. Swanton, Haida Texts and Myths (Bureau of American Lllinoiogy, Bulletin 29,
p. 30).

362 Journal of American Folk- Lore.

power; l)ut one is supposed to be more benevolent than another, and
more directly interested in furthering the needs of man. In many
areas this antagonism in the character of the dual deities developed a
marked Good Spirit and Bad Spirit. This is typical, for instance, of
the Central Algonkin, Winnebago, Omaha, etc. This postulation of
a Good Spirit and a Bad Spirit was not developed by the shaman.
It seems to be one of the fundamental folkloristic conceptions of
the North American Indians. The Good Spirit and Bad Spirit are
merely the spirits-in-chief of the numerous good and bad spirits.

Let us see now what the shamanistic reconstructions have done with
these dual deities. Where the systematization was very strong, — as,
for instance, among the Pawnee and Winnebago, — the Bad Spirit
has disappeared completely. Among the Winnebago he is still found,
however, in the popular cycles. He has, it is true, degenerated into a
sorry figure; but Earth-Maker confesses himself powerless to destroy
him. Among the Pawnee, Tirawa reigns supreme; and there seem
to be only- hints as to the earlier existence of a rival.

5. Monotheism. — The belief in a single supreme deity is not very
common in America. The nearest approach to it is Tirawa of the
Pawnee. According to Mr. Grinnell, he is "an intangible spirit,
omnipotent and beneficent. He pervades the universe and is its
supreme ruler. Upon his will depends everything that happens.
He can bring good or bad; can give success or failure. Everything
rests with him. . . . Nothing is undertaken without a prayer to the
Father for assistance. When the pipe is lighted the first whiffs are
blown to the deity. When food is eaten, a small portion of it is placed
on the ground as a sacrifice to him." ^ Such a conception is quite rare.
If, however, we take the belief in a single God to mean the belief in a
mildly benevolent creator, who may or may not be the creator of all
deities and spirits, to whom offerings are made similar in nature to
those made to the other spirits, the conception, though not common,
is found among the Californian tribes, the Bellacoola, the Central
Algonkin, the Woodland-Plains, some of the Plains, and some of the
Southwestern tribes.

As to the origin of the idea of a single deity, there is little doubt in
my mind that it is to be sought in the older belief in the Good Spirits
and Bad Spirits, and probably represents the complete displacement of
the latter. The non-ritualistic myths and the popular beliefs bear this
out amply. The single deity never seems to have become very pop-
ular. He was, for instance, rarely appealed to directly by the average
man ; and it is only by a totcr de force that he appears as a guardian
spirit. In fact, though based on a popular belief, he is a thoroughly
shamanistic construction.

' G. B. Grinnell, "Pawnee Mythology" (Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. vi,
p. 113).

Religion of the North American Indians. 363

To what extent Christianity has influenced the development of the
Good Spirit into a supreme deity, it is difficult to determine. Its
influence must have been considerable in certain areas. However,
as we have tried to show, it is not necessary to call in the aid of Chris-
tian influence to account for the origin of the idea of a single supreme
deity.

II. THE RELATION OF SPIRITS TO MAN.

I. The Twofold Interpretation of this Relation. — Among
all North American tribes there is always to be found an unsyste-
matized postulation of a purely mechanical relation between man and
the spirits or deities. If certain conditions are fulfilled, the blessing
will flow mechanically, quite independent of the volition of the spirits.
If, for instance, the Winnebago make the necessary offerings of tobacco
and eagle-feathers to the Thunder-Birds, and they accept them,
they musb grant man those powers which they possess. Theoretically
the spirits have the alternative of accepting or refusing these off"erings;
but there is something so inherently tempting in the tobacco, eagle-
feathers, etc., that very few spirits are credited with sufficient strength
of character to refuse. As an instructive example of this attitude, I
might cite the following incident in a Winnebago myth. The Winne-
bago are ofi^ering tobacco to the Buffalo spirits, and the smoke is
ascending through a hole in the sky to the home of these spirits.
The younger Buffaloes cannot resist the temptation of approaching
the opening to catch a few whiffs of their favorite tobacco. They
are thereupon warned by the older Buffaloes not to go too close, for
the tobacco fumes might tempt them too strongly; and should they
succumb and accept the offerings, then they would have to appear on
earth and be killed.

This interpretation of the relation of the spirits to man is the
popular one, that of the unreligious man. Alongside of it arose
another closely allied historically. The popular interpretation was
only in a vague way a causc-and-cffect relation. It remained for the
shaman to emphasize this latter fact, to give a reason for the spirits'
fondness for tobacco, to grant the spirits a certain amount of volition,
and finally to insist upon certain qualifications on the part of the sup-
pliants. A certain precision in the manner of making olTcrings was
probably always present. The mechanical interpretation gave way |
to what might be called a "contract" theory. The spirits jxDsscssed
the various powers without which man could achieve only a modicum
of success; and man possessed tobacco, corn, eagle-feathers, buckskin,
etc. Man would give the spirits tobacco, etc.; and the sjiirits would
give man the powers they controlled. Accompanying this change of
interpretation, there was a difference of attitude. The mechanical

364 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

interpretation demanded but a modicum of religious feeling; the
"contract" interpretation was heavily charged with it.

2. Guardian Spirits. — One of the fundamental features of North
American religion is the marked projection of even the most minute
socio-economic life-values into the idea of spirits and deities. It is
probably for this reason that the relation of spirits to man is so
intimate. There is no aloofness, such as we find in many modern
religions. This intimate and direct relationship is of utmost impor-
tance; for to it and to the belief in genii loci was due the most char-
acteristic feature of Indian religion, namely, the development of the
idea of guardian spirits. If the gejiii loci played no role in the develop-
ment of the conception of deities, it is perhaps largely due to the fact
that they had already been requisitioned for the elaboration of this
idea of guardian spirit. Very little was necessary to accomplish the
transformation of the genius loci into the guardian spirit. The idea
of guardian and protector of the precinct, as such, had but to be
extended so as to include all those who lived in that precinct, both
individually and collectively. I think it would be a mistake to
assume offhand, that, strictly speaking, each individual had, or could
have had, a distinctly different guardian spirit. The evidence accumu-
lating now, although it will never be conclusive, points unmistakably
to an association of guardian spirits with families or even larger groups.
It is not to be supposed that there was an inheritance of such spirits,
however, but rather a tendency to acquire those spirits who had
proved their usefulness and power by the blessings they had given to
older members of the family. This tendency toward inheritance
becomes especially marked in those areas where the guardian spirit
is associated with certain definite powers, like success in hunting, etc.^

The only satisfactory method of describing the nature of the guar-
dian spirits is to give a few fasting experiences in extenso. I will
select such as bring out all the various aspects of this belief.

(A)^ "Shanapow, when a young boy, commenced fasting for his fortune.
. . . He fasted eight days without eating, till he got very weak. On the
eighth night he dreamed that one of the sacred monsters who lived in the
falls appeared and told him, 'Look yonder and you will see something laced
there as your reward for fasting,' indicating a rock in the centre of the falls.
The whole earth looked transparent, and he went to the rock island, going
over ice. When he got there he discovered a sacred kettle which was as
bright as fire. It was a hear kettle from the underneath god to feed from
when a sacrifice feast was given. 'Now,' said the god, 'go a short distance
and you will find there what is granted you. You will then break your
fast and eat.' So Shanapow went and found a large bear which he killed
and made a sacrifice of, and then ate with others whom he invited."

' The powers associated with the guardian spirits, and the method of acquisition of
the guardian spirits, will be treated in other sections.

* AJanson Skinner, Social Life and Ceremonial Bundles of the Menomini Indians (An-
thropological Papers, American Museum of Natural History, vol. xiii. part i).

Religion of the North American Indians. 365

(B)^ "When I was ten years old, my grandmother wanted me to fast, so
that I might know what blessing I was to receive. I was to start in the
autumn of the year. At first I was to get just a little to eat and drink in
the morning and evening. This meagre diet was to continue all through
the autumn and winter. In the spring a little wigwam was built for me
on a scafTold, not very far from the ground. In this wigwam I was to stay
ten days and nights, and only get a little to eat in the mornings and evenings.
My grandmother told me before entering not to believe every spirit that
would come to me with promises, for there are some who try to deceive
people, and only to accept the blessings of that spirit who came with a
great noise and power.

"The first and second night I did not dream of anything, but during the
third night a very rich man came to me and asked me to go along with
him and that he would give me all the riches I wanted. I went along with
him. but I did not accept what he offered me, and returned to my wigwam.
Then I looked in the direction in which ... he was disappearing, . . . and
I saw that he had changed into an owl, and that the lodge that I had visited
with him was a hollow tree with holes. The next night another rich man
came to me, dressed in a suit of red material. He offered me the same
things as the first man, and in addition told me that if I accepted his blessings
I could change my clothes twice a year. After I refused he told me to
look in his direction as he left me; and as I did so, I saw nothing but oak
trees and dry and green leaves. The next night another man came and
offered me boxes of sugar. I went with him, too, but I refused his blessing;
and when I turned to look at him as he left, just as I had done in the other
cases, I only saw a large maple-tree.

" My grandmother came twice a day to ask me about what I had dreamt
and to give me something to eat. I told her about my dreams, and she
again told me to accept the blessing of no one but the spirit who came to me
with a great noise and strength. Some night before the tenth I heard the
noise of a gush of wind above me and saw a very stout and strong man.
With this man I went towards the north, and finally came to nine old men
sitting around a circle. In the centre sat a very old man, and this was the
man who blessed me. He told me that he had just been sent down from
above. Then I was brought back to my little wigwam and told to look in
the direction in which my guide was going. When he had gone some
distance, I looked and I saw a number of large white stones in a circle
and one in the centre of this circle. The next morning when my grand-
mother came to feed me and question me, I told her of what I had dreamt.
That was the end of my fasting."

(C)'^ "One time in a dream the Sun came to nie and said, 'Look at the
old woman's face (moon)!' I looked and saw that she had turned her
back, but I saw through her head. I could see the paint on her face.
There was a black spot on her nose, and a ring over her forehead, checks,
and chin. Then the Sun said, 'Look at my face! This is the way you are
to paint your face. You must always wear a cap made of running fishcr-

' P. Radin, Some Aspects of Puberty Fasting among the Ojibwa (Museum Bulletia
No. 2, Anthropological Scries No. 2, Geological Survey of Canada).

« C. Wissler, Ceremonial Bundlcb of the Blackfoot Indians (Anthropological Papers,
American Museum of Natuial History, vol. vii, p. 74).

366 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

skin with one feather. This cap is to be like the one I now wear. If you
do this, you shall have pow^er to turn away rain."

The foregoing fasting-experiences show clearly what powers are
supposed to be possessed by guardian spirits. Of any attitude of
veneration felt for the spirits by the fasters, I cannot detect the
slightest trace. A religious thrill there certainly has been at all times,
depending in intensity on the age and temperament of the faster.
On the whole, however, we are dealing with a stereotyped explanation
of success in life. It might be said to read as follows: "I am a
successful hunter; I am a prominent warrior, etc.; and I am told
that I have become such because I have done what my elders told
me, — have practised these professions diligently, and made offerings
to the spirits." The fonnula is put in the mouth of the youth; but
it means nothing until it is interpreted much later in terms of each
man's experience in life. It is because this formula has been tested
by the results obtained, and found correct, that it is accepted and
perpetuated.

The guardian spirit is not supposed to be in permanent attendance
upon man. It is only when he is needed, in the crises of life, that he
is brought into relation with man; and it is quite characteristic of the
markedly materialistic basis of the belief that the spirit is only called
into aid for the particular needs of each case. If it is a warpath that
is to be undertaken, then the individual will demand such and such
honors and safety for himself and the precise number of men accom-
panying him. Frequently his fasting-experiences will be carefully
tested by the elders; and if found wanting in any respect, he will be
restrained from going. This is of course merely another way of saying
that the man was either too young or inexperienced for such an
undertaking, or that the enemy were perhaps too powerful, etc. The
fact that the Indians expressed this in religious terms should not blind
us to the fact that they realized quite well that they were dealing with
a purely mundane affair, and that mundane facts were to be given the
greatest consideration.

III. THE METHODS OF BRINGING SPIRITS INTO RELATION WITH MAN.

I . Fasting. — There seem to be two marked methods of bringing
spirits into relation with man, — the one magical, and the other
religious. Here we are concerned only with the religious. In the
discussion of the latter, two things are to be borne in mind, — first,
that it means essentially a method of superinducing a religious feeling;
and, secondly, that religious feeling is bound up with the desire for
preserving and perpetuating socio-economic life-values.

On the whole, religious feeling was superinduced in the customary
way, by fasting, self-castigation, etc.; but the characteristic method

Religion of the North American Indians. '^6'j

was fasting. In America fasting was undergone for a definite reason;
namely, to superinduce religious feeling, which psychologically meant
a state of mind in which the world of sense-impressions was shut out,
and in which auto-suggestion and hallucinations were predominant.
The desirability for such a state of mind lay not so much in the
emotional pleasure it gave the Indian as in the belief that such a
state of mind was essential for placing him in a position to overcome
certain crises in his life which it was reasonable to anticipate would
develop. He believed that fasting would accomplish this, because he
was told so by the shaman and his elders.

If primarily religious feeling was evoked by the contemplation of the
goods of this world and the desirability of possessing them in full
measure, secondarily it was called forth by the belief in spirits possessed
of powers that would make the question of acquiring these goods easy.
If to us it seems that in the formula of fasting the relation to spirits is
the essential thing, this is due to the fact that we are misled by the
state of mind of the faster and our own religious bringing-up.

2. " Mental Concentration." — Among the Winnebago and Ojib-
wa, and I have reason to believe among other tribes, the efficacy of a
blessing, of a ceremony, etc., depended upon what the Indians called
"concentrating your mind" upon the spirits, upon the details of the
ritual, or upon the precise purpose to be accomplished. All other
thoughts were to be strictly excluded. The insistent admonition of
the Winnebago elders is that the youth, in his fasting, centre his mind
completely on the spirits, and that his blessing will vary in direct pro-
portion to the concentration he has been capable of. It was believed
that the relation between man and the spirits was established by this
"concentration," and that no manner of care in ritualistic detail
could take its place. Very frequently failure on a warpath or lack of
efficacy of a ritual was attributed to the fact that the Indian or
Indians had been lacking in the intensity of their "concentration."
There are indications that this "concentration" played an important
part in a number of purely magical rites among the Winnebago and
Ojibwa. Thus among the former there was a special ceremony con-
nected with the obtaining of animals, which consisted simply in
"setting your mind" upon them. It is probable, therefore, that "con-
centration" was originally a purely magical device that was re-inter-
prctcd and included in the religious complex by the shaman.

3. Self-Castigation and Torture. — There seems to be little
doubt that both sclf-castigation and torture were originally uncon-
nected with the religious complex. The idea that a relation between
man and spirits could be established with their aid, is always a special
and shanianistic interpretation. Neither sclf-castigation nor torture
are commonly found associated in North America with religion.

VOL. xxvii. — NO. 106. — 25.

368 Journal of Ajucrican Folk-Lore.

They form prominent elements, however, in the religious complex
associated with the Sun Dance of the Plains Indians, the Mandan
Okeepa and ceremonies of the Mexican Indians.

4. Offerings and Sacrifices. — The theory on which the Indians
made offerings has been touched on before. It is what Tylor calls the
"gift-theory." Of his "homage" and "abnegation-theory," I cannot
find any trace in North America.

Offerings were made to spirits, the dwelling-place of spirits, or
objects in any way connected with spirits. What was sacrificed de-
pended largely upon the pursuits of the people and custom. To
different spirits different articles were frequently given, but all received
tobacco. Among most tribes, food-animals — such as deer, elk,
moose, buffalo, etc. — were offered. Among the Woodland and
Woodland-Plains tribes, white dogs were sacrificed. Human sacrifices
were found only among the Pawnee. As is well known, they were
common in Mexico. The method of sacrifice varied. When the
offerings were made to spirits, food was either put for them at certain
places or partaken of by the Indians themselves upon the supposition
that the spirits either partook only of the spirit of the food or were
present invisibly as f casters. When the offerings were made to
places supposed to be the abode of spirits, or to objects connected with
them, they were placed near them. Offerings to the genii loci were
made whenever an individual passed their precincts. To the more
important spirits and deities, sacrifices were made at definite times or
when ceremonies were performed. Any individual could make offer-
ings. On certain occasions — such, for instance, as before starting
out on a war-expedition, at specific ceremonies, etc. — this function
devolved upon special individuals.

5. Prayers and Incantations. — "Prayers may either be spoken
words, or they may be expressed by symbolic objects placed so that
they convey the wishes of the worshipper to the powers." ^ The latter
type is found only among the Pueblo Indians. Prayers accompany
practically all sacrifices and ceremonies. In the rituals of the North
Pacific coast Indians they are, however, rare. The objects of prayer
are always those socio-economic life-values to which importance is
attached in any given area. What in these values is stressed depends,
to a certain extent, upon the ambitions of the individual, and conse-
quently it happens at times that individuals may pray for abstract
blessings or for ideal objects. Prayers are always accompanied by a
religious feeling when made by the shaman, but frequently become
mere formulas in the hands of the lay Indian. In such cases their effi-
cacy will generally be regarded as depending upon the correctness with

' F. Boas, article "Prayer," in Handijook of American Indians (Bureau of American
Ethnology, Bulletin 30, Part 2).

Religion of the North American Indians. 369

which they are repeated. When the prayer takes a ritualistic form
and is regarded as efficacious in itself, it becomes an incantation, and
properly belongs to the domain of magic. This seems to be char-
acteristic of prayers in northern California and among the Eskimo,
but is frequently found elsewhere.

6. Charms and Fetiches. — Charms and fetiches are employed
in many parts of North America as a means of establishing a relation-
ship between man and spirits. These charms and fetiches are either
regarded as the gift of the spirits, the dwelling-place of the spirits, or
are connected intimately with them in some way. They belong
largely, however, to the domain of magic, and may be regarded as
having been secondarily associated with the religious complex. The
main element in this transformation from magic to religion was prob-
ably the definite interpretation of the relation of the charm to the
results obtained. For the purely mechanical or perhaps coercive rela-
tion, the shaman substituted the religious relation.^

IV. THE FOLKLORISTIC-RELIGIOUS COMPLEX.'^

I . The Concept of Evil. — It is generally supposed that the
Indians' actions are regulated "by the desire to retain the good will
of those [spirits] friendly to him, and to control those that are hostile."
This suggests a clear concept of evil, and seems justified when we
remember that almost every tribe postulates its good and bad spirits..
An examination of North American data, however, shows that while
the Indians do speak of the existence of bad spirits, with the exception
of the Eskimo, these spirits seem to exercise little influence upon*
their lives. Evil would most assuredly befall individuals who, for
instance, fasted at the wrong time, or who accepted blessings from
spirits when they were expressly warned against them; but people
seem to have been quite careful to heed these warnings. In the
vast majority of cases, evil seems to result cither from inability to
obtain protection or from infringement of rules. Thus, if an indi-
vidual succumbs during one of life's crises, it is not because of an
evil spirit, but because he failed to provide himself with the means
of protecting himself on such an occasion. There is another kind of
evil, however, besides that which is connected with inability to obtain
protection from the si)irits; and that is the evil caused by definite
individuals. Such individuals claim to have received the jjower of
inflicting injury from the spirits. This does not mean, however, that

• It miRht be well to mention here the idea that spirits may be propitiated if offended
by transgressions of certain rules. The most important of these means of propitiation
is confession, which is found among the Eskimo, Iroquois, and Athapascan. It has lately
developed among the Winnebago, but it may be due there to the influence of Christianity.

* Under this heading we shall concern ourselves entirely with the folkloristic-religious
concepts.

bad spirits blessed them. The power to inflict evil is one of the
powers that men may covet and that ail spirits may grant.

Summing up, we may say that in practice the Indian does not deal
with the evil spirits he unquestionably postulates, but that the same
spirit may be connected with good as with evil. It may very well be
that in this twofold aspect of the spirits we still see the reflection of an
older concept of the spirits in which they, like the tricksters, were not
concerned with the weal or woe of man, but their own interests; and
that whatever evil or good man obtained through them was indirect.

2. The Concept of Disease. — Disease is conceived of in a variety
of ways. It may be due to a general lack of protection, to the presence
of a material object in the body, to the absence of the soul from the
body, or rarely to the action of a spirit who distributes it. I believe
it is a fundamental belief in North America that disease is natural
to man, and that without the spirits* protection he will most assuredly
become ill on numerous occasions in life. The specific disease itself
is caused by some individual who has caused a material object to
€nter another person's body or has abstracted his soul. I know of
only one case in North America where disease is conceived of as being
incarnated in a spirit or deity; and that is among the Winnebago,
where the curious deity known as Disease-Giver is found.

Disease is associated with the religious complex, because those
individuals who are conceived of as causing and curing it are supposed
to have obtained their powers from spirits. This inclusion represents
undoubtedly the activity of those shamans with whom the function
of curing disease became definitely associated. For the majority
<of lay Indians, I feel confident, disease was regarded as being caused
•and cured by purely magical methods.

3. The Concept of Death, After-Life, and Re-incarnation. —
Death was everywhere conceived of as a cessation of life on this
earth, and a cessation of certain kinds of intercourse between the
individual who had died and living individuals. It was not, however,
considered by any means as a cessation of all kinds of intercourse.
It could not be staved off entirely; but it could be staved off for a
larger or smaller number of years, depending upon the nature of the
blessings an individual received, his participation in certain ceremonies,
the nature of his offerings to the spirits, etc. Death was regarded as
having originated in a number of ways at the beginning of the world,
the reasons given being generally folkloristic ones. At times it is
not accounted for at all.

After death, an individual was supposed to travel to a spirit-land
much the same as ours, and to remain there. This journey to the
spirit-land is regarded as being beset with many dangers, to overcome
which the aid of the living is necessary. Among certain tribes the

Religion of the North American Indians. 371

belief is found that only individuals who have led an upright life are
able to reach the spirit-land ; but among most tribes this is apparently
not the case, and the ability to reach the spirit-land depends upon a
variety of causes. Among the Winnebago, for instance, if one of
the warriors invited to a wake boasts of his war-exploits, the individual
who has died will fall over one of the precipices on the spirit-road;
and among the Ojibwa, all infants are doomed to die on the road, be-
cause they are unable to balance themselves successfully on the slippery
bridge that spans one of the rivers that have to be crossed. The
life that is led in the spirit-land is one of unadulterated joy. Indi-
viduals are much the same as when they lived on earth, except that
among many tribes a person is believed to appear there in the precise
bodily form in which he died. If he had been scalped, if his head had
been cut off, if he had been wounded in a certain way, etc., he would
continue his existence in the spirit-land in that shape.

Among most tribes a belief in re-incarnation is present in varying
degrees. It is especially prominent among the Sauk and Fox, Winne-
bago, and Omaha. Only shamans and prominent warriors were gen-
erally regarded as being able to become re-incarnated, as a rule,
although among the Winnebago it was associated with death on the
warpath and membership in the Medicine Dance. The following
Winnebago account will bring out most of the salient features con-
nected with this belief.

"I came from above, and I am holy. This is my second life on earth.
Many years before my present existence I lived on this earth. At that
time every one seemed to be on the warpath. I also was a warrior and a
brave man. Once when I was on the warpath I was killed. It seemed
to me, however, as if I had only stumbled. I rose and went right ahead
until I reached my home. There I found my wife and children, but they
would not look at me. Then I spoke to my wife, but she seemed to be
c|uite unaware of my presence. What can be the matter? I thought. . . .
Finally it occurred to me that I might in reality be dead, so I returned to
the battle-field; and, surely enough, there I saw my body. . . . After that
I tried for four years to return to my home, but I was unsuccessful.

"After a while I became transformed into a fish. Their life is much worse
than ours, for they are frccpiently in lack of food. ... At another time I
became transformed into a bird, and at still another time into a bufTalo.
From my bufTalo existence I was permitted to go to my spirit-home. The
one in charge of that home is my grandfather, and I asked him for permission
to return to this earth again. At first he refused, but after a while he con-
sented. Before I left, he told me, 'Grandson, before you go, >()u had better
have the s[)irits bless you, so that you will be able to live in peace on the
earth.' There I fasted for four years. . . . Then I came to this earth
again. When I came here, I entered a lodge and was born there. I thought
that I was entering a lodge, but I was in reality entering my mother's womb.
Even in my prenatal existence I never lost consciousness."

372 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

4. The Conxept of the Soul. — According to Professor Boas,
there arc three mental processes upon which the ideas relating to the
soul are based, — "the formation of the concept of 'power of acting'
resident in a body, but distinct from the existence of the body; the
formation of concepts due to the subjective feelings connected with
imagery; and that of others due to the objective impressions made by
memory-images." ^ The soul is regarded as invisible to all except
shamans. To them it appears in different forms. Among the Nootka
it is supposed to be a tiny man. The same belief occurred among the
Huron and Eskimo. Among the Central Algonkin and Winnebago
it is like a shadow; among the Shasta it is recognized only by its trail
and footprints; and among the Tsimshian and Bellacoola it is sup-
posed to be a butterfly or bird.^

V. THE TRANSMISSION OF THE RELIGIOUS COMPLEX.

The religious complex is transmitted by the shaman and the lay
Indian. In the case of the shaman it may be said to be almost in-
herited. Every shaman has the natural desire to have one of his
children inherit all his supernatural powers; and to do so he surrounds
him with conditions that make it practically certain that the son will
be blessed in the same way as he was. Practically the son inherits
these powers, but only that son who duplicates the religious conditions
his father submitted to when he was blessed; and consequently only
that son who shows special aptitude and conscientious endeavor will
obtain them. The religious intensity of the shaman, and the con-
servatism with which his religious complex is handed down, are due,
therefore, to the conscious selection of specially-endowed individuals
from generation to generation, often W'ithin a small number of families.^

Among a number of tribes the objective content of the religious
complex is purchased. Among the Winnebago and Ojibwa, for in-
stance, those individuals who were not able to obtain blessings directly
from the spirits would buy certain "blessings" from their more for-
tunate brethren. Among the Blackfoot and Arapaho any blessing
could be purchased; but it seems that great care w^as exercised that
the purchaser be a suitable person. A strong religious feeling seems to
have accompanied purchased blessings among the Blackfoot and Ara-
paho, but among the Winnebago it was very weak. In both cases,
however, the efficacy of these purchased blessings was due to the fact
that originally they were obtained from the spirits in the proper way.

' F. Boas, article "Soul," in Handbook of American Indians (Bureau of American
Ethnology, Bulletin 30, Part 2).

^ Compare also further discussion of the soul in the article quoted above, from which
these statements have been taken.

' P. Radin, "Introduction to the Study of Ojibwa ReUgion" (Papers and Records of
the Ontario Historical Society, vol. xii).

Religion of the North American Indians. 373

What the lay Indian transmitted was the objective content of
reHgion; and this had a tendency, in his hands, to develop into
formulas. While these were handed down unchanged from generation
to generation, the folkloristic background exerted its influence in
interpretations and by new accretions.

Division of Ethnology.

Geological Survey of Canada,
Ottawa, Ontario.

MYTHOLOGY AND FOLK-TALES OF THE NORTH
AMERICAN INDIANS.

BY FRANZ BOAS.
I. MATERIAL.

During the last twenty years a very considerable body of tales of
the North American Indians has been collected. Before their pub-
lication, almost the only important collections available for scientific
research were the Eskimo tales published by H. Rink, — material
recorded in part by natives during the earlier part of the nineteenth
century, and printed also in the native language in Greenland; the
traditions collected by E. Petitot among the Athapascan tribes of
northwestern Canada; the Ponca tales collected by J. O. Dorscy; a
few Siouan tales recorded by Stephen R. Riggs; and the Klamath
traditions collected by Albert S. Gatschet. The material published
in Daniel G. Brinton's "Library of Aboriginal American Literature"
also deserves notice. In all of these the attempt was made to give
a faithful rendering of the native tales; and in this they differ funda-
mentally from the literary efforts of Schoolcraft, Kohl, and other
writers. Owing to their scope, they are also much more valuable than
the older records found in the accounts of missionaries and in books
of travel and exploration.

Since those times, somewhat systematic collections have been made
among a large number of tribes; and, although the continent is not
by any means covered by the existing material, much has been gained
to give us a better knowledge of the subject.

Two types of collection may be distinguished. The one includes
tales taken down in English or in other European tongues directly
from natives, or indirectly with the help of interpreters. Among
American institutions, the Bureau of American Ethnology, the
American Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum of Natural
History (Field Columbian Museum) in Chicago, for a few years the
Carnegie Institution of Washington, have worked in this field. Much
material is also found in the "Journal of American Folk-Lore," and
in the earlier volumes of the "American Anthropologist" and of the
"American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal." The other type of
collection contains tales taken down from dictation by natives, or
recorded in the native language by natives, and later on revised and
edited. So far, the latter form the smaller group. We have some-
what extended material from East Greenland, the Alaskan Eskimo^

374

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 375

from several Athapascan tribes, from four tribes from the coast of
British Columbia, three Chinook tribes, three Oregon tribes, five
Californian tribes; some Pima, Apache, and Navaho material; Iro-
quois, Blackfoot, and Fox texts; and collections from the Ponca and
Sioux. Publications of this type were due first of all to the Bureau of
American Ethnology. For a time the American Museum of Natural
History published a considerable body of texts; and similar work has
been conducted by the University of California in Berkeley, the Mu-
seum of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and more
systematically by the American Ethnological Society and in the
Anthropological Publications of Columbia University in New York.
The Geological Survey of Canada is also beginning to make available
material of this type. The material collected by Professor Uhlenbeck
and Dr. de Jong among the Blackfeet should also be mentioned in
this connection.

With the increase of material, the demands for accuracy of record
have become more and more stringent. While in the earlier period of
collecting no great stress was laid upon the recording of variants and
their provenience, — as, for instance, in Rink's collection, in which
we have variants from different parts of the country combined into a
single story, — we now desire that each tale be obtained from several
informants and from several places, in order to enable us to gain an
impression of its importance in the tribal lore, and to insure the full
record of its contents and of its relations to other tales. Further-
more, the importance of the record in the original language has become
more and more apparent. This is not only for the reason that the
English translation gives a very inadequate impression of the tales,
but also because often the interpreter's inadequate knowledge of Eng-
lish compels him to omit or modify important parts. Even the best
translation cannot give us material for the study of literary form, —
a subject that has received hardly any attention, and the importance
of which, as I hope to show in the course of these remarks, cannot be
overestimated.

It is doubtful whether all the records that have been collected in pre-
vious years are well adapted to this study, because the difficulty of
taking down accurately rapid dictation from natives, and the difficulty
which the natives encounter in telling in the traditional manner
sufficiently slowly for the purpose of the recorder, almost always exert
an appreciable influence upon the form of the tale. Owing to the
mulli{)licity of American languages and to the exigencies of the
situation in which students find themselves, the recorder has only
rarely a practical command of the language; and for this reason the
difficulty just mentioned cannot be readily overcome. Up to tlie
present time, the most successful method has been to have the first

376 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

record made by natives who have been taught to write their own
language. After tliey have acquired sufficient ease in writing, the
diction generally becomes satisfactory. A certain one-sidedness will
remain, however, as long as all the material is written down by a
single recorder. It has also been suggested that phonographic records
be used, which may be written out from re-dictation; but so far, no
extended series has been collected in this manner.

The experience of investigators in many regions suggests that the
difficulty just mentioned is not as great as might be supposed. This
is indicated by the fact that good informants often break down com-
pletely when requested to dictate descriptions of the events of every-
day life. They will then state that they are well able to tell stories
that have a fixed form, but that the slow dictation of descriptions to be
made up new is too difficult for them. It would seem, therefore, that
the form in which most of the tales are obtained must be fairly well
fixed. Ordinarily a poor rendering of a story can easily be recognized
by the fragmentary character of the contents, the briefness of sen-
tences, by corrections and unnecessary repetitions. We also have
many tales in which the same incident is repeated a number of times;
and in those cases the form of the repetitions shows, on the whole,
whether the narrator has a fairly good command of his subject.
Furthermore, a great many native tales contain, besides the connected
narrative, stereotyped formulas, which are always told in the same
manner, and which are undoubtedly always given in correct form.

It has been the habit of most collectors to endeavor to find the "right"
informant for tales, particularly when the stories refer to elaborate
sacred rituals, or when they are the property of social groups possessing
definite privileges. It may then be observed that certain tales are in
the keeping of individuals, and are only superficially or partially known
to the rest of the people. In these cases the recorder has often adopted
the attitude of the Indian who possesses the most elaborate variant
of the tale, and the fragmentary data given by the uninitiated are
rejected as misleading. This view is based on the assumption of a
permanence of form of tradition that is hardly justifiable, and docs not
take into consideration the fact that the esoteric variant which is
developed by a small number of individuals is based on the exoteric
variants afloat among the whole tribe. We shall revert to this subject
later on.

This static view of Indian folk-lore is also expressed by the preference
given throughout to the collection of purely Indian material unaffected
by European or African elements, and by the reluctance of investi-
gators to bestow as much care upon the gathering of the more recent
forms of folk-lore as is given to those forms that were current before
the advent of tlie whites. For the study of the development of folk-

MytJwlogy and Folk-Tales. 2i77

tales the modern material is of particular value, because it may enable
us to understand bet:;er the processes of assimilation and of adaptation,
which undoubtedly hav."^ been of great importance in the history of
folk-tradition.

II. MYTH AND FOLK-TALE.

In our American collections the two terms "myth" and "folk-tale"
have been used somewhat indefinitely. This is a necessary result of
the lack of a sharp line of demarcation between these two classes of
tales. No matter which of the current definitions of mythology we
may adopt, there will arise difficulties that cannot be settled without
establishing arbitrary distinctions. If we define myths as tales that
explain natural phenomena, and that may be considered in this sense
as parts of an interpretation of nature, we are confronted with the
difficulty that the same tale may be explanatory in one case, and a
simple tale without explanatory features in another. The strict
adherence to this principle of classification would therefore result in
the separation of tales that are genetically connected, one being
classed with myths, the other with folk-tales. It goes without saying
that in this way unnecessary difficulties are created.

If we make the personification of animals, plants, and natural
phenomena the standard of distinction, another kind of difficulty
arises, which is based on the lack of a clear distinction between myths,
on the one hand, and tales relating to magical exploits that are con-
sidered as true and of recent occurrence, on the other, and also on the
similarities between tales relating to the adventures of human beings
and animals.

Of similar character are the obstacles that stand in the way of a
definition of myths as tales relating to ritualistic performances.

In all these cases the same tales will have to be considered, in one
case as myths, and in another as folk-talcs, because they occur both
in explanatory and non-explanatory forms, relating to personified
animals or natural objects and to human beings, with ritualistic
significance and without it. If we do accept any one of these defini-
tions, it will therefore always be necessary to consider the two groups
together, and to investigate their historical and psychological develop-
ment without regard to the artificial limits implied in the definition.
This difficulty cannot be met by assuming that the folk-tale originated
from a myth and must be considered a degenerate myth, or by the
hypothesis that conversely the myth originat(^(l from a folk-tale; for,
if we do this, a theoretical point of view, that should be the end of the
inquiry, is injected into our consideration.

For our purposes it seems flesirable to adhere to the definition of
myth given by the Indian himself. In the mind of tlie ;\jnerican
native there exists almost always a clear distinction between two

378 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

classes of tales. One group relates incidents whicli happened at a
time when the world had not yet assumed its present form, and when
mankind was not yet in possession of all thj customs and arts that
belong to our period. The other group contains tales of our modern
period. In other words, tales of the first group are considered as
myths; those of the other, as history. The tales of the former group
are not by any means explanatory in character throughout. They
treat mostly of the achievements of animals and of heroes. From
our iTiodern point of view, it might be doubtful sometimes whether
such a tale should be considered as mythical, or historical, since, on
account of the Indian's belief in the powers of animals, many of the
historical tales consist of a series of incidents that might as well have
happened in the mythological period; such as the appearance of
animals that become supernatural helpers and perform marvellous
exploits, or of those that initiate a person into a new ritual. It can
be shown that historical tales may in the course of time become myth-
ical tales by being transferred into the mythical period, and that
historical tales may originate which parallel in the character and se-
quence of their incidents mythical tales. Nevertheless the psycho-
logical distinction between the two classes of tales is perfectly clear in
the mind of the Indian. It is related, in a way, to the ancient con-
cepts of the different ages as described by Hesiod.

For our analytical study we must bear in mind that the psycho-
logical distinction which the natives make between mythical and
historical tales is, from an historical point of view, not more definitely
and sharply drawn than the line of demarcation between myths and
tales defined in other ways. The point of view, however, has the
advantage that the myths correspond to concepts that are perfectly
clear in the native mind. Although folk-tales and myths as defined
in this manner must therefore still be studied as a unit, we have
avoided the introduction of an arbitrary distinction through our
modern critical point of view, and retained instead the one that is
present in the minds of the myth-telling people.

The mythical talcs belong to a period that is long past, and cannot
be repeated in our world, although the expectation may exist of a
renewal of mythical conditions in the dim future. Only when we
ourselves are transferred into the realm of mythical beings, that
continue to exist somewhere in unknown parts of our world, may
myths again become happenings. The mythological beings may thus
become actors in historical folk-talcs or in localized tradition, although
they appear at the same time as actors in true myths. The Indian
who disappears and is taken to the village of the Buffaloes is, in the
mind of the Indian, the hero of an historical tale, although the Buffalo
men are at the same time mythical personages. The novice initiated

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 379

by the spirits of a secret society is taken away by them bodily; and
when he re-appears among his tribesmen, he tells them his story, which
deals with the gifts of mythical beings. The person who revives from
a death-like trance has been in communion with the mythical world of
the ghosts, although he has been allowed to return to our world and
to follow his usual occupations.

It is therefore clear that in the mind of the Indian the appearance
of mythical characters is not the criterion of what constitutes a myth.
It is rather its distance in space or time that gives it its characteristic
tone.

It appears from these remarks that in the study of the historical
origin of myths and folk-tales of modern times, the widest latitude
must be given to our researches. The types and distribution of the
whole body of folk-tales and myths must form the subject of our in-
quiry. The reconstruction of their history will furnish the material
which may help us to uncover the psychological processes involved.

I cannot agree with Bastian and Wundt,^ who consider the question
how tales actually originated as comparatively insignificant, because
both independently created and disseminated material are subject
to the same psychological processes, which may therefore be studied
by an analytical treatment of the tales as they now exist. I do
not see how this can be done without interpreting as an historical
sequence a classification based entirely on psychological or other
considerations, — a method that can never lead to satisfactory results,
on account of the arbitrary, non-historical premises on which it is
founded. If there is more than one classification of this type possible,
the reconstructed psychological processes will differ accordingly; and
we must still demand that the change from one type to another be
demonstrated by actual historical evidence when available, by infer-
ences based on distribution or similar data when no other method can
be utilized. Here, as in all other ethnological problems, the principle
must be recognized that phenomena apparently alike may develop in
multitudinous ways. A geometrical design may be developed from a
conventionalized realistic form, or it may develop directly through a
play with elementary technical motives; a semi-realistic form may be
a copy of nature, and may have been read into a pre-existing geo-
metrical design; or both may have been borrowed and developed on
new lines. A ritual may be a dramatic presentation of a myth, it
may be an ancient rite to which a myth has become attached, or it
may be a copy of foreign patterns. There is no a priori reason that
tells us which has been the starting-point of a local development, for
the modern forms may have grown up in any of these ways or by
their joint action. At the same time, the psychological processes that
1 VVUhclm Wundt, Volkcrpsychologie, vol. ii, part 3 (1909), p. 63.

380 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

come into play in one case or the other are distinct. For this
reason we insist on the necessity of an inductive study of the sequence
of events as the basis for all our work.

The results of these inquiries, however, do not touch upon another
problem upon which much thought has been bestowed. The beings
that appear as actors in mythological tales are creatures of the imagina-
tion, and differ in the most curious ways from the beings which are
known in our every-day world. Animals that are at the same time
men, human beings that consist of parts of a body or are covered with
warts and blotches, beings that may at will increase or decrease in size,
bodies that may be cut up and will readily re-unite and come to life,
beings that are swallowed by animals or monsters and pass through
them unharmed, are the ordinary inventory of folk-tales as well as of
myths. Whatever is nowhere seen and whatever has never happened
are here the common every-day events.

The imagination of man knows no limits, and we must expect
great variety of form in mythical beings and happenings. While such
diversity is found, there still exist certain features that occur with
surprising frequency, — in fact, so often that their presence cannot be
due to accident. The attention of many investigators has been
directed to these similarities, which have led to the inference that those
traits that are common to the myths and folk-tales of diverse peoples
and races are the fundamental elements of mythology, and that our
real problem is the discovery of the origin of those most widely spread.

It would seem that much of the conflict of current opinion is due to
our failure to keep distinctly apart the two lines of inquiry here char-
acterized,— the one, the investigation into the history of tales; the
other, the investigation of the origin of traditions or ideas common to
many or all mythologies.

in. DISSEMINATION OF FOLK-TALES.

Our first problem deals with the development of modern folk-tales.
During the last twenty years the tendency of American investigators
has been to disregard the problem of the earliest history of American
myths and tales, and to gain an insight into their recent growth. The
first step in an inductive study of the development of folk-tales must
be an investigation of the processes that may be observed at the present
time, and these should form the basis of inquiries into earlier history.
Therefore stress has been laid upon the accumulation of many variants
of the same tale from different parts of the country, and these have
been made the basis of a few theoretical studies.

Not more than twenty-five years ago Daniel G. Brinton asserted
that the similarity of Iroquois and Algonkin mythologies was due to
the sameness of the action of the human mind, not to transmission.

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 381

Since that time such a vast amount of material has been accumulated,
proving definite lines of transmission, that there is probably no in-
vestigator now who would be willing to defend Brinton's position. A
detailed study of transmission among the tribes of the North Pacific
coast, and a brief summary of the similarities between Navaho and
Northwest American folk-tales, were followed by many annotated col-
lections containing parallels from many parts of America. The im-
portance of dissemination was brought out incidentally in Dr. Lowie's
investigation on the test-theme in American mythology and by Dr.
Waterman's study of the explanatory element in American folk-tales.

Two rules have been laid down as necessary for cautious progress.^

First, the tale or formula the distribution of which is investigated,
and is to be explained as due to historical contact, must be so complex,
that an independent origin of the sequence of non-related elements
seems to be improbable. An example of such a tale is the Magic
Flight, in which we find a combination of the following elements:
flight from an ogre; objects thrown over the shoulder forming ob-
stacles, — first a stone, which becomes a mountain ; then a comb, which
becomes a thicket; lastly a bottle of oil, which becomes a body of
water. It is hardly conceivable that such a group of unrelated
incidents should arise independently in regions far apart.

The second rule is, that for a satisfactory proof of dissemination,
continuous distribution is required. The simpler the tale, the greater
must be our insistence on this condition. It must of course be ad-
mitted that simple tales may be disseminated over wide areas. It
must also be admitted that in all probability tales known at one time
have been forgotten, so that intermediate links in an area of geograph-
ically continuous distribution may have been lost. This, however,
does not touch upon our methodological point of view. We desire to
find uncontestable evidence of transmission, not alone the possibility
or plausibility of transmission; and for this purpose our safeguards
must be insisted on.

The study of the distribution of themes requires a ready means for
their identification, and this necessitates a brief terminology: hence
the attempts to establish a series of catch-words by means of wliich
tales and incidents may readily be recognized. Frobenius, Elircnreich,
Lowie, and Krocber^ have contributed to tliis undertaking; but an

• See Boas. "Dissemination of Tales among the Natives of North America" (Journal
of American Folk-Lore, vol. iv, pp. 13-20); W. Wundt, Volkcrpsychologic, vol. ii, part 3,
p. 62; Van Gcnncp, La formation des 16gcndcs (191 2), p. 49.

* Leo Frobenius, Im Zeitalter des Sonncngotts; Paul lihrenreich, Die Mythen und
Legcndcn der SUdamcrikanischen Urviilkcr. pp. 34-59; Robert H. Lowie, "The Test-
Theme in North American Mythology " (Journal of American Folk-Lorc, vol. xxi, p. loi);
A. L. Kroeber, " Cath-Words in American Mythology " (Ihid., vol. xxi, p. 222); see also
T. T. Waterman, " The Explanatory Klcment in the Folk-Tales of the North American
Indians" (this Journal, vol. xxvii, pp. 1-54).

382 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

elaboration of a satisfactory system of catch-words requires more
penetrating study of the tales than those that have hitherto been
made. Certain results, however, have been obtained from the study
of the distribution of themes. The material that has been collected
suggests that, as inquiry progresses, we may be able to discern various
areas of distribution of themes. Some of these are known over large
portions of the continent. For instance, the story of the Bungling
Host — of a person who is fed by the magic powers of his host, who
tries to imitate him and fails ignominiously — occurs from New
Mexico on, all over the eastern part of North America, and is lacking
only, as it seems, in California and on the Arctic coast. Similar to
this is the distribution of the story of the Rolling Rock, which pursues
an offending person, and pins him down until he is finally freed by
animals that break the rock. Perhaps this does not extend quite so
far north and south as the former story. While the Bungling-Host
tale is known on the coast of British Columbia, the Rolling-Rock
story does not reach the Pacific coast, although related tales arc found
in parts of California. Still other tales are essentially confined to the
Great Plains, but have followed the trade-routes that lead to the
Pacific Ocean, and are found in isolated spots from British Columbia
southward to California. To this group belongs the story of the
Dancing Birds, which are told by a trickster to dance with closed eyes,
and then are killed by him, a few only escaping. Another story of this
group is the characteristic Deluge story, which tells of the creation of
a new earth by diving animals. During the Flood the animals save
themselves on a raft. One after another dives, until finally the musk-
rat brings up some mud, of which the new earth is created. This story
is known in a very wide area around the Great Lakes, and occurs in
recognizable form on a few points along the Pacific coast. To this
same group belongs the tale of the Star Husbands. Two girls sleep
out of doors, see two stars, and each wishes one of these for her hus-
band. When they awake the following morning, their wish is fulfilled.
One of the stars is a beautiful man, the other is ugly. Eventually
the girls return to earth. This tale is known from Nova Scotia,
across the whole width of the continent, to the Western plateaus,
Vancouver Island, and Alaska. Still other stories of the same area
are those of the Blood-Clot Boy, who originates from some blood
that has beenthrown away, and who becomes a hero; the story of
Thrown-Away, the name for a boy who is cast out, brought up in a
magic way, and who becomes a hero; the Snaring of the Sun; and
many others.

The second group has a decided Western distribution, and is found
extensively on the Plateaus and on the Pacific coast; although some
of the stories have also crossed the mountains, and are found on the

MytJiology aiid Folk-Tales. 383

Eastern Plains. To this group belongs the story of the Eye-Juggler;
that is, of an animal that plays ball with his eyes, and finally loses
them; of the ascent to the sky by means of a ladder of arrows;
and the story of the contest between Beaver and Porcupine, Beaver
inviting Porcupine to swim, while Porcupine invites Beaver to
climb. ^

A third area of distribution may be recognized in the peculiar
migration legends of the Southwest and of the Mississippi basin,
which have no analogues in the northern part of the continent.

The distribution of themes becomes the more interesting, the more
carefully the tales are considered. Thus the widely spread story of
the Bungling Host may be divided into a number of types, according
to the tricks performed by the host. On the North Pacific coast occurs
the trick of knocking the ankle, out of which salmon-eggs flow; on the
Plateaus, the piercing of some part of the body with a sharp instrument
and pulling out food; on the Plains, the transformation of bark into
wood; and almost everywhere, the diving for fish from a perch.^
There is little doubt that as collection proceeds, and the distribution
of themes can be studied in greater detail, the areas of dissemination
will stand out more clearly than now. The greatest difficulty at present
lies in the absence of satisfactory' material from the Southeast and from
the Pueblo region.

Ehrenreich^ has attempted to extend these comparisons to South
America and to the Old World ; but many of his cases do not conform
to the methodological conditions previously outlined, and are therefore
not quite convincing, although I readily admit the probability of dis-
semination between the southern and northern half of the continent.
I am even more doubtful in regard to tlie examples given by Dahn-
hardt * and Frobenius.^ If Dahnhardt finds, for instance, that we have
in North America a group of tales relating how Raven liberated the
sun, which was enclosed in a seamless round receptacle, that the
Chukchce tell of Raven holding the sun under his tongue, that the
Magyar tell a similar incident of one of the heroes of their fairy-talcs,
it docs not follow that these are the same tales. The Chukchce and
Magyar tales are alike, and I should be inclined to search for inter-
mediate links. Among the Chukchce the story has been inserted in
the Raven cycle, and it vseems [jrobablc tliat the prominence of the

* 5?ce T. T. Waterman (Journal of American Folk-I.orc, vol. xxvii. pp. 1-54).

• Franz Boas, Tsimshian Mythology (jist Annual Report of the Bureau of American
Ethnolofjy).

' P. Khronrcich, Die Mythcn und Lcjjcndcn der sQdamcrikanischcn Urvolkcr und ihre
Bezieliungcn zu dcncn Nordanicrikas und der Alton Welt, 1905.

♦ O. DUinhardt. Natursagcn, vols. i-iv. References are given in the index to these
volumes.

• Leo Frobenius, Die Weltanschauung der Naturvolkcr.

VOL. XXVII. NO. 106. — 26.

384 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

raven in their folk-lore is due to Northwest-coast influences, or that
it developed at the same time in northeastern Asia and northwestern
America. However, I do not think that the two tales are sufficiently
alike to allow us to claim that they have the same origin.

Still more is this true of the alleged relations between Melanesian and
American tales. Frobenius, who makes much of these similarities, calls
attention, for instance, to the motive of the arrow-ladder, which occurs
in Melanesia and in Northwest America. It seems to me that the
idea of a chain of arrows reaching from the earth to the sky is not so
complicated as to allow us to assume necessarily a single origin.
Furthermore, the distance between the two countries in which the
element occurs is so great, and there is apparently such a complete
absence of intermediate links, that I am not convinced of the sameness
of the elements. Even the apparently complicated story of the Invis-
ible Fish-Hook, which was recorded by Codrington, and which is com-
mon to Melanesia and Northwest America, does not convince me.
The fisherman's hook is taken away by a shark; the fisherman loses
his way, reaches the shark's village, where a person lies sick and cannot
be cured by the shamans. The fisherman sees his hook in the sick
person's mouth, takes it out, and thus cures him. In this formula we
have the widely-spread idea that the weapons of spirits are invisible
to mortals, and vice versa; and the story seems to develop without
difficulty wherever this idea prevails. The markedly close psycho-
logical connection of the incidents of the tale sets it off clearly from the
Magic Flight referred to before, in which the single elements are quite
without inner connection. Therefore the sameness of the formula,
connected with the lack of intermediate links, makes the evidence for
historical connection inconclusive.

I repeat, the question at issue is not whether these tales may be
related, but whether their historical connection has been proved.

Transmission between the Old World and the New has been proved
by the occurrence of a set of complex stories in both. The most
notable among these are the Magic Flight (or obstacle myth), the story
of the Island of Women (or of the toothed vagina), and that of the
killing of the ogre whose head is infested with frogs instead of lice.
The area of well-established Old-World influence upon the New World
is confined to that part of North America limited in the southeast by
a line running approximately from California to Labrador. Southeast
of this line, only weak indications of this influence are noticeable.
Owing to the restriction of the tales to a small part of America, and to
their wide distribution in the Old World, we must infer that the direc-
tion of dissemination was from the west to the east, and not conversely.
Every step forward from this well-established basis should be taken
with the greatest caution.

Mythology and Folk -Tales. 385

A certain number of folk-tales are common to a more restricted
area around the coasts of Bering Sea and the adjoining parts of Asia
and America. Many of these may have had their origin in America.
An extension of this inquiry is needed for clearing up the whole
interrelation between the New World and the Old. The suggestion
of analogies made by Ehrenreich, Diihnhardt, Frobenius, and others,
is worthy of being followed up; but the proofs they have so far given
are not convincing to me. Thus the theft of the sun and the bringing-
up of the earth, to both of which I referred before; the story of the
Swan Maidens who put ofT their clothing on the shore of a lake, as-
sume human form, and are compelled to marry the hero who takes
away their clothing, — are common property of America, Asia, and
Europe. But the variations of these tales are considerable; and their
complexity is not so great, nor their geographical distribution so
continuous, as to claim that proof of their identity has been established.

We should also mention the possibility of contact between America
and the Old World across the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Roland B.
Dixon 1 has recently collected data that suggest possible contact along
this line; and Von Hornbostel- has tried to show similarity on the
basis of musical systems that in his opinion can be explained with
difficulty only, unless there has been old historical contact. No con-
vincing material, however, is found in the domain of folk-tales.

I have not considered in the preceding remarks the recent influx of
foreign themes from Europe and Africa. A fairly large amount of
European folk-lore material has been introduced into the United
States and Canada. Among those Indian tribes, however, that still
retain fresh in their memory the aboriginal mode of life, these tales
are sharply set off from the older folk-talcs. They are recognizable by
distinctiveness of character, although their foreign origin is not always
known to the natives. They belong largely to the fairy-tales of
Europe, and most of them were probably carried to America by the
French voyageurs. It is only in recent times that a more extensive
amount of material of this kind has been accumulated.^ Favorite
stories of this group are "John the Bear," "Seven-Heads," and a few
others of similar type.

In Nova Scotia and Quebec, where contact between the European
settlers and the Indians has continued for a long period, the numl)cr
of European elements in aboriginal folk-lore is much larger. They
may have been derived in part from Scotch and Irish sources. Still

'Roland B. Dixon, " Tlie Independence of the Culture of the American Indian"
(Science, 191 2, pp. 46-55).

*0. von Hornlxistel, " Ober ein akustischcs Kritcrium filr Kuitur/usanunenhange"
(Zeitschrift fUr EthnoIoKie, tgii, pp. 601-615).

* Most of this material has been published in the Journal of Aineiican I'"olk-Lore,
vols, xxv-xxvii (1912-14); sec also Rand, Legends of the Micniacs.

386 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

the distinction between the types of aboriginal and foreign tales is
fairly clear, even to the minds of the narrators.

In the Southern States, where a large Negro population has come
into contact with the Indians, we find introduced into the aboriginal
folk-lore, in addition to the fairy tales, animal tales foreign to Amer-
ica. Since many of these are quite similar in type to aboriginal
American folk-tales, the line of demarcation between the two groups
has tended to become lost. Some of the foreign details have been
incorporated in the folk-lore of the Southeastern Indians, and their
distinct origin has been forgotten by them. A similar assimilation of
the animal tale has been observed in isolated cases in other districts,
as that of a La Fontaine fable among the Shuswap of British Columbia,
and perhaps of a European folk-tale among the Zuiii. For this reason
we may conclude that the complete amalgamation is due to their
identity of type.

The conditions are quite different in Latin America, where, with the
exception of the most isolated areas, native folk-tales have almost
given way to European material. The bulk of the tales collected in
Mexico and South America is of the same character as the folk-tales
of the American Negroes, and belongs to the same cycle to which they
belong. Since Negro influence cannot readily be shown over this whole
district, and since much of the correlated material is clearly European,
the origin of these tales is plausibly referred to Spanish and Portuguese
sources. They were probably carried to America at the time of the
Conquest, taken to Africa by the Portuguese, and later on imported
into the United States by Negroes who had previously adopted them
in Africa. The definite solution of this problem would require careful
collections in Spain. The published Portuguese material is not un-
favorable to this theory, which is also supported by the occurrence
of the same tales in the Philippine Islands, that have been so long under
Spanish influence. It is true that some talcs of this group that are
found in southern Asia may be due to East-Indian influences, but the
form of those hitherto published is rather in favor of the theory of a
late Spanish origin. It seems likely that along with these tales the
Negroes brought some African stories of similar character into North
America.

Among the elements that have been introduced into our continent
in this way, I mention the Magic Flight, which has thus been carried
in two currents into the New World, — an ancient one, coming from
Siberia by way of Bering Strait; a recent one, arising in Spain, and
passing into Latin America, and gradually extending northward until
the two meet in northern California.

It is not easy to say when this superposition of the ancient American
lore by new European material in Latin America was accomplished.

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 387

There are, however, indications favoring the assumption that some of
it has had time to influence American tribes that did not come directly
into intimate contact with Spanish cultural elements. Thus the tale
of the race between Turtle and Rabbit — in which Turtle places his
brothers, who look just like him, all along various points of the race-
track, and thus makes Rabbit believe that he has won — has entered
northward into Oregon and British Columbia; and a number of inci-
dents that occur in Vancouver Island and in the interior of British
Columbia may have to be explained in the same way. The general
question of the influence of European lore upon our aboriginal tradi-
tion deserves much more careful attention than it has hitherto received.

IV. CHARACTERISTICS OF MYTHOLOGICAL AREAS.

We return to the discussion of the aboriginal lore as it is found in
our times, disregarding those elements that can be proved to be of
modern introduction. The material collected in different parts of the
continent presents marked differences in type. These are due to
several causes. In some cases the themes contained in the tales are
distinct; in others the actors are different; the point of the stories
shows certain local peculiarities; or the formal structure possesses local
characteristics. Among these features, attention has been directed
particularly to the first three, although no systematic attempts have
been made to cover the whole field.

In the preceding chapter I have discussed the dissemination of
tales, and at the same time pointed out that they are not evenly dis-
tributed over the whole continent. It does not seem possible to give
a definite characterization of those themes that form the constituent
elements of the folk-tales of these larger areas.

The actors that appear as the heroes of our tales differ greatly in
various parts of the continent. While in Alaska and northern British
Columbia the Raven is the hero of a large cycle of talcs, we find that
farther to the south, first the Mink, then the Blucjay, takes his place.
On the Western Plateaus Coyote is the hero, and in many parts of
the Plains tlic Rabbit is an important figure. In other regions, heroes
of human fcjrm api)ear. These occur sporadically along the Pacific
coast, but in much more pronoimced form on the Great Plains and in
the Mackenzie area, without, however, superseding entirely the animal
heroes. Owing to this difference in the fonn of the actors, we find
the same tales told of Rabbit, Coyote, Raven, Mink, and Bluejay,
but also of such beings as culture-heroes or human tricksters among the
Algonkin, Sioux, Ponca, and Hlackfeet. There is almost no limit to
these transfers from one actor to another. The story of the Bungling
Host is, for instance, told of all these beings, and other themes are
transferred from one to another with equal ease. Analogous transfers

388 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

occur frequently in tlic case of other figures that are less prominent
in the folk-talcs. The sun is snared by Mouse, Rabbit, or beings in
human form. Gull and a person appear as owners of the sun. King-
fisher, Water-Ouzel, or other birds, play the role of hosts. Chicken-
Hawk, Goplier, Deer, or Eagle steal the fire. Fox, Opossum, or Rabbit
dupe the Coyote. In part, the animals that appear in tales are deter-
mined by the particular fauna of each habitat; but, even aside from
this, numerous transfers occur. In how far these changes may be
characteristic, aside from the changes of the main figure, has not yet
been determined.

The third point in regard to which the materials of various areas
show characteristic differences is their formal composition; for the
impression that certain types of stories are characteristic of definite
areas is not due mainly to the selection of themes that they contain,
and of the actors, but to the fundamental ideas underlying the plots,
and to their general composition, — if I may use the term, to their
literary style.

Here a remark should be made in regard to the manner in which the
accumulated material has been utilized for the purpose of theoretical
discussion. When it is merely a question of discussing themes and
actors, it may perhaps be justifiable to be satisfied with data collected
without particular precautions. On the whole, I do not think that the
study of the distribution of tales has been seriously vitiated by the
use of unsatisfactory records, although even here a certain amount of
caution must be demanded. WTien Dahnhardt makes use of a collec-
tion like Phillips's "Totem Tales," he vitiates his statements, because
neither is the provenience of the tales given correctly — Alaskan tales,
for instance, being told as collected in Puget Sound — nor are the con-
tents sufficiently reliable to serve as a basis for conclusions. The tales
are throughout changed and modified so as to satisfy the literary taste
of the author. Too little attention has been paid by students to the
necessity of a critical examination of their material. Such criticism
becomes imperative when the formal composition is to be made the
subject of serious study. It is necessary to know exactly what is
native, and what may be due to the literary taste of the recorder; and
what may be due to the individual informant, and what may be tribal
characteristic. It is here that the importance of unadulterated text-
material becomes particularly apparent. The neglect of all critical
precautions, which is so characteristic of the manner in which ethno-
logical material is habitually used, has vitiated the results of students,
not only in the field of mythology and folk-lore, but perhaps even more
in the study of customs and beliefs; and the time has come when the
indiscriminate use of unsifted material must end.

In a way we may speak of certain negative features that are com-

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 389

mon to the tales of the whole American continent. The moralizing
fable, which is so widely spread in Europe, Asia, and Africa, seems
to be entirely absent in America. Professor Van Gennep has claimed
that all primitive folk-tales must be moral. ^ This is true in so far
as the plots of all primitive folk-tales find a happy solution, and must
therefore conform to those standards that are accepted by the narra-
tors.2 This, however, is not the same as the moralizing point of the
story, that is the peculiar character of the fable of the Old World.
Although the American tale may be and has been applied by Indians
for inculcating moral truths, this tendency is nowhere part and parcel
of the tale. Examples of the moral application of a tale have been
given by Swanton ' from Alaska, and by Miss Fletcher * from the Paw-
nee. In none of these, however, has the tale itself the moral for its
point. It is rather a more or less far-fetched application of the tale
made by the narrator. The tale can therefore not be classed with the
African, Asiatic, and European animal tales, the whole point of which
is the moral that is expressed at the end. It seems to me very likely
that the almost complete absence of proverbs among the American
natives is connected with the absence of the moralizing literary form,
which among the Indians seems to be confined to the art of the
orator who sometimes conveys morals in the fonn of metaphoric
expression.

The attempt has been made to characterize one or two areas accord-
ing to peculiarities of literary form. It is perhaps easiest thus to
describe the folk-tales of the Eskimo, which differ from other Ameri-
can tales in that the fanciful animal tale with its transformation
elements does not predominate.^

In other cases, however, the formal elements can be given clear ex-
pression only when the tales are grouped in a number of classes. Most
important among these are the serious origin tales, the trickster tales,
and tales the incidents of which develop entirely or essentially in
human society. As soon as this division is made, it is found possible
to distinguish a certain number of well-defined types.

We shall take up first of all the origin myths. It is a common trait

' La formation dcs It'Kcndes (191 2), p. 16.

' Fricdrich Panzer, Miirchcn, Sage und Dichtung (Munich, 1905), p. 14.

• John R. Swanton. Tlingit Myths and Tcxta (Bulletin 39, Bureau of American
Ethnology).

* Alice C. Fletcher, The Ilako (22d .\niiual Report of the Bureau of .\merican Eth-
nology, part 2).

' Dr. Paul Radin states that the tales from Smith Sound published by Knud Rasmua-
een show that in Eskimo folk-lore the animal tale id as marked as among the Indians.
This view does not seem to me warranted by the facts. The tyi>c of trifling animal tales
recorded in Smith Sound has long been known, and differs fundamentally from animal
tales common to the rest of the continent (article "Eskimo." in Hastings' Cyclopedia of
Religions).

390 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

of most American origin myths that they deal with the transition from
a mythological period to the modern age, brought about by a number
of disconnected incidents, sometimes centering pre-eminently around
the acts of one particular figure, sometimes by incidents distributed
over a mass of tales that have not even the actions of one being as their
connecting link. On the whole, the mythical world, earth, water,
fire, sun and moon, summer and winter, animals and plants, are
assumed as existing, although they may not possess their present forms,
and although they may have been kept in some part of the world in-
accessible to the human race. We are dealing, therefore, essentially
with tales of expeditions in which, through cunning or force, the
phenomena of nature are obtained for the use of all living beings; and
with tales of transformation in which animals, land and water, obtain
their present forms. We do not find in North America the genea-
logical sequence of worlds, one generated by another, that is so
characteristic of Polynesia. The idea of creation, in the sense of a
projection into objective existence of a world that pre-existed in the
mind of a creator, is also almost entirely foreign to the American race.
The thought that our world had a previous existence only as an idea
in the mind of a superior being, and became objective reality by a will,
is not the form in which the Indian conceives his mythology. There
was no unorganized chaos preceding the origin of the world. Every-
thing has always been in existence in objective form somewhere.
This is even true of ceremonials and inventions, which were obtained
by instruction given by beings of another world. There is, however,
one notable exception to this general rule, for many Californian tribes
possess origin tales which are expressions of the will of a powerful
being who by his thoughts established the present order. When this
type of tale became first known to us through the collections of Jere-
miah Curtin, it appeared so strange, that the thought suggested itself
that we might have here the expression of an individual mind rather
than of tribal concepts, resulting either from the recorder's attitude
or from that of an informant affected by foreign thought. Further
collections, however, have corroborated the impression; and it now
seems certain that in northern California there exists a group of true
creation tales.

The statement here made needs some further restriction, inasmuch
as we have quite a number of tales explaining the origin of animals and
of mankind as the results of activities of superior beings. Thus we
have stories which tell how men or food-animals were fashioned by
the Creator out of wood, stone, clay, or grass; that they were given
life, and thus became the beings that we see now. It is important
to note that in these cases it is not a mere action of a creative will,
but always the transformation of a material object, which forms the

Mythology and Folk- Tales . 391

essential feature of the tale. Furthermore, I believe it can be shown
that many of these tales do not refer to a general creation of the whole
species, but that they rather supply a local or temporary want. For
instance, the Creator carves salmon out of wood, but they are not fit
to serve his purpose. This does not imply that no salmon were in
existence before that time, for we hear later on in the same cycle that
the real salmon were obtained by a party that captured the fish in the
mythical salmon country. The Creator, therefore, had to make
artificially an object resembling the real salmon that existed somewhere
else, but his unsuccessful attempt resulted in the origin of a new species.
In another way this point may be brought out in the story of the
origin of death, which appears as part of the Raven cycle of the North
Pacific coast. Here Raven tries to create man first from stone, then
from leaves. Since his attempts to give life to stones were unsuccess-
ful, and man originated from leaves, man dies like leaves. The men
thus created were, however, not the only ones in existence. Raven
tried to create them only in order to obtain helpers in a particular kind
of work in which he was engaged. Nevertheless the generalized
explanation of death is attached to this story.

There are also marked differences not only in the manner in which
origins are accounted for, but also in the extent to which these elements
enter into tales. While in a large collection of Eskimo stories only
from thirty-five to fifty phenomena are explained, the number is
infinitely greater on the Western Plateaus. In the essay quoted before,
Waterman states that ninety-eight Eskimo tales contain thirty-four
explanations, while in a hundred and eighty-seven Plateau tales, two
hundred and twenty-five explanations are found. This quite agrees
with the impression that we receive by the perusal of tales. In some
cases almost every tale is an origin tale, in others these are few and far
between. For the determination of this element as characteristic of
various areas, we require, of course, extensive collections, such as are
available from a few tribes only. It is particularly necessary that the
tales should not be gathered from a one-sided standpoint, — as, for
instance, for a study of celestial myths or of animal tales, — because
this might give an entirely erroneous impression. That typical
differences exist can be determined even now. It is particularly
striking that in some regions, as on the Western Plateaus, tJic exjilana-
tory element appears often as the basis of the plot ; while other tribes,
like the Eskimo, have a number of very trifling origin stories almost
resembling animal failles. If tiicse are excluded from tlie whole mass
of explanatory tales, the contrast between various groups in regard to
the importance of the cxi)lanatory clement becomes particularly
striking.

Marked differences occur also in the selection of the phenomena

392 Journal of American Folk-Lore

that are explained. Among the southern Caddoan tribes the explana-
tion of stars preponderates. Among the Plateau tribes the largest
number of tales refer to characteristics of animals. Among the
Blackfeet and Kwakiutl the mass of tales relate to ceremonials.
Among the Southern tribes a great number are cosmogonic tales.

Related to this is also the more or less systematic grouping of the
tales in larger cycles. It is but natural that in all those cases in which
traits of animals form the subject of explanatory tales, the tales must
be anecdotal in character and disconnected, even if one person should
form the centre of the cycle. It is only when the origin tales are
brought together in such a way that the mythological concepts develop
into a systematic whole, that the origin stories assume the form of a
more complex cosmogony. This point may be illustrated by the long
record of the origin legend of Alaska collected by Swanton,^ in which
obviously a thoughtful informant has tried to assemble the whole
mass of explanatory tales in the form of a connected myth. Critical
study shows not only the entire lack of cohesion of the parts, but also
the arbitrary character of the arrangement, which is contradicted by
all other versions from the same region. Unifying elements are com-
pletely missing, since there is no elaboration of a cosmogonic concept
that forms the background of the tale.

The same is no less true of the Kwakiutl, among whom the dis-
connected character of the origin tales is perhaps even more pro-
nounced, since they refer in different ways to various aspects of the
world; the origin of animals being treated in one weiy, the rise of
social differences of the people in another way, and the super-
natural basis of their religious ceremonials in still another manner.
The contrast in form brought about by the systematization of myth-
ical concepts may be seen clearly in the case of the Bellacoola,
who have developed more definite notions of the organization of the
world, and among whom, for this reason, the single stories, while still
disconnected, are referred clearly to a background of systematized
mythical concepts. The contrast between the disconnected origin
tales and the elaborate cycles is most striking when we compare the
disjointed tales of the Northwest with the long connected origin
myths of the East as we find them among the Iroquois and Algonkin,
and even more when we place them side by side with the complex
myths from the Southwest.

On the whole, these features arc characteristic of definite geographical
areas. On the Western Plateaus it is almost entirely the grouping of
the tales around one single hero that makes them into a loosely con-
nected cycle. So far as we can discover, the single adventures are

' John R. Swanton, Tlingit Myths and Texts (Bulletin 39, Bureau of American Eth-
nology, pp. 80 et seq.).

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 393

disconnected, and only exceptionally a definite sequence of incidents
occurs. The same is largely true of the origin tales of the East and of
the Upper Mississippi region, excepting their complicated introductory
parts. In other districts — as on the Pacific coast between Van-
couver Island and central California — a somewhat more definite
order is introduced by the localization of the tales. A transformer
travels over the country and performs a series of actions, which are
told in a definite order as his journeyings take him from place to place.
Thus we have a definite order, but no inner connection between the
incidents. Quite distinct in type are the origin tales in which the
people themselves are brought to their present home by long-continued
migration. It is characteristic of the northern part of the continent
that there is no migration legend to speak of, that the people consider
themselves as autochthonous. In the Southwest and in Mexico, on
the other hand, particular stress is laid upon the emergence of the tribe
from a lower world and upon its migrations, with which are connected
many of the origin stories. This type, which in its whole setting is
quite distinct from that of the North, occurs wherever Southern in-
fluences can be traced, as among the Ankara, a Caddoan tribe that
migrated from the south northward to the Missouri River.

We may also recognize local characteristics in the details of the
methods by which the present order of things is established. In the
Plateau area, among the Eskimo, and in part at least in eastern North
America, something happens that accidentally determines the future.
When Grizzly-Bear, in a tussle, scratches Chipmunk's back, this
gives rise to his stripes. If an animal jumps out of a canoe and breaks
off his tail on the gunwale, this is the reason why it has a short tail.
Since an animal wears down the hair of its bushy tail, it has a hairless
tail now. Because the frog leaped on the moon's face, it stays there.
In this area incidents in which transformations are the result of an
intentional activity are quite rare, although the idea is not quite
absent. In the East the concept of intentional transformation
appears particularly in the tales treating of the origin of the earth and
of ceremonies; on the Plateau it appears from time to time cither in
the form of councils held by the animals in order to decide how the
world is to be arranged, or in contests between two antagonistic
animals which desire different conditions. Thus we find in the
Plateaus the story of Chipmunk and Bear, to which I referred before,
essentially a contest which is to determine whether it shall always
be day or always night; and in the Coyote cycle a contest which is to
decide whether man shall be immortal.

On this basis a number of types of origins may be distinguished, —
first, origins due to accidental, unintentional occurrences; second, the
formation of tJie present order according to the decisions of a council

394 Journal of American Folk- Lore.

of animals; third, development due to the actions of two antagonistic
beings, the one benevolent and wishing to make everything easy for
man, the other one counteracting these intentions and creating the
difficulties and hardships of life; as a fourth type we may distinguish
the culture-hero tales, the narrative of the migration of men or deities
who wander about and set things right. At the present tune it is
hardly possible to group the origin stories quite definitely from these
points of view. In the extreme north the disorganized tale seems to
prevail. On the plateaus of the northern United States and in part
of the plains, the animal council plays an important role. California
seems to be the principal home of the antagonistic formula, although
this idea is also prominent among some Eastern tribes; and culture-
hero tales appear locally on the North Pacific coast, but more promi-
nently in the south.

We shall next turn to a consideration of the trickster tales. In a
sense these have been referred to in the previous group, because many
of the trickster talcs are at the same time origin tales. If, for instance,
Coyote tricks the birds by letting them dance near the fire, and their
red eyes are accounted for in this way, we have here an origin story
and a trickster tale. At present we are not concerned in this feature,
but rather in the consideration of the question whether certain features
can be found that are characteristic of the whole cycle as developed
in various regions. First of all, it seems of interest to note the degree
to which the whole group of tales is developed. It is absent among
the Eskimo, moderately developed in California, probably not very
prominent in the aboriginal myths of the Southwest, but most prolific
on the Northwest coast, the Northern Plateaus, and in the East.
Whether it is a marked feature of the Athapascan area cannot be de-
cided at present. Some of the heroes of the trickster cycle have been
noted before. Raven, Mink, Bluejay, on the Northwest coast; Coyote
on the Plateaus; Old Man among the Blackfeet; Ishtiniki among the
Ponca; Inktumni among the Assiniboin; Manabosho, Wishahka, and
Glooscap among various Algonkin tribes, — are some of the prominent
figures. Although a complete list of all the trickster incidents has
not been made, it is fairly clear that a certain number are found prac-
tically wherever a trickster cycle occurs. I have already stated that
one group of these tales is confined to the Western Plateaus, another
one to the northern half of the continent. At present it is more
important to note, that, besides these widely distributed elements,
there seem to be in each area a number of local tales that have no such
wide distribution. The characteristics of the tales appear most clearly
when the whole mass of trickster talcs in each region is studied. A
comf)arison of the Raven, Mink, and Bluejay cycles is instructive.
The background of the Raven stories is every'where the greedy hunger

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 395

of Raven. Almost all of the Raven tales treat of Raven's endeavors
to get plenty of food without effort; and the adventures relate to his
attempts to cheat people out of their provisions and to the punishment
doled out to him by those who have suffered from his tricks. Quite
different in type are the Mink stories. Here we find throughout an
erotic background. Mink tries to get possession of girls and of the
wives of his friends, and his tricks have almost exclusively this one
object. Occasionally only a trick based on his fondness for sea-eggs
is introduced. The Bluejay adventures may be characterized in still
another way. Generally it is his ambition to outdo his betters in
games, on the hunt or in war, that brings him into trouble or induces
him to win by trickery. He has neither a pronounced erotic nor a
notably greedy character. The tricks of the Plateau cycles are not so
easy to characterize, because the deeds of Coyote partake of all the
characteristics just mentioned. Coyote attempts to get food, and his
erotic adventures are fairly numerous; but on the whole these two
groups are considerably outnumbered by tricks in which he tries to
outdo his rivals.

The identification of trickster and transformer is a feature which
deserves special notice. I have called attention to the fact — borne
out by most of the mythologies in which trickster and culture-hero
appear as one person — that the benefactions bestowed by the culture-
hero are not given in an altruistic spirit, but that they are means by
which he supplies his own nceds.^ Even in his heroic achievements he
remains a trickster bent upon the satisfaction of his own desires. This
feature may be observed distinctly in the Raven cycle of the Northwest
coast. He liberates the sun, not because he pities mankind, but
because he desires it ; and the first use he tries to make of it is to compel
fishermen to give him part of their catch. He gets the fresh water
because he is thirsty, and unwillingly spills it all over the world while
he is making his escape. He liberates the fish because he is hungr>',
and gets the tides in order to be able to gather shell-fish. Similar obser-
vations may be made in other mythological personages that embody
the qualities of trickster and culture-hero. Wherever the desire to
benefit mankind is a more marked trait of the cycle, there are generally
two distinct persons, — one the trickster, the other the culture-hero.
Thus the culture-hero of the Pacific coast gives man his arts, and is
called "the one who sets things right." He is not a trickster, but all
his actions have a distinct bearing upon the establishment of the
modern order. Perhaps the most characteristic feature of these
culture-hero tales is their lack of detail. Many are bare statements
of the fact that something was different from the way it is now. The

• Introduction to James Teit, Traditions of the Thompson River Indians of British
Columbia (Memoirs of the American roik-Lore Society, vol, vi).

39^ Journal of American Folk-Lore.

hero performs some very simple act, and ordains that these conditions
shall be cliangcd. It is only when the culture-hero concept rises to
greater heights, as it does in the South, that these tales acquire greater
complexity.

Here may also be mentioned the animal talcs that belong neither to
the trickster cycle nor to the origin tales. It is hardly possible to
give a general characterization of these, and to distinguish local types,
except in so far as the importance of the tale is concerned. In the
Arctic and the adjoining parts of the continent, we find a considerable
number of trifling animal stories that have hardly any plot. They
are in part merely incidents descriptive of some characteristic of the
animal. Some of these trifling stories are given the form of origin
tales by making the incidents the cause from which arise certain bodily
characteristics of the animals, but this is not often the case. In the
more complex tales which occur all over the continent, the animals act
according to their characteristic modes of life. Kingfisher dives,
Fox is a swift runner, Beaver a good swimmer who lives in ponds, etc.
Their character corresponds to their apparent behavior. Grizzly-Bear
is overbearing and ill-tempered, Bluejay and Coyote are tricky. A
sharp individual characterization, however, is not common.

We shall now turn to the third group of tales, those dealing with
human society. These can only in part be characterized in the manner
adopted heretofore. Some of their local color is due to the peculiar
distribution of incidents which has been discussed before. On the
whole, however, it is rather the plot as a whole that is characteristic.
This may be exemplified by the incident of the faithless wife, which
occurs all over the continent. The special form of the plot of the
woman who has an animal or supernatural being or some object for
a lover, whose actions are discovered by her husband, who disguises
himself in her garments and who deceives and kills the paramour and
later on his wife, is most characteristic of the Northern area, reaching
from northeastern Siberia and the Eskimo district southward to the
Mississippi basin.

Individualization of form may also be illustrated by the widely dis-
tributed incident of the deserted child who rescues his people when
they are in distress. The special form of the plot — in which the
child makes his parents and uncles ashamed, is deserted and then
helped by animals that send him larger and larger game until many
houses are filled with provisions, and in which the people ofYer him
their daughters as wives — is characteristic only of the North Pacific
coast. On the Plains the deserted boy escapes by the help of his
protector, and becomes a powerful hunter. The analysis of the plots
has not been carried through in such detail as to allow us to do more
than point out the existence of characteristic types in definite areas.

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 397

Much more striking in this group of tales is their cultural setting,
that reflects the principal occupation and interests of the people. I
have attempted to give a reconstruction of the life of the Tsimshian,
basing my data solely on the recorded mythology. As might perhaps
be expected, all the essential features of their life — the village, its
houses, the sea and land hunt, social relations — appear distinctly
mirrored in this picture. It is, however, an incomplete picture. It
would seem that certain aspects of life do not appeal to the imagination
of the story-tellers, and are therefore not specifically expressed, not
even implied in the setting of the story. It is very striking how little
the animal tale — in the instance in question, the Raven cycle — con-
tributes to this picture. It is also of interest to note that among the
Tsimshian the secret societies — which, as we conclude from other
evidence, have been introduced only lately — occupy a very unim-
portant part in the tales, while the potlatch and the use of crests are
two of their most notable features. How accurately the cultural
background of the life of the people is reflected by the form of its
tales, appears in the diversity of form in which the life of various
tribes of the North Pacific coast is mirrored in their traditional lore.
Although the general form is much the same in all, the reconstructions
based on the evidence of their tales exhibit sharp individualization, and
emphasize the differences in social organization, in social customs,
in the importance of the secret societies, and in the great diversity
in the use of crests and other supernatural gifts. A perusal of the
available collections makes it quite clear that in this sense the expres-
sion of the cultural life of the people contained in their tales gives to
them a marked individuality, no matter what the incidents constituting
the tales may be.

The reflection of the tribal life, which is characteristic of the tale,
is also expressed in the mass of supernatural concepts that enter
into it and form in part the scenic background on which the story
develops, in part the machinery by means of which the action pro-
gresses. Wundt ^ and Waterman have called attention to the impor-
tance of distinctions between mythical concepts and tales. The
cosmological background docs not enter with equal intensity into the
folk-tales of various groups. The Eskimo, who have clearly defined
notions regarding the universe, do not introduce them to any great
extent into their tales; while the various classes of fabulous tribes
and beings, shamanism and witchcraft, occupy a prominent place.
On the North Pacific coast the notions regarding the uni\crsc are on
the whole vagi'c and contradictory; nevertheless visits to the sky play
an important role in the tales. The ideas regarding a ladder leading
to heaven, and journeys across the ocean to fabulous countries, also

' Wilhclm Wundt, Volkcrpsychologic, vol. ii, part 3 (1909), p. 19.

398 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

enter into the make-up of the Northwest-coast traditions. In the
South, on the other hand, the notions in regard to the centre of the
world, the lower world, and the four points of the compass, are of
importance.

Tlie groups of fabulous beings that appear in each area exhibit also
sharp characteristics; as the ice giants of the Iroquois and eastern
Algonkin, the stupid giants of the Shoshoni and Kutenai, or the water-
monsters of the South, the horned serpents of eastern America, the
double-headed serpent of the coast of British Columbia, the giant
thunder-bird of Vancouver Island, and the various forms of thunderers
that are found among the different tribes of the continent.

Skinner ^ has recently called attention to the magical machinery that
appears in the tales of human adventure among the Central Algonkin
tribes. These features also characterize the tales of different areas.
This subject has not been analyzed in sufficient detail to allow a
definite grouping, but enough is known to indicate that a natural
arrangement will result which will largely conform to cultural divisions.

This feature is still further emphasized when we direct our attention
to the main plot of the story. I have shown that among the Kwakiutl
the plot of most stories is the authentication of the privileges of a
social division or of a secret society. Wissler has brought out a similar
point in his discussion of Blackfoot tales,^ many of which seem to
explain ritualistic origins, the rituals themselves being in part dramatic
interpretations of the narratives. The Pawnee and Pueblo stories
reflect in the same way the ritualistic interests of the people. In this
sense we may perhaps say without exaggeration that the folk-tales
of each tribe are markedly set off from those of all other tribes, because
they give a faithful picture of the mode of life and of the chief interests
that have prevailed among the people during the last few generations.
These features appear most clearly in the study of their hero-tales.
It is therefore particularly in this group that an analogy between the
folk-tale and the modern novel is found. The tales dealing with the
feats of men are more plastic than those relating to the exploits of
animals, although the animal world, to the mind of the Indian, was
not so very different from our own.

The events occurring among the animals are less individualized so
far as the tribal mode of life is concerned. At best we may infer from
them whether we deal with buffalo-hunters of the Plains, fishermen of
the Western coast, people of the Arctic or of the Southern desert.
The more complex activities of the tribe appear rarely pictured in
them, and then only incidentally.

' A. Skinner, Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. xxvii (1914), pp. 97-100.
' Clark Wissler and D. C. Duvall, Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians (Anthropological
Papers, American Museum of Natural History, vol. ii, p. 12).

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 399

In the human tale the narrator gives us a certain amount of char-
acterization of individuals, of their emotions, — like pity and love, —
of their courage and cowardice, on which rests the plot of the story.
The development of individual character does not proceed beyond this
point. We do not find more than schematic types, which are, however,
forms that occur in the every-day life of the people. On the contrary,
the origin and trickster cycles deal with types that are either so im-
personal that they do not represent any individual, or are merely the
personification of greed, amorousness, or silly ambition. Wherever
there is indi\iduality of character, it is rather the expression of the
apparent nature of the personified animal, not the character that fits
particularly well into human society.

Considering the characteristics of the human tale as a whole, we
may say that in all probability future study will show that its principal
characteristics may be well defined by the cultural areas of the con-
tinent. How close this correspondence may be remains to be seen.
The problem is an interesting and important one, because it is obvious
that the tales, while readily adaptable, do not follow all the aspects
of tribal life with equal ease, and a certain lack of adjustment may
become apparent. This will serve as a valuable clew in the further
study of the development of tribal customs and of the history of the
distribution of talcs. I have pointed out the probability of such in-
complete adjustment in the case of the Kwakiutl, and Wissler has made
a similar point in regard to the Blackfeet.

While much remains to be done in the study of the local character-
istics of folk-tales in regard to the points referred to, a still wider field
of work is open in all that concerns their purely formal character,
and I can do no more than point out the necessity of study of this
subject. On the basis of the material hitherto collected, we are hardly
in a position to speak of the literary form of the talcs. I am inclined
to count among their formal traits the typical repetition of the same
incident that is found among many tribes; or the misfortunes that
befall a number of brothers, until the last one is successful in his under-
taking. These have the purpose of exciting the interest and leading
the hearer to anticipate the climax with increased eagerness. Quite
different from this is a device used by the Tsimshian, who lead up to
a climax by letting an unfortunate person be hclpi'd in a very insignifi-
cant way. The help extended to him becomes more and more potent,
until the climax is reached, in which the sufferer becomes tlie fortunate
possessor of power and wealth.

Another artistic device that is used by many tribes to assist in tlie
characterization of the actors is the use of artificial changes in speech.
Thus among the Kwakiutl the Mink cannot pronounce the sound ts,
among the Kutenai Coyote cannot pronounce s, among the Chi-

VOL. XXVII. — NO. 106. — 27.

400 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

nook the animals speak different dialects. Dr. Sapir' has called
attention to the development of this feature among the Shoshoni
and Nootka.

The literary style is most readily recognized in the poetic parts of
tales; but, since these fall mostly outside of the purely narrative part
of the stories, I do not enter into this subject. We may contrast the
simplicity of style of the Northwest coast — where poems consist
sometimes of the introduction of a single word into a musical line, the
music being carried on by a burden, sometimes of a purely formal
enumeration of the powers of supernatural beings — with the meta-
phoric expression and fine feeling for beauty that pervade the poetry
of the Southwestern Indians. Equally distinct are the rhythmic
structures that are used by the Indians of various areas.^ We must
be satisfied here with a mere hint at the significance of these data.
The desire may be expressed, however, that greater care should be
taken in the collection of the material to make possible a thorough
study of this aspect of our subject.

V. RECENT HISTORY OF AMERICAN FOLK-TALES.

Our considerations allow us to draw a number of inferences in regard
to the history of American folk-tales. We have seen that there is no
tribe in North America whose tales can be considered as purely local
products uninfluenced by foreign elements. On the contrary, we have
found that some tales are distributed over almost the whole continent,
others over more or less extended parts of the country. We have seen,
furthermore, that the tales of each particular area have developed a
peculiar literary style, which is an expression of the mode of life and
of the form of thought of the people; that the actors who appear in
the various tales are quite distinct in different parts of the country;,
and that the associated explanatory elements depend entirely upon
the different styles of thought. In one case the tales are used to
explain features of the heavenly bodies; in others, forms of the land,
of animals or of rituals, according to the chief interests of the people.
It is fully borne out by the facts brought forward, that actors, explana-
tory tendencies, cultural setting, and literary form, of all modern
American tales, have undergone constant and fundamental changes.
If we admit this, it follows that the explanations that are found in
modern tales must be considered almost entirely as recent adaptations
of the story, not as its integral parts; and neither they nor the names
of the actors reveal to us what the story may have been in its original

» E. Sapir, "Song Recitative in Paiute Mythology" (The Journal of American Folk-
Lore, vol. xxiii, 1910, pp. 456-457).

» See. for instance, Alice C. Fletcher, The Hako (22d Annual Report of the Bureau
of American Ethnology, part 2, pp. 282-368).

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 401

form — if we may speak of such a form. Ever>'thing appears rather
in flux. For this reason the attempt to interpret the history of the
modern tale as a reflection of the observation of nature is obviously
not justifiable. The data of American folk-lore do not furnish us with
a single example that would prove that this process has contributed to
the modern development of folk-tales. It would almost seem safer to
say that the creative power that has manifested itself in modern
times is very weak, and that the bulk of our tales consist of combina-
tions and recombinations of old themes. At the same time the marked
differentiation in the style of composition shows that the mainspring
in the formation of the modern tale must have been an artistic one.
We observe in them not only the result of the play of imagination
with favorite themes, but also the determination of the fonn of imagina-
tive processes by antecedent types, which is the characteristic trait of
artistic production of all times and of all races and peoples. I am
therefore inclined to consider the folk-tale primarily and fundamentally
as a work of primitive art. The explanatory element would then ap-
pear, not as an expression of native philosophy, but rather as an artistic
finishing touch required for the tale wherever the art of story-telling
demands it. Instead of being the mainspring of the story, it becomes
in one case a stylistic embellishment, while in another it is required
to give an impressive setting. In either case the occurrence of the
explanation cannot be reduced to a rationalizing activity of primitive
man.

In a sense these results of our studies of American folk-lore are
unsatisfactory, because they lead us only to recognize a constant play
with old themes, variations in explanatory elements attached to them,
and the tendency to develop various types of artistic style. They do
not bring us any nearer to an understanding of the origin of the themes,
explanations, and styles. If we want to carry on our investigation
into a remoter past, it may be well to ask, first of all, how long the
present development of mosaics of different style may have continued ;
whether there is any proof that some tribes have been the originators
from whom others derived much of their lore; and whether we have
any evidence of spontaneous invention that may have influenced
large territories.

Since historical data arc not available, we are confined to the applica-
tion of an inductive method of inquiry. We may ask how large a
portion of the folk-tales of a tribe are its sole property, and how many
they share with other tribes. If a comparison of this kind should show
a large number of elements that are the sole property of one tribe,
while others have only little that is their exclusive property, it would
seem justifiable to consider the fonner as originators, the latter as
recipients; and we may conclude either that their own older folk-tales
have disappeared or that they possessed very few only. It is not easy

402 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

to form a fair judgment of the originality of the folk-tales of each
tribe in the manner here suggested, because the collections are un-
equally complete, and because collectors or narrators are liable to give
preference to one particular kind of tale to the exclusion of others.
It is always difficult to base inferences on the apparent absence of
certain features that may be discovered, after all, to exist; and this
seems particularly difficult in our case. Still it might be possible to
compare at least certain definite cycles that have been collected fairly
fully, and that occur with equal exuberance in various areas; as, for
instance, the trickster cycles of the Plains. On the whole, I gain the
impression that not a single tribe appears as possessing considerably
more originality than another.

One interesting point appears with great clearness; namely, the
power of tales of certain types to become a prolific source of tales of
similar import, provided the original tales are of social importance
in the life of the people. Thus the Kwakiutl have apparently a con-
siderable originality among their neighbors on the North Pacific coast,
because all the numerous social divisions and secret societies of the
tribe possess origin tales of the same type; so that a complete list
would probably include hundreds of stories more or less strictly built
on the same pattern. The ritualistic tales of the Blackfeet form
another group of this kind ; and the same may be true of the tales of
the Mackenzie area dealing with the marriages between human beings
and animals. In these cases we deal with one particular style of
story, that has gained great popularity, and therefore appears in an
endless number of variants.

Another condition that may lead to a strong individuality in a
certain group develops when the tales are placed in the keeping of a
small class of priests or chiefs, as the case may be. The more im-
portant the tale becomes on account of its association with the privi-
leges and rituals of certain sections of the tribe, and the greater the
emotional and social values of the customs with which it is associated,
the more have the keepers of the ritual brooded over it in all its aspects;
and with this we find a systematic development of both tale and ritual.
This accounts for the relation between the occurrence of complex
rituals in charge of a priestly class or of chiefs, and of long myths
which have an esoteric significance. The parallelism of distribution
of religious or social groups led by single individuals and of complex
mythologies is so striking, that there can be little doubt in regard to
their psychological connection. The Mexicans, the Pueblo tribes, the
Pawnee, the Bellacoola, the Maidu,^ may be given as examples. The

* Roland B. Dixon, who has pointed out the systematic character of their mythology,
finds some difficulty in accounting for it, considering the simple economic and artistic life
of the people. His own descriptions, however, show the great importance of personal
leadership in all religious affairs of the tribe (Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. xvii).

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 403

contrast between a disorganized mass of folk-tales and the more sys-
tematic mythologies seems to lie, therefore, in the introduction of an
element of individual creation in the latter. The priest or chief as a
poet or thinker takes hold of the folk-traditions and of isolated rituals
and elaborates them in dramatic and poetic form. Their systematiza-
tion is brought about by the centralization of thought in one mind.
Under the social conditions in which the Indians live, the keeper
transfers his sacred knowledge in an impressive manner to his successor.
The forms in which the sacred teachings appear at the present time
are therefore the cumulative effect of systematic elaboration by indi-
viduals, that has progressed through generations.

This origin of the complex of myth and ritual makes it also intel-
ligible why among some tribes the myths of sub-groups should be
contradictory. An instance of this are the Bcllacoola, among whom
the tradition is in the keeping of the chief of the village community,
and among whom each community has a different concept in regard to
its origins. These contradictory traditions are the result of individual
thought in each community, and do not come into conflict, because
the audience identifies itself with the reciting chief, and the truth of
one poetic creation does not destroy the truth of another one.

For a correct interpretation of these art-productions we must also
bear in mind that the materials for the systematic composition are
the disconnected folk-tales and lesser rites of the tribe, which have
been welded into a whole. From a psychological point of view, it is
therefore not justifiable to consider the exoteric tales, as is so often
done, degenerate fragments of esoteric teaching. It is true that they
themselves undergo changes due to the influence of the priestly doc-
trine, but there is a constant giving and taking; and nowhere tni
America has the individual artist freed himself of the fetters of the
type of thought expressed in the disjointed folk-tales. The proof for
this contention is found in the sameness of the elements that enter
into the tales of tribes with systematic mythology and of those
without it.

The only alternative explanation of the observed phenomenon would
be the assum[)tion that all this material had its origin in more highly
developed and systematized mythologies. It might be claimed that
the remains of the Ohio mounds, the highly-developed artistic indus-
tries of the ancient inhabitants of the Lower Mississipi)i, and of the
clifi'-dwcllings, prove that a high style of civilization must have existed
in many parts of the country, where at a later period only less comjilex
cultural forms were found. The elaborateness of religious ceremonial
of these times is proved by the characteristics of archa-ological finds.
It is quite true that in the border area of Mexico, including under this
term the wiiolc rtgion just mentioned, many fluctuations in cultural

404 Journal of American Folk-Lore

development must have occurred ; but this does not prove their exist-
ence over the whole continent. Furthermore, the indiv'iduality of
each folk-loristic area is such, that we must count the imaginative
productiveness of each tribe as an important element in the develop-
ment of the present situation. From this point of view, inquiries into
the independence of each area, rather than investigations of the
effect of diffusion, will be of the greatest value. The theory of de-
generation is not suggested by any facts; and I fail entirely to see how
the peculiar form of American systematic mythology can be explained,
except as the result of an artistic elaboration of the disconnected folk-
tales, and how the arbitrary character of its thought, which parallels
primitive concepts, can be interpreted, except as the result of priestly
speculation based on the themes found in folk-tales.

VI. MYTHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN FOLK-TALES.

Our consideration of American folk-tales has so far dealt with their
later history. The result of this inquiry will help us in the treatment
of tlie question, Wliat may have been the origin of these tales? It is
obvious that in an historical inquiry for which no literary record of
ancient mythology is available, we must try first of all to establish the
processes that are active at the present time. There is no reason for
assuming that similar processes should not have been active in earlier
times, at least as long as the types of human culture were approxi-
mately on the same level as they are now. The art-productions of the
Magdalenian period show how far back the beginning of these condi-
tions may be placed; and so far we have no evidence that indicates
that the American race as such has ever passed through a time in which
its mental characteristics were different from those of modern man.
The antiquity of cultural achievement in Mexico, the finds made in
ancient shell-heaps, prove that for thousands of years man in America
has been in possession of a type of cultural development not inferior
to that of the modern, more primitive tribes. It may therefore be
inferred that the processes that are going on now have been going on for
a very long period. Constant diffusion of the elements of stories,
and elaboration of new local types of composition, must have been the
essential characteristic of the history of folk-tales. On the whole,
invention of new themes must have been rare; and where it occurred,
it was determined by the prevailing type of composition.

Disregarding the actors that appear in the stories, their contents
deal almost throughout with events that may occur in human society,
sometimes with plausible events, more often with fantastic adventures
that cannot have their origin in actual human experiences. From
these facts two problems develop that have given rise to endless specu-
lation and discussion, — the first. Why are these human tales told of

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 405

animals, of the heavenly bodies, and of personified natural phenomena?
the other, Why is it that certain fantastic elements have a world-wide
distribution?

The transfer of human experience to animals and personified objects
has given rise to the view that all tales of this type are nature myths
or an expression of the naive primitive conception of nature. It has
been clearly recognized that the themes are taken from human life,
and used to express the observation of nature. The first question to
be answered is therefore, How does it happen that the tales are so often
removed from the domain of human society? Wundt has discussed
this question in his comprehensive work on mythology,^ in so far as
the personification of nature is concerned. This discussion refers to
mythological concepts, not to the tales as such. It is obvious, how-
ever, that once the human character of animals and objects is given,
the tales become applicable to them.

Another element may have helped in the development of animal
tales, once the personification was established. In folk-tales each
human being is considered as a distinct individual, and the mere name
of a person does not characterize the individual. Moreover, named
individuals are not very common in American folk-tales. The animal,
on the other hand, is immortal. From the bones of the killed game
arises the same individual hale and sound, and thus continues its
existence indefinitely. Therefore the species, particularly in the
mythological period, is conceived as one individual, or at most as a
family group. This may also have helped to create the normative
character of the tales. If an animal rubbed the hair off its tail, then
all animals that are its descendants have the same kind of a tail.
If all the thunder-birds were killed except one, their loss of power
becomes permanent. I presume the identification of species and of
individuals which is inherent in the personification of nature was an
important element contributing to the development of this concept.
It goes without saying that the result was not obtained by conscious
reasoning. The substitution of individual for species merely favored
the explanatory features of animal tales. The tendency to substitute
for these transformations others in which events were due to the decis-
ion of a council, or where they were ordained by a culture-hero, may
be due to a feeling of dissatisfaction with the simple type of transfomia-
tion and the condensation of the whole species into one individual.

In all these tales the explanatory clement must be considered as an
idea that arose in the mind of the narrator suddenly by an associative
I)rocess. I differ from Wundt in the importance that I ascribe to the
looseness of connection between explanatory elements and the tale,
a phenomenon to which he also refers.'^ It is not simply the appercep-

' Vol. ii. part i (1905), pp. 577 el seq. * Part 3, p. 183.

4o6 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

tive process, in which the subjective emotions are transferred to the
object, that gives rise to the explanatory clement in the tales; but the
elements of mythological concepts are thoughts suggested first of all
by the appropriateness of the pre-existing tale, and therefore depended
in tlie first instance upon its literary form. For this reason the great
difference in the character of folk-tales of America and those of Africa
does not appear to me as a difference in the stages of their development.
The moralizing tendency of the African tale is an art-form that has
been typical for the Negro, but foreign to the American; and I can
see no genetic connection between the explanatory and the moralizing
tale.

While these considerations make the animal tale intelligible, they
are not by any means a satisfactory explanation of the great importance
of animal and nature tales in the folk-lore of all the people of the world ;
and it would seem that at present we have to accept this as one of
the fundamental facts of mythology, without being able to give an
adequate reason for its development.

The last question that we have to discuss is the significance of those
traits of folk-lore that are of world-wide occurrence. Particularly in
reference to this fact the claim is made that the wide distribution of
the same elements can be explained only when we assume that they
are derived from a direct observation of nature, and that for this
reason they appear to primitive man as obvious facts. This subject
has been treated fully by Ehrenreich ^ and other representatives of
that mythological school which derives the origin of myths from the
impressions that man received from nature, particularly from the
heavenly orbs.

So far as I can see, all that has been done by these investigations is
to show that when we start with the hypothesis that myths are derived
from the impressions conveyed by the heavenly bodies, we can fit
the incidents of myths into this hypothesis by interpreting their
features accordingly. Lessmann ^ even goes so far as to state definitely
that whatever cannot be derived from characteristics of the moon is
not mythology. This, of course, ends all possible discussion of the
relation between folk-tales and myths. In the passage referred to,
Ehrenreich says that the phases of the moon produce certain types of
myths. The new moon is represented in the supernatural birth
through the side of the mother, and in the incident of a new-born hero
lying in a manger or shell. The full moon is the hero in the fulness
of his power and after his victories over dark demons. The waning
of the moon is the cutting-up or the slow swallowing of the hero's body.
The new moon is represented in decapitations with a sword, in test

1 P. Ehrenreich, Die allgemeine Mythologie und ihre ethnologischen Grundlagen, pp. lOO
el seq.

• H. Lessmann, Aufgaben und Ziele der vergleichenden Mythenforschung (Mytho-
logische Bibliothek, I*, pp. 31 el seq.).

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 407

by fire, or in the cutting of sinews. In this enumeration of interpreta-
tions I cannot sec any proof of his thesis, since he does not show that
the same ideas may not have developed in some other way.^

Ehrenreich and other adherents of the modern cosmogonic school
make the fundamental assumption that myths must represent phe-
nomena actually seen, — a theory that seems to me based on a mis-
conception of the imaginative process. The productions of imagina-
tion are not by any means the images of sense-experiences, although
they are dependent upon them; but in their creation the emotional
life plays an important role. When we are filled with an ardent
desire, imagination lets us see the desire fulfilled. As a phenomenon
strikes us with wonder, its normal features will be weakened and the
wonderful element will be emphasized. When we are threatened by
danger, the cause of our fear will impress us as endowed with extraor-
dinary powers. It is a common characteristic of all these situations
that the actual sense-experience may either be exaggerated or turned
into its opposite, and that the impossible fulfilment of a wish is realized.
After the death of a dear relative, neither we nor primitive man specu-
late as to what may have become of his soul; but we feel a burning
wish to undo what has happened, and in the free play of fancy we see
the dead come back to life. The slain leader in battle whose dis-
membered body is found, is seen restored to full vigor. The warrior
surrounded by enemies, when all means of retreat are cut off, will wish
to pass unseen through the ranks of the foes, and in a strong imagina-
tion the wish will become a reality. Many of the ideas that are com-
mon to all mythologies may thus be readily understood, and there is
no need to think of the waning and waxing moon when we hear of
the cutting-up or flaying of a person, and of his revival. These are
ideas that are readily suggested by the very fact that the ordinary
processes of imagination must call them forth.

No less is this true in the forms of demons which can easily be under-
stood as fanciful distortions of experiences. Laistner's theory of the
importance of the nightmare^ as giving rise to many of these forms is
suggestive; perhaps not in the sense in which he formulates it, —
because the form of the nightmare will in all probability depend upon
the ideas that are current in the belief of the people, — but because
dreams are simply one form in which the creations of imagination
appear, and because they indicate what unexpected fonns the fear-
inspiring apparition may take. Still other mythic forms may be
explained by the a.'sthetic transformations produced by the power
of imagination. It is not only that the beauty of form is exaggerated,

• See aJso the criticism of A. van Gcnnep, in his Religions, mocurs ct K'gcndcs, pp. 1 1 1
et seq.

* Ludwig Laistncr, Das Riitscl dcr Sphinx.

4o8 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

but the comic or tragic elements lead equally to transformations of
sense-experience. I think it is quite possible to explain in this way
the beautiful shining persons with bright hair, and also the cripples
with distorted bodies, covered with warts and other disfigurements.

In short, there is hardly a single trait of all the mythologies that does
not reflect naturally, by exaggeration or by contrast, the ordinary
sense-experiences of man. It is only when we deny that these pro-
cesses are characteristic of the imagination that we are confronted
with any difificulty, and that we have to look for the origin of these
forms outside of human society. As compared to this very simple
view of the origin of the elementary forms of myths, the attempt to
seek their prototypes in the sky seems to my mind far-fetched. It
may also be said in favor of this view, that the combination of features
that are demanded as characteristic of the sun, the moon, or other
personified beings, appear only seldom combined in one and the same
mythical figure. This has been clearly demonstrated by Lowie.^

These considerations show also that psychological conditions may
bring about similarity of ideas without an underlying historical con-
nection, and that the emphasis laid on the historical side must be
supported by careful inquiry into those features in the life of man that
may be readily explained by similarities in the reactions of the mind.
Methodologically the proof of such independent origin of similar phe-
nomena offers much more serious difficulties than a satisfactory
proof of historical connection. The safeguards that must be demanded
here are analogous to those previously described.^ As we demanded
before, as criteria of historical connection, actual evidence of trans-
mission, or at least clear proof of the existence of lines of transmission
and of the identity of subject-matter, so we must now call for proof of
the lack of historical connection or of the lack of identity of phe-
nomena. Obviously these proofs are much more difficult to give. If
we were to confine ourselves to the evidence contained in folk-tales, it
might be an impossible task to prove in a convincing manner the inde-
pendent origin of tales, because the possibility of the transmission of a
single idea always exists. It is only on the basis of our knowledge of
the limitations of areas over which inventions, art-forms, and other
cultural achievements, have spread, that we can give a basis for safer
conclusions. On account of the sharp contrast between America and
the Old World in the material basis of civilization, and the restriction
of imported material to the northwestern part of the continent,
to which we have already referred, we are safe in assuming that similar
cultural traits that occurred in pre-Columbian time in the southern
parts of the two continental areas are of independent origin. In more

* Robert H. Lowie, " The Test-Theme," etc. (Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. xxi,
1908, p. lOl).

» See p. 381.

Mythology and Folk-Tales. 409

restricted areas it is all but impossible to give satisfactory proof of the
absence of contact.

More satisfactory are our means for determining the lack of identity
of apparently analogous phenomena. Historical inquiry shows that
similar ideas do not always arise from the same preceding conditions;
that either their suggested identity does not exist or the similarity of
form is due to an assimilation of phenomena that are distinct in origin,
but develop under similar social stress. When a proof of this type
can be given, and the psychological processes involved are clearly
intelligible, there is good reason for assuming an independent origin
of the ideas.

A case in point is presented by the so-called "sacred" numbers.^
I am not inclined to look at these primarily as something of tran-
scendental mystic value; it seems to me more plausible that the con-
cept developed from the aesthetic values of rhythmic repetition. Its
emotional effect is obviously inherent in the human mind; and the
artistic use of repetition may be observed wherever the sacred number
exists, and where it is not only referred to a number of distinct objects,
but is also used in repetitions of tunes, words, elements of literary
composition and of actions. Thus the difference in favorite rhythms
may account for the occurrence of different sacred numbers; and since
the preference for a definite number is a general psychological phe-
nomenon, their occurrence must not be due to historical transmission,
but may be considered as based on general psychological facts. The
differences between the sacred numbers would then appear as different
manifestations of this mental reaction. In the same way the idea of
revival of the dead, or of the power to escape unseen, is simple reaction
of the imagination, and is not due, wherever it occurs, to a common
historical source. These ideas develop naturally into similar incidents
in stories that occur in regions widely apart, and must be interpreted
as the effect of psychological processes that bring about a convergent
development in certain aspects of the tales. An instructive example
is presented by the tales of the origin of death. Tlie idea of the origin
of death is readily accounted for by the desire to see the dead alive
again, which often must have been formulated as the wish that there
should be no death. The behavior of man in all societies proves the
truth of this statement. Thus the imaginative processes are set in
motion which construct a deathless world, and from this initial point
develop the stories of the introduction of death in accordance with the
literary types of transformation stories. The mere occurrence of
stories of the origin of death — in one place due to the miscarriage of
a message conveyed by an animal, in others by a bet or a cjuarrel
between two beings — is not a proof of common origin. This proof

* See al30 p. 3'jy.

410 Journal of Atnerican FoJk-Lore.

requires identity of the stories. We can even understand how, under
these conditions, stories of simihir literary type may become almost
identical in form without having a common origin. Where the line
is to be drawn between these two types of development cannot be
definitely decided. In extreme cases it will be possible to determine
tliis with a high degree of probability; but a wide range of material
will always remain, in which no decision can be made.

The limitation of the application of the historical method described
here defines also our attitude towards the Pan-Aryan, and Pan-
Babylonian theories. The identification of the elements of different
folk-tales made by the adherents of these theories are not acceptable
from our methodological standpoint. The proofs of dissemination are
not of the character demanded by us. The psychological basis for
the assumption of an imaginative unproductiveness of all the races of
man, with the exception of one or two, cannot be proved; and the
origin of the myth in the manner demanded by the theories does not
seem plausible.

The essential problem regarding the ultimate origin of mythologies
remains, — why human tales are preferably attached to animals,
celestial bodies, and other personified phenomena of nature. It is
clear enough that personification makes the transfer possible, and that
the distinctness and individualization of species of animals and of
personified phenomena set them off more clearly as characters of a
tale than the undifferentiated members of mankind. It seems to me,
however, that the reason for their preponderance in the tales of most
tribes of the world has not been adequately given. ^

» For references to literature see Robert H. Lowie, "The Test- Theme," etc. (Journal
of American Folk-Lore, vol. xxi, pp. 146-148); T. T. Waterman, "The Explanatory
Element," etc. {Ibid., vol. xxvii, pp. 50-54); also footnote 4, p. 383.

Columbia University,
New York.

THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE INDIANS OF
NORTH AMERICA.

BY A. A. GOLDENWEISER.
I. HISTORICAL NOTE.

The credit for giving a firm foundation to the problems of social
organization, and for impressing their importance upon the minds of
American anthropologists, belongs indubitably to Lewis H. Morgan.
He derived his early inspiration for Indian study from his life among
the Seneca-Iroquois, by whom, in fact, he was adopted and regarded
as one of their own. His knowledge of Iroquois life and lore was as
wide as it was deep, and it bore fruit in the famous "League of the
Iroquois" (1851), — a work in which accurate observation and
sweeping generalization, scientific sanity, and ethnological naivete,
went hand in hand. Since the appearance of that work, Morgan
has been justly recognized as the co-discoverer with McLennan and
Bachofen, of the maternal system of kinship organization. While
studying the Iroquois clan system, Morgan's attention was attracted
by their method of counting relationships. With that keen sense for
the significant so characteristic of big minds, Morgan was quick to
grasp the wide bearing of his discovery. Not satisfied with his
Iroquois achievements, he extended his personal investigations over
many Indian tribes of North America; and through a system of
questionnaires, which he sent out to scholars and field-w^orkers in
foreign lands, he amassed in an amazingly short time a huge store of
data on the social organization and relationship systems of many
primitive tribes in Africa and Australia, India and the South Seas.
The results of his activities were given to the world in his "Ancient
Society" (1877), still an anthropological classic; "Houses and House-
Life among American Indians" (1881); and "The Systems of Con-
sanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family," ^ one of the most
famous, if least read, W'Orks in the entire field of ethnology. It
comprises the concrete data of some eighty relationship systems,
together with Morgan's interpretation of such systems as rcllcctions
of forms of marriage. Morgan was a whole-hearted evolutionist.
In his "Ancient Society" he outlined the economic development of
mankind "from savagery through barbarism to civilization," redis-
covered the primitive clan and jihratry in the social institutions of

1 Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. xvii, 1871.
411

412 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

the Greeks and the Romans, and traced the history of social organiza-
tion, everywhere substantially the same, from its early beginnings
in a maternal kinship system, through a paternal kinship system,
and up to its final disruption at the dawn of modern society, when
the ties of blood were forced to give way before the less intimate but
more economically significant ties of the ground, of territorial co-
habitation.

In the course of time, serious errors of fact and judgment were
discovered in Morgan's work. Intensive exploration in many regions
of the American area brought to light facts of social organization
unknown to Morgan or underestimated by him. Critical thinking
along theoretical lines, on the general background of anti-evolutionary
tendencies, went far to discredit the sweeping generalizations of
Morgan's time. Thus we find that John R. Swanton, in his articles
on "The Social Organization of American Tribes" ^ and "A Recon-
struction of the Theory of Social Organization," ^ represents views
on social organization that are less sweeping in their bearings, more
critical in their use of ethnological material, and in far better accord
with ascertained fact. At the hand of American evidence, Swanton
showed that clan and gentile systems did not exhaust the funda-
mental forms of social organization; that a less definite system, based
on the individual family and the local group, was at least as prevalent
in North America as the clan and the gens; that the tribes organized
on the clan basis represented, on the whole, a higher culture than the
clanless ones; that evidence did not support the assumption of a
pre-existing maternal system in tribes now organized on the paternal
basis; and that convincing evidence could be produced for the diffusion
of social systems.

Most recent explorations, as well as further theoretical analysis,
have fully vindicated Swanton's conclusions. In an article on "Social
Organization"' published less than a year ago, Robert H. Lowie
reviewed, under the guise of a critique of Morgan, some of the most
recent work on social organization. He found himself in complete
agreement with Swanton's conclusions, and was able, in addition, to
point out, at the hand of relevant data, that the problem of inheritance
of property and office was in part distinct from that of group descent;
that the psychological nature of kinship groups was variable; that
the relations between phratries and clans or gentes were far more
complex than formerly supposed ; and that the regulation of marriage
was not a feature invariably, or solely, or fundamentally, connected
with kinship groups.

' American Anthropologist, 1905.

' Boas Anniversary Volume, Anthropological Papers, 1906.

• The American Journal of Sociology, 1914.

Social Organization. 413

In the short space allotted to this article an extensive survey of
American data on social organization cannot be attempted, nor do I
propose to discuss all the interesting theoretical aspects of that subject.
The problem of totemism, as well as that of the classificatory systems
of relationship, of which we have heard so much lately, will be left
aside altogether. Exogamy and the relation of phratries and moieties
to clans and gentes, both problems ripe for systematic discussion,
will be treated very briefly. No mention will be made of the distri-
bution of such so-called social customs as the mother-in-law taboo or
joking relationships, or of the theoretical questions connected with
these customs. The theoretical problems selected for discussion, as
well as the illustrative material used in the following pages, have been
determined by more or less arbitrary considerations.

II. THE SOURCES.

Not all parts of the Eskimo area have so far been thoroughly
described; but the works of Boas,^ Nelson,^ Murdoch,' and Turner^
give us a satisfactory picture of the social system and habits of the
Eskimo, — a picture not likely to be seriously modified by further
exploration. The data dealing with the tribes of the Northwest coast
and southern Alaska are, on the whole, fairly complete. Here we
have to rely on the older sources, such as Dawson, Niblack, and Swan;
the later work by Boas for the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science; the still more recent work of the Jcsup North Pacific
Expedition, to which Boas, Swanton, and Smith have contributed;
and a preliminary sketch by Sapir,^ which is to be followed by a full

' F. Boas, The Central Eskimo (6th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology,
1884-85); and The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay (Bulletin of the American
Museum of Natural History, vol. xv, Parts i and 2, 1901).

' E. W. Nelson, The Eskimo about Bering Strait (i8th Annual Report of the Bureau
of American Ethnology, 1896-97, Part I).

» J. Murdoch, Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition (9th .Annual
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1887-88).

* L. M. Turner, Ethnology of the Ungava District (nth Annual Report of the Bureau
of Ethnology, 1889-90).

' Boas, Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 18S8-98;
"The Salish Tribes of the Interior of British Columbia," and "The Tribes of the North
Pacific Coast" (Annual Archaeological Report, 1905. Appendix, Report of the Minister
of Education, Toronto, 1906, pp. 219-225 and 235-249); Die soziale Gliederung dcr
Kwakiutl (Proceedings of the International Congress of Americanists,i904, pp. 141-148);
The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians (Report of the
U. S. National Museum for 1895, pp. 311-738); Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology
of the Haida (Publications of the Jeaup North Pacific Expedition, vol. v); and Social
Condition, Beliefs and Linguistic Relationships of the Tlingit Indians (26th Annual
Report of the Bureau of .American Ethnology. 1904-05); II. I. Smith. .Archaeology of Lytton,
British Columbia (Publications of the Jcsup North Pacific Expedition, vol. i); E. Sapir,
"Some Aspects of Nootka Language and Culture" (American Anthropologist, vol. xiii,
1911, pp. 15-28),

414 Journal of Americaft Folk-Lore.

report of his explorations. The forthcoming work by Boas,^ on the
Tsimshian, will, it is to be hoped, throw additional light on the com-
plexities of their social system. Much further information is needed
on the social organization of the Tlingit and Bellacoola.

The Athapascan tribes, and for that matter the Eskimo of the
Mackenzie area, are very little known. On the tribes of the Plateau
area we have the works of James Teit, Charles Hill-Tout, A. B.
Lcwis,^ H. J. Spinden,* Robert H. Lowie,'' A. G. Morice,^ and
J. Mooney.*

All the tribes of this area are characterized by the so-called
"loose," clanless social organization, based essentially on the family
and the local group; but the term "loose" in this connection is desig-
native rather of our understanding of the social structure of these
tribes than of the structure itself, and a more careful analysis of at
least a few of the tribes is much to be desired.

The California data are not much better off. We have, it is true,
the works of Roland B. Dixon,' A. S. Barrett,^ and Alfred L. Kroeber;^
but the larger part of the abundant data of the last-named author
remains as yet unpublished.

The Southwest, long-continued exploration notwithstanding, is

• Tsimshian Mythology (31st Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology,
1915)-

* Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, The Lillooet Indians, and The
Shuswap (Publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vols, i and iii); Hill-Tout,
Notes on the Sk'q6mic of British Columbia (Report of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, 1900, pp. 472-549); Salish and Dene, London, 1907; "Report
on the Ethnology of the Siciatl of British Columbia" (Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, vol. xxxiv, 1904, pp. 20-92); "Report on the Ethnology of the Stlatlumn of
British Columbia" {Ibid., 1905, pp. 126-219); and "The Salish Tribes of the Coast and
Lower Eraser Delta" (Annual Archaeological Report, 1905. Appendix, Report of the
Minister of Education, Toronto, 1906, pp. 225-235); Lewis, Tribes of the Columbia
Valley and the Coast of Washington and Oregon (Memoirs of the American Anthropo-
logical Association, vol. i, 1906).

* The Nez Perc6 Indians (Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association,
vol. ii, 1908).

* The Northern Shoshone (Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of
Natural History, vol. ii, 1908).

'"The Great Dene Race" (Anthropos, vol. i, 1906, pp. 229-278, 483-509, 695-730;
and vol. ii, 1907, pp. 1-31, 181-196); Notes on the Western Denes (Transactions of the
Canadian Institute, vol. iv, 1895); The Western Denes, third scries, vol. vii, 1890; and
"The Canadian Denes" (Annual Archaological Report, 1905. Appendix, Report of the
Minister of Education, Toronto, 1906, pp. 181-219).

• The Ghost Dance Religion (14th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Part ii,
1892-93).

' The Northern Maidu (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History,
vol. xvii, 1902 and 1905).

» Ethnography of the Porno, 1908.

• Types of Indian Culture in California (University of California Publications, Archae-
ology and Ethnology, vol. ii, 1904).

Social Or gmiization. 415

more remarkable for its puzzles than for its positive data. The
more important contributions belong to F. H. Gushing, A. F. Bande-
lier, J. G. Bourke, Washington Matthews, J. Walter Fewkes, F. W.
Hodge, George A. Dorsey, Mrs. M. Stevenson, J. P. Harrington, and
Miss Freire-Marreco.^ The problems presented by the social organi-
zation of the Southwest are of supreme interest, but our knowledge
of the data is exceedingly imperfect; and nowhere, perhaps, in the
North American area, is there more need of systematic study and
intensive analysis than here.

On the Plains, on the other hand, the situation is much better.
Old sources and the data amassed by Lowie, Glark W^issler, Kroeber,
and Mooney,^ throw much light on the social systems of the Black-
foot, Grosventre, Crow, Assiniboin, Arapaho, and Cheyenne, as well
as on that of the Dakota.' The Omaha also are well known, owing
to the early work of J. O. Dorsey and the recent study by Miss Alice

' Zufii Fetiches (2d Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1880-81); Outlines
of Zuni Creation Myths (13th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1891-92);
Bandelier, Historical Introduction to Studies among the Sedentary Indians of
Mexico (Papers of the Archaeological Institute of America, American series, vol. i, 1881);
Final Report of Investigations among the Indians of the Southwestern United States
{Ibid., vol. iii, 1890; and vol. iv, 1892); Contributions to the History of the Southwestern
Portion of the United States (Ibid., vol. v, 1890); "Documentary History of the Zuni
Tribe" (A Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology, vol. iii, 1892); Dorsey, Indians
of the Southwest, 1903; Miss Freiro-Marreco, "Tewa Kinship Terms," etc, (American
Anthropologist, N. S., vol. xvi, 1914); Goddard, Indians of the Southwest (American
Museum of Natural History, Handbook Series No. 2); Harrington, "Tewa Kinship
Terms" (American Anthropologist, N. S., vol. xiv, 1912); Hodge, "The Early Navajo
and Apache" (Ibid., vol. viii, 1895, pp. 223-241); Matthews, "The Gentile System of the
Navajo Indians" (The Journal of American Folk-Lore. vol. iii, 1890, pp. 89-110; com-
pare also Bourke, "Notes upon the Gentile Organization of the Apaches of Arizona,"
Ibid., pp. 111-126); The Night Chant, a Navaho Ceremony (Memoirs of the American
Museum of Natural History, vol. vi, 1902); and The Mountain Chant: a Navajo Ceremony
(5th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1883-84); Stevenson, The Sia (nth
Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1889-90); and The Zufii Indians (23d Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1901-02).

* Catlin, Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American
Indians (London, 1848); Lewis and Clark, Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark
Expedition (Thwaites Cflition, New York, 1904); Maximilian, Prince of VVied, Travels in
the Interior of North America (London, 1843); A. L. Kroeber, The Arapaho (Bulletin of the
American Museum of Natural History, vol. xviii, 1902-07), and Ethnology of the Gros
Ventre (Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. i, 1908);
R. H. Lowie, The Assiniboine (Ibid., vol. vi, 1909); and Social Life of the Crow Indians
(Ibid., vol. ix, 1912); compare my "Remarks on the Social Organization of the Crow
Indians" (American Anthropologist, N. S., vol. xv, 1913. pp. 281-294); J. Mooncy, The
Cheyenne Indians (Memoirs of the American Anthropological Associaton, vol. i, 1905-07);
C. VVisslcr, Social Life of the Blackfoot Indians (Anthropological Papers of the American
Museum of Natural History, vol. vii, 191 1).

' S. R. Riggs. Dakota Grammar, Texts and Ethnography (Contributions to North
American Ethnology, vol. ix, 1893).
VOL. .XXVII. — NO. 106. — 28.

4i6 Journal oj American Folk-Lore

C. Fletcher and Frank La Fleche.' Further information is needed on
the other tribes of the Omaha type, — such as the Oto, Ponca, Osage,
Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri, — as well as on the Mandan and Hidatsa,
the Kiowa and Comanche, and the Pawnee. Further data on the
Mandan, Hidatsa, and Pawnee are soon to be expected.

On the tribes of the Southeast little is known. Fragmentary data
by Alanson Skinner^ on the Seminole, and the somewhat more de-
tailed but on the whole meagre account by Frank G. Speck,^ of the
Yuchi, are the main recent works. Much new material, however,
is to be expected in the near future as a result of Swanton's recent
work among the Creek and Natchez.'*

The Woodland data are more satisfactory. Here we have W.
J. Hoffman's^ and A. Skinner's works on the Menominee; P. Radin's
Winnebago; fragmentary notes by W. Jones on the Sauk and Fox,
Kickapoo, and Ojibwa, recently supplemented by T. Michelson;
some data on the Cree by Stewart, J. P. MacLean, and Skinner;*
and a fairly extensive and accurate literature on the Iroquois, to
which William M. Beauchamp, David Boyle, Horatio Hale, Lewis H.
Morgan, A. C. Parker, J. N. B. Hewitt,^ and others have contributed.

* J. O. Dorsey, Omaha Sociology (3d Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology,
1881-82); and A Study of Siouan Cults (nth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology,
1889-90); Alice C. Fletcher, The Omaha Tribe (27th Annual Report of the Bureau of
American Ethnology, 1905-06). For a convenient summary of Plains ethnology, see
Wissler, North American Indians of the Plains (American Museum of Natural History,
Handbook Series No. i).

* "Notes on the Florida Seminole" (American Anthropologist, N. S., vol. xv, 1913,
pp. 63-77); see also C. MacCauley, The Seminole Indians of Florida (8th Annual Report
of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1883-84).

* Ethnology of the Yuchi (Anthropological Publications of the University of Penn-
sylvania, vol. i, 1909).

* Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of
Mexico (Bulletin 43 of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1911); and "A Foreword on the Social
Organization of the Creek Indians" (American Anthropologist, N. S., vol. xiv, 1912,
PP- 593-599)- See also A. S. Gatschet, A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, 1884.

' The Menomini Indians (14th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1892-93).
Compare A. Skinner, Social Life and Ceremonial Bundles of the Menomini Indians (Anthro-
pological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. xiii, 1913); and "A
Comparative Sketch of the Menomini" (American Anthropologist, N. S., vol. xiii, 191 1,
pp. 551-566).

' P. Radin's Winnebago monograph is to be published in the near future by the Bureau
of American Ethnology; meanwhile see his preliminary account of "The Clan Organization
of the Winnebago" (American Anthropologist, N. S., vol. xii, 1910, pp. 209-220); Jones,
"Notes on the Fox Indians" (Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. xxiv, 191 1, pp. 209-
238); "Kickapoo Ethnological Notes" (American Anthropologist, N. S., vol. xv, 1913, pp.
332-336); and "Central Algonkin" (Annual Archaeological Report, 1905. etc.. pp. 136-
146); MacLean, Canadian Savage Folk, 1890; Skinner, Notes on the Eastern Cree and
Northern Saulteaux (Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural
History, vol. ix, 191 1).

^ Beauchamp, History of the New York Iroquois (New York State Museum, Bulletin
78); and Civil, Religious and Mourning Councils and Ceremonies of Adoption (Ibid..

Social Organization. 417

Among works soon to be expected in print, Radin's Winnebago and
Ojibwa, Barbeau's Wyandot, and Speck's Penobscot, deserve special
notice.

III. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.

In view of recent work on social organization, which tends to dis-
close an ever-increasing number of social units to be found among
different tribes and in different culture areas, the question may well
be asked, whether a classification of, say, the tribes of North America
into a clan area, a gentile area, and an area not organized on the
kinship basis, is still justifiable. If these types of social units do
not exhaust or even represent the greater variety of social units
which occur in social systems, such a classification would in itself
involve an arbitrary restriction of the problems considered. Without
discussing the question at this time in greater detail, we might say,
however, that, notwithstanding the existence of other social units,
the clan, the gens, and the local group remain the fundamental and
probably the most ancient forms of social grouping, and, as such,
may well serve as a basis for classification. As pointed out by Swan-
ton, the three forms are well represented in North America. The
family-village area embraces the Eskimo, the tribes of the Plateau
area, the coast tribes from the Nootka to California, and part of
the Plains tribes (including the Blackfoot, Assiniboin, Grosventre,
Arapaho, Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Comanche). The clan area com-
prises the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Bellacoola, Heisla, Heiltsuk,
and Kwakiutl of the Northwest coast; most of the tribes of the South-
west; the Crow; probably all the Southeastern tribes; the Iroquois,
Wyandot, Menominee, and a few other tribes. To the gentile type
belong the Omaha, Ponca, Oto, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Dakota,
the Winnebago, and some tribes of the Southwest.

It will readily be seen that this distribution fully justifies Swanton's
generalization that in North America the tribes with clan and gentile
systems are associated with higher cultures than those without kin-
ship groups. No satisfactory evidence has been found in American
data supporting the contention that tribes organized on a gentile
basis must have passed through a stage characterized by a maternal
kinship system. On these two points the American data are highly
suggestive; for it seems obvious, and it was pointed out a long time
ago by Starcke and Cunow, that a clan or gentile system, in the

Bulletin 113). (Bcauchamp's writings on Iroquois topics are numerous, but his language
is vague and his work uncritical.) Boyle, "The Iroquois" (Annual Archa-ological Report,
1905, etc., pp. 146-158). Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites, 1883. Morgan, The League
of the Iroquois, 1901. Parker's and Hewitt's data on the social organization of the
Iroquois are not yet available; see, however, Hewitt's articles on Iroquois subjects as
well as those on the clan and the family in The Handbook of American Indians (Bulletin
30, Bureau of American Ethnology).

4i8 Journal of A/ucrican Folk-Lore.

modern sense (that is, a system based on hereditary kinship groups),
could not have constituted the earhest form of social grouping. The
kinship group, in its capacity of a social unit with definite functions,
as well as in its continuity from generation to generation by means
of fixed unilateral descent, displays traits which require long periods
for their development. A grouping of such a type presupposes a
much simpler, really primitive grouping, based on a natural bio-
logical unit (the family), or on a natural territorial unit (the local
group), or on both. The two may coincide, the family also consti-
tuting the local group, or the latter may comprise several families.
The absence of evidence as to the succession of maternal and paternal
kinship systems is no less suggestive: for, again, it would be strange
indeed if it were found that tribes could change their system of rec-
koning descent — a most momentous social revolution — without a
concomitant transformation of the social structure. In the absence
of evidence for such a process in America, or, for that matter, in other
parts of the world, we are justified in regarding the clan-gens suc-
cession (one of the corner-stones of the evolutionary scheme of social
development) as a gratuitous assumption, — an assumption which
raises to the dignity of a law a process that may never have occurred,
or, if it has occurred, must certainly be regarded as highly exceptional.
In the light of present knowledge and theory, we may perhaps be
permitted to advance the hypothesis that the roads that lead from
primitive to modern social organization are three in number. The
first takes its beginning in a primitive grouping on a family-village
basis, with a vague predilection, perhaps, for paternal descent and
inheritance; it passes through a stage of kinship grouping with ma-
ternal descent, and ends in a family-village grouping with a definite
predilection for paternal descent and inheritance. The second is like
the first, except that paternal descent takes the place of maternal
descent in the middle period. The third is like the first two, except
that the stage of kinship grouping with definite unilateral descent is
altogether omitted.

IV. DIFFUSION AND PATTERN.

The phenomenon of diffusion, notwithstanding its long and honor-
able history, stands in ill repute among some, at least, of the students
of ethnology. In recent years a number of German scientists, with
Graebncr at the head, have revealed themselves as enthusiastic
champions of the principle of diffusion of culture. They have, in
fact, idolized the principle, and worship at its shrine. They have
not succeeded, however, perhaps through excess of zeal, in altogether
ridding the phenomenon of diffusion of that strange halo of unreality,
of something exceptional and negligible, which has surrounded it

Social Organization. 419

ever since the evolutionist first saw in diffusion the arch-enemy of
organic development, the principal "disturbing influence" which
marred the orthodox developmental processes through "inner
growth." It thus behooves the fair-minded ethnologist to give
diffusion its due. Evidence is not lacking in North America of the
spread of features of social organization and of entire systems from
tribe to tribe. The processes have been most carefully observed in
the Northwest coast area and along the line of contact between the
coast culture and the Athapascan and Salish tribes of the Plateau.
The evidence is conclusive. The Athapascan neighbors of the Tlingit
have borrowed the dual organization of the latter. The Eskimo
neighbors of the same tribe, without borrowing the social framework,
have adopted the ceremonial performances and paraphernalia associ-
ated with that framework. Similarly the Babine, neighbors of the
Tsimshian, have borrowed from them the four-clan division and the
institution of maternal descent. The western Shuswap share with
the coast people a division into castes and hereditary crest-groups,
which, among the Shuswap, tend to be exogamous. The case of the
Lillooet is most interesting, however; for here we find all the essential
traits of the social fabric of the coast engrafted upon a tribe of a
fundamentally different type. The resulting composite, however,,
looks, for special reasons, so genuine (in the classic evolutionary
sense), that, but for the historical evidence, its complex derivation
would not be suspected. At this point I may be pardoned for quoting
a footnote from a former work: —

"It certainly is a curious play of circumstances that just among the
Lillooet a full-fledged belief in descent from the totem should be
found. We can only guess at the origin of this feature, but the process
suggested before seems at least plausible: as the clan of the coast
fused with the village community of the interior, the crest of the clan
became identiflcd with the human ancestor of the villagers; thus the
clansmen came to believe in their descent from the eponymous animal.

"A stray traveller, ignorant of local conditions, would probably
describe the Lillooet as a community organized along the lines of
classical totemism: he would mention totemic clans with animal
names, and descent from the totem; clan exogamy, possibly in a state
of decay, for which relationship exogamy would easily be mistaken;
while traces of totemic taboos could be found in the many prohibitions
against the killing and eating of certain animals prevalent in that area.
If not for such facts as the paternal and maternal inheritance of clan
membership, which might set our traveller on the right track, he could
hardly suspect that what he stamped as classical totemism was
really due to the engrafting of an heretical totemism upon a non-
totemic community." ^

• Journal of American Folk-Lorc. vol. xxiii (1910), p. 284, footnote i.

420 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Within the bounds of the Northwest culture there is evidence of
the spread of a maternal totemic kinship organization, indigenous
among the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian, southward to the Heisla,
Heiltsuk, and Kwakiutl, among whom it produces a peculiar mongrel
organization of a maternal-paternal type, probably resulting through
the superposition of certain features of a maternal system upon an
originally paternal organization.^ From the Kwakiutl the northern
system spread still farther south, transforming into clans the villages
of the coast Salish. The Bellacoola have become completely trans-
figured by the coast culture; but, in place of the usual clan exogamy,
we find endogamy in their clans. Elsewhere in North America the
spread of social systems from one cultural group to another has not
been so carefully observed. Evidence is not lacking, however.
From this point of view the social structures of the Western Plains
tribes are of interest. Of these, the Blackfoot may serve as an ex-
ample. They are organized into nicknamed bands, — local groups
which appear as units in the camp circle. These bands comprise
largely individuals related by blood ; and the sense of the blood-bond
must be pronounced, for it is given by the Blackfoot as the reason
for the tendency towards band exogamy. Descent is paternal; but a
woman, after marriage, joins the local group of her husband, and is
thenceforth regarded as belonging to that band. Now, this organiza-
tion of the Blackfoot seems to combine some characteristics of a
typical Plateau tribe with traits found among the Siouan tribes of
the Eastern Plains area. On the one hand, we find local groups with
nicknames, the lack of functions connected with the local groups
(other than those referring to the camp circle), and — a trait un-
thinkable in a gentile or clan system — the custom according to
which a woman after marriage changes her band affiliations. So far,
all is Plateau type. On the other hand, the sense of relationship in
the band is strong ; there is a marked tendency towards band exogamy
and all but fixed paternal descent of band membership; the bands,
moreover, appear as social units with definite functions in the camp
circle. In these features we recognize the gentile organization of the
Eastern Plains. Now, considering that the tribes of the Western
Plains have as their western neighbors tribes of Plateau culture, and
as their eastern neighbors the Siouan tribes of the Plains, with both
of whom they have been in contact and communication for long
periods, it is hardly too much to assert that the mixed type of social
organization found on the Western Plains has developed under the
combined historical influences of the Plateau and the Eastern Plains.
A survey of social systems in North America reveals another sug-

' For a more precise characterization of the situation, see my re\ ie%v of Frazer's Totem-
ism and Exogamy, in Current Anthropological Literature, 1913. P- 212.

Social Organization. 421

gestive fact. We find that systems of more or less strikingly similar
characteristics are spread over large continuous areas. The tribes
of the Arctic, Plateau, and California areas, covering a tremendous
geographically continuous district, and comprising tribes of varied
linguistic affiliations and physical types, are highly comparable in
social organization, representing the family-village type, with inde-
terminate descent, and no clearly-defined social units. On the
Northwest coast we find the Tlingit-Haida-Tsimshian group, with a
highly complex maternal kinship organization and totemic features.
The social systems of these groups present highly striking similarities
in details. The Kwakiutl tribes constitute a clan or gentile area of a
somewhat different type, with which the Nootka ought, perhaps, to
be included. In the Southwest a vast district is inhabited by tribes
organized on a maternal kinship basis, with numerous clans, and
phratries comprising varying numbers of clans. On the Plains, the
western tribes referred to before constitute one strictly comparable
group. The Siouan tribes of the Eastern Plains display no less strik-
ing similarities in social structure, based on a dual organization, a
paternal kinship system, with fairly numerous gentcs, of pronounced
local and ceremonial associations, and totemic features; in some
respects, the Winnebago belong to this group of tribes. In the Wood-
land area the Iroquois share with a number of Algonquian tribes
(such as the Delaware and Shawnee) a maternal kinship system, with
a strictly limited number of clans. In the Southeast the data soon
to be published indicate a wide area, characterized by numerous clans
and a somewhat complex system of higher social units. This distri-
bution of types of social organization can have only one meaning.
It would be absurd to suppose that within these continuous areas of
similar social systems the separate tribes developed their social
structures independently of one another, and that the similarities
described above were due to a miraculous series of coincidences.
Here, if ever, do the facts of distribution speak for diffusion. What
was the precise nature of these processes of diffusion can only be
conjectured pending further investigations, but the fact of diffusion
itself cannot be doubted. Interpretative work on diffusion has not
so far resulted in much positive insight; at this place, only tentative
suggestions towards such an interpretation can be attempted. Two
radically different historical processes may account for the phe-
nomenon of uniformity over wide areas, — (i) migrations of tribes
originally occupying a limited area, and having there developed a
social system; (2) spread of a social system, developed in a tribe or
group of tribes, to other tribes occupying a wider area, with relative
permanency. In the latter instance the original social system becomes
a pattern which determines or influences the systems of more or less

422 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

distant tribes. Both processes are known to have occurred. The
first may be exemplified by the dispersion of the tribes of the Iroquois
Confederacy; the second, by historical processes, which, as suggested
before, must be held accountable for the composite social systems of
the Western Plains.

Before leaving the subject of diffusion, another point of psycho-
logical import must be noted. In the phenomena of diffusion from
the Northwest coast to the tribes of Eskimo, Athapascan, and Salish
lineage, we deal with tribes of difTerent cultural type and radically
different social structures. The phenomena of diffusion between the
Eskimo and Athapascan, and vice versa, or between the Plateau and
Western Plains tribes, refer to groups which, at least in their social
systems, are of less distinct characteristics. The spread of social
features from the northern to the southern tribes of the Northwest
coast follows tribes belonging to a highly uniform culture area (ex-
cepting, of course, the Bellacoola). To these facts must be added a
phenomenon exemplified among the Kwakiutl, where the entire social
structure and life of the people have been patterned after the clan type.^
The instances here cited constitute a fairly representative series of
types of diffusion of a cultural feature, starting with an instance where
the tribes in question are strikingly distinct in culture, followed next
by one where the cultural differences are less marked, then by one
where the diffusion takes place within one cultural area, and winding
up with an instance where one cultural feature (the clan) becomes a
pattern after which are fashioned diverse other features within one
tribe. Now, an analysis of these instances does not suggest any radical
differences in the psychological principles involved. It seems that
what we discuss under the heading of "pattern theories" when
remaining within the limits of culture areas and individual tribes, and
what is designated as "diffusion" when intertribal processes or pro-
cesses between culture areas are involved, belong to one and the
same type of psycho-sociological phenomena, and that the differences
observed are rather those of specific content of the features involved
than of psychological principle.^

V. SOCIAL UNITS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS.

According to Morgan's conception, the clan or gens was not only a
universal institution belonging to a certain stage of social develop-
ment, but a social category that was perfectly univocal in its conno-

» Compare the unduly neglected article by Boas. "Der Einfluss der sozialen Gliede-
rung der Kwakiutl auf deren Kultur." in the Proceedings of the XIV International
Congress of Americanists (Stuttgart, 1904). PP- 141-148.

« Compare the formulation of this point in my " Principle of Limited Possibilities in
the Development of Culture" (Journal of American Folk-Lore. vol. xxvi. 1913. PP. 286-
287).

Social Organization. 423

tations. It carried with it certain definitely fixed functions, which
were permanent characteristics of clans or gentes. While this con-
ception of Morgan's could not withstand the scepticism born of
evidence accumulated since his time, the tendency to conceive of
a clan or gens as of something always like unto itself still survives
among anthropologists, and even more markedly so in non-anthro-
pological circles. Morgan taught that a clan or gens was distinguished
by the right of electing its sachem and chiefs; the right of deposing
its sachem and chiefs; the obligation not to marry in the gens; mutual
rights of inheritance of the property of deceased members; reciprocal
obligations of help, defence, and redress of injuries; the right of
bestowing names upon its members; the right of adoptinlg strangers
into the gens; common religious rites; a common burial-pace; and a
council of the gens. Now, these traits may be regarded as specific
clan or gentile characteristics only if no other social unit is ever
associated with them, and if the clan or gens is always so associated.
That such is not the case, is no longer a matter of dispute. Starting
with Morgan's conception as representing an attitude still surviving and
carried by him to its utmost logical conclusion, we may now proceed to
analyze, at the hand of North American material, the different types
of social units which occur in that area, as well as their functions,
with a view of ascertaining somewhat fully the relation of structure and
function in social organization. We shall start with the individual,
then proceed from the individual family, the maternal and paternal
family, to the clan, the gens, the phratry and dual division, the tribe
and the confederacy.

The Individual. — It may seem paradoxical to speak of an indi-
vidual as a social unit. When one considers, however, that an indi-
vidual exercises functions in society, and that these functions are in
part like the functions of a family, a clan, a tribe; and when one also
remembers that the function is what constitutes the real content and
bearing of a social unit, — he comes to realize that the individual,
while on the one hand standing in contrast to the social unit of which
he is a part, must, on the other hand, be classed as asocial unit, an
agency having certain functions in society, together with the family,
the clan, the tribe.

A superficial view of Indian life, of "savage" life in general, is apt
to leave one with the impression that the individual as such, in a
primitive community, is utterly bereft of all initiative, is bound hand
and foot by custom, is a mere reflection of his social setting. While
this is in part true, it is not the whole truth; and a more careful insight
discloses a wide and important sphere of individual rights, activities,
and initiative. The individual owns property, although the man's
share may often be restricted to his clothing and weapons; the woman's,

424 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

to the house-utensils, industrial appliances, but also to the house
itself. In the Indians' view of property, however, the concept readily
transgresses the bounds of material possessions. Free from the
conceptual constraints which in modern times manifest themselves
in copyright litigations, the Indian boldly passes from the material
to the spiritual, and extends the concept of property to dances, songs,
ritualistic details, myths, incantations, individual medicinal and
supernatural powers. The ceremonial organizations of the Omaha or
the Zuni, or the Northwest coast tribes, furnish abundant examples of
such spiritual property-rights. Among the Nootka, where the phe-
nomenon of individual privilege flourishes undisturbed by the con-
straining frame of definite social groupings, we see perhaps the most
extreme example of the wealth of individual prerogatives, together
with the tendency to pass them on through inheritance; but, even
outside of ceremonial complexes, such spiritual possessions as are
acquired, for instance, through supernatural experiences with guardian-
spirits, are strictly individual in character. The right of individual
initiative was clearly recognized, and included activities of public
concern, such as war and hunting. Even among such tribes as the
Iroquois or the tribes of the Plains, where the business of war and
that of hunting was highly socialized and associated with elaborate
ceremonial, the right was not denied to the individual to start a war-
party or to hunt on his own account. The specific rights of chiefs,
on the other hand, it seems, were strictly limited throughout the
North American area. The rights of initiative accorded the medicine-
man were distinctly wider, especially where, as in the case of the Tlingit
or Haida shaman, he appeared as an individual, unhampered by the
rules and restraints of a religious or ceremonial brotherhood. Indi-
vidual initiative in artistic activity and in invention in general has
often been hinted at in recent discussion, but here our knowledge is
too limited to warrant positive assertion.^

The Individual Family. — Among tribes where the individual
family exists side by side with kinship groups and their almost in-
variable concomitant, exogamy, the unity of the family is much
impaired, and its importance subordinated. While it displays more
solidarity in tribes of the family-village type, it is true, as a general
proposition applicable to tribes of both types, that the individual
family does not often appear as a specific social, ceremonial, economic,
or political unit. Further data from the Nootka may to some extent
impair the validity of this statement. In the field of ceremonial
activity it may be noted that among the Iroquois, Delaware, Tutelo,

* The functions of the individual, the range of individual initiative in primitive
society, have been little understood. We may therefore look forward with interest to
the publication of W. D. Wallis's researches bearing on that problem.

Social Organization. 425

and other tribes, the individual family had a death-feast apart from
the more imposing one associated with the clan. In one field of social
activity, however, the individual family is pre-eminent; and that is
education. This all-important process is, among Indians in general,
vastly more constructive and less punitive than among their white
brethren. The essentials of etiquette, of ceremonial behavior, of
domestic activities, of industrial arts, of hunting and the use of
weapons, are taught to the boy and the girl by their parents; in matters
of folk-lore and tradition, parental authority is usually supplemented
and transcended by that of the grandfather, grandmother, or of both.
The matter of marriage is also largely attended to by the individual
family, with emphasis on the female side; for, while the consent of
the fathers is sought, the matrimonial candidates are selected and
duly weighted by the mothers of the two families, and the wisdom of
their choice is but seldom questioned. Lowie reports that among the
Shoshone the individual family exercises juridical functions in the
case of crimes, such as murder. This must be regarded as highly
exceptional.

The Maternal and the Paternal Family. — A maternal family
embraces all the male and female descendants of a woman, the de-
scendants of her female descendants, and so on. The paternal family
embraces all the male and female descendants of a man, the de-
scendants of his male descendants, and so on. As will presently
appear, however, the continuity of a family, in this wider sense, does
not extend from generation to generation in perpetuity, as is the
case with the gens and the clan, but is restricted to a limited number of
generations, after which some of the offshoots of the family are no
longer recognized as forming part of it. The maternal family has
been carefully studied and described only among the Confederated
Iroquois, where the functions of that social unit are numerous and its
bearings all-important, and where it is designated by a separate native
term distinct from that used for the clan. There can be little doubt,
however, that maternal and paternal families have played a role
elsewhere among Indian tribes; and specific information on this
point from field-workers is invited. A remark of Miss Fletcher's
about the descent, among the Omaha, of certain ceremonial functions
in groups of paternal blood-relations, suggests the presence of such a
unit at least in that tribe. We may not, however, expect to find the
maternal or paternal family as prominent in any other tribe in North
America as it is among the Iroquois; for, were that so, the fact would
certainly have been observed and recorded by this time. Among the
Iroquois the maternal family exercised, in ancient times, ceremonial
and religious functions which have since become obsolete. The main
concern, however, of the maternal family, was the election and depo-

426 Journal of Americaji Folk-Lore.

sition of chiefs and ceremonial officials; and in this respect the ma-
ternal family still stands supreme wherever the social system of the
Iroquois has been preserved. The relation of the maternal family to
the clan constitutes a somewhat puzzling subject; and I may perhaps
be permitted to cite, in this connection, a passage from another
pubhcation.

"The clan and the maternal family, notwithstanding the existence
of separate terms for the two kinds of social units, are constantly being
confounded by even the most competent informants. Several reasons
may be assigned for this fact. Notwithstanding their objective and
functional differences, the clan and the family are clearly based on the
same principle, — both social units comprise a group of people united
by maternal descent. In the maternal family the relationship corre-
lated with the descent is that of blood, and its degree is definitely
known for all individuals of the family. In the clan the degree of
relationship between clan-mates cannot be defined [except in so far as
the clan embraces blood-relatives], but the sense of such relationship
is ever there, and, as in the family, it is associated with the maternal
line. Speaking analytically, the clan is nothing but an overgrown
family, embracing individuals of indefinite relationship. In recent
times many clans have become depleted in number, owing to migra-
tion or other causes. Thus it happens, in individual instances, that
a clan coincides with a maternal family, in which case the two units
can no longer be distinguished. The election of chiefs and ceremonial
officials, moreover, while intimately associated with the clan, is the
particular function of a maternal family within the clan, thus consti-
tuting another bond between the two social bodies.

"There can be no doubt, however, that the clan and the maternal
family are really distinct. It has been shown that the chieftainships
regularly descend in maternal families; but outside of these families
there are, individual instances excepted, other families, other lines of
descent, in the clans to which the chieftainships belong. If the
chief's family becomes extinct, or has no males available for chief-
tainship, the title may be transferred, temporarily or permanently,
to another family of the same clan, or even to some family of another
clan. . . . The mechanism by which a family is perpetuated from
generation to generation differs radically from that operating in the
clan. The family has no outward symbol of its unity, and its con-
tinuance is due to the memory of the concrete relationships involved.
The clan, on the other hand, owing mainly to the presence of a clan
name, is handed down from mother to children automatically, so to
say, and the clan name suffices to keep all its members identified from
generation to generation. As a corollary of this difference appear the
fluctuating character of the family and the permanence of the clan.

Social Orga?iization. 427

Whereas the clan sustains no loss of members except through actual
depletion or some artificial process, such as adoption of its members by
another clan, the family of individuals where relationship is definitely
known always carries a fringe of individuals who are known to be
related to the family by blood, but the precise degree of whose rela-
tionship to the family has been forgotten. And beyond these there
are still other individuals who, in an objective test, would prove to
be related to the family by blood, but the fact of whose relationship
itself is no longer recognized. Thus the family constantly tends to
break up, some lines of descent multiplying, others becoming extinct,
and so on." ^

The confusion between a maternal family and a clan is of old
standing. Morgan, who must have known the maternal family of
the Iroquois better than any other writer, living or dead, nevertheless
makes the statement that "a knowledge of the relationship to each
other of the members of the same gens [clan] is never lost." ^ This
proposition applies to a maternal family, but not to a clan. It is
much to be desired that our information on the social systems of the
Indians of North America should be amplified with this special point
in view.

The Clan and the Gens. — Clans and gentes, in the North
American area, are associated with many diverse functions. Among
the Iroquois the clan-mates held their land in common, and had clan
burial-grounds. Among the tribes of the Northwest coast, clans
owned sections on the coast, as well as strips of land along the course
of creeks, for their fishing; and entire valleys for their hunting. Con-
ditions among the Zufii were not dissimilar to these; but we do not
find clan or gentile ownership of land among the Winnebago, or the
Omaha, or the Crow. Among the Iroquois and Omaha, the clan
or gens has distinct social and political functions in connection with
chieftainships, clan or gentile councils, etc. The political functions of
clans on the Northwest coast are not negligible, but here they are
overshadowed by similar functions of the household and town. On
the other hand, the clan among the Iroquois is distinctly not a cere-
monial unit; whereas among the Tlingit or Haida, or Tsimshian, or
Kwakiutl, or Omaha and the group of tribes similarly organized, or
the Zuni, the clans or gentes carry multitudinous ceremonial functions,
are associated with songs, dances, masks, myths, medicinal powers,
medicine-bundles, and what not. On the other hand, among the
Delaware and other Algonquian tribes, the Crow and tlic Hidatsa,

' Summary Report of the Geological Survey, Ottawa, Canada, 1913 ; Reports from
Anthropological Division, p. 370.

• "Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines" (Contributions to North
American Ethnology, vol. iv, p. 33, note).

428 Journal oj American Folk-Lore.

the clans are, as among the Iroquois, non-ceremonial units. Clan
or gentile sets of individual names are a very common feature indeed.
It is spread all over the Northwest coast; we find it among the Omaha
and related tribes; among the Winnebago, the Iroquois, and in the
Southwest and Southeast; although the distribution of the feature
in the two last-named areas is not sufficiently ascertained. The
precise nature, however, of the relation between the individual name,
its content, and the clan or gens, varies greatly in the different tribes.
Among the Tlingit, for instance, the majority of the names are animal,
but they do not refer to the clan crest; among the Haida the names
have fallen prey to the influence of the potlatch complex, and one
finds the majority of them reflecting ideas suggested by the potlatch.
The Omaha individual names in part refer to the gentile totem, in
part they are of an indeterminate character, standing in no relation
whatsoever to the totemic ideas of the group. Among the Wyandot,
according to data as yet unpublished, the majority of the names
stand in direct relation to the clan totem; while among the Con-
federated Iroquois the names have a clearly defined type, but in no
way reflect the identity of the clan to which they belong; so that the
clan sets are kept apart merely by the knowledge, on the part of the
particular clansmen, that "such and such names were used in our clan
before, and therefore we shall use them, while such and such other
names were and are being used in another clan, and therefore we may
not use them."

In exogamy, at first sight, one seems to find a trait invariably
associated with clans or gentes in North America; but here, again,
closer inspection discloses at least two ways in which clans or gentes
are associated with exogamy. Among the Crow, Fox, and many tribes
in the Southwest and Southeast, the clans as such are the carriers
of exogamous functions, are exogamous units; such is also the case
among the Iroquois, but here we have evidence to the effect that the
phratry was anciently the exogamous unit. At that time, then, the
exogamy of the clans was a derivative feature.^ In the same sense
the clans of the Tlingit and Haida, the Winnebago, and the so-called
" sub-gen tes" of the Omaha, are derivatively exogamous. The
situation among the Omaha is not clear, but it seems that the social
condition found among them by the ethnologist was one of transition
from gentile exogamy to exogamy of the sub-gens. The more inti-
mate psychic correlate of exogamy cannot, at this late time, be readily
ascertained; but in a general way the statement seems justified that

• Compare my discussion of exogamy in the Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. xxiii
(1910), pp. 231-251; R. H. Lewie's "A New Conception of Totemism" (American
Anthropologist, 1911, pp. 193-198); my "Totemism and Exogamy defined: a Rejoinder"
(Ibid., pp. 589-592); and Lowie's "Social Organization" (The American Journal of
Sociology, 1914. pp. 68-97).

Social Organization. 429

the strong emotional backing of exogamy, which constitutes it a re-
ligious imperative, is not characteristic of North America, a milder
emotional reaction in the form of social opprobrium or ridicule taking
its place.

Before leaving this analysis of the clan and gens, I want to note
another feature relating to the kinship group as a part of the tribe.
A survey of American data (as of analogous data in other areas)
reveals the fact that, in point of number of clans, clan-systems repre-
sent two types, which may be designated as systems with a limited
and those with an unlimited number of clans. Of the first type, the
Iroquois, the Omaha, Winnebago, Crow, are representative. Among
the Iroquois, the Mohawk and Oneida have only three clans each;
while the Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga have more than eight clans
apiece. This does not include some obviously recent formations. The
number of clans common to the last three tribes is eight, and that may
be regarded as the probable number of clans before the separation of
the tribes. The Omaha have ten clans, evenly divided between the
two phratries. The Winnebago have twelve, — four in one, eight
in the other phratry; the number of individuals in each phratry,
however, being about equal. The Crow have thirteen, grouped in
five phratries of two clans each, and one of three clans. In all these
tribes the number of clans is small; and the number of individuals in
each clan, large, being counted by the hundreds. Among the Tlingit
or Haida, on the other hand, we find some fifty odd clans; the number
among the Kwakiutl is still larger; the Hopi and Zuni of the South-
west, the Creek and Natchez of the Southeast, also have numerous
clans. In these instances the number of individuals in a clan must be
small, — as a rule, considerably under one hundred. The clans and
gentes, then, in the two types of tribes, are very different units numeri-
cally; and their relations to the tribe, and to other clans within the
tribe, must be different. It would be strange indeed if such objective
contrasts were not to have any psychic correlates. From the genetic
point of view, moreover, — that is, in the problem of clan origins, — the
above contrast would not seem to be without significance. Nothing
more definite can be said on the question at this stage, the great need
being further knowledge.

The Phratry and the Dual Division. — The phratries or dual
divisions of the Iroquois appear on all ceremonial occasions. At
the great yearly festivals, such as the Grccn-Corn or Mitl-W'inter,
at the ceremonial meetings of the medicine societies or religious
societies, the two sides are always represented; and in the Long House
they arc spacially separated, the speakers of each side addressing the
other in the course of the ceremonial. Among the Tlingit, also, the
phratries or dual divisions are ceremonial units, and the great pot-

430 Journal of American Folk-Lore

latches, for instance, are always given by one phratry to the other.
Similarly among the Winnebago, the phratries or dual divisions appear
as"'ceremonial units in the war-bundle feasts; and throughout those
of. the Plains tribes who have the camp circle and perform the Sun
Dance, the phratries or dual divisions appear as ceremonial units.
Among the Iroquois the phratries also exercise political functions, one
phratry having, for instance, the veto right over the choice of the
other in the election of chiefs. In no other tribe in North America,
so far as known, did phratries exercise political functions like those
of the Iroquois. The separation of phratries at games, feasts, con-
tests, on the other hand, is a rather common feature, shared by the
Iroquois, Tlingit, Omaha, and Yuchi; among the last named, however,
the dual divisions are not phratries, for they are not subdivided into
clans, but appear quite independent of the clan units, intersecting the
latter. Among the Tlingit and the Iroquois the phratries exercise
reciprocal functions in burial and minor services. Phratries that are
not dual divisions, such as occur among the Crow or in the South-
west, do not seem to have any particular functions, except an occa-
sional tendency towards exogamy in the Southwest. Dual divisions,
on the other hand, are commonly exogamous. Those of the Iroquois
must, on good evidence, be regarded as having been exogamous in
the past. Exogamy is the rule with the dual divisions of the Tlingit,
Haida, and Winnebago, and in the past probably of the Omaha
and related tribes; but the dual divisions of the Yuchi, which are not
phratries, do not practise exogamy, nor is exogamy associated with
the phratries or dual divisions of the Hidatsa. Finally, the point
made in connection with the clan holds equally for the phratry: an
Iroquois phratry with its four odd clans, or an Omaha one with its
five, cannot be conceived as strictly comparable to a Tlingit phratry
subdivided into some twenty-five clans; or to a Crow phratry, which
is nothing but a loose association of clans, without, it would seem,
much functional significance.

The Tribe and the Confederacy. — The functions of a tribe in
North America are not sufficiently known. Especially are we in
doubt as to its political status, and a discussion of that subject may
perhaps be deferred. Without doubt, however, the tribe appears as a
religious and ceremonial unit on such occasions as the Sun Dance of
the Plains, or the Midcwiwin of the Winnebago and related tribes,
or the Busk of the Creek, or the great yearly festivals of the Iroquois
at the time when the tribes still preserved their geographical inde-
pendence, or even at the present time on those reserves where the
assimilation of the separate tribes, leading to the loss of tribal solidarity,
has not proceeded very far.

Still less definite information is obtainable on the Confederacies,

Social Organization. 43 1

such as the seven council-fires of the Dakota, or the Powhatan Con-
federacy. The confederacy, on the other hand, known as the "League
of the Iroquois," has been carefully studied and described. It appears
as a strongly knit political body, which functions as a unit in the
relations, both in war and in peace, of the Iroquois with other tribes.
It also appears as a ceremonial body on such occasions as the investi-
ture of a chief. Its social significance was great, for from it emanated
the authority vested in the fifty chiefs or lords of the League.

The Local Group. — The significance of territorial units in primi-
tive life has certainly been underestimated. We read a good deal
about the life of the family and the clan, and the blood-bond that
constitutes the real foundation of primitive society. Relatively little,
on the other hand, is heard about the bearing and functions of the
local group; and the common inference is that its importance is
negligible. Much credit is due to Dr. John R. Swanton for his attempts
to stir up interest in the study of the local basis of Indian life.

Even a superficial survey discloses the fact that in tribes of the
family-village type the local group shares with the family, itself a
unit with marked local associations, the social, political, and ceremo-
nial functions occurring in that area; but its significance is by no
means restricted to tribes of that type. Among the Iroquois and
Omaha, Winnebago, Haida and Tlingit, — tribes dominated by complex
and functionally all-important clan or gentile systems, — the local
group remains a prominent factor in the life of the people. Among the
Iroquois it never lost its significance as an economic unit, — a body
for mutual assistance, in the work of the fields, in building houses, in
the innumerable odds and ends of the various households. On the
Northwest coast the solidarity of the local group is great, in their
winter villages, as well as in their temporary habitations on the coast
or in the valleys, or along the course of rivers, for summer fishing or
for hunting of sea-mammals. Among the Western Plains tribes, the
local groups on which the camp circle is based are scarcely less im-
portant than in the family-village area; and the more intense sense of
kinship between the members of the group, based on the presence in
it of many blood-relatives, only serves to increase its solidarity. If
we look a little further back, the local group appears as a unit of even
greater significance, for converging evidence from many parts of the
North American area points to territorial unity as the basis for future
clan and gentile systems. The mythology of the Iroquois, inciiKJing
the Deganawida epic, abounds in references to villages and village
chiefs; no mention being made, except in the Deganawida epic, of
clans or lords. With all the discounting due to such evidence as a
source for historic reconstruction, the impression is irresistible that
the local units were, if not the only, yet the all-important units in
VOL. XXVII. — NO. 106. — 29.

432 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

ancient Iroquois society of pre-League days. The strong local
associations of clans with villages and long-houses also point in that
direction; although we should hesitate to assert, in the absence of
sufficient evidence, that the Iroquois clans have developed out of
local groups. That the camp circle, wherever it occurs, goes back
to a ceremonial association of locally disparate groups, there can be
little doubt; and the identification of such camp-circle divisions with
gentes, in tribes of the Omaha type, speaks strongly for the double
origin of the Omaha gentes from local groups with ceremonial func-
tions. The local associations of the Tlingit and Haida clans, of local
name, are most pronounced. Not only do their clan myths point to
definite localities as the homes of clans, — the presence of shell-heaps
corroborating mythological evidence, — but among the Tlingit, for
instance, the vast majority of the clans are really local units present
in only one locality. In the Southwest the situation is not clear:
but here, also, recent observations supported by traditional accounts
point to the local group as the ancient social unit and the precursor of
the clan. Evidence bearing on the significance of territorial co-
habitation in clan origins is furnished by the Kwakiutl, many Siouan
and Algonquian tribes, and by the Iroquois, where new clans are
known to have originated through migrations of offshoots of over-
populous clans, or through the fusion of depleted clans or sections of
clans inhabiting the same locality. If we add to this the theoretical
grounds referred to before ^ and discussed elsewhere,^ for regarding
the territorial unit as the most primitive form of social grouping, it is
hardly too much to say that we must see in the local group by far the
most ancient, most universal, and on the whole a most important,
unit in primitive society.

Social Units defined. — A comparative glance at the social units
discussed above, as related to their functions, reveals a constant over-
lapping of functions. The individual, it is true, stands out with
sufticient clearness, the plausibility of which fact requires no comment.
The tribe and the confederacy also stand in a class by themselves, for
both of these groupings appear as units in intertribal dealings, — a
trait which sharply differentiates them from intra-tribal social divis-
ions. It must be noted, though, that ceremonial functions may
become associated with all the social units here passed in review,
beginning with the individual, and ending with the confederacy.
It is in the case of social units in the narrower sense, however, of
subdivisions within the tribe, that the overlapping of functions
becomes most conspicuous. As such may be classed the dual division

» See p. 4i8.

' Compare my "Origin of Totemism" (American Anthropologist, N. S., vol. xiv, 1912,
p. 60s); and "Clan Origins among the Iroquois" (Ibid., 1915, abstract of a lecture deliv-
ered on Oct. 26. 1914, before the Ethnological Society of New York).

Social Organization. 433

and phratry, the clan and the gens, the maternal and paternal family,
and, with certain reservations, the individual family and the local
group. With reference to these units, it will be observed that in
different tribes or culture areas, units classed as identical termino-
logically, display partly or wholly different functions; and that, on
the other hand, social, political, and ceremonial functions may become
associated with each and all of these units. But a social unit is what
it does. The function is the real test of the content and bearing of a
social unit. Hence social units designated by the same term, but
having different functions, are really distinct; while social units
distinguished terminologically, but with the same functions, are
similar or identical. The only scientifically satisfactory way of
defining social units would be to define them on the basis of their
functions. This, however, cannot be done; for, as shown above, while
some functions prefer certain social units, almost any of a set of
important functions may become associated with almost any social
unit. The impossibility of defining social units by their functions
becomes even more apparent when one considers that ceremonial,
religious, political, or social functions are shared by social units of
the type here discussed with social aggregates of an entirely different
character; such as the religious societies of the Southwest or North-
west, the military or age societies of the Plains, the medicine societies
of the Iroquois. The subject has another aspect, however, which
seems to resolve an apparently hopeless situation. Whereas the bond
between the members of a society consists solely in their common
functions, some of the social units analyzed in these pages are such
also on account of their social composition. A group based on rela-
tionship, and one based on local cohabitation, may be designated as
natural groups. If the concept of relationship be extended from a
group of blood-relatives to a group tied in part only by the bond of
blood, but displaying solidarity through assumed, fictitious kinship;
and if to this be added another natural group, that constituted by
a married couple with their immediate ancestors and progeny, — we
obtain the fundamental units in our series: the individual family, the
maternal and paternal family, the clan and the gens. The phratry
and dual division may, with some reservations, also be included in the
series, in so far as the phratry is a subdivided clan or gens, or an asso-
ciation of clans or gentes, and in so far as the dual division is the same.
If such is the case, the terms used for these social units should not
be discarded. We may not define them by their functions, for reasons
stated before ; but we must give them definitions wide enough to include
many specific varieties, yet narrow enough to con\ey an appreciable
meaning. Keeping this in mind, the following definitions may be sug-
gested, which, moreover, agree fairly well with widely accepted usage.

434 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

A band is a local group without very clearly defined functions.

A sept is a local group which is a subdivision of a larger local group,
or a local subdivision of a social unit, in the restricted sense.

A village is a local group of fairly definite internal organization and
external functions.

A family or individual family requires no further definition.

A maternal family is constituted by a woman, all her female and
male descendants, the descendants of her female descendants, and
so on. A maternal family, however, never extends, in its entirety,
beyond five or at most six generations. A paternal family is consti-
tuted by a man, all his male and female descendants, the descendants
of his male descendants, and so on. The remark made about the
maternal family applies here also.

A clan is a subdivision of a tribe constituted by a group of actual
and assumed kindred, which has a name and is hereditary in the
maternal line. A gens is the same, except that it is hereditary in
the paternal line.

A phratry is a social subdivision of a tribe which is itself subdivided.
It may be hereditary in the maternal or the paternal line.

A dual division or moiety requires no further definition.

To supplement these terms, descriptive terms will have to be used
as occasion requires, for difficulties will arise with this as with any
other set of definitions. If this is done, there will be more definiteness
and less confusion in our discussions of social organization, and a
dim hope may then arise of an ultimate international agreement on
the subject.

VI. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE OTHER ASPECTS

OF CULTURE.

Space does not permit us to disentangle with adequate care the
multifarious threads — some gross and obvious, others elusive and
delicate — which bind the social system of a group to the other
aspects of its culture. A few remarks, however, will be in place. The
relations of social organization to the rest of culture are either general
or specific. Under general relations would be included such facts
as the reflection of the dual organization of the Iroquois or Omaha
in their mythologies; or the patterning of the animal Olympus of the
Haida or Tsimshian after the principles of their social systems; or
the inheritance of certain ceremonial offices in a clan or gens or ma-
ternal family; or the reflection of the family or clan basis of organiza-
tion in the form and size of houses; or the effect of communal work,
following the lines of social units, on economic and industrial activities.
The specific relations consist in that aspect of social units which
constitutes them the carriers of features belonging to other aspects

Social Organization. 435

of culture; for the functions of the social units discussed in the pre-
ceding section are but so many bonds between social organization and
art, and mythology, and ceremonialism, and politics, and between
each one of these and the others. The intimacy of these bonds is
not easily realized by representatives of a foreign culture. The
association of natural groups, based on local cohabitation or blood-
ties, with multifarious functions involving many important aspects
of the material and spiritual possessions of the group, are, on the
whole, foreign to our culture; and the social units which exercise
various functions — such as political parties, local churches, clubs,
colleges, social classes, or industrial groups — either embrace so many
indi\iduals each, or are themsehes so numerous, as to impair the sta-
bility and intensity of the associations formed during the exercise of
their functions. The individuals, moreover, who constitute the psychic
factors of these associations and the actual carriers of their functions,
participate simultaneously in so many diverse cycles of associations,
that but few permanent psychic connections can emerge from the
maze of conflicting ideas, motives, interests, and emotional values.
The situation is radically different in an Indian, in a primitive com-
munity. The clan or gens which is the carrier of functions consists
at most of a few hundred individuals, usually much less than that;
the exercise of these functions is never totally interrupted; and at
frequent intervals, at feasts, ceremonies, on political and social
occasions, opportunity is given for the recharging of emotional values,
and through them of conceptual associations. The associations thus
formed and refreshed, in an atmosphere of high psychic incandescence,
attain an intensity and stability quite foreign to such associations in
our own culture.

From these considerations two general conclusions force themselves
upon the mind. Social units, in primitive society, become, through
their functions, the carriers of the cultural values of the group; and
to the extent to which that is true, the culture of the group cannot be
properly understood without a thorough grasp of the principles under-
lying the social system, nor can the social units be seen in proper
perspective without an intimate knowledge of the culture of the
group. Again, it is widely recognized that one of the fundamental
contrasts between modern and primitive society consists in the fact
that conceptual and emotional associations abound in the latter which
in kind and intensity are, on the whole, foreign to the former. Now,
we have seen how the exercise by social units, of functions replete
with cultural values, favors the formation of such associations; we
have also seen how the freciucntly-recurring dynamic situations
heighten the intensity and insure the permanence of such associations.
May we not suggest, then, that part, at least, of the secret of that
fundamental contrast between modern and primitive society, lies

436 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

in the fact that in primitive society, social units assume functions
which bring tlicm into intimate contact with other aspects of the
culture of the group, and which bring the latter into intimate contact
with one another?

VII. SUMMARY.

The salient points of the preceding analysis may be summarized
as follows: —

1. In addition to a clan and a gentile area, there is in North America
a vast area of the family- village type;

2. The tribes of Indians organized on the clan and gentile basis are,
on the whole, associated with higher cultures than those organized
on the family-village basis;

3. No proof is forthcoming of a pre-existing maternal kinship sys-
tem in tribes having a paternal kinship system;

4. The local group, while pre-eminent in the family-village system,
is by no means negligible when associated with a clan or gentile
system; and, in a wider sense,

5. The local group must be regarded as the most ancient and funda-
mental basis of social organization ;

6. Evidence abounds of the diffusion, in whole or in part, of social
systems from tribe to tribe or from culture area to culture area;

7. There is also evidence of the reproduction of definite social
pattern, within the bounds of a single culture area or individual tribe;

8. Questions of diffusion and pattern constitute two aspects of one
socio-psychological problem ;

9. Some functions tend to appear in association with certain par-
ticular social units, but a number of functions may become associated
with any of a set of social units: hence,

10. Social units may not be defined in accordance with their func-
tions; but

11. Certain social units are natural territorial or kinship groups,
and as such they preserve their individuality whatever their functions,
and may be defined (see p. 434) ;

12. Through the functional association of social units with other
aspects of culture, the social system and the rest of the culture of a
group are constituted an organic whole, and neither can be understood
in dissociation from the other; on the other hand,

13. The specific socialization of cultural values in social units con-
ditions and furthers the formation of conceptual and emotional associ-
ations between the different aspects of the culture of a group;

14. The intensity and stability of such associations constitute a
striking contrast between modern society and primitive society,
hence the above considerations suggest at least a partial interpretation
of that contrast.

Columbia University, New York.

Members of the American Folk-Lore Society.

437

OFFICERS OF THE AMERICAN FOLK-LORE SOCIETY (1914)

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438

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

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Members of the American Folk-Lore Society.

439

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440

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

L. H. EKvell. Amherst, Mass.

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Miss Eleanor Hague, New York, N. Y.

N. H. Harding, Chicago, 111.

Simon Hart, Newport, R. I.

Mrs. W. S. Hays, Louisville, Ky.

Mrs. Dwight B. Heard, Phoenix, Ariz.

E. W. Heusinger, San Antonio, Tex.

Frederick W. Hodge, Washington, D. C.

Miss A. B. Hollenback, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Professor W. H. Holmes, Washington, D. C.

Mrs. T. J. Hoover, Santa Cruz, Cal.

Dr. Walter Hough, Washington, D. C.

J. F. Huckel, Kansas City, Mo.

Dr. Henry M. Hurd, Baltimore, Md.

Dr. A. Jacobi, New York, N. Y.

Professor Joseph Jacobs, New York, N. Y.

Mock Joya, New York, N. Y.

Robert Junghanns, Bayamon, Porto Rico.

Mrs. John Ketcham, Chenoa, 111.

Mrs. lola Cooley King, Williamston, S. C.

H. E. Krehbiel, New York, N. Y.

Professor A. L. Krocber, San Francisco, Cal.

Hon. Gardner Lathrop, Chicago, 111.

Walter Learned, New London, Conn.

Edward Lindsey, Warren, Pa.

C. A. Loveland, Milwaukee, Wis.

Dr. R. H. Lowie, New York, N. Y.

Benjamin Smith Lyman, Philadelphia, Pa.

Theodore Macartney, Lexington, Ky.

Professor J. B. Manly, Chicago, III.

M. E. Marsh, Berea, Ky.

Mrs. J. C. Marshall. Quanah, Tex.

Dr. W. H. Mechling, Philadelphia. Pa.

Rev. Dr. M. A. Meyer. San Francisco. Cal.

Truman Michelson. Washington, D. C.

Miss Julia Miller, Davenport. lo.

R. E. Monroe, Lexington, Ky.

Lewis F. Mott, New York, N. Y.

Mrs. J. L. McNeil, Denver, Col.

N. C. Nelson, New York, N. Y.

Rev. James B. Nies, Brooklyn, N. Y.

H. Clarence Nixon, Chicago, 111.

Professor G. R. Noyes, Berkeley, Cal.

Mrs. Zclia Nuttall. Mexico City, Mex.

Monsignor D. J. O'Connell, Richmond, Va.

Miss Orr, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Professor A. L. Pease, Urbana, 111.

Harold Pierce, Philadelphia, Pa.

Professor George H. Pepper, Philadelphia,
Pa.

Professor E. C. Perrow, Louisville, Ky.

Professor E. F. Piper, Iowa City, lo.

Miss Louise Pounds, Lincoln, Neb.

Edward K. Putnam, Davenport, lo.

Miss E. D. Putnam, Davenport, lo.

J. W. Raine, Berea, Ky.

Miss Isabel N. Rawn, Mt. Berry, Ga.

Mrs. J. Otey Reed, St. George, S. C.

Miss Amy L. Reed, Poughkeepsie, N. Y.

Mrs. Thomas Roberts, Philadelphia, Pa.

J. R. Robertson, Berea, Ky.

Geza Roheim, Budapest, Hungary.

Garnett Ryland, Georgetown, Ky.

Dr. E. Sapir, Ottawa, Can.

Professor M. H. Saville, New York, N. Y.

Jacob H. SchifT, New York, N. Y.

J. B. Shea, Pittsburgh, Pa.

H. G. Shearin, Lexington, Ky.

Professor W. P. Shepard, Clinton, N. Y.

Dr. Alanson Skinner, New York, N. Y.

Mrs. A. L. Smith, New Brunswick, N. J.

Professor C. Alphonso Smith, Charlottes-
ville, Va.

Professor Reed Smith, Columbia, S. C.

Simon G. Stein, Muscatine. lo.

Dr. John R. Swanton, Washington, D. C.

Professor W. H. Thomas, College Station,
Tex.

Professor D. C. Thomas, Danville, Ky.

Professor A. H. Tolman, Chicago, 111.

Henry H. Vail, New York, N. Y.

Lee J. Vance, Yonkers, N. Y.

Professor O. D. Wannamaker, Auburn, Ala.

Paul Warburg, New York, N. Y.

H. N. Wardle, Philadelphia, Pa.

Professor Hutton Webster, Lincoln, Neb.

G. F. Will. Bismarck. N. D.

Miss Juanita Wiley. Lancaster, S. C.

W. J. Wintemberg, Toronto, Can.

Dr. Clark Wissler, New York, N. Y.

Dr. Henry Wood. Baltimore, Md.

Members of the American Folk- Lore Society. 441

LIST OF LIBRARIES, COLLEGES, AND SOCIETIES, SUB-
SCRIBERS TO THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLK-LORE
FOR THE YEAR 1914.

Adelbert College, Cleveland, O.

American Geographical Society, New York, N. Y.

American Museum of Natural History, New York, N. Y.

American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Pa.

Amherst College, Amherst, Mass.

Athenaeum Library-, Minneapolis, Minn.

Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Mass.

Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Brown University, Providence, R. I.

Canadian Institute, Toronto, Can.

Carnegie Free Library, Allegheny, Pa.

Carnegie Free Library-, Atlanta, Ga.

Carnegie Free Library, Nashville, Tenn.

Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Carnegie Public Library, Fort Worth, Te.x.

Chicago Teachers' College, Chicago, 111.

City Library, Manchester, N. H.

City Library, Springfield, Mass.

Columbia University, New York. N. Y.

Congregational Library-, Boston, Mass.

Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.

Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H.

Drake University Library, Des Moines, la.

Eastern Kentucky State Normal School, Richmond, Ky.

Education Department, Toronto, Can.

Emeline Fairbanks Memorial Library, Terre Haute, Ind.

Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, Md.

Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pa.

Free Public Library, Jersey City, N. J.

Free Public Library, Louisville, Ky.

Free Public Library, Newark, N. J.

Free Public Library, New London, Conn.

Free Public Library, Sacramento, Cal.

Free Public Library, San Diego, Cal.

Free Public Library, San Jose, Cal.

Free Public Library, Stockton, Cal.

Free Public Library, Worcester, Mass.

Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa, Can.

Cirand Serial Library, Weimar, Germany.

Hackley Public Library, Muskegon, Mich.

Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

Hispanic Society, New York, N. Y.

Houston Lyceum and Carnegie Library, Houston, Tex.

Howard Memorial Library, New Orleans, La.

Hoyt Library, Saginaw, Mich.

Indiana State Normal .School. Terre Haute, Ind.

The J')lin Crerar I-ibrary, Chicago, 111.

Johns Hopkins Univirsity. Baltimore. Md.

Lehigh Liiiversity. South Hcthlrhi-m. Pa.

Leland Stanford, Jr., University. Palo Alto, Cal.

Library A.ssociation. Portland, Me.

Library Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pa.

Library of Congress. Wa.shiiigton, D. C.

Liijrary of Parliament. Ottawa. C'an.

Marietta College Library. Marietta, O.

442

Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Mechanics' Library, Altoona, Pa.

Mercantile Library. St. Louis, Mo.

Nebraska Legislative Reform Bureau, Lincoln, Neb.

Newberry Library, Chicago, 111.

Northwestern University, Evanston, 111.

Ontario Historical Society, Toronto, Can.

Peabody Institute, Baltimore, Md.

Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Mass.

Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, Pa.

Pennsylvania State College, State College, Pa.

Philippines Library, Manila, P. I.

Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Princeton University, Princeton,

N.J.

Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
Publ
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c Library, Boston, Mass.

c Library, Brooklyn, N. Y.

c Library, Buffalo. N. Y.

c Library, Cambridge, Mass.

c Library, Chicago, 111.

c Library, Cincinnati, O.

c Library, Cleveland, O.

c Library, Decatur, III.

c Library, Denver. Col.

c Library, Des Moines, la.

c Library, Detroit, Mich.

c Library, Fall River, Mass.

c Library, Grand Rapids, Mich.

c Library, Haverhill, Mass.

c Library, Indianapolis, Ind.

c Library, Kansas City, Mo.

c Library, Lexington, Ky.

c Library, Lynn, Mass.

c Library, Los Angeles, Cal.

c Library, Milwaukee, Wis.

c Library, New Bedford, Mass.

c Library, New Orleans, La.

c Library, New York, N. Y.

c Library, Omaha, Neb.

c Library, Peoria, 111.

c Library, Portland, Me.

c Library, Providence, R. I.

c Library, St. Joseph, Mo.

c Library, St. Louis, Mo.

c Library, St. Paul, Minn.

c Library, San Francisco, Cal.

c Library, Seattle. Wash.

c Library. Spokane. Wash.

c Library. Syracuse. N. Y.

c Library. Toronto. Can.

c Library. Washington, D. C.
Redwood Library, Newport, R. I.
Reynolds Library, Rochester, N. Y.
State College of Washington, Pullman, Wash.
State Historical Library, Madison, Wis.
State Historical Library, Si. Paul, Minn.
State Historical Library, Topeka, Kan.
State Library, Albany, N. Y.
State Library. Augusta. Mc.
State Library. Boston. Mass.
State Library. Columbus. O.
State Library, Concord, N. H.
State Library, Des Moines, la.
Harrisburg, Pa.
Indianapolis, Ind.
Lansing, Mich.
Sacramento, Cal.
Springfield, 111.

State Library,
State Library,
State Library,
State Library,
State Library.

Members of the American Folk-Lore Society

443

State Normal School, Milwaukee, Wis.

State University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky.

Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pa.

Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.

University Club, New York, N. Y.

University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz.

University of California, Berkeley, Cal.

University of Chicago, Chicago, III.

University of Illinois, Urbana, 111.

University of Iowa, Iowa City, la.

University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.

University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb.

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C.

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.

University of South Carolina Columbia, S. C.

University of South Dakota, Vermilion, S. D.

University of Texas, Austin, Tex.

University of Virginia, University, Va.

University of Washington, Seattle, Wash.

Washington and Jefferson Memorial Library, Washington, Pa

Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.

Western Illinois State Normal School, Macomb, 111.

Western State Normal College, Canyon, Tex.

Western State Normal School, Kalamazoo, Mich.

Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

444 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

SUBSCRIBERS TO THE PUBLICATION FUND (1914)

Charles P. Bowditch. Miss Amelia B. Hollenback.

Philip Grecly Brown. Walter Learned.

Seth Bunker Capp. Edward Lindsey.

George E. Dimock. Miss Sophie Moen.

Professor R. B. Dixon. Harold Pierce.

Mrs. Henry Draper. S. G. Stein.

Miss Eleanor Hague.

INDEX TO VOLUME XXVII.

Accordion, 69, 312. 313.

iEsop, cited. 227.

After-life, the concept of, 370-371.

Aguilar, Eleno, tale by, 160, 162-164, 166,
174, 175, 188, 200.

Aguilar. Felipe, tale by, 150, 153, 155, 168,
171, 176, 182, 184, 189, 195.

Aguilar, Margarito, tale by, 179, 198.

Allen, C. G., cited, 222.

Allen, Matilda, tale by, 140, 142.

Amelineau, E., cited, 86-88.

American Folk-Lore Society:

Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting, loi-
104; resolve to join International
Congress of Americanists in 1914,
loi; appointment of delegates to
attend Congress, loi; arrangement
for extra edition of Journal, loi;
discussion on enlarging Journal, loi;
Auditing Committee appointed, loi;
report of Secretary, 101-102; report
of Treasurer, 102-103; report of
Editor of Journal, 103; officers for
1914 elected, 103-104; papers read
at scientific meeting, 104; papers
read by title, 104; List of Officers
and Members, 437-440.

Ames, L. D., cited, 289.

Anecdotes. See New-Mexican Spanish.

Angel, 184, 209.

Animal traits a popular subject of explana-
tion in mythical tales, 16, 31.

Animals in folk-lore and myth:

Akpwe, 269, 270-272, 283; alligator,
217, 218, 244; ant, 138. 212. 213,
222, 266. 283; ant (cow), 246;
antelope, 266, 273-275, 277, 285;
bat, 285, 286; bear. 39. 176, 208;
bear (black), i; bear (grizzly), 393,
396; beaver, 98, 383, 396; bee, 217,
253; Bird of All Song. 201, 210.
birds, 35, 40, 98, 158, 169, 205, 207,
287, 394; birds (dancing), 36; bitch,
164, 206; bluejay, 387, 395, 396; bull.
189. 209, 310, 311; bullfrog, 254;
buzzard, 244; calf, 306, 307; cat,
120. 138. 201. 210. 222. 225-227, 244;
310. 311, 328; cattle. 190. 209;
chicken, 153, 204, 243; chicken
(black), 184. 185, 209; chicken-
hawk, 8, 9, 388; chipmunk, i, 39,
393; cobra, 280-282; cow. 307, 309;
coyote. 23. 38. 39. 134. 137, 139, 143,
iSO-»S3. 163, 204, 206. 217, 218,
227. 359. 387. 388, 395. 396. 399;
crow, 40. 157. 161. 183. 184. 205.
208. 209. 314-317; deer. 9. 39, 154,
155, 162. 163, 204. 206, 229. 388; doK. I

24, 28-30, 34, 98. 138. 153, 164. 176.
201, 204, 206, 208, 210, 222, 224-227,
243, 244, 276, 312; donkey, 119, 152,
169, 190,204, 207.209, 217; dove, 137,
157, 160, 247; duck, 36; dung beetle,
98; eagle, 208, 212, 213, 218, 221,
229, 279, 388; eagle (royal), 149,
203; elephant, 270, 272, 280, 281,
285, 286; elephant (bull), 281; eson,
283; fish, 275, 280, 383; flea, 288;
fly, 98, 226, 280; fox, 38, 134, 150-
152, 204, 217, 218, 227, 243, 388,
396; francolin, 282; frog, 167. 207,
229, 384, 393; goat, 170, 207, 215;
goose, 243; gopher, 388; greyhound,
143; gull, 29, 388; hare, 224, 355;
hawk, 39, 243; hen, 143, 227; horn-
bill, 269, 282; horse, 32, 33, 139,
146, 170, 197, 207, 210, 213, 227;
jigger, 288; kid, 226. 227; killer-
whale, 40; kingfisher, 388, 396;
lamb, 243; lemur, 276, 277, 281,
282; leopard, 266, 267, 272, 273,
277-281, 284; lice, 384; lion, 212,
213, 243; long-legs, 222; lynx, 98;
magpie, 212; mare. 213; mba. 281;
mian, 277, 285; mink, 22, 23, 387,
395. 399; mole, 36, 276, 277;
monkey, 268, 269, 276-278, 280;
mouse. 222, 225. 226, 244, 388; mule,
165. 174. 206, 207, 243, 253, 254;
muskrat, 382; mvin. 285; mvon. 268;
ngui, 269, 270; ngung, 269, 270;
nko'o, 273; nkulengui, 283; nyok,
272; okpwa, 282. 283; okpweng, 266.
274, 275, 284, 285; opossum. 37, 38.
388; osen, 270-272; owl, 36, 38; ox,
139. 195. 210. 222. 224. 226. 227. 244.
246. 254. 314; ozem. 278; pangolin.
266, 267, 282, 283; parrot. 279;
partridge. 317. 322; pig. 165. 174.
201, 206. 207. 210. 267, 280; pigeon,
98; porcupine, 288, 383; python,
281, 287; quail, 2i8; rabbit, 23. 39,
152, 204, 217, 218, 243, 329, 387.
388; rail, 283; rat, 138. 155, 204,
226; raven, 8-10. 22-24. 355. 359.
383. 384. 387. 391. 395; ••'alnion. 391;
serpent. 139; shark. 180. 208. 384;
sheep. 215; skunk. 37; snail, 280;
8nake.i56, 161. 165.204-206.218.229,
245 (see serpent); so, 274; sparrow,
218. 268; squirrel. 269-271. 283. 284;
squirrel (ground). 39; tacuache. 157,
161. 205; tiger, 212. 213, 225; toad,
328; loloachc, 156-158, 160, 204,
205; louraco, 281; tree hyrax. 272;
turkey. 36, 98, 174. 207; turtle, 36,

44.5

446

Index.

267. 268. 271-274, 277, 279, 280.

284. 285. 288. 355, 387; viper, 227,
269, 271; vulture, 151, 204; water-
ousel, 388; whale, 24 (see killer-
whale); wolf, 38, 145. 213. 312, 313;
zip, 285.

Archseology. See International School.

Archuleta, A. B., cited, 105.

Arnold, Benedict, 3.

Azcvcdo, A. Rodrigues dc, cited, 225.

Azqueltan, 148.

Bachofen on the maternal system of kinship

organization, 411.
Ballad, most promising field for, in the

United States, 61; in South Carolina,

63-65; number of versions of same, 76;

of The Bitter Withy, 80, 89; sung by

miners, 91.
Balladry and folk-music, interest in British,

77-
Ballads:

Summary of, by States, 58, 62; Johnny
Randall (Lord Randal, Child, 12)
sung in Colorado, 59; Two Little
Boys (The Two Brothers, Child, 45),
text of, from Missouri, 59; Lord
Bayham (Young Beichan, Child,
53), in manuscript book from
Indiana, 59; Lord Lovel (Child, 75),
texts of, from Virginia, Illinois, and
Wyoming, 59; Barbara Allen's Cru-
elty (Child, 84), texts of, from
Nebraska, Indiana, and Missouri,
59; Black Jack Daly, or the Gypsy
Laddie (Child, 200), text of, from
Missouri, 59; The House Carpenter
(James Harris, or The Demon
Lover, Child, 243), text of, from
Illinois, 59; Sir Hugh and the Jew's
Daughter (Child, 155), text of, from
Missouri, 59; The Sweet Trinity
(The Golden Vanity), reported from
Missouri and Kentucky, 60; com-
plete list of, surviving in America,
60; reported from Kentucky, Mis-
souri, North Carolina, South Caro-
lina, Texas, and Virginia, 61, 62;
Lord Thomas and Fair Annet (73),
variants of, in Southern States, 63;
Lord Lovel (75)..variantsof, inSouth-
ern States, 63; Bonny Barbara Allen
(84), variants of , in Southern States,
63. 64; popularity of Lord Randal
(12), The Gypsy Laddie (200), Lady
Isabel and the Elf Knight (4), The
Elfin Knight (2), 63; The Cruel
Mother (20) occurs only in Missouri,
63; The ThreeiCrows (26), a fragment
of, found in South Carolina, 63; best
known in South Carolina, 63; The
Maid freed from the Gallows (95),
a negro variant of, 64; The Hang-
man's Tree, golden ball in, 64;
themes repulsive to moral sensi-
bilities dropped from, 64, 65; super-

natural elements in British, dropped
from American, 65; preservation of,
by music, 65; activity of Virginia
in collecting, 65; four, of Robin
Hood, reported ' from Virginia, 66;
plan for collecting, throughout the
United States, 66; affected by com-
munal re-creation, 74, 76.

Ballads, 90-93. See Gardner, Emdyn E.

"Band" defined, 434.

Bandelier, Adolph Francis, obituary of,

333-334-
Bandelier, A. F., cited, 415.
Barbeau, C. H., cited, 417.
Barrett, A. S., cited, 414.
Barry, Phillips, The Transmission of Folk-
Song, 67-76:
The Devil and the Farmer, 68; The
Old Elm-Tree, 69-70; The Battle of
Fredericksburg, 70; The Brown Girl,
71; Come, All ye Merry Hunters,
71-72; Old Circus Song, 72; Sally,
73-74; Ten Thousand Miles Away,
75-76.
Barry, Phillips, The Collection of Folk-
Song, 77-78:
La Belle Canadienne, 77; Old Canadian
French Song, 78; La Fille Blonde, 78.
Barry, Phillips, The Bridge of Sunbeams,
79-89:
Documents of Known Date, 82-83;
Documentsof Unknown Date, 84-85;
instances of documentary parallels,
86-87; representative instances of
levitation by light, 87-88; docu-
ments recording the ascent, on a
ladder of sunbeams, of the king to
heaven, 88.
Barry, Phillips, tabulation of ballads by, 58,
59; summary of material of, 59; acknowl-
edgment to, 59, 60; cited, 247.
Bartley, Mrs. John, story told by, 306, 317,

322. 324.
Bartsch, K., cited, 79.
Bastian, A., cited, 379.
Beach, sound from sand of, 40.
Beatty, Arthur, variant reported by, 60.
Beauchamp, William M., cited, 416, 417.
Belden, H. M., acknowledgment to, 59, 60;
cited, 64, 67. 77; work of, in Missouri,
65; version of The Old Elm-Tree by, 70.
Bellacoola, effect of coast culture on, 420.
Benfey. cited, 216, 222, 227.
Berendt collection, manuscript from, 232.
Berger, Robert, cited, 299.
Besa of Atripe, author of life of Schnoudi,

86.
Blackbird, cited, 97.
Blacksmith as sequence in accumulative

tales, 222, 224, 226.
Blake, Mary, The Elves of Old Mexico,

237-239:
How the Elves punished a Quarrelsome
Man, 237-238; How the Elves helped
on Moving-Day, 238; How Elves
may be Subdued. 238; How the

Index.

447

Elves put a Holy Father and his
Sacristan to Flight, 238-239.
Blessings purchased, 372.
"Blood-Clot Boy," distribution of tale of ,

382.
Boas, Franz, Alexander Francis Chamber-
lain, 326-327.
Boas, Franz, Mythology and Folk-Tales of
the North American Indians, 374-
410:
Material, 374-377; Myth and Folk-
Tale, 377-380; Dissemination of
Folk-Tales, 380-387; Characteristics
of Mythological Areas, 387-400;
Recent History of American Folk-
Talcs, 400-404; Mythological Con-
cepts in Folk-Tales, 404-410.
Boas, Franz, cited, 6, 10, 24, 34, 41, 96,
212, 215-220, 222, 225, 227, 345, 368,
372, 381, 383, 413, 422.
" Book of the Dead," 89.
Bourke, J. G., cited, 415.
Boyle, David, cited, 416, 417.
Breasted, J. H., cited, 88, 89.
Bridge of Sunbeams, The, 79-89. See

Barry, Phillips.
Bridges, Grace, cited, 300, 301.
Bright, Reuben, church leader, 252.
Brinton, Daniel G., "Library of Aboriginal

American Literature," by, 374.
Brinton, Daniel G., on similarity of Iro-
quois and Algonkin mythologies, 380,
381.
Broccan, story of St. Brigit and the sun-
beam recorded by, 85.
Brown, F"rank C, acknowledgment to, 59.
Budge, E. A. W., cited, 89.
Buell, Jane, tale told by, 320, 322.
Bucll, Mrs. William, tale told by, 307.
Buiu Folk-Tales, 266-288. See Schwab,

George.
"Bundle cooking," 267.
"Bungling Host," wide distribution of tale

of, 382; transference of actors in, 387.
Bureau of Education, Washington, bulletin

by, 66.
Burzoye, Pehlevi version of " Kalila and
Dimna" by, 81; fictitious autobiography
of, 81.
Butcher as sequence in accumulative tale,

226, 227.
Butler, Dom. Cutlibert, cited, 86.

Caballero, Ferniin, cited, 213, 216, 225, 230.

Cahan, J. L., cited, 77.

California, Spanish songs from Southern,

Canada, material collected by the Geo-
logical Survey of, 375.

Capgrave, J., cited, 84.

Carnegie Institution of Washington, work
done by, 374.

Carnoy, cited. 212.

Case, Elisha, contribution by, to folk-lore of
Schoharie ('ounty. New V'ork, 324.

Catch-words for identification of tales, 381.

VOL. XXVII. — NO. 106. — 30.

Catlin, George, cited, 415.

Cervantes, cited, 220, 225.

Chamberlain, Alexander Francis, In Memo-
riam, preceding page i; obituary of, 326-
327.

Charms:

To recover lost articles, 247; love, 247,
324, 330; witches'. 306, 307; to
remove blood-stains, 311; against
witch, 320; to obtain view of future
husband, 324; to learn if one is to
be married, 324; to obtain writing of
true-love, 324; by means of gun-
barrel, 329; against witchcraft, 330;
against inflammation, 330; to pro-
duce rain, 330; and fetiches, 369.

Chatelain, Heli, cited, 212.

Chaves y Garcia, Juan, cited, 105.

Chiefs, limitation of specific rights of, 424.

Chieftainship, descent of, 426.

Child, cited, 57, 64, 74.

Child, use of "version" by, 55; ballads and
manuscripts. States in which variants of,
are found, 56-58; two versions of "The
Brown Girl" by, 74.

Chilienus, biography of St. Brigit by, 85.

Church, monastic character of early Irish,
86.

Cifuentes, J. Vicufia, cited, 211.

Clan, ownership by, among different tribes,
427; politicial functions of, 427; cere-
monial functions of, 427, 428; names in
relation to, 428; exogamy associated with,
428; not related numerically to gentes,
429; defined, 434.

Clapper, Lelah, cited, 303.

Claxton, P. P., National Commissioner of
Education, 66.

Coat of arms and coins of Mexico sym-
bolical of tradition, 229.

Codrington, cited, 384.

Coelho, F. A., cited, 225.

"Coffin Texts," 89.

Collection of Folk-Song, The, 77-78. See
Barry. Phillips.

Collector of tales, difficulties encountered
by, 306.

Columbia University, Anthropological Pub-
lications by, 375.

Combs, Josiah Henry, Sympathetic Magic
in the Kentucky Mountains: Some
Curious Folk-Survivals, 328-330.

Comparative Notes on New-Mexican and
Mexican Spanish l<"oIk-Tales, 211-231.
See U.spinosa, Aurelio M.

Compositions, popular New-Mexican Span-
ish, published as taken down, 106; New-
Mexican, versions, perhaps, of others of
Mexican origin, 107.

Comstock, cited, 246.

Concentration, mental, to superinduce
religious feeling. 367.

Concepts, and tales, distinction between
mythical, 6, 7; the folkloristic-rcligious.
369 372.

Confederacy, social significance of, 431.

448

Index.

Contest, as to length of day and night, 393;

concerning immortality of man, 393.
Copway, cited, 97.
Cosquin, E., cited, 212, 216, 218, 219, 221,

226, 228, 230.
Covetousness breaks friendship, 280.
Creation, in Mexican myth. 229; as the

result of a pre-existent idea in the mind

of a creator, foreign to American race, 390.
Crookshank, Luther, cited, 289, 293.
Crow Rapid-Speech Puzzles, 330-331.
Crow Sun Dance, The, 94-96. See Lowie,

Robert H.
Culture-areas of American continent, 4.
Culture-hero, powers given to man by, 358;

not an altruist, 395; of the Pacific coast,

395-
Culture-hero stories, opening and closing

sentence of. 99.
"Cunger-bag." contents of, 247.
Cunow, cited, 417.
Curtin, Jeremiah, cited, 390.
Cushing, F. H., cited, 415.
"Cuticle-being," 33.

Daganawida, an epic, 431.

Diihnhardt, Oskar, cited, i, 222, 229, 383,

385. 388.
Dancing Birds, a tale of the Great Plains,

382.
Dasent, George, cited, 311.
Davidson, Thomas, texts accredited to,

56-58.
Davis, Henry C, Negro Folk-Lore in South
Carolina, 241-254:
Tales and Sayings: The Fox and the
Goose, 243; Why the Negro works,
244; Why the Cat eats first, 244. —
Superstitions among the Negroes,
245-248; Negro Songs: Spiritual,
General, Work, War-Time, 248-250;
Songs with Dances or Games, 250;
Shifting of Stanzas, 250-252; Planta-
tion Dances, 252-254.
Dawson, cited, 413.

Day and night, accounted for, in folk-lore
of British Columbia, i; explanation of
succession of, 39.
Daylight, theft of, 10.

Death, tricked, 207; signs indicating, 246.
325; the concept of, 370-371 ; origin of, as
told on North Pacific coast, 391; stories
of origin of, 409.
Decian persecution, effect of, on Chris-
tianity, 86.
Dchon, W. R., contribution to ballads by,

64.
Deities, two types of, 359; names of, 360,

361.
Deluge story known around the Great

Lakes and along the Pacific, 382.
Devil. See Supernatural.
Devils, gambling, lose all souls and are

chased out of hell, 207.
Diffusion of tales, 34, 35; of social systems,
436.

Disease, beliefs regarding cures for, 246,
324. 325. 330; the concept of. 370.

Disease-Giver, conception of, 356; where
found, 370.

Dixon, R. B., cited, 6, 218, 385, 402, 414.

Doll, vision sought through sacred, 94.

Dorsej', George A., cited, 415.

Dorsey, J. O., Ponca tales collected by, 374.

Dorsey, J. O., cited, 97, 415, 416.

Dougherty, Mary L., 59.

Dry People, tribe of, 269.

Duvall, D. C, cited, 21, 398.

Dye, C. N., cited, 302.

Egypt, the centre of diffusion of monasti-
cism, proof of, 86; evidence of contact
of Ireland with, 86; first home of Chris-
tian monasticism, 88; sun-worship in, 88;
contact of, with the West due to spread
of monasticism, 89.
Ehrenreich, Paul, cited, 381, 383, 385. 406,

407.
Elves of Old Mexico, The, 237-239. See

Blake, Mary.
English and Americans, fraternization of,

in Iowa and Nebraska, 68.
Eskimo, conclusions regarding, deduced

from tales of, 13, 14.
Espinosa, Aurelio M., New-Mexican Span-
ish F"olk-Lore. 105-147:
Los Trovos del viejo Vilmas: Trovo
del viejo Vilmas y el Negrito Pueta
(a), 107-111; Trovo del viejo Vilmas
y el Negrito Pueta (b), 112-113;
Trovo del viejo Vilmas y el Negrito
Pueta (c), 113-115; Trovo del
viejo Vilmas y Grasia. 11 5-1 18. —
More Folk- Tales: Pedro di Urde-
males (First Version), 1 19-129;
Pedro di Urdemales (Second Ver-
sion), 129-134; La Sorra y el Coyote,
134-135; El Jatansioso que se Caso
con L'Hija del Rey, I35-I37; La
Paloma y sus Pichones, 137-138;
L'Hormiguita, 138-139; La Serpi-
ente, el Hombre, el Gney, el Cabayo
y el Coyote, 139-140; San Pascual,
140-142. — Short Folk-Tales and
Anecdotes, 142-147.
Espinosa, Aurelio M., Comparative Notes
on New-Mexican and Mexican
Spanish Folk-Tales, 211-231:
La Hormiguita, 222-224; New-Mex-
ican Folk-Tales published in the
Bulletin de Dialectologie Romane,
and not studied in the Foregoing
Remarks, 228-229; Tepecano Folk-
Tales of Mason's Collection, and not
studied in our Previous Remarks,
229-231.
Espinosa, Aurelio M. (Editor), Folk-Tales

of the Tepecanos, 148-210.
Ethnological material, need for sifting, 388.
Ethnological Society, work done by Amer-
ican, 375.
Ethnology, work done by the Bureau of

Index.

449

American, 374, 375. See also Inter-

national School.
Evil, the concept of, 369-370.
Explanatory Element in the Folk-Tales of

the North-American Indians, i-S4

See Waterman, T. T.

Fable of the knave outwitted interwoven
with popular tradition, 81.

"Fair Charlotte" an example of com-
munal re-creation, 76.

Fairy-tales, types of action in, similar in
Indian. 100.

Family, individual, activities in which it is
pre-eminent, 425; maternal, defined, 425,
434; maternal, among the Iroquois, 426;
paternal, defined, 425. 434.

Farwell, A., cited, 77.

Fasting to superinduce religious feeling,
366-367.

Fasting-experiences, 364-366.

Fate. See Supernatural.

Fernandez. Simona, version of "L'Hormi-
guita" recited by, 222-223.

F"errari, F., cited. 84.

Fewkes, J. Walter, cited, 354, 415.

Fire, origin of, 8, 9; theft of, 39, 388; sin to
throw food into, 248.

Fischer, II. L., cited, 77.

Fish liberated, 395.

Fish-hook taken by shark found in sick
man's mouth, 384.

Fletcher, Alice C, cited, 345, 346, 350,
389, 400, 416, 425.

Folk-Lore from Schoharie County, New
York, 304-325. See Gardner, Emelyn E.

Folk-Lore, of British Columbia, day and
night accounted for in, i ; reconstruction
of history of, 2; of North American
tribes often lacking, 3; cosmic forces not
chief subject of, 20; explanatory tales
not conspicuous in, 27; why number of
explanatory tales in, seems exaggerated,
40; unrecorded, 77; Central Algonkin,
devoid of European influence, 100;
Spanish, 105-236; European elements in
aboriginal. of Nova Scotia andQuebec. 385.

Folk-lore material, a rich store of, in South
Carolina, 65; Spanish, largely traditional,
211; from Europe introfluced into the
United States and Canada, 385.

Folk-lore movement in the Sf)uth, 66.

Folk-Poetry. .See Barr\, Phillips; Davis,
Itenry C; Gardner, Emelyn /■'.; Hague,
Eleanor; Ilamillon, Gnldy M.; Odum,
Anna Kranz; .Smith, Reed.

Folk-singer, characteristic. 67; and broad-
side, relative imi>)rtance of. 67; caprice
of, interrupts tradition. 76.

Folk-songs, media for transmission of, 67;
development of social side of, 68;
parodied by students, 75; mechanical
sifle of transmission of, 76; perpetuation
of, by children. 255.

Folk-Tales of the Tepecanos, 148-210.
See Mason, J. Alden.

Folk-tales, animal traits a popular subject
of explanation in mythical, 16, 31; not
shaped by contemplation of heavenly
bodies, 40; collection of Spanish, 211;
sources of collection of those taken down
from natives, 374; methods of acquiring,
375. 376; value of modern material for
the development of, 377; dissemination
of, 380-387; areas of distribution of
themes of, 382; types of, vary with
locality, 383; of Western distribution are
also found on Eastern Plains, 383; moral
not the point of American, 389; phe-
nomena explained in, very diverse, 392;
characteristic feature? of, mark geo-
graphical area to which they belong,
392, 393; recent history of American.
400-404; explanatory element in, an
artistic finishing touch, 401; originality
in, not larger in one tribe than in another,
402; mythological concepts in, 404-410.

"Force," no justification for belief in a
universal, in North America, 350.

Fortier, Alcee, acknowledgment to, 59;
obituary of, 333.

Fortier, Alcee, cited, 216, 228.

Eraser, A., cited, 77.

Freiro-Marreco, Miss, cited, 415.

Frobenius, Leo, cited, 381, 383-385.

Gagnon, E.. cited, 77.

Galbreath, Grace, cited, 300.

Gardner, Emelyn, E., Ballads, 90-93:

Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight, 90-91 ;
Johnny Troy, 91-92; fragment of
ballad, 93.

Gardner, Emelyn E., Folk-Lore from
Schoharie County, New York, 304-
325:
Tim Murphy, 305; The Witches' Ride,
306-307; Lazy Maria. 307-310; The
Secret Room, 310-31 1; Wolf of the
Greenwood, 31 1-3 14; Rusty Jack,
314-317; Peter and John in the
Mill, 317-319; The Bewitched Mill,
319-320; Granny Cobb, the Witch.
320-321; The Bewitched Girl, 321;
Granny Cole, 322; The Horse's Ear,
322; The Boy and the Partridges,
322; Customs and Beliefs, 324-325;
Counting-out Rhyme, 325.

Gatschet, Albert S., Klamath traditions
collected by, 374.

Gatschet, Albert S., cited. 416.

"Gens" defined, 454.
I Gent<'s. origin of, from lf)cal grou|>«<, 432.

Germans and .'Swedes, fraternization of. in
Iowa and Nebraska, 68.

Gerould. G. H., cited. 80.

Ghost. See Supernatural.

"Gift-theory" of Tylor, 368.

Gilbertson, Albert N., Moltke Moe. 333.

God as agent in folk-tales, 139, 156, 158,
161, if)2, 164, 166, 167, 204-207. 314,
222. 225, 227. 244.

Goldenweiser. A. A.. The StKial Organiza-

4SO

Index.

tion of the Indians of North Amer-
ica. 411-436:
Historical Note. 411-413; The Sources.
413-417; GeoKraphical Distribution.
417-418; DitTusion and Pattern.
418-422; Social Units and their
Functions, 422-434; Social Organiza-
tion in its Relations to the Other
Aspects of Culture, 434-436; Sum-
mary, 436.

Goldenweiser. A. A., cited. 419. 420, 422,
426, 428. 432.

Gomme, cited. 5, 20.

Graebner. F., cited. 418.

Gregor, W., cited, 226.

Grimm Brothers cited, i, 215, 218, 219, 230.

Grinnell, G. B., cited. 21, 362.

Gubernatis. A. de, cited. 218.

"Hag." to catch. 247.

Hagiographers. evidence of co-operation
among, 83.

Hagiographs, legendary lore in Irish, 86.

Hague. Eleanor, Spanish Songs from
Southern California, 331-332:
El Sombrero Blanco, 331-332; La Jola
Valenciana, 332.

Hague. Eleanor, cited, 77.

Hair, camel's, for conjuring, 247.

Hair-worms from horse-hair, 246.

Hale, Horatio, cited. 416. 417.

Halo, stars within lunar, indicate days
before clear weather, 245.

Hamilton, Goldy M., The Play-Party in
Northeast Missouri. 289-303:
Rowser's. 290; Jim along a Josie. 290;
Weevily Wheat. 290-291; Aunt
Jemima. 291; Susan Jane. 291-292;
Sandy. 292; The Juniper-Tree. 292-
293; Jolly Miller, 293; Old Quebec.
293; Old Brass Wagon. 293-294, 298;
Ti-de-o. 294; As I Went down. 294;
Old Raccoon, 294-295; King Wil-
liam. 295; Jolly Rover, 295; Old
Chimney-Sweeper. 295; Susie Girl.
29s; Little Fight in Mexico. 296;
Little Brown Jug. 296-297, 301 ; Low-
by-low, 297; Crinny my Cranky,
297; Needle's Eye, 297; Girl I
left behind me, 297; Roxy Ann, 298;
Gents to Centre, 299; Come, my
Love. 299; Buffalo Girls. 300; Chase
the Squirrel. 300; Lady on the
Green Grass. 300; Riley Brown. 300;
Three Old Bums. 301; The Sailor-
Boys. 301; Round that Lady. 302;
Up and Down, 302-303; London
Bridge is falling down. 303; Up and
Down the Centre. 303.

Harrington. J. P.. cited. 415.

Harris Collection of American Poetry, 67.

Harris. J. C, cited, 217.

Hartland, E. S.. cited. 230.

Heaven. See Supernatural.

Hell. See Supernatural.

Hero-spirits, influence of shaman on, 355.

Herod as agent in folk-lore, 165. 206.
Hewitt. J. N. B., cited. 345-34S. 350. 416,

417.
Hill-Tout, Charles, cited. 414.
History, no new forces working in, 2.
Hodge, F. W., cited, 415.
Hoffman, W. J., cited, 416.
Holy Andres, extreme holiness of, 84.
Hopkins, E. M.. acknowledgment to, 59.
Hornbostel, O. von, cited, 385.
Horse created by a woman, 33.
Horstmann, C, cited, 79, 80, 84.
Howell, Edward, cited, 301, 303.
Husband and wife, misfortune to, from

listening to stranger, 267.

Ibn Al-Mokaffa, introduction by, to

"Kalila and Dimna," 80, 81.

Inanimate objects, etc., in folk-lore and

myth (see also Natural objects,

phenomena, etc.):

Ankle. 383; ark, 163, 206; arrow, 98,

162, 205, 270, 276, 383; ashes, 175,

190, 208, 209; axe, 226, 244, 285;
bag. 98, 170, 207, 273. 318; bag (of
cow). 307. 309; ball. 98. 383; basin
(holy water). 168. 171. 207; basket,
151, 204, 217. 271; bed. 275; blood,
310, 311; bow. 99; bow-gun. 268.
270. 275. 276; bowl, 288; box, 19s,
196, 201, 210; bread and milk. 307,
310, 311; bundle, 244. 276; cabbage-
patch, 310, 311; candle, 155. 157.
204. 205; canoe. 98. 393; carrying-
strap. 271. 281; castle (enchanted),
213; charcoal. 40; cheek. 312; cheese,
204 ; chest. 315; chimney. 306 ; church,
184. 209; claw, 284; club, 98, 284,
285; coal, I. 276; comb, 175, 208,
312, 313, 381; corpse, 162. 206;
cotton. 200, 210; cottonwood-bark,
36; counsel, 214, 215; crock, 315,
316; cutlass, 283, 284; dance, 155,
189, 204, 209; deer-skin, 9; distaff,
310. 311; dog-blanket. 30; door.

308. 309; drum, 279, 280; ear, 177,
178, 208, 286, 308; ear-ring, 98; eye

191, 209. 244, 276, 309, 382, 383;
face, 244; fair, 189, 209; fireplace,
315, 316; finger, 308, 310; foam,
170, 207; food, 195, 210; foot. 285;
gold, 308. 309. 316; gourd, 273, 274;
grease. 306; gum (chewing), 29;
gun, 143; hair, 309; hands, 244, 310,
311; head, 160, 162. 205, 310; high-
bed, 308, 309; hoe, 244; hole, 160,
169, 205, 207; hominy (hot), 244;
horse (magic), 188, 209; horse-whip,
308; ink, 244; jar, 157, 204; jar
(magic), 169, 207; jug, 318, 319;
kettle, 98; key, 180, 208, 310, 311;
knife, 139. 222, 224; ladder, 308,

309. 397; ladder (arrow), 383, 384;
limb (of tree), 308, 309; live-coals,
9; liver (of animal), 276; loaf (of
bread), 214, 307; mask, 190, 209;

Itidex.

451

milk (cow's), 307; mill, 317-320;
mill-wheel. 320; money, 143, 151,
160, 169, 177, 190, 198, 204, 205,
207-210, 217, 228, 318; mud, 382;
mu?h and milk, 315; neck, 284, 285;
needle, 200, 210; net, 286; noose,
284, 285; nose, 308; oak-gall, 98;
oil (bottle of), 381; oven, 307, 309;
ox-hide, 314-317; package, 279;
paint, 28-30; paw, 244; peanut-
basket, 267; pen, 244; pick and
shovel, 305; pit, 273; pitch, 28;
pitch-wood, 9; plough, 244; quill,
288; quiver, 278; race, 277, 387;
raft, 382; rawhide, 190. 209; red-
wood-powder, 277, 288; rifle, 162,
186, 205, 209; rock, 9, 28, 35, 382;
rope, 151, 178, 204, 208, 226; salt,

175, 208; shadow, 218; sheet (of
bed), 308; shell (turtle), 288; shirt,
189, 209; shoe, 310, 311, 313;
sickle, 311; skin, 164, 206, 281, 282,
310; sleeping-draught, 313, 314;
snowshoes, 98; soup, 282; spear,
273. 287; sponge, 313, 314; stick, 138.

176, 208, 222, 224, 226, 227; stove,
150, 204, 381; stump, 272; straw, i;
syringe, 147; tablecloth, 318, 319;
tar, 308-310; thicket, 381; thorn,
288; thumb, 244; toe, 310, 315, 316;
tongue, 383; tortilla, 153. 157, 164,
204-206; touchwood, 36; trap, 272,
284, 285; tusk, 270; vagina, 384;
wail, 138, 222, 225; wart, 310;
water (boiling), 152, 204; wine, 315,
319; wine (palm), 268, 273, 274;
wing, 209, 285, 286; witch chair,
311; wood, 174, 179, 207, 208, 226;
wood (green), 180, 202, 208, 210;
wrestling-match, 272, 285, 286.

Individual, the, as a social unit, 423.
Injuries inflicted on bewitched, suffered

by the witch, 322, 328.
International School of American Archajol-

ogy, researches by, 148.
Investigator, preference of, for talcs with

explanatory endings, 31.

Jacobs, Joseph, cited, 212, 213, 215, 227,

230.
Jesus, legends dealing with childhood of, 79.
Jcvons, cited. 6, 20.

Jrxrelin, life of S. I'atricius coni()ilt'<l by, 87.
Jf>nes, n. S. v., ballad reixjrted by, 66.
Jones. I'ctcr, cited, 97.
Jones. William, cited, 97. 345. 347. 34^,

3 so. 416.
Jong. Dr. de. material collected among the

Bl.irkfect by. 375.
Joseph as agent in folk-lore. 164. 165, 206.

" Kalila and Dimna," story of bridge of

sunbeams in, 80.
Kentucky mountains, doings of witches in,

Kildarc, St. Brigit, abbess of, 85.

Kittredge, G. L., custodian of Child's
ballad manuscripts, 55; information
furnished by, 56-60; ballads reported by,
61.

Kittredge, G. L., cited, 55. 57. 65.

Knatchbull, W., cited, 81.

Kohler, cited, 212, 215, 216, 218, 226-228,
230.

Kressner, A., cited, 80.

Kroeber, Alfred L., cited, 381, 414, 415.

Krug. Adolph N., cited, 266.

"L'llormiguita," differences in, in Cali-
fornia and New-Mexican versions, 224,
225.
La FISche, Frank, cited, 416.
Laistner, Ludwig, cited, 407.
Lang. Andrew, cited, 2, 20, 305.
Lasley. cited, 97.
Laval, R. A., cited, 211, 228.
Law, R. A., acknowledgment to, 59.
LeConte, Joseph, rabbit stories by, 244.
Lehman-Nitsche, R., cited, 211, 228.
Leiding, Harriette Kershaw, story by,

244.
Lenz, Rodolfo, important publication of.

230, 231; cited. 211, 220, 221, 230.
Leon, Nicolas, cited, 106.
Leona, Cerro de la (Hill of the Lioness),

162, 205.
Lessmann, H., cited, 406.
Lewis, A. B., cited, 414.
Lewis and Clark, cited, 415.
Lincoln, Abraham, 3.

Lizard, escapes by shedding tail, 245;

bark of coral-colored, sign of death, 246.

Loga del Nifio Dios, 232-236. See SchulUr,

Rudolph.
Lomax, J. A., acknowledgment to, 59.
Lowic, Robert H., The Crow Sun Dance,
94-96:
To carry out a vow, 94; a form of mourn-
ing, 94; death of anenemy sought in,
in retaliation for death of a kinsman.
94; ceremonial mode of procedure in,
same as in Cheyenne. 94; comparison
of, wi:h the Blackfout. os; theory
of, ditlers from other Sun Dances,
95; performance of, the counterpart
in several features of other Sun
Dances, 95; participated in by entire
tribe, 95; an advertisement for
warriors, 95; a grand spectacle. 95;
not essentially religious, 96.
Lowie, Robert IL, Crow Rapid-Speech

I'u//.l.s, 330-331.
Lowie, Robert IL. cited. 18, 22, 39, 97.

100, 381, 408, 410, 412, 414, 415. 438.
Lumholtz. Carl, cited, 206.
Lumrnis. C. I'"., cited. 77.

"Mar." a corruption of Martha, 258.
MacCaiiley, C, cited. 416.
Marrulloch. cited, 5. 20.
Mael )<>UKall. James, cited. 311.
MacLean, J. 1'.. cited. 416,

452

Index.

McLennan and the maternal system of
kinship organization, 411.

McNealey, Edna, cited, 301.

Magic:

Phrases, occurrence of, 99; flight, 175,
208, 381; horns grown on king, 191,
209; spring dried up, 191, 209; bag
of cotton passed through needle, 200,
210; cloak of cotton passed through
needle, 200, 210; children crowned
with stars, 200, 210; stream appears,
205 ; sympathetic, in Kentucky moun-
tains, 328; and religion, 337, 340;
transformation of, into religion,
369; feeding by, 382; instances of,
on North Pacific coast, 383.

" Magic Flight," an example of the complex
tale. 381; brought into the New World
by two currents, 386.

Magic power, defined, 345; terms for
expression of, among different tribes, 345.

Man, as a sequence in accumulative tale,
225; universal desires of, 342; relation
of spirits to, 363-366; origin of, from
leaves, 391.

Manilo, interpretation of, 347, 348; ad-
ditional meanings of, 350.

MS. Harleianus, cited, 79, 80.

Marden, cited, 216. 217.

Marett, R. R., cited, 345.

Marin, Rodriguez, cited, 225, 228.

Mary as agent in folk-lore, 164, 165, 206.

Mason J. Alden, Folk-Tales of the Tepe-
canos, 148-210:
Tradiciones Tepecanas, 148-150 (ab-
stract, 203-204); La Zorra y el
Coyote, 150-153 (abstract, 204);
El Venador, 1 53-1 55 (abstract,
204); El Maiz, 155-160 (abstract,
204-205); El Toloache, 160-162
(abstract, 205); El Lucero, 162-163
(abstract, 205-206); El Diluvio,
163-164 (abstract, 206); San Jose y
Maria Santisima, 164-166 (abstract,
206); Pedro y San Pedro, 166-168
(abstract, 206-207); Pedro de Ordi-
males, 168-171 (abstract, 207); El
Chamuco, 171-174 (abstract, 207);
La Diablita, 174-175 (abstract, 207-
208); El Aguila, 175-176 (abstract,
208); Juan Oso, 176-179 (abstract,
208); El Tiburon, 179-182 (abstract,
208); El Recien Casado, 182-184
(abstract, 208-209); Las Gallinas
Prietas, 184-188 (abstract, 209);
Fresadillas, 188-189 (abstract, 209);
Losdos Compadres (a), 189-195 (ab-
stract, 209); Los dos Compadres
(6). 195-198 (abstract, 210); El
Jompadre Flojo, 198-199 (abstract,
210); Los Ninos Coronados, 200-
203 (abstract, 210); Dialectic Words,
203.

Mason, J. Alden, cited, 119; thanks to, 148.

Matthews, Washington, cited, 415.

Mattice, Fred, talc told by, 319, 322.

Mayer, P., cited, 79.

Means, C. S., variants reported by, 63.

Medicinal plants, beliefs regarding use of,

246.
Melon-vines deprived of fructification, 246.
Melton, W. F., acknowledgment to, 59.
Merlin, 159.
Mexico, coat of arms, flag, and coins of,

symbolical of tradition, 229; The Elves

of Old, 237-239.
Mexico City, 149.
Michelson, T., cited, 416.
Miller, Delia, tale told by, 314, 324.
Miller, Mary, cited, 300.
Miracle of levitation, by means of solar

rays, 79; origin of, 80, 88; paralleled by

instances in Lives of the Saints, 82;

referred to, in Latin panegyric, 82;

earliest record of, 85; version of, in

Middle Irish homily, 85; part of Chris-
tian ecclesiastical tradition, 86; no exact

parallel of, in Coptic hagiography, 87;

records of, found in Pyramid Texts, 88;

diffusion of, facilitated by contact of

Egypt and the West. 89.
Miracles recorded in Lives of the Saints,

82-85.
Missouri, play-party songs of Mrs. Ames

well known in, 289.
Moe, Moltke, obituary notice of, 333.
Molina, Nicolas, cited, 105.
Monks, tradition of sainthood developed

through, 86.
Monotheism. 362-363.
Moon, rays of, as bridge to heaven. 80;

phases of, in myths, 406.
Mooney, J., cited, 414, 415.
Morgan, Lewis H.. credit due to. 411;

works by, 411; errors by, 412; cited, 416,

417; conception and distinguishing marks

of clan by. 423; on the maternal family,

427.
Morice, A. G., cited, 414.
Morrison, Mary, cited, 289.
Mufioz, Luciano, data concerning elves of

Old Mexico furnished by, 237-239.
Murdoch, J., cited. 413.
Museum of Natural History. New York,

work done by, 374, 375.
Museum of Natural History, Field (Field

Columbian Museum), Chicago, work

done by, 374.
Museum, University of Pennsylvania, work

done by, 375.
Musical notation:

The Lone Prairie. 67; The Farmer's
Curst Wife. 68; The Old Elm-Tree,
69; The Battle of Fredericksburg, 70;
Come, All ye Merry Hunters, 71;
The Brown Girl, 71; Sally, 73;
Fair Sally, 74; Ten Thousand Miles
Away, 7S; La Belle Canadienne, 77;
La Fille Blonde, 78; Old Canadian
French Song, 78; El Sombrero
Blanco, 331-332; La Jola Valen-
ciana, 332.

Index.

453

Myth, popular explanation of "origin" of,
2; current definitions of, 5, 6; actors in,
identified by attributes, 18; origin of,
from impressions received by man from
nature, 406.

"Myth" and "folk-tale," use of the terms,

377.
Mythological areas, characteristics of, 387-

400; concepts in folk-tales, 404-410.
Mythologies, a striking feature of primi-
tive, I ; explanations deficient in arctic,
26; traits of, accounted for by sense-
experiences of man, 408; similarity of
ideas in, affected by psychological condi-
tions, 408.
Mythologies, tables showing data relating
to various:
What phenomena are the subject of
explanation in the various mythol-
ogies, 12; the total number of tales
which explain the various listed
phenomena, 14; number of myth-
ologies containing explanatory tales
relating to heavenly bodies and
cosmic forces, 15; the number of
tales in which each of a number of
actors appear, 17; actors and char-
acters appearing in American folk-
tales, 19; proportion of explanatory
tales in a number of representative
North American mythologies, 25;
tabulation of Dog-Husband story,
28-30; example illustrating varia-
tions in explanations, 35; tabula-
tions indicating the various explana-
tions associated with a number of
well-known tales and episodes, 41-
50.
Mythology and Folk-Tales of the North
American Indians, 374-410. See Boas,
Franz.
Mythology, re-interpretation in, 32-34, 36,
41; St. Brigit and beliefs belonging to
solar, 86; of the Iroquois, 431.

Namhliestawa (" Hurling-Left-Handcd-to-
the-West") of the VVintun, 360.

Nativity, apochryphal legend of, 149, 164,
204, 206.

Natural objects, phenomena, etc., in folk-
lore and myth (see also Inanimate
objects, etc.):
Air, 138, 159; bee-hive, 151, 204, 217;
beggar, 197, 210; blacksmith, 139;
blood, 382; bones, 98; boy, 177, 202,
208, 210, 268, 270, 276, 286, 287;
brother-in-law, 284; cavalry, 318,
319; cave, 40, 177, 208, 218; cliff,
151, 152, 204. 305; cloud, 138, 157.
222, 225; death, 139, 168, 207, 222;
death (angel of), 227; deluge, 163,
206; earth, 160, 162, 205; egg, 212,
218, 221; excrement, 99; fire, 138,
164, 176, 206, 208, 222, 224, 226,
227; fog, i7.<;. 208; fool, 146; garden,
201, 210; girl. 154, 156, 161, 164.

175, 178-180, 204-206, 208, 307-309;
hermit, 158, 205; hill. 162, 206; Hill
of the Lioness, 162, 205; honey. 285,
315. 319; ice, 226; infantry, 319;
lake. 156, 161. 175, 204, 205, 208;
land, 163, 206, 213; leper, 274, 275;
lightning, 143; maguey-field, 175,
208; man, 139, 205, 268, 271, 272,
275, 286, 287, 306-309; man (old),
163, 164, 206, 394; man (sinless),
163, 206; mist, 157, i6i, 204, 205;
moon, 150, 159, 204, 205, 213, 406;
morning star, 162, 163, 204-206;
mountain, 33, 381; people (poor),
147, 164, 189, 191, 198, 206, 209,
210; people (rich), 147, 164, 189,
198, 206. 209. 210; pine-brake, 175,
208; pool, 170, 207, 27s; precipice,
217; river, 275; robber, 190, 209;
salmon-eggs, 383; sea, 201, 210;
sea-eggs, 395; shepherds, 149; sky,
163, 206, 383; smoke, 271; snow, 138,
222, 225; soul, 168, 174, 207; spittle,
99; spring, 191, 209; star, 382;
stream, 161, 205; sun, 138, 159,
163, 205, 206, 213, 222, 225, 383;
tail, 272, 276; wasp's nest, 151, 204;
water, 139, 163, 176, 195, 206, 208,
210, 222, 224, 226, 227, 271, 381;
water (forbidden). 174. 207; wind.
159, 205, 213, 222, 225; woman, 176.
196, 208, 210; woman (beautiful),
162, 206; woman (witch), 312-314,
320, 321; wood-chopper, 313, 315-
317; youth, 283, 284.

Nebraska Literary Society, 68-71.

Negrito Pueta, 105.

Negro Folk-Lore in South Carolina, 241-
254. See Davis, Henry C.

Negro-lore, separation of. from white-lore,
241, 242.

Nelson, E. W., cited, 413.

Newell, W. VV., cited, 226, 227.

New-Mexican Spanish Anecdotes about:
Deer, 142, 143; verandah, 142; money
falling from trees, 143; the lonely
woman, 143; confession, 143; shoot-
ing from a crooked gun, 143; light-
ning, 143; a drunkard at mass, 143;
Coyote and Hen, 143; mass, 143;
a woman and her lover, 143, 144;
greyhound, 143; a father's advice,
144; a woman and her three daugh-
ters, 144; puns on English words.
144; an old woman and her grand-
daughter. 145; the la/y son, 145;
fig-orchard, i-\S\ the fri.nlitoned
womati, 145; the witch who became
a wolt, 14s; the visitor who stuck in
a winrlow, 145; the horse and the
watermelons, 146; the fool who was
dragged by a horse, 146; the fool,
146; the syringe. 147; the rich and
the poor. 147.

New-Mexican .Spanish Folk-Lore. 105-147,
2II-2JI. Sec lispinoio, Aurelio At.

454

Index.

New-Mexican Spanish Folk-Tales:

Urdemales {firsl version), 119-129;
Urdemalcs {second version), 129-134;
La Sorra y el Coyote, I34-I3S; El
Jatansioso que se Cas6 con 1' hija
del Rey. I35-I37; La Paloma y sus
Pichones, 137-138; L'Hormiguita,
138-139; La Serpiente, el Hombre,
el Gjiey, el Cabayo y el Coyote, 139-
140; San Pascual, 140-142.

New-Mexican tales not of negro origin, 216.

Niblack, cited. 413.

Nightmare, Laistner's theory of, 407.

Notes and Queries, 237-239, 328-334:

The Elves of Old Mexico, 237-239;
Sympathetic Magic in the Kentucky
Mountains: Some Curious Folk-
Survivals, 328-330; Crow Rapid-
Speech Puzzles, 330-331; Spanish
Songs from Southern California,
331-332; Texas Branch, 333; Moltke
Moe, 333; Alcce Fortier, 333;
Adolph Francis Bandelier, 333-334-

Nott, H. J., cited. 247.

Odum, Anna Kranz, Some Negro Folk-
songs from Tennessee, 255-265:
Waitin' fer Me, 256; Jesus is waitin'.
256; Goin' ter wake up de Dead,
257; Oh the Blood done sign my
Name, 258; By an' By, 258; She
move along, 258; Sweepin' through
the Gate, 259; All my Sins been
taken away, 259; Way up in de
Kingdom, Lord, 259; And don't
stay away, 260; Won't you taste
that the Lord is Good, 260; O
Singer Man, you so hard to lead,
261; I want to go to Heaven when I
die, 261; Keep er-inchin' erlong, 262;
That ain't Right, 262; Blessed be the
Name. 262; Little David, play on
your Harp. 263; Don't you hear dat
Water rollin', 263; That Blind Man,
263; Wasn't that a Mighty Day, 264;
Naaman the Leper, 264; Brother
Hammer, sing, 265; Drinkin' Bottle
and Bawn, 265; Leave your House-
Rent here, 265; A Lullaby, 265.

Odum, Howard W., cited, 255-263.

Offerings and sacrifices for bringing spirits
into relation with man. 368.

Ojibwa and Eastern Dakota, hostile rela-
tions between, 100.

"Old Circus Song" as sung in Alabama
seventy years ago, 72.

Orenda, interpretation of, 346-347-

Origin legend of Alaska. 392; tales of the
North and South, distinct types of. 393.

Owen, Mary A., acknowledgment to, 59.

Pahl, Mildred, ballad recited by, 91; frag-
ment of ballad brought by grandfather of,
93-

Palate, "fallen," cure for, 246.

Panzer, Friedrich, cited, 219, 389.

"Paper-bag" cooking of many native

tribes, 267.
Parallelisms in Coptic and Irish hagio-
graphs:
Saint, light or fire from fingers of, 86,
87; light or fire issuing in breath of,
87; stones pierced by fingers of, 87.
Parker, A. C, cited, 416, 417.
Parody of "Ten Thousand Miles Away,"

75-
Parslow, Alonzo, tale by, 305.
Payette, Frances, version of "Lady Isabel

and the Elf- Knight" by. 90-91.
"Pedagogical" type of explanation. 10.
Perrow. E. C acknowledgment to, 59;
ballads from Mississippi reported by, 61;
cited. 67.
Petitot. E.. Athapascan traditions collected

by, 374-
Pez, B., cited, 83.

Phenomena, important natural, not ex-
plained in folk-tales, 15; celestial, interest
of primitive people in, 16, 40; develop-
ment of, in multitudinous v/ays, 379.
Phratry, functions of, 430; defined, 434.
Pictograph, witches working through, 328.
Pilate as agent in folk-lore, 165, 206.
Pima language nearly extinct, 148.
Plant-lice from dew on cotton, 246.
Plants, etc., in folk-lore and myth:

Apple. 308; apple-tree. 308, 309; beans,
I, 157, 204, 205. 245; cactus, 229;
cane. 165, 206; cedar (red), 9; chilis,
165, 206; corn,'i56, 157, 161, 163. 165,
174, 204-207; corn-plant, 160, 205;
esombo, 272; fig, 145; horse-nettle,
246; mushroom, 269; ngong, 267.
268; orange. 180. 208; oven, 282;
pear-tree, 218; pine, 175, 208; plan-
tain, 275, 282; raffia-palm. 278,
283. 284; salate-tree. 163, 206;
tree, 163, 169, 206, 207, 266, 269,
274, 283, 285, 286, 307; Tree of
All Flowers, 201, 210; Tree of All
Fruits, 201, 210; umbrella-tree, 280;
vine. 278, 280, 284, 286; water-
melon. 146; wheat. 165. 206, 305;
wine-palm, 268, 273.
Play-Party in Northeast Missouri, The,

289-303. See Hamilton, Goldy M.
Play-party, still a favorite with young
people of Missouri, 289, 290; attendance
at, 303; disappearance of, 303.
Poets, of Mexico and New Mexico, un-
published discussions of, 105; meagre
information concerning, 106.
Pope Caelestinus V., 83.
Pound, Louise, 59.
Power, the concept of supernatural, 344-

351-

Prayer, of St. Ultan to St. Brigit, 85; of the
shaman and the layman differentiated,
368; becoming an incantation, 369.

Prayers and incantations. 368-369.

Prevost. P. E.. cited. 77.

"Properties" defined, 97.

Index.

455

Properties :

Magic canoe, 97; inexhaustible kettle,
98; automatic kettle, 98; miraculous
pipe, 98; invincible weapon, 98; fire
arrow, 98; singing snowshoes, 98;
bird ear-rings, 98; fisher-skin medi-
cine-bag, 98; animal-head ball, 98;
winking-club, 98; mummified dog,
98.

Property-rights, spiritual, 424.

Pseudo-Matthean Gospel quoted, 79.

Quatrain ballad, characteristic feature of,

72.
Quatrain ballads:

Brian O'Lynn, 72; Houn' Dawg, 72;
Old Circus Song, 72.
Quemada, La, 162.

Rabbit, black spots on feet of, 39.
Rabbit-foot, good luck from, 247.
Radin, Paul, Religion of the North Amer-
ican Indians, 335-373:
Introduction, 335-340; Critique of
Sources, 340-341 ; Method of Ex-
position, 341-342; Introductory:
Religion as a Shamanistic Interpre-
tation, 342-344; The Specifically
Religious Concepts, 344-363; The
Relation of Spirits to Man, 363-366;
The Methods of bringing Spirits
into Relation with Man, 366-369;
The Folkloristic-Religious Complex,
369-372; The Transmission of the
Religious Complex, 372-373.
Radin, Paul, cited, 365, 372, 389, 416, 417.
Rand, cited, 385.
Reburn, Margaret, correspondence of, with

Child, 56.
Reconstruction of life of a people from

recorded mythology, 397.
Records, increased demands for accuracy

of. 375-
Re-creation, effect of communal, in ballads,

74. 76.
Re-incarnation, the concept of, 371 ; Winne-
bago account of, 371.
Rcinisch, R., cited, 79.
Religion of the North American Indians,

335-373- Sec Radin, Paul.
Renault, R., cited. 77.

Researches by International School of
American Arch;e(jlogy and Ethnology,
148.
Rhyme for counting out, 325.
RiggH. Stephen R.. 97, 374.
Rink, H., Eskimo talcs published by,

374-
Rituals, tendency towartl complicated, 32.
Rivers, \V. H. R., cited, 6, 8.
Robinson, J. Armitagc. cited, 86.
"Rolling kock," distribution of talc of,

382.
Romero, Sylvio, cited, 213, 214, 216, 225,

229, 230.
Romero. Te6fiIo, cited, 105.

"Sacred" numbers, 409.

Sacrifice, human, 368.

St. Anthony, first Christian monk, 86.

St. Brenainn tries to hang cloak on sun's

rays, 85.

St. Brigit, earliest record of levitation by

solar rays in biography of, 85; the mother

of Jesus, 85; biography of, by Chilienus,

85; elegiac verses on, 85; meets with St.

Brenainn, 85; connected with beliefs

belonging to solar mythology, 86.

St. Coluthus, practice of, on fast-days, 88.

St. John the Baptist as agent in folk-lore,

162, 173, 205, 207.
St. Joseph as agent in folk-lore, 162, 166,

167, 205-207.
St. Leonorius, a myth, 84.
St. Pachomius founds first monastery, 86.
St. Peter as agent in folk-lore, 166-168,

171, 206, 207.
St. Santiago as agent in folk-lore, 166, 206.
St. Ultan, prayer of, to St. Brigit, 85.
Saints, lives of:

Vita S. Brigidae, 82; S. Alvei, 82; S.
Goaris, 82; S. Deicoli, 82; S. Cadroe,
82; S. Amato, 82; S. Nicolai Pere-
grini, 82; S. Aldhelmi, 82; S. Roberti
Casae-Dei, 83; S. Florentii, 83; S.
Etheldredae, 83; S. Cunegundis, 83;
S. Amabilis Ricomagi, 83; B.
Alrunae, 83; S. Petri Caelestini, 83;
B. Amati Saludeciensis, 83; Life of
St. Utho of Metz, 83; St. Alexander
of Fiescli, 84; St. Cuthmann of
Stennyng, 84; St. David of Cluny,
84; St. Hathebrand of Antwerp. 84;
St. Hildewert of Bern, 84; St.
Jerome of Pavia, 84; St. Leonorius,
84; St. Lucanus, 84; St. Milburg. 84;
Scs. Wulfhadius and Rufinus. 85; S.
Patricius, 87; S. Brigida, 87; Saint
Jean de Lycopolis, 87.
Saints, miracles recorded in lives of, 82-85.
Salmon carved out of wood, 391.
Sand of beach, sound from, 40.
Sapir, E., cited, 358. 400, 413.
Satterlee, John V'., fit-Id- work by, 97.
Schade, O., cited, 79.
Schnoudi, life of, written by Besa of Atripe,

86, 87.
Schoharie County, New York, first in-
habitants of, 304; present-day "settlers"
in, 304, 305; amusements of, 323.
Schoolcraft, cited. 38, 97.
Schuller, Rudolph, Loga del Nino Dios,
232-236:
Loga di-l Nifto Dios: Musica, 232-234;
Miisica, 234; Resita, 235-236.
Schwab, George, Bulu Folk-Tales, 26O-288:
The Pangolin and the Leopard, 266;
The Young-Pangolin and the Pig
Family, 266-2O7; How Turtle de-
ceived Leopard into eating his own
Motlier, 2C)7-26.S; llow the Moon
destroyed hiinHell, 268; How People
BufTer because they resent a Change,

456

Index.

268-269; The Evil of too much Talk,
269-270; The Evil of disregarding
the Taboo of the Witch Doctor,
270-271; Turtle surpasses Man in
Ingenuity, 271; Akpwe pays for his
Deception, 271-272; The Animals
perish because they refuse to listen
to Nyok, 272; How Turtle threw
Leopard in Wrestling, 272; How
Turtle saved his Life, 273; Turtle
drinks at the Expense of the Other
Beasts, 273-274; The Two Lepers,
274-275; How Okpweng got his
Language, 275; How Deceitful Boy
was punished, 275-276; Mole and
Lemur,' 276-277; Turtle and Mian
dispute, 277; How Wife Leopard
failed to get Monkey to eat, 277-278;
How Turtle got even with Eagle,
279; Turtle and his Drum escape
Leopard, 279-280; Who was re-
sponsible for the Trouble, 280; Mba
shows that he is richer than Ele-
phant, 281; How Leopard's Foolish-
ness killed him, 281; How Lemur
would have killed himself, 281-282;
Small-Hornbill proves that he is
stronger than the Other Birds, 282;
How Okpwa obtained Pangolin's
Daughter in Marriage, 282-283;
How Youth came to Nothing, 283-
284; How Turtle's Greed brought
him to a Sad End, 284-285; How
Bat got the Honey, 285; How Bat
threw Elephant in Wrestling, 285-
286; Why the Vines are Holding
and Choking the Forest- Trees, 286;
Man kills his own Child, 286-287;
Why Small Bird died, 287; How
Porcupine got even with Turtle, 288.

Sedna, the Eskimo, 356.

Self-castigation and torture for bringing
spirits into relation with man, 367-368.

Semitic and Indian religions differentiated,

344-
Sensitive-plant as a love-charm, 247.
"Sept" defined, 434.
Seth, Simeon, cited, 80.
Sethe, K.. cited, 88.
Shaman, interpretation of the religious

feeling by the, 343.
Sharer, Jessie, cited, 300.
Shearin, H. G., 59. 60, 65.
Signs (see also Superstitions) :

Relating to weather, 245; for planting,
245; of death, 246. 247, 325; of ill
luck. 246, 247; of good luck, 247;
of some one talking of you, 248; of
riches, 248; relating to sneezing, 248.
Silva, Tomas^ Portuguese version from, 214.
Skinner, Alanson, Some Aspects of the
Folk-Lore of the Central Algonkin, 97-
100.
Skinner, Alanson, cited, 100, 364, 398, 416.
"Skip to my Lou." best known of all play-
party songs, 289.

Skull, rolling. See Supernatural.

Slagelse, priest of St. Peter's Church in. 84.

Sleep, pangolin's manner of. 266, 283.

Smith, C. Alphonso, 59. 60. 66.

Smith. Harlan I., cited. 413.

Smith. Reed. The Traditional Ballad in
the South. 55-66:
The Traditional Ballad in America,
56-60 (American Variants in Child's
English and Scottish Popular Bal-
lads, 56-57; American Variants in
the Child Manuscripts, Harvard
College Library, 57-58; American
Variants reported by Later Collect-
ors, 58-60); The Ballad in the
South, 61-63 (Southern Ballad
Table, 62); The Ballad in South
Carolina, 63-66.

"Snake-doctor," the blue insect that looks
like the dragon-fly which flits over
streams, 245.

"Snaring of the Sun." a tale of wide dis-
tribution. 382.

Snyder, Beatrice, rhyme contributed by,

325-

Social Organization of the Indians of North
America, 411-436. See Goldenweiser, A.
A.

Some Aspects of the Folk-Lore of the
Central Algonkin, 97-100. See Skinner,
Alanson.

Some Negro Folk-Songs from Tennessee,
255-265. See Odum, Anna Kranz.

Songs, brought out from memory, 71; com-
parison of, with those of Mrs. Ames,
290-295; not found in Mrs. Ames's
collection. 295-298; well known and
danced to recently, 299; song of "Little
Brown Jug" known in Massachusetts,
301.

"Songster" defined, 67.

Soul, the concept and invisibility of, 372.

South Carolina, peoples in, 242.

South Carolina, songs in:

Spiritual, General, Work, War-Tirae,
248-250; Songs with Dances or
Games, 250; Shifting of Stanzas,
250-252.

South Carolina, plantation dances in:

Pairing off, 252-253; Mr. Cooler. 253-
254; Rice-Cake. 254; Roxanna, go.
Gal, go, 254.

Spain, lack of interest in folk-lore studies
in, 211.

Spanish Folk-Lore, 105-236. See Boas,
Franz; Espinosa, Aurelio M.; Hague,
Eleanor; Mason, J. Alden; Schuller,
Rudolph.

Spears, cited, 35.

Speck, Frank G., cited, 416, 417.

Spindcn, H. J., cited, 414.

Spirit. See Supernatural.

Spirit-animal, shamanistic conception of,

355-
"Spirit-force," existence of, in America,

344-351-

Index.

457

Spirit-land. 370-371.

Spirits, belief in, as a factor of religion, 335;
concept of, 351-357; how manifested,
352-353; of the North American Indians,
353; reasons for indeterminate shape of
large number of, 355; identification of,
by shaman and lay Indian, 356; monsters
as, 356; capacity of, for transformation,
357; the power and localization of, 357-
359; development of, into deities, 359-
362; the twofold interpretation of the
relation of, to man, 363-364; guardian,
364-366; weapons of, invisible to mortals,

384-
Starcke, cited, 417.
"Star Husbands," distribution of tale of,

382.
Stevenson, Mrs. M., cited, 354, 415.
Stewart, cited, 416.
Stokes. W., cited, 85.
Strachan. J., cited, 85.
Sun, an object of extreme interest to primi-
tive peoples in North America, 19; rays
of. support St. Brigit's cloak. 85; cult of.
356, 360; liberated. 383. 395; held under
Raven's tongue, 383; theft of. 385;
snared. 388.
Sun-worship in Christianity, 88.
Supernatural beings or things in folk-lore
and myth:
Ball, 98; canoe,
162, 165, 168.
190. 191.
248; fate,
girl. 3211
hell. 162.

179.
dog.
247;
207;

2:i, 98; devil, ISO.
171. 173-175. 177-
194. 197, 205-210;
198. 199, 210; ghost,
heaven. 168. 171.
168. 171. 205-207;

horse. 248; magic flight. 175, 208;
skull (rolling), 33; spirit, 173, 179,
184, 207-209; witch, 145, 180, 208,
306, 307, 310, 312, 320-322.
Superstitions, negro:

Weather indicated by stars, 245; efTcct
of moon on crops, 245; effect of moon
on shingles, 245; efifect of thunder on
crawfish, 245; animal life not extinct
till sun goes down, 245; chicken,
frizzly, the devil's, 245; eel the male
catfish, 245; bad luck to kill "snake-
doctor," 245; death from coach-
whip snake, 245; lizard replaces
tail, 245; garter-snake, when broken,
gathers pieces together, 245; death
from bark of lizard, 246; sting of
"cow-ant," poison, 246; origin of
plant-lice, 246; hair-worms in pwjls,
246; to bring rain, 246; to raise the
winrl, 246; how to stir dough, 246;
salve for ear-ache, 246; ointment for
bite of red-bug, 246; cures for
rheumatism, 246; for easy teething,
346; prevention of contagion, 246;
cure for diphtheria, 246; cure for
headache, 246; inetlicinal teas, 246;
cure for fallen palate, 246; bad luck
on Friday, 346; luck from stepping
over things, 246; signs of death.

246; umbrella and ill luck, 246. 247;
to catch a "hag," 247; to drive out
a "hag," 247; tangles in hair, 247;
to recover lost articles, 247; to have
good luck, 247; camel's hair in luck,
247; to win affection, 247; black cat
for luck, 247; "luck-rock," 247;
to keep a dog, 247; to keep
a cat, 247; acts considered as
sins, 248; why ear burns, 248;
signs in sneezing, 248; riches and
money indicated, 248; covering for
negro graves, 248; bite of blue-
gummed negro, 248; spell against
jack-o-lantern, 248; plat-eye, 248.

Swan, cited, 96, 413.

Swan Maidens, proof of identity of tale of,
in three continents, not established,
385.

Swanton, J. R., cited, 6. 22, 341, 348, 361,
389, 392, 412. 413, 416. 417. 431.

Tabennisi, first monastery founded at, 86.

Tales, "explanations" for, acquired in
process of travelling, 36; influenced by
speaker's feelings, 40; classes of accu-
mulative, 225-227.

Teit, James, cited, 395, 414.

"Ten Thousand Miles Away," additional
stanza to. 76.

Tennessee, unlimited variations in folk-
songs from, 255; rhymes and melo-
dies enjoyed in, apart from meaning,

255-
Tepecano, Mexican folk-tales from, 148-

203.
Tequila, Cerro de, 162.
Terms, employed in mythological dis-
cussions, 5; "ballad" and "version,"

uniformity in use of. 55.
Texas, Fourth Annual Meeting of Folk-

Lore Society of, 333.
Thief and the Moonbeam, story of, of later

origin than the Sanscrit, 80; Pehlevi

version of, 81.
Thorpe, B., cited, 84.
Thrown-Away, tale of, widely distributed,

382.
Thunder, sound of. releases hold of crawfish

or terrapin, 245.
Thunder-bird, in popular belief and in

shamanistic religion, 7, 354; enmity be-
tween Water-Spirit and, 356.
Tides procured. 395.
Tirawa of the Pawnee, 362.
Tischendorf. C, cited, 79.
TIaxcala. 149.
Topography, interest of primitive people

in, 16.
Tradition. Mexican, symbolized in coat of

arms, flag, ami coins, 229.
Traditional Ballad in the Soutji, The, 55-

66. Sec Smith, Rfed.
"Traditicjiial lyrir." typical example of, 76.
Traditions, assimilation of Spimish, by

Tepocanos, 148.

458

Index.

Transformation, 28, 29. 33, 40, 160. 165,
171, 175, 205-208, 221. 229, 311, 312,

381. 383-
"Transforniation." explanation of tales
by, 10; of a material object rather than
action of a creative will, the feature of
origin tales, 390; intentional, 393.
Transformer, 40.
Transmission of Folk-Song, The, 67-76.

See Barry. Phillips.
Transmission of folk-song, mechanical
side of, 76; between the Old World and
the New, 384.
Treasure, buried, 323.
Tribes or peoples of Africa:
Bulu, 266-288; Zulu, 7-
Tribes or peoples of America (see also
Waterman, T. T.):
Abnaki, 4, 12, 17, 19, 25, 38; Algonkin,
97-100, 345, 362, 372, 387, 392, 398,

416, 421; Apache, 415; Arapaho, 4,
12. 17, 19, 25, 26, 30, 31. 33, 35, 38,
372, 415, 417; Arikara. 35. 393;
Assiniboin, 4, 7, 12, 17, 19, 22, 24-
26, 31, 35. 100, 220, 415, 417;
Athapascan, 341, 369, 414, 419,
422; Aztec, 203; Babine, 419;
Bellacoola, 4, 6, 7, 12, 17, 19, 25,
28, 355, 356, 362, 372, 392, 402,
403, 414, 417, 420, 422; Blackfoot,
4, 12, 15-17. 19. 21, 25, 26, 30-32,
35, 100, 365, 372. 387, 392, 398,
402, 415, 417, 420; Bloods, 100;
Caddoan, 3, 4, 392; Carrier, 29;
Cayuga, 429; Chaui, 4; Cheyenne,
30, 360, 415, 417; Chilcotin, 29, 39;
Chinook, 4, 12, 17, 19, 25, 345, 400;
Chippewyan, 100; Chitimacha, 360;
Comanche, 416, 417; Cora, 206;
Cree, 35, 97-100, 416; Creek, 416,
429; Crow, 330, 415, 417. 427-430;
Dakota, 4, 12, 17, 19, 25, 100, 415,
417; Delaware, 421, 424, 427;
Dene, 414; Diegueiio, 33; Eskimo,
4, s, 12-14, 17. 19. 24-26, 28, 100,
357. 361. 369. 372. 389. 391. 393.
397. 413. 417. 419. 422; Flathead,
35; Fox, 4, 12, 17, 19, 24-26, 31,
32, 37, 416, 428; Grosventre, 4, 12,
17. 19. 25. 32. 415. 417; Haida, 4-6, 9.
12, 17, 19, 22, 24-26, 39, 359-361.
413. 417, 420. 424, 427-430, 432;
Heiltsuk, 417, 420; Heisla, 417, 420;
Hidatsa, 416, 427, 430; Hopi, 4, 12,
17. 19. 25, 33. 38. 341. 354. 361, 429;
Huichol, 150, 206; Huron, 372;
Iowa, 416, 417; Iroquois; 3, 100,
345. 356. 369. 392. 398, 4". 416.

417, 424, 42s, 427-430, 432; Jica-
rilla, 4, 12, 17, 19, 25, 35; Kansas,
416, 417; Kathlamet, 30; Kickapoo,
416; Kiowa, 416, 417; Kitkehahki,
4; Kutenai, 326, 398, 399; Kwakiutl,
4, 7, 10, 12, 16, 17, 19, 22, 24-26,
28, 31. 32, 39. 345, 392, 398, 399.
402, 413, 417, 420-422, 427, 429,

432; Lillooct, 414, 419; Maidu, 39,
402, 414; Mandan, 331, 416; Mecos,
149; Menominee, 97-100, 416, 417;
Mewan,359; Mexicans, 149; Micmac,
4. 12, 15, 17, 19, 25, 35, 38; Missouri,
416, 417; Mohave, 33; Mohawk, 429;
Natchez, 356, 360, 429; Navajo,
341, 415; Negro, 215-217, 244. 386,
406; Nez Perce, 330, 414; Nootka,
400, 413, 421, 424; Ojibwa, 4, 7,
12, 17, 19, 24, 25, 38, 97, 98, 100,
341. 349. 352. 355-358. 360. 36s.
367. 371. 372. 416; Omaha, 345,
346, 354. 357. 362, 371, 415-417.
424, 425, 427-430; Omaha-Ponca, 4,
12, 17, 19, 25; Oneida, 429; Onon-
daga, 429; Osage, 416; Oto, 361,

416, 417; Ottawa, 97, 100; Pawnee,
4, 12, 17, 19, 25, 26, 31, 32, 35,
341. 356, 360, 362, 398, 402, 416;
Penobscot, 417; Piegan, 100; Pima,
148; Plains Indians, 342, 355, 416,

417, 420, 424, 430; Plateau Indians,
353. 392. 414. 417. 419. 420; Pomo,
414; Ponca, 387, 416, 417; Pota-
watomi, 97, 98, 100; Pueblo Indians,
353. 356. 361. 368, 398, 402; Quin-
ault. 30; Salish, 345, 413, 414, 419,
420, 422; Sauk, 24; Sauk and Fox,
97. 100, 354, 355, 360, 371, 416;
Saulteaux, 100, 416; Seneca, 411,
429; Schoharie, 304; Seminole, 244,
416; Shasta, 372; Shoshoni, 4, 12,
17. 19. 25, 35, 39, 220. 341, 398.
400, 414; Shuswap, 4, 7, 12, 17, 19,
25. 38. 386, 414, 419; Sia, 415;
Siciatl, 414; Sioux, 3, 97, 100, 345,
387, 416, 420; Skidi, 4, 12, 17, 19,
25; Sk'qijmic, 414; Stlatlumu, 414;
Takelma, 358; Tciwere, 361; Tepe-
cano, 148, 205; Tewa, 415; Thomp-
son, 4, 7, 12, 17, 19, 25, 29, 220,
414; Tillamook, 7; Tlingit, 4, 8-10,
12, 17, 19, 22, 24-26, 28, 33, 39,
348. 359-361. 413. 414. 417. 419.
420, 424, 427-430, 432; Ts'ets'aut,
30; Tsimshian, 372, 397, 414, 417,
419, 420, 427; Tutelo, 424; Ute,
35; Wichita, 4; Winnebago, 341,
343. 349. 352. 354-358. 360-363,
367. 369. 371. 372. 416, 417. 421,
427-430; Wintun, 360; Wyandot,
417, 428; Yana, 4, 12, 17, 19, 25;
Yuchi, 416. 430; Yuma, 33; Zufli,
386, 415, 424, 427, 429.

Tribes of Asia:

Chukchee, 12, 17, 19, 25, 26, 30, 359,

361, 383; 'Koryak, 12, 17, 19, 25, 26,

30, 38.
Tribes of Europe:

Andalusian, 2ii; Jews, 165, 166, 206;

Magyar. 383.
Trickster heroes, 394.
Trovos del viejo Vilmas, los, 105-118.
Turner, L. M., cited, 358, 413.
Tylor. E. B., cited, 368.

Index.

459

Types of action:

Animal foster-parents, 99; animal wife
or husband, 99; contest motif, 99;
violation of a taboo, 99; sun-sliover,
99; bead-spitter, 99; monster and
thunder contest, 99; sacred dreamer,
99; monster-killer, 99; vengeance
motif, 99; sky lover, 99; impostor,
99.

Uhlenbeck, Professor, material collected

among the Blackfeet by, 375.
University of California, work done by, 375.
Urdemales, Pedro di, 119, 168. 171, 207.

Valladarcri, Marcial, cited, 221, 228.
Van Gennep, cited, 2, 5, 6. 381, 389, 407.
Vaudeville songs utilized, 67.
Verdia, Luis Perez, cited, 229. I

Village of No-Mothers, 275. [

"Village" defined, 434.

Vilmas, los Trovos del viejo, 105- 118. ■

Vision sought through fasting and torture,
95- i

Wakonda, interpretation of, 346; additional '

meanings of, 350. j

Wallis, W. D., cited, 424. j

Wannamaker, O. D.. 59. 1

War-customs of Plains group, Siouan |

influence on. 100. |

Washington, bulletin by Bureau ol Educa- 1

tion. 66. ;

Waterman. T. T., The Explanatorj'
Element in the Folk-Tales of the
North-American Indians. 1-54:
The Method, 2-7; What is explained
by Folk-Tales. 7-20; How Impor-
tant are the Explanations in Folk-
Talcs, 20-31; In that Part of
Mythology which consists of Ex-
planatory Tales, is the Explanation
the Basis of the Story, 31-40;
Summary, 40-50; Bibliography, 50-
54-
Waterman, T. T.. cited, 381-383, 397, 410.
Whippoorwill. wailing of. a death-omen,

246.
Wiener, L., cited, 77. 86,
Wilson, S. E., cited, 291, 299.
Wind, how to produce, 346.
Winnebago system of instructions, extract

from, 343-344-
Wissler, Clark, cited, 21, 365, 398, 399,

415. 416.
Witch, tangles in hair of, 247; how to
become, 329; protection against, 329;
silver bullet for, 329, 330. See also
Supernatural.
Witch doctors, cures by, 319; witch over-
come by, 321. 322.
Wood, Anne, cited, 289.
Writing of world done by white man, 244.
Wundt, Wilhelm, cited, 379. 381. 397. 405.

Zoega, G., cited, 88.

The Journal of American

1
\ J6
v.27

folk-lore

cop. 2

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