V. THE ORACLE AT HUAMACHUCO
The Inca Atahualpa was inordinately cruel. He murdered left and right. He razed. He burned. Whatever stood in his way he destroyed. As he marched from Quito to Huamachuco he committed the worst cruelties, ravages, and tyrannical abuses that had ever been known in this land.
When he reached Huamachuco he sent two of his chief lords to make sacrifices to the idol that presided there and to question it as to his future success. The lords went and made their sacrifices, but when they consulted the oracle they were told that Atahualpa would come to an evil end as punishment for his cruelty and bloodshed.
Then the lords went and told the Inca what the idol had said and the Inca was enraged. Summoning his warriors, he started toward the temple where the idol was kept. As he drew near, he armed himself with a golden ax and advanced with the two lords who had made the sacrifice.
When he reached the entrance to the temple, out came an aged priest, more than a hundred years old, dressed in a long, shaggy robe tangled with seashells, which reached to his feet. This was the priest of the oracle, and it was he who had spoken the prophecy. So informed, Atahualpa raised the ax and with a single blow cut off the old man’s head.
Then he entered the little temple, and the idol too he struck with the ax; he chopped off its head, although it was made of stone. Then he ordered the old priest’s body set on fire and also the idol and its temple. When all had been burned, there was nothing but ashes, and these he allowed to fly off with the wind.
Quechua
(Peru)
3. Bringing Out the Holy Word
God says it, and he creates it: first was the light. And on the second day he made the sky.
The third day he makes the ocean and also the land. And the fourth day he establishes the sun. Oh, and the moon and all the stars.
On the fifth day the water creatures were made, then all the birds that fly along.
The sixth day our lord made the wild beasts and all the living things on earth, and at that time he created the first man. “Ah, let it be thus. Our very likeness, our very image shall be made. This is the one that will rule the earth.
“My creation, all that lies on earth, will be his property and his dominion.”
When God had created the first people, then he blessed them. He says, “Increase, multiply! Dwell in all the earth!
“Behold, for I have given you every fruitful tree that exists in this world and every green herb that is here. Dwell in all the earth!”
For the briefest of moments did they assume the mat and throne of God the Only Spirit. And then the lord frowns and says, “Adam! O Adam, mark this well. You will get your food on earth with sweat.”
And it is said that he expelled them. “When I say it and require it, then your life will finish here, for truly you are earth, and again you shall be earth.”
As people on earth were scattered and sown, they multiplied. And many were the sins. Because of these, indeed a second time God grew angry. He flooded the world.
The mere eight people who were left, the children of Noah, were the ones who reproduced. Truly they found favor. But does our lord have a mind to frown? Indeed he is provoked!
But ah! Four thousand and three years went by, and God was compassionate: he sent his precious son, the savior.
Through Santa María he came to take his precious incarnation. Through his precious death he came to save us, and he gave us everlasting life.
Lords and princes, rejoice, be glad. Hear this: dawn appeared and the true sun came out. It was Jesucristo, who came and laid his radiance upon us. A blaze of light appeared from heaven.
At that time angels befriended us men on earth. And so it was not without cause that María Magdalena was the first to see him at the sepulcher.
How glad you were, Lady Magdalena, that our lord, the true God, the true man, Jesucristo, spoke first to you where the sepulcher was! Alleluia.
When the apostles San Pedro and San Juan heard that he was revived, they were excited and came running to the sepulcher in the garden. Because of it their hearts were glad.
Forty days passed, and our lord gave orders to the apostles that in all the world the gospel would resound. Then he ascended to the sky.
Mexico
(Nahua)
/
Francisco
Plácido
FOLKTALES
A TWENTIETH-CENTURY WAKE
The dead to the grave and the living to their business.
proverb / Texas
Stories are told at wakes in order to pass the time, or, more to the point, to prevent people from falling asleep. Although it is widely accepted that the soul of the deceased has set off for the afterworld by the time the wake begins, another, more sobering tradition has it that the soul is prepared to slip inside of anyone in the room who drowses off. For the mere sake of sociability, if not for the deeper reason, food, drink, games, and stories help to keep the wake in progress.
There are old reports of wakes being held in church in front of the main altar. The more usual setting is the home of the deceased, where the body is laid out in a room cleared of furniture or with the chairs placed along the walls. This would ordinarily be the room that contains a small altar, with the coffin placed on a bench or table with the head toward the altar. Prayers are recited in this room, while storytelling takes place in an adjoining room, perhaps the kitchen, or out in the yard around a fire.
The fast-paced twentieth century did not enrich the custom, and it has even fallen into disuse in areas like New Mexico that have entered the era of the funeral parlor. Times have changed in Oaxaca, where card-playing increasingly has replaced storytelling at wakes. And everywhere the old practices must confront modern sensibilities that frown on any form of diversion in time of crisis. Nevertheless, old-style wakes have been abundantly reported, at least for the early and middle years of the century. In areas where the custom survives people known to be good storytellers continue to be notified when the occasion arises, in order to ensure their attendance.
The usual pattern is for the wake to begin at the first nightfall after death has occurred, with burial the following morning. Then, frequently, the wake continues for another eight days and nights. Between the first and ninth nights of the nine-day cycle, or novena, participation is reduced, and fewer candles are kept burning. In parts of Guatemala storytelling is required especially during the wake, or
velorio,
proper— that is, the first night—and during the ninth night, or
acabo de novena,
the end of the novena. In Colombia, in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, there may be visiting, with storytelling, on each of the nine nights, though guests do not stay past midnight except during the first and final nights.
Various foods are served at intermissions, as well as black coffee and, especially in southern South America, the herb tea
mate,
or, in Central America, cups of chocolate. Cigars and hard liquor may also be available.
Since the wake, either in its one-night or nine-night form, is the most typical occasion for formal storytelling, the selections that follow, instead of being grouped thematically, have been arranged as if told in this most natural of settings. That is, each tale suggests the next one, either picking up its theme or offering a contrast. The only group that has been tightly structured is Part Six, which has the folk-Bible cycle in the traditional order beginning with the Creation and ending with the Resurrection. Each of the other groups gravitates toward a particular theme but without observing a strict program. Part One centers on courtship and marriage, Part Two on the afterlife. A selection of folk prayers follows the last tale in Part Two, which itself is a prayer in the form of a narrative.
Part Three (romantic intrigue) and Part Four (wit) are followed by riddles. Riddles, too, are told at wakes, though they are reported in this context much less regularly than folktales. Manuel J. Andrade, describing his folklore-gathering tour of the Dominican countryside, writes, “Twice I heard riddles in what seems to be their natural setting. One of the occasions was at a wake on a farm near Higüey, where no one expected a stranger, nor did any one know as yet that I was interested in riddles.” Two of the riddles Andrade obtained, XVIII and XX, are reproduced here.
Tales of salvation and rescue, mostly without religious overtones, are in Part Five, leading into the Bible stories of Part Six. As noted in the introduction to this book, the Mazatec episodes given here were actually heard at a wake by the anthropologist Robert Laughlin.
For contrast, Part Seven turns to nonsense, with the final tale in this group exhibiting one of the most excessive of the storytellers’ opening formulas:
If I tell it to know it you’ll know
how to tell it and put it in
ships for John, Rock, and Rick
with dust and sawdust, ginger
paste, and marzipan, triki-triki
triki-tran.
At least some of these strange storytellers’ formulas derive from patter-chants used in parlor games. The example shown above, from Chile, can be compared with an old Spanish rhyme chanted while dandling a child on one’s knee:
Ah serene, ah Sir Ron,
Ah the ships of St. John;
And what’s with John’s? Eats a roll.
And Peter’s? Eats the cheese.
And Rick’s? It eats the ginger paste.
Niki-niki {and so forth}
Patter-chants often take the form of endless nonsense quizzes, or chain riddles as they might be called, that also escape into storytelling, either as closing formulas or as odd little tales complete in themselves. Several examples are given following Part Seven.
Part Eight then turns to the subject of greed, a necessary element everywhere in international folklore, with or without the moralizing that helps to wipe the curse away. Part Nine, finally, focuses on marriage and family, now in a darker key and with stories mostly from Indian narrators. These, strangely, suggest the ambiguity of the modernist short story rather than the transparent morality of the medieval folktale, even though the plots are basically Old World. Some are startlingly open-ended, transporting the reader or listener into another, untold story rather than winding up with a neat conclusion. The best examples are “The Bad Compadre,” “Black Chickens,” “Doublehead,” and “A Day Laborer Goes to Work.”
PART ONE
4. In the City of Benjamin
The king of a certain city admired women for the stories they told. He ordered his vassals to collect all the loveliest women in the outlying districts and bring them in to be his wives. That way he would be able to hear good stories constantly.
None of the wives lasted more than three nights. They would run out of stories, and the king would toss them into a keep. Soon he had hundreds of women locked up like nuns in a cloister.
In the same city there were three sisters who had no marriage prospects. They were poor as could be. But they thought, “We’ll go to the palace, and if we can just get an audience with the king, perhaps he’ll marry us.” The first of the three went off to try her luck and met with the same fate as the king’s other women. It wasn’t long until the second sister joined her.
Before the youngest set out she gave the matter some thought and decided to become the king’s permanent wife by telling him a story that would have no end. The king married her without a moment’s hesitation, and on their wedding night she began to recite. When morning came the story was not finished. Tired after hours of storytelling, she said to the king, “Allow me to rest, Sacred Crown. Tonight I’ll continue.” She had broken off at the most interesting part.
And that’s how it went for an entire week, on and on with the story that never ended. After a while the king said, “This is my true wife. Such stories!” It was a marriage that lasted, the king always wanting to hear more. He never lost interest.
Tale followed tale but the story was never complete. Meanwhile the young wife was about to have a child, and one day she announced, finally, that the stories would come to an end.
For some time before this, since after all she was the queen, she had been performing her duties, keeping the palace in order, looking into every nook and cranny. Once, while making her rounds, she had come upon an enormous vault in the cellar beneath the palace. Inside it were thousands upon thousands of women. She was puzzled, because the word in town and throughout the country was that the king always beheaded his wives after the first three nights. She wondered what to make of her discovery but refrained from speaking openly.
Instead, as she went on with her nightly telling, she mentioned to the king that she didn’t know, really, whether it would be right to finish. The story’s end, she warned him, might be too shocking for him, because she knew what a tender-hearted man he was. She could tell, she said, that he wished no harm to anyone and that it was for this that the people of his country loved him. “Sacred Crown, I can’t bring myself to let you hear how it all turns out. It would be too upsetting for you.”
With his love for stories, the king’s interest was now keener than ever. He ordered her to tell the ending. “I will,” she said, “if you grant me one favor.”
“What is that, my queen?”
“All those poor women you have in the vault, let them go.”
The king was terrified. “What? If I turned those women loose, there would be an uprising. The people would drag me off the throne.”
“Then the story is not going to end.”
The king could barely contain his curiosity. “My dear, let me think about it.” The days passed, and still no answer. At last the queen said, “I’d better tell you the ending, because I’ll soon be going into labor. What if I should die in childbirth?”
“Oh no, my dear queen! Can’t you put it off a few more days?”
In the meantime the queen was consulting with the women in the vault. After dark she was releasing them quietly, one by one, without causing a stir. The women were returning to their homes with made-up excuses. They’d been away traveling, they said.
When all were free, the queen declared she could no longer postpone the end of her story. She brought the tale quickly to a close, the child was born without mishap, and the king took notice that the women he had imprisoned were no longer in the keep. The dreaded revolution had not taken place, nor had the citizens pulled him from his throne. “Thank you, my queen.”
With those words the king changed his ways, and the royal family lived happily from that time on. And that’s the tale of the monarch named Benjamin, king of a far-distant city, and the city, too, was called Benjamin.
Ecuador
/
Rosa
Salas