Xxii. The Ants That Pushed On The Sky : p. 147 XXII THE ANTS THAT PUSHED ON THE SKY VERY ancient and characteristic story about the origin of Isleta is based on the historic fact that part of its founders came from east of the Manzano Mountains, from one of the prehistoric pueblos whose ruins are now barely visible in those broad plains...
Xxviii. A Pueblo Bluebeard : p. 203 XXVIII A PUEBLO BLUEBEARD ANOTHER fragmentary story of the Qures seems to refer to this same remarkable woman. You will see the connection when you remember that the Moon disappears every month; and I should judge that the following myth means that the Storm-King steals her. Once up...
Xxx. The Hungry Grandfathers : p. 215 XXX THE HUNGRY GRANDFATHERS A DISOBEDIENT child is something I have never seen among the Pueblos, in all the years I have lived with them. The parents are very kind, too. My little "amigos" in Isleta and the other Pueblo towns--for they are my friends in all--are never spoiled; but neither...
Title Page : PUEBLO INDIAN FOLK-STORIES BY CHARLES F. LUMMIS New York: Century Co., 1910 Scanned , December 2003. J. B. Hare, Redactor. This Text Is In The Public Domain. These Files May Be Used For Any Non-commercial Purpose, Provided This Notice Of Attribution Is Left Intact. THE BOY IN THE HOUSE OF THE TRUES...
Ii. The Coyote And The Crows : p. 22 II THE COYOTE AND THE CROWS ONCE on a time many Kh-ahn lived in the edge of some woods. A little out into the plain stood a very large tree, with much sand under it. One day a Coyote was passing, and heard the Crows singing and dancing under this tree, and came up to watch them. They were...
Xxi. The Drowning Of Pecos : p. 137 XXI THE DROWNING OF PECOS TWENTY-FIVE miles southeast of Santa F, New Mexico, lie the deserted ruins of the ancient Pueblo town of Pecos. The village was finally abandoned by the Indians in 1840; and their neat houses of adobe bricks and stone, and their quaint adobe church, have sadly...
Xvii. The Accursed Lake : p. 108 XVII THE ACCURSED LAKE WAY to the southeast of the Manzano Mountains, two days' journey from my pueblo of Isleta, are the shallow salt lakes. For scores of miles their dazzling sheen is visible--a strange patch of silver on the vast brown plains. They are near the noblest ruins in our North...
Xx. The Town Of The Snake Girls : p. 130 XX THE TOWN OF THE SNAKE-GIRLS IN the times that were farthest back, the forefathers of those who now dwell in Isleta were scattered about in many small villages. You have already heard the myths of how the inhabitants of several villages finally abandoned their homes and came to live...
Xi. The Stone Moving Song : p. 82 XI THE STONE-MOVING SONG THE Horned Toad is also a famous musician--a sort of Pueblo Orpheus, whose song charms the very stones and trees. A short folk-story of Isleta refers to this. One day Quh-le-kee-ra-deh was working in his field. There were many very large rocks, and to move them he...
Xv. Honest Big Ears : p. 103 XV HONEST BIG-EARS NEARLY all of you have seen pictures of the Burro, the quaint little donkey of the Southwest. He is very small,--not more than half the weight of a smallish mule,--but very strong, very sure-footed, and very reliable. And he is one of the drollest, "cutest,"...
Xxiv. The Brave Bobtails : p. 169 XXIV THE BRAVE BOBTAILS WHEN it came old Anastacio's turn, one night, to tell a story to the waiting circle, it was several minutes before he responded to the quaint summons; and at last Lorenso repeated: "There is a tail to you, "compadre" Anastacio!" The words seemed to remind him...
Xxv. The Revenge Of The Fawns : p. 178 XXV THE REVENGE OF THE FAWNS ON CARLOS," said Vitorino, throwing another log upon the fire, which caught his tall shadow and twisted it and set it dancing against the rocky walls of the caon in which we were camped for the night, "did you ever hear why the Wolf and the Deer are enemies?"...
Xiii. The Man Who Wouldn't Keep Sunday : p. 161 XXIII THE MAN WHO WOULD N'T KEEP SUNDAY AMONG the folk-stories of the Pueblos which show at once that they are not of such antiquity as the rest, is this. It is plain that the story is post-Spanish--that it has been invented within the last three hundred and fifty years. That seems to us...
Xxxi. The Coyote : p. 222 XXXI THE COYOTE ALL the animals with which the Te-wahn are familiar--the buffalo (which they used to hunt on the vast plains to the eastward), the bear, deer, antelope, mountain lion, badger, wild turkey, fox, eagle, crow, buzzard, rabbit, and so on--appear in their legends and fairy tales...
Vii. The Coyote And The Woodpecker : p. 49 VII THE COYOTE AND THE WOODPECKER WELL, once upon a time a Coyote and his family lived near the edge of a wood. There was a big hollow tree there, and in it lived an old Woodpecker and his wife and children. One day as the Coyote-father was strolling along the edge of the forest he met...
Grandma Spider : p. 252 GRANDMA-SPIDER Now here is the story "made English." First I did a Spanish version, and went over it several times with the Indian narrator, who could understand Spanish and agreed that it was a good translation of the original. Then I tried it on other Indians; and they all voted it "K-chu...
Xii. The Coyote And The Thunder Knife : p. 84 XII THE COYOTE AND THE THUNDER-KNIFE ANOTHER Isleta myth tells of an equally sad misadventure of the Coyote. Once upon a time an old Coyote-father took a walk away from home; for in that season of the year his babies were so peevish they would not let him sleep. It happened that a Locust w...
Xxvi. The Sobbing Pine : p. 194 XXVI THE SOBBING PINE ANOTHER folk-story told by the Qures colony in Isleta also relates to Acoma, perched upon the great round cliff in its far, fair valley. Among the folk-lore heroes of whom every Qures lad has heard is Ees-te-ah Muts, the Arrow Boy. He was a great hunter and did many...
Vi. The First Of The Rattlesnakes : p. 34 VI THE FIRST OF THE RATTLESNAKES " OW there is a tail to you, compadre" [friend]," said old Desiderio, nodding at Patricio 1 after we had sat awhile in silence around the crackling fire. Patricio had a broad strip of rawhide across his knee, and was scraping the hair from it with a dull...
Xxxii. Doctor Field Mouse : p. 232 XXXII DOCTOR FIELD-MOUSE IT was the evening of the 14th of March. In the valley of the Rio Grande, that stands at the end of the winter. Now it is to open the big mother-canal that comes from the river to all the fields, giving them to drink after their long thirst; and now to plow...
V. The Coyote And The Bear : p. 30 V THE COYOTE AND THE BEAR 1 ONCE upon a time Ko-d-deh (the Bear) and Too-why-deh (the Coyote) chanced to meet at a certain spot, and sat down to talk. After a while the Bear said: "Friend Coyote, do you see what good land this is here? What do you say if we farm it together, sharing our...
Xxvii. The Queres Diana : p. 200 XXVII THE QURES DIANA THERE is a fragmentary Qures folk-story which bears internal evidence that its heroine was the mother of the Hero Twins--that is, the Moon. The adventure described here is one of those which befell the Moon-Mother, as related in several myths; though it has been varied...
Xix. The North Wind And The South Wind : p. 127 XIX THE NORTH WIND AND THE SOUTH WIND NEARLY every nation has its folk-lore concerning Jack Frost and his anti-type. The cold North Wind is always the enemy of man, and the warm South Wind always his friend. The Qures pueblos of Acoma and Laguna have an allegorical folk-story, in which...
Xvi. The Feathered Barbers : p. 106 XVI THE FEATHERED BARBERS THE Coyote, one summer day, having taken a bath in the river, lay down in the hot sand to dry himself While he was sleeping there, a crowd of Quails came along; and seeing that he was asleep, they said: "Huh! Here is that foolish Too-why-deh. Let us give him...
Xxxiii. A Pueblo Fairy Tale And The Way It : p. 240 XXXIII A PUEBLO FAIRY TALE AND THE WAY IT WAS TOLD ONE of Mark Twain's most amusing whims was to take a story of his own, turn it into French, and then translate it literally back to English. The result of transferring these strange idioms bodily was very grotesque, and a remarkable...
Xxix. The Hero Twins : p. 206 XXIX THE HERO TWINS THAT the heroes of "The Magic Hide-and-Seek" were really the Pueblo Castor and Pollux, the twin offspring of the Sun-Father and the Moon-Mother, is more than probable. For some reason which I do not know, these demigods do not figure as clearly in the Te-wahn myths...
List Of Illustrations : p. ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE THE BOY IN THE HOUSE OF THE TRUES FRONTISPIECE "AS I COME IN, KINDLY OLD TATA LORENSO IS JUST BEGINNING A STORY" 7 THE COYOTE CARRIES THE BABY TO THE ANTELOPE MOTHER 15 RAIN FALLS ON PE-K'HOO 18 "THE TWO RUNNERS CAME SWEEPING DOWN THE HOME STRETCH, STRAINING EVERY...
I. The Antelope Boy : p. 12 I THE ANTELOPE BOY ONCE upon a time there were two towns of the Te-wahn, called Nah-bah-to-too-ee (white village) and Nah-choo-re-too-ee (yellow village). A man of Nah-bah-to-too-ee and his wife were attacked by Apaches while out on the plains one day, and took refuge in a cave, where they...
Iv. The Coyote And The Blackbirds : p. 27 IV THE COYOTE AND THE BLACKBIRDS ONCE upon a time a Coyote lived near an open wood. As he went to walk one day near the edge of the wood, he heard the Blackbirds (the Indian name means "seeds of the prairie") calling excitedly: "Bring my bag! Bring my bag! It is going to hail!" The Coyote...
Xiv. The Race Of The Tails : p. 99 XIV THE RACE OF THE TAILS NEARLY every people has its own version of the race of the Hare and the Tortoise. That current among the Pueblos makes the Rabbit the hero, by a trick rather cleverer than sop's. Once the Coyote came where Pee-oo-e-deh, the little "cotton-tail" rabbit, s...
Iii. The War Dance Of The Mice : p. 24 III THE WAR-DANCE OF THE MICE TO-NIGHT it is withered Diego 1 who begins with his story, in the musical but strange Te-wahn tongue, of "She-choon t'o-ah-fuar." Serious as that looks, it means only "the war-dance of the Mice." Once upon a time there was war between the people of Islet...
Xviii. The Moqui Boy And The Eagle : p. 122 XVIII THE MOQUI 1 BOY AND THE EAGLE SOME of the folk-stories told in Isleta were evidently invented in other pueblos, whence the Te-wahn have learned them in their trading-trips. There is even a story from the far-off towns of Moqui, three hundred miles west of here and ninety miles...
Viii. The Man Who Married The Moon : p. 53 VIII. THE MAN WHO MARRIED THE MOON MONG the principal heroes of the Te-wahn folk-lore, I hear of none more frequently in the winter story-tellings to which my aboriginal neighbors admit me, than the mighty Nah-chu-r-chu. To this day his name, which means "The Bluish Light of Dawn," is deeply...
Xiii. The Magic Hide And Seek : p. 87 XIII THE MAGIC HIDE AND SEEK " FANCY I must have been dozing after that hard ride; for when a far-away, cracked voice that could be none other than Grandfather Ysidro's said, "Kah-whee-c-me, Lorenso-ka-deh"!" I started up so hastily as to bump my head against the whitewashed wall. That may...
The Brown Story Tellers : p. 1 THE BROWN STORY-TELLERS FANCY that if almost any of us were asked, "When did people begin to make fairy stories?" our first thought would be, "Why, of course, after mankind had become civilized, and had invented writing." But in truth the making of myths, which is no more than a dignified...
X. The Maker Of The Thunder Knives : p. 74 X THE MAKER OF THE THUNDER-KNIVES YOU have perhaps seen the beautiful arrowheads of moss-agate, petrified wood, or volcanic glass which were used, until very recently, by the Indians of the Southwest, and are still treasured by them. At least you are familiar with the commoner flint ones...
Ix. The Mother Moon : p. 71 IX THE MOTHER MOON AND do you know why it is that the Moon has but one eye? It is a short story, but one of the most poetic and beautiful in all the pretty folklore of the Pueblos. P'h-hlee-oh, the Moon-Maiden, was the Te-wahn Eve 1--the first and loveliest woman in all the world. She had...
