Translator’s Introduction
HERETOFORE I have withheld from publication such single examples of Zuñi folk-lore as the following, in order that the completer series might be brought forth in the form of an unbroken collection, with ample introductory as well as supplementary chapters, essential to the proper understanding by ourselves of the many distinctively Zuñi meanings and conceptions involved in the various allusions with which any one of them teems. Yet, to avoid encumbering the present example with any but the briefest of notes, I must ask leave to refer the reader to the more general yet detailed chapters I have already written in the main, and with which, I have reason to hope, I will ere long be able to present the tales in question. Meanwhile, I would refer likewise to the essay I have recently prepared for the Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, on Zuñi Creation Myths in their relation to primitive dance and other dramaturgic ceremonies.
Ever one of my chief story-tellers was Waíhusiwa,—of the priestly kin of Zuñi. He had already told me somewhat more than fifty of the folk tales, long and short, of his people, when one night I asked him for “only one more story of the grandfathers.” Wishing to evade me, he replied with more show than sincerity:
“There is a North, and of it I have told you té-la-p’-na-we.[27] There is a West; of it also I have told you té-la-p’-na-we. There are the South and East; of them likewise have I told you té-la-p’-na-we. Even of the Above have I not but lately told you of the youth who made love to his eagle and dwelt apace in the Sky-world? And of the great World-embracing Waters? You have been told of the hunter who married the Serpent-maiden and journeyed to the Mountain of Sunset. Now, therefore, my word-pouch is as empty as the food-pack of a lost hunter, and—”
[27] From té-na-la-a, “time or times of,” and pé-na-we, words or speeches (tales): “tales of time.” [Back]
“Feel in the bottom of it, then,” interposed old Pálowahtiwa, who was sitting near, “and tell him of the Underworld.”
“Hi-ta! [Listen!] brother younger,” said Waíhusiwa, nonplussed but ever ready. “Did you ever hear tell of the people who could not digest, having, forsooth, no proper insides wherewithal to do so? Did you ever hear of them, brother younger?”
“Nay, never; not even from my own grandfathers,” said I. “Sons éso to your story; short be it or long.”[28]
[28] The invariable formula for beginning a folk tale is, by the raconteur: “Són ah-tchi!” (“Let us take up”)—té-la-p’-ne, or “a folk tale,” being understood. To this the auditors or listeners respond: “É-so!” (“Yea, verily.”) Again, by the raconteur: “Sons i-nó-o-to-na! Tem,” etc. (“Let us (tell of) the times of creation! When,” etc.) Again, by the listeners: “Sons éso! Te-ä-tú!” (“Yea, let us, verily! Be it so.”) [Back]
“Sons éso tse-ná!” (“Cool your ‘sons éso!’ and wait till I begin.”)—F. H. C.