Gods and storytellers (Following folktales around the world 47. - Mexico)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts under the Following Folktales label, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

This book has been sitting on my shelf for a while; I found it in an antique store in the USA, sitting under a pile of porcelain cups. Not the most authentic source (not a folklore publication), but I really wanted to read it. I plan on circling back anyway, to read some indigenous collections later.

Star Mountain
and other legends of Mexico
Camilla Campbell
Whittlesey House, 1946.

This volume is old, and it shows: The tales are definitely re-told, not collected from tellers word by word. With that said, most of them hold up the structure and feel of the original legend or folktale pretty well, despite occasional dated words and phrases (such as calling the Aztecs "red" or a Chinese girl "oriental"). It does include some conquest era legends, but doesn't pretend that the Spanish were heroes. There is a pronunciation guide in the end, but no sources or comments on the tales whatsoever, which I sorely missed. All in all, it was a pretty read with pretty pictures, but I'll definitely come back to Mexico for more later.

Highlights 

I absolutely adored the legend of Baby Jesus and Brown Sugar (El Niño de la Panelita). It was about a jolly monk who lived in Puebla and brought food every day to the monastery, but his fellow monks believed that he kept sugar cones for himself. One say they caught him in the chapel, handing the sugar to the statue of the baby Jesus, who was giggling happily... According to Campbell, the statue still has a panela in his hand.
Without much historical credit, but also lovely is the origin legend of the "china poblana" folk costume, said to have originated from a Chinese girl that ended up living in Mexico. She told stories to children, and they brought flowers to decorate her dress. As a storyteller, of course I enjoyed this tale a lot. Storytelling also saved the day in the legend of the Brave Mixtec warrior, who fought an archery duel against the Sun (or so said the Mixtecs to scare the Aztecs away).
The Mayan tale of the Moon God and the Turtle was similarly great. The Moon used to be always full, until a turtle started to show up in his bed while he was away, and it got bigger and bigger. Ever since then, the Moon tends to leave a bit of himself at home, to guard the bed from the intruder...
In the beautiful legend of the Street of the Deer, a girl was almost kidnapped by some men, but her pet deer fought them off.

China poblana fountain, Puebla

Connections

Of course we can't be done with Mexico without talking about La Llorona - in this book, her legend was waved into that of Malinche, but it noted that not everyone believed the lover of Cortez was the Crying Woman.

The story of the Cú bird was another variant of "showing off with someone else's feathers" - and the Cú did, and then vainly took off, and the birds (doves, owls, roardrunners) have been looking for him ever since.
The local trickster is Hermano Coyote.

Where to next?
U! S! A!