Yaqui myths and legends
Type
Book
Authors
Category
General Library Collection
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Publication Year
1959
Publisher
The University of Arizona Press, United States
Pages
180
Subject
Yaqui -- Folklore
Abstract
"Grownups and children alike will pull up chairs and listen to the Yaqui tales for they are dramatic, drolly humorous, and vivid with the forthright language of people who have lived close to the earth.
Yaqui story-telling, though in the past sometimes ritualistic, today is informal. Characters and plots are simply drawn and heavily accented with universal human griefs and joys.
Like "The Stick That Sang," a story may suggest the aggressive magic in nature that makes trouble for mischievous man. Like "The Wax Monkey," who vanquished Coyote at his watermelon-stealing, it may have the impact of a classic fable. Or, a Yaqui story may bring laughter and delight, like the tale of the two men masquerading as bears, corralled together by the whimsy of a rich man, each realizing the other is human as they approach one another to fight and hear each other praying.
Though often pure entertainment, the Yaqui tales reflect the colorful beliefs and practices of the merged Yaqui-Catholic religion, as well as a common Yaqui conception of supernaturals and animals with human feelings.
The folktales of the Sonoran Yaquis of Mexico are as hardy as the culture of this rugged tribe, still living a traditional existence in villages at the mouth of the Rio Yaqui in Sonora and in the handful of Southern Arizona pueblos to which they were deported by the Mexican government early in the 1900's.
Stories in this book were collected from Yaqui narrators in Potam, a major pueblo of Yaquis in the state of Sonora, Mexico, and in Pascua and Barrio Libre, two Yaqui villages in the environs of Tucson, Arizona."--Book jacket.
Yaqui story-telling, though in the past sometimes ritualistic, today is informal. Characters and plots are simply drawn and heavily accented with universal human griefs and joys.
Like "The Stick That Sang," a story may suggest the aggressive magic in nature that makes trouble for mischievous man. Like "The Wax Monkey," who vanquished Coyote at his watermelon-stealing, it may have the impact of a classic fable. Or, a Yaqui story may bring laughter and delight, like the tale of the two men masquerading as bears, corralled together by the whimsy of a rich man, each realizing the other is human as they approach one another to fight and hear each other praying.
Though often pure entertainment, the Yaqui tales reflect the colorful beliefs and practices of the merged Yaqui-Catholic religion, as well as a common Yaqui conception of supernaturals and animals with human feelings.
The folktales of the Sonoran Yaquis of Mexico are as hardy as the culture of this rugged tribe, still living a traditional existence in villages at the mouth of the Rio Yaqui in Sonora and in the handful of Southern Arizona pueblos to which they were deported by the Mexican government early in the 1900's.
Stories in this book were collected from Yaqui narrators in Potam, a major pueblo of Yaquis in the state of Sonora, Mexico, and in Pascua and Barrio Libre, two Yaqui villages in the environs of Tucson, Arizona."--Book jacket.
Description
192 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
Number of Copies
1
