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terms, where the deities and demons speak the same
familiar phrases of anyone's next door neighbor.
Pessimistic humor is a commonly shared trait, but
while the Spanish stories delight in the absurd
scrapes and misperceptions of fools of a thousand
varieties (particularly priests), the Zinacantec does
not bear fools or priests lightly. Usually the foolish
victim is an outsider: a tiger, a spook, or a Ladino.
Here the vagaries of priests, their amorous adventures,
are the subject not of humor, but outrage.
The depth of moral concern of Spanish oral literature
is equalled in Zinacantec tales, but in Zinacantan
it is expressed with somberness; righteousness
vindictively triumphant, or injustice unhappily endured.
It is doubtful whether realism, pessimistic humor,
or moral concern can be transported intact from one
shore of the ocean to the other. While particular
elements, even phrases, may flourish unchanged
with almost magical powers of survival, the tone of
an oral literature as a whole is dependent upon
cultural conditions. Though there is no way to
ascertain if the oral traditions of Zinacantan were as
somber before the Spanish Conquest, there are
surely good historical grounds for Spanish-introduced
pessimism in Zinacantan!
After perusing the substantial collections of folktales
recorded by Wheeler and Robe in central
Mexico, where Spanish influence is very evident, the
Zinacantec oral traditions seem peculiarly autochthonous.
An intuitive judgment of the number of
tales with pronounced European qualities would not
raise the estimate above 20% of the total collection.
Clearly, though European influence is strong, it is far
from predominant.
There appear to be few elements shared with the
cultures of northern and central Mexico (Cora, Huichol,
Tarascan, Aztec, etc.), but motifs that at first
were assumed by me to be uniquely Mayan (some
with an ascertainable time depth of over four centuries)
can be found far to the north of Chiapas. Not
only motifs, but even dialogues, despite their translation
from a variety of unrelated languages, exhibit
astonishing similarity. Suggested here is the early
existence and current perpetuation of an extensive
culture area that embraces not only Guatemala,
Chiapas, and Yucatan, but also the southern half of
Veracruz and the entire state of Oaxaca! (The correspondence
in plot and dialogue between the Yaqui
and Zinacantec buzzard-man myths may be the result
of Yaqui repatriation in the nineteenth century.)
Prominent traits in the traditional narratives of this
vast culture area are tales of long-haired devils,
thunderbolt spirits who singly, or accompanied by
whirlwind, hawk, or other aerial naguals, defend the
INTRODUCTION
town from enemy attack. Versions of horned serpent,
tales of the flood and of multiple creations and
destructions agree in many particulars. An interesting
parallel occurs in native descriptions of the
creation of the church of St. Sebastian in Zinacantan,
of a Mixe pre-Columbian plaza, and of Chichen Itza.
Common motifs demonstrably adapted to post-
Conquest life are the arrival of a mysterious person
(a saint) who begs the people to build him (or her) a
home, and the loss of the church bell either by
robbery or through carelessness of the town elders.
Zinacantec familiarity with motifs present far to
the north and to the south are added evidence for
extensive commercial activity in both directions in
the past. Until recent times a colony of Zapotecs
existed in Chiapa de Corzo at the foot of the highlands,
and even today Zinacantecs trade occasionally
as far north as Juchitan, though they rarely journey
south of Comitan.
In the Mayan area, a reading of the Guatemalan
epics reveals surprisingly few correspondences with
Zinacantec material. The theme of a god either
transformed into an animal or slain while perched in
a tree, gorging on fruit or honey; the use of bathing
girls to tempt an enemy army to destruction; stifflegged
forebears; wasps and bees as tools of war;
thunderbolt defenders; Blood Girl—these are meager
gleanings. Their meagerness is matched by the
lack of elegant verse in Zinacantec oral literature.
There is no question that the ancient Guatemalan
epics were polished by an aristocracy highly trained
in poetic oration, while the Zinacantec tales are the
rough products of merchants and hoers of the earth.
Contemporary Mayan folktales manifest in quantity
of elements, though frequently not in exact replication,
only a slightly closer relationship to
Zinacantan than do non-Mayan tales. There is but
one motif whose distribution appears to be limited to
Guatemala and Chiapas; the origin of corn—brought
to man by a raven which steals it from a cave. It
seems that Zinacantan owes little more to its Mayan
neighbors to the south and east than to its non-Mayan
neighbors to the north and west.
Clues to the antiquity of folktale elements found
uniquely in Chiapas are practically nonexistent.
There are suggestive remarks by Bishop Nunez de la
Vega in the seventeenth century regarding Spooks,
and the god, Votan, who may perhaps survive behind
the mask of St. Sebastian (Ordonez y Aguiar,
1907:14). There is a scene from one tale (T35) that
may recall a nativistic religious revival in 1708
described by Francisco Ximenez 1931:262-264).
There are accounts of the "War of the Castes" of
1868-71. But there seem to be no other historical