<OM>cuento zapoteco/Zapotec Thunder texts: cognates anyone?

[Scott Berthiaume]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Rosemary G Beam de Azcona 
To: otomanguean-l at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG 
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 7:15 PM
Subject: re: cuento zapoteco/Zapotec Thunder texts: cognates anyone?


Muchas gracias por la respuesta. Me interesa mucho que es (si es el mismo cuento) una culebra en SJMZ porque tambien la es en San Baltazar Loxicha, mientras es un caimán en Texmelucán y Chichicapán. Es interesante que los cuatro cuentos se distinguen así, siendo los dos cuentos con culebras contado en lenguas zapotecas sureñas y los otros dos no. Me gustaría mucho saber más detalles de estos cuentos de SJMZ y San Andrés Lovene. No sé si los ha transcrito ya o si me puede contar más de esos cuentos. Agradezco cualquier información que me puede dar. Aunque no lo termino de anotar, estoy copiando la la traducción en inglés abajo en caso de que hay interesados, y para que pueden ver si hay más semejanzas.

I wrote the previous e-mail in Spanish since I thought that might be the common denominator lg. on this list but I want to make sure that I'm not missing out on anyone's knowledge who only reads the English e-mails, so just to recap, I have a text in which, among other things, a man flys on Thunder's back. I am looking for cognate texts for comparison and have found one in the Speck book on Texmelucan Zapotec folklore and heard of others in Chichicapan, and perhaps now in San Juan Mixtepec and San Andres Lovene. Even though I haven't finished annotating it I am pasting the translation of the text I recorded at the bottom of this e-mail in case anyone is interested or thinks of more details.

Thanks for any help!

Rosemary

> San Juan Mixtepec Zapoteco-es otro cuento, pero habla de una culebra
grande
> que cae en una hondura en un lugar donde hay mucha agua, provocando
> destrucción. Los habitantes del lugar contratan "anahuales" para
destruirlo.
>
> San Andrés Lovene Zapoteco-El cuento que apenas escuché es muy parecido al
> de Ud. No me acuerdo exactamente como cambian los detalles.
> -Julie
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Scott Berthiaume" <scott-tonia_berthiaume at SIL.ORG>
> To: <OTOMANGUEAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 6:18 PM
> Subject: <OM>Cuento zapoteco

Free English translation:
There was a time that there was a man who used to kill deer. Every night he went to hunt deer. He always killed them. There was one time he went to hunt deer and he killed it like always. When the animal fell to the ground he took it to his house. He ate it with his wife and family. But when he was gone hunting his wife went with their compadre and she had relations with their compadre. She gave the compadre meat for him to eat. Later the man went hunting. 

Later the man went to hunt deer at night. He arrived at a place called Dark Pond. There he killed a deer. When it fell to the ground the man went to take it to where he could tie it up, in order to take it home. The animal transformed itself into a snake. It turned into a snake and it took him. The snake took the man into the pond. And there arrived, there arrived the man. His feeling drained out of him and now he couldn't remember anything. 

Then the snake took him, the man who kills deer. He arrived where the mother and father of the snake were. There lived an old man (the father of the snake) who had three pots full of water. Every pot was closed. And then the old man said to the man who went to hunt deer, "Why do you arrive here?" Then the man said, "I don't know how or why I arrived here like this. I don't know how I arrived here. I killed deer, as I went to hunt deer at night, and here I am standing. I didn't notice how I arrived at this place." Later the old lady said, "Come and see how it looks, the thing that you do." He said, "I don't do anything in the world where I am. I don't do anything."  Later then the old lady went to show where there was a corral of deer. There were injured animals, there were decomposing animals with larvae, and there were animals that just up and died. The animals appeared in various conditions, the animals that were there. Then the old lady said to that man, "That animal is my son. That is whom you punish. You give him away. You give the animal so your compadre eats. You give meat so your compadre eats."  "No" he said. I don't give meat." The old lady said, "if you don't give it, your wife gives it." He said, "believe me, I don't know anything about it." He said, "I don't know anything about it. I always go to hunt deer," he said. "I always go to hunt deer. I am not the one who gives away the meat so that my compadre eats. Not to anyone do I give my meat. If the woman does it, tell me who of the two of us is guilty! Later the old lady said, "I see that it is not you who does it. Your wife gives away that which your compadre eats. He said, "What do you you think you'll do with me?" Then the old lady said, "get ready, soon my boys will arrive. My boys went to work. Those boys want to eat meat. Just as you do with my deer, so also the boys want to eat meat."  "and so?" he said. "But I understand that you didn't do anything" she said. "Isn't there a way you could let me go?" he said to the old lady. The old lady said, "there is a way. You will be let go but you know when you arrive at the place where you left from," said the old lady "when you arrive, you are going to say to your wife, you are going to say 'let's go shrimp-fishing and you invite our compadre' And then  you two invite your compadre so that the three of you go fishing. But only you know in your heart, you know what will happen then. "Fine," said the man who went to hunt deer. The hunter then arrived at his house.

But just like that he was sitting with the old lady where he went into the supernatural realm. Then the old lady said, "you'll see." The old lady said, "now you will be all alone. There is going to be a test. Between the three of my sons we'll see whether you pass the test. "fine" he said. A rainstorm commenced. Then the old lady said "get ready because now my sons are going to arrive." Then a large person arrived, the son of the old lady. The son of the old lady said, later he said to the man, "sit down on my back and grab on tight behind my neck. We're going to go on a test. If you didn't do it, well here we'll see" he said to the hunter. "Fine" said the hunter. Then the hunter sat down behind the neck of the old lady's son and the rainstorm began. They flew into the sky. Into space they went blowing around for a long time. And the lightning bolt thundered. And it was Lightning, behind whose neck he was sitting. But nothing happened to him. He arrived back with the old lady. He said to the old lady, "See, I returned. I didn't do anything." "fine" said the old lady. "Now what you are going to do," said the old lady, " now you should get ready. Get ready" said the old lady. "Take care of the house. I'm going to run an errand in town." "Fine" he said. 

Since he already noticed which pot the lightning bolt came out from, and where thunder comes out, and where the rainstorm comes out, he opened a pot while the old lady was not around. Then he blew on the pot. Before he knew it he flew far away and the lightning bolt began to thunder. The old lady was walking through the town. When the old lady noticed how Lightning was thundering in space the old lady returned. The old lady said, "Why is Lightining thundering so when my son is standing guard?" And the old lady realized that the same person who went to be tested went out and about another time, and then he wasn't able to get down from the sky. Then the old lady arrived. The old lady said to another son of hers, "go and get that idiot down. See what a bad thing that guy's doing. You just showed him how you do it, and so he is doing it now too in space. He hasn't returned back here where I live." Now another of them went up. He went to retrieve that man from space, but he returned unsuccessfully. Then another one that they call Little Lightning went to retrieve the man. He went to retrieve the man who was moving through  the air. 

Then they arrived. The old lady said, "now you will see. Now is going to come to pass what was foretold." "Fine" he said, "I will do it, but let me go back to where I came from. I want to go to my house." "Fine" said the son of the old lady." Then there in the supernatural realm another son of the old lady said to the man, "cover and close your eyes and sit behind my neck. 
Don't let go," he said. "I'll see how I'm going to go put you down where you came from" said the other snake. "Fine" said the man. Then he shut his eyes. Then he sat behind the neck of another snake-dragon and he didn't feel how but he arrived at the place where he killed the deer. The deer was laying down next to him. Then once more he tied up the deer and he took the deer and he arrived at his house. 

Later his wife said "where did you go? I didn't know where you were off to. Days have passed since you've been gone. We've been looking for you in the brush
without knowing where you were. The two (of us), your compadre and I went to look for you
but we did not find you." "Ah" he said "I went to hunt deer and I went on an errand of mine." 
He didn't say were he had gone. Then as he sat there he was thinking how he would invite his compadre to go shrimp-fishing. Later he said to his wife, "early tomorrow we'll go shrimp-fishing so that we'll eat" he said. "Fine, we'll go" said the woman. The discussion went fine. 
Later he said to the woman, "why don't you go to see the compadre so that the compadre will follow us tomorrow?" "Fine" said the woman, "the compadre is a good man. He will come with me----with us" said the woman. The woman was very happy because she is going to go on the hunt with the compadre. 

They arrived at a place called Dark Pond, below the valley of an old man named Leodegario García. Right there there is a pond called Seed Creek. There the creek and the big river meet and there is the old lady. They caught lots of shrimp. Lots of shrimp they caught. "Lunchtime has arrived" the hunter later said to the woman. "Go and bathe with your comadre" said the hunter, said the hunter to his compadre. "Take off your clothes, bathe, I'm going to start a fire so that we can eat lunch," said the hunter. "We're going to have an enjoyable lunch" said the man who had gone to the supernatural realm. He knew what would happen, the thing that would happen in a moment. "Fine" said the woman and her compadre. Later they were bathing. There was a deep part in the river where the water was running and they were splashing around. They were really splashing. They were in the water and at the same time they said "two colored water-pourers are coming. They look nice." They had never seen a water-pourer that looked like this. The water-pourers came down to the water. And what did the hunter do but say to his wife and his compadre
 "grab the water-pourer. It looks very pretty for us to take home" the hunter told his wife. "Fine" said the woman. Then the woman grabbed that water-pourer. Those things seemed like water-pourers but as they drew near they appeared as two big snakes coming down. That water-pourer engulfed the two people. Just like that they went into the pond. A little while later, red foam came out on top of the water. The woman finally went to the bottom of the pond. 

Now the woman and her compadre did not come back, and since the man now knew what the woman had done he didn't feel sad. Then he gathered his things and he went to town. Later when he arrived he said to his kin, "would you believe my wife was lost and my compadre was lost?" He said to his comadre, "they went into that pond. The last I saw was the bloody foam coming out. Then I didn't see them anymore.

Here ended this story---this was the story of the hunter and his compadre.


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