--- title: The Brown Story-tellers — The man who married the moon, and other Pueblo I… · full text with trees description: The Brown Story-tellers, «The man who married the moon, and other Pueblo Indian folk-stories» by Charles Fletcher Lummis: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: I FANCY that if almost any of us were asked, “When did people begin to make fairy stories?” --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77804/2/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The man who married the moon, and othe…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77804/) / The Brown Story-tellers # The Brown Story-tellers The Brown Story-tellers of «The man who married the moon, and other Pueblo Indian folk-stories» by Charles Fletcher Lummis: the whole text, 102 sentences and 2376 words. The small number after every sentence leads to its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself. I FANCY that if almost any of us were asked, “When did people begin to make fairy stories?” our first thought would be, “Why, of course, after mankind had become civilized, and had invented writing.”[1](1/ "tree and pragmatics") But in truth the making of myths, which is no more than a dignified name for “fairy stories,” dates back to the childhood of the human race.[2](2/ "tree and pragmatics") Long before Cadmus invented letters (and I fear Cadmus himself was as much of a myth as was his dragon’s-teeth harvest), long before there were true historians or poets, there were fairy stories and story-tellers.[3](3/ "tree and pragmatics") And to-day, if we would seek the place where fairy stories most flourish, we must go, not to the nations whose countless educated minds are now devoted to story-telling for the young, but to peoples who have no books, no magazines, no alphabets--even no pictures.[4](4/ "tree and pragmatics") Of all the aboriginal peoples that remain in North America, none is richer in folk-lore than the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, who are, I believe, next to the largest of the native tribes left in the United States.[5](5/ "tree and pragmatics") They number nine thousand souls.[6](6/ "tree and pragmatics") They have nineteen “cities” (called pueblos, also) in this Territory, and seven in Arizona; and each has its little outlying colonies.[7](7/ "tree and pragmatics") They are not cities in size, it is true, for the largest (Zuñi) has only fifteen hundred people, and the smallest only about one hundred; but cities they are, nevertheless.[8](8/ "tree and pragmatics") And each city, with its fields, is a wee republic--twenty-six of the smallest, and perhaps the oldest, republics in the world; for they were already such when the first European eyes saw America.[9](9/ "tree and pragmatics") Each has its governor, its congress, its sheriffs, war-captains, and other officials who are elected annually; its laws, unwritten but unalterable, which are more respected and better enforced than the laws of any American community; its permanent and very comfortable houses, and its broad fields, confirmed first by Spain and later by patents of the United States.[10](10/ "tree and pragmatics") The architecture of the Pueblo houses is quaint and characteristic.[11](11/ "tree and pragmatics") In the remote pueblos they are as many as six stories in height--built somewhat in the shape of an enormous terraced pyramid.[12](12/ "tree and pragmatics") The Pueblos along the Rio Grande, however, have felt the influence of Mexican customs, and their houses have but one and two stories.[13](13/ "tree and pragmatics") All their buildings, including the huge, quaint church which each pueblo has, are made of stone plastered with adobe mud, or of great, sun-dried bricks of adobe.[14](14/ "tree and pragmatics") They are the most comfortable dwellings in the Southwest--cool in summer and warm in winter.[15](15/ "tree and pragmatics") The Pueblos are divided into six tribes, each speaking a distinct language of its own.[16](16/ "tree and pragmatics") Isleta, the quaint village where I lived five years, in an Indian house, with Indian neighbors, and under Indian laws, is the southernmost of the pueblos, the next largest of them all, and the chief city of the Tée-wahn tribe.[17](17/ "tree and pragmatics") \[1\] All the languages of the Pueblo tribes are exceedingly difficult to learn.[18](18/ "tree and pragmatics") \[1\] Spelled Tigua by Spanish authors.[19](19/ "tree and pragmatics") Besides the cities now inhabited, the ruins of about fifteen hundred other pueblos--and some of them the noblest ruins in the country--dot the brown valleys and rocky mesa-tops of New Mexico.[20](20/ "tree and pragmatics") All these ruins are of stone, and are extremely interesting.[21](21/ "tree and pragmatics") The implacable savages by whom they were hemmed in made necessary the abandonment of hundreds of pueblos; and this great number of ruins does not indicate a vast ancient population.[22](22/ "tree and pragmatics") The Pueblos \_never\_ counted above 30,000 souls.[23](23/ "tree and pragmatics") The Pueblo Indians have for nearly two centuries given no trouble to the European sharers of their domain; but their wars of defense against the savage tribes who surrounded them completely--with the Apaches, Navajos, Comanches, and Utes--lasted until a very few years ago.[24](24/ "tree and pragmatics") They are valiant fighters for their homes, but prefer any honorable peace.[25](25/ "tree and pragmatics") They are not indolent, but industrious--tilling their farms, tending their stock, and keeping all their affairs in order.[26](26/ "tree and pragmatics") The women own the houses and their contents, and do not work outside; and the men control the fields and crops.[27](27/ "tree and pragmatics") An unhappy home is almost an unknown thing among them; and the universal affection of parents for children and respect of children for parents are extraordinary.[28](28/ "tree and pragmatics") I have never seen a child unkindly treated, a parent saucily addressed, or a playmate abused, in all my long and intimate acquaintance with the Pueblos.[29](29/ "tree and pragmatics") Isleta lies on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, upon the western bank of the Rio Grande, on a lava promontory which was once an island--whence the town takes its Spanish name.[30](30/ "tree and pragmatics") Its Tée-wahn title is Shee-eh-whíb-bak.[31](31/ "tree and pragmatics") \[2\] Its population, according to the census taken in 1891, is a little less than twelve hundred.[32](32/ "tree and pragmatics") It is nearly surrounded by fertile vineyards, orchards of peaches, apricots, apples, cherries, plums, pears, and quinces, and fields of corn, wheat, beans, and peppers, all owned by my dusky neighbors.[33](33/ "tree and pragmatics") The pueblo owns over one hundred and ten thousand acres of land, the greater part of which is reserved for pasturing horses and cattle.[34](34/ "tree and pragmatics") \[2\] The name means “Knife-laid-on-the-ground-to-play-\_whib\_.”[35](35/ "tree and pragmatics") \_Whib\_ is an aboriginal foot-race in which the runners have to carry a stick with their toes.[36](36/ "tree and pragmatics") The name was perhaps suggested by the knife-like shape of the lava ridge on which the pueblo is built.[37](37/ "tree and pragmatics") The people of Isleta are, as a rule, rather short in stature, but strongly built.[38](38/ "tree and pragmatics") All have a magnificent depth and breadth of chest, and a beautifully confident poise of the head.[39](39/ "tree and pragmatics") Most of the men are very expert hunters, tireless runners, and fine horsemen.[40](40/ "tree and pragmatics") Besides ordinary hunting they have communal hunts--for rabbits in the spring, for antelope and deer in the fall--thoroughly organized, in which great quantities of game are killed.[41](41/ "tree and pragmatics") Their amusements are many and varied.[42](42/ "tree and pragmatics") Aside from the numerous sacred dances of the year, their most important occasions, they have various races which call for great skill and endurance, quaint social enjoyments, and games of many kinds, some of which are quite as difficult as chess.[43](43/ "tree and pragmatics") They are very fair weavers and pottery-makers.[44](44/ "tree and pragmatics") The women are good housewives, and most of them excellent seamstresses.[45](45/ "tree and pragmatics") Yet, with all this progress in civilization, despite their mental and physical acuteness and their excellent moral qualities, the Tée-wahn are in some things but overgrown children.[46](46/ "tree and pragmatics") Their secret inner religion\[3\] is one of the most complicated systems on earth.[47](47/ "tree and pragmatics") Besides the highest deities, all the forces of nature, all animals, as well as many things that are inanimate, are invested by them with supernatural powers.[48](48/ "tree and pragmatics") They do not worship idols, but images and tokens of unseen powers are revered.[49](49/ "tree and pragmatics") They do nothing without some reason, generally a religious one, and whatever they observe they can explain in their own superstitious way.[50](50/ "tree and pragmatics") Every custom they have and every belief they own has a reason which to them is all-sufficient; and for each they have a story.[51](51/ "tree and pragmatics") There is no duty to which a Pueblo child is trained in which he has to be content with the bare command, “Do thus”; for each he learns a fairy tale designed to explain how people first came to know that it was right to do thus, and detailing the sad results which befell those who did otherwise.[52](52/ "tree and pragmatics") \[3\] For they are all devout, if not entirely understanding, members of a Christian church; but keep also much of their prehistoric faiths.[53](53/ "tree and pragmatics") It is from this wonderful folk-lore of the Tée-wahn that I have learned--after long study of the people, their language, customs, and myths--and taken, unchanged and unembellished, this series of Indian fairy tales.[54](54/ "tree and pragmatics") I have been extremely careful to preserve, in my translations, the exact Indian \_spirit\_.[55](55/ "tree and pragmatics") An absolutely literal translation would be almost unintelligible to English readers, but I have taken no liberties with the real meaning.[56](56/ "tree and pragmatics") The use of books is not only to tell, but to preserve; not only for to-day, but for ever.[57](57/ "tree and pragmatics") What an Indian wishes to perpetuate must be saved by tongue and ear, by “telling-down,” as were the world’s first histories and poems.[58](58/ "tree and pragmatics") This oral transmission from father to son is of sacred importance with the natives.[59](59/ "tree and pragmatics") Upon it depends the preservation of the amusements, the history, the beliefs, the customs, and the laws of their nation.[60](60/ "tree and pragmatics") A people less observant, less accurate of speech and of memory, would make a sad failure of this sort of record; but with them it is a wonderful success.[61](61/ "tree and pragmatics") The story goes down from generation to generation, almost without the change of a word.[62](62/ "tree and pragmatics") The fact that it is told in fixed metrical form--a sort of blank verse--helps the memory.[63](63/ "tree and pragmatics") BEGINNING A STORY.”\][64](64/ "tree and pragmatics") Here in Isleta, the quaint pueblo of the Tée-wahn, I became deeply interested not only in the folk-stories themselves, but also in the manner of handing them down.[65](65/ "tree and pragmatics") Winter is the season for story-telling.[66](66/ "tree and pragmatics") Then the thirsty fields no longer cry for water, the irrigating-ditches have ceased to gnaw at their banks, and the men are often at leisure.[67](67/ "tree and pragmatics") Then, of an evening, if I go over to visit some \_vecino\_ (neighbor), I am likely to find, in the great adobe living-room, a group of very old men and very young boys gathered about the queer little corner fireplace with its blazing upright sticks.[68](68/ "tree and pragmatics") They, too, have come a-visiting.[69](69/ "tree and pragmatics") The young men are gathered in another corner by themselves, eating roasted corn, and talking in whispers so as not to disturb their elders, for respect to age is the corner-stone of all Indian training.[70](70/ "tree and pragmatics") They are not required to listen to the stories, being supposed to know them already.[71](71/ "tree and pragmatics") If in the far, sweet days when I stood at my grandmother’s knee, and shivered over “Bluebeard,” or thrilled at “Jack the Giant-killer,” some one could have shown us a picture of me as I was to be listening to other fairy tales twenty-five years later, I am sure that her eyes would have opened wide as mine.[72](72/ "tree and pragmatics") Certainly neither of us ever dreamed that, thousands of miles from the old New England fireplace, when the dear figures that sat with me before its blazing forestick had long been dust, I would be sitting where I am to-night and listening to the strange, dark people who are around me.[73](73/ "tree and pragmatics") The room is long and low, and overhead are dark, round rafters--the trunks of straight pine-trees that used to purr on the sides of the most famous mountain in New Mexico.[74](74/ "tree and pragmatics") The walls are white as snow, and you would never imagine that they are built only of cut sods, plastered over and whitewashed.[75](75/ "tree and pragmatics") The floor is of adobe clay, packed almost as hard as a rock, and upon it are bright-hued blankets, woven in strange figures.[76](76/ "tree and pragmatics") Along the walls are benches, with wool mattresses rolled up and laid upon them.[77](77/ "tree and pragmatics") By and by these will be spread upon the floor for beds, but just now they serve as cushioned seats.[78](78/ "tree and pragmatics") Over in a corner are strange earthen jars of water, with little gourd dippers floating, and here and there upon the wall hang bows and arrows in sheaths of the tawny hide of the mountain lion; queer woven belts of red and green, and heavy necklaces of silver and coral, with charms of turquoise--the stone that stole its color from the sky.[79](79/ "tree and pragmatics") There is a fireplace, too, and we are gathered all about it, a dozen or more--for I have become an old friend here.[80](80/ "tree and pragmatics") But it is not like the fireplace where the little sister and I used to roast our apples and pop our corn.[81](81/ "tree and pragmatics") A wee hearth of clay rises a few inches from the floor; a yard above it hangs the chimney, like a big white hood; and a little wall, four feet high, runs from it out into the room, that the wind from the outer door may not blow the ashes.[82](82/ "tree and pragmatics") There is no big front log, but three or four gnarled cedar sticks, standing on one end, crackle loudly.[83](83/ "tree and pragmatics") Some of us are seated on benches, and upon the floor.[84](84/ "tree and pragmatics") His back against the wall, squats my host, who is just going to begin another fairy story.[85](85/ "tree and pragmatics") Such a wee, withered, wrinkled old man\![86](86/ "tree and pragmatics") It seems as though the hot winds of the Southwest had dried him as they dry the forgotten last year’s apples that shrivel here and there upon lonely boughs.[87](87/ "tree and pragmatics") He must be a century old.[88](88/ "tree and pragmatics") His children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren are all represented here to-night.[89](89/ "tree and pragmatics") Yet his black eyes are like a hawk’s, under their heavy brows, and his voice is musical and deep.[90](90/ "tree and pragmatics") I have never heard a more eloquent story-teller, and I have heard some famous ones.[91](91/ "tree and pragmatics") I can tell you the words, but not the impressive tones, the animation of eye and accent, the eloquent gestures of this venerable Indian as he tells--what?[92](92/ "tree and pragmatics") An Indian telling fairy stories?[93](93/ "tree and pragmatics") Yes, indeed.[94](94/ "tree and pragmatics") He is the very man to tell them.[95](95/ "tree and pragmatics") If this dusky old playground for wrinkles, who never saw the inside of a book, could write out all the fairy stories he knows, Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary would hardly hold them.[96](96/ "tree and pragmatics") His father and his father’s father, and so on back for countless centuries, have handed down these stories by telling, from generation to generation, just as Tata\[4\] Lorenso is telling his great-great-grandsons to-night.[97](97/ "tree and pragmatics") When these boys grow up, they will tell these stories to their sons and grandsons; and so the legends will pass on and on, so long as there shall be a Tée-wahn Indian left in all New Mexico.[98](98/ "tree and pragmatics") \[4\] “Father.”[99](99/ "tree and pragmatics") But Lorenso is ready with his story.[100](100/ "tree and pragmatics") He pauses only to make a cigarette from the material in my pouch (they call me \_Por todos\_, because I have tobacco “for all”), explains for my benefit that this is a story of the beginning of Isleta, pats the head of the chubby boy at his knee, and begins again.[101](101/ "tree and pragmatics") I[102](102/ "tree and pragmatics") - ← previous: [Opening](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77804/1/) - next →: [The Antelope Boy](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77804/3/) - ↑ back to [The man who married the moon, and other Pueblo Indian folk-stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg77804/)