Native American folklore
The Zuni tribe, inhabiting a region of west-central New Mexico before European contact, preserved their religion, history, and cultural practices in a lively and textured tradition of verse narrative. Like other traditions of oral literature, Zuni stories are anonymous in origin and were meant to be performed. They were remembered and retold in Shi-wi’ma, the Zuni language. Storytellers frequently acted out the dialogue and other conversations within the story, requiring inventive techniques to represent a range of voices. Changes in volume, pitch, and rhythm were used to give emphasis. The tale-teller might use pauses or silence to punctuate a line; at other times he or she might chant or burst into song.
Zuni tales, because of their twining nature, were associated with snakes. Telling a tale out in the open might attract the “smile of a snake” (snakebite). Therefore, tales were reserved for the cold winter months, after the meeting of the medicine society sent all the snakes, especially the rattlesnakes, into their homes under the ground. Since no one wanted to speed along the brief bit of light available during the winter day, tale-telling took place after dark, to help fill the long evenings. Someone in the audience would address the storyteller with “telaapi,” meaning “take out a tale.” The storyteller would respond with “so’nahchi!,” something to the effect of, “so it begins.” Listener responses encouraged the tale-teller to continue, indicating that they were paying close attention, and no one was allowed to fall asleep until the story was over. The storyteller typically ended by reminding listeners that the events in the story happened long ago, in a mythical sort of time where things had different meanings than they do in the present world. This suspension of time allowed animals to talk, spirits to circulate, and magical events to take place side by side with daily living without evoking any sort of suspicion or surprise. In the absence of a written means of communication, the recitation of story and verse carried tribal memories, histories, and instructions on how to behave in the world.
Many of the Zuni narratives are origin tales, explaining the beginnings of religious practices or of a natural state. The story of “Coyote and Junco,” for example, explains why coyotes have bad teeth, while the story of “The Girl and the Little Ahayu-uta” explains why the Ahayuuta twins and their grandmother are worshipped at three separate shrines. The stories contain the Zuni’s mythology, such as a description of the creation of the world by the All-Father, Awonawilona, as well as distant memories of tribal founders and migrations in search of favorable places to live. The narratives also portray values and practices in which the Zuni believed. For instance, the story of the boy hunter who never sacrificed the deer he killed carries a moral point, while the story of the boy who was raised by deer shows humans living in harmony with other creatures of the world.
The narratives also describe important religious practices and beliefs, such as the tale “The Sun Priest and the Witch-Woman.” This narrative, which builds dramatic tension around the plans of the witches to kill the sun priest, makes clear the importance of the sun priest as the highest- ranking of all Zuni priests and the one responsible for greeting the Sun Father every morning with offerings and prayers. It records the practices of the medicine societies, such as the Saniyakya Society; or the Coyote Society, whose members cared for hunters and, at festivals such as Good Night, the winter solstice, held ceremonies wherein they cured, for free, anyone who came to them with an illness or complaint. It also emphasizes the importance of family or clanship and the beliefs that would guide one down the Pollen Way, the path of life.
Like any folktales, the stories recorded in Zuni narrative poetry have a deeper symbolic meaning, and the interactions of the characters convey valuable cultural information about Zuni beliefs, practices, and ways of life.
English Versions of Zuni Narrative Poetry
Cushing, Frank Hamilton. The Mythic World of the Zuni. Edited by Barton Wright. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988.
Finding the Center: The Art of the Zuni Storyteller. Translated by Dennis Tedlock. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.
The Zunis: Self-Portrayals by the Zuni People. Translated by Alvina Quam. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1972.
Works about Zuni Narrative Poetry
Murray, David. Forked Tongues: Speech, Writing, and Representation in North American Indian Texts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.
Tedlock, Barbara. The Beautiful and the Dangerous: Encounters with the Zuni Indians. New York: Viking, 1980.
Tedlock, Dennis. The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.
