Mayan Folktales Folklore From Lake Atitlan Guatemala

This collection of folklore offers a rich and lively panorama of Mayan mythic heritage. Here are everyday tales of village life; legends of witches, shamans, spiritualists, tricksters, and devils; fables of naguales, or persons who can change into animal forms; ribald stories of love and life; cautionary tales of strange and menacing neighbors and of the danger lurking within the human heart. These legends narrate origin and creation stories, explain the natural world, and reinforce cultural beliefs and values such as honesty, industriousness, sharing, fairness, and cleverness. Whether tragic or comic, fantastic or earthy, whimsical or profound, these tales capture the mystery, fragility, and power of the Mayan world.

In the delightful Mayan folktale The Dog Who Spoke, we learn what happens when a dog’s master magically transforms into a dog-man who reasons like a man but acts like a dog. This and the other Mayan folktales in this bilingual collection brim with the enchanting creativity of rural Guatemala’s oral culture. In addition to stories about ghosts and humans turning into animals, the volume also offers humorous yarns. Hailing from the Lake Atitlán region in the Guatemalan highlands, these tales reflect the dynamics of, and conflicts between, Guatemala’s Indian, Ladino, and white cultures. The animals, humans, and supernatural forces that figure in these stories represent Mayan cultural values, social mores, and history. James D. Sexton and Fredy Rodríguez-Mejía allow the thirty-three stories to speak for themselves—first in the original Spanish and then in English translations that maintain the meaning and rural inflection of the originals. Available in print for the first time, with a glossary of Indian and Spanish terms, these Guatemalan folktales represent generations of transmitted oral culture that is fast disappearing and deserves a wider audience.

His vivid and plain-spoken account of life among the Maya during the war between guerrillas and the army in the 1980s and 1990s offers detailed descriptions of the atrocities committed by both sides and brings the reader into a Mayan world richly textured with indigenous beliefs and practices.

Written by leading international scholars and activists, this guidebook provides ideas and strategies to support language revitalization.

In many places around the world, flutes and the sounds of flutes are powerful magical forces for seduction and love, protection, vegetal and human fertility, birth and death, and other aspects of human and nonhuman behavior. This book explores the cultural significance of flutes, flute playing, and flute players from around the world as interpreted from folktales, myths, and other stories--in a word, ""flutelore."" A scholarly yet readable study, World Flutelore: Folktales, Myths, and Other Stories of Magical Flute Power draws upon a range of sources in folklore, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and literary analysis. Describing and interpreting many examples of flutes as they are found in mythology, poetry, lyrics, and other narrative and literary sources from around the world, veteran ethnomusicologist Dale Olsen seeks to determine what is singularly distinct or unique about flutes, flute playing, and flute players in a global context. He shows how and why flutes are important for personal, communal, religious, spiritual, and secular expression and even, perhaps, existence. This is a book for students, scholars, and any reader interested in the cultural power of flutes.

Discover the traditional stories of the Mayan people of Mexico and Central and South America, and learn about Mayan culture. In this collection you'll find such tales as Uncle Rabbit, Uncle Coyote, How the Serpent was Born, The Moon, The Screamer of the Night, and more than 25 other tales ranging from trickster tales and tales of ghosts and witches to moral tales and tales of the underworld, presented in Spanish and English. A brief history, color photographs of the land, people, and traditional arts, and recipes accompany the tales, placing them within a cultural context. Grades K-12.