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Lives and Spirits of The Great Río Grande/Río Bravo

Toni Barela

 One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers,
but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings.
The curriculum is so much a necessary raw material, but warmth is the
vital element for the growing plant and for the soul.
Carl Gustav

Academic Setting

Almost every culture has connections to the natural forces of our powerful planet. Fire is one catalyst of the earth and of her people. There are many stories of how fire came to be and how this one catalyst improved human existence. Water is another force that has effected the existence of man. In the Southwest there exists such a powerful force. The Río Grande/Río Bravo is such a vital entity, which I will never view again as just a river. This powerful magnificence is a spirit of life with many tales to share. It is a river that has given to humankind - the indigenous people, the Spaniards, the Mestizo, and the Anglo American.

I am a teacher at Washington Middle School. Even though this is a school which has ninety-seven percent Hispanic students, these Hispanos come from quite diverse backgrounds. Many students come from families who have lived in the community for several generations. From these families, there are students who profess an allegiance to the neighborhood or "barrio" where they live. Each neighborhood becomes an area to which some students "claim" a gang affiliation. There are also those families that came from Mexico for a better life. Of this group, some are Mexican Nationals and others are first, second and even third generation residents. There is also a minority of Anglo, African American, and Native American students. All students struggle to "fit in" and to achieve their aspirations of success in a non threatening environment. I benefit from being a bilingual-bicultural educator. I can assist these students through the presentation of topics and themes that lessen the disparities between them.

Next year I will be teaching in a "dual-language team." I will present all my curriculum in Spanish. In a dual-language program students are taught half of their core subjects in Spanish for half the day, and the other core subjects are taught in English for the remainder of the day. The in-coming group of sixth graders for the 2001-2002 academic year have been in such a program since they began kindergarten. These students have literacy skills in both Spanish and English. The students have been tested in both languages through their schooling. The challenge for instructors is to find materials in Spanish.

I will create a learning experience that will enhance the personal history of my students, while sharing my research and inviting each of the students to discover their own river stories. The river has given us life and stories of our families and of our cultural heritage. I have taught at Washington Middle School for fifteen years and during these years I have heard children’s stories of fishing, camping, and swimming in the Río Grande, stories of exploration which connect them to this great river that goes through the middle of our town, Albuquerque, and is a boundary for two countries. It has become a real part of their lives

Many of students I teach and their families in continual transition from Albuquerque to Juarez and Chihuahua and other parts of Mexico and back. My own family lived in San Marcial and moved before the flooding of the Río Grande. I am hoping that we can share our experiences and writings.

Historical Background

Rivers

Rivers have always invited inhabitants to their shores. Not only have they provided water, without which nothing can survive, but the riparian environment also provides a rich soil for cultivation. Today many rivers are seen as providers of recreation, but the first people chose river flood plains for the rich soil, for the unlimited water supply which provided water for drinking and irrigation for farming, for food, for the power source of energy that came from the river, and for transportation. Rivers have always been a symbol of life. A wonderful example of this is the Ganges River in India. It is a sacred river, Hindu people pray to it, bathe in it and believe that the water purifies and insures a better afterlife. There is an Indian painting that shows the sacred Ganges as it flows to Earth through the hair of the Hindu god, Shiva. The Chinese river Yantze is known to the Chinese as just River, or Jiang. It has provided all the resources to the Chinese people that the Río Grande and other rivers of the world have given to so many.

The flood plain of a river is the part of the river valley covered by rich soil created when a river floods. This fluvial area makes excellent farmland. Today these areas are where large towns and cities are developed. Many cultures of the world use rivers as roads for traveling, trading, and shopping. Rivers have also been used to irrigate as far back as the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamia civilizations. Today, many rivers are used as an energy source. Reservoirs with huge generators provide electricity at low cost. Hoover Dam provides electricity to many surrounding states. Lake Mead is a reservoir for water from the Colorado River. Earlier civilizations used water wheels to build mills to grind grain into flour. Water from rivers has always been diverted to keep farmlands irrigated and productive. The Río Grande has a similar history and has also provided for its inhabitants’ needs.

The Indian People

There is a rich history of the Southwest and the Río Grande that begins with the arrival of the Pueblos some eleven thousand years ago. According to Ramon Gutierrez, author of When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away, this was a region of savannas were dotted with shallow lakes. Then in 9500 B.C. a major climate change decreased the level of moisture, drying up many of the lakes and transforming the savannas into the treeless short grass plains that now dominate the area. When the existence of many animals declined, humans adapted by altering their methods of subsistence from hunting large animals to that of hunting small game. They also became more reliant on plants and smaller animals.

This was the beginning of hunters and gatherers of the Southwest, a new civilization of people that developed throughout the region and is identified as the Desert Archaic Culture. Many of these people traveled southeast across the Continental Divide and established villages on the banks of the upper Río

Grande. Gutierrez writes that the group known as the Anasazi abandoned their cliff dwellings because their rain deity and their fertility deity, "mysteriously left one night." The people, feeling helpless without their assistance, gathered their possessions and followed the snake’s trail until it reached a river, the Po'soge. When the Spaniards came, their exploration and colonization was focused near the eastern pueblos because they had a year round supply of water and fish, more precipitation, abundant grain surpluses, many types of scrub brush and grasses for livestock grazing, various species of small and large mammals for meat, and pueblo walls that could be easily invaded. The Spaniards knew that these Indians could offer survival techniques and knowledge.

In Horgan’s, The Heroic Triad, he says many people regard the "Great River with pure unashamed envy. A river graced as a symbol of refuge in the sun baked waterless Southwest." (Horgan, 12) Today the Río Grande/Río Bravo is one of the most endangered rivers of the world. It is a river that divides the state of New Mexico in half and is the frontera (border) between two countries. These names for the river denote big, great, wild and brave, and means and "Big River" in Spanish. One discovers that river stories began with the Indians, then with the Spanish, and finally with the Anglo American people. In his historical account, Horgan attempts to re-create three civilizations, three spirits which became the ancestors of the river basin known as the Río Grande/Río Bravo. He gives a written account of the river from its beginning in the San Luis Valley, through New Mexico to El Paso (where it is as a frontier between Mexico and the United States), to the Gulf of Mexico. Horgan relates the early history as an epic which includes (in great relevance), the social and cultural backgrounds of each group. Through his book, we are able to form mental pictures of the past using the evidence of these cultures today. The existing environment is a direct result of how these people settled and lived along the Río Grande.

In Horgan’s prologue we are given the information from a "Río Grande Notebook" describing the cities and the river at its source in the mountains in the Colorado Rockies, and through valleys and diverse riparian areas of New Mexico, Texas and Mexico. It is a river that finally enters the Gulf of Mexico and the sea after beginning almost three miles high and traveling eighteen hundred miles from start to end. It is a river that creates a watershed which extends from the upper Río Grande to Chihuahua, Mexico. At its beginning in the high mountains there are no towns and only a few cabins where summers are short. The first towns on the Colorado Río Grande are Monte Vista, Del Norte, and Alamosa. Twenty miles southeast of Alamosa one sees the first sign of the Spanish adobe culture in the small village of Los Sauces with its cottonwoods (Alamo is the Spanish word for cottonwood tree) on a gentle slope above the river.

In many places along the river, one can recognize the evidence of various cultural periods of diverse human inhabitants. It is as though the river cut through the sections of history as it does through the geology of the earth. Horgan describes each section of the river and its settlements with an heroic and impressive quality.

The Pueblos had their own connection to the river. Their sole desire was to became the protector of the landscape that surrounded them. All that existed was included in their scared beliefs. According to Horgan their environment directly called forth the spirit and the creation of the people. The natural forms that rose from the landscape created by surface water action, the wind, and volcanic eruptions, created an intimacy in these customs of Pueblo life. There was a reverence for all aspects of life. The weather affected the growth of their vegetation and their dependence on waterways. The river dictated their farming methods. The irrigation ditch led from the river to the fields below the pueblo. They built their homes on terraces using gravity as a means of irrigation. The irrigation channels were also tiny rivers, smaller forms of the larger river. The Pueblo Indian prayed to be included as part of this landscape. They did not want to be a dominant component, but a living spirit with the landscape. Everything they did was in working towards harmony. Even their works of art captured the animal, the vegetable and the spiritual world.

Religion and worship were in every relationship between the people and their surroundings. Mountains were holy places. They were temples that held up the skies. They had four mountains from each cardinal point. In the North, there was Truchas Peak. The eastern cardinal point was Lake Peak of the Santa Fe range. The south was the Sandia range which was called Okapi or Turtle Mountain. (today, if one looks from Coronado Monument, they can easily see the natural shape of a turtle). And finally to the west was Santa Clara Peak of the Jemez Range. This was the mountain that was covered with obsidian that the Pueblos used in their artifacts. These four mountain peaks rose above the Río Grande into whose valley they all eventually shed their water.

The lakes and springs were sacred, too. They were doorways to the world below. These were fed by the rivers. Gods and heroes were born out of these waters. They could travel above and between worlds. Every pueblo had a sacred spring. All life depended on water. The supernatural qualities of these springs and water passages showed the people that even though all would be dry, the springs would bring forth water from the aquifer below the ground.

The river provided many miles of cottonwood forests. Te forest’s wood provided many uses. The trees provided shade, energy for fuel, and a sense that nearby was a water source. The trunks could be made into drums. They were used for building. The Pueblos chose sites of great natural beauty and harmony.

Historically, this harmony or enmeshment with nature would cost the pueblo people their independence. There was to come another order of man that would enlighten and shock in the next period in time of Río Grande’s tale. Go to top of page.

The Spaniards

The Spaniards possessed from their god and their king. Their bodies were commanded by their king, and God commanded their souls. There was a great influence and battle between the Moors and the Spaniards. The Moors ruled the Spaniards for eight centuries. From the Moslems came art, numbers, ancient astronomy, and the art of living in deserts. Water for pleasure, in fountains running courses and tiled cascades, was a source of beauty and inspiration. They learned to use water , their most rare element, for useless pleasure in an arid land.

The Spaniards had a strong belief system. They believed in one god. They were great sailors. But it was Christopher Columbus, an Italian sailor, who went to ask for the financial help of the Spanish Catholic Monarchs, Isabel and Fernando. Columbus was the first explorer to reach the Americas and claim them for Spain. Spain became a great sea power for a short time in history.

Many explorers came to New Spain. Courts wrote letters to King Charles. The New World became a place of importance, but even more important was that the indigenous people become Christians. The question was to Charles, Holy Caesarian Catholic Majesty as he was known; "Could the Indian understand Christianity as a man or was he to be a slave?" (Horgan 90 ). If they would be free-men, they would become Christians and be protected when converted. Prince Philip was an advisor to his father, and so were other religious leaders. The thought was that if the Indians were free men, they should be treated as free and be given Christianity with Christian gentleness.

Eventually, there were many explorers to this part of the New World called New Mexico. Even though it took up to eight months or more for correspondence to reach its destination, Capitan-General de Vargas wrote to the King of Spain, from Mexico, asking for the order to enter into New Mexico and colonize the Río del Norte. Captain Prez de Villagr wrote the history of Oñate’s first year on the Río del Norte in New Mexico. He wrote it in heroic verse. The first settlers, even though they were poor and hungry because their pay was meager and always in arrears, conquered in style. Artifacts such as the famous Toledo swords, made by master iron workers from Spain, were found with the engraved words, "Por mi Rey" (for my king) on one side of the blade, and on the other side was "Por mi Ley" (for my law) thus swearing protection to king and law (101).

By 1598, the newest colony of the Spanish Empire was settling on the Río del Norte in northern New Mexico, while in Spain the king was ill. To the last of the kings of the Golden Age, Philip II ordered a church to be built at Juan de los Caballeros in the valley of the Río del Norte in Northern New Mexico.

The early Franciscan monks of the Río Grande saw the upper valley as a map of the cross: the river being one part of the cross while the Indian settlements were the arms reaching east and west. It was an image that reflected their dedication and motives. Horgan writes that fifty churches were built in New Mexico by twenty-six friars in the first twenty-five years of the seventeenth century. The river churches had followed two architectural or physical designs. One was in the shape of a long, narrow, straight box and the other was in the shape a cross. (I mention this because one of my lesson will to be study the architecture of these churches.) The friars seemed to act as fools, being alone at times and unprotected in a wilderness. They’re main purpose was to preach the love of Christ to the Indians. These men of God were quite versatile in their labors and in their teachings. They were able to learn the languages of the natives and teach them to speak in Latin and Spanish.

The Friars planted seeds and plodded the soil. One of their first crops was grapes for the sacramental white and red wines of the mass. Many other new crops were grown which were irrigated using the river water. Some of their irrigation techniques were improved methods that the friars brought from the Mediterranean culture, brought to Spain by the Moors. They taught the Indians how to herd and how to breed animals to improve the stock. By 1610, Santa Fe was the new political capital of the colony. The treasure hunters had come and gone and New Mexico was reported to be a poor country. It was a place that was difficult to reach because of the harsh winters and summers. Many times the river would be frozen in the winter, and the summers were so fierce that even in the shade the tallow and salt pork melted.

New dimensions of human life reached out from the river. The Indians had paintings of the things they had once worshipped. They explained to the friars that the sun and moon were their benefactors and this was all they knew. Each of these warned them and showed them light. But when they learned about the god of friars, they added a cross which they painted above the sun and the moon to show that they now worshiped the god of the friars who was the creator of all things.

In 1610, the Indians came together and revolted, driving the spaniards of the colony down river to the North Pass. In 1692, Captain General de Vargas reconquered Indians and rebuilt Spanish towns during the reconquest. The great river country had now become a place that was barren and lacked gold. It was a land populated by people who could not be united. Spain had lost interest in the far and uncivilized Río Grande possession. This became an area of the world that seemed to be forgotten in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yet the Spaniard’s Mexican sons and their grandsons made a life along the great river of the Southwest. Along the riversides were groves of cottonwoods. Many of the farms became the Spanish Land Grants that were given to these families who stayed near the river of the north. Some supplies came from Mexico and Spain, but those trips to the Río del Norte were few and far between. The faith of the friars still existed. Many cultural traditions were an important part of this river kingdom. Family, faith, and work were a significant part of life on the Great Río. So New Mexico and the Río Grande waited for the next group to discover that here, between the Eastern and the Western sections of a new land were, the Mexican sons of the Spaniards who struggled to survive in this Río Grande basin. Go to top of page.

The Sons of Democracy

There was a reason for the mountain man to come to the Río Grande. The beaver was a permanent resident and beaver fur was in fashion in European cities and in the Eastern United States. The fur trade moved west to the Rockies. Their first contact with Mexico was in Taos. In 1805, James Purcell, a Kentuckian, was detained by the Spanish governor. Purcell was not a resident of New Mexico and it was illegal under Spanish law for non-residents to hunt beaver. There were many others arrested who were taken down the Río Grande to El Paso and to the prisons in Chihuahua by 1812. Some of these men who broke the law, or who were not in the favor of the Spaniards of Taos and Santa Fe, were imprisoned in Santa Fe. Many stayed imprisoned for months and some for years. This was to protect the trapping industry of the Mexicans. A person had to be a resident to purchase a license to hunt beaver. Many New Mexicans were corrupt and purchased a license from the North Americans. Each was risking arrest for breaking or manipulating the law for profit. This was a way of life that helped their survival, even though they could go to jail if caught.

The trappers came in spite of all the dangers waiting for them. The Indians knew that they were slowly losing there hunting grounds and land. They fought savagely to protect their land. Another foe was the giant grizzly bear who towered over man. His grip meant undeniable death. Because the trappers hunted with their rifles, the bears did not have a chance. These bears almost became extinct. Ranchos de Taos, near the Río Grande, was the northern town nearest the beaver waters on the Río del Norte. The trappers saw a way of life that seemed quite primitive. The farmers used oxen to pull the y-shaped plow. Their tools were old-fashioned. The residents showed no interest in wanting any changes to come into their simple lives. The mountain men did not see any sawmills or mechanical tools that might make life easier. Taos was governed by Mexico and when the trappers went on their trips into the mountains, sometimes a TaoseÔ o would join the fifty to one hundred men in the trapper’s party. There were many groups in competition for the beaver furs. And of course, there were all the other dangers to encounter. A profitable season for a trapper was four hundred pounds of beaver skins. They could make up to two thousand dollars. After the hunt, when they returned to Taos, they sometimes encountered the Mexican authorities. This meant that they might end up in jail or that his catch would be confiscated. Sometimes the Mexicans would help the trappers for a profit, risking their own lives. There were officials who could be bribed. Either outcome was dangerous for the mountain men. The beaver trade started to slow down by the 1830s. The trapper had to find a new way to make a living. The trapper was quite a contrast from the Mexican.

There were those who tried to find an easier route to Santa Fe so that trade with Mexico could be made easier. Nothing materialized with the new routes, and the established route was from Chihuahua by way of the prairies to Santa Fe. Goods came through Vera Cruz to Mexico City, then to El Paso (present day Juarez according to Horgan) and finally to Santa Fe. By the time the goods arrived in Santa Fe, the cost was extremely high. In 1821, with Mexican independence, the restrictions for trading were not as strict, and a group of Mexican citizens went to the Mississippi valley to invite trade from the east. This became another reason to come to New Mexico. The route of eight hundred miles from Independence to Santa Fe became a reality.

There was an annual wagon train to Santa Fe and this opened the gates, increasing the power of the Anglo-American visitors. Mexico kept the other trade route open from the south, but the merchants from the east come to Taos and Santa Fe paying their customs and taxes on the merchandise. The southern route brought the Mexican postal rider who carried the mail from Chihuahua. He could make two trips a month if he kept on schedule. There was one small river town after another few miles on this route. None of the river towns below Santa Fe had an inn or public house. It was important for the travelers and wagon trains to stay near the river and to return to the river’s edge in order to survive the long journeys. Many times the river would be high and this made their journey more difficult. They would have to unload the wagons and use a canoe to carry the wagon in sections, its cargo also unloaded and divided to make it easier to cross to the opposite side. Sometimes quicksand was on the other side of the crossing. The mules had to be pulled out by hand and rope. Wheels and cargo also had to be taken out of the river and quicksand. Along the way they would meet up with the inspectors. In the beginning, Mexico’s trade did a small business of about fifteen thousand dollars, but twenty years later the annual value of cargoes was about a million dollars. The trade route from Independence to Santa Fe to El Paso to Mexico City was now a success despite all the hardships and dangerous.

There were many adventures on the Great River. There are many other stories to tell. The three main cultural groups each contributed to the history of the true beginning of United States. Many children, adults, and students never hear this history and it is one that is hardly touched in the history books, unless one does extensive research on their own. Students will realize, through being actively involved in a curriculum where they are conducting interviews and researching, their own family’s contributions to history. Their self-esteem will be enhanced through their involvement. I would like to have my students share their own river stories of the Río Grande/Río Bravo. My goal is to put together an anthology of their own writings in Spanish.

Lessons

Because I will be presenting these lessons in Spanish, I will be translating my unit into Spanish. I am compelled to present vocabulary in both English and Spanish. Go to top of page.

Unit I - Creation Stories: Many different groups throughout history have had their own explanations of how they came to be. Each group explained nature in their own ways before there were scientific explanations of such phenomenon as rain or lightning. Early people explained these natural occurrences so that they would understand their environment and their existence. One of the standards for sixth grade students is to study and learn about ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and other civilizations from the Eastern Hemisphere. Students will learn about religions of the world in their social studies classes and in my Spanish class. This unit will be taught as an interdisciplinary unit with the social studies teacher.

Lesson 1. Share creation stories with students.

"The Flood Myth" - origin story of certain rivers or seas
"The Seeds of Humanity" - origin story of present day man "The Tree and the Flood" - origin of floods
"The Hidden Corn" - the discovery of corn
"The Corn Woman’s Marriage" - the hero meets a bird that directs him to Corn Woman
"The Grasshopper and the Corn"- accounts for the origin of grasshoppers and a moral warning for greed
"Sun Myths" - various origin myths about the sun Chapter 4 - pages 100-115
"Thunder’s Apprentice" - the story of the thunder god"The Visit to the Animal Master" - the lesson that game animals must be killed and not wounded

Lesson 2. Students will write their own "creation myth" after hearing myths mentioned in Lesson #1

Unit II - "Llorona Stories" (aka "The Weeping Woman): There are many stories that have a theme that keep children from going near the river or ditches. There are several versions and students never get tired of hearing these stories. La Llorona was a woman who killed her children in a moment of insanity by throwing them into the river. After she realized what she had done, she went after them and drowned, too. Many parents tell their children that if they are at the river there is danger because the woman, La Llorona, still looks for her children. She is so distraught that she will take any children to replace her own.

Lesson 1. Students will hear La Llorona stories
Lesson 2. Students will write their favorite La Llorona stories and make a book with their own illustrations
Lesson 3. Students will conduct a web search

An interesting Web page for La Llorona: http://www.lallorona.com/html/believers/children/hugo.html

Unit III - River Stories: Students will conduct a web search through the Albuquerque Journal and Tribune Web pages and other newspapers at these Web sites

Read and share with students:
Friends from the Other Side/Amigos del Otro Lado by Gloria Anzaldua

Listen to La Musica de las Viejitos Hispano Folk Music of the Río Grande del Norte

Use this book and river songs as motivators to help students share their own river stories and those of their family members. This will be a start to a written anthology of student’s personal history through interviews and tape recordings. Because the words are in Spanish this will be a great lesson to use with dual-language students in Spanish acquisition Go to top of page.

New Mexico Standards Implemented in Lessons Presented:

Bibliography

Teacher:

Bierhorst, John. The Mythology of Mexico and Central America. USA: William and Company. 1990.

Discussions of the mythology of origin stories of various regions of Mexico and Central America. Bierhorst compares and describes these myths and presents them in this study and anthology. There are many origin myths and an academic explanation of each important section of these stories. One of the myths is the "Weeping Woman" aka. "La Llorona" which he explains to his readers.

Crawford, Stanley. Mayordomo, Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico. University of New Mexico Press. 1998.

New Mexico’s management of water and irrigation. He includes maintenance and repairs and water distribution methods and laws.Gutiérrez,

Gutiérrez, Ramón A. When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away. California: Stanford University Press, 1991.

An informative, comprehensive background regarding the encounter between the Spaniards and the indigenous people in New Mexico.

Horgan, Paul. The Heroic Triad, Essays in the Social Energies on Three Southwestern Cultures . University of New Mexico               Press. 1994.

Written as an epic, this history of the Río Grande/ Río Bravo gives a wonderful literary diary of those people who came to settle in the this grand river.

MacGregor, Cynthia. Cómo desarrollar la creatividad en los Niños.(Raising a Creative Child) Traduccion: Francisco Flores.              Selector, S.A. de C.V. 1996.

A great book in Spanish which incorporates a teaching discipline for professionals and a ways to involve parents in their children’s learning. This book can be used to involve families in the telling of their own histories for classroom publications.

Nichols, John. The Milagro Beanfield War. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1994.

Nichols writes a believable novel about the water rights of a farming community and big industry.

Rivera, José A. Acequia Culture, Water, Land, and Community in the Southwest. The University of New Mexico, 1998.

Rivera gives a history of the water resources of the Río Grande Basin from the arrival of the Spaniards and their economic aspects of water use and how the watershed was managed economically, socially, and environmentally.

Student:

Anzaldua, Gloria. Friends from the Other Side. (Amigos del otro Lado). Children’s Book Press. 1993.

A story that captures the difficulties children from Mexico face in their daily struggles with the Border Patrol, and new immigrant battles. This book is written in Spanish and English.

Courlader, Harold. People of the Short Blue Corn: Tales and Legends of the Hopi Indians. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1970.

A written oral history of stories with varieties of themes such as why good and evil came to be, how the Hopis chose a life of work and hardship,why some villages are now in ruins, how the clans got their names. Some are funny stories of foolishness, both animal and human; some are moving stories of courage and endurance; Each relates some aspect of Hopi life and how they meet life.

dePaola, Tomie. Alice Nizzy Nazzy, the Witch of Santa Fe. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995.

A fun tale of a witch from Santa Fe, New Mexico, that goes after children if they misbehave.

Gomez Antolog’a de la Fá bula. Col. Los Angeles: Femenina, Iztapalapap, D.F. Mexico.

            An anthology of 92 fables written in Spanish.

Fernandez de Lizardi, José J. Fábulas Mexicanas. Mexico: Edivisión Compañía Editorial. 1985.

Fernandez nacío en 1776 y murío en 1827 y es uno de los novelistas hispanoamericano que se considera como el primer que cultivó obras picarescas, y obras por teatro y la poesía. Fernandez is consider the writer of Mexican fables, plays and poetry. This book is an anthology of fables written in Spanish.

Gabán, Jesus. El libro de los Cuentos y Leyendas de América Latina y España. Spain: Gráficas Domingo, S.A., 2000.

An anthology of stories and legends written in Spanish. A great resource for the Spanish language classroom.

Gerson, Mary-Jane. People of Corn, a Mayan Story. Boston:Little, Brown and Company, 1995.

A Mayan legend collected from the Popol Vuh, a sacred book of the Mayan culture, which means "council book." This is a mythic story which reveals a deep reverence for the natural world and for the gift of life.

Hamilton, Virginia. In the Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World San Diego, U.S.A. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich                  Publishers, 1988.

Creation stories from various cultural groups from around the world.

Han, Jay. Why Snails Have Shells. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993.

Twenty stories that reflect some of the ethnic diversity of China.

McDermott, Gerald. Arrow to the Sun, a Pueblo Indian tale. Viking Penguin Inc., 1974.

A Caldecott Award Book for the beautiful illustrations that retells the Pueblo Indian myth that explains how the spirit of the Lord of the Sun was brought to world of men.

Oughton, Jerrie. How the Stars Fell in the Sky. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992.

A retold legend of a Navajo folk tale the provides answers to children’s questions of nature.

Recordings

La Música de los Viejitos : Hispano Folk Music of the Río Grande del Norte. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999.

Contains examples of various romances, inditas, corridos, and religious and ceremonial songs. The provides historical and cultural information about the different musical traditions as well as the music and words

Tesoros del Espiritu: a Portrait in Sound of Hispanic New Mexico. photographs by Miguel Gandert. Embudo, N.M.: Academic              Publications,. 1996.

A spiritual, human account of and by the Hispanic people of New Mexico. A book and three CDs which contain music and prose with a wealth of treasured folklore and oral histories told by the people who lived them. Go to top of page.