Problems of Mexican Indian Folklore

Abstract

Discussion of Mexican Indian folklore is necessarily concerned primarily with problems. This is particularly true of folktales, which will be the only aspect considered in this article. This limitation is necessitated both by the paucity of properly collected materials available and by the conditions which in part are responsible for the small quantity of collected tales. The most important of these conditions are the small number of tribes visited and studied adequately, the scarcity of tales among some of the groups which have been studied, and the high percentage of tales of European origin in those collections so far published. These conditions will be discussed first. Very few Mexican Indian tribes have yet received detailed attention either from the folklorist or the ethnologist. Yucatan is the best known region, but this belongs rather with Central America than with Mexico. In Mexico proper only scattered tales are in print except for the region around Mexico City and for the state of Oaxaca. It is true there are extensive collections of tales from various parts of Mexico, but many of these were not collected in satisfactory fashion and to a considerable degree the tales are from mestizo communities rather than Indian communities. The provenience of many collections is not clear and as a consequence the tales are of little value. Ralph Boggs' bibliography of Mexican folklore contains less than a score of entries referring to modern tales which may be ascribed definitely to specific Indian groups.' Few Mexican Indian groups have been visited by a competent collector. Many collectors have been unaware of the importance of segregating collected materials on the basis of whether Indians, whites, or mestizos were the tellers. The truly Indian groups are often isolated and difficult to work with. Finally, systematic work, which had its inception under Boas and Gamio, was interrupted by the revolutionary period and only in relatively recent times has it been resumed.