Watch Out for Clever Women! / Cuidado con las mujeres astutas! - Softcover

Like all the stories I tell, these tales are a combination of traditional lore and my own imagination. The traditional part is based on things people tell me and on what I learn from reading the work of folklorists and anthropologists. Most of this material was collected fifty or more years ago, before radio, television and movies began to replace the old stories. My own contribution is based on my instincts as a storyteller and what my experience tells me listeners need in order to feel satisfied with a story. The stories reflect something of my values and sense of humor, as well as the values and humor of Hispanic culture, but not too many conclusions about either one can be drawn from this small selection.

Hispanic tales in the Southwest are almost all of European origin, coming first from Spain to Mexico hundreds of years ago, and then north as Spanish colonists settled in what we now call Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California. Readers who are familiar with world folklore will recognize all the tales in this collection. For example, some may know an Ethiopian variant of "That Will Teach You" from Harold Courlander's Fire On the Mountain. Many will relate "The Day It Snowed Tortillas," which has been something of a signature story for me for over a decade, to a well-known Russian folktale. In both of these other versions, however, the resourceful character is a man rather than a woman. That a woman is the clever one in the Hispanic variants reveals something about the attitude toward women and a great deal about the sense of humor. People the world over tell stories of a humble individual tricking an overbearing person of higher status, but the idea is especially cherished in Hispanic story lore. Making the trickster a woman, who would traditionally be thought of as less powerful than a man, adds spice to the trick.

My hope is that readers will find these stories spicy enough that they'll begin to tell them themselves. And if they do, I invite them to add something from their own imaginations to make the stories even richer.