Singers and Storytellers Page: 9
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STORYTELLERS I HAVE KNOWN
fanos (The Orphans) on account of two sharply defined hills,
the Del Carmen range looming over them. The shack at
Los Hu6rfanos was deserted. Three or four horses with scarred
backs were near the troughs. My mule was absolutely played
out. I drove the horses into the pen, roped the freshest looking,
saddled him, and led my mule on for the Piedra Blanca. I knew
I was in the Piedra Blanca range. After mozo and pack mules
arrived two hours later, we made camp but ate with the
Piedra Blanca vaqueros.
A superannuated American who had been with Frederic
Remington in Mexico was very hospitable, locating me in a
room with two beds. The house was small. After supper he
disappeared, and I went out to the kitchen, with thatched
roof and walls of tightly-wattled poles, apart from the house.
A good fire was burning on a platform of clay and rocks in
the center of the kitchen (or roofed corral) and against the
walls pine logs that had been dragged down from the mountain
served as benches. Four or five vaqueros sat on them.
The cook, a powerful man named Ismael, was washing
dishes. He was puro indio, pure quill, as black as Othello. I
guessed that instead of shaving he just pulled now and then
a few stray hairs out of his face. Tonight he had a fresh
audience, and from something I had said or from the way I
looked he knew he had an eager listener. Almost at once he
launched into a long story, a true epic, of Juan Oso (John
Bear), the son of a he-bear and a Christian woman. The story
split off into and incorporated several fairy tales and parts of
other hero tales. I later put the Juan Oso part into Tongues of
the Monte. It was midnight when we went to bed.
I had hardly more than gone to sleep when a voice very
far from gentle roused me. The owner of the Piedra Blanca
Ranch, from Del Rio, was standing over me. He had brought
a beef-buyer from Kansas; both had their wives and had to
sleep in the house. I got up, got out with all my personal
belongings, unrolled my bedroll in my own camp, and was
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Singers and Storytellers (Book)
Collection of popular folklore of Texas, including personal anecdotes about storytellers and singers, as well as folk songs, myths, and ghost stories. The index begins on page 295.
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Boatright, Mody C. Singers and Storytellers, book, 1961; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc67655/m1/15/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.