Old New Mexico

NATIVE TALES or NEW MEXICO--Frank G. Applegate--Lippincott--($2.50).

In Authoress Mary Austin's introduction to this collection of tales, folk, historical and otherways, she writes of the late Author Applegate's collecting of the various handicrafts of New Mexico's varied groups as his initiation into the mosaic racial pattern of Southwestern culture. "Through his sympathy with the things created, he came into touch with the things experienced." These experiencings, reaching him first by native word-of-mouth, he gracefully transcribes in full-flavored variety. A specimen:

Once upon a time, in the Rio Arriba country, there was a fat, smart priest, Padre Martinez, who knew how to lick a dish and have it too. His religious ministrations paid him well, except in the little placita of San Jose. Here he was treated as an ordinary mortal, which meant meagrely. Puzzled, he asked the San Jose sacristan's advice, was told that the natives had no use for his sermons, which praised San Antonio, San Francisco, the Virgin. Jesus, all of whom meant nothing to them. Why not praise their patron, San Jose? At his next visit Padre Martinez propped an image of San Jose in the pulpit, stood on the floor himself. While the sacristan circulated the money-box among the congregation, the Padre exhorted them to pray to San Jose. That saint did not waste time preaching to birds and fish, like San Antonio. He could do things--give the men more sheep, the boys beautiful wives, could wangle them through purgatory, into heaven. . . . At this point the sacristan, his money-box overflowing, intervened. He was the town's storekeeper, and at the rate the people were shelling out he would never collect his bills, even with San Jose's help, till kingdom come.

Tales of treasure-hunting, of Tomacito, a New Mexican Thumbling, of drunken burros, spice the book. More sombre are the tales of disappearing Amerindian tribes and customs, but they are stoically told. The Zia Indians, in their decay, became so poverty-stricken, so skinny, that other Indians called them the "hungry ones." The "hungry ones" called back: "Fat Indians dance slowly."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.