Sunday, May 01, 2005

Joe Hayse, The Man!

Ok, when I was a little girl and lived in Albuquerque, I would visit my Grandparents (and Mexican food stand couple/family friends Rocky and Mona) in Santa Fe. Here in this artistic haven resides a famous storyteller, Joe Hayes. Now, when I was small, my family would take me to go listen to Joe, whether he be at an art museum, a park or at an evening party. I can just remember the stones we sat on as the sun set and the air became brisk. I remember a fire. I remember hot blue days where the smell of pinon trees settled in the blistering heat, and I sat and listened to Joe with all the other children.
He would tell us about Coyote and the mice, and Buzzard and Rabbit with his pitch and Horn Toad inside a stomache. I can remember how magical it was to listen to this elderly handsome man with his amazing expressions and voice.

Anyway, I would recomend that everyone should check up on Mr. Hayse if you are ever in Santa Fe. I know I will when I visit this summer.

A little bit about Joe Hayes:
Joe Hayes is one of America's premier storytellers-a nationally recognized teller of tales from the Hispanic, Native American and Anglo cultures. His bilingual Spanish-English tellings have earned him a distinctive place among America's storytellers. His books and tapes of Southwestern stories are popular nationwide. Joe's tales combine the traditional lore of the American Southwest and his own imagination. The traditional part is based on things people have told him and on what he has learned from reading the work of folklorists and anthropologists. Most of the material he uses was collected fifty or more years ago, before radio, television and movies began to replace the old stories. Joe's own contribution is based on his instincts as a storyteller and what his experience tells him listeners need in order to feel satisfied with a story. The stories reflect his own values and sense of humor, as well as the values and humor of Southwest cultures, which is made up primarily of Hispanic, Native American and Anglo cultures.





By Master Storyteller Joe Hayes
From his book “The Day It Snowed Tortillas”


Once in a small mountain village there lived two men who were good friends. The one man’s name was Pedro. The other? Well—no one remembered his name. You see, no one ever called him by his name. Instead, they used his nickname.
Back when he was only 7 or 8 years old, everyone had started calling him El Diablo—The Devil—because he was so mischievous.
In school, if there was some prank being played on the teacher, you could bet that El Diablo thought the whole thing up. He would get all the other boys involved, and they’d all get caught and get in trouble. And even when they were grown men and should have known better, it was still happening. El Diablo was leading Pedro astray.
For example, there was the time that El Diablo said to his friend, “Pedro, have you noticed that the apples on Old Man Martinez’s tree? They look wonderful. Let’s go steal some tonight. There’s no moon. No one will see us.”
Pedro said, “Oh, no! Old Man Martinez has that big dog. He’ll bite my leg off!”
But El Diablo told him, “Don’t worry about that dog. He keeps him inside at night. Come on. Let’s get some apples.” And he talked his friend into it.
That night the two friends got a big gunnysack and crept into Old Man Martinez’s yard. They filled that sack with apples, then slipped back out onto the road.
Pedro whispered, “We’ll have to find some place to divide these apples up.”
Of course El Diablo had a great idea. “I know. We’ll go to the camposanto, to the graveyard. Nobody will bother us there!”
So they went down the road until they came to the cemetery. They went in through the gate and walked along the low adobe wall that surrounded the graveyard until they found a dark, shadowy place right next to the wall.
They sat down and dumped out the apples and started to divide them into two piles. As they divided the apples, they whispered, “One for Pedro—one for Diablo … One for Pedro—one for Diablo …,” making two piles of apples.
Now it just so happened that a couple of men from the village had been out living it up that night—dancing and celebrating and drinking a little too much. In fact, they had got so drunk they couldn’t make it home. They had fallen asleep leaning against that wall right over from where Pedro and Diablo were dividing up the apples.
One man was a big, round, fat fellow. The other was old and thin, with a face that was dry and withered-looking.
A few minutes later, the old man woke up. From the other side of the wall, over in the graveyard, he heard a voice saying, “One for Pedro—one for Diablo … One for Pedro—one for Diablo …”
The poor man’s eyes popped out like two hard-boiled eggs. “Aaaiii, Dio Mio!” he gasped, Saint Peter and the Devil are dividing up the dead souls in the camposanto!”
He woke his friend up, and the two men sat there staring, their mouths gaping, too frightened to speak. The voice went on: “One for Pedro—one for Diablo … One for Pedro—one for Diablo …”
Until finally Pedro and El Diablo got to the bottom of the pile of apples. The two men heard Diablo’s voice say, “Well, Pedro, that’s all of them.”
But Pedro happened to notice two more apples, right next to the wall. One was a nice, round, fat apple. The other wasn’t so good—it was sort of withered up.
The two men heard Pedro say, “No, Diablo, there are still two more. Don’t you see those two right next to the wall—the big fat one and the withered-up one?”
The hair stood up on the back of those men’s necks! They thought they were the ones being talked about. They listened for what would be said next, and they heard Diablo say, “Well, Pedro, you can take the fat one. I’ll take the withered-up one.”
Then they heard Pedro say, “No, Diablo. Neither one is any good. You can take them both!”
When the two men heard that, they thought the Devil would be coming over the wall any minute to get them. They sobered up in a hurry, jumped to their feet and ran home as fast as they could. They slammed the doors and locked them up tight!
And from that day on, the people say, those two men stayed home every night. And they never touched another drop of whiskey for the rest of their lives!

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