For more than 2,000 years, the Zuni were pueblo
dwellers in what is now New Mexico. Today, only
about 12,000 Zuni still live in New Mexico, but
their culture is rich with tradition, religion, art,
music, and dance.
Religion, which is at the center of the Zuni culture,
is told through stories and myths. Similar to
the Winnebago WAIKAN and WORAK NARRATIVES,
Zuni myths and folktales are divided into two
types: creation stories known as chimiky’ana’kowa
(meaning “the beginning”), based on true events;
and telapnaawe (or telapnanne), entertaining, fictional
stories. The creation stories are told only by
priests during religious ceremonies. Telapnaawe
narratives, on the other hand, are relayed by
telaapi, or storytellers,who tell their tales only during
the winter.
Zuni scholar Dennis Tedlock notes that the
telapnaawe begin with a traditional exchange between
storyteller and listener. The listener will ask
the telaapi to “take up a tale,” to which he will respond,“
Now we take it up.” The tales can last from
30 minutes to one hour or longer. The stories’ subjects
range from the trickster Coyote (see COYOTE
TALES) to marriage, family, and hunting.
Some telapnaawe tales include “The Boy and
the Deer,” a story about a boy who is raised by deer;
“The Hopis and the Famine,” a story of a scorned
husband who seeks revenge by causing a famine;
and “The Girl Who Took Care of the Turkeys,” a
story about a girl who abandons the turkeys she
cares for to go to a dance.
Frank Hamilton Cushing was the first white
American to collect and translate Zuni myths. He
lived with the Zuni in the late 19th century and
published many books and articles on Zuni culture.
In the 20th century, anthropologist Franz
Boas and his student Ruth Benedict also studied
Zuni culture and published numerous works on
the subject. Scholar Dennis Tedlock translated
many Zuni tales into English, maintaining the
complexity and integrity of the Zuni originals.
English Versions of Telapnaawe Narratives
Benedict, Ruth. Zuni Mythology. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1935.
Cushing, Frank Hamilton. Zuni Folk Tales. New York:
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1901.
Peynetsa, Andrew and Walter Sanchez. Finding the
Center: The Art of Zuni Storytelling. Translated by
Dennis Tedlock. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1999.
Works about Telapnaawe Narratives
Shell,Marc. American Babel: Literatures of the United
States from Abnaki to Zuni. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2002.
Tedlock, Barbara. The Beautiful and the Dangerous:
Encounters with the Zuni Indians. Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 2001.