South Eastern Huastec, a Mayan language from Mexico, has never
before been written down. Although the master storytellers of the
language are long gone, today's older generations preserve the vast
knowledge of their culture in speech. That spoken heritage in South
Eastern Huastec - ranging from traditional house-building
techniques to herbal remedies and funerary practices - is gathered
here and transcribed for the first time. Collected and recorded by
Ana Kondic in the village of San Francisco Chontla in La Sierra de
Otontepec, Veracruz, Mexico, between 2007 and 2011, and translated
into English and Spanish, the accounts in this landmark trilingual
collection provide a rare opening into South Eastern Huastec
traditions, oral literature, and daily life. Kondic divides South
Eastern Huastec Narratives into five thematic sections: traditional
practices, contemporary life, stories, songs, and customary
foodways. Within these categories, eighteen Huastec narrators
describe local beliefs, religion, rituals, and cosmology as
observed in cleansing ceremonies and celebrations. They detail
building methods and traditional craftsmanship, the care of
children, daily routines, and use of the South Eastern Huastec
language itself. They recount stories and legends - of killer
coyotes, drunken horsemen, and encounters with death - and explain
the preparation of tamales, coffee, and hand-pressed tortillas.
Wherever possible, Kondic retains in her transcriptions the unique
characteristics of each speaker's voice - the self-corrections,
repetitions, and pauses. Her morphological analysis of South
Eastern Huastec will help experts understand the language more
deeply. An accompanying audio-video DVD-ROM allows readers the rare
chance to hear and see these narrators tell their stories in their
own language. Of the approximately 100,000 people who speak the
Huastec language, only about 12,000 use the South Eastern variety
presented here. As the only book recording and analyzing this
endangered language, this collection of narratives is a crucial
document for preserving the South Eastern Huastec language, and the
remarkable culture it conveys. The book includes a CD-ROM with both
audio and video tracks.
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