CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 93.02.12

Tales From The States Puerto Rican Genealogy Society
Tales From The States Puerto Rican Genealogy Information
Tales From The States Puerto Rican Genealogy Sites
Tales From The States Puerto Rican Genealogy Site

Unit Guide

Puerto Rican Folktales

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Many Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico identify as American similarly as they do in New York. Therefore, leaving the island was not as difficult as others that migrate here from other countries. Although adapting to cold was hard, it simply meant “bundling up” and needing warmer clothes. Puerto Rican ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, etc. Whoopi Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in the Chelsea section of Manhattan on November 13, 1955. Her mother, Emma (Harris), was a teacher and a nurse, and her father, Robert James Johnson, Jr., was a clergyman. Whoopi's recent ancestors were from Georgia, Florida, and Virginia. For at least 30 years I have been asking questions, jotting down notes, taking pictures, and listening to stories about my ancestors, about their neighbors, about the land, about Puerto Rico. I never imagined back in the 80's that my curiosity would ever be something that I'd share with the world.

The first English collection of Puerto Rican folk tales published in the United States. Consequently, she became a well-published writer, editor, and translator (see complete bibliography, page 22). Although, she collected children's tales from many countries, her primary concern was the preservation and dissemination of Puerto Rican.

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Give FeedbackThe folktales of Puerto Rico reflect the culture of the people who have lived or influenced the lifestyle of those people living there, the Tainos, the Spaniards, and the Africans. The historical reality of Puerto Rico is that it became part of the modern world as we know it today after Cristobal Colon encountered the island on November 19, 1493. Taino stories, which would be the only authentic and pure expression of pre-Columbian natives of Puerto Rico, are non-existent. It is believed that the Tainos were Arawaks who migrated northward from South America and had been living in Boriquen for nearly 1,000 years when the Spaniards arrived.

There had been other cultures in Puerto Rico before the Tainos, but they were nomads and left little evidence of their time and life on the island. The Tainos were fishermen, who eventually became farmers or hunters and established villages in different points of the island they called Boriquen. They did not have a written language and there are no written accounts of their culture or history passed on by them to future generations. Archaeologists are still trying to piece together what their lifestyle must have been like before their rapid and almost total extinction in the early sixteenth century due to illnesses and inhuman treatment given to them by the first colonists, the Spaniards.

Tales from the states puerto rican genealogy information

There are, however, records written from oral tradition by the early Spanish settlers, especially by religious order members. Following orders given to him by Admiral Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) Friar Ramon Pane wrote in 1505 a series of detailed descriptions of the Tainos that lived on Hispaniola, now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. These natives had the same customs and beliefs as those of Boriquen (Puerto Rico). In his lengthy report, Friar Ramon wrote of Taino myths, such as; where the Tainos came from, how the sea came to be, the origin of the Sun and the Moon, and where the dead go and what they look like. There are descriptions of the Taino medicine man and many of the religious beliefs of the Tainos.

With the rapid extinction of the Tainos and as the Spanish colonization of Puerto Rico continued, black and white slaves were brought to Puerto Rico in the late sixteenth century to provide brute labor in the new colony being set up by Spain in Puerto Rico. They were needed to work in the sugar plantations, the mainstay of Puerto Rico for many years. Their legacy can be found in their music and dances. Like the Tainos before them, they have added some words to the Spanish vocabulary but did not make a strong impact in the developing culture of the colony. In general, with the passing of time, the black population of Puerto Rico assimilated into the Spanish culture. Stories from this group of people reflected their struggles and often futile attempts to be free.

The culture of the Puerto Rico of today is predominantly Spanish with traces of Taino Indian and Black influences. According to theAmerican Heritage Dictionary, “culture” is defined as “the arts, beliefs, customs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought created by a people or group at a particular time.” The Spanish acculturation process of Puerto Rico began almost five hundred years ago; three cultures (possibly multiple cultures) came together in Puerto Rico soon after that fateful day of November 19, 1493. The folk tales that are told in Puerto Rico today reflect basically Spanish themes with island adaptations and very little Taino or African participation. The tales, in general, have undergone changes in numbers, names, or settings which are more tropical or similar to Puerto Rico.

Among some of the other products of human work or thought are stories in different forms, such as myths, legends, folk tales, and fairy tales. A folk tale is simply defined inWebster’s New World Dictionaryas “a story, usually of anonymous authorship and containing legendary elements, made and handed down orally among common people. “

In the early twentieth century, an extensive survey and collection of Puerto Rican folklore was carried out by J. Alden Mason and Aurelio M. Espinosa. In Volume 29 of “The Journal of American Folklore” (October-December 1916), the first of several articles was published. In this collection of Puerto Rican folklore, there are riddles, rhymes, games, folktales, tales of enchantment, animal stokes, songs, and other types of oral expression. According to J. Mason;

“Many of those folktales are evidently versions of the European riddle-tales, but a large number are new creations, with traditional elements confused and mingled. In a special cycle, the Juan Booboo, or John the Simple, tales, the traditional riddle-tales have been especially utilized.”¹

Professor Aurelio M. Espinosa spent seven months in Spain (June 1920-January 1921) researching the roots of the tales told in Spanish America. He concludes that:“. . . I have verified fully some of the theories which I have always held relative to the sources of some of the important folk-lore material found in New Mexico and other parts of Spanish America . . . After our material is published, I am sure that some of our Negro and Indian folklorists will have to revise some of their theories as to the sources of many folk-tales found among the Negroes and Indians.

Greater and more important, may be the question of the relation of many of these Spanish folk-tales to the actual material from which they certainly come;namely, the Celtic, Germanic, Arabic, . . . and ultimately the greatest and most important fountain of European tradition, India. “²

J. Alden Mason and Professor Espinosa see Spain as the source of the vast majority of tales in Spanish-America with little Indian or African contribution. Espinosa even doubted the origin of the Tar Baby tale as African but believed it to be Spanish. Tales From The Statespuerto Rican Genealogy

Tales From The Statespuerto Rican Genealogy

In their monumental collection of Puerto Rican folklore, Mason and Espinosa printed