author: Matthew Gollub
illustrator: Leovigildo Martinez
publisher: Tambourine Books / William
Morrow, 1993
grades 1-5
Mixteca
Whenever I run into something
described as “an original story based on the folklore of (insert people or
place),” my fakelore alarm goes off. Loudly.
Story: A “good” healer, whose job consists of “swishing and swooshing,” acquires 25 kittens. When he tries to sell them, the “good” healer encounters the ire of the suspicious villagers, stupid as well as poor, who “imagine wild things” and demand that the “good” healer get rid of the cats, whom one calls “filthy rodents.” The “good” healer refuses, so the villagers enlist the aid of an “evil” healer, who sends a pack of coyotes to do away with the cats. The cats outsmart the coyotes, the “evil” healer casts a spell, and the quick-thinking felines save both a villager and the “good” healer, thereby becoming the village heroes. The End.
OK, everyone, pay attention.
The Twenty-Five Mixtec Cats is a mishmash of cultural components of European fairy tales superimposed on a Mixteca background and marketed as an “original story based on the folklore of Oaxaca.” As such, it doesn’t work on any level.
Some problems:
(1) Oaxaca is the Indian part of Mexico. Besides the Mixteca and Zapoteca peoples, Oaxaca is home to the Amuzgo, Chantino, Chicateca, Chinateca, Chocho, Chontal, Huave, Mazateca, Mixe, Nahua, Trique, and Zoque peoples. Each of these peoples speaks one of 14 indigenous languages and generally speaks Spanish as well. And each of these peoples holds their own traditional stories. So there is no such thing as the “folklore of Oaxaca” on which Gollub based his “original story.”
(2) “Mixteca” refers to the ethnicity and culture of a people who live in Oaxaca, Puebla, and part of Guerrero. It also refers to the language. It does not refer to cats owned by Mixteca people. If you have any trouble conceptualizing this, try “Episcopalian-English cats.”
(3) “Healers,” by definition, are good. So the term, “good healer” is unnecessarily repetitive; and the term, “evil healer” is an oxymoron.
(4) Finally, and probably most importantly: the references to poverty, superstition, prejudice, good and evil, topped with ignorance, just hang there, decontextualized, as they might in European fairy tales. But European-American children reading versions of European fairy tales will not see themselves reflected in the characters. Mexican-American children reading The Twenty-Five Mixtec Cats, on the other hand, will probably be humiliated. Their personas are not intact; they are felinized. Plus they are easily identifiable by a specific locale. This is like saying that all Viennese are superstitious and ignorant. It is that specific.
Oaxacan artist Leovigildo Martinez’s glazed watercolors, on a palette of predominantly yellows, browns, blues and pinks, complement the story.
Reviews in School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, ALA Booklist, and The New York Times were all favorably uncritical. The School Library Journal review noted, for instance, that the faces of the villagers “resemble those of the cats, giving an eerie relatedness to the characters,” and that this story is “a sound introduction to some of the elements of Mexican folklore.” That’s exactly the problem.
Here are Gollub’s own words, from his website:
Pues, a mi, no me gusta su idea.
It’s cultural tourism for a piece of the “multicultural” children’s book
market, plain and simple. The
Twenty-Five Mixtec Cats is
totally not recommended.
—Beverly Slapin
(published 4/5/13)
Story: A “good” healer, whose job consists of “swishing and swooshing,” acquires 25 kittens. When he tries to sell them, the “good” healer encounters the ire of the suspicious villagers, stupid as well as poor, who “imagine wild things” and demand that the “good” healer get rid of the cats, whom one calls “filthy rodents.” The “good” healer refuses, so the villagers enlist the aid of an “evil” healer, who sends a pack of coyotes to do away with the cats. The cats outsmart the coyotes, the “evil” healer casts a spell, and the quick-thinking felines save both a villager and the “good” healer, thereby becoming the village heroes. The End.
OK, everyone, pay attention.
The Twenty-Five Mixtec Cats is a mishmash of cultural components of European fairy tales superimposed on a Mixteca background and marketed as an “original story based on the folklore of Oaxaca.” As such, it doesn’t work on any level.
Some problems:
(1) Oaxaca is the Indian part of Mexico. Besides the Mixteca and Zapoteca peoples, Oaxaca is home to the Amuzgo, Chantino, Chicateca, Chinateca, Chocho, Chontal, Huave, Mazateca, Mixe, Nahua, Trique, and Zoque peoples. Each of these peoples speaks one of 14 indigenous languages and generally speaks Spanish as well. And each of these peoples holds their own traditional stories. So there is no such thing as the “folklore of Oaxaca” on which Gollub based his “original story.”
(2) “Mixteca” refers to the ethnicity and culture of a people who live in Oaxaca, Puebla, and part of Guerrero. It also refers to the language. It does not refer to cats owned by Mixteca people. If you have any trouble conceptualizing this, try “Episcopalian-English cats.”
(3) “Healers,” by definition, are good. So the term, “good healer” is unnecessarily repetitive; and the term, “evil healer” is an oxymoron.
(4) Finally, and probably most importantly: the references to poverty, superstition, prejudice, good and evil, topped with ignorance, just hang there, decontextualized, as they might in European fairy tales. But European-American children reading versions of European fairy tales will not see themselves reflected in the characters. Mexican-American children reading The Twenty-Five Mixtec Cats, on the other hand, will probably be humiliated. Their personas are not intact; they are felinized. Plus they are easily identifiable by a specific locale. This is like saying that all Viennese are superstitious and ignorant. It is that specific.
Oaxacan artist Leovigildo Martinez’s glazed watercolors, on a palette of predominantly yellows, browns, blues and pinks, complement the story.
Reviews in School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, ALA Booklist, and The New York Times were all favorably uncritical. The School Library Journal review noted, for instance, that the faces of the villagers “resemble those of the cats, giving an eerie relatedness to the characters,” and that this story is “a sound introduction to some of the elements of Mexican folklore.” That’s exactly the problem.
Here are Gollub’s own words, from his website:
In 1990, I went to Oaxaca (wa-HAH-ka), Mexico, where a friend
introduced me to Leovigildo Martínez. A jovial spirit and a magnificent
painter, “Leo” introduced me to Oaxacan markets and villages. As a fine artist,
he had never illustrated picture books but suggested we collaborate on Oaxacan
tales for children. The idea was to take threads of existing folklore, then
create original stories to be understood universally. The region's phenomenal
array of indigenous cultures—their pyramids, textiles, fiestas, and crafts—posed
too delicious a challenge to turn down. Although I had never written for
children, I told Leo, “Me gusta la idea.”
—Beverly Slapin
(published 4/5/13)
