Federico Stories

Long ago, a countryman called Juan was married to a woman called Paciencia (patience in English). However, his wife was the lesser patient woman ever, and with every day that passed, she was less and less patient. Her husband could be described as a real-life sloth. He was the laziest man you would ever meet. He only loved to stay in his hammock listening to the radio all day long (figure 1). Figure 1. Juan sleeping. Paciencia woke up very early every day to do all the housework, and because her husband was a sloth, she was in a terrible mood all the time. She complained about it constantly. However, as is well-known, it’s easy to see the mote in your brother’s eye and not the rafter in your own. Paciencia was not the perfect wife at all. She had several small defects. She was over-jealous. She could not see her husband speaking with any women, not even his mom. She would start screaming hysterically in front of everyone. Every time her husband left her hammock to do anything outs...

At the end of the last century, the corncob of corn (figure 1) was not burned in El Salvador. Salvadorans believed that the corncob of corn was the skeleton of corn and the elders said that the devil stored corn and sorghum so that our Lord’s children would die. Figure 1. The Corncob. Our Lord was disappointed by the devil’s actions and tried to think of a strategy on how to fight him, but he couldn’t find a good one. After a couple of days, he spoke with a yellow ant and a mouse. He asked them if they had any idea how to handle it. They told him this was easy, they would make a tunnel under the earth and in this way, the yellow ant took out the sorghum and the mouse the corn. After this event, sorghum became the favorite grain of yellow for ants and corn for the mice. In this way, the Salvadoran ancestors discovered corn and sorghum. Inspired by Salvador Hernández’s version collected by Ennis Arely Arevalo Girón, Lissette Amelia Gutierrez Paz, and Karen Liseth Manc...

In the year 1123, there was a lot of happiness in El Salvador. The rains had fallen with love; the moon had illuminated the rivers making them silverish, the Indians threw the grains of white corn, and even as Sihuapil’s teeth on the soil shelled in waves by the plow. During this year, timid little leaves covered the soil from drinking and breathing the moon. They grew and grew. One day, the goddess Sucuxi decided to visit the Indians. She was so beautiful by her dark skin, so good by her simplicity, and so pure by her naiveness. On that day, she looked from the top of a hill, at every hard-working Indian. In reward for their efforts, she wanted to give them a more gallant harvest. She descended from the hill to the cornfields that already gave ears of corn and wanted to make their stems taller than an Indian. Sucuxi began to walk through those cornfields that were crazy with joy when they heard the hymns of the wind, but between the stems of corn, a bush that had buste...