Folk Tales of Cuba — Part 1 (Jagua · Aycayia · The Indian Maid Under a Curse · The Blue Lady)
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Part one — the premiere of a new shelf. Four traditions and legends of Cienfuegos, on Cuba's south coast, collected by Pedro Modesto Hernández and published by Adrián del Valle in Tradiciones y leyendas de Cienfuegos (Havana, 1919); heard here in a fresh in-house English translation from the Spanish. In Jagua, the lonely Caunao finds a heap of ripe jagua fruit struck by a moonbeam, and from it rises Jagua herself — Maroya's gift, who becomes lawgiver to the peaceful Siboney and teacher of fishing, hunting, cultivation, song, dance and healing. In Aycayia, the chief's most beautiful dancer, whose art unmakes every man's duty, is exiled by the Cemi's counsel, until the majagua seeds are planted and a hurricane carries her to the sea, where she wanders still as a sea-nymph blowing her great conch. In The Indian Maid Under a Curse, Maitio discovers Iasiga's infidelity and curses her to wander the coasts forever, transformed, mute and pleading, before solitary fishermen. And in The Blue Lady, the ghost in blue brocade walks the walls of the Castle of Jagua, and the one sceptical young ensign who keeps the night watch alone is found at dawn beside a skull, a blue mantle and his sword broken in two. The episode opens and closes with its theme, Ancient Canopy, heard also briefly between the stories.
Chapters
0:38 Jagua
7:46 Aycayia
14:06 The Indian Maid Under a Curse
18:26 The Blue Lady
Four further tales of the book are not read on this shelf, each excluded by name after a full reading: Guanaroca · Marilope · El combate de las piraguas · El Cristo de la Vereda. No claim of completeness for the book is made.
From Tradiciones y leyendas de Cienfuegos by Adrián del Valle with Pedro Modesto Hernández (1919), public domain — in a fresh in-house English translation from the Spanish. Narrated by Mira. Theme: Ancient Canopy.
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