Fairy Tales in Different Cultures--Adelita

In preparation of Cinco de Mayo, we thought we would feature the Cinderella stories from Mexico. The first this week. So today we will "travel" to Mexico. Since I have been to Puerto Penasco, Mexico, I will share a few of the pictures I have from my trip.

Mexico is rich with history. Pre-European contact Mexico had many advanced cultures like the Aztecs, the Mayans. In 1521 Spain conquered what is now Mexico and colonized it calling it New Spain. The territory became Mexico in 1821 following its independence. It took its name from its capital city, Mexico City. Mexico City is built on top of the ancient Aztec capital México-Tenochtitlan. The official name of Mexico has changed with government changes. It is now Estados Unidos Mexicanos which translates to the United Mexican States.

Mexico is the fifth largest country in the Americas and the thirteenth largest independent country in the world. It is the eleventh most populous country and is the most populous Spanish-speaking country. It comprises of 31 states and a Federal District (the capital city). Mexico is the 23rd largest tourism based income in the world. The vast number of tourists come from the United States and Canada. (Source)

Now onto our story! This week we are sharing Tomie dePaola's Adelita.  This book has Spanish phrases throughout it with the English translation following the phrase. At the back of the book, there is a list of all the Spanish used and their meanings and pronunciations. This is a story based on the Cinderella story, but is not an original one to the region.

The story begins describing the father and the mother, Adela, and Adela telling the father they are going to have a baby. He sends for the woman who took care of him as a child and has been with his family since she was a girl. Her name is Esperanza. Adela becomes ill following childbirth and only gets to hold her daughter once before dying. The father names the baby Adelita after her mother. Adelita grows into a beautiful young woman under the care of Esperanza and her father. They both love her very much.

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One day the father announces he is going to remarry. He brings the woman and her two daughters to meet Adelita and Esperanza. Esperanza does not like them immediately, but Adelita is happy for her father. Adelita has to share her father now, but does not mind since he seems happy. Unfortunately he soon dies and Adelita is left an orphan. Her stepmother begins to show her true colors and jealousy over Adelita. She moves her from her beautiful bedroom to a room in the attic, and she now only is given hand-me-downs for clothes. The stepsisters are also mean to her. Adelita spends much of her time in the kitchen with Esperanza. 

One day the stepmother comes into the kitchen to say she will no longer keep Esperanza since she is spending too much on the household and Adelita can do the work since she is always helping anyway. Esperanza and Adelita beg her not to send Esperanza away, but she does. Adelita is saddened and now must do all the hard work herself. One day at breakfast the stepmother announces they have been invited to a fiesta at the Gordillo's ranch. The girls are very excited since they both would like to marry Javier Gordillo. Adelita asks if she may go as well since she and Javier were childhood friends. She is told she would be an embarrassment to the family and she must stay home. She helps the stepsisters prepare for the party and watches the family leave.

Adelita is weeping in the kitchen when she hears a soft knock on the door. It is Esperanza. She had a dream about Adelita not being allowed to go to the fiesta and has come to help. She takes her to the storeroom and shows her a trunk of her mother's things. They find a beautiful white dress and a red rebozo. Adelita quickly washes and dresses and Esperanza braids her hair and puts it up with ribbons and flowers. Then they use the cart Esperanza borrowed to take her to get there.

Adelita turns heads when she arrives. Senor Gordillo comes to meet her and asks who she is. She tells him she is in disguise and to call her Cenicienta, Cinderella. Javier takes one look and falls in love with her. They dance and talk all night. When he expresses his love to her Adelita becomes nervous and runs away. The next day all the stepmother and stepsisters can talk about is the mysterious Cenicienta at the fiesta. The stepmother tells them Javier is going to go house to house to look for her so her daughters have another chance to impress him. Before going to help her stepsisters, Adelita runs to her room and hangs her mother's rebozo out of the attic window. 

Javier sees the rebozo and runs to the house asking where she is. The stepmother calls in the stepsisters and Javier says they are not the one he means. The stepmother says they are the only ones there, but then a voice form behind says there is one more. Adelita has changed into her mother's dress and rebozo again and comes down the stairs. She tells Javier who she is and of course he remembers his childhood friend. He asks her to marry him and she says since she is an orphan he should ask her stepmother. Her stepmother gives her permission and they are married. Esperanza comes to take care of them as she always had. Everyone is happy.


And that is the first of our two Mexican Cinderella stories. I think I gave our peg doll a bit too much hair. Oh, well.

Holidays this Week Around the World

Just a quick note: In New England, we are preparing for Hurricane Sandy. They are predicting widespread power outages (and at our house probably cable/internet outages), so I do not know how often I will post this week, but am planning a few now, but if you do not hear from me that is why.

Also Sharing Saturday is still open for all your child-oriented crafts and activities!! Please come share!

Last week, I gave you a history of Halloween. This week I'm going to share some research on how Halloween is celebrated around the world as well as the other holidays this week: All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Day of the Dead, etc.

Source

In the United States, Halloween has become a very commercialized holiday. It amazes me each year as stores open for only a month or so called Halloween Scream or something like that. We have at least three open in our town alone. Houses are more decorated for Halloween than some are for Christmas. I find it truly amazing. Perhaps because I don't really like Halloween, but it seems like an awful lot for a day meant to be to scare the evil spirits. Many people seem to want to invite them in now instead of scare them away. I just don't get it.

Some countries still keep some of the religious beliefs in their celebrations and some use it to remember their dead love ones.

In Austria people leave bread, water and a light on at bedtime during the week of Seleenwoche (Oct. 30 to Nov. 8) to welcome the dead souls back. (Source)

In Germany some people still hide their knives on Halloween to keep them away from the evil spirits. (Source)

In Belgium people light candles to remember dead loved ones. (Source)

In Czechoslovakia chairs are place around a fire: one for each living family member and one for each family member's spirit. (Source)

In China the end of the Chinese New Year celebration with the Teng Chieh festival. Animal shaped lanterns are hung in the streets and on houses to scare away evil spirits and light the way for traveling spirits. Family members also honor their dead family members by leaving food and water by their pictures. (Source) (This is obviously not celebrated on October 31st.)

In China there is also a national holiday, Qinming (Tomb Sweeping Day), on April 5 (in non-leap years) where people clean the graves of their family members, ancestors and loved ones and leave food, drinks, and gifts for them. (Source)

In Japan in the summer the Obon festival honors spirits of ancestors. Red lanterns are hung everywhere and each night a fire is lite to guide the spirits back to their place of birth. (Source)

In Mexico El Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations start the evening of October 31st and last through November 2nd. It is a day to honor the dead and it is believed the dead return to the earth on those days.  (Source)

Source

I'll be honest, El Dia de Los Muertos kind of freaked me out, but recently I read a book about Mexico and the explanation of this celebration made me really understand it better. The skeletons and what not, I do not like, but I do like the idea of honoring the dead loved ones and feeling a connection to them during the celebration each year.

Now let's talk about the holidays that follow Halloween. The Catholic Church named November 1st All Saints Day as a way to counter the whole evil spirit side of Halloween. It is a day to honor all the saints past, present, and future of the world. Through out the year there are days to celebrate individual saints, but this day is to celebrate all of them.

The Catholic Church also named November 2nd, All Souls Day. It is a day to honor all your dead loved ones. This can be done by visiting their graves and decorating them with flowers and wreaths; lighting candles at a church or home in their memory or attending a special mass.

In Portugal people have feasts of wine and chestnuts at the cemetery, and in Mexico people have picnic lunches on the graves of their relatives. (Source: We Celebrate Hallowe'en by Bobbie Kalman, Crabtree Publishing Company, 1985)

Guy Fawkes (Source)

Finally the last holiday to discuss is Guy Fawkes Day. This is a holiday in England which commemorates the day Guy Fawkes was killed. He tried to blow up the parliament and was found guilty for doing it, and sentenced to death. The first Guy Fawkes Day was celebrated shortly after his death. This is celebrated by the lighting of bonfires and fireworks and burning effigies. It is really a celebration of beating the Catholic Church in England. And it was celebrated by the Pilgrims when they arrived to the New World, but as the new country developed the celebrations ended. (Source)

So how do you celebrate Halloween? Do you celebrate any of these other holidays? I'd love to hear about it!

Multicultural Monday--Vive Mexico

Continuing with our celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we read the book, Magic Windows or Ventanas Magicas by Carmen Lomas Garza. Like the book last week, this book was in both English and Spanish. All of the artwork is the author's own paper cuttings. Paper cuttings or papal picado are a Mexican tradition and considered folk art. For more information about them you can visit here.

In Magic Windows, Ms. Garza describes a bit of the process and much of the Mexican traditions that she is picturing as well as some personal family events. It amazes me that they do this with tissue paper and a craft knife and it has to all be connected. 

The last picture she shares if of herself with her nieces and nephew making papel picado or what she calls banderitas. So I did a little search and found a couple of websites with tutorials on making banderitas and thought Hazel would be able to do it with me.

The first is on Hubpages and is Papel Picado Tutorial for Kids. Basically the instructions have you fold a square of tissue paper into either fourths or eighths and then use paper punches to make designs.

The second is on eHow: How to Make Mexican Decorations with Tissue Paper. They have you fold the square of tissue paper in accordion style.

We tried some both ways. I ended up liking the Hubpages folding the best, but folded it into eighths. I cut eight-inch squares of some tissue paper. I did all the folding since Hazel's folds were not quite neat enough for this project and then we used all of our punches and scrapbook scissors to make fun designs.

Hazel did not quite get the idea of how the patterns were made, but had fun using all the special punches and scissors. You can basically tell hers form mine.

In Mexico the colors also mean something. Depending on the holiday or festival they are used for will determine the color used. There is more information at Hubpages.

Now I just need to attach them all to a string and hang them up for some festival!

Multicultural Monday/Thursday--Latin American Dance

As promised my late Multicultural Monday Thursday post. So as I mentioned in my last post, Hazel has not been in the mood for crafting lately. (I don't know why.) So today we read a couple of books about Hispanic Families (Mexican to be exact) and then had a Latin American Dance Party based on one of the books. We are continuing our celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month!

In My Family by Carmen Lomas Garza has a description both in English and in Spanish of the author's paintings of her family and special events. It goes from every day things to healing practices to weddings and other celebrations. It is really lovely and she identifies each family member for you as well as what they are doing in the painting. A great glimpse at another culture from a very personal view.

What Can You Do with a Rebozo? by Carmen Tafolla describes all the uses different family members have for a rebozo or a Mexican shawl (typically made out of cotton or silk). The uses go from dressing up, cleaning up, playing peek-a-boo, building forts, cradling a baby for free hands, etc. The story is told by a young girl whose favorite thing to do with a rebozo is dance. This is what we did. I pulled out three shawls--not rebozos but the closets thing we had. I put on a Hispanic CD, Latin Playground by Putumaya   from the library and we danced. We even pulled out our homemade instruments from last week!

Hazel even put on her princess shoes--plastic heels! But I think she had trouble dancing so she often was taking them off and putting them back on. She played the guiro and I played the maracas. We had a great time!

Of course, Fluffy did not like the noise of our homemade instruments. Any time I shook the maracas she gave me a stare. This picture does not quite do it justice because of the flash with her eyes.

It was a fun time!! Afterwards we needed a little down time and went to play with hers and Daddy's trains. How are you celebrating National Hispanic Month?

National Hispanic Heritage Month Begins Saturday

Did you know that National Hispanic Heritage Month begins Saturday? It runs from September 15 to October 15th. President Lyndon Johnson put into place National Hispanic Heritage Week and President Ronald Reagan expanded it to a month. (Source) My friend, Daria, reminded me and asked if I would like to make some of her musical instruments in honor of the month. I, of course, jumped on it. If you have not already checked out Daria's webpage you should, but especially check out her Monthly Song Page so you can enter her great giveaways for a pair of handmade maracas and/or a basket of castanets. Everything we made today came from her tutorials which you can find links to on her Monthly Song Page. Everything was made with recycled ingredients for the most part or at least things we had hanging around the house.

Hazel had a great time making the instruments, decorating them and playing with them! The pictures above are of her making and decorating them. We will start with the most well known instrument we made--maracas! Daria does a great job of explaining maracas including a bit of history. We used a small water bottle (we only had one in our recycling bin), two empty bubble containers (with the wands inside still), toilet paper rolls, beads, and electrical tape (red) and then Hazel decorated them with paint. Hazel loved putting the beads into the different containers. I taped the toilet paper rolls to the containers and then she decorated away. We actually have some maracas from the store so I included a picture of them as well so you could see the similarities and differences!

Next we made the guiro. This is actually easy to make and is somewhat similar to the maracas. We used an empty water bottle with ridges. We put some beads in it as well. Hazel also painted it a bit, but I don't recommend this since the paint flaked off immediately when we played it. Again, Daria does a good job explaining the guiro and a bit of it history. I think this is my favorite one we made!

The last instrument me made today is a cajita. Cajita means little box. It literally is a small box with an attached lid. To play it you hit it with a wooden stick on the inside, outside, wherever. I had picked up a couple of wooden boxes on clearance at the Christmas Tree Shop when we visited my parents last week. (Daria suggests a cigar box.) I pulled out the smallest one and gave it to Hazel. She added some paint so she could add her own touch (or at least that is the reason she told me she wanted to paint it). Then she played it with a pencil as well. Again, Daria does a great job explaining about a cajita, so please check out what she says.

After playing it a couple of times she decided she wanted to use the box for Ducky's diaper cream. She thought it was the perfect size for it. Oh, well. 

Since the cajita is from Peru, I thought I would share a children's book for you about life in Peru, Tonight Is Carnaval by Arthur Dorros. All of the illustrations are pictures of arpilleras sewn by the Club de Madras Virgen del Carmen of Lima, Peru. They are beautiful!!

The story is told by a young boy about his family getting ready for the Carnaval, which is three days away. First the work must be done. He goes into details about the work including farming, taking care of the llamas, sheering the alpacas and turning it into yarn and then taking their potatoes to the market in the village. After the market the Carnaval will begin. If you do not know, Carnaval is a celebration just before Lent. In the Andes it is celebrated for three days and nights with music (from a local band which the story teller gets to play in this year), dancing and feasting. 

Stay tune for more Hispanic Heritage Sharing the next month!! Next week Monday will not be multicultural due to the Virtual Book Club for Kids, but I will share something with you later in the week.