CARRYING OUR STORY.

Byline: ROBERT NOTT

New Mexico storytelling: It started with a creation myth and will likely end with the apocalypse.

OK, so that's a fiery, exaggerated start designed to get your attention. But isn't that what all good storytellers do?

New Mexico can nonetheless claim to be home to stories that provide a narrative arc for the history of the world. The Pueblo natives have creation myths detailing how people first came to this land. The story of the conquistadors is ours, as is the tale of the Pueblo Revolt. We've got stories of the Santa Fe Trail, of the railroad, of famous outlaws (who needs Jesse James when we have Billy the Kid?) and famous pioneers (forget Daniel Boone -- New Mexico has Kit Carson!), of New Deal artists, of Los Alamos and the creation of the atomic bomb (hence the apocalyptic suggestion), of the Harvey Girls and Route 66 and Geronimo and the Civil War and ghosts galore.

Most of these tales are based on real-life

incidents, giving them elements of historical truth that make them worth retelling. And as the city celebrates its 400th anniversary, it can look back to the past and forward to the future as many of its people keep the art of storytelling alive.

"I see storytelling as a multipurpose genre," said Nasario Garcia, author of more than 20 books, most on the poems, cultural customs, myths and tales of this part of the state. "First of all, it is to entertain. In the past, when you were sitting around the pot-belly stove on a winter night, you didn't have to worry about weeding corn, so you would tell a story.

"Second, you tell stories to educate. You inculcate an awareness of cultural traditions (and) so many stories have a moral underpinning."

Garcia has collected many personal stories from those who live or lived in the Santa Fe region. Yet he worries that the tradition of oral storytelling is dying.

What's past is present

"People in the hinterland had no radio, no TV, nothing, so the oral word was key," Garcia said. "When they told stories, people were knowingly -- and perhaps unknowingly -- preserving culture. But all that has pretty much gone by the wayside as the old-timers die. And technology is affecting young kids, teenagers today. The elders have no one to pass the torch to because children and grandchildren are not interested. Their kids are more interested in Nintendo."

That's not stopping Garcia from carrying on the tradition. He has stories galore: of men cursed to go legless because they disrespected their parents, wailing brujas seeking vengeance, strong Hispanic women who prove their power in unexpected ways, and mischievous children whose pranks backfire with humorous results. For Garcia, who still reads to his grandchildren at bedtime, the notion of a professional storyteller keeping the tradition of tales going is alive and well.

And that sort of baffles Joe Hayes, one of Santa Fe's most famous storytellers. He has told tales for more than 25 years at museums and schools, and has published roughly 25 books of stories.

"People doing what I do, declaring themselves to be a storyteller and putting on a formal performance, that's a real new phenomena," Hayes said. "Because traditional storytelling, within families, within the community, is nowhere near as strong as it used to be."

Hayes keeps the tradition going by connecting every story he tells -- be it about a gum-chewing rattler or the day it snowed tortillas -- back to this region.

He thinks it's vital to project sincerity, so listeners "realize that this is important to the person who is sharing this with them; it's not something they memorized just to do a performance."

Magic of humor

Hayes strikes a cord with children who remain eager vessels for stories -- one reason Mary Ellen Gonzales, a Santa Fe school board member, takes her talent to the classroom. She's been doing it since 1992, offering bilingual takes on traditional tales, and she's a member of Storytellers of New Mexico, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Albuquerque. Her advice to would-be storytellers: use humor, make 'em short, and have as many ghost stories as possible on hand to keep things lively.

She's lived the stories of the Southwest, including a stint cooking for cowboys on a ranch. She first told stories while washing dishes with her sister -- a nod to Garcia's notion that stories were shared during the work day.

Gonzales' face lights up with animation, and her arms and hands start gesturing when she tells stories. It's a completely different mask than the more subdued, somber one she puts on for SFPS board meetings. "You can't talk about storytelling without talking about education," she explained. "To me they are one and the same."

Young listeners will develop not only their own visuals for a story, but build their own moral lessons into it. When Gonzales tells the tale of La Llorona -- the weeping woman of the arroyo who still mourns the death of her children (reportedly by her own hand) -- she quickly sees how the piece affects students of different ages. The very young see it as a cautionary tale not to get lost (especially down by the river at night). Preteens may view it as a warning to avoid getting abducted by strangers. And for teen girls in particular, the moral here is clear: Don't get pregnant.

But Gonzales' main character is the community where she lives. She figures 75 percent of her stories are New Mexico-based. She'll borrow from other storytellers, including Hayes, but try to turn the tale around to make it her own. She reaches into the past to inform the present.

Voice to ancestors

As does storyteller Eva Torres Aschenbrener. When she gathers a group of some two dozen visitors to her home for a morning of storytelling, she promises to not only entertain and educate, but to draw a story out of every one of her guests. Aschenbrener believes that everyone has a story to tell -- which doesn't mean everyone can tell a story well -- and to her the tradition is a great way to rub elbows and learn about other people.

Like Hayes, she is a professional storyteller, and her family members are the main characters of her stories: her kind, thoughtful and ingenious mother; her father, the late judge J. Frank Torres, who overcame racism and strove to be fair to everyone; and a number of other characters, including a naughty aunt -- the "Scarlett O'Hara of the family" -- who had a yen for using her fan to flirt with married men.

One of Aschenbrener's antecedents knew Kit Carson, Gov. Charles Bent, Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy and other famous New Mexicans. "Wouldn't you like to have her here?" Aschenbrener asks, smiling.

Aschenbrener uses a self-deprecating sense of humor and a ton of heart to connect to young people. What young, insecure teen today could not relate to Aschenbrener's story of not being asked to the school dance? Her mother urged her to pray to St. Anthony, the saint of lost causes (and, apparently, suitors). Moments later Eva encountered the captain of the school's football team, a handsome bloke who asked her to the dance. Eva was in heaven, until, years later, she ran into the guy again.

"I really liked your mom," he told Eva. "And she paid me real well."

Aschenbrener involves her audience (get ready to rub elbows -- really), and insists that, "My endeavor is to get people to understand and respect one another. Stories help us do that."

And you realize Aschenbrener is right: In telling stories of our ancestors, we relate the history of the righteous, the rogues and the rascals, the fallen women -- and the men who helped them fall. They're with us still. In some cases, they are us.

400 more years

While most storytellers look back to inform their listeners, Santa Fe's poet laureate, Valerie Martinez, looks ahead. In her new poem commemorating 400 years of Santa Fe, she asks that readers both turn around and turn ahead with wonder:

And the child walks carefully into

blue air,

into the light silver with sun,

into the city's steady murmuring:

what will come, what will come?

A Native New Mexican, Martinez is responsible for the book and corresponding exhibition, Lines and Circles: A Celebration of Santa Fe Families. The latter runs at the city of Santa Fe Arts Commission Community Gallery, 201 W. Marcy St., through March 19. It's free; call 603-0866 for information.

The project relies on first-person accounts, poems, mixed-media art, and religious, cultural and personal items to tell the story of several generations of 11 families in Santa Fe. At noon March 17, Martinez will read poems about Santa Fe in conjunction with the show.

"My priority is the present," Martinez said.

"As poet laureate, people come to me and tell me their stories, and often they talk about how they feel about Santa Fe. They're concerned about the divisions in the community, and how, geographically, things have changed, and they also say they're tired about fighting over the past."

Instead of celebrating 400 years behind us, she urges Santa Feans to look at the next 400 years. "When you say the word story, it sparks in people's minds what went past," she said. "But my poem is actually a meditation on how history is actually a step we need to take -- forward."

Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021

or [e-mail].