Informant Information
Nationality: Hispanic American
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Nevada
Date of Performance/Collection: Apr 4, 2022
Primary Language: English
Background
My informant is a family member coworker of Mexican descent. Every night, she sings a good night song to her children, a song that was passed down to her. This is the song performed by her daughter.
Performance
Spanish- Duérmase mi niño, duérmase me ya. Porque ahí viene el coyote y te comerá.
English- Go to sleep little boy, go to sleep right now. Because the coyote is coming and he’ll eat you up.
Audio Recording
Thoughts
I don’t know Spanish so when I first heard the song, I thought it was just a sweet lullaby that tells your kids like “sweet dreams” or something like that. Finding out the song was about a coyote coming to eat you if you don’t is really funny. I found a different variation of the song. There is a version that instead of the coyote coming to eat you, an angel is going to rock you to sleep.