Anyone interested in mythology and legends will enjoy these stories
which have been passed down orally for generations by the Pueblo
Indians of the American Southwest. They reveal Pueblo customs and
traditions as well as the ceremonial aspects of Pueblo religion. A
character called Grandfather, the fictional narrator of these
stories, embodies the collective wisdom of the Pueblo Indians, the
attitudes about universal dilemmas and conflicts in human life that
developed through many generations.
Some of the stories are realistic; others involve the
supernatural. Some evoke the initial contact between the pueblos
and the Spanish conquistadors. There are also tales of the joy and
bitterness of interactions between parents and children, husbands
and wives, and humans and spirits. Rites of passage and "vision
quests" often enter into the characters' attempts to live in
harmony with nature, other humans, and spirits. Lessons on how to
live, of growing up, marrying, parenting, and growing old sometimes
emerge straightforwardly in these stories, but more often, readers
are left to draw their own conclusions.
These stories, collected by the Teresa Pijoan since she was
eight years old, actually came from many different storytellers,
some of them childhood friends of the author. She had heard several
versions of each story before writing it down and she often used
elements from one version to fill in the parts missing from other
versions. She then showed her drafts of each story to members of
several different pueblos and weighed their comments before putting
each story in its present form. Ms. Pijoan grew up on the San Juan
Pueblo reservation and the Nambe Indian reservation in New Mexico,
even though she herself is not Native American. But her early
experiences and bicultural background instilled in her a deep
respect for and an understanding of pueblo life.
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