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    The Boy Who Made Dragonfly: A Zuni Myth Retold by Tony Hillerman
    The Boy Who Made Dragonfly: A Zuni Myth Retold by Tony Hillerman
    The Boy Who Made Dragonfly: A Zuni Myth Retold by Tony Hillerman
    Ebook76 pages1 hour

    The Boy Who Made Dragonfly: A Zuni Myth Retold by Tony Hillerman

    By Tony Hillerman and Janet Grado

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    As readers of Tony Hillerman's detective novels know, he is a skilled interpreter of southwestern Indian cultures. In this book, first published in 1972, he recounts a Zuni myth first recorded a century ago by the anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing. Hillerman's version of the story, written to be read by children ten years old and up, will have equal appeal for adults with an interest in Native American culture.

    "In our society," Hillerman explains, "this would be called a 'Bible story.' Like stories based on the Old Testament, this narrative is intended to teach both the history and morality of a people." It tells the consequences of a drought in which Zuni crops were ruined and the tribe was forced to accept charity from neighboring Hopis.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of New Mexico Press
    Release dateJul 1, 1986
    ISBN9780826356741
    The Boy Who Made Dragonfly: A Zuni Myth Retold by Tony Hillerman
    Author

    Tony Hillerman

    TONY HILLERMAN served as president of the Mystery Writers of America and received the Edgar and Grand Master Awards. His other honors include the Center for the American Indian’s Ambassador Award, the Spur Award for Best Western Novel, and the Navajo Tribal Council Special Friend of the Dineh Award. A native of Oklahoma, Tony Hillerman lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, until his death in 2008.

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    • 3/5
      A nice presentation of the mythology of early Zuni people, it is written in an easy-to-read style designed for young folk.

    Book preview

    The Boy Who Made Dragonfly - Tony Hillerman

    1

    It happened before the A’shiwi, the Flesh of the Flesh, finally found the Middle Place and ended their long wanderings. It happened before the A’shiwi came to be called the Zunis, before the Water Strider stretched his arms and legs to the edges of the world and lowered his body to the place where the A’shiwi were to live. It happened when the people still lived in the Valley of Hot Waters in the good stone town they called Ha’wi-k’uh. It happened long before the white man came.

    In those days the A’shiwi had been given by the Beloved Ones an abundance of water blessings. In the Valley of Hot Waters, there was a richness of rain. The mud washed down the arroyos and the A’shiwi spread it across their flatlands with dams of brush. It was that way year after year. And in the winter, the Ice God rarely blew his breath toward them because two of the Corn Maidens lived just south of there and looked after the people-who-would-be-called-Zunis. Summer after summer, the A’shiwi grew more corn than they could eat. The storerooms of all the women were filled to the rafters and all the A’shiwi were as fat as October gophers.

    One day in the autumn, when the people had brought in their corn, they had so much that they would have to build new storerooms and they piled it in the plaza. The Chief Priest of the Bow was standing on top of his house looking down at this great wealth of corn. As he looked, his mind became swollen with pride in his people. None other of all the tribes around the Middle Place had accumulated such an abundance that their storerooms overflowed. While he was thinking about this, and what he should tell the A’shiwi to do with this richness of seed food, he noticed some children playing at war. They were throwing balls of mud at each other, and as he watched their game, this Priest of the Bow, this member of the great Bow Society, this valuable man of the village, began to think as a little child thinks before he learns how to live. The Priest of the Bow thought that it would be good to let the Navajos and the Utes and the Lagunas and the Acomas and the Hopis and all the other nations know how rich the A’shiwi had become.

    The Bow Priest called together the valuable men of all the clans, and the Pekwin, and the six A’shi-wa-ni priests, and the leaders of the kiva societies, and the Mudheads, and everybody else who was the most valuable. When they were in council, he spoke to them.

    Listen, he said. I think it would be a good thing for the A’shiwi if we showed all the other people how rich we have become. I think it would be a good thing if we had all our people prepare a great feast. It would be good if we had the women bake a great store of hard bread and soft bread, corn cakes, tortillas, and other things, and make a great supply of sweet mush and all other foods. Then it would be good if we sent out our fast-running young men to summon all the other nations to come to Ha’wi-k’uh to join us in celebrating our water blessings. We will have all who come join us in a great battle, such as the children play, and we will use bread, and mush dough, and foodstuffs for our weapons. Valuable men, think on this! Think of how these strangers will marvel at the wealth of the A’shiwi, when they see us treating the food for which others labor so hard as the children treat the mud by the riverside and the stones of the mesas.

    The other valuable men were just as foolish as the Bow Priest. "Ha’tchi! they all said. You have thought well, and spoken well. Let it be done as you say."

    And so the village of Ha’wi-k’uh became loud with sounds. There was the noise of the men breaking the wood to fit into the ovens, and the noise of the metates grinding mountains of yellow corn, and the roar of the fires in the homos where the food was baking. And the village was covered with a cloud of piñon smoke from the ovens and the steam from the boiling pots of mush. And while this was happening, the runners went out in all the directions to tell the other nations.

    Now the Corn Maidens heard of what the people of Ha’wi-k’uh were doing. It made them sad that their children would waste the food of the water blessing. But the White Corn Maiden said that perhaps it was not as they heard it was. And the Yellow

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