¡Colores!; 506; Golden Dawn: The Pueblo Paintings of Pablita Velarde; PV Story #2

Jim, you could go to that closer shop, okay. This is going great. Are you nervous? I didn't think so. You didn't seem very calm today. I don't get nervous anymore. I want to know, well, if it's like when I'm talking to the youth, I get kind of nervous because I always think that smarter than I am and they cook figure things out better than the way I explain them. And I get kind of nervous then. Well, I think university people get kind of boring sometimes. Come on. And there are lots of the university people that are real nice. Yeah, there are some nice people there. Because I got my graduate degree at UNM and a lot of people took them. So the prayers were answered, but they're not quite sure what they wanted. That's right. That's the feeling they got. So they all began to go back to their little homes and

start gathering things to take with them on their short trip down into the valley. But in the meantime, they kept... Each one had a different version of what the thing that fell was. Some said it was a fiery snake coming down from the heavens. And those weren't fiery flames that were coming up. They were red feathers, plume feathers. It was draped in a prune feather. They had this supernatural feeling about what fell down. And actually, it probably was a comet or something that fell over into the western, maybe like in Arizona or someplace. But during the night sometime after they all went to bed, I guess, why it began to sprinkle very lightly at the beginning. But by

morning, it was really pouring, you know. And they got up that morning. They were so relieved that their prayers were answered. And they looked down over the landscape from Puyah. You could see quite a lot of distance, you know. And they could see all these little streams just weaving across the mesa. And they said, you see, that's the way that thing came down last night, was he wove the sky zigzagging all the way down and hit that earth someplace and got rid of the spirit of drought. And he said, ever since that day, why, yeah. All rivers never run straight. And then the Indians made a kind of a supernatural spirit being of the comet that fell. I guess it was a comet. And they called it the plume serpent scene. And they used that on pottery and dense kilts and everything else. So that's part of the story that Grandma used to tell us about the plume

serpent and Puyah. That's great. I'm going to ask you to do one thing for me. I think the story ends when you say, and that's why the rivers never run straight. And that's the end. Just don't tell me anything else after that. So I'm going to repeat that. Okay, well, after that, the drought was broken by the fallen of this thing that came from the heavens. Why, then that's morning, their prayers were answered. They found out that it had rained real hard. And in the morning, they looked up. The maces and landscape. And they saw all these streams just weaving zigzagging over the maces. And they all believed that it was that thing that came down from the heavens. And he wolfed the streams just like the same pattern that the rivers were doing today. And this is why Grandma told us that this

is why the rivers never run straight. Perfect. You're a performer. I like it. Come on. Have a great trip for a second. Okay. I mean, we got a nice smile at the end. See, I don't want to explain every... Coyote is kind of funny. Yeah. Everybody loves coyote. What's the coyote? Okay. Okay, we'll... I'm going to tell you the coyote story that everybody seems to like, you know, and it was when the earth, when the world was new, and the great spirit had created everything, you know, and he seemed to be satisfied with what he had done. And all the little creatures that he had created seemed to be happy and were doing their thing in a right manner, so that they don't make too many mistakes, you know,

and get themself into trouble. All except for one. And his name was Osehwa. That's the Indian name of a thing that hangs his head. And so Osehwa was the only crazy one there, and more or less he was kind of stupid. You know, he would finish nothing, he would do anything right, and he never would get serious with anything. He was just always kind of crazy. And so one evening, when the great spirit was sitting there thinking and looking around and observing all his creatures where he thought, I wonder what I did wrong with coyote. He said that the creature just doesn't seem to care, and says maybe if I gave him more responsibilities and taught him to do a few things right, he might get

serious with life. And so he thought and thought what to do. And as the night got going and he was sitting there, everything became so quiet and so boring, he thought, oh, the night is awful. It's too lonely, it's too dark. Everybody goes to sleep and just sleeps, you know, and can't do nothing. And so I think I'll fix that. He said, oh, he said, nah, I got an idea what I'm going to tell coyote to do. He says, tomorrow I'll gather some mica. And mica is not too heavy when it's sacked, you know. So he took a small bag and he put a lot of mica in it, mica flakes. And then he tied it with a wet senior. And overnight the senior had dried hard, you know, and tightened it real hard so the bag wouldn't open. And he calls coyote in and he says, I've got something for you to

do for me. He says, would you think you can do it? He says, oh, yes. And then coyote was kind of wondering what it was that he was supposed to do for the great spirit. And so he sat real still and he says, nah, coyote, you're listening real good. He says, I'm going to send you and this bag, clear up to the top of that mountain. And at no time are you supposed to open this bag? Do you understand? And coyote says, sure. And it says, that's easy. And so he says, well, you be sure now you remember my instructions. And at no time do you open this bag? Do you understand that? And he says, yes, yes. And so then that's morning early what coyote was yelling at everybody that he had an errand to do for the great spirit. And they would be surprised when he got back. What kind of a reward he was going

to get. And so he started off just yelling and never thinking about how he was going to survive the trip. And so about the end of the first day he was kind of tired. So he thought he laid down to rest for a while anyway. And so he was laying there. And he, I guess, had a few hours of sleep. But early than that's morning he got up again. And his mouth was getting dry. He just began to feel thirsty. And he thought, maybe I could find some water along the way someplace. Maybe some rocks might hold some water for me. So he kept looking around, looking at every rock hole and everything else he could think of. And he said, if I could just see me a rabbit, maybe I could at least have something to eat. And he couldn't find a rabbit or anything else to eat. So he kept just trying hard to get up to that top of that mountain. And all the time his mouth just kept getting drier and drier. And the load kept getting heavier and heavier. And he kept sliding off his shoulder.

And he kept pushing back like this. And pretty soon, and he was hanging onto one side of the back. And then pretty soon he pulled the back up, pushed the thing up. And that dry senior poked the sight up his mouth. And he crunched it with his back tooth. And I guess he was crunching real hard because he cracked it or broke it. And that, but that didn't bother him none at that period. And then after a while that senior began to soften. And it began to taste pretty good, you know. And he kept walking a little bit slower, but at least he was getting his throat moist. And so before he knew it, but it even came where he thought he'd better stop and rest one more time before he'd make the less lap, you know, up to the top. He sat, he was so tired, he just flopped, sat down hard on the ground. And he just crawled off and laid down because by that time he felt an ache in the back of his mouth, you know, where his

tooth had been broken. And in the meantime, what all the mica began to float out of the back because he had eaten the whole senior that was tied to it. And he had opened and the mica began to float out of the back and he kept rising to the heavens. And after quite a while, I guess he had dosed off for a little bit and then the pain was getting worse in his mouth. And he opened his eyes and he looked around, things looked different. He said, hey, what's going on? Is this something's wrong? And he looked up and he saw all these little sparkly things floating around in the heavens. And he said, I never saw that before. And then he looked up there and then he said, oh, this is what did I do? And then he remembered he had chewed off the scene, you off the sack. And then he went over to pick his sack up and then there was a little ball at the bottom of the sack and he shook it

and then he floated out. And he began to rise higher and higher. He tried to grab it at the beginning but he couldn't catch it. And so when he got way up into the heavens and stayed up there with the stars, where he turned out to be the moon and the moon looked down at coyote. Or as if to say shame on you, coyote, you look what you've done. So what a mess you have made. And so coyote just looked up there and he says, oh boy, he says, just what did I do? He says, look at that mess. He says, and I wasn't supposed to open the back till I got up to the top of that mountain. And he says, I'm so ashamed. He says, I don't want to go back and look at nobody. And ever since that, well, then all he could do was then sit on his hind legs and he start being at the moon. And ever since that day, why? Coyote always base at the moon whenever he sees it. And during the day time he walks around with his head

hanging low and his tail dragging. And that's how he got his name or sehuah. That was coyote story. So the Michael were stars? The Michael turned into stars and the big ball of Michael turned into the moon. That's great. That's a good one. Yeah, everybody likes coyote story. What's your stockers I can share with them? Okay. Did you like the story? I mean, your grandmother told me these stories, right? Your grandmother. How old were you? We weren't too old, maybe between five, three, five, six. Did you get real excited when she said she was going to tell you something? Oh, yeah. She was sweet already. Did you tell her that we'd kill her? I want you to say, well, we're all excited she'd want to tell me something. Oh, yeah. We look forward to it because we would all be excited because Grandma's ready to talk. She was very strict with us

in lots of ways, but when it came to being a real nice grandma, she was a really nice grandma. So what happened? You all just gather around? Yeah. But we had to be sure and we got all the chores she asked us to do, get down first. And then we would kind of timidly ask her if she would sit down and tell us a story. She would. Is the coyote story, is that an old father's story? The old man used to tell it, but of course they exaggerated a lot of more parts to it than Grandma did. Grandma's was just more or less a little treat for us kids to kind of not feel that she didn't love us. Kind of get us in a mood, you know, to be appreciative of having a nice grandma like her. What was your grandmother's name? Well, a bitah. What

we call her, in Indian, we call her mother corn. Her Indian name was corn. And so we just call her jihun. And her Spanish name, or the pie that she gave her was Guadalupeita. Good, we got to get that in there. All right. You can question. I don't know what else to do. I don't know what else to say. I don't know what else to say.

I don't know what else to say. I don't know what else to say. What else to say?

I don't know what else to say. I don't know what else to say. I don't know what else to say. I don't know what else to say. I don't know what else to say. I don't know what else to say. I don't know what else to say. Thank you.