The Boy Who Made Dragonfly (1972)

In traditional Zuni society, a council of select priests governs over each village, with specific duties assigned to each council member. A pekwin is a secular authority figure who holds the responsibility to oversee the welfare of the people and preserve the peace of the community by intervening in disputes and advising community members on issues of moral conduct. The pekwin, who has a most central role as a mediator between social, political, and religious life in the pueblo, is carefully selected by the other priests. He must be exceptionally versed in Zuni history and mythology, must be able to coordinate traditional ceremonial dances, and must exhibit noble, just, and kind characteristics. If the people disapprove of him, they can appeal to the council, and another man would be appointed to the position.

A burrowing rodent with large cheek pouches for ferrying food. The pouches extend from the mouth deep into the shoulders. The gopher is a hoarder who stores food in a large network of underground tunnels. The gopher's diet consists of grubs, worms, roots and garden vegetables.

Gophers weigh about a half-pound and have brown fur matching the surrounding soil. Living two to three years, prominent predators of gophers include snakes and hawks.

Water resources flowing in abundance such as rain, sleet, snow melt, and rushing rivers. As her husband readies for planting by sharpening his planting stick and gathering his prayer stick, the Zuni wife will sprinkle her husband and his corn seed pouch with a blessing of water, symbolic of rain, to guarantee an abundant harvest.

There are Seven Corn Maidens in Zuni mythology. The Yellow Corn maiden is the eldest and represents the direction of the north. The Corn Maidens created seed by rubbing the skin off their bodies, and later, after fleeing the attentions of aggressive male dancers, became the seven stars of the Big Dipper constellation. Corn is planted when these stars are visible.

The White Corn Maiden is one of the younger Corn Maiden sisters of Zuni tradition, representing the direction of the east and the white color of the milk one drinks at dawn. When the Corn Maidens came from the underworld, they had no corn. Two witches dwelling under a pine bough pavilion inquired about this and gave each sister a differently-colored ear of corn to coax into growth.

The Corn Maidens of Zuni personify the bounty of life giving corn that grows in six colors. The Seven maidens made corn seeds from rubbing the flesh off their body. Early on, insulted by the lascivious gyrations of the male dancers and flute players, the Corn Maidens fled to the land of everlasting summer. It is their breath that brings the rain and warm breezes of summer to the lands of winter. In the legend, the Corn Maidens return to dance when the corn is a foot high. In some legends the sisters perish in a fire that scorches the earth and in others, they become the seven stars of the Big Dipper. In Zuni mythology, the Corn Maidens are often dancing and the Zuni Molawai ritual dramatizes the loss and recovery of the Corn Maidens on the first day of the December Shalaka ceremony.

The Yellow Corn Maiden symbolizes the north; the Blue Corn Maiden represents the west; Red Corn Maiden represents the south; White Corn Maiden is of the east; the speckled Corn Maiden stands for the zenith; and the Black Corn Maiden for the nadir. Each maiden accompanied the Shiwani, or rain priests, to their homes in the respective directions.

Prominent in the origin lore of the Zunis, Shiwanokia, or Mother-Moon, is the main consort of the god Shiwani. Known as the priestess of fertility, Shiwanokia created principle beings from her own saliva. Rubbing her hands together, suds overflowed to form the mountains and seas, rivers, deserts, forests, fauna and flora of the earth.

For the A'shiwi or Zuni, the word "shiwani" means priest, and usually references a rain priest. Shiwani or Shiwona is also the husband of Shiwaonokia, and one of the five original deities who created the stars and heavens after making rainbow bubbles from spittle.

The ethnologist Frank Cushing was initiated as a Shiwani Priest of the Bow. As the Bow Priests are the only priests assigned to the secular problems of war and governance, Cushing hoped to gain an understanding of both sacred and secular affairs. The secular and religious do blend in Zuni society as the governor is chosen from the priesthood.

In the Zuni origin myth A’wonawilona is the living sky, the most supreme force whose genderless, fluid essence gave life to the earth. As the myth goes, in the beginning A’wonawilona exists in a world of nothingness and, by expansion of thought first creates mist and then transforms into the sun. As the mists form they gathered to become clouds and the resulting precipitation covered the emerging earth in water. It is from this water and flesh as the embodiment of the sun that A’wonawilona created the other deities, Father Sky and Mother Earth. It is Father Sky and Mother Earth that created human beings. Along with the divine pair Shiwani and Shiwonokia, these five deities have existed from the beginning of time.

Although macaws are not native to the American southwest, they are an integral part of Zuni culture. The Macaw Clan is one of the sixteen clans of the Zuni totemic system considered the all-containing central or mother clan. Macaws and other birds have great symbolic significance in many areas of traditional Puebloan life, and, until 1946, a live macaw was kept for the benefit of its feathers. Cushing reports that most of the significant leaders of the Zunis come from the Macaw Clan.