Moqui & the Kachina Doll

Linda L. Rigsbee

author of

Moqui & The Kachina Doll

A Youth Novelette

Moqui wants to be more like her mother and the older Hopi girls. She wants to make pottery and baskets, but mother thinks she is too young. Mother thinks that ten is only old enough to grind corn and haul water. Shongo is younger, but he gets to go hunting with father. The only time Moqui gets to leave the pueblo is when the women walk from the mesa top down to the spring in the canyon.

One day the hot dry desert winds usher a Zuni refugee family from the southeast. Moqui discovers a new kind of friendship with an older Zuni girl. Hanovi teaches Moqui many things, and soon Moqui is making baskets and pottery. But there is still one lesson that Hanovi can not teach Moqui. The joy of sacrifice is something Moqui must experience to learn.

Excerpt from "Moqui & The Kachina Doll":

The sides of the bowl were smooth, and her hands were sweaty. She tried to hold on to the bowl as it slipped from her arms. It was heavy and she couldn't get a good grip on it. Her fingers slipped over the surface and the bowl plunged to the patio floor. It hit with a hollow sound and then shattered into five pieces.

Moqui stared at the bowl. Mother's beautiful butterfly bowl. How could she have dropped it? Mother would be angry, like Old Clay Woman. Moqui tried to swallow the lump that formed in her throat, but it wouldn't go down. Her heart was pounding so hard that finally she was forced to take a gasping breath.

"You broke it." Shongo spoke behind her.

She spun to face him. "I couldn't help it. My hands were wet and the bowl just . . . oh never mind. You don't care anyway." She raced for their pueblo as tears filled her eyes. The lump was still in her throat and she was afraid she was going to be sick.

She threw herself on the turkey feather rug in front of the corn kachina doll and buried her face in her hands. "Nobody will ever trust me again," she sobbed. "I ruined Mother's beautiful butterfly bowl."