Where Rabbits Gathered
This is book one of an intended series, The Daughters of Puye. Told through the perspective of the firstborn daughter in each of five generations, Book One becomes the story of the intertwining of cultures: the Native Americans, the Spanish, and, in later generations, the Hispanicized Indigenous people. In subsequent volumes, the story will continue up to 2023.
Where Rabbits Gathered begins in 1580. We first meet Blue Water, a young Tewa woman already versed in reading the stars for her village, who gives birth to a baby girl she names North Star. At a young age, Blue Water becomes widowed, and due to drought, she and her tribe move away from their cliff dwelling homes and venture to a new area to rebuild their lives. But starting with her daughter’s generation, the Tewa will become brutally victimized by the Spanish. Each first-born surviving girl of the subsequent generations is given a necklace containing a small piece of turquoise carved into the shape of a rabbit and attached by a thin leather thong. The rabbit symbolizes their homeland, Where Rabbits Gathered.
Plotted in a similar vein as Alex Haley’s Roots, this book is the beginning of a saga that helps the reader discover the culture and the history of the Indigenous people of New Mexico and the theme of the unimaginable genocide of the Native American Pueblo people at the hands of the governing Spanish. Although five generations occupy this first book, the characters are well defined, and the plot moves without bogging down. Violence occurs throughout. My only concern is that much modern dialog was used with the Indigenous characters, jolting me out of the narrative of the late 1500s.
