Beads in the Southwest, Part I: Mythic Turquoise

     Bluebird wore a robe of blue beads and on his head a bright blue cloud.  In his right hand he held a rattle made of blue turquoise and in his left a stalk of blue corn.  When the people asked what he had brought, Bluebird said: I bring you blue sky, summer rain and soft corn. --Old Navajo Myth

     Turquoise is the sacred stone for Native Americans of the Southwest.  It is the vehicle for the creative force which awakens and animates all life, both temporal and spiritual.  Coming from the womb of earth where all life emerged, according to Pueblo legend, it possesses the power associated with the color blue.  The Hopis tell of an all-pervasive spirit, Whuring Whuti, or Hard Beings Woman, mother of the universe who is always identified with beads of turquoise and shell.  Like turquoise, she is of the earth, but like the color blue, she is also of the skies and all the earth's waterways.  It is she who created the Male Earth-Spirit of crops and the Childbirth Water Woman, dual symbols of human fertility.  The Sun Spirit, ritually dressed in eagle feathers and beads of turquoise and shell, crosses the sky each day and finishes his journey at her home in the western ocean.
     The Navajos have many myths concerning the birth of the Turquoise Goddess or Changing Woman.  When Mother Sky and Father Earth came together they created her, born as a small turquoise image who grew in beauty, an ever-renewing life spirit.  In some myths she has her island home in the western ocean where the sun-bearer rests at the end of the day.  In other stories, she has a twin, White Shell Woman, who has her home in  the ocean from where she sends spring breezes and summer rain.  Turquoise woman made the sun with turquoise beads taken from her right breast and created the moon with white shells from her left breast.

Coming Sunday, July 3, 2011: Part II, Turquoise in Pre-Historic Ceremonial Offerings